Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
Cite the Queen up, you might get her in a behold on the way
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I would prefer Queen due to her superior ENG for voyages and traits. Human/Starfleet will never catch a bonus and Diplomat/Ambassador are anyone's guess. I can't argue with the idea that Queen's non-Borg traits are mostly tapped out (she's had 15+ event bonuses so far), but she's more likely to be of use down the line. Certainly a lot of overlap...Forrest is not special, but at least he's not DOA.
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
If I had Borg Queen only at 1/5, I would go for Forrest and invest in citing him up instead. The moment you get him he'd be better than your Borg Queen, and his final state will be better, too. For someone like me, the issue is that he won't be better than her until he gets his fifth star. That's a lot more investment before he's useful.
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
Cite the Queen up, you might get her in a behold on the way
I wish I could... she's way down the list of citation targets at this point.
3 pulls - 3 Odos. Reminded me of avoiding event packs.
Wir, die Mirror Tribbles [MiT] haben freie Plätze zu vergeben. Kein Zwang und kein Stress, dafür aber Spaß, Discord und eine nette, hilfsbereite Gemeinschaft, incl. voll ausgebauter Starbase und täglich 700 ISM.
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
If I had Borg Queen only at 1/5, I would go for Forrest and invest in citing him up instead. The moment you get him he'd be better than your Borg Queen, and his final state will be better, too. For someone like me, the issue is that he won't be better than her until he gets his fifth star. That's a lot more investment before he's useful.
Sorry not to be helpful!
Dangit Decker. My army of 1/5s has only been growing. Can't rationalize going after him! Not the best traits either, as @Automaton_2000 mentioned.
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
Cite the Queen up, you might get her in a behold on the way
I wish I could... she's way down the list of citation targets at this point.
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
Cite the Queen up, you might get her in a behold on the way
I wish I could... she's way down the list of citation targets at this point.
Why would Forrest be higher on that list then?
Haha. I'm trying to rationalize NOT putting him on the list at all!
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I would prefer Queen due to her superior ENG for voyages and traits. Human/Starfleet will never catch a bonus and Diplomat/Ambassador are anyone's guess. I can't argue with the idea that Queen's non-Borg traits are mostly tapped out (she's had 15+ event bonuses so far), but she's more likely to be of use down the line. Certainly a lot of overlap...Forrest is not special, but at least he's not DOA.
I don't know if you're talking about Voyages or Gauntlet. Forest is not that strong in Gauntlet, so I'll assume you're talking about Voyages.
Human, Starfleet, and Diplomat show up all the time as traits in Gauntlet. There is no overlap with Borg Queen on traits. I'd certainly love to have both to put them in the slots with the best traits. And for a CMD/DIP Voyage they would both likely make my crew.
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I would prefer Queen due to her superior ENG for voyages and traits. Human/Starfleet will never catch a bonus and Diplomat/Ambassador are anyone's guess. I can't argue with the idea that Queen's non-Borg traits are mostly tapped out (she's had 15+ event bonuses so far), but she's more likely to be of use down the line. Certainly a lot of overlap...Forrest is not special, but at least he's not DOA.
I don't know if you're talking about Voyages or Gauntlet. Forest is not that strong in Gauntlet, so I'll assume you're talking about Voyages.
Human, Starfleet, and Diplomat show up all the time as traits in Gauntlet. There is no overlap with Borg Queen on traits. I'd certainly love to have both to put them in the slots with the best traits. And for a CMD/DIP Voyage they would both likely make my crew.
I believe he was referring to Events. And I agree that Forrest is unlikely to have much event potential. For that reason alone, if one is in a position of choosing one or the other, I can see leaning toward the Queen.
Yea I meant voyages. Although Queen has four 45% and one 65% gauntlets (none for Forrest and actually only three 25% sets over the last 6 months), her proficiency caps her at more of a newer player tool. Still a nice bit of added utility for her.
Human, Starfleet, and Diplomat show up all the time as traits in Gauntlet.
Nine times over the last 194 gauntlets. He's had;
25% crit 4.6% of the time
5% crit 95.4% of the time
But I sense a lack of nuance in discussing new crew. There's more to a crew's efficacy beyond the base and voyage rank.
