U.S.S. Benjamin Davis

Notes

• All weapon-centric builds benefit from the tactical ultimate with Team Frenzy. I do not find the cooldown boost from Frenzied Reactions to be needed on a build with a good cooldown scheme.

• Engineering skills

  • Two points in Hull Restoration/Hull Capacity are low opportunity cost for relatively high survivability gains. 

  • I always take a single point in Hull Plating, but other resistance skills and Damage Control are not worth it. Likewise, 2 points in Impulse Expertise is an appreciable boost to maneuverability. Warp Core Potential and especially Warp Core Efficiency help boost power to subsystems. Efficiency is particularly good at adding power to subsystems I am not allocating much power to.

  • I take a single point in EPS Power Transfer to recover power levels faster after drains or Full Impulse. If I was purpose-building this character for this build, I might take 2 points here, but this character also flies projectile builds with little-to-no benefit from EPS.

• Science skills

  • Single points in Shield Restoration/Shield Capacity are low opportunity cost for relatively high survivability gains. Since I need skill points elsewhere, only 1 here for those. 

  • Since this character is using Gravity Well, having both points in ControlX boosts those as well as the Exotic Particle Generator skill adds value. Control Amplification further increases damage dealt by allied exotics. DrainX helps amp Neutronic and/or Quantum Phase Torpedoes on builds which use them so I take both points on this character; it has little value on this particular build and would be put into EPS and Energy Weapon Training othewrise. 

  • The rest of the science skills are of little value on this build and are completely skippable. 

• Tactical skills

  • Projectile Weapon Training, Hull Penetration, Shield Penetration, Weapon Specialization, and Weapon Amplification are all worthwhile skills to take 3 points in as they boost weapon damage directly. This toon mostly flies torpedo boats, so 2 points in Energy Weapon Training is a good choice. We're not trying to maximize selfish DPS anyway.

  • I like taking 2 points apiece in accuracy and defense. Defense is a small contribution to avoiding incoming damage but also helps reduce enemy crits when you're not moving and accuracy is just good all around, if not a stat that you'll need tons of. 

  • Coordination Protocols, Defense Coordination and Offensive Coordination are good team boosts so I always take those. They also benefit hangar pets on builds that have those. Improved Tactical Readiness is essential for reducing tactical cooldowns along with the rest of the cooldown scheme. 

• Unlocks

  • There are two crucial unlocks: battery expertise (improves duration of consumable batteries) and threat control which either increases or decreases threat based on threatening stance. 

Temporal Operative is useful for Entropic Rider and Atrophied Defenses as well as Phasic Artillery and Continuity. The passive EPG is nice as well. Intelligence primary allows the team-wide Intelligence Fleet active ability.

Notes

Torpedoes: Might as well start with the controversial one. "No torpedoes on nannies!!11" If we had a comments section, this would be likely the first one. Let's talk about why that's the conventional wisdom. The highest-end ISE runs want to feed a single DPS player all the Concentrate Firepower procs possible to maximize DPS from torpedoes, so nobody else will run torpedoes (or hangar pets) in a truly-coordinated run. That's the prevailing wisdom. 

1. I'm not building around super-high-end players. I don't build around the assumption that everyone is trying to funnel DPS into a single projectile user. I've supported players up to 780K but we're not hitting the top of the leaderboards nor is that level of coordinated build efficiency and minmaxing something I'm trying to achieve. A more uncoordinated environment dilutes the effectiveness of Concentrate Firepower donation if others are summoning beacons, fighters, firing torpedoes, etc.

2. The Benjamin Davis is designed to help not just projectile builds but also exotic builds which benefit less from grabbing every single Concentrate Firepower proc. Certainly they're nice to have, but also carry the risk of helping your allies blow themselves up with Heavy Gravimetric Torpedoes. To that end, slotting a torpedo has other benefits for such builds, namely...

