I'm still trying to figure out how it even makes sense to shove a hologram into cryostasis, wouldn't it be better to just copy/paste her onto a thumb drive? With stats that low, she probably won't take up more than 20% of the available memory!
As I said before, her value depends on your crew. At 5/5, she definitely is better in base DIP than all but one or two 4/4. Victorian Pulaski is about 35 points higher but her secondary is MED and Mintaken Troi is a few points behind with no COM either. At 5/5 she has a clear advantage over any 4/4 for for DIP and COM seats on shuttles.
Yes I will concede it does depend on crew you posses but also one would expect a 5/5 to be better than a 4/4 stats but at a cost of 50k honor that is a high price to pay for a slight gain over a purple, if I had that kind of honor to burn on 2 skill crew I'd put it on Dancing Uhura's second star ahead of putting a fifth on Minuet.
Only a few purples are ranked anywhere close for base stats but also a few hundred voyage points below Minuet's. Dancing Uhura's stats at 1/5 are a fair bit below. For my crew, she is worth it. Plus I don't like to stockpile honour as it doesn't collect interest. I prefer to use it fairly quickly after collecting it either on Mega characters or someone in my crew that is 3/5 or 4/5. Up until now, I have had someone to cite.
I have decided to take her out of cryo in my main account, due to this thread.
I have the crew slots. I realize now she will get an occasional use in voyage. I also kept worse than her on my active crew, Lwaxana Troi. When I froze Minuet , I should have froze Troi instead.
Edit: Not a fan of one stat or two stat crew. I freeze all my 2 stat superrare crew, only pulling them out for events. When I get my 5th star on Captain Scott, I will freeze him only pulling him out for skirmish event.
"I'm obstinate on loading seats in their right AND order"
I'm unfamiliar with the term "AND order", so obviously I'm not doing my best on shuttle missions. Would anyone mind explaining? Thanks!
Many shuttle missions have slots with two skills. These are labeled either “[skill1] AND [skill2]” or “[skill1] OR [skill2]” and correspond to requiring both listed skills or either listed skill. These two-skill slots are listed in various orders, meaning that one will say “COM and SEC” and another will say “SEC and COM.” This suggests that there is not an equal weight given to the two skills. Indeed, careful analysis of how the success percentage changes when different crew are loaded shows that AND slots fully weight one skill and only count the other at 25% of the actual rating.
Although the official line was that the skills were calculated as high/low regardless of what order they were in (meaning a 3/5* Durango Troi, with 1100ish SEC and 600ish COM, and a 5/5* RAF O’Brien, with 1100ish COM and 650ish SEC, would yield roughly the same displayed success rate), an error was discovered last year where the success rate was calculated server-side based on the displayed skill order - meaning that a “COM and SEC” slot with the example crew above would only match the displayed success rate with RAF O’Brien, while using Durango Troi would lead to a radical increase in failures. This error was stealth-fixed only after overwhelming evidence was provided and to this day has never received an official address from DB upper management.
As a matter of principle, some of us still adhere to the first/second order rather than high/low. (There was suspicion that the error came back when the all-new Borg shuttle missions were released but it was not rigorously documented and, if it existed at all, was fixed quickly. Although I didn’t notice a problem, I do keep to first/second priority when possible and wouldn’t have noticed anyway.) This is easier to do when you have a robust crew and a surplus of crew slots, of course, so it isn’t for everybody.
I have decided to take her out of cryo in my main account, due to this thread.
I have the crew slots. I realize now she will get an occasional use in voyage. I also kept worse than her on my active crew, Lwaxana Troi. When I froze Minuet , I should have froze Troi instead.
Edit: Not a fan of one stat or two stat crew. I freeze all my 2 stat superrare crew, only pulling them out for events. When I get my 5th star on Captain Scott, I will freeze him only pulling him out for skirmish event.
I don't have enough 5/5 to freeze any but for super rare I look at everything before freezing because every card has some value somewhere. I have quite a few 2 stat characters active just for daily shuttles, even if they aren't main cast. Some are primary tier, some are secondary tier, depending on the stat. Everyone has a use somewhere, it's just taking the best you have and optimizing it ( like a 5th star on Minuet for me) and freezing it once you have better replacements (most of my 4* second or third tier DIP). Dancing Uhura is still on my bench unlevelled because I haven't had a use for her and she doesn't replace anyone yet. Give me 3 more stars and I will spend a citation on her and level her up. Even awful 1-4* characters are useful for the achievement value alone or pulling out for an event. Everyone values cards differently so in the end of the day if you are happy with your crew, that's all that matters. 🙂
Thank you so much Dirk! It never even occurred to me that the skill order could have been a factor in success ratings. Even if it's not currently an issue, it seems a good practice to follow in case it becomes an issue again in the future. \\//
I have decided to take her out of cryo in my main account, due to this thread.
I have the crew slots. I realize now she will get an occasional use in voyage. I also kept worse than her on my active crew, Lwaxana Troi. When I froze Minuet , I should have froze Troi instead.
