A short guide for the multi mission explorer vessels and other science ships being able to use drain builds.
*Warning* Shield-drain builds are heavily team based builds since there hull damaging capabilities are limited.
Guide and build author:
@p4ing0d
shoutout to:
Aponte and Tankia
Skil Planer
Surhuelh Reconnaissance Explorer Warbird [T6] / Drain Build
Ship role and purpose
Goal of this build is to get as much dps as possible with pure Drain X abilities and consoles. Furthermore to draw aggro and tank for team mates, giving you and your team a greater survivability.
Guide Breakdown
this guide is written as an academic paper, starting with a review and walkthough of gear, traits , doffs etc. Followed by what methods I employ and how I perform my ISA parse run to get most out of this build. After this section i go though some numbers and end with discussion and conclusion. The first post will be about chapter one, the Equipment and traits review.
Content
- Equipment review (1st Chapter)
- Numbers
- Discussion
- Conclusion
Chapter One
Equipment review
this chapter holds all my thoughts behind what gear I use and why I use it. I start this chapter with a breakdown of this build most important equipment, and how I build around this set pieces. Starts with ship gear and is followed by BOFF/DOFF, Traits and Stations.
Skil Planer:
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/cf0e0fc9289089daff8e5357aa2a88bb
The center piece on this build is the Omni-Directional console from the Multimission explorer, It’s what makes this ship dps go crazy. You need the 4 set bonus (including the Lukari ships console) to get most out of this console. This console dps is increased by the amount of DrainX you have and the level of your AUX subsystem. That is why I have so many different set pieces on this ship that all buff drain X, here is a list of the major equipment.
- Terran Deflector and Engines (set bonus gives drain)
- Nukara Mines and Console (Set bonus gives drain)
- Temporal Shield (gives drain)
- Delta Warp Core (gives drain)
- Console : Quantum Phase Converter gives tons of drain
- Quantum Phase Torpedo
- Console : 5x Research lab Drain X x2 consoles
- Lukari Weapon 2 set gives drain
- Lobi store 2 set from Saboteur’s Gambits
In the methodology section I will breakdown how to use the console and how to make it as effective as possible.
The Quantum phase torpedo brings secondary dps , when you use this Torpedo with spread you will get some crazy numbers out of it. Highest damage numbers I have seen was from Tankia in HSE , where I think his dmg spike was in the millions. The torpedos drain scales of DrainX just as everything in this build.
Deteriorating Secondary deflector is a must on this ship due to it triggering of most of the bridge officers abilities being used.
Lukari Cannon the set bonus from the Lukari set is a nice bonus, however when using Cannon rapid fire you get bonus dmg out of this cannon. Technical overload is the proc from the cannon , an AoE effect dmg based on your aux level.
Honorable mentions (the pets) , this ship can hold one pet, and I am using delta flyers, they fit the theme on the ship however, you can use any Elite Pet variant.
Skill tree
you can run whatever skill tree setup you like, only really important points, place points into Drain Expertise and infection. An example is available in the build.
BOFFS
This ship employs 3 science bridge officers you can get from the K13. This bridge officers have the k-13 Survivor science trait that gives +10 drain and +10 control. It’s highly a advertised to use all 3 available slots for these boffs.
DOFFS
Duty officers layout is less specific, on my build I use the Emergency con hologram, 2 damage control engineers and 3 deflector dudes. Emergency con hologram combined with EPTE is a godlike doff, and one of the most use full doffs out there. The dual damage control engineer setup is for the cooldown reduction for my emergency powers, I run the Emergency power to shields and engines power. The last three DOFFS are the deflector officer for some cooldown reduction for my science abilities.however no matter what there is no set best DOFF setup for this build I would say it runs fine with any combination of DOFFS you can find out there.
Boff powers and Traits
My Bridge layout and Traits are set up that way they have a great synergy with each other.
Tactical BOFF powers needed for my build is Cannon Rapid Fire and Torpedo spread III(if possible). Rapid Fire is needed to proc the Technical overload trait on the Lukari cannon. Torpedo Spread is needed for the 100% chance to get the drainX proc. This proc deals massive dps from the shield DRAINS.
Science BOFF powers needed is, Tachyon Beam, Photonic Officer, charged particle burst. Photonic Officer is basically chosen for the cooldown reduction, because this build needs a constant high Aux power there for you can not use Aux To Bat.
Tachyon Beam and Particle burst both deals damage based on your Drain Skill, at the same time they both all so buff your passive drain and ctrX up from the trait:Cyclical Power Capacitors. (Strategy is while waiting for pets you can cycle your drainX abilities to get the bonus Drain). Starship trait such as Improved tachyon beam is a must as well, on an avrg. ISA run it will shield heal you and your team for about 1.000k to 2000k heals.
