Support Basics

It is possible to combine many support concepts (particularly traits and consoles) on a tank build. This is common or even expected on very high-end DPS runs. Due to the proliferation of on-hit debuffs, Supports should be built starting as an AOE energy build (Fire at Will or Cannon: Scatter Volley) just like tanks. Warning: it will be difficult to fully produce a high-value support on an extremely tight budget.

How Supports Contribute

Support contributions fall broadly into 3 categories:

• Buffing or increasing ally stats (example: Iconian Resistance Starship Technologies 3-piece and 4-piece set bonuses)

• Adding extra damage sources (example: Concentrate Firepower)

• Most commonly, reducing enemy damage resistance (example: Attack Pattern Beta). This is frequently abbreviated as -DRR. A non-exhaustive list of debuff effects and how/if they stack is listed here (Mathbusters #7). 

• Disabling enemies, particularly disabling shields

Career and Species

Doesn't matter. Okay, there are small differences as you min-max more, but unless your goal is to chase the very top of the DPS leaderboards, any captain career, faction, or species can fly any type of ship and any type of build and do very, very well in any map in the game. If you're looking to min-max for 1M DPS supported runs, this site will not probably help you much.

• Engineers flying supports can cast EPS Power Transfer on a single ally, giving a hefty increase in current and maximum power

• Tactical captains benefit their team through Fire On My Mark, Vulnerability Assessment Sweep, and Tactical Fleet

• Science captains benefit their team through Scattering Field, Sensor Scan, and Subnucleonic Beam (which can be critical to remove crucial enemy abilities like Feedback Pulse which would otherwise kill energy build allies rather quickly).

Ship Basics 

There's a large combination of things that interact to evaluate a ship's suitability for support builds. We subdivide supports into 2 subclasses: Anchors are bringing Gravity Well III and focused more on high Control Expertise to help group and clump enemies. The other subclass, the Spotter, brings a Commander Tactical seat and is focused on maximum debuff  / damage amplification with a weaker spec into Control/ Gravity Well.

Here's our list:

• Supports tend to be a mix between energy and exotic builds. More weapons is better but not as important as on tanks or energy builds. 

• Consider Commander Command for Inspiration abilities to buff your team and a few useful traits require Command abilities as well. Lt. Commander Command is highly valuable for supporting any build with a torpedo via Concentrate Firepower III, whether that's a 1-torp energy build, a full projectile build, or an exotic build using torpedoes.

• Consider Commander (Anchor) or at least LtCommander (Spotter) Science for Gravity Well.

  • Ships with both Commander Command and Commander Science are expensive with a handful of exceptions:

    • Terran Trailblazer fits the bill quite nicely

    • Seneca/Fleet Hiawatha Command Carrier has Commander Science, and Commander Command, as well as 2 hangars, plus it's available for free with fleet ship modules. This is our recommendation for a starter support build. 

• Ships with 12+ consoles (T6 Fleet-grade) > Ships with 11 consoles (T6) > ships with less (T5 and below)

• Specializations: Command (Cmdr) > Command (LtCmdr-) >  Intel (Cmdr) > Miracle worker (Cmdr) - depending on what consoles you have available > Temporal (Lt+) > Everything else = ships with no specialization seating. We'll discuss specific powers below.

• Other gimmicks: Hangars are an option for many ships. Some hangar pets cast buffs like Suppression Barrage, Attack Pattern Beta, or Focused Assault. The tier list is helpful for this. 

• A fair number of tactical seats are particularly helpful since there are many tactical abilities that benefit the team.

• These aren't the only variables tied to a ship's evaluation as we also need to consider our bread-and-butter bridge officer skills

Bridge Officer Seating

• See the Energy Basics page as you will still need an AOE firing mode like Fire at Will or Scatter Volley, a means to go fast, and a cooldown reduction scheme.

• Tactical:

  • Attack Pattern Beta is a strong on-hit resistance debuff

  • Kemocite-Laced Weaponry is a less reliable but still AOE on-hit resistance debuff. It is guaranteed on torpedo hit

    • Be aware that this is expensive (lockbox power purchase)

  • Focused Assault is a single target buff for allies who attack the target

  • Distributed Targeting causes a small percentage of incoming damage on a marked target to chain to nearby targets

    • Be aware that this is expensive (lockbox power purchase)

  • Torpedo Spread can be used to help maintain Fire at Will uptime if Entwined Tactical Matrices is involved as well as spread on-hit debuffs from certain torpedoes like Delphic Distortion (expensive, Lobi), or Preserver Resonant (mission reward)

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

• Engineering:

  • Let It Go is a very potent ramping damage resistance debuff against a single target

  • Endothermic Inhibitor Beam is a less potent shield resistance debuff

• Science:

  • Gravity Well is useful to pull enemies together where allied AOE effects can hit more targets

  • Destabilizing Resonance Beam is a ramping damage resistance debuff

  • Photonic Shockwave reduces enemy damage resistance to kinetic damage and has a disable

  • Structural Analysis is a spreading damage resistance debuff

    • Be aware that this is expensive (lockbox power purchase) AND locks out other allies flying exotic builds from using that power on targets already afflicted

  • If using Unconventional Systems (expensive lockbox personal trait), a second control with a short cooldown like Tractor Beam is useful if not using other controls from specializations and for certain budget starship traits listed below.