Edit: Not a fan of one stat or two stat crew. I freeze all my 2 stat superrare crew, only pulling them out for events. When I get my 5th star on Captain Scott, I will freeze him only pulling him out for skirmish event.
I don't have enough 5/5 to freeze any but for super rare I look at everything before freezing because every card has some value somewhere. I have quite a few 2 stat characters active just for daily shuttles, even if they aren't main cast. Some are primary tier, some are secondary tier, depending on the stat. Everyone has a use somewhere, it's just taking the best you have and optimizing it ( like a 5th star on Minuet for me) and freezing it once you have better replacements (most of my 4* second or third tier DIP). Dancing Uhura is still on my bench unlevelled because I haven't had a use for her and she doesn't replace anyone yet. Give me 3 more stars and I will spend a citation on her and level her up. Even awful 1-4* characters are useful for the achievement value alone or pulling out for an event. Everyone values cards differently so in the end of the day if you are happy with your crew, that's all that matters. 🙂
I am trying to lower my difficulty on all factions. I do not need crew for shuttles. But if they can be used on voyage I should have them in my crew. But, 2 stat superrares are just not voyage worthy. 👍
Edit: I have been thinking about freezing all non-event superrares. But, I like to keep my crew slots full, to make it easier to dismiss newly acquired crew. Also, some superrares do make voyages, when trait matching or loading up on primary and secondary skills. Also, I do not need that much room.
I have decided to take her out of cryo in my main account, due to this thread.
I have the crew slots. I realize now she will get an occasional use in voyage. I also kept worse than her on my active crew, Lwaxana Troi. When I froze Minuet , I should have froze Troi instead.
Edit: Not a fan of one stat or two stat crew. I freeze all my 2 stat superrare crew, only pulling them out for events. When I get my 5th star on Captain Scott, I will freeze him only pulling him out for skirmish event.
I don't have enough 5/5 to freeze any but for super rare I look at everything before freezing because every card has some value somewhere. I have quite a few 2 stat characters active just for daily shuttles, even if they aren't main cast. Some are primary tier, some are secondary tier, depending on the stat. Everyone has a use somewhere, it's just taking the best you have and optimizing it ( like a 5th star on Minuet for me) and freezing it once you have better replacements (most of my 4* second or third tier DIP). Dancing Uhura is still on my bench unlevelled because I haven't had a use for her and she doesn't replace anyone yet. Give me 3 more stars and I will spend a citation on her and level her up. Even awful 1-4* characters are useful for the achievement value alone or pulling out for an event. Everyone values cards differently so in the end of the day if you are happy with your crew, that's all that matters. 🙂
I am trying to lower my difficulty on all factions. I do not need crew for shuttles. But if they can be used on voyage I should have them in my crew. But, 2 stat superrares are just not voyage worthy. 👍
Edit: I have been thinking about freezing all non-event superrares. But, I like to keep my crew slots full, to make it easier to dismiss newly acquired crew. Also, some superrares do make voyages, when trait matching or loading up on primary and secondary skills. Also, I do not need that much room.
Interesting approach for shuttles. It's too much work for me though. I just run them as is with my best crew and hope for the best.
I agree with voyage super rares. I keep important ones active for sure. However, I like to keep my crew efficient so I do freeze crew that isn't currently needed and hasn't been used in a while. I use the crew level sort feature and scroll to the bottom. Everyone at level 1 is new. I keep my bench crew that I want to keep but I am not ready to start between level 2-10. For example, 1/4 at level 2, 2/4 at level 4, 1/5 at level 10, duplicate crew I am considering for levelling at level 8. That way you don't need to keep all crew slots full and you don't need to scramble to freeze 15 crew to defrost 15 DSC Mega event crew (that is the best benefit for keeping some crew slots open).
I have decided to take her out of cryo in my main account, due to this thread.
I have the crew slots. I realize now she will get an occasional use in voyage. I also kept worse than her on my active crew, Lwaxana Troi. When I froze Minuet , I should have froze Troi instead.
Edit: Not a fan of one stat or two stat crew. I freeze all my 2 stat superrare crew, only pulling them out for events. When I get my 5th star on Captain Scott, I will freeze him only pulling him out for skirmish event.
I don't have enough 5/5 to freeze any but for super rare I look at everything before freezing because every card has some value somewhere. I have quite a few 2 stat characters active just for daily shuttles, even if they aren't main cast. Some are primary tier, some are secondary tier, depending on the stat. Everyone has a use somewhere, it's just taking the best you have and optimizing it ( like a 5th star on Minuet for me) and freezing it once you have better replacements (most of my 4* second or third tier DIP). Dancing Uhura is still on my bench unlevelled because I haven't had a use for her and she doesn't replace anyone yet. Give me 3 more stars and I will spend a citation on her and level her up. Even awful 1-4* characters are useful for the achievement value alone or pulling out for an event. Everyone values cards differently so in the end of the day if you are happy with your crew, that's all that matters. 🙂
I am trying to lower my difficulty on all factions. I do not need crew for shuttles. But if they can be used on voyage I should have them in my crew. But, 2 stat superrares are just not voyage worthy. 👍
Edit: I have been thinking about freezing all non-event superrares. But, I like to keep my crew slots full, to make it easier to dismiss newly acquired crew. Also, some superrares do make voyages, when trait matching or loading up on primary and secondary skills. Also, I do not need that much room.
