Ircen Hydra
Tholian Jorogumo Carrier
Tholian Jorogumo Carrier
In many games that I have played, I've always enjoyed the tanking or support roles. I get a sense of pride knowing I am lifting my teammates to victory. It's also a way I feel I can serve my friends and teammates. It's not as bright and flashy as a 1M DPS build, but there is something lifting up your teammates to new heights.
Originally, my main was in a Tarantula as a tank. I supplied healing, damage, and a really big ship to follow ("What do we do in this one?" Follow the big ship!). As the game has progressed, healing allies has dropped off being needed. I have a dedicated tank on another character, but the Tarantula is still by far my favorite ship to fly. I really enjoyed the Recluse as a carrier with some really strong pets, but it was outclassed once the Jorogumo came available. With the "Annual Event," I was able to unlock the last Tholian ship I was missing - easily over 1B EC and by far not the most powerful ship. But it can take advantage of all of the toys Tholian ships have to offer, as well as put out 5 separate sources of Attack Pattern Beta with 4 Elite Meshweavers. Lots of potential to support, and with the Tarantula on kinetic support, an energy support only makes sense.
Energy means most of my damage comes from energy weapons, but what is energy support? Specifically, I focus on increasing allies (and my own) damage through debuffs to enemies or buffs to allies. I also tend to trade a few "all damage" debuffs for specifically "energy" debuffs, though in general there are not a lot of trades of "all" for "energy" like there is for kinetic.
Eventually, this build morphed into the defacto support for my fleetmates runs. As such, I chose to get the Mudd's bundle and account unlock the Jorogumo. This also meant that I had three "colors" of the Jorogumo, which are the same build but with slight variations, and the Captain powers also come into play. My friends call me crazy, but now I get to fly one of my favorite ships basically non-stop!
"I can be red, I can be blue, I can be Tactical too.
I can be green, I can be purple, I can be anything you like..."
This is a premium build, with the highest available budgets and resources utilized in its creation. See the build costs page for more detail.
This ship had a very recognizable 3-point look to it, and it reminded me of multiple heads of a hydra. Ircen is a town in a story I wrote a long time ago.
Each of the three ships I now use across my account are Sapphire, Citrine, and Ruby Hydra. Sapphires are Blue (science captain), Rubies are Red (tactical captain), and Citrine is Yellow (engineering captain)
I have a secondary team of Jorogumos: Amathyst, Topaz, and Emerald Hydra, which are secondary colors that closely align to both captain career and captain faction/race. Topaz is a Temporal Recruit Tactical, Amathyst is a Jem Hadar, and Emerald is Reman
ISE/HSE: 225K DPS, 30+ PB assists, 298% Debuff
Each category is sorted by priority of contribution. Something that applies to generally more builds will be rated higher than archetype or build specific contributions. Warning: This is not a cheap build.
T6 C-Store Ships
Fleet Power Network Array Universal Console & Type 7 Hangar Pets - Ahwahnee
Entwined Tactical Matricies Starship Trait - Gagarin Miracle Worker Battlecruiser
Improved Gravity Well Starship Trait- Andorian Chimesh Pilot Escort
Dominion Targeting Synchronizer Universal Console - Jem'Hadar Vanguard Dreadnought Cruiser
Tachyon Net Drones Universal Console - Bozeman
Flagship Tactical Computer Universal Console - Endeavour, et al.
High Energy Communications Network Universal Console - Support Carrier (There are several)
Graviton Displacer Universal Console - Shran
Legendary Ships - None
Event Items/Ships
Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field Universal Console - Vovin
Interphasic Instability Universal Console
Electrified Anomalies Starship Trait - Risian Weather Control Vessel
Cold Hearted Starship Trait - Breen Plesh Tral Heavy Raider
Digital Compilation Starship Trait - Compiler
Coordinated Engagement Solution Universal Console - Garrett
Holomatrix Distortion Universal Console - Holoship
Sensor Suspension Burst Universal Console - Jarok
Polarity Coil Generator Universal Console - Tamarian
Lockbox Gear & Duty Officers
Hostile Acquisition Universal Console
Approaching Agony Universal Console
Deconstructive Resonance Emitter Universal Console
Delphic Tear Universal Console
Self-Modulating Fire Personal Trait
Resonating Payload Modification Personal Trait
Psychological Warfare Personal Trait
Repair Crews Personal Trait
Unconventional Systems Personal Trait
Terran Targeting Systems Personal Trait
Feel the Weight of our Presence Personal Trait
Carrier Wave Shield Hacking Starship Trait
One Impossible Thing at a Time Starship Trait
Kemocite Laced Weaponry Bridge Officer Power
Sensor Analysis Bridge Officer Power
Distributed Targeting Bridge Officer Power
Lobi Gear (200 lobi each)
Delphic Distortion Torpedo
Lobi Ships - None
Lockbox Ships
Tholian Jorogumo Carrier - also in Mudd's
Enhanced Dominion Command Interface Universal Console - Jem'Hadar Dreadnought Carrier
R&D Promotional Ships - None
December 2025 - Streamlining and cleanup
October 2024 - Vovin Console
February 2024 - Account Unlocked Jorogumo, and T6X2
December 2023 - A higher focus on support and totally stripped down selfish output
August 2023 - A few consoles swapped for increased support and less selfish damage
March 2023 - Updated to remove a Locator for Dominion Targeting, replaced Overwhelm Power Regulators with Distributed Targeting, and picked up a 10th trait slot
November 2022 - Initial Release
The Ircen Hydra is really there for the support and the hangar. I make a few choices for flavor reasons, though it's not a full flavor build.
