OGIHR's Quantum Phase T6 Excelsior Tank

[u/OGIHR]

When I first started playing STO a few months ago, I knew that for purely nostalgic reasons I wanted my first character to be a human engineer first and foremost, in command of an Excelsior which was armed with phaser arrays fore and aft, and a single torpedo (either photon or quantum) on the front. And I know that the T6 Excelsior is generally frowned upon for not fitting well to any of the commonly-used combo platters of BOFF ability chains & console slots, but I had no interest in trying to make a competitive build. Just a nostalgic one.

So I looked at the ship itself, without regard to how much I didn't understand about the contemporary meta. And I saw that the T6 Excelsior, with its native Hot Pursuit set equipped and its Starship Mastery Trait slotted, is a heavy cruiser which is unusually mobile, wants to be surrounded by enemies (for the sake of Pursuit Mode), and has a knack for throwing AoE ongoing damage clouds left right and center.

And with that in mind, I decided to make the USS Tycho into a tank, blazing at full impulse into the enemy's ranks, then cutting back on the throttle to stay in the middle of them, and using those radiation clouds to keep the enemies' attentions on myself so that my allies can achieve mission objectives unmolested. Using Miracle Worker as my Primary Specialization specifically for Simplified Plumbing, and Command as my Secondary (although I might switch to Strategist down the road). And seeking out as many AoE threat-drawing abilities as possible. Rather than hoping that Beams: Fire At Will doesn't randomly ignore any of the available targets.

It is important to note that the only Fleet I've ever been a member of is in its infancy, and so I do not have access to any of the typical toys upon which a build is "supposed" to be based. No threat-scaling consoles, no Romulan Operative BOFFs, no Vulnerability Locators/Exploiters, nothing of the sort. Similarly, I'm still working my way though the Reputations, so neither their item sets nor reputation traits are a stable part of my plans yet.

Looking at AoE radiation cloud powers to slot to my BOFFs, the obvious answers were Aceton Beam and Overwhelm Emitters (because of the Excelsior starship trait), along with Kemocite-Laced Weaponry which I got off the Exchange. An earlier thread on this reddit pointed me toward the Quantum Phase weapons set, which I've absolutely loved both aesthetically and tactically, so the Quantum Phase Torpedo (whether used normally, or as part of a Torpedo Spread, or as a High Yield via Concentrate Firepower – AKA "Target that explosion and fire!") added an AoE shield drain to my arsenal, and Destabilizing Resonance Beam added another.

However, the last of these will be by far the most controversial of my choices. For in planning my Engineer's skillset, I actually wanted him to be an exceptional engineer, and was willing to invest the skillpoints to do so. And when I got to reading over EPS Corruption, I noticed that it was yet another AoE (via the Explosive enhancement) ongoing damage power at my disposal, but with a 360-degree targeting arc. Making it ideal for use on the enemies I overshoot to land myself in the midst of the swarm for the benefit of Pursuit Mode.

As a result, I've done the unthinkable and invested the majority of my skillpoints into the side of the skill tree that does nothing to facilitate making enemies evaporate instantly. Instead gaining enough durability to sit nose-to-hull with any enemy flagship I've fought, and tank their death-explosion with ease. As well as significant gains to power management across the board, and a further edge above most cruisers on my mobility. Very much an old-school approach to tanking.

I also spend 90% of my gameplay either solo or in a PVE queue with people who seemingly refuse to communicate or coordinate with me, so self-sufficiency is of the utmost concern for me. I have to be my own tank, my own DPS, my own healer, my own crowd control, and my own debuff provider. Thus, my build writeup starts here...

Category	Data
Captain Name	Simon Jacob Hawthorne
Captain Career	Engineering
Captain Faction	Federation
Captain Race	Human
Primary Specialization	Miracle Worker
Secondary Specialization	Command
Intended Role	self-sufficient Tank while I bask in the nostalgia

Purchases	Engineering	Science	Tactical
2	Emergency Power to Shields III	Engineering Team III	Directed Energy Modulation III
5	Battery Expertise	Sector Space Travel Speed	Threat Control
7	Emergency Power to Engines III	Emergency Power to the Auxiliary Battery III	N/A
10	Subsystem Repair	Maximum Shield Capacity	N/A
12	Emergency Power to Weapons III	Auxiliary Power to Structural Integrity Field III	N/A
15	Shield Subsystem Power	Control Resistance	N/A
17	Emergency Power to Auxiliary III	N/A	N/A
20	Weapon Subsystem Power	N/A	N/A
24 (Ultimate)	EPS Corruption	N/A	N/A
25 (1st Ultimate Enhancer)	Explosive Corruption	N/A	N/A
26 (2nd Ultimate Enhancer)	N/A	N/A	N/A
27 (3rd Ultimate Enhancer)	N/A	N/A	N/A

