Free To Play Ground Build 🖖 Mission Rewards Crafted How To🖖Star Trek Online

[@jedimike7622]

Just a small thing, but the mission for the Disco Full Auto Rifle has you repelling boarders on the Buran. You get the rifle from the armory. Just so nobody is confused :)

[@dread-cthulu]

Instead of using hypos, use the Pavan Healing Crystal, a mission reward. Pair the crystal with the EMH MK I DOff, also a mission reward. When you use the crystal it can proc the EMH to beam in and heal you. The crystal has a cool down but can be used repeatedly. Also, the DOff reward from the new Firewall mission could be slotted. There is a chance for him to beam in when you do flanking damage.

[@cahlash]

When you use an _Expose_ attack (this will be noted in the weapon’s tooltip, some abilities can expose also) it will set you up to take full advantage of an _Exploit_ attack which as others have noted will do double damage. To maximize damage you want to build your character to be setting up Expose as much as possible and using Exploit as much as possible. These are the key but never talked about mechanics for ground.

[@nolgroth]

Sorry about a second post, but one of the things that I often see neglected on Ground builds are Away Teams. I know most KZbin channels focus on group/TFO content, but for episodic or adventure zone play, having a properly kitted out Away Team can turn drudgery into victory. The best way I've found are Specialist Away Teams. I personally run two Temp Ops and two Command specialists. Paradox Bomb is, well...da bomb. You can earn a choice box just for leveling up and a Temp Ops for playing through some of the missions. Buying the Specialization Qualification manuals isn't terribly expensive either. I just use the default Temp Ops abilities. For Command I use Take Cover I, Hammer & Anvil II, Strategic Analysis II, and Return Fire II or III (depending on budget). For gear the Nahkuhl shield, some good armor, the Pahvan Healing Crystal, Rainbow Tribble and a split between Expose and Exploit weapons should do you. With this setup, on Advanced, I laugh at the "desperate last stand" cut scene in the episode "Home" because the Hurq never get far from their spawn point. They certainly never overwhelm the barricades, as shown in the cut scene. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there.

[@geist72]

Stu - Thank you from 2yrs in the future. I just started playing. This is exactly what I needed.

[@Stone7C1]

fun fact, the nakuhl shield still protects you, even if you put the set on a bridge officer. ive put it on one of my standart guys, and whenever my personal shield gets depleted, i still get the nakuhl invincibility shield from that officer. something to keep in mind for just regular ground missions where you have your crewmates along. in TFO's its a different story, but whenever you have your bridge officers with you you dont actually have to equip it and can use the slots for something else.

[@needparalegal]

Yes, but we now have the free event shield that does the same thing. I put it on all my boffs.

[@needparalegal]

You mean you get the invicible from the boff?

[@alexandrumacedon291]

@@needparalegal what free event shield ?

[@needparalegal]

@@alexandrumacedon291 kuumaarke Visionary personal shield.

[@alexandrumacedon291]

@@needparalegal that was a special event....

[@ghfdt368]

For tactical ground duty officers I almost always have the EMH mark 1 that you can get after the mission "all that glitters"in the delta quadrant story arc. It gives a 25% chance of the EMH to spawn after you use any hypospray and will continue healing any damage you or your team and allies take for around 1 min I believe, it could be more or less the game doesnt say but that my calculated guess. But still its very useful if you are getting battered or facing a tough boss or situation.

[@nolgroth]

This pairs up nicely with the Pahvan Healing Crystal from the mission where you fight Tilly on Pahvo. Grind out a crystal for each member of your away team and functionally never worry about healing again.

[@gallendugall8913]

I can confirm that the cold build from the winter event is very effective as is the elemental build from the summer event, but the winter event gear is much easier to get.

[@Stone7C1]

the risan kit is apparantly the only one in the game that can be re engineered. so you can get it to a point where it gives nothing but a ton of kit performance and readyness. or whatever else you want it to have for stats. i wonder what the most optimal would be. if you could get crit + severity on it and it would do more than kitperf.

