Omni beans vs turrets for escort aft weapons

[ElDestructo]

Generally the argument against mixing cannons and beams is that cannon abilities don’t boost beams and vice versa.

Fair enough. However my ship has more tactical boff slots than most. It would be no issue for me to have beam overload 2 in my mix. For reference, I would also have cannons rapid fire 3, attack pattern beta 2, attack pattern alpha 3, attack pattern lamba 1, tactical team 3, and hold together 1.

I use CRF3, APB2, and TT3 as an alpha strike when making an initial run...against tougher opponents I will add APA3, and Fire On My Mark 3 to my alpha strike. BO2 would simply be added to this mix. I do “beta” strikes with APL1 until cooldowns on the alpha strike are expired.

The fact is that both mission reward and crafted Omni beams have superior dps to turrets. Since I can afford to slot BO2, is there any reason I shouldn’t convert my aft weapons to Omni beams? I’m looking at the trilithium laced Omni, the gamma reputation Omni, and a crafted Omni, with crtd modifiers.

[Salamand3r-]

If you're talking PvE, the king is AoE and multi target damage - CRF and BO are objectively worse in all ways than CRF and FAW. Single target spike is not ideal.

You'd be just as well off or better off using DBBs instead of DHCs in front and going all beam abilities.

Honestly I don't use DHCs on anything that can't toss a grav well, and then only with CSV and some grav torps with TS. And even then, I still prefer DBBs.

If you're talking PvP, I didn't realize there was an active scene - I'll have to scrape some rust off and justify that legacy War Hero title, and then provide some feedback.

Even then, last I touched it was about a year or so back, and it doesn't look like the meta has changed much - there are simply too many passives these days for resistance and healing for a spike build to have the impact it did back in the old days. You're better off working on some dastardly tricks than relying on oldschool alpha strikes.

[Jaq]

My understanding -- which I should disclaim is based on old meta from years ago back when I was playing seriously -- is that Beam Overload drains so much Weapons Power that it harms the overall DPS of your other energy weapons to the point where you don't really come out ahead vs. not using it at all. That said, I still use it when I have an extra tactical slot with nothing else I can put there, because it looks cool. Maybe if you have some other abilities that can preserve or spike your Weapon Power, the math on Beam Overload will make sense. Or maybe they changed how it worked in the past couple years.

[Salamand3r-]

Originally posted by JaQMarius:

My understanding -- which I should disclaim is based on old meta from years ago back when I was playing seriously -- is that Beam Overload drains so much Weapons Power that it harms the overall DPS of your other energy weapons to the point where you don't really come out ahead vs. not using it at all. That said, I still use it when I have an extra tactical slot with nothing else I can put there, because it looks cool. Maybe if you have some other abilities that can preserve or spike your Weapon Power, the math on Beam Overload will make sense. Or maybe they changed how it worked in the past couple years.

Really, it's still the same. And again, based on both old and new meta, single-target DPS is basically the absolute worst choice in PvE.

[SeaDog]

Um.....I'm fairly new but heard that BO was redone six months ago and is now better DPS than FAW. I don't really care about that. IMO FAW is for gaining agro and does not stand up to BO for killing targets. BO burns them down. I want single targets dead as quick as possible. Pissing a group of Klingons off by throwing FAW at them and then having them all firing at me instead of the NPC ships or other player ships gets me killed. A ship that has 5 percent of its HP left hits me just as hard as one with 100%. Ten ships with 5% HP left will kill me while I wait for FAW to recharge. Nope, I'm going to hit them with BO and burn them down one by one.

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by "JaQMarius":

The fact is that both mission reward and crafted Omni beams have superior dps to turrets. Since I can afford to slot BO2, is there any reason I shouldn’t convert my aft weapons to Omni beams? I’m looking at the trilithium laced Omni, the gamma reputation Omni, and a crafted Omni, with crtd modifiers.

You won't be able to replace all of them with omnis as the weapon type is severely limited - only one crafted/lockbox omni, and one mission/rep/lobi omni per ship. The cutting beam can go on too, but it's a trash weapon (kinetic damage and unaffected by boff skills).