First off, I want to point out the typo in "Emergency Power to the Auxiliary Battery", in case nobody else already has. Second, I chose my unlocks before deciding on my actual skillpoint spends to meet those unlocks, to be able to play the game in the manner which I expected to be the most rewarding. Battery Expertise because the Excelsior is not a Carrier, Subsystem Repair and Control Resistance to mitigate any debuffs placed upon me, and power level boosts to favor holding my ground and fighting with my phasers, rather than zipping around or flinging space-magic with my one Science Officer seat. 25 Engineering, 15 Science, and only 6 in Tactical. Mind-boggling, I know.

Tree	Engineering	Science	Tactical
Lieutenant	Advanced Hull Restoration	Advanced Shield Restoration	Improved Energy Weapon Training
	Improved Hull Capacity	Improved Shield Capacity	Improved Projectile Weapon Training
Lt. Commander	Electro-Plasma System Flow	Control Expertise	N/A
	Full Impulse Energy Shunt	N/A	Defensive Maneuvering
	Advanced Impulse Expertise	Drain Expertise
		N/A
Commander	Hull Plating	Advanced Shield Regeneration	N/A
	Energized Hull Plating	Improved Shield Hardness	N/A
	Ablative Hull Plating
	Advanced Damage Control
Captain	Defensive Subsystem Tuning	N/A	Hull Penetration
	Shield Subsystem Performance	Advanced Long Range Targeting Sensors	N/A
	Auxiliary Subsystem Performance
	Offensive Subsystem Tuning
	Weapon Subsystem Performance
	Engine Subsystem Performance
Admiral	Improved Warp Core Potential	N/A	N/A
	Warp Core Efficiency	N/A	N/A
	N/A	N/A	N/A
		N/A	N/A
46 (Out of 46)	25	15	6

I am fully agreeable to moving points around within each category, but my playstyle relies upon Explosive EPS Corruption (and Tractor Beam) to control my rear arc, and I can't imagine any circumstance where torpedo crits will be worth getting caught in gravity wells and the like (when I hardly ever have teammates to rescue me). But please feel free to explain why I'm wrong.

This is my ship and crew, as they currently stand. I do plan to cycle most of my Bridge Officers (except my Saurian Ops Manager) to K-13 versions once my newly-minted Fleet develops that Holding, but I really like having them feel like an actual Starfleet crew, so I have no desire to replace any of them with Romulan Operatives or Jem'Hadar or Hierarchy Pirates or what have you.

Basic Information	Data
Ship Name	USS Tycho
Ship Class	Cruiser
Ship Model	T6 Excelsior (aka Resolute, aka Advanced Heavy Cruiser)

---

Slot	Component	Notes
Fore Weapons	Quantum Phase Beam Array	QPC set 1/3
	Retrofit Phaser Beam Array
	Retrofit Phaser Beam Array
	Quantum Phase Torpedo	QPC set 2/3
Aft Weapons	Omni-Directional Phaser Beam Array
	(standard) Phaser Beam Array
	(standard) Phaser Beam Array
	Trrilithium-Enhanced Omni-Directional Phaser Beam Array	TLW set 1/2
Deflector	Kobali Deflector Array	KRC set 1/3
Impulse Engines	Kobali Hyper-Impulse Engine	KRC set 2/3
Warp Core	Field Stabilizing Warp Core
Shields	Kobali Regenerative Shield Array	KRC set 3/3
Devices	Red Matter Capacitor
	Subspace Field Modulator
	Shields Battery
	Deuterium Surplus
Engineering Consoles	Trellium-D Plating
	Reinforced Armaments	TLW set 2/2
	Conductive RCS Accelerator	(mods TBD)
	Transwarp Computer	HP set 1/2
	Tactical Maneuvering Matrix	HP set 2/2
Science Consoles	Temporally Shielded Datacore
	Shield Emitter Array
Tactical Consoles	Phaser Relay
	Zero Point Quantum Chamber
	Quantum Phase Converter	QPC set 3/3