Engineering BOFF that I use is, Emergency powers to engine and shield. EP: Engine is used in conjunction with the Emergency conn hologram and Damage control engineers. The EP: Shields is used with the synergy you get from shield overload, this trait makes this ship to a super tank and super healer.
Temporal Specialization abilities you can use is, Shared Fate & Gravimetric Conversion , both this abilities does a medium amount of drain DPS and stack your Drain Traits up.
- Tac Boff: Rapid Fire and Torpedo Spread
- Sci Boff: Tachyon Beam , Charged Particle Burst and Photonic officer
- Eng Boff: Emergency power to Engines and Shields
In this section I will highlight and describe key important traits that I use that stands out from parses. all this traits below here is key for the Drain DPS. 
Personal Space Traits:
- Cyclical Power Capacitors (Super drain ability) has synergy with all the SCi and Temporal drain abilities
- Inspirational Leader (bonus drain)
- Subnucleonic Transferal (if Sci captain)
- particle manipulator (for some bonus dps for ur EPG abilities)
- Superior Astrophysicist (for the bonus drain)
as a Reminder from last section Tachyon Beam and Particle burst both deals damage based on your Drain Skill, at the same time they both all so buff your passive drain and ctrX up from the trait: Cyclical Power Capacitors. (Strategy is while waiting for pets you can cycle your drainX abilities to get the bonus Drain). Starship trait such as Improved tachyon beam is a must as well, on an average.
Starship traits
- Improved Tachyon beam
- Shield Overload
- All hands on Deck
This three starship traits are really great on a drain tanking boat. The tanking part is important due to the nature of point blank abilities, and how you can play the role as the team healer and team tank. Therefore you need the first two traits for that role to click. AHOD is a great CD trait for all ur sci powers and cpt. abilities.
Reputation traits and Captain abilities
- Quantum singularity Manipulation
- Piezo-Electric Weapon Amplification
- Science Fleet
I will mention three key traits and abilities here , the Active Reputation trait called Quantum singularity Manipulation and Piezo-Electric Weapon Amplification and the Science captain power called Science fleet. Quantum singularity Manipulation is earned from the romulan reputation at rank 5, it gives you 100 points into all your sci powers when you activate it for a short duration, combined with your Point blank Drains you will get some massive dps from it. Piezo-Electric Weapon Amplification does a truck ton of dps if it procs. In my latest run I had it proc one time in a 2min run, and it still did about 2k dps, the ability scales really well with drain . Science Fleet is mentioned because it gives you bonus drain , that will increase your dps as a drain captain.
To be continued….
I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s a guide you should be featuring on your webpage, simply how misleading this is.
Let’s look at the build aim components:
DPS
DPS on this build is achieved through extensive cheese and taking advantage of game’s faulty parse reading when it comes to Omni-directional console. Game continues to read damage and adding it to combat log even when there aren’t any shields to drain in the first place. Using this console and saying you do DPS is as cheap trick as using that electric sci module on ground and claiming you’re good.
Furthermore, using the mentioned console, enemies don’t die. You don’t actually kill anything with this build, making it utterly useless in any combat scenario where you don’t have your teammates mopping enemies up.
Tank
Yeah, no. The owner of the build hasn’t got any good HSE runs to show us where he managed to grab most of the ATKS-in. A tank should be able to grab at least 50% of ATKS-in in a non-failpug team, when no other tanks are present, without exploding, preferably using HSE as testing map. I can’t simply see this build doing that.
Healer
Wow, so slotting ITB magically makes a ship healer? I surely have so much to learn in this game!
Sarcasm aside, I can’t see anything on this build that would show me that it performs adequately in keeping teammates alive. Sure, whole team will appreciate ITB, but that only won’t be enough.
All in all, having a build like this featured in sto-league home page will surely both mislead new players, who think they will make a good build using this guide and end up with nothing coherent, and as well will be damaging to your reputation.
The build is good for what its designed to, drain the enemie shields. No more no less. It’s one attemp to build a ship and we wanted to show that too. Its correct that its more team centered since you can’t kill enemies by yourself that quick and you won’t reach really high dps numbers with this build at all.
The problem with the omni-directional console lately was that it WAS bugged. Now its fixed and working as intended again. A lot of drain just make that console good. And there are used all possible drains, so i’m sure even a taccube is drained well 😉
And for the Tank, to be fair but last time we used a tank in hse was for the T2 run we did, just because we needed one there to not die all the time. The secret is normaly to be though enough to not die while doing dps 🙂
While Omni-directional tachyon wave siphon console is good for both shield drain and secondary shields, I discovered that Tachyon particle field emitter console is dealing stacking shield drain to foes (3km PBAoE) ; At 565 drainx the value was -21893 when collapsed but since it stacks by the number of affected foe, my max. one-hit from it was 669049 per sphere.
