Best Build for New Players

A2B or Aux to Bat

I get asked often by Fleetmates and people from PUGs (Pick Up Groups) that want to know the trick, the secret, to DPS. It's as if they believe I'm just exploiting to get the numbers I posted in chat. The truth is, there is no secret to good DPS. It's about the build and quality of gear. Very often, it's things people refuse to want to believe or things that just never occurred to them because they have a limited view of the game. (Like not knowing the benefits of playing as a Romulan.) To get beyond just good, you have to get near-perfect gear, a good build, and work in a skilled team to maximize damage potential - there are a few tricks to that, but I digress. What is "good" DPS? Ask 10 different people and you might get 8 or more different answers. I define good DPS as being over 30k DPS in Infected: The Conduit (Advanced). My reasoning is simple: you did more than just get MK XIV equipment and you can accomplish any content in the game with a team full of 30k+ players - rather easily, in fact. So how in the world do you get 30k DPS?

There are tons of ways, but for a beginner, there is ONE build that is simple, easy, relatively cost-effective, and is the easiest to keybind: Aux 2 Bat (A2B). A2B is a simple build based around the idea that reducing Cooldowns (CDs) and repeatedly dumping power into the weapons power level will get you good, reliable damage.

What you need:
1. Three Technician Duty Officers that reduce cooldowns on Bridge officer abilities, in Active Space duty. (Preferably purple, but blue is ok to start.)
2. A ship with:

• 2 Lieutenant (or higher rank) Engineering Bridge Officer stations.
• 1 Lt Commander (or higher rank) Tactical Bridger Officer station.
• At least 7 Weapons
• Preferably a Cruiser with Cruiser Commands
• Perferably T6
• Perferably Intel

3.  Seven, MK XIV  high-CrtD Beam Arrays (of the same energy type) and the Kinetic Cutting Beam. (Alternatively, 4 or 5 Dual Beam Banks, with 3 omnis.)
4. The 4-pc Iconian Set, with Ultra-Rare Warp core so that is gets the [AMP] mod. This provide excellent bonuses to energy weapon damage (3pc) and a team-wide buff that increases damage by 33% (4pc), with additional defensive benefits. (Alternatively, you swap out for a Fleet Warp/Singularity Core from the Fleet Spire with the [AMP] mod, in order to gain additional Weapons power gain from EPS. OR, you may swap out the engines for the Romulan Advanced Impulse Engines to take advantage of the bonus to Attack Patterns skill. It is important to maintain the 3-pc set bonus from the Iconian set.)
5. Plasmonic Leech console.
6. A Fleet "Locator" tactical console for each Tactical console slot on your ship.

Basic Bridge Officer layout:

1. Tactical Team 1/Attack Pattern Beta 1/Fire at Will 3
2. Engineering Team 1/Auxiliary to Emergency Battery 1/Emergency Power to Weapons 3/ Directed Energy Modulation 3
3. Emergency Power to Shields 1/Auxiliary to Emergency Battery 1
4. Science Team 1/Hazard Emitters 2

For your fifth Bridge Officer, you'll need to find other Tactical, Engineering, or Intel damage buff/debuff abilities, like Kemocite, Focused Assault, or Override Subsystem Safties. Try to fit as many damage buffs as possible. (Alternatively, you can get more healing abilities, but it limits your DPS. It should also be noted that most heals are severely impacted by having 0 Aux power - some notable exceptions are Science Team and Engineering Team.)

How It works:

The basic idea is to cycle through all your abilities as quickly as possible. Maintaining buffs continuously is impossible due to minimum cooldowns, but the goal is to use them as rapidly as possible. At then end of each cycle of your abilities, you want to hit one of your copies of A2B. You're basically playing DPS whack-a-mole.

Ships it will NOT work on:

1. Ships that cannot slot 2 copies of A2B.
2. Ships with Commander Science BOFF station. (LT Commander is often not optimal, either. The exception being that it is a Science/Intel station.)
3. Ships with only 6 weapons.

Notes:
1. You should invest in Ship Traits (in addition to Rep or Personal traits) that will benefit your build, such as All Hands on Deck, Supremacy, or Emergency Weapon Cycle.
2. You will need to ensure your weapon power level is maintained at 125. The A2B build itself helps with this, but you may need a Cruiser with the Command Array ability to reduce power consumption from weapons, weapons batteries, EPS consoles, etc.
3. It is this author's belief that any ship with a Commander Engineering BOFF Station is best suited for A2B.
4. This build is highly recommended for Tactical Captains and is efficient for Engineering Captains, as well. Science Captains, generally, should avoid this build. If you are a Science captain, the reasons for being one are contrary to the effects of this build because Aux2Bat reduces Aux power to zero.