Slotting Energy Weapons and Auxiliary to Battery means I am really going for energy weapon damage and debuffs (Cold-Hearted, Fire at Will, Entwined Tactical Matrices)
Since this skill tree is shared amongst many builds, I made a separate page for it and the discussion of it.
The primary focus for this build is energy support, though any allies will get a large amount of support from this build. I chose to go with Disruptors which have several procs for reducing damage resistance.
The "old META" was the Iconian four piece set because of the limited selection of full 4 piece sets, and because of how strong the 3 and 4 piece bonuses were. Passive damage to the full team, and an active to give some extra "All Damage". I already had this set around long before this build, so it was almost a no-brainer to slot here.
Devices are pretty standard, and most are situational for when I am not primarily supporting. Deuterium Surplus is for when I need maneuverability and Evasive Maneuvers and Emergency Power to Engines are on cooldown. TThe Large Auxiliary Batteries are specifically for the Fleet Power Network Array, since I lose a lot of damage due to using Aux2Batt and draining my Aux. I make sure to use one of these before using FPNA. The rest are really just filler, but if you wanted to go crazy with it, you could use some Team batteries.
There are a lot of clickies (Universal Consoles with a power you can "click" and use on demand), and as such, Unconventional Systems is really strong and drives a lot of powers and equipment choices. There are mostly the same consoles across the 6 builds, and each Jorogumo can slot 14 consoles. Rather than make you play "spot the difference", the blue support is on my Carrier character which has a Mirror Engle. The weakest support clicky (in my opinion) at this point is Interphasic Instability, especially since quite a few of the others are account unlocks and we are very saturated on -DRR sources with Type 7s. With the release of the Vovin, it's ability to cut down cooldowns on all these consoles is second-to-none. There's no special synergies here, every console is a support clicky that I've analyzed in my support presentation.
Some of my builds still use 2 bays of Meshweavers, which are exclusive to Tholian ships. They each have Attack Pattern Beta III and interact with the Jorogumo's unique console, so they are tough to beat. However, doing some quick math - there are only 4 Meshweavers. A single bay of Type 7s brings more copies of APB3 than two bays of Meshweavers. If you use both bays of Type 7s, then the bonus energy damage from the Jorogumo console is lost. As such, bringing a bay of Widow fighters increases that output as well. Instead of 4 copies of Tholian Tetryon Grid and 4 copies of APB3, we end up with 6 copies of Tholian Tetryon Grid and 6 copies of APB3.
All of these consoles show up on our Support builds tier list. Most of these are -DRR sources, so as we get better consoles, we start replacing the smaller arc -DRR sources. Dominion Targeting Synchronizer, Tholian Tetryon Grid, Flagship Tactical Computer, Coordinated Engagement Solution, and Tachyon Net Drones all bring something more than just -DRR to the table, such as a teamwide damage buff or a shield offline, etc. Subspace Fracture Tunneling Field is very strong for cooling down other universal consoles. Graviton Displacer doesn't boost damage directly, but is a great control ability to move smaller targets from one area to another, such as wayward Spheres in ISE, or clumps of Vaadwaur in Korfez.
As one of only a few ships with a Commander Universal seat, the Jorogumo lends itself to a wide array of build types. You could make an "anchor", which uses the Commander Seat as a Gravity Well III. You could make a tank, with the commander seat as Reverse Shield Polarity III. In this case, we took Tactical for the Attack Pattern Beta III. At one point in time, that was the strongest debuff available - and then the Ahwahnee showed up. Now, 50 DRR is a pretty small drop in the bucket. If I had the DOff slots, I could easily slot the Conn officers that allow for a chance for Attack Pattern Omega to affect the entire team, but for now, this stays.