[@axelhopfinger533]

Yep, the Breen set is pretty strong for how easy it is to acquire. But only if you sport the full set to get max bonuses. Gives a good bit of survivability to your toon and you can equip cold focused kit modules which are effective both against groups or single targets, doing pretty good DPM to boot. My Romulan science toon rocks it and i'm gonna keep it on her since few rep kits can outperform it. Also you don't have to upgrade it to reach full performance, so it's brilliant for leveling new toons.

[@Cofe82]

The Pahvan Healing Crystal from the mission 'Illusion of Communication" is a great team-wide heal! I put it on my main toon and his away team BOFFs.

[@canadiananvil975]

EMH Mk I (beams in EMH after using hypo); Elder Malik'itan (but you'll have to wait for the next Gamma Recruit); Exocomp Legume Creel from Firewall (deploys exocomp on flanking attack); Automated Personnel Unit (Doubles chance to expose target). Don't forget about the Lower Decks, and if you're going grenade, look at Phoenix Prize Pack (also some good ones for species attack bonuses like Borg). You can also get useful duty officers from Duty Officer missions like Netang (20% chance: Creates a level 4 Support Drone III for...). level 3 Security Escort means three levels higher that your current level. And the Omega Rep has two good ones.

[@MCStu]

Great suggestions! Thank you

[@m.f.cauley9729]

Great vid! Don't forget Leck's Knives are a mission reward, perfect for any ground Borg TFO, mission, or endeavor. Never see 'Adapted' using them! I epic'd a few, lol!

[@m.f.cauley9729]

Sorry, Quark's Lucky Seven reward in the Gamma Arc. It's kind of a funny mission.

[@radeadcool]

The Disco refile is once PER TOON meaning you can get ones on a toon then putt it in the account then delete can have a whole team with it.

[@radeadcool]

and claim it LOWER LEVELS so it up the chance of EPIC later. Also your confusing missions again lol

[@youtubestaffaretrash9258]

The best gear so far I have found is the klingon event reward set, the duel pistol are death machines, the melee is godly, and you have a duel aoe hold trap that deals massive damage, pair with baul', sompak, solar gateway, mirco torps any type, and a cool down reduction skill, or aoe, have nano targ, and healing crystal, and a weapon battery and hypo. Group science emh with miracle worker, one tac temporal, one engineer command, one tac temp focused on holds and debuf there, now you have to try to die.

[@Fluffie81]

Perfect for me Thank you MC Stu

[@jingizu149]

Exploit does +200% damage to targets with the expose condition, so you want to throw out a bunch of abilities that expose, then hit them with exploit for extra damage. As a visual bonus, targets killed by an exploit attack vaporize, because why not.

[@Kalknight382]

The Throwing Knife you told us about in another video has an Exploit Attack. I have enjoyed using those knives since you told us about them.

[@waldoonline]

Security Officers DOFFS do stack. I think the proc for what level security escort you get has to do with whatever level you were at when the doff was acquired. The Green one in the video is Baku which came from lockbox DOFF Pack. Whoever opened that pack probably low level.

[@simond.455]

Since you have the slots free, you could add a Plasma Grenade and a grenade CD DOff. When you use it as the alpha strike from Ambush, you get the +3xx% bonus damage on the explosion (not the DoT, I think). That's because Ambush does not give a *single-target* damage boost, but a *single attack* damage boost. Use multi-target weapons (split beam rifles work very good with this, because they hit 3 targets simultaneously, or pulsewave when your stealth is high enough to get very close).

[@nielsost3083]

your character looks like starkiller nice

[@keith4047]

I noticed you didn't go through any of the options where you choose "one or the other" down the very bottom, on the green ground bar (point) page ? guessing it just what you prefer ? The only reason I mention it is, they are a very hidden option(s) that I didn't know even existed, it was only by chance I moused over it and noticed a menu pop up, It must have been around 2 months into STO before i found there were toggle select options part of the point system into ground (ditto for space.)

