‘Preeminent’ is Highly Suggestive

Before I dive in this week, I have noticed a few things have been tweaked in-game over the last few months. I wrote “My Lobes are Huge” a while back and in that post I mentioned the abundance of latinum that was offered in the Ferengi Admiralty system. I bemoaned the fact that little was really available to purchase for latinum and queried, wouldn’t a “black market” shop be cool? Well predictably, Cryptic went for the nerf rifle rather than the creative pistol. Yes indeed they did as I have not been seeing those loaded latinum rewards lately. Those hefty 50-90k loads of delicious gold pressed bars in admiralty missions have been neutered down to much more modest 2k to 15k hauls. Come on Cryptic, you can do better than that.

So the time has come for me to review the “Incontrovertible Defenses” space set that was the reward for completion of the featured episode, “Melting Pot”. Each week a new piece of the set was offered as a reward with the final piece unlocking on the 26th of October. The four piece set includes either a singularity or warp core along with the shield, engines, and deflector. All three space set items plus either core completes the set. This is a typical set in that each new piece equipped on the ship adds additional set bonuses.

Now each of the items in the set is called the “Preeminent…” Seriously did Cryptic look that word up in the dictionary? This word basically means superior and surpassing all others. That is a lofty claim and it’s actually in the title of each of these items. Wow, these have got the be the shit, right? Actually, they are pretty good, but preeminent? That could be a stretch.

I am a big fan of these featured mission rewards because they do not require excessive grinding to get. Unless you want a copy for each or your eleven toons. I generally only pick these up a for a couple of toons. The admiral gets them all and then another toon or two I figure can benefit based on the result with my primary. That’s just my schtick on these, others may predetermine which toon is most likely to get the most mileage out the items and play accordingly. Yet still others may just grind the crap out of it for every toon on the roster.

I harp on the game developers allot, but STO does give away a lot of genuinely solid, usable end game goodies. For this they should be applauded. This new set is no exception.

The set pieces have generous passive boosts and the set powers are mostly passive and also quite strong. One of the striking things about this set is the Covariant Shield. This guy has the fore shield reduced in strength while the aft shield is stronger. This great for soaking that extra damage when a raider is on your ass beating you down with a flanking bonus. It does kind of suck for players that take a more ‘in your face’ frontal assault stance.

The set is ideal for use with tetryon weapons offering a number of boosts to tetryon damage, both passively and actively. I ran the set on more than one of the Admiral’s ships. The Thoilan Meshweaver and the Tellarite Flight Deck Cruiser. I had to change the armaments on the Tellarite ship to take advantage of the tetryon bonuses. To fully take advantage of this set you need to create a rather specific build. I think it works best on destroyers and battle cruisers. Not only should you equip tetryon energy weapons but cannons are desirable as there is set bonuses that take advantage of cannon BOFF abilities.

I am seriously considering a build out with this set as the “bones” of the build on the Chel Grett. That old girl has been sidelined since the T6 version was offered last winter. With a sharp 13 degree turn rate and a full complement of weapons bays, that ship could be ‘loaded for bear’ with tetryon cannons and this set.

The shield set up with the fore/aft variance could also be useful on ships with a strong shield modifier including science ships. The aft section would be nigh impenetrable.

I like this set, it is a bit specific but with a build suited to the sets abilities it could be one of the best in the game. Again, be advised I feel like it has a very narrow band of uses. I got the best results using it on my Tactical Command Battle Cruiser, but like I mentioned before, I think the Chel Grett would be ideal. The set bonuses are real strong and the 40% shield boost under the 3 piece set bonus, Inundated Shielding, seems legit. Check the before and after screen shots below. Those passive bonuses are enough to offset some pretty solid console buffs and that gives the user an opportunity to utilize a different console. 30% Tetryon boost for example offsets a Mk XII purple Tertyon Tactical Console. The 40% shield cap bonus tops any science console offering shield boosts I have ever seen.

Equipping the three classic space items, deflector, engines, shields will collectively boost system power levels as follows: +2 Aux, +7 Shields. Again these are numbers you might find on a specific engineering or science console. Nice. The deflector offers hard-core shield bonus with a stout 43.8 boost.

I have decided to have Science Admiral Rodessa pick this set up and use it on one of her badass science ships. I’ll have to let you all know how well that works out. My gut says that will be a nice fit.

This is a solid set, pay close attention to the boosts and set bonuses as they are geared to a specific build around the set. Not that you have to build just one setup but rather that you need to utilize, not just a specific energy type, but specifically cannons, and that the bonuses will free up console space to expand other weak areas of the toon. This is not likely the last I’ll be writing of this set, I think it will grow on me even more and become a true go to set for some of my toons. I have the stats from each item in the set from the STO Wiki below.