Interesting approach for shuttles. It's too much work for me though. I just run them as is with my best crew and hope for the best.
I agree with voyage super rares. I keep important ones active for sure. However, I like to keep my crew efficient so I do freeze crew that isn't currently needed and hasn't been used in a while. I use the crew level sort feature and scroll to the bottom. Everyone at level 1 is new. I keep my bench crew that I want to keep but I am not ready to start between level 2-10. For example, 1/4 at level 2, 2/4 at level 4, 1/5 at level 10, duplicate crew I am considering for levelling at level 8. That way you don't need to keep all crew slots full and you don't need to scramble to freeze 15 crew to defrost 15 DSC Mega event crew (that is the best benefit for keeping some crew slots open).
Yep, the big draw back to freezing all superrare crew is pulling them out when there are a lot of them in the event. That, definitely will keep me from freezing all superrares not in the event.
Your suggestion on keeping your crew at level two or higher makes good sense. If I do free up some slots I will do that 😉
DIP is far and away my weakest skill. And yet 4/5 Minuet is 24th in base DIP on my crew. I have 10 active FF/FE super rares ahead of her. I have 7 FE 1/5's ahead of her.
Maybe I've brought her along on a couple of gauntlets where she has 45% crit, but those are few and far between. And there's been a few voyages. That's the realm of fringe FF/FE super rare.
Easily the weakest of all the Mega reoccurring crew and in no way worth 50k honor for the last star. For new players who might have seen a use for the fifth star stat boost, waiting 6 months for a better card to spend it on was the way to go. At least 4 of the higher ranked 1/5's I have were obtained after the holo mega.
As I said before, her value depends on your crew. At 5/5, she definitely is better in base DIP than all but one or two 4/4. Victorian Pulaski is about 35 points higher but her secondary is MED and Mintaken Troi is a few points behind with no COM either. At 5/5 she has a clear advantage over any 4/4 for for DIP and COM seats on shuttles. I have her as my primary for shuttles so 3 trait crew can go on voyages ( she does make the odd voyage as well as her total voyage score is higher than any 4/4). I haven't regretted citing her at all and I have gotten my honour's worth out of her as she has essentially rendered almost all my DIP 4/4s as now occasionally or rarely used when I used to use about 10-15 DIP 4/4s regularly. Now I only use 2-3 regularly and I have saved some crew space. We are unlikely to see a 4/4 with her overall shuttles stats so likely the 5th star is safe bet for shuttles and occasional voyage.
As for 5*, you never know when a game changer will come along or if it can be had in an event or portal pull. So waiting for if and when it comes along isn't necessarily a good bet for a 2nd star when the 2nd star doesn't yield the same results as a 5th star for stats. Just my opinion on that, others may disagree, but her value at 5/5 is definitely superior to essentially all 4/4 DIP seats and especially for DIP and COM shuttle seats which are quite common.
Ultimately, you are correct that it depends on a player's specific crew and how they value various things in game.
That said, honor is (arguably) the most precious, slowest accumulating resource in the game. Stat boosts are statistically marginal on shuttles when less than 100-150 increase, so to reference my active FF/FE super rares:
In consideration of Minuet's 952 DIP base, Shras at 929 or Prospero Data at 881 are comparable cards for shuttle use.
Armed Georgiou at 854, Torchbear Voq at 831, Gabriel Bell Sisko at 815, and Celebration Tyler at 814 are acceptable substitutes.
All of these have DIP/COM combinations. Keep in mind that the formula for AND shuttles further marginalizes Minuet's base COM superiority - though I will grant she's also capable of adequately filling in COM/DIP slots unlike the referenced super rares.
Then there's the aforementioned Victorian Pulaski at 986, Mintakan Troi at 947, and also Ambassador K'Ehleyr at 941 as DIP/other options.
So personally, I still don't see the value in 50K Honor for a marginal DIP stat boost for any player when taking into account the number of super rares in the 800-950 range, to say nothing of the many vastly superior legendaries. Shuttle superiority by a few points is effectively pointless outside of a Hologram faction event, in Minuet's case.
For those players that keep their shuttles in the 30 second range with controlled failures (such as myself), the value of a few points in base value is completely meaningless. Given my experience with this style of play, I really don't see DIP/COM and COM/DIP shuttles as being common enough outside of this strategy to warrant serious consideration. The game is inundated with DIP/COM and COM/DIP cards.
If we factor Voyage scores back into the usefulness matrix, that 50K Honor buys a whole 319 points aka about 15 minutes time on a DIP/COM or COM/DIP voyage. Sure that outpaces the boost from a 2nd or 3rd star, but long term that 2nd or 3rd star on a better card is going to make a more significant difference.