[@nolgroth]

Expose and Exploit are sort of like 1-2 punches. Weapons with the Expose trait create a small window of time in which an Exploit attack can do more damage. Just split your away team into two Split Beam rifles and two full-auto rifles. Pick a nice Exploit weapon for yourself.

[@MCStu]

Awesome! Thank you!!

[@simond.455]

Wide Beam Pistols are also good sources for Expose. With the 4 second secondary cooldown (which BOffs use overwhelmingly often), you could pretty much get constant exposes on multiple targets. ICYDN: When a target is exposed, the secondary button is flashing wildly. I don't like the wide beam effect's visual, so I don't do that. ;)

[@Grazysworld]

I play STO from start and thanks to your video's it make sense to me, If like me English isn't your main it's sometimes hard to understand it all. So thanks for making these video's. Second they make cool weapons but all in set's and spread out, so you have some missions to run over and over til you have them all. I believe they protested with this before why not put all pieces in a reward box but that as of today is unanswered. Now what is a cool weapons or shields or whatever read between the lines, like now I'm doing Iconians story line and if you have Delta fleet played out or buyed out your best bet is to use those weapons or the time weapons. Also what the Iconians do not like are rifts, those spec far more power damage then regular weapons this goes for ground and space. So yeah it's every ground mission every enemy I use totally another set of weapons and like STU said when you are at level of captain start training for kit use. Then bridge officers you need to get all the doff missions to have the cool ones or you have to buy them. The Story written ones or the White, Green, and Blue are good for the fleet starbases but not worth setting up in your doff roster, you really have to buy them if you want some good ones or use the story written ones like Bashir, or EMH 1 Doff the Romulan doff you get from that city where you defeat that Gorn. So yeah there are some good ones in game for free. But you have to find them. If you do starting to play STO I really recommend you start Federation to learn to play just to learn the basics, The tutorial is a good start they updated it now with Janeway I believe and yeah it's cool. Also I recommend to new players the lifetime sub. It's not cheap but to be honest really helpful in the long run to get easy dilithium. In the start of your career try to get as much grinding done as you can, I know it sounds boring but it helps you in the long run of the game. Well good luck and hope to see you out there and STU thanks for all your work !!!

[@collectiblecardsgamescusto9827]

An Exploit attack is one of two special attack types used in ground combat. All ground weapons have either an exploit or Expose attack. A handful of ground kit and captain abilities count as an exploit attack as well. Exploit attacks deliver increased damage to exposed targets and if used on a target whose health is low enough to be killed by the attack, it will vaporize them. Exploit attacks deal +200% increased damage to exposed targets by default

[@jeffeffa78]

TY.

[@The_Lucent_Archangel]

lol I've never looked at a build video for STO and yet had the Na'kuhl shield and weapon a while back purely for the bonuses and the survivability. Being an Engineer, I crafted the portable shield/medical generators for the passive regen to benefit not just me but BOFFs and other players, and some other odds and ends. I also use the Elachi Walker for the aggro it draws in addition to the damage it can put out while lasting a while and because it doesn't take long to cool down. Until I actually tried to think about assembling ground gear I barely paid any attention to what I had equipped and then just started doing trial and error.

[@markhrudey7737]

Once your target is exposed by certain weapons and you main toon needs to have a exploit weapon to capsulize on exposed enemies

[@QziQza]

You can also doff for your away team boffs.. so you can run say a turret boffs for your eng, or sci boosting doffs for your healer etc. Sec team doffs don't stack, but they do run in parrallel.. so when you cast sec team, each doff gets rolled on for chance to beam in extra.. you can get 6 extra with purple doffs (2 extra per doff x 3 doffs) if all proc.. sec team becomes sec army. Also Sec I, II, and III are ensign, Lt, and LCmdr ranked officers.

[@needparalegal]

Power creep is actually a good thing as it forces you to theorycraft once a year.

