Two Skill Crew
Hungry Dog DDM
✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
Many people on these forums will speak of the ills of two skill crew, but are there any that you feel are a vital part of your crew? Are there any that you recommend for someone to acquire and level up as fast as possible? For that matter, any one skill crew?
I'm gonna start this off. For gauntlet, Species 8472 has been pretty useful for me Sec 657 (345-698) Sci 606 (236-595) base stats, higher with bonuses obviously.
I'm gonna start this off. For gauntlet, Species 8472 has been pretty useful for me Sec 657 (345-698) Sci 606 (236-595) base stats, higher with bonuses obviously.
Drunken Dahar Masters is recruiting active players.
PM for details.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
PM for details.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
0
Comments
For gauntlet use is more limited and not everyday. That being said, Augment Commander O’brien, Mirror Phlox, and Species 8472 can make it into an optimal lineup somewhat often.
They can be eminently useful for those without many immortalized legendaries or those very weak on a particular skill set. For highly advanced players, utility outside of Faction events is limited at best.
For the majority of two-skill crew, their main utility will be as Faction event shuttle seat-fillers. Three that stick out to me are Rura Penthe Kirk, Desert Philippa, and Captain Lorca. Kirk has a stout ship ability to go along with being a key cog for Kirk Faction events. Philippa and Lorca are both Disco shuttle stars in some of the most common skill pairings, so they will always have somewhere to go in your lineup on Disco weekends and megas, as well as keeping your daily shuttles full while your best voyagers are out doing other things.
8472 is another good choice. SEC/SCI is a rare Voyage pairing, and there are worse options if you need to boost those skills. I also used it a lot in Gauntlet when I first got it, but after I snagged Locutus and Armus, its utility all but dried up.
Similarly in the Purple range mirror Phlox again beats 3 skill crew, there are always eceptions to the rule and these are some of them.
A further note on Species 8472 but I think he is one of the better SEC/SCI combinations in combined voyage score for those skills, I believe he may even be top 5, so when that pairing comes up on a voyage it wouldn't be unreasonable to dismiss the lack of a third skill in favour of overstacking efficiency,
And indeed recently I worked out Resistance Neelix has the best combined score for DIP and SEC on a voyage. I am yet to work through all the combinations but I believe Kirk will probably be similarly a top end SEC and DIP combination.
Here is probably a good indication of the best 2 skill crew Culber, Seven in Silver, Species 8472, Kirk, Neelix, Lorca and Lissan, Mirror Reed. depending on what combination you need most these will still probably do you good on the particular voyage they are best suited too even though it is a narrow one.
Are there any that you would cite over a 3-skill crew? I would not. Not even Culber.
That's a hard no, and that includes megas. I did not/will not cite Minuet, T'Kuvma or any others that come after. Honor is too precious to use for crew that don't contribute to more parts of the game.
I use any crew in a voyage that has the trait. I dont pay attention to 2/3 skills on voyages. Regularly get 8-10hrs with no AM refill.
I did in my younger STT days but I wouldn’t now
Culber is the best 2 skill crew by far.
Klingon Torres – She ends up on too many shuttles to discount, though I have enough higher SEC than her now, her time out of the vault may be short
Victorian Pulaski – Some of her traits are useful more often than not
Same with Lal and her Prodigy Trait
Prison Break Lorca – not very good stats, but I am keeping him thawed until after the next Disco Event.
As for the Gold crew:
T'Kuvma is Meh, but still ends up first out on every SEC shuttle
Captain Lorca may end up in the freezer once he is immorted. Not useful at all right now at 3*, same with Orion Vina, although looking at her 5* stats, she might become a shuttle junkie
Seven in Silver is kind of a bad **tsk tsk**$, and while I don't generally like sending 2 skill crew on Voyages, sometimes she is a good fit. Same with Laborer Spock and Captain Pike.
The rest are only 1/5 & 2/5, so time will tell. Whenever I get a begold, or purchase a 5* Citation, it NEVER goes to any 2-skill crew. I will take a new 3-skill Gold over another * for a 2-skill. Also I tend to work less at top 1K in Events if the Gold reward crew is 2-skill.
Its not hard to find 2-skill crew with strong bases. They're manning the shuttles whilst better crew do the real work. In practice they're often just 1-skill crew.
I only have two crew that get used a lot. Mirror Phlox since he's decent at every element of the game. The other is Degra. It could be that my SCI/ENG crew need some work but he has two strong bases with decent proficiencies. He's in 3 collections and he's the only two-skill 5* I've spent honour on.
I DYC’d T’Kuvma during his event because all I had for strong COM and/or SEC crew at the time was Mirror Kirk, Borg Queen, and Kortar; I cited Warship Tuvok because I hadn’t yet gotten Klingon Janeway, Kol and Thrax were months in the future, and he’s a personal favorite.
When I look at my current infused 5* two-skill crew, I don’t see a single one other than Rura Penthe Kirk that I would ever consider citing. I doubt I would even do it if I got a surprise drop of Dr. Culber, since I have an immortal Warship EMA and another at 4/5* level 1 thanks to the chase for Mirror Sulu on Friday. Even if I wanted boost MED/SCI for voyages rather than just MED, I have some three-skill options that would take precedence (a fifth star for Mobile Doc, fourth and fifth stars for Mirror Bev, and maybe even AF Bashir).
The case for 4* crew is that 2-skillers usually have a high base on their main skill and so are crucial for early game shuttles ... think Marla, Warship Yar, Barak, Stamets ... where even as 1/4 they could be #1 in their skill.
