U.S.S. Bedivere

Legendary Verity Command Dreadnought Cruiser


Updated: 2023 - 02

Build Overview and Focus

The U.S.S. Bedivere is the canonical Flagship of my fleet. Being a mainstay in some form in my fleet since the Flagships were launched in 2017, the Bedivere underwent refit to the Verity Class during the 10th Anniversary and has stayed as such since then. 

Build Purpose and Scope

The Bedivere sits inside the Heavy Tank class of builds. Heavy tanks are an adaptation of a more classical form of tanking; using damage and threatscale to draw aggro off teammates rather than AI tricks and team wide damage mitigation and migration of damage to the tank without need for aggro or threat. While it has become clear that having mitigation/migration tanks are useful in very very very high end record setting, Heavy tanks are more comfortable in the hands of regular everyday use. Virtually every player will benefit from having a DPS build that also soaks all of the map damage.

In this sense, the Verity excels at the role of Heavy Tank, getting access to the cream of the crop in tanking tools but also offering huge damage potential along the way.

Command Seating:

Command seating was revamped in 2021, and with it came a change to Suppression barrage. Since then, Suppression Barrage primarily grants an outgoing damage debuff to targets, as well as minor speed and turn debuffs as well as a target accuracy debuff. This is the new primary method of damage mitigation for modern tanks. The Verity being a command specialization ship, has access to Suppression Barrage 3, which offers a -50% outgoing weapon damage to targets afflicted with the debuff. This works to be a 33% damage reduction [1 - (1 / (1+0.5))].

The tradeoff here is that since Suppression Barrage 3 takes the commander engineering slot, this displaces Reverse Shield Polarity 3.

Platform Choice:

Command Specialization Mechanic Inspiration:

Command ships are my personal favorite specialization archetype, as they offer some rather impressive team wide effects:

Flagship Set Consoles:

The Verity is a revision to the Federation Flagships, and therefore gains access to the Flagship Technologies set. Of relevance is the Adaptive Emergency Systems, Flagship Technology Computer, and Timeline Stabilizer.

These three set pieces are very powerful bonuses on their own, granting durability and damage on all aspects. However, these three consoles form a set bonus, which further elevates the consoles utility.

2pc: +2% Critical Chance and +3 (base) flight turn rate

3pc: When a shield facing is depleted, 10% chance to apply Deadly Response: each stack giving +10% Cat2 all damage and +2,500 Hit Points. Consecutive procs refresh all stacks. This means that by having low shields at all times you can maintain this buff constantly

Obviously this is a rather risky method, but as you come to fly this ship and get to know it this is much easier to rely on.

Namesake

Named after Bedivere of Arthurian Legend; As is tradition for my Engineer, all ships are named from Arthurian Legend. This is the parity to my previous flagship the U.S.S. Gwenevere, which was similar a heavy tank on the Guardian Cruiser Platform. This name is currently open in my fleet and may be reused in the future.

Meta Analysis

Budget Analysis

Change History

Build Breakdown

Built as a heavy tank, the Bedivere focus is on durability and damage. With the inclusion of SAD it gets both points into support (being a tank it gets another) and hanger.

Agility is lower but with the focus on being maneuverable from competitive engines I've elected to assign a point there as well to round out the final numbers.

Skills

Skill Unlocks

Notes

Jayiie's Skill tree has been optimized to be used on as many build types as possible. As such there are some questions that naturally arise when talking about it. I will try to capture these discussions as succinctly as possible here.

Tactical ultimate

The Tactical Ultimate is still taken. Because of the skill investment for energy weapons in the skill tree, this only takes a small amount of investment. Even with the intent of going full min-max, if everyone takes the coordination protocols this is comparable to getting a Mk12 damage console which effects everything, as well as a hull plating node. These are worthwhile investements, and given how flexible Jayiies skill tree is designed to be very good at covering multiple roles such as support, tanks, and energy kinetic and exotic dps builds.

