How to have Good Sheilds
Like all gear in STO there is in my opinion no right answer to what is best. But there are ways to fuck it up!
Having good shields is dependent on many factors. What I want to do with this post is give you a good guideline on how to determine what may work, and also have discussion that continues on shields. As STO is what is great today may not be as good as some newer item or in some combo I have no idea even exists yet. Ships builds in STO are a complex project so with all that in mind lets talk about shields.
Having good shields starts with your skills. Make sure you have at least the basic shield points in the skill tree. What I mean is any top level skill that adds pts to shields in anyway. If you have not and you try things here and they still don't work for you a respec of your skills may be needed. Anyway looking at your skill tree is always a good place to start.
Next look at your ship. What is its shield modifier rating. In general Science ships have the best and escorts the worst, but that is not always true. You have to look. So what does that mean, well it goes to how much capacity you will have IE shield HP, per facing. As all shields have four facings. So if your shield has a 5700 capacity and the modifier is .7 you get 70% of that value, if it is 1.1 you get 110% the value, so it matters a lot.
After that look at your available space traits. Make sure you have some slotted. You can buy some, earn some on reputations, or get them with T6 ship mastery. You want some that add capacity, heal, or regen to your shields. Also energy transfer rates can help or Boof ability cool downs. Just depends on what shield and ship you have.
Now look at your consoles, especially science ones. Hear again capacity, heal, emitter can all help shields stay up. An emitter wont stack fyi, but it does improve your shield heal rate.
Now look at you Boof and Doof abilites, do they help your shields. Something like emergency power to shields is nice to have. There are other abilities that help as well. Research for what fits and equip. Doofs on space duty can also help.
Other ship gear, some gear will help shields look for mods, deflectors also.
Now for the shield itself. They come in many different flavors and depending one your play style others may work better. You have some that regen faster but have less capacity, while others do the reverse. Some have 10% bleed thought others 5%, this is the absorption rate which means how much damage ignores your shields and hits your hull, you can live with shields gone but die when hull is. For me I look for capacity, IE more HP, that said it is not always what you want.
Shields also have mods like taking less damage from some types of energy or beams. In general you want as much resistance as you can get.
Lastly, you need to think about how you fly. Some ships have a very slow turn rate. In combat you want to not allow one facing to hit till it collapses, you want to spread the damage over your facings. You also want to make sure you are putting enough power into shields and not all into weapons.
Post questions or comments below.
Good info. For me the complexity of the ship builds and skills is one of the more interesting things about STO as it gives almost unlimited possibilities.
For actual shields I agree with having the most capacity as I've not come across high enough regeneration rate set up that will off set a shield with a high starting value. Most battles in PVE won't be long enough for the higher regen rate to be helpful, PVP I don't know as I haven't done much of that. Even so, a couple good BOFF shield heal abilities will usually take care of them. Big thing is to always try to keep some shields up.
For me I always like to have the BOFF Reverse Shield Polarity slotted. This redirects some incoming damage to restore shield strength. If you find yourself in a furball with enemies all around this comes in handy to help buy some time to get out of the mess. Emergency Power to Shields is also good to have as well. There are other shield boosting BOFFs, but these are the 2 I use mostly.
For ship equipment and consoles the combinations are endless, but I always have some combination that increases shield/hull capacity and shield regen rate. I look for equipment that helps my specific set up first, then look for one that has additional shield abilities too.
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Thx for the info. Just wanted to know whether you had any personal preferences for shields.
Rn im running the preeminent shields. Soon to get the dyson ones.
Any opinions?
Thx for the info. Just wanted to know whether you had any personal preferences for shields.
Rn im running the preeminent shields. Soon to get the dyson ones.
Any opinions?
Fleet and Rep tend to be the best. I like the Reman New Rom Rep shields and they have a nice effect also.
I'm currently using the Sol Defense set on my primary character. I've neglected the reputation stuff and have been grinding through the rep stuff lately. So I'll be looking to try some of those soon. The temporal defense shields look decent as well as the Reman. A lot of people used to talk about the Iconian, but IDK about them yet.
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in my expirience it is always between comp shield and iconian shield, i prefer comp if i am going for comp 3pc, if not i go to the trusted colony/comp/spire/ico combo
Very good shields no doubt
Main advantage of the Ico shield is the 15% reduced energy weapon damage, which makes it real good if you can keep the shields up, if you are hull tanking comp can be more beneficial, especially on those elite ques, and 3pc comp is pretty much a must in PvP, cause
When damaged by Energy Damage, gain:
- +1.5 Bonus Energy Damage Resistance Rating for 1.5 sec (max of 10 stacks)
When at 10 stacks, gain +25 Bonus Energy Damage Resistance Rating for 5 seconds. Can occur once every 30 sec.DAMN SON