The main reason you wouldn't want to mix beams and cannons even if you had unlimited tactical seating and are able, as a player, to juggle the firing modes effortlessly, is that the traits, especially starship traits, end up being divided between them. Each of the 4 main firing mode abilities has its own starship trait to extend its duration to fill the gap between the standard duration and the minimum cooldown (10 sec duration, 15 sec minimum cooldown).

The other reason I wouldn't swap in omnis on a cannon build is that cannons are much better at proc'ing Kemocite-Laced Weaponry as it is one of the few remaining things that has a proc chance per shot rather than per firing cycle. If I have an extra slot for a tactical power that isn't being used for anything critical I pop in KLW for the extra damage, even on beam boats (especially with the latest lockbox's ba'ul antiproton weapons... it's... beautiful...)

Originally posted by "Salamand3r":

If you're talking PvE, the king is AoE and multi target damage - CRF and BO are objectively worse in all ways than CRF and FAW. Single target spike is not ideal.

It's important not to fetishize DPS numbers, as the point of the numbers is ultimately about clearing the map of opponents. AOE will almost always give you better numbers in games, but that doesn't necessarily translate into effectiveness. Focused AOE damage is typically lower per-target than focused single-target damage, but applies to multiple targets and thus aggregates to a higher number... but it takes longer before you start removing any targets from the field especially if targets have any sort of recovery-over-time. In the latter case the numbers are further artificially bumped up as the lower per-target output combined with the per-target recovery means you deal damage over a longer period of time to remove them all from the field.

Example: If you have 10 opponents with 100 health each, and you can deal either 90 single target damage per second or 10 damage to everyone per second then your DPS is either 90 or 100, which makes it seem like AOE is the way to go.. if you think DPS is the only consideration. Without any other considerations it should take 12 seconds of single-target attacking to clear the field and only 10 seconds of AOE.

Now, lets have the enemies have recovery - they recover 5 health per second. Your DPS is still higher with AOE, but now while it still takes 12 seconds with your single target attacks, it takes 20 seconds to clear them with your AOE attacks. Your DPS remains unchanged, and the total damage dealt is 1080 single, and 2000 AOE... but AOE is actually the less effective in-context strategy.

Lets now assume enemies are attacking back, dealing 10 points of damage to you per second. This is where taking enemies off the field becomes more important for survival purposes - Since with single-target damage you're removing enemies one at a time rather than all at once, the damage they deal is reduced progressively. In this situation (with recovery as well) you take 700 points of damage over the 12 seconds with the single-target focus, and 2000 points of damage over 20 seconds with the AOE focus. Even if we remove the recovery aspect, its 690 damage for single-target and 1000 damage for AOE.

This is why many MMO communities move to TTK (Time To Kill) for encounters rather than just counting DPS numbers. DPS only tells part of the story, and even in STO single target is not "objectively worse" unless the only thing you're talking about is raw numbers.

My point here is that whether players should focus on single target or AOE depends heavily on whether they have the equipment, traits, doffs, etc... to put out enough per-target AOE damage to make the TTK lower than single target, and to survive that amount of time soaking the hits from the enemies. Veteran players who are "well geared" can absolutely pull that off with ease... newer players and less experienced players not so much, especially with the newer patrols and episodes which have been tuned with those veterans in mind.

Originally posted by "JaQMarius":

My understanding -- which I should disclaim is based on old meta from years ago back when I was playing seriously -- is that Beam Overload drains so much Weapons Power that it harms the overall DPS of your other energy weapons to the point where you don't really come out ahead vs. not using it at all.

It does use 50% more power than normal, but it fires at half the normal firing cycle speed, giving time to recover the used power. This makes it far less of an issue if you're using all beams as they're likely to all have the same firing speed, and are all affected by the mode in the same way (retaining the synchronized firing then recovery period). That'll be tougher to manage in a mix-and-match situation since the cannons are likely to be firing on a different cycle pattern. I'm sure is doable, just more complicated to pull off.

[Maj_Cyric]

BO was redone over year ago... It was nerfed to being unusable for a long while.. Which hella sucked for the CritD build I was running when was nerfed in both the weapons mods on weapons and half my starship traits (was before they added Re-Engineer items)..

