Best Captain Races | Star Trek Online

[@martychisnall]

Cardassians wouldn’t be too happy about Bajorans being “better” than them

[@Nemoticon]

I can see Gul Ducat launching into a monologue about the comparison of the two races throughout their respective histories, putting Bajor down at every opportunity xD

[@KH-iz1bj]

The slave people who never had an opportunity to show there amazing 👃

[@ayf1983]

Alien-Denobulan. Dr. Phlox ftw lol.

[@Moonbrony]

There's a lot more to this than just the traits, I'm amazed Romulans didn't get placed higher. The only race to be able to fly either KDF/Rom or Fed/Rom ships depending on allegiance, superior operative space trait and the ability to slot superior rom operatives in every single boff slot.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Keep in mind that there is more to STO than just space combat, and the main ranking list is the composite one of both space & ground combat with their combined strength. There are 3 tier lists in this video (Space, Ground, & Composite) -- and Romulans are A-tier in the space category. The video goes through the Composite list, as every race does get something for at least one of those realms in the game. The perks you mentioned for Romulans are also available to Remans, Liberated Borg Romulans, and ROM Aliens. Romulans have the edge for space combat in respect to cloaking, though ROM Aliens have more flexibility alongside those extra Romulan Faction perks mentioned. I was objective as I could be with the strength of the inherent traits of the races (with the numbers shown in my GoogleSheet in the description), and I feel it was a fair approach to them.

[@aarobriggs2665]

Hi there, Merry Christmas to you! As a new player i really enjoy all of your STO content, it is really helpful, thank you for all your work! Just a question about this video, you were talking about the best races for captains, but what I don't get is that all traits you're talking about are bridge officer traits, which confuses me a little ;) I wanna start with a new tactical captain and just wanted to know which race i should pick for space dps.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Essentially in this video, I talked about what is encompasses the passive racial trait for each of the races in the game (which sometimes ends up actually being the equivalent if several bridge officer traits). I used screenshots of the bridge officer trait equivalents, as that would be better visually than just having the text of the descriptions of each race. This video is just about what is built into each race passively if you choose them; there is a separate bridge officer traits video if you are curious about them. For ultimate space dps (and ignoring ground entirely): romulan faction, tactical profession, alien species is what you want.

[@aarobriggs2665]

@@CounterYoloGaming Thank you and Merry Christmas!

[@linz8291]

Whether best captain and commander ranking are from alien races or earthlings, if we let every starfleet member has their private rest room and bathroom, then to ensure our Sol starfleets raised in space trades and tourism, we'll get more advantages to neighboring extroplanets.

[@MyNameIsBucket]

Ferasans/Caitians are S-tier because the only interesting thing left to do in the game is look for glitch areas.

[@Nemoticon]

Lol, what exactly is an alien in Star Trek? Something from outside out Galaxy??? xD

[@Qardo]

"Alien" is just a catch-all for those races that either A: are not apart of Star Trek Canon. Or. B: Just some Player Made races. And really. How many Yoda-look-a-likes have you seen in STO over the years? I've seen ten.

[@0077Nemanja]

yes and all exept jem hadar start at 0 also jem hadar get 3 reps done and 2 specs done i think that by far saves you lot of time :D

[@gniccolai]

I don't agree with the placement of the Vulcan. They offer nothing in space, but on ground, with a lypra in their hand, they're a powerhouse. Physical strength is actually good in PvE, especially vs Borg, and mind meld removes an enemy and gives you a free turret, very effective. I would place them as B, but only if you care ALSO for ground combat. The fact that they have also Nerve Pinch means you can melee and take out 2 opponents (one of them becomes a turret for you) before even starting to worry about the others.

[@chadwickmccarty4944]