So really we're comparing short term vs. long term benefits. Short term, spending that 50K honor on Minuet's 5th star may make sense for a small subset of players, but it's virtually never in the best interests for any long term player on a budget. At the core of all this is the fact the game is poorly designed considering skill total increases resulting from additional stars in comparison to the costs of adding stars.
Also note that the more cards you add a 5th star to, the greater your risk of an all immortalized begold. I very nearly faced this horror of horrors recently and I have less than 20 immortalized legendaries. I would only recommend anyone adding a 5th star with honor for the purposes of collections or truly exceptional cards.
I'm happy for you and the few others that feel that it was 50K honor well spent for that 5th star, but Minuet is an objectively poor card for long term players. That's not to say that she has no value, but most of this thread is comparing her to other legendaries, and in particular reoccurring Mega legendaries. Comparing her to super rares only reinforces my original contention that she is a fringe super rare and hence her last star is not worth 50K.
As horrible as Minuet is, since we as players were effectively already required to level her for the event, and since we were all sitting at a 4/5 FE copies of her, I personally don't think the proper question is is the 50K honor worth it for improved performance, but is 50K honor worth a crew slot?
Much like there are people for whom Minuet is useful, there are people for whom crew slots are not a concern. For most people however, crew slots are arguably more valuable than even honor, so in my opinion she is worth citing to shove her onto a thumb drive to make room for more useful crew.
Also note that the more cards you add a 5th star to, the greater your risk of an all immortalized begold. I very nearly faced this horror of horrors recently and I have less than 20 immortalized legendaries. I would only recommend anyone adding a 5th star with honor for the purposes of collections or truly exceptional cards.
This nearly happened to me and well look below in my sig, I haven't exactly set the world alight with my boundless legions of immortal legendaries, my options were Darth Bashir and Prisoner Cornwell and thankfully the third option was a half decent one mirror cochrane. Ain't RNG a wonderful yet brutal thing.
Also just to clarify my point on adding a second to Dancing Uhura (obviously hypothetical and if I had the honor to burn) in doing that action alone you would bring her shuttle stat scores into the realms of near equivalence to Minuets 4/5 stats for shuttle bases so with that one citation (with the lowest percentage stat increase) you have nearly covered 3*s worth of Minuet's scores that alone speaks volumes to me. But anyway not wishing to beat the poor horse to death.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
As horrible as Minuet is, since we as players were effectively already required to level her for the event, and since we were all sitting at a 4/5 FE copies of her, I personally don't think the proper question is is the 50K honor worth it for improved performance, but is 50K honor worth a crew slot?
Again this boils down to the crew but i'd prefer to take a 18k hit on citing a 3/4 if you are desperate for space, that would be less of a setback. Or alternatively that 1/3 Sisko who's been sitting around collecting dust.
[was on Sabbatical/Hiatus] Currently a trialist at Galaxy SquadronSTAY SAFE and KBO
As horrible as Minuet is, since we as players were effectively already required to level her for the event, and since we were all sitting at a 4/5 FE copies of her, I personally don't think the proper question is is the 50K honor worth it for improved performance, but is 50K honor worth a crew slot?
Again this boils down to the crew but i'd prefer to take a 18k hit on citing a 3/4 if you are desperate for space, that would be less of a setback. Or alternatively that 1/3 Sisko who's been sitting around collecting dust.
Very good point, I'd rather waste 18k honor than 50k. In addition, there's a 3rd option: airlock her. In light of all the very strong evidence that she does not even hold up to several Super Rare crew, I'd argue that 50k honor to freeze her just for the eventual usefulness in a hologram event is potentially a poor investment as well unless that particular event happens to have a crew you REALLY want. That's a big speculation for 50k honor. This is very heavily dependent on how much money you spend on the game, because for a low spender 50k honor is a massive sacrifice vs someone who buys event packs every other event.
As horrible as Minuet is, since we as players were effectively already required to level her for the event, and since we were all sitting at a 4/5 FE copies of her, I personally don't think the proper question is is the 50K honor worth it for improved performance, but is 50K honor worth a crew slot?
Again this boils down to the crew but i'd prefer to take a 18k hit on citing a 3/4 if you are desperate for space, that would be less of a setback. Or alternatively that 1/3 Sisko who's been sitting around collecting dust.
Very good point, I'd rather waste 18k honor than 50k. In addition, there's a 3rd option: airlock her. In light of all the very strong evidence that she does not even hold up to several Super Rare crew, I'd argue that 50k honor to freeze her just for the eventual usefulness in a hologram event is potentially a poor investment as well unless that particular event happens to have a crew you REALLY want. That's a big speculation for 50k honor. This is very heavily dependent on how much money you spend on the game, because for a low spender 50k honor is a massive sacrifice vs someone who buys event packs every other event.
In terms of freezing her, here's where I think @ByloBand may have been premature in writing her off for gauntlet (though I know that is tangential to the 5th star). Caveat, I know he is in a different gauntlet series than me so may not have experienced what I did below.