But I remember when they changed it to how it is now.. It made the starship trait "Superweapon Ingenuity" useable again changing what used to do into adding 5 secs to the length of time BO fires from 10 secs to 15 secs (It used to give 100% chance to Crit and way WAY back when, I used to Crit for over 400k a hit)...

SInce I once had a CritD build and when they "fixed" BO I was able to easily make the change back towards more of CritD build again slotting old traits I thought I'd never use again.. But i'd say I'm more a hybrid CritD-FaW build now, and using FaW with "Preferential Targeting" slotted to buff the BO by an extra 100%...

And yeah BO does drain weapon power levels, but when I fire mine, my levels drop only down to about 85% for 1 maybe 1.5 seconds before jumping back up to 125 in time for next shot(s).. If I slotted in the Priors world elite defense satellite for the -25% weapon power costs i'd bet it would drop under 100% power.. (I don't use it though since it would drop my resting idle Crit Chance under 40%)

But on Normal TFO's my D9 one shots anything with BO.. and on ADV setting it will 1 or 2 shot targets inside 8km..

[ElDestructo]

Originally posted by Salamand3r-:

If you're talking PvE, the king is AoE and multi target damage - CRF and BO are objectively worse in all ways than CRF and FAW. Single target spike is not ideal.

You'd be just as well off or better off using DBBs instead of DHCs in front and going all beam abilities.

Honestly I don't use DHCs on anything that can't toss a grav well, and then only with CSV and some grav torps with TS. And even then, I still prefer DBBs.

If you're talking PvP, I didn't realize there was an active scene - I'll have to scrape some rust off and justify that legacy War Hero title, and then provide some feedback.

Even then, last I touched it was about a year or so back, and it doesn't look like the meta has changed much - there are simply too many passives these days for resistance and healing for a spike build to have the impact it did back in the old days. You're better off working on some dastardly tricks than relying on oldschool alpha strikes.

I understand my style might not be optimal for PvE, which is what I’m doing primarily. I also don’t care. I play the way I do because it’s entertaining. My question is if it’s worth going to Omni beams over turrets within that context.

[ElDestructo]

Originally posted by SeaDog:

Um.....I'm fairly new but heard that BO was redone six months ago and is now better DPS than FAW. I don't really care about that. IMO FAW is for gaining agro and does not stand up to BO for killing targets. BO burns them down. I want single targets dead as quick as possible. Pissing a group of Klingons off by throwing FAW at them and then having them all firing at me instead of the NPC ships or other player ships gets me killed. A ship that has 5 percent of its HP left hits me just as hard as one with 100%. Ten ships with 5% HP left will kill me while I wait for FAW to recharge. Nope, I'm going to hit them with BO and burn them down one by one.

Pretty sure you’re correct about BO being redone.

[ElDestructo]

Originally posted by VoodooMike:

Originally posted by "JaQMarius":

The fact is that both mission reward and crafted Omni beams have superior dps to turrets. Since I can afford to slot BO2, is there any reason I shouldn’t convert my aft weapons to Omni beams? I’m looking at the trilithium laced Omni, the gamma reputation Omni, and a crafted Omni, with crtd modifiers.

You won't be able to replace all of them with omnis as the weapon type is severely limited - only one crafted/lockbox omni, and one mission/rep/lobi omni per ship. The cutting beam can go on too, but it's a trash weapon (kinetic damage and unaffected by boff skills).

The main reason you wouldn't want to mix beams and cannons even if you had unlimited tactical seating and are able, as a player, to juggle the firing modes effortlessly, is that the traits, especially starship traits, end up being divided between them. Each of the 4 main firing mode abilities has its own starship trait to extend its duration to fill the gap between the standard duration and the minimum cooldown (10 sec duration, 15 sec minimum cooldown).

The other reason I wouldn't swap in omnis on a cannon build is that cannons are much better at proc'ing Kemocite-Laced Weaponry as it is one of the few remaining things that has a proc chance per shot rather than per firing cycle. If I have an extra slot for a tactical power that isn't being used for anything critical I pop in KLW for the extra damage, even on beam boats (especially with the latest lockbox's ba'ul antiproton weapons... it's... beautiful...)

