RRW Exspectationem Excedo

Build Overview and Focus

This ship is an academic exercise, it's not going to be META anytime soon. However, I had a lot of fun putting this build together. 

When I got the Legendary Vanguard Pilot ship for the Specialization Extension trait (Vanguard Specialists), I knew I wanted to make some builds that utilized more than one Specialization powers. Exceed Rated Limits, Reroute Reserves to Weapons, and Surgical Strikes are all mutually exclusive, and Suppression Barrage doesn't even need Vanguard Specialists for 100% uptime. That means Recursive Shearing is the only power that can stack with another. I picked Exceed Rated Limits as there's another interaction we haven't explored yet on this site - Singularity Overcharge. That leaves us with only one ship: the Legendary D'Deridex. 

Since I plan on making this on my Reman and using a Romulan ship, Plasma weapons make the most sense to me. I have a lot of expensive toys from my Rallus' plasma build that I carried over here. By the time we get the ship and the extension trait, we're in Premium territory anyways. I also make some special consideration for the Singularity consoles that help boost my Singularity Overcharge uptime. The Singularity Core is also hand-picked from Fleet Stores to help further this goal. It's no record holder, but it is a lot of fun to fly and utilizes some mechanics you don't see very often. 

Singularity Mechanics

There's a full writeup of how Singularity Cores work here: https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/comments/1ullrr0/on_singularity_cores/

However, it's important we hit some of the key points for this build. 

Singularity Cores have Singularity Abilities that can be used at different levels, which are driven by singularity power. Using a Singularity ability at higher level results in a more effective ability, but it takes longer to ramp up.

Singularity Level scales from 0 thru 5, with 5 being the max. 

Singularity Power - 0 thru 100, with every 20 increasing Singularity Level by 1. Bleeds off at a rate of about 1 per second out of combat (~95s from 100 to 0). When in combat, gain 20 per 12 seconds. This equates to 60s to from 0 to 100.

Once a Singularity Ability is used, the Singularity Lockout is triggered. After using a Singularity Power, the Singularity system goes on a 60s cooldown during which you cannot gain any Singularity Power or activate any Singularity abilities. Using Singularity abilities at lower ranks will make for a shorter Singularity Lockout. 

There's 3 pieces that we're going to use here to get the most out of our singularity core. The first, the Singularity Core, is optimized for Singularity Overcharge. Fleet Hyper-Charged Singularity Core [CON][OLoad][SingC][SSR][WCap] is our core of choice. Let's break each piece down. 

A Fleet Core, if possible, is best because that lets us pick our modifiers instead of hoping for the best as we craft/upgrade. I can also tell you there are no Reputation Singularity Cores that do what we want, and singularity cores can't be re-engineered. 

Of the Fleet Cores, Hyper-Charged makes the most sense as we can make use of the extra 5-15 Engine and Aux power a lot more than we can use Shield power. Capabilities like Power Transfer Rate and reduced Weapon Power Cost are also not very helpful since both Singularity Overcharge and Exceed Rated Limits ignore weapon power cost. 

The [CON] mod allows us to have a chance to gain an entire Singularity Level when hit, and this has no lockout. This can really speed up how quickly you can use Singularity Overcharge. 

The [OLoad] mod is what we are doing this for. This adds 20% CrtD to the entire build when we use Singularity Overcharge. That's a lot of CrtD!

The [SingC] mod is the most useful of the 3 Singularity mods as it cuts down the lockout time where you aren't gaining any Singularity charge. SingA would cut down on how long it takes to charge up power after the lockout, but we have several ways to generate power very quickly, and only a couple to reduce the lockout. 

We also pick up Singularity Inverter and Singularity Stabilizer, both consoles that will boost our Singularity uptime. Singularity Stabilizer resets the lockout on signularity generation, and Singularity Inverter turns incoming damage into singularity power VERY quickly. While not required, Unconventional Systems will help bring these consoles back up faster, but they have a very short cooldown on their own as it is. 

Finally, of note, you want to hit Singularity Overcharge AFTER you hit Exceed Rated Limits to gain the most benefit. Hitting Singularity Overcharge first will lock out ERL, but not the other way around. Then you get your extreme haste and strong damage bonus simultaneously. You won't gain any Singularity Power back after hitting Singularity Stabilizer during Singularity Overcharge, but as you fly this build, you'll find that the exact timing isn't critical since the limiting factor usually ends up being the Singularity Overcharge's cooldown itself, not the Singularity generation. 

We also take advantage of the synergy of using Exceed Rated Limits 3 AND Recursive Shearing 1 on the same build, both extended by 5 seconds for even more single target damage.