Looking back over my last 19 gauntlets (start of my detailed logging, when I also started calculating their day to day rank value, thanks to IAP shutdown), she made the top 25 crew options (all very playable for highest tiers of gauntlet rank) once, when she was both DIP and 25% buffed. (Prior to my detailed logging, I know she was 45% buffed multiple times, but can't recall if it was also in combination with DIP emphasis):
Skill + 25% crit - very playable
14th best crew - DIP + Communicator, El-Aurian, Marksman (Sandwiched between Gary Seven and Kahless)
Skill feature only - probably not playable
50th best - DIP + Astrophysicist, Bajoran, Hunter
53rd best - DIP + Cultural Figure, Investigator, Klingon
61st best - DIP + Cardassian, Musician, Prodigy
No skill feature, +45% crit - probably not playable but monitor (see below)
55th best - SEC + Desperate, Saboteur, Tactician
No skill feature, +25% crit - probably not playable but monitor
39th best CMD + Resourceful, Interrogator, Borg
85th best ENG + Klingon, Desperate, Duelist
86th best SEC + Communicator, Maverick, Terran Empire
11 gauntlets no buffs / not playable
I'd be reluctant to freeze a crew who was available (under my ranking) as 14th best in gauntlet about once a month (dangerously extrapolating from my small sample size)....
For me I waste no time on megaevents I cite on acquisition (earlier on I would DYC them). If you do not do it then, I would say it really comes down to your needs later. If I had not done her on the megaevent, I would not have cited Minuet.
As horrible as Minuet is, since we as players were effectively already required to level her for the event, and since we were all sitting at a 4/5 FE copies of her, I personally don't think the proper question is is the 50K honor worth it for improved performance, but is 50K honor worth a crew slot?
Again this boils down to the crew but i'd prefer to take a 18k hit on citing a 3/4 if you are desperate for space, that would be less of a setback. Or alternatively that 1/3 Sisko who's been sitting around collecting dust.
Very good point, I'd rather waste 18k honor than 50k. In addition, there's a 3rd option: airlock her. In light of all the very strong evidence that she does not even hold up to several Super Rare crew, I'd argue that 50k honor to freeze her just for the eventual usefulness in a hologram event is potentially a poor investment as well unless that particular event happens to have a crew you REALLY want. That's a big speculation for 50k honor. This is very heavily dependent on how much money you spend on the game, because for a low spender 50k honor is a massive sacrifice vs someone who buys event packs every other event.
In terms of freezing her, here's where I think @ByloBand may have been premature in writing her off for gauntlet (though I know that is tangential to the 5th star). Caveat, I know he is in a different gauntlet series than me so may not have experienced what I did below.
Looking back over my last 19 gauntlets (start of my detailed logging, when I also started calculating their day to day rank value, thanks to IAP shutdown), she made the top 25 crew options (all very playable for highest tiers of gauntlet rank) once, when she was both DIP and 25% buffed. (Prior to my detailed logging, I know she was 45% buffed multiple times, but can't recall if it was also in combination with DIP emphasis):
Skill + 25% crit - very playable
14th best crew - DIP + Communicator, El-Aurian, Marksman (Sandwiched between Gary Seven and Kahless)
Skill feature only - probably not playable
50th best - DIP + Astrophysicist, Bajoran, Hunter
53rd best - DIP + Cultural Figure, Investigator, Klingon
61st best - DIP + Cardassian, Musician, Prodigy
No skill feature, +45% crit - probably not playable but monitor (see below)
55th best - SEC + Desperate, Saboteur, Tactician
No skill feature, +25% crit - probably not playable but monitor
39th best CMD + Resourceful, Interrogator, Borg
85th best ENG + Klingon, Desperate, Duelist
86th best SEC + Communicator, Maverick, Terran Empire
11 gauntlets no buffs / not playable
I'd be reluctant to freeze a crew who was available (under my ranking) as 14th best in gauntlet about once a month (dangerously extrapolating from my small sample size)....
Thank you for the summary. That's certainly another factor to consider, though crew usefulness once a month is not a terribly strong argument to me for someone struggling with crew slots (I'm not anymore, but I used to struggle with slots constantly). Particularly for gauntlet which is a lower priority for me personally than voyages and events (though a bigger consideration than it used to be since the changes resulting in great crew drops more often).
I think at the very least that karma agree with @5000 Quatloos. Since I necro'd this thread I've come up against Minuet in The Gauntlet about 9 times and beaten her only a couple of times
I get a lot of use out of my Minuet ... both in the Gauntlet and in Shuttles and Missions. Maybe her being the first Gold I FFEd plays a part in that, but she's still in use for me despite leveling so many more. I've never been disappointed in her usefulness.
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L'Rell is amazing there is no getting around it, but it is pretty disgraceful that Professor Sato, who has a Science skill as a bonus, at 1/5 fused is still better at a DIP/COM shuttle than a 5/5 who ONLY does DIP/COM.
L'Rell is amazing there is no getting around it, but it is pretty disgraceful that Professor Sato, who has a Science skill as a bonus, at 1/5 fused is still better at a DIP/COM shuttle than a 5/5 who ONLY does DIP/COM.