3. Between the Delphic Torpedo (up to -30 All DRR with Spread I), the Gamma Deflector (-15 kinetic DRR), Resonating Payload Modifications (up to -25 physical/kinetic DRR), guaranteed Kemocite procs (-12.5 at rank II) there's a considerable amount of additional debuff being spread around by me using this particular torpedo. Omega Kinetic Shearing is a guaranteed proc of Atrophied Defenses for a further -10 DRR.

4. Without a torpedo and a spread and also not tanking, it's hard to maintain reasonable uptime for Fire at Will. A torpedo solves that problem by allowing me to use Entwined Tactical Matrices for 100% uptime on FAW, spreading debuffs like Cold-Hearted (-50) and Attack Pattern Beta II (-40 DRR) with greater uptime. 

5. Torpedoes are fun and immersive.

That said, if you would rather build a support without a torpedo so as to better donate Concentrate Firepower, unslot the torpedo, Resonating Payload Modification (use Into the Breach instead), Omega Kinetic Shearing (Magnified Firepower is probably the replacement), and Entwined Tactical Matrices (Improved Critical Systems, Unconventional Tactics, or Electrified Anomalies on the cheap, Superior Area Denial/Jubilant Cadence on the expensive),  and deal with the loss of uptime on Fire at Will. The torpedo spread could be replaced with a second copy of it to handle that problem.

Plasma: If I didn't have the Altamid Omni, Polaron or Phaser would be an easy replacement, with using both the Advanced Gamma Inhibiting Turret / Omni since they stack. Pulse Phasers serve a similar role as the Altamid beams and would also benefit more from the Deconstructive Resonance Emitter I'm using. If Phaser, adjust tactical consoles to the appropriate flavor.

Notes:

Drive Train: The Gamma 4-piece is nothing special, but the 3-piece gives team-wide 10% Kinetic damage while retaining the Tilly Shield for its damage to shields. 

If you can't get Elite Alliance Fighter Squadrons, Elite Class C Shuttles unlocked via C-store ships like the Earhart or Buran work just fine, as do the Mirror Shuttles from the Lexington.

Notes: 

Alternate energy types:  See the weapons section. 

If only supporting kinetic/projectile builds: Go for something like Delphic Tear Generator (Stacking -DRR effect, Exchange) or Temporal Destabilization Matrix (25% increase to damage to shields, T4 fed ship and -25 Energy DRR) instead.

Consoles: The Tachyon Net Drones from the Bozeman are REALLY good 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:

• See the weapons section for commentary on dropping torpedoes

• It's entirely possible to further lower selfish DPS by NOT slotting any fleet tactical consoles and instead looking for more universal consoles like Opening Salvo (T6 Titan) or Hyper-Focusing Trinary Arrays (T6 Recon Destroyers) that do things like dropping enemy shields or even more debuffs. In the spirit of affordability and keeping the ship Elite-capable in its own right, I've opted not to do that. 

• There are lots of other console options. Our support guide has a table full of them. I've used the ones that I could afford that I feel bring the most utility.

• If you really want to spend dilithium, you can be team-wide engines and aux batteries. In practice, players should have their important power levels pretty well maxed so I don't consider this worthwhile especially when we're using team-wide starship traits

• If you don't want to use hangar pets at all out of fear of despawning the map or of taking DPS, just...don't slot a hangar. Easy enough.

Budget Tweaks:

If low budget, 

• Drop the Altamid Omni. Switch weapons to either Phaser or Polaron with Advanced Inhibiting Turret / Advanced Inhibiting Omni and regular Polaron/Phaser weapons. 

• Swap out the Cascading Subatomic Disruptions for Cutting Tractor Beam

• Swap the Delphic Torpedo for Dark Matter to benefit from the DoT or Advanced Piezo-Photon to reduce shield hardness or Resonant to reduce enemy DRR.

• Drop Kobayashi Maru Transponder if unavailable (T6X upgrade and event); if available, use the Hull Patches instead 

• Protomatter is hard to give up but could be replaced by Ablative Hazard Shielding from the Arbiter at a loss of teamwide heals

• Drop the High Energy Communications Network in favor of a cheaper alternative like Hostile Acquisition or Polymorphic Probe Array which should be fairly cheap on the exchange. 