[@AugmentedDictatorGames]

Why is Leeroy dressed like one of Lucifer's bridge officers? 😂

[@MCStu]

LOL

[@judgeomega]

as an alternative weapon and armor: lekks throwing knives(which deal a crap ton of ranged physical damage) from mission gamma->quarks lucky seven, and utility armor(which gives 40% crit sev and 10% physical damage) from cardassian struggle->jabberwocky

[@nunya3163]

For new players/characters, one of the best weapons you can get when leveling up, is a free drop on Nimbus. Thanks to a glitch in the program, you can go to Nimbus and pick up a level V tetryon pulse wave as a random drop. For some reason, this normal/white pulsewave does over 300 dps. Do not try to upgrade, as that will knock the stats back down to Earth. You can also grab these on the exchange for around 10k.

[@Reoh0z]

Expose makes a target vulnerable to exploit attacks, exploit attacks correctly timed deal 100% extra damage.

[@edwardcruz6233]

As the Disco Full Auto Rifle is not the same as the Lobi version, I'd suggest buying a Plasma Piercing Beam Rifle from a vendor and upgrading that sucker to max. It'll benefit from the +Plasma damage that you're already getting.

[@thecommenter9678]

Im already doing exactly this =D

[@needparalegal]

I ran the Rom Navy set on my main many years ago. Power Creep has rendered it obsolete.

[@CommanderX47]

Some weapons secondary fire have an expose chance. If they are exposed they will be vulnerable to an exploit that some weapons have as their secondary fire. If you exploit an exposed enemy it does bonus damage. You usually want half your team with Expose chances and the other with exploit.

[@CommanderX47]

Also Security escort III is better than security Escort II, It's basically the level of the skill, like with bridge officers, Fire At Will III is better than Fire at Will II, As for the level, I'm guessing that it's the level of the NPC's that will beam down, Not sure how much it affects them though.

[@markmckinstry2162]

You always have great videos

[@MCStu]

I appreciate that!

[@D2SProductions]

Unless they've changed it, the doffs that enable you to beam down additional security escorts do stack, though it's been a long time since I've seem someone getting followed around by a group of 4 or 5 security escorts. Back when I first started playing STO (2011), I'd see people running through the TFO Colony Invasion with a herd of security escorts, I used to do it myself though my main character is an Engineer, so I don't know if they still stack that way or if they simply stack to increase the chance of one additional security officer. I know the doff that increased the Engineer drones still stack that way, some times I get 1 drone, some times I get 3 drones, so I would imagine the Security Escorts still work the same way. One thing I really miss from back then is the Enemy Neutralization Kit, back when Chroniton Mine Barrier ignored shields 100%. Some Tactical player who was a few levels above me challenged me to PVP, long story short Engineer with an Enemy Neutralization Kit > Tactical who was 5 levels above me with whatever he was using. Back when Chroniton Mine Barrier ignored shields 100% you step on one and it was instant death. My bf and I would play PVP teams against others, both playing Engineers, both using the Enemy Neutralization Kit, we'd lay our mines down in the common hallways, wait for the explosion, then eventually find their spawn point and just keep dropping mines at the spawn points, they'd spawn in dead. :D Those were the days, then they nerfed the Chroniton Mine Barriers, they only do 50% shield penetration, and I think the damage has been nerfed too, I was able to kill that Tactical player with a Mk X Enemy Neutralization Kit with one Chroniton Mine, now even if they did 100% shield penetration they still wouldn't do enough damage to kill someone in PVP with a single mine, I'm using the Mk XV Chroniton Mine Barrier which only deals 528.7 kinetic damage, that's only a little over half of my character's health.

[@jarifauti4586]

look for the ambush offi, securtyoffis do stack and weaponwise go to jenolan an pick up the plasma wide beam riffle... 😃

[@the_goofball870]

Finally figured out that you have your own Discord Server and weren't talking about the STO Build Server XD so the goofball joint your server. Probably gonna be more of a lurker, though :)

[@norn6491]

I believe that the Security Escorts are leveled Security Escorts I, Security Escorts II and Secuirty Escorts III. Just a guess.