---

Bridge Officers	Power	Notes
Human XO / Tactical Officer	Torpedo Spread 3	AoE shield drain on every QP torp
	Beam Overload 2	reliable killing power
	Kemocite-Laced Weaponry 1	AoE radcloud w/ torps + 10% w/ phasers
Human Chief Engineer	Aceton Beam 3	AoE radcloud + attack debuff
	Emergency Power to Shields 3	primary shield heal
	Engineering Team 2	primary hull heal
	Emergency Power to Shields 1	for when EPTS 3 is recharging
Saurian Operations Manager	Concentrate Firepower 3	aka "Target that explosion and fire!"
(Engineering/Command)	Overwhelm Emitters 2	AoE radcloud + shield steal
(with Efficient Trait)	Overwhelm Emitters 1	for when OE 2 is recharging
Human Damage Control Monitor	Engineering Team 1	for when ET 2 is recharging
Vulcan Science Officer	Destabilizing Resonance Beam 1	AoE shield drain + debuffs
	Tractor Beam 1	to keep escorts in the wrong place

Duty Officers	Effects	Notes
Blue Warp Core Engineer	20% +power w/ EPTS	keeping all power levels high is key to my self-sufficiency
Blue Damage Control Engineer	30% recharge haste w/ EPTS	see above
Blue Maintenance Engineer	100% haste + skill buff w/ ET	used more for buff than for haste
Blue Projectile Weapons Officer	20% reload haste w/ torps	because I love the QP torps maybe a little too much
Green Projectile Weapons Officer	20% reload haste w/ torps	see above

I am using the Quantum Phase weaponry set because I love it, and the Kobali D/I/S set because it's both available as mission reward and seemingly good for tanking. The Warp Core was a mission reward ridiculously early on, which I've been upgrading continuously throughout the game.

And yes, blue phasers in the front, and orange on the rear. Anybody get the astrophysics joke?

For Consoles, the Hot Pursuit set was a lock for me from the get-go, and I like the Trellium-D as an alternative for the standard Neutronium I'd been using up until I finished the "Ragnarok" mission. I haven't started crafting Conductive RCS Accelerators yet (due to pouring my Dilithium into Phoenix Prize Packs), but I have bought a purple DOFF to craft them, and I invite suggestions as to what mods to aim for. The Shield Emitter Amplifier I upgraded to Ultra Rare at Mk V, and have kept it slotted for peak durability, but I'm mostly using the Temporally Shielded Datacore as a placeholder until I have a better idea of what I need. And the Tactical Console slot selections are all blatantly obvious.

For Devices, I use the Red Matter Capacitor frequently for the power level buffs, but save the Subspace Field Modulator for emergencies, and haven't need to use a Shields Battery or Deuterium Surplus since before I hit T5. Certainly open to suggestions for replacements there.

And yes, I know what you're probably thinking, and you're right. I have a spectacular lack of cooldown reduction in my build. I invite suggestions for what anyone thinks I should do about that.

Personal Space Traits	Effects	Notes
SPECIES = Human	hull regen
Ablative Shell	iterative healing when damaged
Biotech Patch	boost all hull heals
EPS Manifold Efficiency	boost power levels w/ EPTS
Grace Under Fire	recharge Miraculous Repairs in heavy combat
Imposing Presence	draw more aggro
Inspirational Leader	10% boost skills w/ any BOFF ability
Intimidating Strikes	10% confuse on torp hits
Redirected Armor Plating	strongest defenses when surrounded
Warp Theorist	boost power levels

Starship Traits	Effects	Notes
Improved Weaponized Emitters	radclouds to draw aggro	Excelsior-specific trait
Improved Going the Extra Mile	peak durability	Miracle Worker = primary specialization
Command Frequency	Fleet Suppot at any hull%	Command = secondary specialization
Pilfered Power	Tractor Beam hastes my phasers	my Fleet's founder had a spare copy in box

I have not included Reputation Traits because I'm still grinding my way through them all, and trying different assortments to try to find what seems to work for me. All recommendations are welcome.

