RRW Shadowknife

Notes

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 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).

Notes

One of our primary considerations when picking weapons for this ship is that we will be cloaked roughly 50% of the time. Now, it's an Enhanced Battle Cloak, so we need to stick to projectile weapons or weapons that can fire while cloaked. Something like the Wide Angle Dual Heavy Beam Bank for the 3pc set just won't make sense. We're also going to be cycling through torpedoes very quickly due to Covert Warhead Module and our several sources of torpedo cooldown reduction. An argument could be made that we won't even fire all 5 torpedoes, but I can tell you from experience that when you first enter combat, more than likely you'll fire a volley of all 5 torpedoes before cooldowns really start kicking in. Ceaseless Momentum only removes 1 second at a time, not enough to fully cool down some of our torpedoes. Concentrate Firepower resets torpedo cooldowns, but only once the torpedoes impact the target. Projectile Weapons Officers are a chance of a cooldown and depending on when they kick in still might leave some torpedoes on cooldown. Since our shared cooldown is so low, having extra torpedoes to fire will be to our advantage. 

Let's start with the rear weapon slot. While there are a few 180 degree firing arc torpedoes, there aren't any solid torpedo options that overlap with our fore 90 degree firing arc. That would lead us to the direction of using mines in the rear. Thankfully, however, there is one little odd missile launcher that "counts" as a torpedo in as much as it can be fired while cloaked. It's not on the same shared cooldown as our other torps, it can't take any torpedo enhancements, but it has the benefit of a 360 degree firing arc and counts as a torpedo for triggering things such as Concentrate Firepower, Ceaseless Momentum, and Projectile Weapons Officer cooldowns for the rest of the torpedoes. I tried using mines on the Eagle, and you have to give up a decenly high ranking Tactical seat for a mine pattern, and even then I wasn't getting much performance out of the rear weapon slot. Mines just take a long time to spin up, especially compared to how quickly the rest of our projectiles are going out. Across a couple parses, I got roughly the same damage output from the Micro-Missile array as I was from the Tetryon Mines with a mine pattern. This freed up a Tactical bridge officer power and added a little performance to the rest of my torpedoes - a win-win.

When it comes to torpedoes, nothing here is unusual when comared to our other torpedo builds. Delphic for it's solid Spreads and debuff. Dark Matter for its 2pc set and solid damage output. Quantum Phase torpedo is also a great torpedo under spread, but I tend to put it later in the firing order. Neutronic has a great AoE radiation burst but longer cooldown, so it won't fire nearly as often. The Enhanced Bio-Molecular Photon does amazing things under High Yield, so make sure you can fire this under High Yield if you can.

For experimental weapons, our major concern is that just about all experimental weapons cannot fire when cloaked. Frankly, I wasn't about to go and test energy-based weapons, and I don't have a lot of kinetic based ones to choose from, so the Eagle's is the simplest option since it clearly states it can fire while cloaked. There might be another oddity that can fire while cloaked for more damage, but I wasn't too keen on chasing it. 

Notes:

Our deflector is pretty standard for DPS builds - CrtH and CrtD from the passive on this deflector just don't have any general use alternatives. Adapted MACO could be used for the 2pc, but the little splash of Cat1 isn't super applicable.

The engines could be many things, but please don't use competitive engines. The Eagle is fast enough as it is, and the competitive engines would just make it hard to control. I chose the Romulan Reputation engines for the little extra Critical Severity. 