For example, there are 234 crew who would be better for 'CMD and DIP' shuttle seats with an event bonus than Forrest without one and 342 better with a 3* skill boost. Almost none of them would require as many stars either. He's had zero bonuses from almost 200 events. I'd gladly invest in a Scrooge McDuck or Borg Queen who might take a ~5% dip in power as your 10th best option for any given event provided they deliver that massive 2x score every few months.
On voyages, CMD/DIP is the most populous combo across all permutations.
Acknowledging the overall scarcity of his set (14) as the rarest non-MED skill set in the game, not only is CMD/DIP easier to acquire than any other combo, but a 'good' CMD/DIP crew offers less value over a replacement option than any other pair as well, excepting, perhaps, CMD/SEC.
So without drifting too far, I'll just say that I find Forrest a somewhat 'empty calories' crew. The very surface level ranks are there for your average new crew, but the utility is not. He actually reminds me very much of a Layna or Q2. If you take almost any crew to max near their release, the raw numbers will get them work on your average roster, but that doesn't mean that they're a good investment.
But trying to convince folks that 'I use them therefore I should cite them' isn't the best investment strategy has been a very long and losing battle.
He will be low on my prioritization list, command got so many super bomb crew (Braxton, Burnham, Tenevik, Gary Seven, Surak), that I don't think Forest would even make a CMD/DIP voyage. He's pretty solid, but i'd be hesitant to citation up a crew that isn't a bridge crew.
For example, there are 234 crew who would be better for 'CMD and DIP' shuttle seats with an event bonus than Forrest without one and 342 better with a 3* skill boost. Almost none of them would require as many stars either. He's had zero bonuses from almost 200 events. I'd gladly invest in a Scrooge McDuck or Borg Queen who might take a ~5% dip in power as your 10th best option for any given event provided they deliver that massive 2x score every few months.
I predict we'll get a Mirror Forrest in 2020 as well (assuming DB can also get the rights from Mirror Vaughn Armstrong), so along with anyone's-guess Ambassador/Diplomat, we might get a variant-bonus too, unless he's introduced in a Tuesday pack.
Even with that, I reached the same conclusions as you. Other crew have more practical use, and being the top Com/Dip/Eng Voyage crew would only be fantastic if we had Com/Dip/Eng Voyages! Plenty of competing Com/Dip, Dip/Eng and Com/Eng crew are better investments.
For example, there are 234 crew who would be better for 'CMD and DIP' shuttle seats with an event bonus than Forrest without one and 342 better with a 3* skill boost. Almost none of them would require as many stars either. He's had zero bonuses from almost 200 events. I'd gladly invest in a Scrooge McDuck or Borg Queen who might take a ~5% dip in power as your 10th best option for any given event provided they deliver that massive 2x score every few months.
I predict we'll get a Mirror Forrest in 2020 as well (assuming DB can also get the rights from Mirror Vaughn Armstrong), so along with anyone's-guess Ambassador/Diplomat, we might get a variant-bonus too, unless he's introduced in a Tuesday pack.
Even with that, I reached the same conclusions as you. Other crew have more practical use, and being the top Com/Dip/Eng Voyage crew would only be fantastic if we had Com/Dip/Eng Voyages! Plenty of competing Com/Dip, Dip/Eng and Com/Eng crew are better investments.
I actually like voyage triplets as a metric. Voyage building is, in essence, stacking a bunch of triplets. You look to boost two featured skills from the seating of a third skill or shore up some ancillary skills from one of the featured skill seats.
But rather than their top rank, which, as you suggest, doesn't tell the whole story, I find the gaps between their ranks a more useful indicator of a crew's voyage utility. If you think of each triplet as a realistic scenario (I'm looking to boost CMD/DIP from the ENG seat, Forrest is great for that. Looking to boost DIP/SCI from a CMD seat, I'll use Surak for that), the more good triplet ranks a crew collects, the more versatile and powerful they are in varied scenarios.
Compare two different crew who have a #1 triplet; Nomad and Tac Officer Neelix. Nomad offers the top voyage power for his skill set, SCI/SEC/ENG, and if you're looking to boost any of his two skills from the third seat, he's a great option. But his second best triplet, SCI/MED/ENG, is only 26th with his next two best skill sets dropping to 37th and 45th. If you need his specific skill set, he's great, but isn't very flexible beyond that.