What are the over all drain stats on this build? The breen ships and consoles make for good drain builds too.
Terran Deflector and Engines (set bonus gives drain) : +17.8
Nukara Mines and Console (Set bonus gives drain) : +21.7 and +17.8 = +39.5
Temporal Shield (gives drain) : +30
Delta Warp Core (gives drain) : +20
Console : Quantum Phase Converter = +37.5
Quantum Phase Torpedo
Console : 5x Research lab Drain X x2 consoles = +62.5 ×5 = +312.5
Lukari Weapon 2 set gives drain = +20
Lobi store 2 set from Saboteur’s Gambits = +20
Superior Astrophysicist : +15
Cyclical Power Capacitor : +10 ~ +50
Inspirational Leader : +10 ~ +30
Science Fleet : +40 (Rank III)
So the overall DrainX would be 572.3~632.3.
thx for creating a list 🙂
Terran deflector has about 50 drain X by it self +50
3x k13 Sci doffs +30
The Breen ships and consoles also gives some good drainX , such as Enhanced Energy Dissipator (+25), but it cannot use Deteriorating Secondary Deflector as DrainX-related Radiation DoT.
Also, to maximize DrainX, the more Particle Focuser with [DrainX]x2 are equipped, the higher the DrainX. So 5 Sci console slot are best for DrainX.
This build exploits faulty dps combatlog readings of the MME omni-directional console. A console that, btw, was NOT fixed.
This console shows in parses as draining 4m+ shields per sphere. Little probem: advanced spheres dont have a fraction of 4M shield HP to drain in the first place.
This build is the definition of “fake dps”…as parses register numbers that were NOT profuced.
Also, the fact that this build claims to be a tank and healer is laughable. It is neither.
Personally, I find it a real shame that such a “broken” builda is promoted. I really would have expected better from you guys.
You are refering to an old log. Like i said before, there was a KNOWN!! bug with the omni-directional console. The important thing is, it WAS. Now it’s fixed => this build does what it should and that is drain the shields. In case you don’t like the console/ship/build, don’t use it.
I don’t like such builds myself, but they are in the game, so we cover them. And this b uild is good for what it is designed. Drain the enemies shields.
Hey man, the console is fine. The issue you are referring to is not explained or promoted in this build. So please , it’s simply a drain build that does some good shield heals, tanks well and most of all sets others up to win.
The same bug persists. I am not merely referring to the PR of this player, but to multiple runs. In fact, anyone using that console with a decent amount of DrainX will enjoy “fake dps” using it. Everytime I bump into this player, I observe it. It will be fixed one day (one would hope); but that day is not today.
Until that is fixed, promoting a build that benefits from something so blatantly broken is, frankly, a disservice to whoever may read this without knowing better.
Calling this build a “tank” and “healer” is just adding insult to injury. It is neither. It is a simple drain build that benefits from a *very* broken console.
At any rate, it’s your site and it’s your rules. If you are comfortable advertising such a build, do as you will…
You could repeat that the console is broken, but thats not longer the fact. It seems that you have absolutly no idea how the console was broken at all. You’re refering to the general problem that you get shield dmg from drains even when the shields are depleted. But that would be a problem with all pulsing drains, not a specific one and has nothing to do with it. If you want to avoid that, stop using shield drains at all, but thats not a solution. Not to use one of the best consoles for drain is neither a solution for such a build.
The shields are drained, thats a fact. The numbers are higher, yea maybe but since cryptic didnt change a core functionality (which even exist for hull dmg btw) it wont change.
To me it seems a bit more that you have a slight problem with the player itself or so, pm him, get your problem with him solved and thats it.
For this build, it’s doing exactly what it should (drain shields mainly), and thats a fact.
You can use Protomatter Field Projector, but if you have you may can use Dynamic Power Redistributor to boost damage instead of the former console (Protomatter Field Projector).
looking for ideas for polaron builds
😬
depend on which kind of polaron build. in general for cannons as example use the gamma 2 piece, lukari 2 piece and episode “home” 3 piece and the rest for the usual cannon build components. same would count for beams 😉
Sounds like a plan 😊
I discovered that Tachyon Particle Field Emitter’s shield damage when collapsed is stacking, made some 669k per sphere’s shields in ISA.
(Tachyon particle field emitter: from t6 nebula)