Hull Restoration vs Hull Capacity

This is very simple, while also not. Given the choice between a Improved Hull Capacity (+25.5%) and Hull restoration (+25%) against Advanced Hull capacity (+30%), I personally prefer to take the former, splitting the point difference. Since my character is an engineer, this 25% Hull restoration actually has some very useful applications through Miraculous repairs.

As well by taking some extra points into engineering, this has allowed me to take the 10th Engineering Unlock skill which adds +10 Hull Capacity, which is comparable to the +15 taken from the last point of Hull restoration. Due to how the skill works this is a +3.3% Max Hull vs 4.95% Max Hull buff respectively.

EPG vs Control Amplification, DrainX and CtrlX

This time around I've opted to put more points into CtrlX and EPG while taking Control Amplification, and instead dropping points from DrainX. If this wasn't on an engineering captain I wouldn't consider this a loss. However both Nadion Inversion and Intrusive Energy Redirection both scale with DrainX and are innate captain abilities, thus wanting for the skill.

Aux Power

Optimizing to hit 130 Aux power has been challenging. To do this I required Defensive Subsystem turning for the +4.8 Power to Aux. Combining this with the passive on most science ships as well as the Neutronic Eddies has allowed 130 to be hit passively. This has then allowed me to drop EPS Manifold Efficiency freeing up a 10th starship trait. On other builds this has the effect of allowing more aux power for more damage / better scaling on various powers.

Shield Regeneration

This is still a tank first skill tree. Shield regeneration is statically anomaly and adds a huge amount to shield regen in just the first point (more Information on shields can be found here). As such, I have taken the single point. with the most recent tree revision I've opted to spec out of DrainX and Drain Infection for that last point in EPG. Should you want to not take shield regeneration I would suggest the next DrainX point.

Build

Starship Weapons

Notes

Introduced with the Angel's Wake Lockbox, Ba'ul Weapons offer in place of antiproton weapons inherent 20% Critical Severity a reflection mechanic that deals 5% of the dealt damage. When combined with the Linked Sentry Set 2 piece, these weapons gain an additional reflection as well as increasing the reflection damage from 5% to 10%.

Additionally, Ba'ul reflections are unlike other reflection procs, such as the Refracting Tetryon weapon effect. Ba'ul carries with it other on hit procs and status afflictions. This includes:

Starship Equipment

Starship Consoles

Set Bonuses

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

Heavy tanks fill a role in the game, albeit not one which is focused on assisting other players setting personal DPS records. Heavy tanks are by purpose designed to be very durable DPS builds. Able to act independent of the team, much of the games elite content often requires this solo action. 

To better fill the role of a more support oriented tank, there are many consoles that could be used in place of the damage increasing ones.

Fleet Locators, Bioneural Infusion Circuits, Aligned Antiproton Shielding, and to an extent the Fek'ihri Torment Engine are all viable candidates for removal and replacement. See this list here for options.

Notes on the Fek'ihri Torment Engine

The Fek'ihri torment engine inclusion is not mine, nor do I claim to have discovered it. In my original post however it was merely a footnote and has incurred great questions.

The Torment engine is placed here specifically to take advantage of the Ba'ul reflections proving Entropic Rider. This console provides a 50% damage buff to this DOT, as well as providing additional sources for Atrophied Defenses from Temporal specialization. This damage buff is significant and important, and with both the increased proc chances as well as increased damage Entropic Rider can in come cases out damaging a ship born weapon. Recent HSE Parses have Entropic Rider doing 50k DPS, with FAW1 consuming only 36k DPS comparative. This is a huge source of damage, and aids to help generate aggro as DOT damage tends to generate more aggro than simply doing more weapon damage.

Budget Tweaks:

This ship is incredibly expensive. As such there is a multitude of budget oriented options to take.