Our warp core is unusual, unique even. Let's talk a moment about some warp core mechanics, especially modifiers. Mk XI+ warp cores get a transwarp/sector speed modifier that isn't relevant at all for TFO play, only navigating around in sector space (such as for DSEs). All Epic cores have the same [W->S] modifier, which in our case won't add a lot of shield power. [X->Y] mods add 7.5% of your current power in the X system to the Y system, so if we have very little weapon power since we have no energy weapons, we won't get much benefit at all. Ultra Rare Warp Cores have one of 3 mods, 2 of which require getting hit so the [AMP] mod is our best mod - we'll hope to have 3 subsystems over 75 power, and generally Enhanced Induction Coils will get us there or even to all 4 systems above 75. At very rare, you get a battery capacitor that is a clicky for a small boost of power to a specific subsystem with a 4 minute cooldown, not really impactful. Rare will have a random [X->Y] mod, which again we don't care a ton about. Ideally, we want something from our Aux or Engines into Shields since that will be from one of our highest systems to the lowest system. We actually care about the Uncommon mod the most for this build. Several give a small boost to a specific power subsystem, and one gives warp core efficiency (power based on low power setting, not current power). Damage control is a paltry amount of hull regen, and SecSpd is speed in sector space (again, great for DSEs, not TFOs). So why would we care? [Bat] is one of the very few places you can get Battery Expertise. This not only increases duration of your batteries, but boosts the power garnered from Enhanced Induction coils. Now we get a longer duration on Kinetic Amplifier batteries and Enhnaced Induction Coil, as well as some extra power out of Enhanced Induction Coils. We could use the Tilly Shield and Core, but as low as our hull is, 120% regen won't even be noticed. Adapted MACO doesn't have a warp core. You could use Tholian Nucleating core for some extra damage, but this is one of the rare builds we can utilize the extra power from Enhanced Induction Coils for Onboard Dilithium Recrystalizer. 

The Iconian Shield is chosen simply because it has an ability to remove subsystem offlines, which is great when using OSS and we don't want to turn off subsystems if we can avoid it. 

Notes: 

There's a few features of the Eagle specifically we're trying to synergize with. 

1. Pilot Commander seat for Covert Warhead Module

2. Enhanced Battle Cloak for firing torpedoes while cloaked as well as the ambush bonus

3. Raider Flanking

If you want a ship with Enhanced Battle Cloak and Pilot Commander seating, there's only two - the Legendary B'Rel and the Eagle. The Legendary B'Rel doesn't have Command seating, so the Eagle is far better of a torpedo platform. The Kumari has both the Pilot and Command seating we would want, but no cloak. While the raider flanking is something we will utilize to great benefit, it's mostly just a free addition to what we picked for our ship. So, here we are, making an Enhanced Battle Cloak Eagle - and this cloak isn't just for a dedicated Alpha Strike either. We'll be utilizing it OFTEN. 

First off, with an X-2'd Eagle, we have 5 Tactical console slots, 2 Universal, and 6 others. Setting a baseline, let's fill every Tactical and Universal console slot with a Vulnerability Exploiter for those big shiny numbers for THY3 Crits. Some balance of Locators and Exploiters might be optimal, but beeg numbrr is just so much more fun. This means we get 6 non-Exploiters to work with, and anything above that number is going to have to be better than an Exploiter. 

We'll start with the obvious: the Eagle console Covert Warhead Module. It's so convenient that it comes with this ship! The actual clicky is terrible, so I slot the power somewhere that I won't accidentally click it... like on a hidden tray. The passive Cat1 damage is great, and the 1/2 second shared torpedo cooldown is why we are all here. It takes up a non-tactical slot. 

Next, we're going to drop an Exploiter (already?!) for the Lorca console. The Torpedo is great, especially since we'll be using 5 torpedoes, we'll have plenty of room for it. The 3pc set would be great for even more torpedoes, but since we'll be cloaked roughly half the time, any energy weapons will be a half-wasted slot. So the best way to get the 2pc set is with the console, which is a forced Tactical console, kicking out an Exploiter. The extra CrtD alone is pretty good, but we also get CrtH and Shield Pen from the console itself. Shield Pen absolutely has a place as torpedoes take a lot of damage reduction from shields.

Next, we're going to rip the Kor right out of our Legendary Bird of Prey and slot it on the Eagle. The Kor set includes 4 pieces, but only goes up to a 3 piece set. Don't worry, if you don't have the extremely overpriced 11th anniversary bundle, all of the pieces can be obtained in other ways. The Enhanced Induction Coils are "free" with the M'Chala you unlock as a Klingon Recruit. This is the same one that gets you the Withering Barrage trait. It might take a little time to earn the ship, but once you do, it's account unlocked. The second piece we absolutely want is the Subspace Jumper. This is a bit more expensive, costing several thousand refined dilithium (depending on your fleet and any dil ship discounts). The Ch'Tang is a per-character unlock, you're basically buying the console. The next one we want is the Quantum Warhead Module from the T6 Kor. This costs a C-Store token/ship, so it's a little pricey for one ship. It's certainly the optimal 3rd piece, but if you want to save a C-Store ship, the 4th option costs less than a week's refined dilithium. The Shield Destabilizer from the Qaw'Dun, which reduces shield resistance a little. 