I'm not too confident with Cryptic fixing any inaccuracies with species' traits unless it is fairly new &/or it is a C-Store species. I think the species' traits should be over-hauled from tip to toe. I wish you would've mentioned Saurians' Efficient trait & the history behind that with playable & BOFFs same goes for the Letheans considering less sought after nowadays. I usually always have my KDF-aligned captains have Nausicaan BOFFs as cheap added dps, but my Nausicaan playable pilots a Hirogen Hunter since I like the similarity to a Predator by species & ship. I'm still impressed with how well done Cryptic did the Jem'Hadar Vanguard. Romulans & Remans are pretty good for space for sure. I've always wondered if someone chose Ferengi how much that -20% Bargaining trait would benefit because that would certainly accumulate over a players' lifespan of playing STO. That Andorian Fury trait I guess I had always over-looked so thanks to this video I learned, or re-learned, something today. If I was a Lifetimer I'd definitely want to make a Talaxian & a Liberated Borg just for the niche new perspective & experience, but I just don't see the value in that Lifetimer investment with STO's current direction despite the exclusive offerings. I earned my Reman playable & enjoy it. She pilots an Undine Nicor & is an Engineer. I did break-down, during a sale, & purchased that Joined-Trill. I feel it is a decent value since they do have many traits & are playable for both alignments. I'd really like to purchase the Cardassian species, but I don't want to purchase it alone, it is way over-priced pathetic cash grab Cryptic, & potentially break the pack it also comes in in case I ever buy the larger pack. If that Bajoran Spiritual trait included self-heals &/or one's own items that do healing then I'd like that a lot more. Otherwise, sadly relying on BOFFs or others to heal you isn't reliable enough in Cryptic's PUG-centric gaming. Alien offers so much flexibility & has access to many of the species' traits. Out of your "top 9 space" I don't have 3: Cardassian, Liberated Borg, & Talaxian. Very good indepth list with reasoning & details. Very interesting commentary on the Bolians too & their seemingly missing trait enacted. With today's STO & the multitude of devices & techniques available for captains a specific specie's trait won't make or break is definitely true. Looking forward to next week's video about STO's story line missions, which is one of STO's strengths, imo, but I still hate Cryptic's jumbling of the story line missions catalog placement a few months back it is just more convoluted now.

[@adamwilder2943]

Thanks Mr. Counteryologaming for the video, as I already mentioned this in an email to you sir

[@TranceFan05]

I cant imagine playing a pakled that ground trait only enhances the worst aspect of ground combat.

[@bradfordayers5204]

Does the lifetime membership still give the borg race or how would I get it ?

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Yep, it still gives you that species. It doesn't give you the super cool modern borg armor though -- that's lobi store exclusive. If you are on Xbox/PS, you can buy it directly in the in-game store. On PC, it isn't sold as a direct purchase in the C-Store; you have to login to the ArcGames website and directly buy it for your account there. I honestly always forget where it is, and just advise people to wait for a lifetime sale IF they are going to go for it, as $150-$200 is much better than the standard $300 pricetag. (the sales blog for lifetime sub's have the link to buy it in the article itself) There are better value propositions in the game than the lifetime membership nowadays though, so it's something I don't typically advise players to get anymore.

[@ED-yo4qi]

Infiltrator is on Remans, not on Romulans. Superior Infiltrator is a boff-only trait.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

You are correct in that Romulans have Subterfuge instead of Infiltrator for their passive racial space trait (a copy/paste error on my part, still doesn't affect their race rankings though). Remans' Infiltrator trait isn't innate to their racial passive though; it's like Romulan Operative for Romulan captains in that you need to use a space trait slot for it. I have it corrected now in the spreadsheet link. Most of the traits in the list are of the regular variety (unless specified otherwise by my text); the copy/pasted pictures of the traits that have superior on them are just because I had those pictures of those traits easily accessible from my last trait video. A few traits are a little higher or lower in their stats because of this.

[@ED-yo4qi]

I like the work done on this, but I'd say that innate kperf won't be better for tacs (Bajoran) than Klingon or Jem'hadar. Ground-wise those versions of Improved Soldier are basically a more solid choice for weapon damage (which tac is centered upon). The Technophile trait is pretty much kperf-satiating for the needs of a Tac. @@CounterYoloGaming

[@CounterYoloGaming]

I tried my best to rank these races only by what the innate racial passive gave them (probably should have mentioned that in the video). Perhaps I should have added to the rankings other available traits to the specific races or with a few varied lists by profession, but I still think this is good enough for now. I concede I should have skewed tactical-oriented races a little higher as over 50% of the playerbase are tac captains, but I am a biased support/tank player in video games -- so this bias is still going to invariably show here.

[@tyronealfonso]

I love your vids but they are too long-winded. This is a hard get to get in to for newbs it’s hard to sift through the information overkill. For example, this should be a top 10 or top 5 video.

[@myname3960]

Rom Alien, can't beat the 10th trait and SRO. Also, I don't see this being said enough in the comments but: you did a very thorough job with this, no corners cut. Solid effort, great result. Ty.

[@--Nemesis]

Go Alien, make him look like any race in the game thats playable.

[@itisoz]

Yaaas I did that to make a romulan discovery

[@laughingalex7563]

@@itisoz Orion romulan side, but i still have her dress like a fed to confuse people as to who she really works for :D.