Damage Consoles

Durability Consoles

Bridge Officers

Notes

I recently swapped away from tactical team for the use of unconventional systems along with tractor beam. My personal requirement for using the trait is 3 triggers to make it beneficial, however I've been experimenting. Im not super comfortable on the idea of not having tactical team for hive but it has shown as a nice QOL improvement for other maps such as Korfez Elite. This has also helped get the various universal consoles, of which there are many, reduced just a bit faster.

Cannon Rapid Fire: two points to make here for this power:


I've made a timing / Gantt-esk chart to demonstrate how CSV/CRF FAW and TS align. Obviously perfect play isn't always an option due to lag and misfires and such, but due to the timing the powers will overlap at some point with this method.

Often Superior Area Denial gets brought up into these discussions. However the buff to self lasts 20s with a 5s lingering debuff, which can give a total debuff time on target of 25s, which is more than enough to overlap betwen FAW activations, so having a CSV to trigger the trait doesn't seem needed. Eventually you will either need to drift CSV to have it line up with FAW and have a dead power for 5s, or you use it and have the torp unable to get rid of the TS granted by CSV and throw off FAW cycling. In the end I decided to use CRF since this was an easier power to use ans spam (and also allows colony console activations and heals to become spread out rather than lumped together improving the potential healing capabilities).

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

The easiest change to bring this ship into a more supporting role would be moving from Auxiliary Power to Structural Integrity to Auxiliary power to Emergency Batteries (Aux2Bat). This would allow the use of Cold Hearted Starship Trait to further reduce targets damage resistances.

For a  layout utilizing Unconventional Systems, it is possible to adapt the bridge officer layout to include this but will come at the cost of triggers for 8 of 27 or some other aspect, such as protomatter triggers. With increased console cooldowns this might not be an issue but having attempted to tank HSE at the same speed as I do it isn't possible without protomatter consoles (without relying on healing from other players).

At best two more triggers can be picked up at the cost of lowering durability and maneuverability. These would be:

Traits

Personal Traits

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

There isn't much to change here in terms of utility. Obviously if playing on a tactical or science captain Grace Under Fire isn't available. As such these would be best swapped to A Good Day to Die (not confusing at all there's a starship trait, mission, and personal trait with the same name) for tactical captains and potential something like Bio-tech Patch or Conservation of Energy for science captains.

Budget Tweaks:

For budget players who want to save some EC, there's a few standard traits that could be used:

Starship Traits

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

To better fill the role of a heavy tank, there are options to improve it in this role. The inclusion of a A Good Day to Die, a starship trait that increases both healing and damage, would grant the ship more damage as well as increase healing; as an interesting note, the increased healing form this trait also improves the effects of the protomatter consoles.

To fill the role of a more support orientated tank, obvious changes would be diluting the builds damage potential for group effects. As previously mentioned Cold Hearted is the easiest inclusion, but is limited to a previous event ship. Unified Engineering is a decent replacement for more team support

Budget Tweaks:

Defensive Traits:

Offensive Traits:

Notes:

Most tanks nowadays use Entwined Tactical Matrices for 100% uptime on FAW. However this requires the use of a torpedo. It is possible to forgo the torpedo to open up another fore weapon slot and not take other players Concentrate fire procs but comes at the cost of 100% uptime, instead lowering to only 75% with Redirecting Arrays. This would also help free up BOff stations for more support or unconventional systems triggers. In the future I plan to implement these support changes to the platforms but that will be another post itself.

Now that I have the Phaser Lance and Universal Designs I did attempt to use it here but I wasn't satisfied with how it played. That is an option if you choose but I prefered the setup here without it.

Reputation Traits

Active Reputation

Notes on Tethered Non-Baryonic Asteroid: 

Something that I've noticed since the implementation of the Intel reworks and the recently buffed Surgical Strikes builds is how some people fly these types of builds. While not wanting to correct people, during ISx runs some individuals will leave stragglers at one transformer or the other. This can in some cases ruin runs; often making people very angry and upset at anyone and everyone.