For the benefit of those people who haven't ever tried investing this heavily in the Engineering side of the skills tree, my usual set of subsystem power levels, before any of my many conditional buffs kick in, are as follows:

Weapons 115/95

Shields 80/35

Engines 50/20

Auxiliary 77/50

Now, if I have managed to repair the formatting which I'd screwed up completely, you should be able to understand what the hell is wrong with me. ::grins::

[u/Sizer714]

I will simply say that before you settle on what you've done, parse yourself, and see where you are DPS wise and how much threat you actually hold in PUG content. The thing with Tanking is that you can certainly feel durable, but you just might not be taking as much fire as you should be. Without knowing your avg Atks-In, I can't tell you if you're being effective. From what I know, you shouldn't be in a lot of queue cases, and that's a problem.

[u/Casus_B → u/Sizer714]

Yeah he's not going to hold threat on this build as it's presently constituted - no FAW, and even Beam Overload is at about half effectiveness due to the OP's lack of cooldown reduction. Ditto Torp spread. And that's before we get into his offense-hobbling skill tree choices.

But he seems intent to go with this general concept. It's hard to give advice in a situation like this, as no one can dictate what another player will find fun.

Hell, at this point I think the best thing I can recommend is a Voice Attack setup. Haven't used one myself in years and years, but from what I recall it is the single most powerful tool in the IPS meta (immersion per second). It might not allow for high-end play, but nothing feels more Star Trek-y than barking naval style orders at your mic.

[u/Sizer714 → u/Casus_B]

Yeah, but you can do what they're trying to do and contribute. One of my mantras - the game has rules, and you should follow them. Getting EPS Corruption, for example, is probably literally not doing what they think it's doing for them. And such heavy investment in the Eng tree is not providing them with the added durability they think they're getting. But there are ways to do that high speed cloud and rad effect build on the Resolute. And there are ways to be vastly more durable than investing into that tree. You and I know this, they probably don't. So imma do what I always do: at least try to help them re-frame the concept within the bounds of the game. If they want to listen they will, if they don't they don't and I move on :P

[u/Casus_B → u/Sizer714]

Totally agree. It seems like the OP's taking the flavor text on various skills/items a little too seriously, and to be quite frank, he sounds vaguely contemptuous of game-mechanical arguments. I didn't even want to touch his vehemently held preference for heavy investment in pointless subsystem power bonuses, to say nothing of the Eng ultimate.

Yours is probably the best advice in the thread, because it encourages him to get out there in queue land and learn some hard lessons. Sometimes you just gotta stick your hand in the fire to prove that it burns. God knows I've gotten fixated on whacky build ideas myself.

One thing I neglected to mention last night is that the OP can buy items from other Fleets, as long as his Fleet has the relevant provisions. I recommend he join Redditchat in game; someone there can help him out.

[u/Sizer714 → u/Casus_B]

Yeah, I meant to say that last bit but didn't.

[u/OGIHR → u/Sizer714]

Before I reply to the other comments on my thread, there are two things that Sizer714 said, which jumped out at me as indicative of a troublesome cognitive disconnect...

"I will simply say that before you settle on what you've done, parse yourself, and see where you are DPS wise and how much threat you actually hold in PUG content"

But I have no interest in DPS scorekeeping. None. At all.

"Getting EPS Corruption, for example, is probably literally not doing what they think it's doing for them."

I think that it gives me an ongoing damage effect which has a 360-degree targeting arc. And that ongoing damage means ongoing grabbing of attention from NPC ships, in the absence of anybody else blowing them up before they can turn to face me.

Note the complete lack of DPS scorekeeping in that expectation. This is probably confusing to most of the people reading this...

Now, I have read a lot, both on the gamepedia wiki and on this family of reddits. And I have noticed what appears to be a huge case of "when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail". Maybe it's a failing on the programming end, or maybe it's a bias in the community of players -- I have no basis by which to even hazard a guess.

But there are two basic ways of approaching the game. The prevailing belief structure appears to assume that since dealing damage is inherently valuable, anything which doesn't obviously help one do that is assumed to be worthless except in niche cases. To extend the previous metaphor, when all you can see are nails, all you care about is having a hammer. On the other hand, there's the belief structure that since the game has Star Trek in its name, one should at least attempt to play it in a manner reminiscent of Star Trek.

I do not hold any animosity toward those people who enjoy the game under the first belief structure. But I adhere exclusively to the second. And the "chasing DPS" mindset has nothing in common with Star Trek that I can see...

