Bring the Rainbow
This is a premium build, with the highest available budgets and resources utilized in its creation. See the build costs page for more detail.
Overview
I have never been one to chase the meta. This build is about as close to "Meta" as I can come, and with the meta always moving, it's certainly a little behind the times. As such, it's my highest-parsing build, and is a lot of fun to fly. For such a large ship (I like large ships, what can I say), it's quite maneuverable. However, I put absolutely nothing into survivability so it is basically a glass cannon. There's a few elements I suspect will get pushed out as I get budget for it, but this is a pretty pricey build already. I did make a few tweaks to take advantage of the Plasma Digitizer Torpedoes, for fun
Build Focus and Breakdown
The big focus here is torpedoes, and some secondary effects from those torpedoes. This is such a focused build, there's not a lot of focus on anything else. There's a good number of pets and clickies, as well as suitable exotics and map movement.
This is about as meta as I get. This ship is expensive, between event rewards, a Promo hull, and Legendary traits. I even had a DPRM on here at one point.
Meta Analysis
ISA:
ISE: 878.4k DPS
HSE: 608k DPS
Skill Tree
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 uses hangar pets, and 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).
As far as unlocks go, there's usually either a pretty minor choice or only one relevant option. I don't push skill points anywhere just to hit unlocks (except for the Tactical Ultimate).
Starship Equipment
Most of this is covered under each individual item, but this is a newer build for me that has been in a lot of flux, so not everything is even upgraded all the way. There are 3-5 pieces of equipment and a couple traits that I would drop easily should the event arise or a new ability becomes available.
The Colony Deflector is great for Damage due to the criticals. Another option is the Gamma for -DRR, but that can also be relegated to a supporting teammate.
The Tzen-tar is a pretty slow ship on its own, so I chose to use my least favorite engines: Competitive Engines. It was suggested that I use the Engineering ones to trigger off of a hull heal, but I am a literal glass cannon with no heals and have 4 firing modes. As such, I went with the tactical variant and just have to try to stagger my firing modes a bit so that the buff is always up. Bursts of speed are hard to adjust to, but if you are always going at the same speed, then it is much easier.
The Revolutionary Core and Shield both provide a little extra damage output in the form of weapon Criticals as well as some crit for my exotic powers (though they are few). There are cheaper options if you don't have this set from the event that ran it, and you'll typically see the Tilly Shield and Core here for Regen as well as shield damage.
The hangars are one of the best non-torp hangar pets around, and you can get them with the Fleet Engle without a C-Store purchase. However, there have been changes so that torp-laden pets can now be slotted. The changes are honestly not enough for me to drop these already Elite pets, and I still got 200k out of my record run with them.
Starship Weapons
My initial focus with this ship (to differentiate from the Excelsior) was to make it a Plasma-Torpedo build. Sadly, it seems that Hydra and Swarmer Matrix will never buff Hyper Plasma or Omega Plasma torpedoes, so I merely stuck with Digitizer torpedoes. If Plasma Torpedoes do get fixed someday, I plan on running 2x Digitizer, Hyper-plasma, Particle Emission plasma, and Omega Plasma torpedoes. This will be expensive as I will have to Gild and replace 5 Tactical Consoles with +PlasmaTorp instead of +Torp. For now, I picked the best 3 torpedoes +2 Digitizer Torpedoes. The fast firing Delphic, EBM, and Dark Matter trigger cooldowns on the heavy hitting Digitizers. Is it meta? Not really, but it is fun.
The Delphic Torpedo is strong and applies -DRR. The Enhanced Biomolecular is powerful under High Yield, though will not be often firing as the 4th Torpedo. The 5th Dark Matter fires even less, but also gives me a 2pc set and can be torp-enhanced when it does fire. A consideration would be to put the Wide-Angle Heavy Dual Beam Bank here, but for now having 3 fast-firing torps helps make sure my Digitizers stay up as much as possible.