• Command

  • Suppression Barrage can help the tank by reducing outgoing enemy damage. It does NOT stack with Suppression Barrage from allies

  • Concentrate Firepower III is a powerful ability that gives additional damage to torpedoes, recharges them periodically, and gives additional torpedo high yields. It should ONLY EVER AND ALWAYS be used at rank III.

• Intelligence

  • Kinetic Magnet is a resistance shred on a single target and helps draw in mines and torpedoes like Relocate Mines

  • Ionic Turbulence is an AOE hazard that provides a hefty resistance shred scaling with aux power

  • EMP Pulse Probe is a temporary disable with a minor damaging component

• Miracle Worker

  • Deploy Gravitic Induction Platform increases enemy shield bleedthrough, effectively granting shield penetration

• Pilot

  • Form Up is a channel that can be used to buff a single ally, but you have to target them and stay close. 

• Temporal

  • Rapid Decay is a very potent damage resistance debuff against a single target but benefits from another Temporal power to stack Entropy first. 

Skills

• The same skills used for the energy weapon build apply for supports, but place higher priority on Control Expertise and Drain Expertise depending on what abilities and actives you're using. Coordination Protocols is essential (but you should be taking these anyway). Control Amplification is also helpful for supporting exotic builds though it does not stack.

Specializations

• For general use, either Intelligence primary (Intelligence Fleet) or Command primary (Achilles Heel) and Temporal Operative secondary for Atrophied Defenses is the best option

Power Levels

The same power levels used for generic exotic builds could apply to supports. Many support effects scale with Auxiliary power (such as Sensor Scan from science captains or Ionic Turbulence). You need sufficient weapon power to keep firing. Maximum weapon power may lead to too much selfish DPS, but that'll depend on your team's needs. Shield power can be helpful to increase the output of the Tilly Shield if in use. 

Gear

In general, the same gear for generic energy weapon builds is used for tanks (look for entries under "tanking"). Of particular note:

• Engine/Core/Shield diverges from tank play. Supports playing around projectile or exotic builds will likely prefer the Gamma 3-piece combined with the Tilly Shield for the kinetic damage and damage to shield passives. If you use a torpedo, your torpedo hits further reduce enemy DRR. The 4-piece Iconian set is a better option for supporting energy builds as it provides a stacking passive 30% energy weapon damage as well as a hefty active that boosts all damage by 33% Cat1 for 30 seconds (120 second cooldown)

• Energy Weapons: You'll be using beam arrays or cannons in order to attack multiple enemies and thus draw their attention to you. Any flavor can work, but in order of priority:

  • Polaron with Lukari Adv-Piezo Polaron + regular Piezo-Polaron beams for the healing proc. Advanced Inhibiting Omni and Turret can be added to help reduce enemy resistance.

  • Plasma with Lukari Adv-Piezo Plasma + Altamid plasma for the healing proc from Lukari weapons and the resistance shredding proc from Altamid Plasma (note that Altamid weapons are expensive). Plasma also has a damage over time chance which helps proc Atrophied Defenses. Ideally the Altamid Omni would be included.

  • Disruptor can be used to help provide secondary effects to benefit the team, namely the resistance debuff from most disruptor weapons

  • Phaser can also use the Advanced Inhibiting Omni and Turret along with Pulse Phasers (note that these are expensive) to reduce enemy defenses, with regular phasers having an off-chance of disabling a subsystem

• Torpedoes: Use of torpedoes on support builds can be controversial. For supporting high-end projectile runs, any other torpedo user is potentially taking away Concentrate Firepower procs from the primary DPS. However, if that's not a consideration for you, there are plenty of useful utility torpedoes including Delphic (expensive from Lobi store, but shreds DRR with huge stacking effect), Resonant Transphasic (pairs well with Disruptor, mission reward, shreds DRR), and Adv. Piezo-Photon (pairs well with Polaron or Plasma), or the always-reliable Dark Matter Torpedo to inflict DOT damage and thus proc Atrophied Defenses. Torpedo use can also extend Fire at Will uptime with the Entwined Tactical Matrices starship trait from the C-store. 

• Mines: These are not advised if supporting heavy-mine-using builds since too many mines can cause visibility issues. Any mine can stack Resonating Payload Modification to much higher levels than expected, but the visibility issue is critical. 

• Non-support consoles: High-end supports will fill all of these slots with supportive consoles. If you're only building for supporting DPS map runs with a tank, this can be skipped. However, the Energetic Protomatter Matrix Infusers from the Fleet Colony are your go-to for sustained healing if not building solely for supported DPS map runs with a tank. At least 1 high-impact defensive console may be desirable for self-sufficiency on maps that aren't parsing maps with a tank. Examples include Reiterative Structural Capacitor, Protomatter Field Projector, or Ablative Hazard Shielding. These tend to be expensive. 

• Supportive consoles: Most if not all console slots should be filled with supportive consoles, some of which are expensive. Remember that "-DRR" means that it reduces enemy resistance. The table below provides a sortable look at consoles that reduce enemy hull/shield resistance, buff allies, or disable enemy subsystems. You can use the ALICIA tool to help you select consoles based on your budget and build type.