Originally posted by "Salamand3r":

If you're talking PvE, the king is AoE and multi target damage - CRF and BO are objectively worse in all ways than CRF and FAW. Single target spike is not ideal.

It's important not to fetishize DPS numbers, as the point of the numbers is ultimately about clearing the map of opponents. AOE will almost always give you better numbers in games, but that doesn't necessarily translate into effectiveness. Focused AOE damage is typically lower per-target than focused single-target damage, but applies to multiple targets and thus aggregates to a higher number... but it takes longer before you start removing any targets from the field especially if targets have any sort of recovery-over-time. In the latter case the numbers are further artificially bumped up as the lower per-target output combined with the per-target recovery means you deal damage over a longer period of time to remove them all from the field.

Example: If you have 10 opponents with 100 health each, and you can deal either 90 single target damage per second or 10 damage to everyone per second then your DPS is either 90 or 100, which makes it seem like AOE is the way to go.. if you think DPS is the only consideration. Without any other considerations it should take 12 seconds of single-target attacking to clear the field and only 10 seconds of AOE.

Now, lets have the enemies have recovery - they recover 5 health per second. Your DPS is still higher with AOE, but now while it still takes 12 seconds with your single target attacks, it takes 20 seconds to clear them with your AOE attacks. Your DPS remains unchanged, and the total damage dealt is 1080 single, and 2000 AOE... but AOE is actually the less effective in-context strategy.

Lets now assume enemies are attacking back, dealing 10 points of damage to you per second. This is where taking enemies off the field becomes more important for survival purposes - Since with single-target damage you're removing enemies one at a time rather than all at once, the damage they deal is reduced progressively. In this situation (with recovery as well) you take 700 points of damage over the 12 seconds with the single-target focus, and 2000 points of damage over 20 seconds with the AOE focus. Even if we remove the recovery aspect, its 690 damage for single-target and 1000 damage for AOE.

This is why many MMO communities move to TTK (Time To Kill) for encounters rather than just counting DPS numbers. DPS only tells part of the story, and even in STO single target is not "objectively worse" unless the only thing you're talking about is raw numbers.

My point here is that whether players should focus on single target or AOE depends heavily on whether they have the equipment, traits, doffs, etc... to put out enough per-target AOE damage to make the TTK lower than single target, and to survive that amount of time soaking the hits from the enemies. Veteran players who are "well geared" can absolutely pull that off with ease... newer players and less experienced players not so much, especially with the newer patrols and episodes which have been tuned with those veterans in mind.

Originally posted by "JaQMarius":

My understanding -- which I should disclaim is based on old meta from years ago back when I was playing seriously -- is that Beam Overload drains so much Weapons Power that it harms the overall DPS of your other energy weapons to the point where you don't really come out ahead vs. not using it at all.

It does use 50% more power than normal, but it fires at half the normal firing cycle speed, giving time to recover the used power. This makes it far less of an issue if you're using all beams as they're likely to all have the same firing speed, and are all affected by the mode in the same way (retaining the synchronized firing then recovery period). That'll be tougher to manage in a mix-and-match situation since the cannons are likely to be firing on a different cycle pattern. I'm sure is doable, just more complicated to pull off.

I don’t have KLW and not willing to drop more money on the game to get it.

I must be missing something on traits. I have the cannon damage trait slotted and not the beam damage trait, but those are only a 5% boost. Nice to have but hardly decisive.

I do have withering barrage but it only applies to CSV. I’m more of a CRF kind of a guy :D

If I can only slot two Omnis, then I could slot the trilithium laced and a crafted Omni, then slot the trilithium laced turret and reinforced armaments console, which would give me two weapons with a chance to induce firing cycle haste, boost my eps to around 430%, and moar speed (which always puts a manic grin on my face) and a modest add to DR (kind of meh, I’m relying on active hull hardening for DR at the moment).

[Nimbull]

BO's pretty nice on an escort with omni's in the back and DBBs in the front. Stuff just seems to die quick for me.

