Best ship/crew combos for Arenas
Crash41
✭✭✭
in The Bridge
I'm a journeyman player and I'm looking for ship/crew combinations to get better in Arenas.
Please post your best/favorite ships and crews for your favorite division
Please post your best/favorite ships and crews for your favorite division
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First trick: Peek at the top players in the arena you're playing, and see what they got .. that'll give you a good idea.
From a beginner perspective, you'll have to work with what crew you have .. here's what I have found works "well enough" for arena (not going to get you top 1% .. but it'll get you up there and get you practice):
- Best, simplest ships to use are: Borg Cube and HMS Bounty.
- Borg Cube works well enough for the lower end, however, you'll find you'll need the cloak of the Bounty later on to avoid the other hard(er) hitting Borg Cubes and such you find
- "Immediate dmg" seems to be the winner over most other strategies ... so I build my crew around:
- 1 big Attack boost, with initialize <10s and Duration 8s or longer. I use Rura Penthe Reed.
- 1 big Accuracy boost, with initialize <10s and Duration 8s or longer. I use Platonian Kirk, for the added +Crit bonus (I've also used Wrathful Khan, for immediate dmg, or Crell moset, or MASSIVE crit bonus
- 2 big: 400% immediate dmg, with <10s initialize. I use Scientist Degra and Suus Mahna Sarek for both the dmg and evasion boost.
- But you can see the trend there .. you want crew that initializes fast .. and with big numbers. cranks your attack/accuracy/crit, then hammer out the immediate dmg.
- If you use the Bounty, you'll watch the enemy crew, and cloak just BEFORE their crew comes off cooldown ... wait for the cloak to run it's course, then after it finishes, activate your crew ..
The top ship I see is currently the Ferengi Dora ... and the top crew seem to be Killy and Garth (of which I have only the ship) ...
Experiment with what you have, there's a lot more options than what I've listed
If you're in the other divisions, same thing applies, just different ship/crew available ...
But, depending on what you have, it may be better to consider the answer in general terms of tactics and let you fill in the blanks.
Hide and Seek. Cloaking ship, plus Att boost and hammer. Generally the easiest if you have the ship. Hit the cloak just before the opponent starts swinging hard and let it wind itself. Then pop out and swing yourself. This served me well starting out in all three. It may not be the best defensive option however. The AI's timing will not be as good as yours. Medium charge times aren't a huge issue.
Other strategies, like the one above. Hit First. The ship shaves 2 seconds off charge time. Pair that with fastest Att Boost, hammers. Add a speed buff and the other guy can be dead before he can swing once. Try to pick cards with the shortest charge times and longer duration.
Shield disruption. Find crew that closely match the charge time of you ship's disruption and hit the enemy hard and fast while it's defenceless. Really fast hammers can wait, but slow charge cards should be avoided.
Commander - 2* Bird of Prey, Kang, Smiley
Captain - 4* Borg Sphere, Ardra, Undercover O’Brien, T’Mir, and your choice of Section 31 Georgiou, Rura Penthe Reed, or Dejaren
The Admiral division actually requires strategy because there are different approaches to success. The most popular setup right now is to load a D’Kora Krayton with a bunch of instant-damage crew. Some people work better with a T’Ong or Bounty (for cloaking) and some prefer the Discovery, Cube, or even the ISS Enterprise instead. Tailoring crew to the ship’s abilities is paramount, however, and having a maxed ship is just about as important. I’d recommend starting with your best 5* ship(s) and going from there.
In order:
Garth of Izar
"I Can't Believe it's not Gunpowder" Kirk
"Talk to the ✋" Sarek
The Witch of Wurna Minor
The built-in 350% Damage, Garth & Killy all go "hot" at the same time. I hit Pulse 1 second pause > Garth 1 second pause > Killy. Kirk when he opens, then Sarek. Hit the Cannibalize if taking Damage, to try and hold on.
I broke top 4000 yesterday. About as high as I can get right now. I'm not a skilled clicker........
To start out with: everybody will have their own version they prefer and you will get a million different answers.
I too am new to the Arena. I too asked for advice ... and got some good thoughts. But what they boiled down to was:
1. Use the best ship you have in each specific 'division' you want to play. I personally tend to use a ship that has good shields.
2. Use the 'crew' that is your strongest. For me, I find a smart choice is to toss in at least one that has a low initiation time with high attack and damage potential. Get a jump on the other ship?
3. Look at the ships and crew other players are using. But that opens up those 'worms' again!
Commander and Captain divisions are easy-peasy. Admiral division is a different story though. If you are OCD and want to 'rule the roost' in that division then you better have the best ships and best crew available ... because they are gonna stomp all over you!
Now me (currently doing Commander and Admiral): I am happy to be in the top 50% bracket and am satisfied with that and collecting my 7 schematics each day. That is really easy to accomplish generally.
Best of luck!