In my case, as my crew grew, the 4* 2-skill lot became the first to be frozen (Mirror Phlox the exception for a while) ... as most 4* 2-skill crew are easily replaced by 1/5s or other 4*s.
5*s are in a similar boat.
Back in the day Degra was considered elite due to his good base numbers for difficult skills, but it goes to show how they age (e.g. Degra, say hi to Seven in Silver).
I assume that, should I ever get there, 2-skill 5*s will be the first to be frozen too (looking at you Minuet) because, outside of the odd exception (e.g. Culber - who I don't have), they are easily replaced.
Nowadays, I don't use 2-skill crew much outside of Arena and Shuttles. 4*s come out for events but that is all, I even don't use Mirror Phlox in Gauntlet anymore, as there are more versatile options amongst 3-skill crew.
So ... if you're a player who is fairly new ... by all means level them asap, but don't be afraid to freeze any 2-skill 4* no matter how good you might think they are, they are all replaceable ... e.g. compare Victorian Pulaksi (highest base for any 4* - frozen) to Mintakan Troi (also frozen, but you get my point).
Also level your 5* 2-skill crew, but just don't cite them because before you know it they will be old news, build them up via beholds.
PM for details.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
I still use 2 skill crew for voyages, gauntlet, and especially events/shuttles, and I am doing fine lol
Can't think of any at the moment, but way back when honor/cites were first a thing I gave Degra a cite. Can't say if I do so now, but can say that even after all this time he's still a very high use member of my crew with two skills over 1200 base with bonuses (ENG 1297/SCI 1225).
I do have Culber 1/5 and can't say I haven't occasionally been tempted, but when I was looking to up my overall MED average I spent the honor on the EMA instead as there were more benefits than just having a super high base.
I think this is the most important aspect of crew strength, how far along your crew is in terms of development. Until you can get a boat load of 5/5 x 3 skill characters, a FF/FE 5* x 2 skill character can be very useful in various aspects of the game for a very long time. I FF both T'Kuvma and Minuet very quickly because they were the best option for me at the time and they continue to be good options a year or more later. I use them both daily on Shuttles and occasionally on voyages and Gauntlet. Why? They are 5/5 that's why. For AND shuttles and voyages they beat all the 4* and some mediocre 5* when their skills and traits come up. They are even equivalent to many 4/5 as well for voyages. Each only cost me 1 citation.
Beginner or intermediate players need to maximize crew strength and citing up a 2 skill 5* from a Mega will get you your honour's worth of use over the long run. Even with Kol or Thrax, it saves them for voyages and I can still use T'Kuvma daily on shuttles. T'Kuvma won't become redundant until he is the 5th choice down the list for SEC AND COM. That is a lot of playing time, honour, money and favourable RNG before that happens so I say review your crew every time you want to cite a character and if the the 2 skill 5* is your best option, go ahead because they will be useful for a very long time on an early or mid tier crew.
He's in this event, I would try and get him.
He's been useful for me on voyages and I have a lot of crew.
I tend to agree about people being voyage crazy on adding a few minutes to their average voyage.
Everyone seems to ignore the fact that there are drops other than chrons and honor during voyages, namely the 0/1/2 star components.
0 star components in hours 1-2.
1 star components in hours 3-6
2 star components in hours 7+
After you've been playing a while and can get close to 8 hour voyages, the only 2* item you should actually need to farm are databases, while there is an endless amount of several of the 0/1 star items needed for building items and galaxy events. If you included the extra 0/1 star useful items in with the chron count for hours 1-6 I have a feeling it would be much more in line with what hours 6+ of voyages earn.
3 Skill crew are more versatile AND have better collective stats. The game has thrown a bunch of CMD/SEC crew at us over the years. This will form the back bone of a CMD/SEC Voyage. Only one of those can be slotted out side C/S/D seats though. Mirror Picard having that trivial little SCI stat makes your Voyage that much stronger allowing you to seat all of your other strong crew. That extra 700-800 pts only adds 6-7 minutes but that's about 3 more chances to get additional honour and crew that make your roster stronger.
The worst 3-skill Voyager still has better aggregate stats than any 2-skill crew. They actually do entirely negate all 2-skill crew. Someone just made a new Voyage spreadsheet and I punched in all of my 5-stars. 5/5 Degra sits at #30 and he's one of the few with two strong skills. And he's only going to get lower as my crew improves.
Spreadsheets are great:) however I am basing on my actual experience. Since I have no trouble getting to 8 hours, I don't see the huge advantage, and most times its better if It doesn't go too much past 8 hours, cause then I am tempted to let it keep going, and forget and then have to spend dil anyways ;p
Also my experience with voyages, is its better to at least try to balance stats, and sometimes those two stats fit better then the stats I currently have, especially when the 3rd stat of a crew is very minor.
Not to mention, there is more to this game than just voyages, shocking I know;) but to each their own;) As long as I am successful with how I do it, Im good either way.
Right there with you. 10:45 is my best, but want to hit that 11 hour mark. Not a lot of other goals to reach at this point as I've pretty much decided that the top 5 and #1 in event achievements are something I'm not going to do.
You were pretty close! I just changed my staffing strategy. I shall see if it has an effect
Getting to 8 hours is fine. Getting to 10 is better. I've blown more than a few Voyages. I don't use the tokens if I can help it. I'm also at the point where to get the remaining crew I need to squeeze every last drop of honour and its the only reliable source of honour outside of dailies. I can always recall if I don't think I can manage the time correctly.
Balancing stats doesn't actually work. In order to get 10 hours, you'll need ~12k/12k. That usually means seating things in the off stats.
Voyages specifically require high combined stats. Everything else doesn't. Having a solid 2-skill voyager is something that will eventually be replaced.