[Salamand3r-]

Originally posted by ElDestructo:

Originally posted by Salamand3r-:

If you're talking PvE, the king is AoE and multi target damage - CRF and BO are objectively worse in all ways than CRF and FAW. Single target spike is not ideal.

You'd be just as well off or better off using DBBs instead of DHCs in front and going all beam abilities.

Honestly I don't use DHCs on anything that can't toss a grav well, and then only with CSV and some grav torps with TS. And even then, I still prefer DBBs.

If you're talking PvP, I didn't realize there was an active scene - I'll have to scrape some rust off and justify that legacy War Hero title, and then provide some feedback.

Even then, last I touched it was about a year or so back, and it doesn't look like the meta has changed much - there are simply too many passives these days for resistance and healing for a spike build to have the impact it did back in the old days. You're better off working on some dastardly tricks than relying on oldschool alpha strikes.

I understand my style might not be optimal for PvE, which is what I’m doing primarily. I also don’t care. I play the way I do because it’s entertaining. My question is if it’s worth going to Omni beams over turrets within that context.

If you don't care about being optimal, then it really doesn't matter - go with whichever looks better in a fight :D

[Maj_Cyric]

So I ran test firing run in my D9... Using Beam Overload Without the Priors World Elite Defense Satellite (referred as 'PWEDS' now), and then with one...

My D9 had only the Command-Weapon System Efficiency active while moving at full impulse.. A did each test 3 times allowing a "rest" between each time..

A single BO shot with 4 AP Beam Arrays, 1 Dual Overcharged Delphic AP BB (lobi set) and 1 Plasma Omni (i'll address that in my closing)..
Power level dipped from 125 to 107 until the beam ended it's pulse blast.. Then ran again but fired right after the first blast and levels dropped from 125 to 107 then 94..
The third test I 3 back to back salvos with 3rd blast dropping power level to 80.. Which took maybe 1 second to return back to 125..

Then equipping a "PWEDS" (-25% weapon power costs) Levels dropped to 118, then 97, then 83 on a third back to back BO salvo...

I would say BO on a ship without the Cruiser Command "Weapon System Efficiency" active the power draw for BO to be effectively use, would only be hitting hard with first and most of a 2nd shot if fired after right after the first salvo..

As far as mixing an Omni in with a DHC set, i'd say the only Omni that should be mixed into a DHC set would be this one, the Altamid Modified Omni
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2172113354
Which it happens to give a shipwide +1% to Crit chance and is part of the Altamid Adaptation set (Lobi store)..
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2172113372

The lack of receiving boosts from the Tactical weapon consoles is worth using when using the Altamid Modified Swarm Processor console... It's a must have for that juicy 3.9 % crit chance and +35 to weapon Acc, and when added with Lorca's Custom fire Console, that is a lot of Crit % chance..

Overall, I would say that a DHC build could get away with using an Omni or 2 with DHCs (there won't be any weapon sync between the two weapon types though).. Whereas a Dual Beam Bank and Beam Array build couldn't get away with using a cannon turret like the aforementioned DHC set could..

Originally posted by ElDestructo:

I don’t have KLW and not willing to drop more money on the game to get it.

I must be missing something on traits. I have the cannon damage trait slotted and not the beam damage trait, but those are only a 5% boost. Nice to have but hardly decisive.

5%? whut? Might wanna visit your fleet's K 13 and get that upgraded to "Superior" which bumps it up from 5% to 7.5%

[VoodooMike]

Originally posted by "ElDestructo":

I don’t have KLW and not willing to drop more money on the game to get it.

Just buy a copy off the exchange. Shouldn't be more than a couple million given that people can generate copies via the boff manuals in the infinity box. Once a trait, manual, console, etc... gets added to the infinity list, the price goes down quite a ways (I'm looking at you, Hive Defenses).

Or don't. It's not a mandatory part of any build, it just adds some nice additional radiation AOE damage and some resistance debuffs to your targets. It synergizes really well with rapid fire owing to the increased number of shots.

Originally posted by "ElDestructo":

If I can only slot two Omnis, then I could slot the trilithium laced and a crafted Omni, then slot the trilithium laced turret..