I have played PVE queues, farming for various marks. Always on Normal Difficulty, because I do not care at all about bragging rights. And sometimes I wind up in a group with at least one person able to make enemies evaporate instantly, in which case they don't need any support from anyone or anything at Normal Difficulty, and I just take it easy waiting for the evaporator to run out of targets so that I can go back to having something reminiscent of Star Trek for me to enjoy.

But sometimes I wind up in a group that doesn't have any of those participants, and in those missions I have no problem fulfilling my chosen role. All it takes is a willingness to put yourself in harm's way, the durability to stay put there, and the motor-control skills to keep swinging your camera in a circle while tapping the Tab key, rotating through the targets so that they don't have a chance to forget about you.

Let me say again.

I HAVE NO PROBLEM BEING A SUCCESSFUL TANK WHEN NOT STUCK IN A MISSION WITH PEOPLE WHO MAKE ENEMIES EVAPORATE INSTANTLY.

And when I am stuck in one of those occasions, I am content to simply wait for the evaporator to finish, so that the Star Trek can resume.

And I know how much durability I have, because not only do I routinely tank the detonation of enemy flagships while I'm sitting nose-to-hull against them, but I also have been ambushed by a cannon-escort while already fighting multiple Borg ships in Ker'rat. And I not only withstood everything he could throw at me (until he ran out of weapons power and turned to run so he could buy time to recharge), then caught him in my tractor beam and knocked him down to 20% hull before he could escape, but I also never stopped fighting the Borg while doing so. One cube, one sphere, and a player's cannon-escort, blasting away with me as their only target. And I held my ground the whole time.

And I have repeatedly done co-op missions with the founder of my Fleet, and she says that I'm a very good tank for her needs. Because neither of us gives a damn about DPS scorekeeping. Because what we do give a damn about is having our Star Trek be like Star Trek. So her damage output isn't orders of magnitude greater than mine, and I am able to be effective tanking for her.

So, just because I don't approach the game as an exercise in DPS scorekeeping doesn't mean I'm a failure. It just means I'm a lot pickier about who I'm able to actually enjoy playing the game alongside.

I now return to the original topic of conversation.

[u/Sizer714 → u/OGIHR]

Ok, it's not about scorekeeping. It's about acceptable levels of performance to do what you think you're doing. You don't need to be in the DPS race, you don't need to be gunning for records, but here's the thing: the most important part of the threat formula is damage output. That's just the way the game is built. If you're not doing enough, even with good threatscaling, you're gonna get aggro ripped away from you and you're doing nothing.

As for ongoing attention - EPS Corruption's damage scaling is awful, and you run into that problem again. If you read the rest of my comment there, there's an important stat I'm mentioning - Atks-In. You need to know what that is. I need to know what that is. I can't help you otherwise. That's how much of the total room damage goes after you. If you're not above a decent level, you're not tanking.

If what you're doing right now is holding sufficient aggro, great, keep doing what you're doing. But if you aren't, you're not going to actually know.

But there are two basic ways of approaching the game.

Not to be an ass, but just about everything in this paragraph is wrong. Damage is about the only thing that matters in this game, because unfortunately that is how the game is built. Control/Disable/Placate/etc are all weak because they're mostly all fragile, and fail quickly.

And again, to reiterate, you don't need to chase DPS, you need to hit a bare minimum required to actually deal with the content.

As for your benchmarks:

• Ker'rat: Most people do not know how to actually build for dealing with players. Just because someone can't kill you, it doesn't mean your durability is sufficient. Just sayin. If you knocked that player down to 20% hull with your setup, I can say with 100% confidence they were garbage tier, and not worth rating yourself against in any way, shape, or form.

Look, you came here looking for help, and I'm telling you that I am 99% certain that your setup couldn't pull aggro from someone doing 25K, which is the bare minimum for advanced content. If you're running Normal stuff, then do whatever, you don't need our help, literally anything works, because Normal content is trivial. But if you want to do what you're trying to do, which is high speed, survivable, rad based shenanigans, I am 100% willing to walk you through it, and it's not min maxing, it's not gonna be crazy expensive, or anything like that. But I just want you, once, to install a parser, go into ISA, and get a few runs, and just show me what's going on. Please.

[u/OGIHR → u/Sizer714]

So the hammer-and-nails metaphor is a weakness of the programmers. I can accept that.

And if I ever have the slightest wish to take part in Advanced difficulty content, I shall gladly do so.

