A.R.W. Javelin

Notes

• All weapon-centric builds benefit from the tactical ultimate, as weapon haste and bonus weapon damage from the Focused Frenzy active are appreciable when used on big targets. Applying the bonus to your team is also appreciated. I do not find the cooldown boost from Frenzied Reactions to be needed on a build with a good cooldown scheme.

• Engineering skills

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

  • 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.

  • Improved EPS Power Transfer is essential for recovering power while firing energy weapons. 

• 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. 

  • A single point in Shield Regeneration has surprisingly large impact on shield regeneration based on recent research by Jay

  • Since this character is using Gravity Well and other control-based abilities, having both points in ControlX boosts those as well as the Fragment of AI Tech trait adds value. I take a single point in DrainX to help resist drains and two points in EPG for boosting the Exotics like Gravity Well on this build. 

  • All energy builds should take maximum points in Long Range Targeting Sensors. 

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

• Tactical skills

  • Energy Weapon Training, Hull Penetration, Shield Penetration, Weapon Specialization, and Weapon Amplification are all worthwhile skills to take 3 points in as they boost energy weapon damage directly. Since I do have a torpedo and it does decent damage, 2 points in Projectile Weapon Training is a good choice. 

  • 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 (or their pets) all the Concentrate Firepower procs possible to maximize DPS from torpedoes, so nobody else will run torpedoes (or torpedo-armed 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 1M DPS on this ship 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 Javelin is geared more towards helping energy builds which while not super-high-end-DPS meta are still popular. Those benefit less from grabbing every single Concentrate Firepower proc. To that end, slotting a torpedo has other benefits for such builds, namely...

3. The Adv-Piezo Photon Torpedo debuffs shield hardness by an appreciable amount (20%) so 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. 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 and Entwined Tactical Matrices (use Withering Barrage instead),  or deal with the loss of uptime on Scatter Volley. 

Polaron: I chose this flavor to use both the Advanced Gamma Inhibiting Turret / Omni since they stack. I also didn't have a Polaron energy build so the choice is somewhat flavorful. Vaadwaur Polaron is a nice shield-hardness debuff but Pulse Phasers would a similar role as Altamid beams and also benefit more from the Deconstructive Resonance Emitter I'm using. If Phaser, swap out the Piezo-Electric Focuser and other Polaron weapons for the Ordnance Accelerator and Pulse Phasers and adjust tactical consoles to the appropriate flavor.

Notes:

Drive Train: The Iconian 3-piece is basically a generic Very Rare Tactical Console for allied energy weapon players. The 4-piece could have been replaced with the Tilly Shield; mathematically it's a toss-up depending on how much your enemies are are shielded. 

Hangar Pets: I used Elite Malem Frigates since I could slot them and they have a large number of support abilities including Suppression Barrage, Scattering Field, Sensor Scan, and Viral Matrix. If you didn't have those, Elite Alliance Fighter Squadrons cast buffs (Focused Assault III). Their DPS isn't bad either. 

Notes: 

Alternate energy types:  See the weapons section. 

If supporting exotic/projectile builds: See the Valdres build. You'll want to swap the drive train for Gamma 3-piece and Tilly Shield. 

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• See the weapons section for commentary on dropping torpedoes

• There are other universal consoles like Opening Salvo (T6 Titan) or Temporal Anomaly Projector (T4 Gemini) that do things like dropping enemy shields or even more debuffs. Could drop the Hull Image Refractors and Protomatter for those. 

• If you really want to spend dilithium, you can bring 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 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

• Swap out the Cascading Subatomic Disruptions for a RCS Accelerator [CtrlX] to give turn and Control Exerptise. 

• Drop the High Energy Communications Network, Enhanced Dominion Coordination Protocol, Hyper-Focusing Trinary Arrays, and Radiation Bombardment Matrix in favor of a cheaper alternatives like Hostile Acquisition, Delphic Tear, temporal Anomaly Projector, and Polymorphic Probe Array which should be fairly cheap on the exchange. 

• Use regular polaron cannons instead of Vaadwaur

• Most of the rest of this can be obtained even on a budget. 

Meta Notes

• Could replace Hazard Emitters with Structural Analysis. 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 and take Withering Barrage over ETM. Kemocite would fit in there instead.

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

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• If you really want to pick up Into the Breach, you could drop Fleet Coordinator. I don't like how unreliable it is. 

• Psychological Warfare could replace Give Your All

Budget Tweaks:

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

• Drop Resonating Payload Modification  (Elite Captain unlock)

• Unconventional Systems -> 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 -> Cannon Training

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

• Some of the traits here are generically good energy weapon (DEW) traits. 

• You could drop Strike From Shadows for Tricks of the Trade. Alternately, Unified Engineering is another modest team-wide boost. 

• I dropped Cold-hearted because typically our tanks are running it and it doesn't stack across the time. If you like it, then replace Electrified Anomalies accordingly.

• If you're going torpless, drop Entwined Tactical Matrices. Scatter Volley uptime will suffer accordingly. Jubilant Cadence is more supportive. 

Budget Tweaks:

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

• Drop Strike From Shadows (T6X upgrade)

• Drop Superior Area Denial (T6X2 upgrade)

• Digital Compilation Field -> Jubilant Cadence if you have access to the Lafayette

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

Notes:

• Electrified Anomalies at ~100 DrainX gives about 7.5 power at 50% uptime to allies within 5 km of Gravity Well or Ionic Turbulence. 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. I'm using the latter because I believe it does more. 

• 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 Photonic Officer 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.

LINK TO CDR SHEET