[@TwistedwithPower]

Eng Turret Master ftw =P Personally. I'd go 2 piece Rom Officer (Kit Frame + Armour) for the crit and Plasma bonus. Nak shield and Nak Plasma Weap (as a passive secondary weapon) for two piece bonus. Primary Weapon. Plasma Piercing Beam Rifle or Plasma Wide Beam Rifle. Edit. Side note. As much as it's ignored, I've found the Kobali grd shield re-eng'd for regeneration has ended up proving itself as my current no1 shield in grd pvp.

[@kenduxbury7122]

Motion Accelerator is GREAT (and the other ones) for KDF Recruit - where you're working your progress toward the melee required kills. Also, any ideas to really put together a good ground set for that particularly? The 2500 melee kills takes FOREVER.

[@ncapp23]

its the buran command class dreadnought that captain lorca is in command of the phaser full auto rifle comes in ultra rare not very rare mcstu

[@AAa-cf1oe]

💗

[@delta5297]

If you put the Na'kuhl shield on your boffs, should you pair it with the armor since your boffs don't get a secondary weapon slot? Also, did they nerf the phaser rifle from Plausibility of the Possible? I picked it up and (maybe it's because I haven't upgraded it yet) it doesn't seem that impressive.

[@thecommenter9678]

It does feel very weak compared to my Plasma Piercing Beam Rifle, i feel like it's thee 20% damage from the kit, But i'll have to upgrade the phaser rifle and re-engineer it first before i can be sure.

[@FoxAxel1982]

I need to know what the costume helmet is please also is there something on the upper arms i love this outfit and would really like to use aspects of it to make one of my BOFFS look like I plucked them out of Star Wars please and thank you

[@Hightower85]

What helmet are you using and how do you get it? :)

[@AugmentedDictatorGames]

Zhat Vash Infiltrator set in the lobi store.

[@arminiusmaximus5806]

Security doff's dont stack.. each is a separate prock ... 3 max and each has a chance to spawn aditional escorts fun build used to be with croniton jolt since escorts used to count as teammates the jolt module activated off of them and gave you no cd on everything else :D i think they fixed that like 3 years ago,. Id recommend gambling device ( lobi item but can be bought from exchange) and if you do have some some extra money TR rifle for those borg tfo's

[@MatthewBluefox]

When you do the Na'cool mission before Level 60, you can't upgrade your shield for free, but the weapon is freely upgradeable. Pretty weird. :)

[@MCStu]

I noticed that as well. Its like that, hit or miss on most the mission drop gear.

[@thecommenter9678]

Just a thought. Wouldn't a plasma weapon be more effective then a phaser rifle? Seeing as the kit boosts plasma damage by 20%

[@MCStu]

Its not enough to beat out the phaser rifle.

[@thecommenter9678]

@@MCStu Well then! You have never let me down yet! I'll give it a shot, been using the plasma piercing beam rifle.

[@unknownorigin7433]

what is that stormtropper helmet - where you gt it?

[@Stone7C1]

by the way, is there any kit focused armor set that is not available for lobi, that outperforms the imperial assault armor set they gave away a while ago with an event? i looked through a lot of stuff but i simply couldnt find anything that gave a larger bonus than the 30 sec duration +100 kit performance + 50% cooldown cut on your kit modules proc from the 4 set piece, in addition to the 20 perfomance that are on the 2 piece bonus.

[@MCStu]

I believe the Risian Kit from the event store can be rerolled to have very strong KP.....

[@Stone7C1]

@@MCStu thats the kit, but i mean an armor set. the imperial assault set is armor, shield, melee weapon (doesnt really matter), and dual pistols. the set bonuses just give a ton of kit related stuff. like killing 5 enemies within 5 seconds gives +100 kitperf for 30 seconds and cuts your kit cooldowns down by 50%. you can still equip a kit of your choice together with that, like a risan kit. is there any non lobi armor set that can top that if youre looking to juice up your kit perfomance and cooldowns? neither the rep system, nor mission drops or really anything else i found comes even close. maybe i missed something.