Now, why would we devote 3 console slots to these 3 consoles? Let's look at the set bonuses to start with. The 2pc set adds CrtH and CrtD to your cloak ambush. Now, this doesn't apply to She's a Predator, but since we will be cloaking and decloaking often, this is solid extra damage. You also get 20% reduction to your cloak cooldown, bringing it up even more often. The 3pc set adds Bonus All Damage based on your Engine power, and is a passive. This means any sort of power boosts we get like Enhanced Induction Coils just further boosts this damage. The extra cloak bonuses and the bonus all damage make this a great set for this application since we are so focused on cloaking and ambush. 

One major drawback to cloaking all the time, even Enhanced Battle Cloak, is that you have no shields any time you are cloaked. Shields are a major survivability tool, and having them completely offline is a big disadvantage. There's an interesting interaction we can use here. Gomtuu comes with a console called Evolve, and it's passive scales with missing shields. It's a massive 645 All DRR if you have no shields at all. It has an active that might not seem too strong as well, but on our setup, it can actually be pretty effective. Based on what console slot you slot it in, you can get some extra subsystem power from using the active. However, you have to take damage in order to trigger the damage and power boost. Since we are flying a little bitty squishy ship, we're going to be relying on our Tank to take all of the incoming damage. Getting Evolve to trigger when you have a tank that isn't you is very hard. In our case, we have one of the two self-damage powers already on the build that can be used to trigger the Evolve active. Fly Her Apart will build all 7 stacks of Evolve in 7 seconds, which is pretty good considering I've also gone through entire maps with a tank and not taken enough damage to trigger Evolve. This lets you choose when to activate Evolve instead of hoping you take enough damage at the right time. We take advantage of the passive damage resist when cloaked, the power boost for Onboard Dilithium Recrystalizer or Kor 3pc, and the damage is pretty solid since we can trigger it when we want to - near a lot of targets. We slot it in a Science slot for the extra shield power, one of our lower power systems, but also so we can get an AoE shield disable. 

This leaves us with 1 console slot before we have to start giving up Locators/Exploiters. Krenim Chronophage is pretty easy to obtain off the exchange, and does really good AoE damage. The real benefit here is that we can use this as an AoE shield offline, which helps our torpedoes connect for maximum damage. 

With all of our slots filled, we can consider if we want to replace a Locator/Exploiter with some other clicky consoles. Sequential  Warhead Loader, Tricobalt Tear Launcher, and Micro-Quantum Torpedoes Phalanx Array are all pretty solid projectile consoles that might be worth replacing a console with, but if you don't have them, they aren't essential or critical to the build synergy. For this build, I like Micro-Quantum Torpedoes Phalanx Array and am using the trait from the same ship, so I replace an Exploiter with it. 

Commander Tactical/Pilot

To be completely honest, the Pilot powers themselves are not crucial to this build. The stipulation that we have a Commander Pilot seat is, however, critical to our ship selection. The Covert Warhead Module garners a 1/2 second shared cooldown for torpedoes instead of the standard 2 second shared cooldown. While Commander Command would be better on its own for torpedoes, the Covert Warhead Module drives our decision here... and comes with the ship!

Being the only locked seating on the ship isn't a big deal. Our best option for the Commander slot is Fly Her Apart III for its bonus damage and synergy with the Evolve console. We could take this at a lower rank, but we don't need any other powers at Commander level - Torpedo powers cap out at Lt. Commander, and Fire at Will/Cannon Scatter Volley are just triggers for Entwined Tactical Matrices so minimum rank is fine. Kemocite Laced Weaponry and Distributed Targeting don't even reach to Commander. Attack Pattern Omega III or Attack Pattern Beta III would be solid, but the uptime isn't good enough on Omega, and the benefit is just too watered down on Beta to be worth the 20 DRR versus 22.5% extra Bonus All damage from Fly Her Apart III. 

For Lt. Commander, there's no real beneficial Pilot powers. Torpedo High Yield III is the most impactful. If you use Torpedo Spread, you'll lock out Fire at Will/Cannon Scatter Volley and actually far reduce the benefit from Entwined Tactical Matrices. 