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The thing about arena is that there is a night and day difference between "good crew" and "good crew that the comp. can use." For example, currently, in the captain division, on the Borg sphere, Rura Penthe Reed does not activate, when the comp. is playing, until 10s; even though he initializes at 8s. Why? Because the sphere has a shield repair that initializes at 6s and lasts 4s; hence 10s. Even though Reed gives a lot more ATK, the comp. won't use him until 10s. This means that, as far as the comp. is concerned, there is no difference between Reed and the Duras sisters. There are exceptions to this, like instant damage crew (which the comp. will use immediately, regardless if it's a good idea or not). There is no way to know for sure, how the comp. will use crew, unless you see a particular setup in action.
Commander: is pretty much locked down. Kang and Smiley O'Brien, on the K'Vort, if you want the top 1%.
Captain: Less locked down than people say. The T'mir, Ardra, UC O'Brien, and Rura Penthe Reed are standard, but there is room for experimentation. Currently, I'm using T'Mir, UC O'Brien, Dejaren, and Forra Gegen and I'm having good results. (Sphere for def or Avenger for off.)
Admiral: The thing about admiral is that getting to the top 1% isn't that hard; staying there, on the other hand, is. And staying there all comes down to how well the comp. can play your setup. For example, if you run the Krayton with all Killys and one Ardra, then you're missing at least one power shot. For some reason, the comp. always uses the Krayton's power shot BEFORE activating any of the crew. And, without the +10 ATK from a Killy, the Krayton's 350% instant damage does almost nothing. However, you can counter this with, say, a Locutus. While a +10, from Killy, would be better, the +9 from Locutus is better than the +0 you get otherwise. Also, for some reason, the comp. uses crew from left to right. This means if you are using, say, the commandant and Garth, you need to put the commandant before Garth if you want the comp. to use your power shots in the right order.
My setup is The Commandant, Forra Gegen, Garth, and Locutaus, on the Krayton.
Well... that took longer to get out than I thought it would. xD Hope it helps. [=
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Kang + Smiley is the preferred line-up of about 90% of the top ships, but there are several other options that occasionally hit the leaderboard. I can't speak to the other choices, but as for mine...
I prefer Kang + Mendon. Why Mendon (shield repair + accuracy) over Smiley (shield repair + evasion), you ask? I'd rather win by hitting stuff than win by dodging long enough for my lucky shots to hit the enemy. The sequence: cloak, Kang (before the end of the cloaking time), Mendon. I usually de-cloak around the 2 second mark (out of the 4 second cloak time). This allows me to dodge enemy-Kang's hammer, gives me a residual evasion boost (the oft-overlooked feature of the cloaking button), rebuilds my shields (maybe that couple thousand points is enough to get me the last shot), and then Mendon's accuracy directly counters Smiley's evasion. So for a couple of seconds, I have a better accuracy+evasion total compared to a Kang+Smiley defender, and often that's enough to win the match. Just my 2 strips of latinum, but it works well for me.
PS - I hate the group-think in the Captain division even more, but I've also accepted that I will never be higher than rank 2000 because I refuse to thaw out RP Reed and Audra. So I have no advice there.
The T'Ong has the most hull points, so it can often survive a quick barrage. Cloaking is great, of course. The four crew all become active at the time the cloak drops. Pop them off in the order listed and as quickly as they can be selected. All four have high "insta-damage" along with the built-in "Fire Magnetic Pulse" of the T'Ong. They also combine to boost all stats.
I can often endure an opening Krayton barrage with few hit points remaining, but come back to win the battle with my response. This has been good for several dozen #1 rankings since I started using it, so it's acceptable... :-)
as things stand they are simply the optimum combo
the many thousands with this combo will have frozen all other crew options and I very much doubt anyone will have the time or inclination to thaw and experiment just to reaffirm that the majority are right
any potential opponent not having this combo will be showing a perceived weakness and considered an 'easier' victory and so likely be targeted
you can get 'lost in the crowd' with this combo, unless you're offered on the right in the 4-500 range, why would anyone attack in the 1st or 2nd slot?
Get near the top end and I'd say it's 60-40 in favour of the attacker, maybe more for those with better timing than I have.
Captain Division allows for a little more diversity in crew selections, Borg Cube way dominant, but given that my ISS Avenger doesn't take that many hits daily (it would be really interesting to know how often any given ship makes a successful defence with the AI), most either don't fancy taking it on or lose in the attempt.
Admiral is interesting in that you can take maybe half a dozen or more ships to top spot (I've been there with T'Ong, Shenzou, ISS Enterprise, Bounty, Sarcophagus at least, maybe a few others), but will return maybe a just a few hours later to find yourself 3/4/5k positions lower.
The Krayton again gets lost in the crowd whereas the others are certainly more likely to be targeted by other Kraytons, human paying attention with reasonable timing wins every single time against AI.
I've taken top slot in all divisions concurrently as often as I've been bothered to do it, close enough to do it again today, but lack the drive to go beyond the 5 for the dailies.
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