Stormbreaker

Chronos Temporal Dreadnought Cruiser

Build Overview and Focus

Last Updated December 2022

This is a tank for Elite content. I don't generally pull it out for Advanced runs. I built it to support other members of my fleet who want to run Elite TFOs but needed a tank. As it is a tank build, DPS is not the primary goal but you need around some DPS to reliably pull threat. Pulling threat and tanking shots for the team, as measured by the percentage of team damage taken (% DMG IN), and the percentage of team attacks taken (% ATKS IN) is my measure of success. If I get above 80% AND no team deaths, I'm content, but of course 90% is better.

The Stormbreaker is closer to a higher-DPS "classic" or "heavy" tank where its selfish DPS is higher but so also is its survivability. The current meta wants tanks to have lower DPS and more debuffs like Cold-hearted, Kemocite, and debuff consoles. That's a very valid niche (and selfishly I like flying with those too). We call those "support tanks." That's not really what this build is geared toward, though recent edits have pushed this build to being more supportive with Superior Area Denial, Tachyon Net Drones, Feel the Weight of Our Presence, Kemocite, and High Energy Communication Network being added. Still, with my highest attacks in record also combined with 387K DPS, it's higher DPS than true meta tanks. If you want a supportive tank build, check out my Presidio or Styx or comments at the end of this post.

Platform Selection

The Chronos has a unique console that taunts enemies while boosting your damage and healing you. STO has relatively few taunts so that was a nice plus. It also has Attract Fire, a decent hull modifier, and Commander Engineering. The 31st-century 2-piece set bonus was also a nice selfish boost as well. 

Flavor/Theme Choices


Namesake

The Chronos Temporal Dreadnought Cruiser is the largest and sturdiest 31st-century ship and is designed to handle any possible threat that could face the galaxy: past, present, or future. When the threats of the Temporal Cold War threaten to tear apart the timeline, the Chronos stands strong. This particular ship can not only weather any storm, but break it as well. 

Meta Analysis

Budget Analysis

Using the EZRA rubric, this build would cost 714.70 USD to replicate. That is far more than what I spent on STO to make it. If the cost looks daunting, don't worry! Lower-budget alternatives are provided below.

Change History

Build Breakdown

This tank has plenty of survivability, but also a fair amount of damage built into it across a variety of sources. Plasma tanks are fairly out of the meta so it's hard for me to really claim it's not themed.

Skills

Skill Unlocks

Notes

This ship is a classic beams + 1 torpedo set up. It has absolutely zero investment into exotic damage, so I am not skilled at all into those.

Miracle Worker/Temporal is the best-in-slot choice for heavy tank builds. I did some analysis where I compared the uptime of No Risk, No Reward (10% bonus all damage per stack) in a solo ISA and determined I averaged ~1.2 stacks, plus the 2% CrtH from Embolden up all the time. That was compared using the Energy DPS calculator against a 30% flanking rate intel spec with Intel Fleet, uptime-adjusted, and the damage differential was slightly in favor of Miracle Worker. Miracle Worker provided much more survivability so I went with that instead.  Temporal likewise adds damage through Entropic Rider and Atrophied Defenses. Strategist is an option if you feel squishy but has basically no offensive benefits and this tank likes offensive benefits. 

Build

Starship Weapons

Notes

Torpedoes: I like torpedoes. I use at least one on every ship. The right torpedo, when used with Entwined Tactical Matrices and Supercharged Weapons, is NOT a DPS loss compared to beam arrays, but in this case, I chose the torpedo for team support reasons. The Dark Matter is generally the best single torpedo for augmenting energy builds if the 2-piece set bonus is not already obtained from a dual beam bank.

Plasma: Before Ba'ul Antiproton was the new hotness, Plasma was one of the (slightly) better flavors for tanking due to the proc on the Advanced Piezo-Plasma Beam Array offering a decent heal. I built this tank when Cryptic gave away 4 Assimilated Plasma weapons and was hopeful that they would help heal as well. Turns out they don't do much, but I decided to stick with Plasma if for no other reason than to show you can tank without Ba'ul AP. 

Healy beam: "Improved Regenerative Protomatter Influx" is the heal-to-allies effect from the reputation set weapon, it does not actually count towards your healing despite being listed that way by SCM.