Sato would be even more amazing if you'd FF'd her instead of L'Rell. I've only twice spent $25 to add a star to a new crew member in all my time playing this game, and she was one of them. Well worth it. Professor Sato remains a powerhouse for me.
L'Rell is amazing there is no getting around it, but it is pretty disgraceful that Professor Sato, who has a Science skill as a bonus, at 1/5 fused is still better at a DIP/COM shuttle than a 5/5 who ONLY does DIP/COM.
Sato would be even more amazing if you'd FF'd her instead of L'Rell. I've only twice spent $25 to add a star to a new crew member in all my time playing this game, and she was one of them. Well worth it. Professor Sato remains a powerhouse for me.
L'Rell chose to FF herself. I bought 5 packs that event trying for a copy of one of the 4* crew (forget which) and got L'Rell all 5 times.
L'Rell is amazing there is no getting around it, but it is pretty disgraceful that Professor Sato, who has a Science skill as a bonus, at 1/5 fused is still better at a DIP/COM shuttle than a 5/5 who ONLY does DIP/COM.
Sato would be even more amazing if you'd FF'd her instead of L'Rell. I've only twice spent $25 to add a star to a new crew member in all my time playing this game, and she was one of them. Well worth it. Professor Sato remains a powerhouse for me.
L'Rell chose to FF herself. I bought 5 packs that event trying for a copy of one of the 4* crew (forget which) and got L'Rell all 5 times.
Wow! That's nothing short of amazing. Good for you.
L'Rell is amazing there is no getting around it, but it is pretty disgraceful that Professor Sato, who has a Science skill as a bonus, at 1/5 fused is still better at a DIP/COM shuttle than a 5/5 who ONLY does DIP/COM.
Sato would be even more amazing if you'd FF'd her instead of L'Rell. I've only twice spent $25 to add a star to a new crew member in all my time playing this game, and she was one of them. Well worth it. Professor Sato remains a powerhouse for me.
L'Rell chose to FF herself. I bought 5 packs that event trying for a copy of one of the 4* crew (forget which) and got L'Rell all 5 times.
L'Rell is amazing there is no getting around it, but it is pretty disgraceful that Professor Sato, who has a Science skill as a bonus, at 1/5 fused is still better at a DIP/COM shuttle than a 5/5 who ONLY does DIP/COM.
I think that's down to the 25% of second skill quirk the shuttles have. 1195+(532/4) works out better than 1009+(966/4).
Level 99. Latest Immortal (957): Chancellor Gowron - October 2023.
Comments
I agree. 🙂
Only a few purples are ranked anywhere close for base stats but also a few hundred voyage points below Minuet's. Dancing Uhura's stats at 1/5 are a fair bit below. For my crew, she is worth it. Plus I don't like to stockpile honour as it doesn't collect interest. I prefer to use it fairly quickly after collecting it either on Mega characters or someone in my crew that is 3/5 or 4/5. Up until now, I have had someone to cite.
I have the crew slots. I realize now she will get an occasional use in voyage. I also kept worse than her on my active crew, Lwaxana Troi. When I froze Minuet , I should have froze Troi instead.
Edit: Not a fan of one stat or two stat crew. I freeze all my 2 stat superrare crew, only pulling them out for events. When I get my 5th star on Captain Scott, I will freeze him only pulling him out for skirmish event.
I'm unfamiliar with the term "AND order", so obviously I'm not doing my best on shuttle missions. Would anyone mind explaining? Thanks!
Immortals: 116
-ENTERPRISE- (Mirror Empok Nor)
Many shuttle missions have slots with two skills. These are labeled either “[skill1] AND [skill2]” or “[skill1] OR [skill2]” and correspond to requiring both listed skills or either listed skill. These two-skill slots are listed in various orders, meaning that one will say “COM and SEC” and another will say “SEC and COM.” This suggests that there is not an equal weight given to the two skills. Indeed, careful analysis of how the success percentage changes when different crew are loaded shows that AND slots fully weight one skill and only count the other at 25% of the actual rating.
Although the official line was that the skills were calculated as high/low regardless of what order they were in (meaning a 3/5* Durango Troi, with 1100ish SEC and 600ish COM, and a 5/5* RAF O’Brien, with 1100ish COM and 650ish SEC, would yield roughly the same displayed success rate), an error was discovered last year where the success rate was calculated server-side based on the displayed skill order - meaning that a “COM and SEC” slot with the example crew above would only match the displayed success rate with RAF O’Brien, while using Durango Troi would lead to a radical increase in failures. This error was stealth-fixed only after overwhelming evidence was provided and to this day has never received an official address from DB upper management.
As a matter of principle, some of us still adhere to the first/second order rather than high/low. (There was suspicion that the error came back when the all-new Borg shuttle missions were released but it was not rigorously documented and, if it existed at all, was fixed quickly. Although I didn’t notice a problem, I do keep to first/second priority when possible and wouldn’t have noticed anyway.) This is easier to do when you have a robust crew and a surplus of crew slots, of course, so it isn’t for everybody.