In the rear, you could slot Morpho, but the torp would never fire and the Omni isn't worth much on its own. I found I was stronger with the -DRR from Inhibiting Turret, and the extra damage from the mines. I chose Tetryon mines as they are free and have some extra Shield Pen built in. Thoron-Infused would be fine as well, though with only one set of mines and no specific buffs, the Tetryon ones will fire more often.
Starship Consoles
Starting with Tactical Consoles, Lorca's Custom Fire Controls has a lot of Shield Pen as well as CrtH and CrtD (with the 2pc), so it is worth taking up a slot. If I was running all plasma, I could run the Fekihri Torment Engine, but I am not so it ends up with a total of 6 +Torp Exploiters for big numbers when torps hit.
The other 6 slots are all Universal Consoles. Ordnance Accelerator and Ferrofluid both buff my torps, with Ferrofluid cutting down the shared cooldown and OA just some extra Cat1 and mine recharge. Ferrofluid can and should be replaced by the Eagle's console, but I don't have it (yet). HYDRA and Swarmer both add buffs to my Pets and Digitizers, and play a large role in damage output. The HYDRA also does a lot of damage with my pets when I click it since I easily hit the max of 8 with two hangar bays. Hull Image Refractors is a little extra temp HP, but also 20% to all of my damage output (including those pesky Subspatial Rifts). The Bozeman Console shows up just about everywhere due to its ability to shut of shields on demand, as well as passive Crits.
Bridge Officers
This ship is so strong because of the Miracle Worker and Command seating. I also really focused on Tactical powers for damage output, and use very minimal other seating. At some point, however, I run out of Tactical toys to slot, so more Tactical seating wouldn't help.
Commander Tactical/Miracle Worker
Mixed-Armaments Synergy III is a powerful ability since I can't run all 7 slots with torpedoes. The persistent firing of the Omni plus constant firing of my torpedoes means I get the maximum benefit every time it is up.
Torpedo: High Yield 3 is here due to the massive 1-hits it generates, and doesn't lock out my CSV/FAW that I trigger TS1 with ETM with. I'd lose performance from ETM by slotting TS3 here.
Dispersal Pattern Beta 1 is interchangeable with Alpha 1, though I prefer one big dump of mines with Beta than a slow trickle with Alpha. This only increases number of mines for one burst, but that does help damage output.
Kemocite-Laced Weaponry is huge on a torpedo boat due to the higher proc chance and AoE -DRR and damage. Since we can fill an Ensign seat with it, this is always an expensive BOff purchase.
Lt. Commander Tactical/Command (Universal)
Concentrate Firepower III is the quintessential Torpedo power, refreshing torpedo cooldowns, granting extra THY1 every couple seconds, and overall increasing output of damage significantly. You can never have too many of these on the team, especially since pets no longer steal the torp refreshes.
Attack Pattern Beta I is mostly just -DRR to everything we hit, but also helps everyone do more damage.
Distributed Targeting I is filler, not worth a ton of damage but not a lot of options at Ensign. Overload Emitters is fine in a pinch, Reroute Power from Life Support is not.
Lt. Commander Science
The highest slot is really a utility slot, and I chose Gravity Well for the pull. If I wanted some extra healing, I would promote Photonic Officer to here and put in Hazard Emitters at Lt.
Photonic Officer is my Lt. power of choice to even out cooldowns between Boimler procs. Going without this just means you'll have cycles where everything is painfully on cooldown when Boimler inevitably misbehaves.
Tractor Beam is here entirely for Rapid-Emitting Armaments. If you don't have it, put a heal here please.
Lieutenant Tactical
Both FAW1 and CSV1 are triggers for ETM to generate more Torpedo Spreads for my torps. This shows the wanton, extreme number of Tactical seats. I don't like mule powers, but we are locked to Tactical here, and it is worth more than a Sci or Eng set of seats if we jockeyed with the Universal slot.
Ensign Engineering
My lone engineering power: Emergency Power to Engines. This is my maneuverability stick to keep Evasive Maneuvers up.