[Over] beams: In lieu of crafted Omnis with Over being broken (;-;) , I'm using two crafted Plasma beams with the [Over] proc. Any time that beam procs the Overload, all weapons will fire Overload for 6 seconds but won't overwrite existing firing modes. With perfect piloting, I will always have Fire at Will up which overrides the use of [Over], but I don't fly perfectly. The overloads might trigger when FAW is no longer active, so if my FAW ever slips and the proc is active, the Overload will provide a little burst damage in between FAW and ETM cycles. TBH, it rarely procs but Overloads are fun so I left it in hopes of proccing Technical Overload from the Lukari Beam, which is a super-strong effect. 


Survivability: Recent survivability improvements (adding a third Colony console, 31st century 2-piece) have boosted this ship to close to 784K Effective Sustained HP. For reference, the Bedivere is around 800. Survivability Analysis

Link to Energy Weapon Calculator for this build

Starship Equipment

Notes:

Everything here is basically optimal for tanking. The Discovery 3-piece adds substantial regen as well as Mycelial Lightning, which is a valuable damage source. The Elite Alliance Fighter Squadrons were chosen because they don't have torpedoes and buff allies. Torp-armed hangar pets can steal Concentrate Firepower procs from torp boats and tanking is a selfless profession anyway.  

Shout-out to Prototype Ablative Jevonite hardpoints which, while kind of difficult to get, give +100 Hull Capacity for 15 minutes and can be used from inventory, meaning that they don't take up a device slot. Definitely useful on maps like Hive! 

If the Elite Alliance Fighter Squadrons aren't available, then I'd use Elite Class C Shuttles since they are torpless, which helps when tanking for allies using torpedoes for DPS. Barring that, Elite Epochs are a very solid choice and come with the ship.

Starship Consoles

Set Bonuses

Notes: 

Crit: The importance of Crit cannot be oversold and while DPS is not the primary goal of this ship, you have to do decent DPS to pull threat/aggro. I saw significant increases in DPS from boosting Crit in doffs and traits. On my record runs, my weapons were parsing between 65-70% Crits. There are players with better gear and piloting skills than I who've achieved much, much higher percentages, but I will say broadly that when in doubt, add crit. 

Alternate Energy types: If you want Ba’ul AP, swap those beams in and replace the Altamid Omni and Piezo-Electric Focuser with at least 2-piece Linked Sentry set. For consoles, Aligned Antiproton Shielding from the Khitomer is another solid option. For anything else, choose your weapons of choice and Locators.

Consoles: The Tachyon Net Drones from the Bozeman are REALLY good, even worth slotting over the Lukari 2-piece, and there's an argument to be made for slapping them onto pretty much any kind of build. Support, tank, energy, projectile, maybe even exotic. It's hard to pick apart the active in the parser but if you tally up all the pieces, it hits really hard and also takes enemy shields offline. 


Meta-Focused Tweaks:


Budget Tweaks:

If low budget, the following changes will help reduce cost


Bridge Officers

Meta Notes

Traits

Personal Traits

Meta-Focused Tweaks:


Budget Tweaks:

 If low budget, (try and keep the ones at the bottom) 


Downgrading all the survivability tools will limit your ability to run Hive Space Elite.

Starship Traits

Meta-Focused Tweaks:


Budget Tweaks:

If low budget, (try and keep the ones at the bottom) 

This build basically won't work without Emergency Weapon Cycle, Entwined Tactical Matrices, and History Will Remember


Notes:

History Will Remember was not an appreciable DPS loss against something like Promise of Ferocity or Improved Critical Systems. Both are acceptable substitutes but I chose HWR because of its added benefits to survivability and tanking through threat increase. If Improved Critical Systems is not available, Promise of Ferocity or Piercing Projectiles would yield similar results. 


Superior Area Denial is an excellent trait for ships using Fire-at-Will or Scatter Volley that also have a hangar. While it is extremely expensive, captains wishing to use this trait on multiple characters would benefit from saving up and acquiring it via the 12th Anniversary Bundle, which is how I did it.  