Since we've mentioned it several times, the last two slots are Fire at Will and Cannon Scatter Volley both at rank I. This covers most of our needs for Tactical powers

Lt. Commander Universal/Command (Tactical)

On a torper, Lt. Commander Command is Concentrate Firepower III. Don't slot lower ranks. This power has a huge benefit, providing torpedo cooldown reset as well as extra damage AS WELL AS a High Yield I every 2 seconds (instead of 15 from the regular BOff power!). Just about as essential as can be. 

While you might consider Reroute Power from Life Support and Target That Explosion, we have a couple things working against us here. First of all, we have absolutely no pets to fire the extra torpedoes, so we're counting on our allies for pets. Also, this build is already tight on cooldowns and micromanaging both torpedo powers, Fly Her Apart, and cloak. We are also very easily at our 7 starship traits. The upside is not very high without our own pets, and the downside is just costing us too much attention on a very fast and tight build.

For Lieutenant, we use Attack Pattern Beta I - which is our trigger for She's a Predator. APB 1 is still good even without She's a Predator, but we need at Attack Pattern of some kind and Beta is the best one currently. If Omega had the same uptime, it would probably find its way onto this build too but it's just not. 

For the Ensign slot, we have Tactical Team - basically replaceable filler. If you move Kemocite Laced Weaponry I from the other Ensign slot here, you can use the last Ensign seat for anything else. 

Lt. Commander Universal (Science)

Now we have a decision to make. We need to pick our remaining Lt. Commander power. We're already using filler on Tactical powers, and Lt. Commander would be no different. Distributed Targeting and maybe a Mine pattern are the only two powers we haven't used. Distributed Targeting is pretty low impact and could even be in the Ensign seat over Tactical Team, so it's not my first pick. We end up with much more benefit out of the omni-missile in the rear than a mine would afford, especially considering the alternatives. 

We could pick up Let It Go III for an Engineering seat for a pile of single-target debuff, but it takes a good while to stack up. Torpers really don't struggle with single target damage, but rather with hitting multiple targets. While it's a fine option, it's not going to be super impactful if you are running with teammates that have Type 7s and other debuffs floating around. 

As a result, Gravity Well is probably our best option - and not for the damage, but the utility. Keeping enemies clustered together will just net our torpedoes doing more damage. Torpedo spreads can hit all of their targets, AoE high-yields can hit multiple targets, and keeping targets in place reducing how much you have to move around to hit targets. 

For Lieutenant, Photonic Officer is our quick and easy cooldown reduction method. Combining this with Boimler should handle all of our cooldowns without much other thought. 

For Ensign, Tractor Beam is a must as it triggers Rapid Emitting Armaments. Even if we were torping on a totally different ship and budget level, Carrier Wave Shield Hacking is great for torpers as it turns off shields - triggered by Tractor Beam. The ranks of Tractor Beam are inconsequential, so rank I is just fine. 

Lieutenant Universal (Engineering)

Aux to SIF I is the best option for our Lt. Commander seat. We're running short on Tactical and Science options that have high impact, and we are not planning to use Unconventional Systems - a torper of this speed simply won't be able to keep up with cycling that many powers that quickly. Aux to SIF is a quick trigger for our Strategist benefits and a little boost to healing/resist. This could certainly be replaced if you can find a better Pilot, Command, Science, or Tactical power - but the Strategist benefits are going to well outweigh what else we could pickup. 

Emergency Power to Engines rounds out the Engineering powers. At this point, I don't know of any STOBETTER builds that don't use the Emergency Conn Hologram and Emergency Power to Engines. It's just too beneficial to maneuverability, even on a fast ship. 

Ensign Universal (Tactical)

We're left with filler. Tactical Team is what we picked (though Kemocite and Tactical Team were hotswapped just due to what I had trained). Distributed Targeting, Polarize Hull, Engineering Team, you could even pull off a shuffle for Reroute Power for Life Support if you can handle the extra micromanagement. 

Defense

It's hard to leave home without Give Your All - it's a very underutilized damage reduction category, and with Aux to SIF, it's up about as often as you could hope for. Whole Lotta X's would also be a good heal if needed, but honestly, Evolve handles a lot of our resist and this ship absolutely needs a tank. However, due to cloaking and Evolve, you are able to stealth your way through content, so just keep that in mind that this is a non-traditional survivability tool. 

Offense

Maquis Tactics is really the only truly synergistic trait here, as it boosts both She's a Predator and our cloak Ambush. Since this is Bonus All damage, we get a lot of mileage out of slotting it. Absolutely not worth slotting if you aren't cloaking and using She's a Predator. While we can get 100% uptime on the cloak ambush, its much lower on She's a Predator uptime. 