I don't have enough 5/5 to freeze any but for super rare I look at everything before freezing because every card has some value somewhere. I have quite a few 2 stat characters active just for daily shuttles, even if they aren't main cast. Some are primary tier, some are secondary tier, depending on the stat. Everyone has a use somewhere, it's just taking the best you have and optimizing it ( like a 5th star on Minuet for me) and freezing it once you have better replacements (most of my 4* second or third tier DIP). Dancing Uhura is still on my bench unlevelled because I haven't had a use for her and she doesn't replace anyone yet. Give me 3 more stars and I will spend a citation on her and level her up. Even awful 1-4* characters are useful for the achievement value alone or pulling out for an event. Everyone values cards differently so in the end of the day if you are happy with your crew, that's all that matters. 🙂
Immortals: 116
-ENTERPRISE- (Mirror Empok Nor)
I am trying to lower my difficulty on all factions. I do not need crew for shuttles. But if they can be used on voyage I should have them in my crew. But, 2 stat superrares are just not voyage worthy. 👍
Edit: I have been thinking about freezing all non-event superrares. But, I like to keep my crew slots full, to make it easier to dismiss newly acquired crew. Also, some superrares do make voyages, when trait matching or loading up on primary and secondary skills. Also, I do not need that much room.
Interesting approach for shuttles. It's too much work for me though. I just run them as is with my best crew and hope for the best.
I agree with voyage super rares. I keep important ones active for sure. However, I like to keep my crew efficient so I do freeze crew that isn't currently needed and hasn't been used in a while. I use the crew level sort feature and scroll to the bottom. Everyone at level 1 is new. I keep my bench crew that I want to keep but I am not ready to start between level 2-10. For example, 1/4 at level 2, 2/4 at level 4, 1/5 at level 10, duplicate crew I am considering for levelling at level 8. That way you don't need to keep all crew slots full and you don't need to scramble to freeze 15 crew to defrost 15 DSC Mega event crew (that is the best benefit for keeping some crew slots open).
Yep, the big draw back to freezing all superrare crew is pulling them out when there are a lot of them in the event. That, definitely will keep me from freezing all superrares not in the event.
Your suggestion on keeping your crew at level two or higher makes good sense. If I do free up some slots I will do that 😉
Ultimately, you are correct that it depends on a player's specific crew and how they value various things in game.
That said, honor is (arguably) the most precious, slowest accumulating resource in the game. Stat boosts are statistically marginal on shuttles when less than 100-150 increase, so to reference my active FF/FE super rares:
In consideration of Minuet's 952 DIP base, Shras at 929 or Prospero Data at 881 are comparable cards for shuttle use.
Armed Georgiou at 854, Torchbear Voq at 831, Gabriel Bell Sisko at 815, and Celebration Tyler at 814 are acceptable substitutes.
All of these have DIP/COM combinations. Keep in mind that the formula for AND shuttles further marginalizes Minuet's base COM superiority - though I will grant she's also capable of adequately filling in COM/DIP slots unlike the referenced super rares.
Then there's the aforementioned Victorian Pulaski at 986, Mintakan Troi at 947, and also Ambassador K'Ehleyr at 941 as DIP/other options.
So personally, I still don't see the value in 50K Honor for a marginal DIP stat boost for any player when taking into account the number of super rares in the 800-950 range, to say nothing of the many vastly superior legendaries. Shuttle superiority by a few points is effectively pointless outside of a Hologram faction event, in Minuet's case.
For those players that keep their shuttles in the 30 second range with controlled failures (such as myself), the value of a few points in base value is completely meaningless. Given my experience with this style of play, I really don't see DIP/COM and COM/DIP shuttles as being common enough outside of this strategy to warrant serious consideration. The game is inundated with DIP/COM and COM/DIP cards.
If we factor Voyage scores back into the usefulness matrix, that 50K Honor buys a whole 319 points aka about 15 minutes time on a DIP/COM or COM/DIP voyage. Sure that outpaces the boost from a 2nd or 3rd star, but long term that 2nd or 3rd star on a better card is going to make a more significant difference.
So really we're comparing short term vs. long term benefits. Short term, spending that 50K honor on Minuet's 5th star may make sense for a small subset of players, but it's virtually never in the best interests for any long term player on a budget. At the core of all this is the fact the game is poorly designed considering skill total increases resulting from additional stars in comparison to the costs of adding stars.
Also note that the more cards you add a 5th star to, the greater your risk of an all immortalized begold. I very nearly faced this horror of horrors recently and I have less than 20 immortalized legendaries. I would only recommend anyone adding a 5th star with honor for the purposes of collections or truly exceptional cards.
I'm happy for you and the few others that feel that it was 50K honor well spent for that 5th star, but Minuet is an objectively poor card for long term players. That's not to say that she has no value, but most of this thread is comparing her to other legendaries, and in particular reoccurring Mega legendaries. Comparing her to super rares only reinforces my original contention that she is a fringe super rare and hence her last star is not worth 50K.