Meanwhile Neelix's top four triplets are all within the top ten - 1st/3rd/5th/10th. He's a very flexible and effective voyager thanks to his blend of power and skill order. The difference in their voyage score is less than 4%, but I wouldn't say that represents the difference in efficacy accurately. In 'realistic' scenarios, Neelix is a 'good'/better option far more often than 4%.
But like you say, broken down into the three pair permutations, because we're not always targeting crew for their third skill - it's more of a buoy for an ancillary which may already be 'high enough' at 4-5k, Forrest's skill set, while rare overall, isn't composed of particularly rare pairs.
Another comp; Forrest to Ba'ul who are only 5 points apart in voyage score. Forrest's three skill pairs rank 1st/7th/10th (out of 15) in representation/saturation while Ba'ul's are 8th/13th/14th. Are they virtually identical voyagers as the score suggests? Well, ask anyone who (will) own both, I'd say.
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
If I had Borg Queen only at 1/5, I would go for Forrest and invest in citing him up instead. The moment you get him he'd be better than your Borg Queen, and his final state will be better, too. For someone like me, the issue is that he won't be better than her until he gets his fifth star. That's a lot more investment before he's useful.
Sorry not to be helpful!
Dangit Decker. My army of 1/5s has only been growing. Can't rationalize going after him! Not the best traits either, as @Automaton_2000 mentioned.
Still, talk me out of it. Do better.
Uninteresting skill set in spite of ENG tertiary. He's primarily a CMD/DIP crew and that's nothing special. Him being outside of the top 15 voyage ranks makes you chasing yet another CMD/DIP crew that you probably don't need.
Crew as of late has been criminally lacking traits and he's no exception. These days, any CMD/DIP with no eventable traits and no variants goes straight to the trash bin for me.
From another perspective ... I've been keeping track of strengths of 3-skill combos for voyages and how skill combos relate to 5* 3-skill crew I have on my roster.
- There are 126 3-skill combos possible, not all of which are in-game.
- I have a pretty average 5* crew ... and the average 3-skill score is 29 (won't go into how I calculate that).
- CDE ... in that specific order ... has a score of 31 (higher is worse than average). I currently only own Borg Queen with that exact skill combo.
- I would rate DCE crew equally likely to be used on CMD/DIP voyages, for example, and that skill order has a score of 29 ... I have two crew there, namely Tuxedo Nog and Krenim Guest Paris.
--> KG Paris has a voyage total of 3357 (Nog 3302), and Forrest one of 3434 ... if I want to normalise both their score it becomes Paris 3357 and Forrest 3213 ... so Paris is actually more useful in general AND on CMD/DIP voyages because of the way the three skills are ordered, even though he has a lower voyage total.
It gets even worse for Forrest if I continue to compare him to Paris (and my crew) ... the score for ENG for both is; Paris 652 (Nog 613) and Forrest 599 ... which means that Forrest is front-loaded to CMD/DIP ... even if you go to the extremes of some players to boost the two main skills as high as possible, there is a limit to that high score ... when you get to 12,500/13,000 on each it doesn't help to add more ... with CMD/DIP being an easy set to get good scores on, you actually want crew who are slightly more back-loaded! i.e. have a higher 3rd skill score. So again, Paris comes out on top.
I have the Borg Queen immortalised and yes, in some ways Forrest is a decent replacement (though I personally like BQ's 715 ENG score) ... the investment needed (4 citations probably) to get an average crew immortalised to sometimes be better than BQ is just not worth it. And as the example shows above, I'm better off citing my 1/5 Paris 4 times (or Nog for collection purposes).
I've not even touched events etc., which has been well covered by the others.
EDIT: In case anybody is wondering (including DB) ... my most coveted skill combo is Eng/Med/Sec in that order ... it has a score of 5 (8 if I obtain someone with that skill combo) ... So, next mega-event legendary ... Sommelier Picard ENG (engineering his vineyard to optimal production), MED (using his wine as Bartender Guinan does, healing folks), SEC (sword fighting).