A Good Day to Die is tactical-only, but is best in slot for Tactical captains. 

Resonating Payload Modificaiton is great for torpedo boats as it will reduce the DRR of targets we are shooting at. While Mines apply it better, its still worth slotting with just torpedoes. 

Varuvian Explosives is a solid chunk of damage, but no real special synergy here. This is more "nice to have" than required.

Kinetic Precision is some shield pen for Projectiles, but extra nice because you can earn it for free!

Fleet Coordinator is free and bonus all damage; rare to find a DPS build without it. 

Cooldowns

Intel Agent Attache is great for any captain as it just about completely solves Captain power cooldowns. 

The Boimler Initiative also just about solves Bridge Officer cooldowns, especially if we have some extra cooldowns like Photonic Officer.

The "Good Stuff"

Look, there are a ton of personal traits in the game. Some are older, some are newer, and frankly a lot of them are just marginally different from one another. While I use specific traits here, if you have anything of the "good stuff", don't go out and get one of these traits just to match this build. What you have is already good enough. These are way better than the free default traits, but not as wildly different amongst themselves. 

Intel Handler, Context is for Kings, Duelists Fervor, Self-Modulating Fire, Breen Shield Tunneling, Terran Targeting Systems, and Fireball Escape are all "good stuff" traits - solid damage bonuses to a wide variety of builds. Fragment of AI Tech is great for energy builds only (aka won't apply here), but is also on this list. Pick from what you have from this list if you don't have exactly the same as I have here. 

Notes:

Let's start with the Legendary Warbird Bundle traits. Conveniently, we use two traits from this bundle. She's a Predator is a key piece of our build. We're using Infiltrators on our Bridge Officers to boost both this duration and the duration of Cloak Ambush. We are also using Maquis Tactics to boost both again. Attack Pattern Beta is the trigger for this. 

Next, we use Rapid-Emitting Armaments. This not only fires several high-yield plasma torpedoes that do significant damage, but also adds bonus torpedo damage. We only need Tractor Beam to trigger this. Remember that these are high-yield torpedoes. 

Ceaseless Momentum is quite beneficial with how many torpedoes we are firing, it will reduce the cooldown of all of them each time we fire. The Micro-Missile array fires outside of our regular torpedo firing cycle but also cools down each of our other torpedoes due to Ceaseless Momentum. The extra kinetic damage will boost all of our torpedo damage. 

Subspatial Warheads is also a really strong torpedo trait, and with Rapid Emitting Armaments as well as Concentrate Firepower High Yield torpedoes, we will generate a ton of rifts and they are a small AoE but can stack up a lot of extra damage. This gets some extra synergy with Rapid-Emitting Armaments because those high yields also each create a rift. 

Entwined Tactical Matrices is a great trait for Fire at Will uptime, as well as getting extra Torpedo Spreads out. We can get two more Torpedo Spreads by slotting both Fire at Will and Cannon Scatter Volley. It does force us to use Torpedo High Yield as Torpedo Spread would then lock out Fire at Will and Cannon Scatter Volley, but this is ideal for us anyways. Be sure to fire off one ETM spread before triggering the other as they do not stack up. I make sure that CSV and FAW are spaced pretty far apart on my spambar as a way to have the best chance to clear the spread before triggering another. 

Onboard Dilithium Recrystalizer is an odd choice, and certianly replaceable. However, we not only get a little extra power out of it from using Engineering powers, but we also get 100% uptime on at least 20% Bonus All damage. If we can get a big enough boost to our Shield power, we'd get the 3rd stack of 10% Bonus Damage - hence the rare Duty Officer with a chance to set power to max. Enhanced Induction Coils does not benefit Shield power, but if Weapons, Engines, and Aux are all maxed out, ODR will add power to Shields. This is also why we use Evolve for the shields system as we can hope to add a big chunk of power to Shields when it triggers. If we had a 5th device slot, a Large Shields Battery would be very welcome as a guaranteed Bonus 10% damage. 

Angle on the Bow is basically interchangeable with Piercing Projectiles, but we are already using the console off the Achilles so the trait from it makes sense as well. This is a nice boost, but hardly synergistic to the entire build. This would be the first trait I would replace on this build. 

Miscellaneous