U.S.S. Cobaltforge

Notes

Korvan's focus is damage, through and through. His builds are all Kinetic builds for maximum damage. As such, his skill tree is more "Meta".

However, I do make sure to pick up a point in Hull/Shield Capacity/Restoration. I do have to stay alive, and one point in each adds a hefty amount to each of those skills when they come up.

Advanced Projectile Weapon Training is obvious since my main damage source is, well, projectiles. I did choose Advanced Energy Weapon Training too because I needed the points for the Tac Ultimate as well as I usually have some energy weapon on my ships for various reasons.

I don't use enough energy weapons for EPS to make a difference, so I skip that entirely. I do, however, move around quite a bit, so I feel that Impulse Expertise is needed. I could drop something for Advanced, but using the Competitive engines is plenty of speed usually.

As usual, I pick up Control Expertise and Drain Expertise for their resistances more than anything. Control amp just improves and exotic damage sources I have or that my teammates have. The Improved CtrlX is mostly for my token Gravity Well.

Accuracy is chosen to make sure I hit every time, and extra accuracy over what's needed just turns into more critical damage. Defensive maneuvering is the only "Improved" in the tactical tree simply because of point spend, and it doesn't contribute to damage output.

I picked up Hull Plating, but honestly could see using that point elsewhere in the future due to its low overall contribution to damage. Damage Control is even worse and not worth slotting ever.

Shield Regeneration is special in some way, but you should read Jayiie's work for details on that. I always pick up a point here because its so special.

Criticals are always a crowd pleaser. Since most of my damage output here is based on weapons, I took all 3 points in both skills. I would say if a point is to be skipped, 0.4% CrtH is not much return for a skill point. If I didn't need the spend for the Tactical ultimate, I'd evaluate if the point in Hull Capacity would be worth more (via Tyler's Duality) than the point here. I may drop Hull Plating at some point for that reason.

As far as Power goes, I'll cover all 9 unlocks at once. Subsystem tuning (and power in general) is a tricky subject. Each ship comes with power bonuses, and I am using Emergency Power to Engines as well. I ended up choosing Warp Core Potential to add a flat 3 to each subsystem for a total of 12 (largest single +power per skill point). I don't end up needing a lot of extra power because I don't do most of my damage using abilities that rely on power.

I pick up Advanced Exotic Particle Generator (EPG) because it is damage. Anything that scales with EPG will do more damage, and damage is the goal.

Shield/Hull Pen are both max because it means more damage from my torpedoes gets through.

I use Boimler's now as a "primary" cooldown mechanic, and so don't need any readiness. However, the Tactical Readiness does help fill in the gaps in Boimler's (and fill out the Tac tree).

Shield Mastery is always terrible. Ignoring a random hit once every 20 seconds is terrible, and none of the other points help either.

Coordination is really solid for me solo, but also as part of a team. My build has summon clickies (Delta Reinforcements, etc.). As part of a team, I can't expect anyone to send the buff my way if I don't send it theirs (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, Matthew 7:12).

Notes:

Most of this comes from my Tzentar build, but you'll notice that the Morphogenic set is missing. I have less Tactical slots for the console, fewer tactical powers for the 3 piece, and it really just didn't fit well. Just about everything in this portion of the build is budget-friendly with the bulk of the items being Fleet or Reputation. 

There's more specific details down below, but if you have reputations completed, you can easily pick up the most important parts of this gear. 

Meta Notes

Bridge Officer Power Selection is something that has the largest swing in any build. If you don't pick your BOff powers correctly (and drag them to tray), you won't do anything. Each one of these has been hand-picked to interact with every aspect of the build for maximum performance. You'll see no duplicates here, cooldowns are managed so that maximum uptime is achieved with one copy of each power. There's not room for more than one! 

Miscellaneous