For example, there are 234 crew who would be better for 'CMD and DIP' shuttle seats with an event bonus than Forrest without one and 342 better with a 3* skill boost. Almost none of them would require as many stars either. He's had zero bonuses from almost 200 events. I'd gladly invest in a Scrooge McDuck or Borg Queen who might take a ~5% dip in power as your 10th best option for any given event provided they deliver that massive 2x score every few months.
I predict we'll get a Mirror Forrest in 2020 as well (assuming DB can also get the rights from Mirror Vaughn Armstrong), so along with anyone's-guess Ambassador/Diplomat, we might get a variant-bonus too, unless he's introduced in a Tuesday pack.
Even with that, I reached the same conclusions as you. Other crew have more practical use, and being the top Com/Dip/Eng Voyage crew would only be fantastic if we had Com/Dip/Eng Voyages! Plenty of competing Com/Dip, Dip/Eng and Com/Eng crew are better investments.
I actually like voyage triplets as a metric. Voyage building is, in essence, stacking a bunch of triplets. You look to boost two featured skills from the seating of a third skill or shore up some ancillary skills from one of the featured skill seats.
But rather than their top rank, which, as you suggest, doesn't tell the whole story, I find the gaps between their ranks a more useful indicator of a crew's voyage utility. If you think of each triplet as a realistic scenario (I'm looking to boost CMD/DIP from the ENG seat, Forrest is great for that. Looking to boost DIP/SCI from a CMD seat, I'll use Surak for that), the more good triplet ranks a crew collects, the more versatile and powerful they are in varied scenarios.
Compare two different crew who have a #1 triplet; Nomad and Tac Officer Neelix. Nomad offers the top voyage power for his skill set, SCI/SEC/ENG, and if you're looking to boost any of his two skills from the third seat, he's a great option. But his second best triplet, SCI/MED/ENG, is only 26th with his next two best skill sets dropping to 37th and 45th. If you need his specific skill set, he's great, but isn't very flexible beyond that.
Meanwhile Neelix's top four triplets are all within the top ten - 1st/3rd/5th/10th. He's a very flexible and effective voyager thanks to his blend of power and skill order. The difference in their voyage score is less than 4%, but I wouldn't say that represents the difference in efficacy accurately. In 'realistic' scenarios, Neelix is a 'good'/better option far more often than 4%.
But like you say, broken down into the three pair permutations, because we're not always targeting crew for their third skill - it's more of a buoy for an ancillary which may already be 'high enough' at 4-5k, Forrest's skill set, while rare overall, isn't composed of particularly rare pairs.
Another comp; Forrest to Ba'ul who are only 5 points apart in voyage score. Forrest's three skill pairs rank 1st/7th/10th (out of 15) in representation/saturation while Ba'ul's are 8th/13th/14th. Are they virtually identical voyagers as the score suggests? Well, ask anyone who (will) own both, I'd say.
Yup, absolutely. I've found it very useful to track who has what skills. Another reason to keep tabs on the "voyage triplets" is that you can only send out six crew with those three skills on any voyage. This counts in Forrest's favor here, I think (or, at least, doesn't count against him), because as you say, he can load that Com/Dip into an Eng slot. But for most skill-sets, it's not much of an issue, I imagine. For me, the three with the most overlap are (in any skill order) Com/Dip/Sec (9 5/5s), Com/Sec/Sci (8 5/5s, although to be fair, four of those are Armus!) and Dip/Sec/Med (6 5/5s). It's another factor, albeit in who not to citate - but not necessarily a deal-breaker in itself. Although it's nice to have a pair of each, I think. Seeking Spock gets bonus points in the citation queue as he'd be my second with Dip/Sci/Med after Qod, for example, and further points for having those skills in a different order.... and OK, I started rambling here. Time to delete a few paragraphs!
Swinging back to voyage points, Borg Queen is 92 total voyage points behind Forrest. Given that a decent mix of [my] 5/5s will produce ~46,800 voyage points, it's not much of a difference - Forrest just isn't close enough to the lip of the bell (have I phrased that correctly?). My 5/5 Borg Queen serves me well there, and should I want another strong Com/Dip/Enger, I'll probably citate my 3/5 Borg Queen for her wider use, or even 1/5 Tuxedo Nog for the free Lucille!