Much like there are people for whom Minuet is useful, there are people for whom crew slots are not a concern. For most people however, crew slots are arguably more valuable than even honor, so in my opinion she is worth citing to shove her onto a thumb drive to make room for more useful crew.
This nearly happened to me and well look below in my sig, I haven't exactly set the world alight with my boundless legions of immortal legendaries, my options were Darth Bashir and Prisoner Cornwell and thankfully the third option was a half decent one mirror cochrane. Ain't RNG a wonderful yet brutal thing.
Also just to clarify my point on adding a second to Dancing Uhura (obviously hypothetical and if I had the honor to burn) in doing that action alone you would bring her shuttle stat scores into the realms of near equivalence to Minuets 4/5 stats for shuttle bases so with that one citation (with the lowest percentage stat increase) you have nearly covered 3*s worth of Minuet's scores that alone speaks volumes to me. But anyway not wishing to beat the poor horse to death.
Again this boils down to the crew but i'd prefer to take a 18k hit on citing a 3/4 if you are desperate for space, that would be less of a setback. Or alternatively that 1/3 Sisko who's been sitting around collecting dust.
Very good point, I'd rather waste 18k honor than 50k. In addition, there's a 3rd option: airlock her. In light of all the very strong evidence that she does not even hold up to several Super Rare crew, I'd argue that 50k honor to freeze her just for the eventual usefulness in a hologram event is potentially a poor investment as well unless that particular event happens to have a crew you REALLY want. That's a big speculation for 50k honor. This is very heavily dependent on how much money you spend on the game, because for a low spender 50k honor is a massive sacrifice vs someone who buys event packs every other event.
In terms of freezing her, here's where I think @ByloBand may have been premature in writing her off for gauntlet (though I know that is tangential to the 5th star). Caveat, I know he is in a different gauntlet series than me so may not have experienced what I did below.
Looking back over my last 19 gauntlets (start of my detailed logging, when I also started calculating their day to day rank value, thanks to IAP shutdown), she made the top 25 crew options (all very playable for highest tiers of gauntlet rank) once, when she was both DIP and 25% buffed. (Prior to my detailed logging, I know she was 45% buffed multiple times, but can't recall if it was also in combination with DIP emphasis):
Skill + 25% crit - very playable
14th best crew - DIP + Communicator, El-Aurian, Marksman
(Sandwiched between Gary Seven and Kahless)
Skill feature only - probably not playable
50th best - DIP + Astrophysicist, Bajoran, Hunter
53rd best - DIP + Cultural Figure, Investigator, Klingon
61st best - DIP + Cardassian, Musician, Prodigy
No skill feature, +45% crit - probably not playable but monitor (see below)
55th best - SEC + Desperate, Saboteur, Tactician
No skill feature, +25% crit - probably not playable but monitor
39th best CMD + Resourceful, Interrogator, Borg
85th best ENG + Klingon, Desperate, Duelist
86th best SEC + Communicator, Maverick, Terran Empire
11 gauntlets no buffs / not playable
I'd be reluctant to freeze a crew who was available (under my ranking) as 14th best in gauntlet about once a month (dangerously extrapolating from my small sample size)....
Thank you for the summary. That's certainly another factor to consider, though crew usefulness once a month is not a terribly strong argument to me for someone struggling with crew slots (I'm not anymore, but I used to struggle with slots constantly). Particularly for gauntlet which is a lower priority for me personally than voyages and events (though a bigger consideration than it used to be since the changes resulting in great crew drops more often).
Ov (Overall) | Vo (Voyage) | Fa (Faction) | Ga (Gauntlet)
Sb (Ship Battle) | Bt (Boss Battle Traits) | Co (Collection) | (Cd (Cadet)
L'Rell is amazing there is no getting around it, but it is pretty disgraceful that Professor Sato, who has a Science skill as a bonus, at 1/5 fused is still better at a DIP/COM shuttle than a 5/5 who ONLY does DIP/COM.
Sato would be even more amazing if you'd FF'd her instead of L'Rell. I've only twice spent $25 to add a star to a new crew member in all my time playing this game, and she was one of them. Well worth it. Professor Sato remains a powerhouse for me.
Captain Level: 95
VIP Level: 12
Unique Crew Immortalized: 525
Collections Completed: Vulcan, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Cardassian, Uncommon, Rare, Veteran, Common, Engineered, Physician, Innovator, Inspiring, Diplomat, Jury Rigger, Gauntlet Legends
L'Rell chose to FF herself. I bought 5 packs that event trying for a copy of one of the 4* crew (forget which) and got L'Rell all 5 times.
Wow! That's nothing short of amazing. Good for you.
Captain Level: 95
VIP Level: 12
Unique Crew Immortalized: 525
Collections Completed: Vulcan, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Cardassian, Uncommon, Rare, Veteran, Common, Engineered, Physician, Innovator, Inspiring, Diplomat, Jury Rigger, Gauntlet Legends
It was Incognito Kirk
Ha!!! Don’t they realize that will only make you stronger?
I think that's down to the 25% of second skill quirk the shuttles have. 1195+(532/4) works out better than 1009+(966/4).