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Ground Combat STO

Elite Bridge Officers

This is a comparison of an Elite-upgraded Bridge Officer (BOFF) to standard BOFFs and other pets. Consider the following two parses:

Partisans, bar fight and 10 minutes of arena (18 min parse). Elite BOFF used Rifle Training trait, Borg Kit.

Partisans Arena, 10 minutes. Elite BOFF used Hive Mind, Borg Kit.

Partisans Arena, 10 minutes. Captain attacking, Elite BOFF used Hive Mind, Borg Kit.

Partisans Arena, 7.3 minutes. Captain attacking, Elite BOFF used Hive Mind, Risian Kit.

Here are the numbers for the four BOFFs from the first parse:

Bridge OfficerDamageDPS
Standard BOFF 49428787.72
Elite BOFF9035384.07
Standard BOFF 285454 79.51
Standard BOFF 382597 76.85

And here are the numbers for the BOFFs from the second parse:

Bridge OfficerDamageDPS
Standard BOFF 493239134.97
Elite BOFF91128131.92
Standard BOFF 390754131.38
Standard BOFF 276090110.15

And here are the numbers for the BOFFs from the third parse (with Captain attacking):

Bridge OfficerDamageDPS
Standard BOFF 475675125.83
Standard BOFF 271547118.97
Standard BOFF 370587117.37
Elite BOFF68961114.67

Notes:

Differences between parses: The first parse is the bar fight and 10 minutes of the arena fight, the second parse is only 10 minutes of the arena fight. Between the parses, I re-engineered all of the BOFFs’ Omega weapons to DMGx4 to eliminate any potential discrepancies there. The Elite BOFF had the Rifle Training trait in the first parse and Hive Mind in the second & third parses.

On the first and second parses, the only abilities I used on my Captain were pet summons and team-wide buffs. On the third parse, I attacked as usual (adding Ball Lightning and Ambush, which were equipped but not used in the other parses).

BOFF 4 and BOFF 3 are effectively identical (same species traits and gear), and BOFF 2 (Flores) is a better BOFF on paper. So it seems fair to say that the differences between all the boffs are so small as to not even be discernible from an 18-minute parse. Or rather, a combined 40 minutes of parsing still isn’t enough to overcome the variance from RNG.

All four boffs are wearing the same gear (fully upgraded Omega Force set), and each boff has 4 devices (Pahvan Healing Crystal, Fractal Remodulator, a tribble, and a combat pet). I did not equip a 5th device on the Elite BOFF, because that would likely only hurt their DPS (taking time out to activate).

All four boffs are only using team-wide buff abilities from the Command Specialization (except the Tacs, which also use Battle Strategies and Motion Accelerator). This is the way I always equip my BOFFs, to maximize my own DPS. But it also helps to make the test more precise (testing BOFF power differences and not BOFF ability differences).

The BOFFs’ traits are as follows:

  • Elite BOFF (Tala, original starting BOFF): Superior Acute Senses, Superior Cold Dwelling, Superior Fury, Superior Stubborn.
  • Standard BOFF 2 (Elisa Flores, current starting BOFF): Leadership, Superior Peak Health, Superior Soldier, Superior Teamwork.
  • Standard BOFF 3 (Cheeky Monkey, Bolian): Corrosive Blood, Creative, Superior Luck, Superior Teamwork.
  • Standard BOFF 4 (Troo Gritt, Bolian): Corrosive Blood, Creative, Superior Luck, Superior Teamwork.

Conclusions:

The first thing to note is that the Danube Runabout (Reputation pet) was by far the most powerful. After that, most of the NPC helpers were also considerably more powerful than any of the boffs. And, in fact, two of the standard combat pets also parsed better (one of the Targs and the Tardigrade).

The only performance bonus that the Elite BOFF has is the Borg Combat Structure kit, which did 28.43 DPS in the first parse and 45.58 DPS in the second. Relative to the damage of the BOFFs themselves, that is not insignificant. But in the big picture, it is negligible. And it should be noted that this is the most ideal scenario for the Borg Combat Structure, in that the fight is entirely stationary and the enemies attack in endless waves. In most combat scenarios, where the player is on the move, the Structure’s performance will be considerably lower.

The Elite BOFF also has an extra Trait slot. In the first parse, the Elite Boff was using Rifle Training (no observed effect at all). Finally, I spent the 10 mil EC and settled on Hive Mind, which provides the biggest bonus to BOFF and Captain. As you can see in the second parse, any effect on the BOFF was still negligible.

Without the extra DPS from the Borg kit, the Elite BOFF wasn’t even the highest damage-dealing BOFF, coming in second overall. It should be noted that the Elite BOFF was actually in 3rd place for much of the first parse’s duration.

TL;DR: Except for the Kit slot and Trait slot, if you can make use of them, the Elite BOFF upgrade is pointless from a performance standpoint.


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