For example, there are 234 crew who would be better for 'CMD and DIP' shuttle seats with an event bonus than Forrest without one and 342 better with a 3* skill boost. Almost none of them would require as many stars either. He's had zero bonuses from almost 200 events. I'd gladly invest in a Scrooge McDuck or Borg Queen who might take a ~5% dip in power as your 10th best option for any given event provided they deliver that massive 2x score every few months.
I predict we'll get a Mirror Forrest in 2020 as well (assuming DB can also get the rights from Mirror Vaughn Armstrong), so along with anyone's-guess Ambassador/Diplomat, we might get a variant-bonus too, unless he's introduced in a Tuesday pack.
Even with that, I reached the same conclusions as you. Other crew have more practical use, and being the top Com/Dip/Eng Voyage crew would only be fantastic if we had Com/Dip/Eng Voyages! Plenty of competing Com/Dip, Dip/Eng and Com/Eng crew are better investments.
I actually like voyage triplets as a metric. Voyage building is, in essence, stacking a bunch of triplets. You look to boost two featured skills from the seating of a third skill or shore up some ancillary skills from one of the featured skill seats.
But rather than their top rank, which, as you suggest, doesn't tell the whole story, I find the gaps between their ranks a more useful indicator of a crew's voyage utility. If you think of each triplet as a realistic scenario (I'm looking to boost CMD/DIP from the ENG seat, Forrest is great for that. Looking to boost DIP/SCI from a CMD seat, I'll use Surak for that), the more good triplet ranks a crew collects, the more versatile and powerful they are in varied scenarios.
Compare two different crew who have a #1 triplet; Nomad and Tac Officer Neelix. Nomad offers the top voyage power for his skill set, SCI/SEC/ENG, and if you're looking to boost any of his two skills from the third seat, he's a great option. But his second best triplet, SCI/MED/ENG, is only 26th with his next two best skill sets dropping to 37th and 45th. If you need his specific skill set, he's great, but isn't very flexible beyond that.
Meanwhile Neelix's top four triplets are all within the top ten - 1st/3rd/5th/10th. He's a very flexible and effective voyager thanks to his blend of power and skill order. The difference in their voyage score is less than 4%, but I wouldn't say that represents the difference in efficacy accurately. In 'realistic' scenarios, Neelix is a 'good'/better option far more often than 4%.
But like you say, broken down into the three pair permutations, because we're not always targeting crew for their third skill - it's more of a buoy for an ancillary which may already be 'high enough' at 4-5k, Forrest's skill set, while rare overall, isn't composed of particularly rare pairs.
Another comp; Forrest to Ba'ul who are only 5 points apart in voyage score. Forrest's three skill pairs rank 1st/7th/10th (out of 15) in representation/saturation while Ba'ul's are 8th/13th/14th. Are they virtually identical voyagers as the score suggests? Well, ask anyone who (will) own both, I'd say.
100% on the nose - it’s why the likes of Delta Flyer Paris and Imprinted Archer retain exceptional utility even though their overall voyage ranks are rather poor. For me, those two and 1701 Sisko are within three points for overall voyage score; Paris (3486) and Archer (3489) go on every single voyage where their skills are required, while Sisko (3488) is so blown away by the rest of my COM/SEC crew I couldn’t even put him on a shuttle during a COM/SEC voyage.
Wow. So this time, we're helping Sisko and Odo just straight up assassinate Gul Dukat. And using Dejaren to do it because of his psychopathy, so we're weaponizing mental illness. Cool, cool.
Wow. So this time, we're helping Sisko and Odo just straight up assassinate Gul Dukat. And using Dejaren to do it because of his psychopathy, so we're weaponizing mental illness. Cool, cool.
Dukat did nothing wrong!
Founding ADM - PoF family of fleets (POF, POF2 & POF3) - Dear TP: Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.
Sorry, still disagree. Thrax only has the Changeling trait because he’s Odo. Laas or the rest of the changelings doesn’t change that fact.
Thrax is a changeling because DB decided to make him one. It is not and was never implied that he was Odo from a game perspective.