[@Trygvar13]

The Pakled's name is pronounced Pak-LED by the way. I really like your videos. We really need race change tokens in this game. My first main character was a Cardassian (Alien). Now that the real Cardassian are available I would pay to have him changed to a real one.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Thanks for letting me know -- I will change my pronunciation of the Pakled race for now on. The reason (or excuse Cryptic uses right now) in that we don't have race change tokens in the game is because the different races have different passive traits/stats with them [and Cryptic doesn't know an easy way to change your race/stats, so they haven't bothered to add that to the game]. It would make them some money, but it is unknown to us how much R&D and time on their end it would take (and how much delayed they would have to push back something else to do so). I would love it for sure though!

[@MeeMaw1971]

@@CounterYoloGaming i wish that we didnt have to pay for the races like borg or cardassians or caitian...

[@LowBudgetKiwi]

I think you under-estimate Caitians mate.

[@locowolfie]

Really both jem hadar and romulans on c is a joke.

[@robbybee70]

oh no I love Romulans

[@colin_painting_adventure]

Throughly enjoyed this video. For Romulans what about their unique traits Romulan Operative & Plasma weapon specialist. Do they not warrant a mention & to be taken into consideration why judging them?

[@CounterYoloGaming]

A bit of a rant, but here we go... Perhaps I should have warranted mentioning those traits for Romulans, but it wouldn't have changed the rankings for them. Even though for some of the races here I did mention some extra traits available to the race, those extra choosable/optional traits did NOT affect the overall ranking of the race -- just the passive racial stats & abilities you are stuck with when choosing that race affected their overall rankings. The reason I didn't judge those extra traits? (1) In my initial attempt at organizing video, I had been considering both all of the "special" traits that each race received alongside all of the standard traits that each race did/didn't have available to them. However, in order to really factor in all of these traits & such, I realized I would have had to also judge all of the special traits available from lockboxes -- which honestly was not going to happen for this video. Talking about Romulan Operative & Plasma Weapon Specialist would be more appropriate for a list talking about the strength of all of the choosable traits available in the game for captains -- which I didn't feel was needed here. (2) Though some of the racial extra traits you can put in one of your personal trait slots for space or ground, you are still losing a space/ground trait slot to choose that race over having an alien captain; as thus, when you really like a trait like Plasma Weapon Specialist, you need to ask "(1) Does this synergize with my racial passive for space or ground?" and "(2) If the racial passive doesn't synergize with the special trait I like, is this special choosable racial trait worth TWO trait slots for it?" For our Romulan example: (1) Space: their passive is Subterfuge, which is extremely potent with Romulan Operative if you are going for a CLOAKING dps playstyle (yes, I put the wrong trait in the video, sorry about that). For non-cloaking starships, subturfuge doesn't really help, so you would have to say Romulan Operative is worth two traits to choose romulan (which honestly just depends on your builds as to whether you would say it does or not). In 2014 with the release of Legacy of Romulus, this trait was AWESOME; however, with more and more sources of crit chance available in the game (and now passively with the endeavor system), this trait is less and less needed/valued. (2) Ground: Physical Strength, Romulan's racial trait on the ground, is for melee combat, while the choosable Plasma Weapon Specialist trait is for ENERGY plasma damage (so ranged plasma weapons). Still a decent trait on plasma ground builds, but you can still use other exchange traits and outperform it. (**) In my personal opinion, many people overhype how strong Romulan Operative & Plasma Weapon Specialist are for Romulan Captains -- when the real strength many romulan captains experience in practice is actually the full bridge crew of SRO's easily available to them. However, you can still choose an RRW alien captain and get the SRO advantages on your bridge crew and still have access to more strong exchange traits. Romulans are the best space cloaking race in-game by far (hence the A-tier rank in the space list), but I am not sure many players capitalize on that strength properly and are typically just a trait down over aliens. If you just ignore the racial passive bonuses of all the races altogether, that is when you see the strong arguments for Plasma Weapon Specialist. It's this same vain that Reman's Mind Drain trait would also be quite powerful as well, as it is a strong damage/heal ability that you can slot in a ground trait slot, especially valuable if you are a tactical reman captain without access to strong heals. This video was helping to show the innate strength of the races BEFORE applying any of the extra stuff you could put on the captain, or the strength that ANY captain in the game will have access to with that race no matter what their choices.

[@colin_painting_adventure]

@@CounterYoloGaming Won't call that a rant, more like a thorough and well thought out answer. Thanks

[@Cynder2251]

I enjoy playing the kitty races it’s fun

[@MeAndMira]

I chose a Ferasan for my KDF recruit because of the pounce attack, I enjoyed playing her it's fun being able to jump on things normal players can't reach too.

[@Ken19700]

I find it hilarious that Talaxians are better than Klingons.