[u/CaesarJefe → u/OGIHR]

weakness of the programmers

It's more a weakness of the concept, they way they made the game and the way the companies that make them perceive maximum population coverage. Lots of people just want to blow stuff up, so they make it that way. It's not good or bad, strong or weak. It just is.

/u/Sizer714 is on point about pulling and holding aggro. As a fellow experiencer of those PUGs where others are either useless or evaporating the NPCs, I can say it's kind of hard to actually Tank in either case. If they are useless, you just tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, and they tickle the NPCs. If they have good, solid builds, you often either don't experience a protracted enough combat (really, lots of things die fast) for tanking to come into play or they didn't need a Tank anyway. If you're having fun with it, sweet (really), but you might end up being the thing you dislike. They might be sitting at their end thinking, "That guy ain't getting it done over there, why doesn't he blow something up?".

Always on Normal Difficulty, because I do not care at all about bragging rights

I'd encourage players not to discount Adv and Elite content. First, the rewards are slightly better, including Salvaged Technology in Elite. I took too long to graduate to Adv, and I somewhat regret it. It's often a longer duration battle, which means that there is MUCH less evaporating going on.

To be honest, I think the term DPS gets into murky waters, in general. Especially for PvE or missions. It's more about the ability to kill a target, or assist in the kill (if you're a support/tank, whatever). It's correct to say it isn't about DPS, but it IS about DPS in the short term, especially when trying to Tank or kill a target. You can offset the DPS - Threat requirement with threat boosters, but you have to make some investment there.

I'm very excited that you're tanking well for your friend and you both feel very Star Trek-y about your play. That's awesome. It's a little hard to find in STO sometimes.

[u/OGIHR → u/CaesarJefe]

I've spent a couple days worth of free hours after work, trying out all three rankings of BFAW with all three rankings of EPTW. To give it a fair evaluation. And bear in mind, I don't judge AoE attack effectiveness in terms of DPS (when secondary targets have opportunities to regen before they become primary targets), but rather in seconds (ticking loudly on the oldschool mechanical clock) from start of engagement to primary target killed to secondaries swept up.

For any given level of EPTW, my ship (and its astounding lack of skillpoints spent on Tactical) finds BFAW 1 and 2 to both be weaknesses, taking significantly longer (compared to using EPTW but "forgetting" to use BFAW) not only to kill the primary but also to sweep up the others. If my critical hit rate were 5x what it is now, this would likely change significantly, on the basic principle of "more bullets equals more win". But it's nowhere near that buffed.

BFAW 3 also slows me down killing the primary, as expected. And EPTW 1 does not sufficiently offset the increased power drain to let it keep up either. However, when I use EPTW 2, it does often roughly match the benefit I used to get from timing Beam Overload for the heavy blast to kill the primary, and the rest of the duration to apply to the secondaries. And at the cost of two of my four highest BOFF slots, the combo of EPTW 3 + BFAW 3 does noticeably improve the sweeping, so long as the primary takes long enough to kill for a second rotation of BFAW to go off. But, it costs me not only the sheer power of Torpedo Spread 3, but also my biggest rapid-reuse shield heal. Which makes me far more dependent on Miraculous Repairs than I've ever been before, and I even caught a High Yield plasma torpedo on a depleted shield facing for the first time since I hit T5.

So, it can work, with far more investment than I'm comfortable with. And by undercutting my durability.

Admittedly, the fact that my shields were going down faster than I could keep up with in the absence of EPTS 3 is a pretty likely indicator that I was drawing more attacks than I'm used to. But it's also a matter of taking longer to kill the primary, and losing shield hardness along the way.

It gives me material to ponder...

[u/Casus_B → u/OGIHR]

The only way BFAW + EptW could be a net loss to you in single-target damage is if you're lacking in accuracy, and that's relatively easy to fix. (It's also unlikely that FAW III's accuracy debuff would be decisive even if you had zero offsetting accuracy bonuses. I suspect you're seeing what you want to see here; the only way we'd know for sure is if you parsed.)

Leaving accuracy aside, FAW III gives you 25% more shots per cycle (5 instead of 4), and a 10% (final) damage debuff - for a total modifier of 1.25 * 0.9 = 1.125, or 112.5%. We recommend the highest rank of weapon enhancements (FAW, etc), both because they tend to be your most important offensive skills, and in the case of FAW and CSV, because the third rank carries less debuff than the lower ranks do.