Unless they've changed it in recent years the variants of a weapon (omni and turret, different energy types from rep, etc) are considered to be the same weapon in terms of set bonuses and slotting restrictions (including unique equip limits). You can't equip trilithium omni and trilithium turret any more than you could equip the phaser and disruptor versions of the terran task force beams.

Originally posted by "Maj_Cyric":

The lack of receiving boosts from the Tactical weapon consoles is worth using when using the Altamid Modified Swarm Processor console...

I don't see how that can be true. The Altamid Processor can give a decent crit boost if you need it, but adding the omni to a non-plasma build is very unlikely to improve damage over using an energy-appropriate omni, especially if you make it a set bonus boosting omni of the correct energy type. Adding the altamid omni gives you 1% crit, sure... but it will deal maybe a 3rd of the damage of an antiproton omni, and the 2pc bonus from the altamid set does low damage even if you DO focus on boosting plasma damage.

You're likely to get far more bang for your buck if you replace the altamid omni with the ba'ul linked sentry antiproton omni (which itself has 100% cycling haste), and added in the console for the 2pc bonus, then replaced your 4 regular antiproton beam arrays with ba'ul antiproton beam arrays (I see 2 in there already). That doubles the damage of the beam refraction chaining, and doubles the number of refractions. Each refracted beam also counts as its own shot for per-shot procs like KLW.

Who knows, though. I could be wrong. STO is a complicated beast.

[ElDestructo]

Originally posted by Maj_Cyric:

So I ran test firing run in my D9... Using Beam Overload Without the Priors World Elite Defense Satellite (referred as 'PWEDS' now), and then with one...

My D9 had only the Command-Weapon System Efficiency active while moving at full impulse.. A did each test 3 times allowing a "rest" between each time..

A single BO shot with 4 AP Beam Arrays, 1 Dual Overcharged Delphic AP BB (lobi set) and 1 Plasma Omni (i'll address that in my closing)..
Power level dipped from 125 to 107 until the beam ended it's pulse blast.. Then ran again but fired right after the first blast and levels dropped from 125 to 107 then 94..
The third test I 3 back to back salvos with 3rd blast dropping power level to 80.. Which took maybe 1 second to return back to 125..

Then equipping a "PWEDS" (-25% weapon power costs) Levels dropped to 118, then 97, then 83 on a third back to back BO salvo...

I would say BO on a ship without the Cruiser Command "Weapon System Efficiency" active the power draw for BO to be effectively use, would only be hitting hard with first and most of a 2nd shot if fired after right after the first salvo..

As far as mixing an Omni in with a DHC set, i'd say the only Omni that should be mixed into a DHC set would be this one, the Altamid Modified Omni
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2172113354
Which it happens to give a shipwide +1% to Crit chance and is part of the Altamid Adaptation set (Lobi store)..
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2172113372

The lack of receiving boosts from the Tactical weapon consoles is worth using when using the Altamid Modified Swarm Processor console... It's a must have for that juicy 3.9 % crit chance and +35 to weapon Acc, and when added with Lorca's Custom fire Console, that is a lot of Crit % chance..

Overall, I would say that a DHC build could get away with using an Omni or 2 with DHCs (there won't be any weapon sync between the two weapon types though).. Whereas a Dual Beam Bank and Beam Array build couldn't get away with using a cannon turret like the aforementioned DHC set could..

Originally posted by ElDestructo:

I don’t have KLW and not willing to drop more money on the game to get it.

I must be missing something on traits. I have the cannon damage trait slotted and not the beam damage trait, but those are only a 5% boost. Nice to have but hardly decisive.

5%? :surprisedbs: whut? Might wanna visit your fleet's K 13 and get that upgraded to "Superior" which bumps it up from 5% to 7.5% :dealbs:

Off to K13 then. Still new at this.

Given what you’re saying I think I might slot the trilithium laced turret but increasingly I’m moving towards keeping turrets for aft weapon for a pure cannon ship.

[Salamand3r-]

Could always toss in the KCB if you're desperate for all 360 degree arc, non-turret weapons in the aft.

It's old-school and not very useful these days (unless you're going for the set bonus, which is also not that useful), but it does obviate the need to leave a turret still back there.