[@RitzPerera]

I am main jemhadr and with the bundle that I bought I unlocked vanguard as well, but I have doubt about jh cz they can't use most armor styles, when I unlocked omega rep armor style jh can't equip helmat.. Then I search more and found jh have bug with armor styles and make then can't use helmats. This bug was posted in 2018 (reddit) now its 2021 and still bug is there.. Idk wth devs doing. this bug cause me to crate another character in human or alien to start over cz stupid jh no space barbies and it's sucks most

[@synthwendigo639]

I like playing a female Orion for a bit of head canon doing a Matriarch kinda slaver, as in the lore, they were the ones truly in power. The steelkini is just a bonus, but I agree with you on seeing it very often as skimpy as humanly possible. My go to Fed species is Joined Trill, as I’ve got a soft spot for Jadzia. Only made a single alien for the Republic to do an RP idea with a friend of a Romulan/Orion hybrid, and that fell through totally. Think I saw one Alien at ESD decked out in Orion steelkini though, so that was a bit random.

[@laughingalex7563]

Whats really good about trill(and joined) is some of the more devastating attacks in ground combat are toxic and radiation damage, which armor provides little protection against. Except perhaps thalaron (honestly not once been hit by it, someone warned me of the drones and my hyper vigilance catches it every time), the radiation attacks almost ounce off trill, hyperonic radiation can be auto-death in ground from a captain but both trill races can shrug it off surprisingly easily. That actually kicks them into my favorite personal race; a race that flat out counters a demonic spider ability gets an instant tier raise. Also unjoined trill have superior covert, which is great for using exploit attacks. No other race gets that trait. They also have lucky. I actually kick liberated borg AND romulans down to D rank on my own list because while I do play them often, they're damage potential is just flat out inferior on the ground. Liberated borg not only lack lucky but creative, meaning even less damage potential, but liberated borg are rather tanky on the ground, so they aren't to bad off so I guess I'd raise them to high C, B for tanks. Peklad suck, lowered CC resistance is NEVER worth it.

[@harlockJC]

As anyone ever seen someone play as a Pakled?

[@Qardo]

[@SkrapMetal84]

i know im late here but Ferasan's also have the telepathic trait, not sure if that makes a difference but yea.

[@KH-iz1bj]

This video s so pimp I can't find anythin g like this on KZbin

[@sebwilkins]

Glad you uploaded this, thanks.

[@justinwallace269]

Does the Human resistance and healing buff stack if you have an all Human crew? That'd be pretty useful, I'd think, and same if the Teamwork trait stacks up expose damage.

[@CounterYoloGaming]

As long as they are in your bridge officer seats on your starship for space traits (or on your away team for ground traits) -- not just in your list of bridge officers -- then yes they will stack. I'd personally say the Leadership trait's stacking of resistance to subsystem offline is still much more valuable though.

[@justinwallace269]

@CounterYoloGaming Thanks for the info! 😁👍🏻It gets so confusing in game because the stats don't show the changes. The expose rating is just sitting at 205% no matter who I have on the team. I wish they'd work on that. It's buggy in space too becsuse it doesn't show in some places. I find all these traits valuable so far. I love the rapid regeneration and resistance. Speeding off and recovering so fast is awesome. I stack up all the hull recovery skills to enhance it. The expose chance works great with pistols and sniper weapons, especially when coming out of stealth. They don't know what hit them.

[@justinwallace269]

@CounterYoloGaming I've been doing some testing, this exploit bonus definitely doesn't stack. My stats only show 205% and the damage hasn't gone up at all. If anything I seem to be hitting weaker than normal right now. I'll try to figure this out. The game is pretty buggy though, I set my entire team with melee expose weapons with superior Luck and no ones getting exposed. I should be seeing nonstop exposes with this setup. I don't suppose they needed pistols recently?

[@stephenwatson2806]

Nice post! I really like alien race for the totally crazy looking styles you can give them! :)

[@anasevi9456]

So is STO like most mmo's where racial traits are mostly just boons or busts in the early, and perhaps mid game; evening out in the late game via balancing and gear.. or do they matter from start to finish?