The most relevant bit of dialogue, from the "In Word and Deed" event:
Captain: "Why did you choose Thrax's form?"
Thrax: "The former security chief of Terek Nor, or Deep Space Nine, as you call it now. A Cardassian responsible for law and order at the very entrance to our realm. I could think of no better way to gain your attention."
I agree that the plot of "Things Past" leaves a bit of grey area, but, again, from the text we've been given in-game, nothing connecting him directly Odo has ever been explicitly stated.
Did people notice that the pack deals were switched up? The $10 pack right now is for the new event SR; typically the new SR is the 2 star $25 pack from Wednesday (event announcement) till Saturday at noon. But the event legendary is still the 2 stars for $100. Odd they change that sequence without pointing it out.
Did people notice that the pack deals were switched up? The $10 pack right now is for the new event SR; typically the new SR is the 2 star $25 pack from Wednesday (event announcement) till Saturday at noon. But the event legendary is still the 2 stars for $100. Odd they change that sequence without pointing it out.
A solid bet is that someone got things mixed up a bit and we’ll see the 2-star $25 pack come up next.
The conspiracy theory explanation would be that DB realizes how many people are bombed-out in the wallet department after all of the deals from last month, and wanted to give those people a shot at getting the new 4* immortalized without playing pack roulette.
Uninteresting skill set in spite of ENG tertiary. He's primarily a CMD/DIP crew and that's nothing special. Him being outside of the top 15 voyage ranks makes you chasing yet another CMD/DIP crew that you probably don't need.
Crew as of late has been criminally lacking traits and he's no exception. These days, any CMD/DIP with no eventable traits and no variants goes straight to the trash bin for me.
I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this recently. Then again, what other traits would Forrest get?
Comments
Two bases over 1k without bonuses is impressive. Still, his skill set is the same as the Borg Queen. For those of us who already have her immortalized, the question will be whether Forrest's improved stats are enough of a boost to make worth the cost of fully fusing.
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
I don't have her immortalized (just 1/5 due to a behold) because I wasn't playing yet at the time... I am trying to rationalize going threshold and out so as not to increase my honor debt. Talk to me out of going for him!
Cite the Queen up, you might get her in a behold on the way
I would prefer Queen due to her superior ENG for voyages and traits. Human/Starfleet will never catch a bonus and Diplomat/Ambassador are anyone's guess. I can't argue with the idea that Queen's non-Borg traits are mostly tapped out (she's had 15+ event bonuses so far), but she's more likely to be of use down the line. Certainly a lot of overlap...Forrest is not special, but at least he's not DOA.
If I had Borg Queen only at 1/5, I would go for Forrest and invest in citing him up instead. The moment you get him he'd be better than your Borg Queen, and his final state will be better, too. For someone like me, the issue is that he won't be better than her until he gets his fifth star. That's a lot more investment before he's useful.
Sorry not to be helpful!
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
I wish I could... she's way down the list of citation targets at this point.
Dangit Decker. My army of 1/5s has only been growing. Can't rationalize going after him! Not the best traits either, as @Automaton_2000 mentioned.
Still, talk me out of it. Do better.
Why would Forrest be higher on that list then?
Haha. I'm trying to rationalize NOT putting him on the list at all!
I don't know if you're talking about Voyages or Gauntlet. Forest is not that strong in Gauntlet, so I'll assume you're talking about Voyages.
Human, Starfleet, and Diplomat show up all the time as traits in Gauntlet. There is no overlap with Borg Queen on traits. I'd certainly love to have both to put them in the slots with the best traits. And for a CMD/DIP Voyage they would both likely make my crew.
I believe he was referring to Events. And I agree that Forrest is unlikely to have much event potential. For that reason alone, if one is in a position of choosing one or the other, I can see leaning toward the Queen.
Nine times over the last 194 gauntlets. He's had;
25% crit 4.6% of the time
5% crit 95.4% of the time
But I sense a lack of nuance in discussing new crew. There's more to a crew's efficacy beyond the base and voyage rank.
For example, there are 234 crew who would be better for 'CMD and DIP' shuttle seats with an event bonus than Forrest without one and 342 better with a 3* skill boost. Almost none of them would require as many stars either. He's had zero bonuses from almost 200 events. I'd gladly invest in a Scrooge McDuck or Borg Queen who might take a ~5% dip in power as your 10th best option for any given event provided they deliver that massive 2x score every few months.