• Tachyon Net Drones can be dropped if not T6X or replaced by Delphic Tear Generator, but be aware that it doesn't stack with other Delphic Tear Generators.

Meta Notes

• Full meta involves the Unconventional Systems trait and another control (likely replacing Hazard Emitters for Tractor Beam). This makes you significantly squishier and lacking an on-demand cleanse which can be rough on non-tank maps

• If you want to go torpless, drop Torpedo Spread. You could consider cycling 2 copies of Fire at Will in that case. Alternately, downgrade FAW to rank I and slot Focused Assault. I'd rather have 2 FAW copies for more spreading of on-hit debuffs.

• Do not use Best Served Cold. It is irredeemably terrible.

• The lack of Aux power from A2B will lower Gravity Well's and the Webspinner's damage considerably. If you want them to do damage to speed up the run, use a Large Auxiliary Battery first. If you're trying to keep damage low for the rest of the team, this is a feature, not a bug.  

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• If you really want to pick up Into the Breach, you could drop Resonating Payload Modification if going torpless, or the selfish Self-Modulating Fire otherwise. I don't like how unreliable it is. 

• Invasive Control Programming or Psychological Warfare could replace other selfish traits like Context Is For Kings or A Good Day to Die.

• Unconventional Systems is an option if you want to drop Hazard Emitters to pick up Tractor Beam. 

Budget Tweaks:

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

• Drop Self-Modulating Fire  (Elite Captain unlock)

• Context Is For Kings -> Operative

• Ablative Shell -> Techie

• Fragment of AI Tech -> Beam Training

• Boimler Effect ->  Point-Blank Shot

• A Good Day to Die -> Innocuous

• Feel the Weight of Our Presence -> Crippling Fire

• Intelligence Agent Attache -> Beam Barrage

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• Most of the traits here are generically good energy weapon (DEW) traits. If you wanted to go all-in on support, you'd need to replace EWC and Strike From Shadows with other traits that tend to be marginal.

• You could drop Strike From Shadows for Unified Engineering which is another modest team-wide boost. I'd use that over Cold-hearted if I didn't have Cold-hearted and take Auxiliary to Structural over Auxiliary to Battery.

• If you're going torpless, drop Entwined Tactical Matrices. Fire at Will uptime will suffer accordingly. One Impossible Thing at a Time or Jubilant Cadence is more supportive. 

Budget Tweaks:

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

• Drop Superior Area Denial (T6X upgrade)

• Strike From Shadows  -> Programmable Matter Enhancements

• Cold-hearted -> Carrier Wave Shield Hacking (will need to replace Hazard Emitters with Tractor Beam)

• Greater than the Sum -> Electrified Anomalies if available. One Impossible Thing at a Time if not.

I don't think you can make this work without  Entwined Tactical Matrices

Notes:

• Electrified Anomalies at ~100 DrainX gives about 10-11 power at 50% uptime to allies within 5 km of Gravity Well. Greater than the Sum gives up to +20 power for 10 seconds depending on how many allies are within 5 km on using a Command ability. If we use Concentrate Firepower every 20 seconds, that means we're giving more power (14) as long as our hangar pets are alive and within 5 km, and with higher maxes depending on other allies. This means more power at greater uptime. The math looks different if you don't use a hangar pet. 

• 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. 

Miscellaneous

This ship uses Auxiliary to Battery with 2 Technicians and Boimler Effect as its primary cooldown mechanism. As evidenced from the chart above, without Boimler Effect triggering, this build will not have most of its powers on global cooldown. Thankfully, with a high number of short rotation powers (7 over a 10-15 second rotation), there's an 92% chance or higher of at least 1 activation of the trait during a rotation when using all of the bridge officer powers initially. 

LINK TO CDR SHEET