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Pretty much. There's a TON of really overpowered stuff in the late game that you can slowly earn that dwarf what most of the racial trait bonuses can offer. STO has both space and ground combat, and IMO you can't get as OP in ground combat as space combat (as starship traits exist in space and no equivalent in ground) so races matter a little more in ground. However, most of the premade teaming scene for STO's version of operations & raids (elite-difficulty task force operations or TFO's) only typically focus on the space-combat only ones, which makes most of the races inconsequential to all but the extreme min-maxers (as most races only have passive ground trait bonuses). There isn't an ability to change your race in STO, so you have to decide from the beginning how you want it to be, though the leveling is much quicker than it used to be -- so in this video I just judged them by their late game power. Compared to other MMO's, STO is actually quite easy and casual honestly. You can be completely F2P, successfully complete every mission, max out all reputations, and complete all TFO's on advanced difficulty (the level below elite). As for early and mid-game races: Humans & Liberated Borg are the best for space combat (passive regen from humans is nice early when you don't have many heals, and lower tier starships don't have good power levels which make Borg better). Andorians or any race with resistances or passive regen will be good for ground (early game is when your health will fall more often, and early game your armor won't be as good as later, so resistances from races matter more earlier in the game). If you want to min-max for late game: Alien is generally the best race for both space & ground combat, as well as character barbie customization options. Jem'Hadar Vanguard are comparable but are a little stronger in ground vs any other race in the game (including aliens) due to their ketracel white consumable unique to them.

[@meme3000]

Very informative video, Thank you! Also what uniform is that?! and bridge, looks awesome XD

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Mirror Terran Bridge & Mirror Terran uniforms at the beginning. At 1:22 -- Winter jackets on the left and the long version of the Odyssey uniform on the right (available to lifetime subscribers).

[@northernwisp]

Great Video!!!

[@jamesmorrison2198]

In the New TOS Recruitment is there a Race for Tactical Career that has a extra Trait slot like the Alien Race in Starfleet Faction?

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Dominion & TOS Federation are the only factions that do not have access to the Alien species. Your species choices for TOS Federation is Human, Vulcan, Andorian, and Tellarite.

[@jamesmorrison2198]

@@CounterYoloGaming Which race do you think is best for TOS Tactical?

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Depends on what you want. Human is the only race of the 4 that adds anything to space combat. Andorian & Tellarite both have meaningful additions in ground combat. Vulcan is not ideal unless you are doing a melee build in ground combat.

[@jamesmorrison2198]

@@CounterYoloGaming Thanks that help. I mostly do space so that means Human for me. Thanks for responding.

[@rulrich45]

Do the Aenar count as Andorians?

[@CounterYoloGaming]

In STO, Aenar & Andorians are treated as completely separate species (though they do have similar looks). Aenar is a race exclusive to bridge officers (from the C-Store), while Andorians is not just a playable race but also available to bridge officers.

[@edenromanov]

Really hope you make an updated list on this just in case if anything has changed throughout the years 👍

[@CounterYoloGaming]

Overall rankings haven't changed for me personally, and we haven't gotten any new races since this video came out. Honestly the only thing that has changed is that we have gotten so much accuracy in the game now that Cardassians' racial passive isn't that meaningful in space PvP anymore (still good for ground PvP though).

[@Moadar]

Why is cardassian the best for pvp?

[@CounterYoloGaming]

In space PvP, there are a few big things to consider outside of the one-shotting: (1) cloaking & speed, (2) disables, confuses, & placates, and (3) accuracy & defense [to avoid that attack]. Cardassians provide a noticable amount of accuracy & defense; you could argue that Romulans/Remans are strong because of cloaking, and Humans are decent due to extra subsystem offline-specific resist, but I honestly consider that accuracy/defense stronger. Also arguably aliens are decent as well with an extra PvP trait from the exchange available. In ground PvP, it is just the stun/hold/placate game -- which Cardassians get a good amount of resists vs the annoying types of attacks in PvP. You could argue, with the Ketracel White consumable, that Jem'Hadar (both variants) are decent for ground combat in PvP due to that and Aliens as well for trait flexibility. I personally feel that since they have traits tailored to PvP in space & ground that they are the best, but you can make any race work -- as I mention at the end of the video.

[@Moadar]

@@CounterYoloGaming Thanks for that. Love your content.

[@AnvilMAn603]

for somebody as long winded as you can be, you completely skipped over the the symbiote skill from joined trills and why its so good for sci captains.

[@pizzamonster69]

How does joined trill stack up against traits like pirate or superior infiltrator? If we're just taking about space combat

[@CounterYoloGaming]

28:35 has the species space list with built-in space traits (not many of them). Captain species traits are always at the "standard" level (only selectable traits that are upgraded from the fleet & bridge officer traits can be superior versions) -- I was just lazy to get screenshots for this video back in the day, as most of the captain species just had them as text descriptions, and I felt having the "real" trait screenshot was more worthwhile for the video (so I picked the first bridge officer for each trait I could find -- so some are superior or basic versions of the trait in the video, while it really should just be the standard version for them all). Hopefully that makes sense.