Reputation Traits

Active Reputation

Duty Officers

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

These doffs are fairly well optimal, but if your budget was truly unlimited


Budget Tweaks:

 If low budget

Miscellaneous

Cooldowns

This ship manages cooldowns via Photonic Officer I and a little extra in readiness skills, plus 2 Krenims. Since this is a tank, high Aux power is useful to help amplify my heals.

On the Chronos, I don't really want to dedicate two of my engineering slots to A2B, or sacrifice my universal seat for another engineering bridge officer. Photonic Officer I was sufficient for the Roosevelt and it's sufficient here as well . This allows me to maintain high Aux power (for heals, the Temporal Disentanglement Suite, and general defense) while freeing up duty officers to enhance damage. It's also easy to fly--the only things I need to do are constantly cycle my Tactical and Engineering chains, which I should be doing anyway. I do use Attrition Warfare, but that happens in the background anyway and I don't really think about it. The chosen option syncs my tactical chain up with FAW, and since I am using Entwined Tactical Matrices to keep Fire at Will up all the time, I am not as concerned with dropping Attack Pattern Beta/Torpedo Spread to minimum cooldowns, as syncing them with FAW III is sufficient. If I was that worried about 4 seconds of Tactical Team uptime, I'd toss a Conn Officer doff at it. Note that I do not even need Calm Before the Storm to get the desired cooldown reduction, but when it is active, it will help lower those tactical powers, as does Tactical Initiative. Even in the worst case scenario where PO starts its 10 second downtime and no Calm Before the Storm right as my tactical chain is fired, I still have plenty of cooldown reduction to support a 20 second tactical chain.

Link to CDR sheet for this build

Ship Stats

Keybinds 

Keybinds are essential to how I fly this ship. Since my background is in RTS games and MOBAs, I'm very comfortable with using my left hand to both fly and activate keys. If I was more acclimated to a gaming mouse with lots of buttons, I could map activations to that as well.

Piloting

Tanking is generally a selfless job unless you really glory in seeing how much damage you can absorb. Your job as a tank is to 1) pull threat and 2) survive. If you can also debuff enemies and amplify your team's damage, that's nice to have. In order to do #1, you need to do three things:

In order to do #2 (survive), you need the following:

You're aiming to pull 75-90% of the incoming attacks for the entire team, so be prepared. On a fast ISE run, that could mean less than 3 million damage absorbed. On a slower run, you're looking at closer to 7-8M. This is by no means the most optimized tank build in the game, but it certainly does the job for DPS channel or fleet runs, especially in ISE. I’m very well pleased with the updates to this build and feel it fits nicely in the build space of intermediate-but-semi-affordable tanks while tanking both ISE and HSE. Shout-out to Jayiie for teaching me how to HSE and improvements inspired by his build. 

ISE Piloting Tips

Before the map starts, I will launch Fighters, set Threatening Stance, and set the Attract Fire cruiser command. I will also set Offensive Configuration if I know I'm with a high DPS team that will clear the map quickly. I will set Defensive Configuration with a lower DPS team. Use Full Impulse when the map starts to hug the center cube. Also, on a typical ISE, cycling EPtW around 20 seconds before countdown and EPtE around 5 seconds before countdown ends will have your abilities in a good place for transitioning/constat uptime without messing up the Evasive Maneuver resets. 

I start with flying very close to the first 3 cubes. I will use all of my longer cooldown buffs in the first fight as well as the Tachyon Net Drones. Trigger Evasive Maneuvers to fly over to the left transformer and fire off all major abilities while at 1/4 impulse or stopped within 2 km of the transformer. This is where you use the High Energy Communications Network so that it benefits all of your pets. FAW should take care of most targets. Once 2-3 of the generators are down, target the transformer with Focused Frenzy and Fire On My Mark. I rotate to face inward toward the gate. Sometimes I will use Diversionary Tactics here if I feel I am not pulling enough aggro. When the transformer is low health, fly towards the ball of spheres and give them a torpedo spread and cycle or two of firing. Once they start thinning out, Evasive Maneuvers again (reset due to Emergency Power to Engines) and head to the right side. Rinse and repeat, then Evasive Maneuvers and Deuterium to fly between the Tactical Cube and Gateway. If there's a large ball of spheres here, this is an important time to use the Chronos taunt console or Diversionary Tactics to taunt enemies. This is also the single hardest part to stay alive at, so save big heals like Reiterative Structural Capacitor, Reverse Shield Polarity, and the Bio-Molecular Shield Generator for here. Try to avoid using Reverse Shield Polarity at the right transformer if at all possible. I actually prefer to use that first at gateways since it has the lowest cooldown and will be up again relatively quickly. Seriously, this part can be rough depending on how fast your team wipes the Nanite Spheres. Focused Frenzy and Fire On My Mark should be available here again. Lastly, don't forget to summon your Delta Alliance Beacon/Nimbus Pirates, etc. In an average ISE run, I can get two off: one at left transformer and one at the end.