In order to preemptively prevent this, the asteroid can be used to drag the remaining stragglers into the middle, usually to the existing gravity well.

Normally the Bedivere has enough damage to clear up stragglers and move at the same time as these types of builds but there is the average occasion I'm put onto a team where this happens. After many runs with it the asteroid has finally filled the 5th trait slot here.

Duty Officers

Meta-Focused Tweaks:

Support wise there's not many things that can be done to limit or change here. The most notable would be the Liberated Borg Specialist 23 of 47 which would increase team wide hull capacity by 10% and grant 2.5% Critical Chance. This is however very expensive (currently 100 mil ec). 18 of 47 is also useful but offers only a very minor -5 DRR to targets (since this is 50 Starship Weapon Armor penetration skill) for 18 million.

Budget Tweaks:

Miscellaneous

Ship Stats

Keybinds 

As an player who's been doing this for some time, I have very few keybinds as I use most of my powers manually. As such I have only 1 "spam" button, which consists of the offensive rotation.

Parse Breakdown

ISE Record Damage Breakdown


ISE Healing breakdown

Portability

Any ship with commander command seating will work here. Obviously the higher the hull mod the better. The problem with porting 1:1 will have less to do with the ship bridge officer layouts and more with the unique consoles locked to the Odyssey and Flagship lines.

In order of highest to lowest hull mods:

FAQ

Q: Why Ba'ul Weapons?
A: Ba'ul weapons, simply, are one of the few weapons that can hit more than one target at every single shot. With the 2pc, each weapon can hit 3 targets, and under FAW that makes a total of 6 targets hit each shot. This also allows the tanks sphere of influence to extend beyond 20km in diameter. I've seen targets upwards of 15km away get hit. Additionally, Ba'ul weapon reflections act as roles of their own, adding more procs to weapons.

Q: Why don't you use an Antiproton Torpedo?
A: I have found the Antiproton torpedo to be relatively underwhelming in comparison to the Dark matter Quantum. As such, I use the DMQ, and this also allows you to use Lorca's Custom Fire Controls. While the Ba'ul Linked Sentry Anti-Proton Torpedo only has a 6s cooldown, the clicky from the 3pc isn't as good as the 25% CrtD from the War Desecration 2pc with the Dark Matter Quantum and the Lorca's Custom Fire Controls

Q: Attack Pattern Delta Prime without using Attack Pattern Delta, how does that work?
A: The Fabrication Duty officer 8 of 47 grants a normal Attack Pattern Delta 1 by chance when using tactical (5%) or command (10%) bridge officer abilities. This is also subject to the internal lockout of 30s. As such, with 6 tactical powers and 1 command bridge officer power there is a 34% cumulative probability of each cycle having APD trigger. In practice this is about half the time. As such, this is the same rate as if you were to slot APD in the bridge officer stations itself. This means that you can also have APB up each cycle as well, in addition to APD. Since I now have SAD I have been using that in place of APDP but that doesn't mean its no longer an option.

Q: Why does it have so much damage?
A: As stated, very few people will actually benefit from having the tank do lower damage. As such, having a tank which can deal 300k DPS or more in a run means that people will 1) be less vulnerable if they themselves have less threat mitigation 2) won't have to have an absurd amount of damage to clear content. 

It is worth noting that the game is more than just ISE. We at STOBetter don't build just for ISE, and our builds reflect this.

Q: How do you make this thing live?
A: I have heard many people say they have copied this build and have been unable to make it perform similarly. The trick is to use defensive buffs as you need them. Ships have a relatively small amount of initial soak damage they can take. Each build will have their own amount here but you don't need to enter combat with all durability buffs flying. As well, be sure to space them out, don't pop all the durability buffs at the same time.

Generally, use DPRM, then Turn the Tide, then Adaptive Emergency Systems. You should constantly be using Suppression barrage, and filling gaps with bridge officer heals. Engineers can also soak extra initial damage, or pop back up to full after going to under 50% for Adaptive with Miraculous Repairs.