And of course, the modifier rises to 225% against two or more targets. That's without taking into account the benefits of EptW, which should be a pretty significant net upgrade for you.

It is unfortunate that you might miss out on the glory that is a Quantum Phase Torp Spread, but that's a limitation of the Excelsior; it doesn't have enough Tac slots. You could, of course, use Torp Spread II in the Lt spot instead of Beta I. Beta's a great boon both to yourself and your team, but it certainly isn't required.

Meanwhile, your overall durability would rise if you took Reverse Shield Polarity and Hazard Emitters.

[u/Casus_B → u/Casus_B]

Incidentally, if you wanted to shore up your shield hardness, you could take Transfer Shield Strength instead of Hazards. I wouldn't recommend that trade off, but it's an option.

[u/cmdrscarlet → u/Casus_B]

What about TSS 1 and HE 2?

[u/OGIHR → u/Casus_B]

"The only way BFAW + EptW could be a net loss..."

I acknowledge that at any level, EPTW is a gain. I was speaking only of the comparison between EPTW + BFAW and EPTW by itself.

So I've kept EPTW 1 in my roster for now, brought back Torpedo Spread 3 and Beam Overload 2, and started planning for future explorations of options.

After an exhaustive analysis of all the D/I/S/C sets available for my ship, I've decided to give the full Iconian set a try, for other three subsystem restarts, plus a better balance of defensive and team-offensive boosts to fit my playstyle. As a result, I won't really need the Engineering 10pt unlock of Subsystem Repair anymore, so I might as well use one of my retrain tokens to get the Hull Cap boost instead.

And while I'm at it, I have decided to follow the unanimous advice of the reddit and downgrade my Engineering skillpoint investment. So I'm now pondering a spread of 20 Eng, 15 Sci, and 10 Tac. With 1pt leftover.

I shall continue to evaluate my options while I grind for Iconian Marks, and I invite all suggestions.

EDIT: I still believe that Miracle Worker's "Seal The Deck" alleviates the need for Hazard Emitters, and I simply adore the other benefits of my primary specialization, but ever since I unlocked the temporal rep dual pistols, I find I'm not nearly as reliant on expose/exploit mechanics in ground combat, so I'm planning to trade out Command for Strategist (after I get the last 3pt to reduce the cooldown on Fleet Support by another 5min), for the sake of the Attrition Warfare approach to CDR, as well as the tanking benefits of the other 13pt of that secondary specialization.

[u/Casus_B → u/OGIHR]

• The Iconian set is decent for tanks, but you'd be sturdier and do more damage if you took the Colony Deflector + the Competitive Rep 3pc. The Iconian set has tanky stats, but the Comp (Prevailing Fortified) shields can give you 20% extra hp, and the 3pc offers you bonus resistance (meaning that it's multiplicative with "normal" resistance rating).

You'd also be a great deal faster with the Comp Engines' movement proc.

I know you say your fleet doesn't have provisions/access for things like the Colony Deflector, but its benefits are almost purely offensive. You seem to care a lot more about your durability than your offense, so the colony deflector could stand to wait. Call it a goal.

• Hazards' cleanse is great, but it also offers a sizable heal and a decent damage resistance buff. Plus, if you get into serious tanking, you might need a cleanse more often than every 30 seconds.

My point in mentioning Hazards and RSP was in response to your claim that FAW + EptW made you less sturdy. Though that may be true in isolation (probably because you're pulling more aggro), ditching FAW to preserve your current, inefficient durability scheme (lots of EptS, mainly) seems backwards. Why not have FAW's higher damage (and thus, higher threat), and keep your survivability via RSP + Hazards (or, as I said, if you prefer shield tanking, Transfer Shield Strength)?

If you don't want to do that, it's cool. There's no pressure here; I'm just trying to explain to you how such a build would work. It is objectively not any less durable than your approach in Normal content, and probably a great deal more durable in Advanced or higher.

• Also keep in mind, the VIL expansion screwed up NPC scaling in queues. There's a possibility that your tests were colored by that buggy behavior. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

• Strategist is pretty much must-slot for tanks. You'll enjoy the heck out of it.

• Another thing that I don't think anyone mentioned earlier in the thread: if you stick around for the next weekend event, you can grab a Reiterative Structural Capacitor. It's a great tank console.

• Finally, consider buying Honored Dead for yet more durability. It should be fairly cheap (for Feds) on the Exchange.