HSE (Hive Space Elite)

I’ve successfully flown HSE on this build without any teammates dying. I'm not the best HSE pilot but the build is fine. The key differences are that I use Defensive Configuration instead of Offensive since the map is slower and there’s more incoming fire. The hardest part is the first fight. I stagger my big heals in 15-20 second intervals to give the team time to clean up. I lead with Brace for Impact, Reiterative Structural Capacitor, Give Her All She’s Got, and Subspace Field Modulator. As those are winding down, use Chronotachyon Capacitor and the Bio-Molecular Shield Generator. If the health bar is still going down after that, pop Reverse Shield Polarity and use the Sensor Interference Platform as a last resort. Hopefully by that point, the spheres and first few tactical cubes are cleared out after the first full minute of combat. Push into the formation gradually at first and then as only a few targets are left, attack more aggressively.

For the boss fight, save your big heals! I position so I can hit both Borg dreadnoughts (near the queen). When fighting the queen, I find it better to stay farther away from her as Aceton field is no joke and neither are her confuses. Hopefully your teammates will use Subnucleonic Beam to clear out the queen’s Feedback Pulse, but that’s not really a problem as long as your big heals are back off of cooldown.

I’ve found that if you can solo HSA without dying and 100K DPS, you’re probably in good shape for HSE. It’s a good way to practice getting a feel for the map, placement/positioning, and knowing when you can ride your regen/HP and when you need to pop a big heal to keep from dying.

Parse Breakdown

Numbers from record ISE (based on % atks in):


Heal breakdown (Heals-per-second)



The regen from the Discovery 2-piece does not parse. The Bio-Shield bubble wasn't used either, but I've seen it heal for over 300 HPS on Hive Elite. 


Heavy vs Support tank: To repeat the comment at the opening of the post, this tank is built for higher DPS and higher survivability, which can be useful for teams that have lower DPS (which results in more incoming damage). I posted the numbers for its highest % attacks in, but in terms of DPS, I've seen it hit for over 300K when I fly well and the team has a lot of debuffs or even a support. This is the tank I pull out for tanking for players at or below ~200K or for non-Borg maps due to its higher survivability and higher DPS. Supportive tanks can make the run too slow and the possibility of dying is higher due to lower survivability. If you're supporting higher-end teams with players above 300K, then the more supportive tank is better.

To make this a support tank, here's what I'd do: Change the cooldown scheme by dropping Photonic Officer in favor of Auxiliary to Battery and trade the Energy Weapons Officers for Technicians. This means dropping Auxiliary to Structural. Downgrade Hazard Emitters to rank II and pick up either Gravity Well for utility or Destabilizing Resonance Beam for the debuff. Replace Improved Critical Systems with Cold-hearted. Lastly, replace a colony console or two with another supportive console like Approaching Agony, Temporal Destabilization Matrix, or Interphasic Instability.


Portability

The Chronos' unique console and the Tactical System Stabilizer is limited to just the 31st-century ships, making this build somewhat hard to port. The Ion Storm Generator (from the Buran or its cross-faction equivalent) would be the best replacement along with an M6 Computer or D.O.M.I.N.O. If making that trade is acceptable, there are a number of tank-capable ships with Temporal seating (though Command is the current meta-preference for tanks). The Legendary Ambassador would be the most seamless fit, as would the Sagittarius, but the Risian Luxury Cruiser on potentially the low budget range would also be an easy port, trading Transfer Shield Strength I for an Engineering Team and downgrading Hazard Emitters. Lastly, the Universe-class could run a very similar build, though again Transfer Shield Strength I would need to be traded for something else in Tactical or Command.