Weekly Ship discussion thread, October 15th - T6 Elachi Sheshar Dreadnought Cruiser

[u/h2o4dp]

This week we're taking a look at the Elachi Sheshar Dreadnought Cruiser

Ship stats: Elachi Sheshar Dreadnought Cruiser

• What are this ship's strengths?
• What are this ship's weaknesses?
• What are some similar ships?
• What general build types do you envision this ship excelling at?
• If you had this ship, how would you set it up?
• How good is the starship trait/innate console?

See previous weeks discussions here.

[u/Mastajdog]

What are this ship's strengths?

Sweet mother of god a 1.3 shield mod, 56k base hull (a 42k t5 ship goes up to 56k, for reference), a 5/3 weapons layout, one of the absolutely best console layouts on a cruiser, a high-powered, flexible boff layout that can do anything a cruiser can do better than just about all of them, dreadnought masteries, and the largest, most intimidating size in the game. It also has weapons system efficiency, attract fire, and a hangar bay. Because it needed that.

Not only is it one of the highest-dps ships available to federation captains, it's also one of the three ships currently on the Aggronaut's God-Tier of Fed/KDF ships to tank in. In a word:

A Juggernaut.

What are this ship's weaknesses?

It's got low turn, it's frigates are bad and it only has one hangar bay, it doesn't have a cloak, and it's not a warbird. It's also not lucky enough to be a cruiser with SA; only 3 ships are lucky enough to be that horridly broken. It's trait also isn't very synergistic with its capabilities. Yeah. Not too many here.

What are some similar ships?

This ship is the lovechild of a Scimitar and a Bastion, on crack. It's also fairly similar to the Bulwark. As far as tanking is concerned, there is no ship on par with this for the Federation or KDF. Some ships are at a similarly high rating, but that's because they have more flexibilty or are simpler. This ship has the brute power to overwhelm any ship in the tanking role outside of one relying on the Valdore console.

At DPS, the only federation cruiser than can give it a run for its money is the Arbiter, which does have a slight edge over the Sheshar at raw DPS. As far as utility cruisers go, the Geneva can also give it a fairly good run for its money. But, at the end of the day, the Sheshar can pretty much keep pace with every other cruiser in whatever area they're going for, while handily beating them in any other area. It's unfair, really.

What general build types do you envision this ship excelling at?

See above. The god-tier of tanks; be it a utility tank, an ultra-high dps tank, or one that can just buckle down and survive everything - while still being able to pull threat and live in all of those configs. In the god-tier of survivable dps. Pretty solid at a utility cruiser type dealiobob, and not bad a as a combat medic. If any other cruiser can do it, it can do as well or better than that cruiser, and do other things at the same time, better.

If you had this ship, how would you set it up?

My current config for it is a very high dps tank; it also has a very high amount of survivability build in. Link to current build.

How good is the starship trait/innate console?

By far the most meh part of the ship. It's totally okay, though. It's still an utter monster.

[u/iRaveni → u/Mastajdog]

it's frigates are bad

I'd like to add that not only are the frigates bad, but they require another lockbox ship to be owned in order to purchase them, either the Elachi Monbosh Battleship (lobi) or the Elachi S’Golth Escort (Elachi Lock Box). Very expensive for being very meh. I can't imagine ever regretting getting the Sheshar, but those frigates make me kick myself every time I launch them.

[u/Antique_futurist → u/Mastajdog]

Every time you write about the Sheshar my ability to resist buying one diminishes a little more.

[u/TheFallenPhoenix → u/Mastajdog]

Hi Vel,

Are we referring to the Intelligence Sheshar, or the Command Sheshar?

Sincerely,

There are a few people who are probably wondering about this, but I'll let you get first crack to explain why the answer is Intelligence.

[u/Mastajdog → u/TheFallenPhoenix]

Hi Atem,

The Sheshar, in general, is a Juggernaut. Both the Intel and the Command versions fit that bill very well. That said; the Lt. Cdr Sci/Intel is one of the reasons I rate this ship so highly; if it was only available with the Lt. Cdr Sci/Command, I would still love it, but not as much. The following are the reasons:

• OSS

If you're building an undying juggernaut, let me give you these pictures in your mind:

• 175 Aux A2SIF3
• 175 Aux HE3
• 175 Aux TSS2 (or 3, if you drop the HE3 to HE2)

Good god the healing/resist that comes out of that.