On voyages, CMD/DIP is the most populous combo across all permutations.
Acknowledging the overall scarcity of his set (14) as the rarest non-MED skill set in the game, not only is CMD/DIP easier to acquire than any other combo, but a 'good' CMD/DIP crew offers less value over a replacement option than any other pair as well, excepting, perhaps, CMD/SEC.
So without drifting too far, I'll just say that I find Forrest a somewhat 'empty calories' crew. The very surface level ranks are there for your average new crew, but the utility is not. He actually reminds me very much of a Layna or Q2. If you take almost any crew to max near their release, the raw numbers will get them work on your average roster, but that doesn't mean that they're a good investment.
But trying to convince folks that 'I use them therefore I should cite them' isn't the best investment strategy has been a very long and losing battle.
LOL at the empty calories comment. He's like a glazed donut?
Just saying.
👽🤖👽🤖👽
I predict we'll get a Mirror Forrest in 2020 as well (assuming DB can also get the rights from Mirror Vaughn Armstrong), so along with anyone's-guess Ambassador/Diplomat, we might get a variant-bonus too, unless he's introduced in a Tuesday pack.
Even with that, I reached the same conclusions as you. Other crew have more practical use, and being the top Com/Dip/Eng Voyage crew would only be fantastic if we had Com/Dip/Eng Voyages! Plenty of competing Com/Dip, Dip/Eng and Com/Eng crew are better investments.
I actually like voyage triplets as a metric. Voyage building is, in essence, stacking a bunch of triplets. You look to boost two featured skills from the seating of a third skill or shore up some ancillary skills from one of the featured skill seats.
But rather than their top rank, which, as you suggest, doesn't tell the whole story, I find the gaps between their ranks a more useful indicator of a crew's voyage utility. If you think of each triplet as a realistic scenario (I'm looking to boost CMD/DIP from the ENG seat, Forrest is great for that. Looking to boost DIP/SCI from a CMD seat, I'll use Surak for that), the more good triplet ranks a crew collects, the more versatile and powerful they are in varied scenarios.
Compare two different crew who have a #1 triplet; Nomad and Tac Officer Neelix. Nomad offers the top voyage power for his skill set, SCI/SEC/ENG, and if you're looking to boost any of his two skills from the third seat, he's a great option. But his second best triplet, SCI/MED/ENG, is only 26th with his next two best skill sets dropping to 37th and 45th. If you need his specific skill set, he's great, but isn't very flexible beyond that.
Meanwhile Neelix's top four triplets are all within the top ten - 1st/3rd/5th/10th. He's a very flexible and effective voyager thanks to his blend of power and skill order. The difference in their voyage score is less than 4%, but I wouldn't say that represents the difference in efficacy accurately. In 'realistic' scenarios, Neelix is a 'good'/better option far more often than 4%.
But like you say, broken down into the three pair permutations, because we're not always targeting crew for their third skill - it's more of a buoy for an ancillary which may already be 'high enough' at 4-5k, Forrest's skill set, while rare overall, isn't composed of particularly rare pairs.
Another comp; Forrest to Ba'ul who are only 5 points apart in voyage score. Forrest's three skill pairs rank 1st/7th/10th (out of 15) in representation/saturation while Ba'ul's are 8th/13th/14th. Are they virtually identical voyagers as the score suggests? Well, ask anyone who (will) own both, I'd say.
Uninteresting skill set in spite of ENG tertiary. He's primarily a CMD/DIP crew and that's nothing special. Him being outside of the top 15 voyage ranks makes you chasing yet another CMD/DIP crew that you probably don't need.
Crew as of late has been criminally lacking traits and he's no exception. These days, any CMD/DIP with no eventable traits and no variants goes straight to the trash bin for me.
From another perspective ... I've been keeping track of strengths of 3-skill combos for voyages and how skill combos relate to 5* 3-skill crew I have on my roster.
- There are 126 3-skill combos possible, not all of which are in-game.
- I have a pretty average 5* crew ... and the average 3-skill score is 29 (won't go into how I calculate that).