[@otisbrown420]

Cradting stuffs great but you dont get good stuff tell crafting rank 15. Which will take some time..

[@MCStu]

There was nothing on this build that required crafting rank 15. Also I craft items at MK II only as upgrading to MK 10-12 is cheap and easy and give a good chance for a quality upgrade.

[@devilhell69]

what your kit readiness and efficiency ?

[@MCStu]

I don't remember what it was on this build, but on my main it is rediness: 185 and Performance: 450 with 42.2 Crit Chance and 193 Severity unbuffed.

[@devilhell69]

@@MCStu that weak dude you dont need crit for kit Mine is 477 efficiency and 250 rediness that base on all my toon same build I dont even use weapon anymore

[@PhotriusPyrelus]

How to play ground: Don't. (Only half-serious; I know that's not really an option most of the time, I just really, really don't enjoy ground, at all. It's like, as fun as space is, ground is just tedious, boring nonsense I do to get back into space)

[@gefrast1]

my toon is a science officer. you said that in the endgame, weapon dmg becomes secondary. currently I am only using exothermic and some heals in my kit. any suggestions what kit modules to use for dmg in end game as a science officer?

[@MCStu]

I am currently using a craft Kit with KCK and KPx3, these are just luck of the roll when crafting. Im looking in to using the Risian Kit from the Summer Event store as you can reroll it to what ever you want, but have not tested yet.

[@gefrast1]

@@MCStu thanks for the reply! ok so much for the kit, and what kit modules should I use as a science officer?

[@Stone7C1]

i dont know what to use endgame but with a lot of the universal kit modules its irrelevant what carreer youre playing. from the little bit science i played, the radiation kit modules seem to be pretty nasty for aoe damage. i think there was one from the rep system that has a larger radius than the standart one. but if thats good until endgame, no idea.

[@gefrast1]

@@Stone7C1 well I just switched out the only universal kit module I have, plasma feedback cascade, because that one wasn't doing it for me. now I use electro-gravitic field on top of exothermic to maybe root the enemies in the fire.

[@Stone7C1]

@@gefrast1 atm i just use the combination of anchor of gethor (engineer module from the winter event), and sompek lightning. when i see a large mob group, anchor of grethor pulls them all together onto the target i cast it on, and deals fire dot. when theyre in one spot i dunk them with sompek lighting (from the phoenix pack). since im running the imperial assault armor from one of the events last year, this also causes me to gain +100 kit performance for 30 sec and cuts the cooldowns of the kits in half, when the combo kills at least 5 enemies.

[@Andre25077]

Shame these videos are usually focused on the boring game play for tactical characters. Why not investigate engineer builds (e.g. ninja build with romulan operative + mines) and prepare to have your socks blown off.

[@xitup1]

ewwwwwww ground, but ok, lets give it a go.

[@Stone7C1]

i dont know why so many people hate ground. but then again, i had a clear idea what i wanted to do with my character for ground combat from the start and it came together pretty well. i just wanted my engineer to be able to hard control a certain area with turrets and minefields. this also turned out to be really damn effective, since a lot of the ground story missions and even TFO's have long segments where you have to hold and defend a position. it fed really well into the power fantasy i had with the character, so maybe thats why ground is more fun for me.

[@xitup1]

@@Stone7C1 cause the ground play in this game is from an era that was ruled by Tab targeted combat. MMOs with more action combat, that is more fluid didn't come til after this was released. The delay time between activating an ability and it actually triggering is super annoying as well. If the combat were more skill based vs power based, I think it would be a lot more fun. As it stands, it's all about target and damage roll vs any impact and trajectory. Feels like an old style turn based RPG but with the turns removed. It's not really responsive in any way.

[@Stone7C1]

@@xitup1 i guess its not such a bad deal if your character works around blowing stuff up with aoe damage kits, or just plonks a bunch of turrets down. must be really anoying for melee builds tho.