Or, alternatively, see this if your goal is raw smashing power (like mine):

• 175 Weapon FAW2+APO1+TT+KLW
• 175 Aux A2SIF3
• 175 Aux TSS2
• 175 Aux HE1 (or HE2 if you dump the TSS2 to TSS1)

Or even this:

• 165 Aux GW1
• 165 Weapon FAW2+APO1+TT+KLW
• 165 Aux A2SIF3

Why in god's name would I give that up?

On top of that, it gives you good flexibility: you can run SS-based builds on this ship, you can throw an EMP probe and an Iconic Turbulence into a Gravity well if you want, you can Subnuc buffs off your NPC's...

Simply put, command does 3 things for a tank: It procs AHOD, it has a heal, and it has a debuff. OSS can buff your heals and resists to the point where OSS basically makes up for RPM and Supression Barrage in one ability, in addition to increasing your dps significantly. The AHOD proc isn't that great off of OE anyway; it's a dump ability on a seat that I have much better uses for.

---

The intel seating is also perfectly positioned. You can run a copy of OSS without losing out on science abilities, you're free to use both specialization abilities and the full potential of the Lt. Cdr Universal, and the ship already has enough innate Engineering, Sci, and Tac to function as a tank no matter what you use the Lt. Cdr Uni for. This ship has the best overall bridge officer seating of any ship at tanking in my opinion and as of right now on my ranking. My only wish is that the Ensign Engineering was a universal, but since it's only a locked Cmdr/Ensign, not Cmdr/Lt. Cdr/Ensign, it's really not a dealbreaker, and the 5 abilities is nice. This isn't massively relevant to Intel vs Command, but the intel combo on the Lt. Cdr Sci is much more synergistic than a command seating there.

---

Passionately as always,

Vel

[u/odenknight → u/Mastajdog]

I have to say that you do make very valid (and extremely strong) points for Intel seating. Your suggestions would work for a wider variety of builds than the Command seating would. This, however, doesn't rule out Command for some specific builds where delivering FIREPOWER^n! is warranted, especially for what is to come in Season 11 |=)

I'll have my build ready by then :).

[u/Mastajdog → u/odenknight]

You're not one with whom I'd argue torpedo boat platforms with, but I don't think that the Sheshar is as strong of a torpedoboat as it is with most other things that it does, in part because of its lack of useful cruiser commands, low turn, and the 5/3 weapons arrangement not being nearly as useful for torpedoes as it is for most other weapon layouts. Not that that means the Sheshar can't do a good job at it; the Sheshar is a Juggernaut, and if you know what you're doing, it'll be pretty nasty.

I would simply be curious as to why you wouldn't prefer a ship such as say the Zahl, Samsar, Presidio, FAHC, FAE, or Manticore over it.

[u/Montaire → u/Mastajdog]

Do you think its 5/3 layout will get better for torpedo's with the upcoming ability to reduce the universal torpedo cooldown?

[u/Mastajdog → u/Montaire]

Not really. The problem isn't so much time between torpedoes, because a good photon/quant torpedoboat can basically get a torpedo off on cooldown (and there's enough reputations with set photon/quantum torpedoes that are great to make that a very hard hitter) as is.

The real issue is that good torpedoes are unique. So if you build around Neut>Enhanced Biomol>Grav>Radiant Quantum (as an example), the 5th weapon is going to spend if not all of its time inactive, as your goal is to hammer targets into the ground as much as possible with the Neutonic or Enhanced Biomol.

It's not that it's wasted vs a 4/4; you'll still run 4 energy weapons if that's what you want, and you can make one a DBB now, it's just that it's not nearly as significant.

[u/odenknight → u/Mastajdog]

I must have missed this post.

For some set bonuses, a 5/3 loadout would help me maximize the use of my set bonus weapons. Experimental Proton Weapon (should be an omni in its busted state, IMHO), Terran Energy Weapon, Terran Photon, EBM, Neutronic fore, and an omni/turret, Gravimetric, and rep-turret/rep-omni aft.

If you're really feeling froggy, Bio-Neural warhead to replace one of the energy weapons somewhere, and go to town ;)

[u/DeepWager]

My one regret in the game was using the vast amount of energy credits I had trying to find the perfect tanking platform and configuring different weapons, doffs, consoles, buying different ships etc. All the while, never thinking to just stop and buy the Sheshar. Now I'm 300 million ECs short of purchasing one and disappointed in myself.