- CDE ... in that specific order ... has a score of 31 (higher is worse than average). I currently only own Borg Queen with that exact skill combo.
- I would rate DCE crew equally likely to be used on CMD/DIP voyages, for example, and that skill order has a score of 29 ... I have two crew there, namely Tuxedo Nog and Krenim Guest Paris.
--> KG Paris has a voyage total of 3357 (Nog 3302), and Forrest one of 3434 ... if I want to normalise both their score it becomes Paris 3357 and Forrest 3213 ... so Paris is actually more useful in general AND on CMD/DIP voyages because of the way the three skills are ordered, even though he has a lower voyage total.
It gets even worse for Forrest if I continue to compare him to Paris (and my crew) ... the score for ENG for both is; Paris 652 (Nog 613) and Forrest 599 ... which means that Forrest is front-loaded to CMD/DIP ... even if you go to the extremes of some players to boost the two main skills as high as possible, there is a limit to that high score ... when you get to 12,500/13,000 on each it doesn't help to add more ... with CMD/DIP being an easy set to get good scores on, you actually want crew who are slightly more back-loaded! i.e. have a higher 3rd skill score. So again, Paris comes out on top.
I have the Borg Queen immortalised and yes, in some ways Forrest is a decent replacement (though I personally like BQ's 715 ENG score) ... the investment needed (4 citations probably) to get an average crew immortalised to sometimes be better than BQ is just not worth it. And as the example shows above, I'm better off citing my 1/5 Paris 4 times (or Nog for collection purposes).
I've not even touched events etc., which has been well covered by the others.
EDIT: In case anybody is wondering (including DB) ... my most coveted skill combo is Eng/Med/Sec in that order ... it has a score of 5 (8 if I obtain someone with that skill combo) ... So, next mega-event legendary ... Sommelier Picard ENG (engineering his vineyard to optimal production), MED (using his wine as Bartender Guinan does, healing folks), SEC (sword fighting).
Yup, absolutely. I've found it very useful to track who has what skills. Another reason to keep tabs on the "voyage triplets" is that you can only send out six crew with those three skills on any voyage. This counts in Forrest's favor here, I think (or, at least, doesn't count against him), because as you say, he can load that Com/Dip into an Eng slot. But for most skill-sets, it's not much of an issue, I imagine. For me, the three with the most overlap are (in any skill order) Com/Dip/Sec (9 5/5s), Com/Sec/Sci (8 5/5s, although to be fair, four of those are Armus!) and Dip/Sec/Med (6 5/5s). It's another factor, albeit in who not to citate - but not necessarily a deal-breaker in itself. Although it's nice to have a pair of each, I think. Seeking Spock gets bonus points in the citation queue as he'd be my second with Dip/Sci/Med after Qod, for example, and further points for having those skills in a different order.... and OK, I started rambling here. Time to delete a few paragraphs!
Swinging back to voyage points, Borg Queen is 92 total voyage points behind Forrest. Given that a decent mix of [my] 5/5s will produce ~46,800 voyage points, it's not much of a difference - Forrest just isn't close enough to the lip of the bell (have I phrased that correctly?). My 5/5 Borg Queen serves me well there, and should I want another strong Com/Dip/Enger, I'll probably citate my 3/5 Borg Queen for her wider use, or even 1/5 Tuxedo Nog for the free Lucille!
100% on the nose - it’s why the likes of Delta Flyer Paris and Imprinted Archer retain exceptional utility even though their overall voyage ranks are rather poor. For me, those two and 1701 Sisko are within three points for overall voyage score; Paris (3486) and Archer (3489) go on every single voyage where their skills are required, while Sisko (3488) is so blown away by the rest of my COM/SEC crew I couldn’t even put him on a shuttle during a COM/SEC voyage.
Dukat did nothing wrong!
It appears you were correct about Thrax.
A solid bet is that someone got things mixed up a bit and we’ll see the 2-star $25 pack come up next.
The conspiracy theory explanation would be that DB realizes how many people are bombed-out in the wallet department after all of the deals from last month, and wanted to give those people a shot at getting the new 4* immortalized without playing pack roulette.
I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this recently. Then again, what other traits would Forrest get?