Even before they reworked Miracle Worker powers to interact with Unconventional Systems, Deploy Gravitic Induction Platform was a solid choice for a support power. Both increasing shield Bleedthrough (more damage to hull!) and giving a minor pull, it just made sense. Now that it also triggers Unconventional Systems, it's a no brainer. We can only take this at Lt. Commander (rank 1), since we really don't gain much benefit for Rank 3 at Commander, only gaining up to 10% more shield bleedthrough.
We also take Null Pointer Flood simply for the slightly better uptime on it versus Jam Sensors as an uncon trigger. In theory, you could drop Kemocite and shuffle things around to take Jam Sensors for more console uptime, but really not much for great Uncon triggers in an Ensign seat.
While we are on the topic of Tactical seating, these powers all generally interchange. We need both Fire at Will and Torpedo Spread for spreading around Kemocite, Attack Pattern Beta, and any other weapon-tied debuffs using Entwinted Tactical Matrices. Kemocite and Distributed Targeting are support powers you can add as well. Since the support aspect gets stronger with rank on Kemocite and Distributed Targeting, I chose to take both of these at rank 2 and Fire at Will and Torpedo Spread at rank 1. If you drop Kemocite (only-15 DRR here), you can rank up Torpedo Spread to hit more targets with Delphics for debuff, and then take Jam Sensors in the universal ensign seat for more Unconventional Systems, but we're pretty in the weeds here as it's not a huge impact.
While we wish we could take Gravity Well 3, Gravity Well 1 is enough to clump up targets as needed, but is far from the 12km pull possible with Gravity Well 3. Destabilized Resonance Beam is an AoE debuff, and while the damage scales with rank, the debuff portion does not, so we take it at just rank 1. Finally, tractor beam is both an Unconventional Systems trigger and a Carrier Wave Shield Hacking (shield offline) trigger, so it makes solid utility.
While we could do Boimler + Photonic Officer, there's not much for us to do with the forced engineering seating. Being able to take Auxiliary to Battery in 2 slots allows us to have perfect cooldowns and we can slot Cold-Hearted without the pilot seating. While Cold Hearted shows up on a lot of tanks, the flexibility of having it on our support here comes in handy when someone doesn't already have it.
And of course, Emergency Power to Engines + ECH Conn Officer is on 100% of our builds. It's that useful!
Red
Yellow
Blue
While I don't have the exact same traits on every build just due to cost, there are a lot which overlap.
Feel the Weight of our Presence, Into the Breach, and Resonating Payload Modification are just general debuffs.
Frangment of AI Tech is and Psychological Warfare are just boosts to our control powers.
Intel Handler ties in with Intel Agent Attache to keep Captain Powers up more, though Intel Handler probably isn't necessary.
Grace Under Fire is our wildcard "stay alive" trait, and depending on captain career and budget, certainly could be replaced. Give your All is used on at least one version of the Jorogumo as we have quick cycling engineering powers.
Go Fast! is really optional, but seems a fine boost to maneuverability.
Finally, Unconventional Systems keeps all of our Universal Consoles up a lot faster and is around 1/3rd of our Bridge Officer stations.
Anything else you see is basically just filler material.
We've covered just about all of these above.
Electrified Anomalies is a really minor buff to power, but there's not a ton of support Starship Traits out there.
Digital Compilation is probably the most lame support trait, as the only reason it ends up as support as it can attribute damage to other players, essentially adding a little padding to their numbers. Again, if there were some better support options, I'd be all for it.
Flagship Staffing, Greater than the Sum, and Unified Engineering are great options - except we have no way to trigger them. We could go for Omega Bond, but being a lockbox ship or Mudd's ship, its pretty expensive for the small buff it is.
The Emergency Conn Hologram is used on just about every build we have, so I won't rehash it's boost to maneuverability here.
Technicians are covered up in Bridge Officers as these are what allow Auxiliary to Battery to be our primary cooldown scheme.
When it comes to support, one thing we can do is remove buffs on the enemy target. While there are not a lot of buffs NPCs use, one clever example is "But That's Just the Beginning", the 3pc Lorca set. It places a removable buff on the target to prevent another torpedo from being fired at that target. Once that buff is removed, anyone with the 3pc set will fire another torpedo! Subnucleonic abilities also remove buffs, but its always better to have multiple sources of buff stripping.
Finally, this is pretty niche, but this does reduce the minimum shared cooldown on generic batteries, so we can use our Auxiliary Batteries more often to hopefully line up better with big gravity wells and Fleet Power Network Array usage. Blues and Purples are prohibitively expensive.