Star Trek Online Elite STFs Guide

Star Trek Online Elite STFs Guide by Capt_Drakon_Darknight

Listed below a few things you should know BEFORE queuing for an Elite STF, I recommend reading it as it might spare you both time and nerves.

First off, this is not normal mode, Elite is at least 3 times harder and the mobs 10 times tougher, so if you don’t have appropriate gear do yourself (and your team) a favor and don’t enter the queue.
Another important point is that you will, if you want or not, receive several debuffs called injury (ground) or damage (space).
Injuries and damages reduce your battle strength in both attack and defense and can stack nearly indefinitely, so you have to get rid of them as soon as possible.
There is a general rule to this:
Several minor increase the chance of getting a major
Several major increase the chance of getting criticals

This brings us to our next point:

Necessary things for Elite STFs
– At least 40 Minor Regenerators/Minor parts
– At least 40 Major regenerators/Major parts
– MK XI/XII Equipment (At least one XI weapon)
– At least 50 Large Hypos
– Shield Batteries(Except you’ve got the MACO set->ground) (ground)
-Weapon Batteries(ground)
-Any damage buffing tribble
– Remodulator ground(Except when having a 3 set piece bonus)

If you don’t have at least the Damage/Injury repair stuff please do everyone a favor and don’t apply for Elite STFs, you are not only wasting your time but your teams too, since the probability of the team failing is pretty high as soon as one or more team members get several critical injuries/damages stacked.
You will note that I did talk about critical injuries, but didn’t list their parts/regenerators as required items.
This is because there is (atm) no place (Except sometimes exchanges for horrible prices) where you could buy them, and especially regenerators are pretty rare drops. We have yet to see if we will ever get a store for them too.

Where to get Parts and Regenerators:

Every station should have at least one merchant selling ground and space devices.
There are two next to each other on DS9 for ground items and on for Space devices where you can change your ship. And yes, you won’t get them for free. But please mind that Elite is not supposed to be easy, so no crying will help you around it.
How to heal an Injury/repair damage
After you have received your first damage/injury you want to heal/repair it as fast as possible in order to not get stronger ones.(Again all of them can stack several times), healing them is pretty simple:

Ground:
Press K while being injured, your character window will open and you will notice a button with a red font in the lower right section – -> click it.
You are now in the sickbay window, and can heal both your character, and if you played Elite in ‘single player’ your BOFFs too.

Space:
Press K while being damaged and select your ship, you will notice a red button saying “DAMAGED” in the lower right section of the window – -> click it.
You are now in the engineering window where you can repair your ship with the parts.

In these two windows you can also read what exactly every damage does, and if you are for some reason short on parts/regenerators decide which ones you heal and which ones not
Example:
Repairing your Sickbay is not as important as repairing Warpcore failure

A general rule is:
If it reduces your resistance, energy levels or damage heal it!
If you have more than one injury/damage heal/repair at least one

You can do that while waiting to respawn btw, which is recommended, as mobs sometimes farm the spawn points.

Consequences of not bringing them:

Pretty easy – you will **** your team off.
You might now ask yourself: “But wait, why should I care about some people I don’t even know being ****ed because of me?”
Let my answer your question with a question:
Let’s assume the following case:
You are in a small company which only pays if you do your work right. To do your work right you need every person to bring several things every day, like pencils, pens, paper, and whatever else you like to insert here. You need about 20 per workday
Now 2 of your five man team don’t bring their pencils, as a consequence no one will have enough pencils to finish the work so no one will get paid.
And now my question:
“Wouldn’t you be ****ed too?”

While the analogy might not be the best, it is pretty much the same, an STF has a lot of work in it and you will only get the reward if you finish it.

Another consequence is that people will leave as soon as they feel that continuing doesn’t make sense.
While I generally condemn people who leave because of a stupid optional objective, I believe this to be a legit case, as, and sorry for saying it a third time now, you are wasting your teams time by not bringing them.

[Additional information [/b]

Damage, Injuries and Enemy HP are not the only things being different from normal STF game play, there are several other things, differing from STF to STF like:
– Different mobs being placed on the map (for example 2 Elites instead of one)
– Bosses getting additional abilities, such as planetary bombardment
– […]

If you don’t know what exactly changed, no problem, I don’t know all of them either, just ask your teammates, at least one person will know or have a vague idea.

So again, please don’t waste other people’s time just because you want your XII stuff without spending any money, because it won’t work out. People will leave the team and the system will most likely not give your team replacements. The result is pretty clear:
You have wasted approximately 30 minutes to one hour without getting anything but crappy loot you will probably sell to the replicator anyway.

Now that you know everything, have fun with your Elite STFs and don’t forget to bring your regenerators/parts!

Kithomer Accords Guide

Please note that the following guide is for startet groups with no – little experience with Elite STFs, and just a help on ‘How to not get frustrated’ or ”How to not fail the mission’; The other four have to wait until February, after the skill tree revamp as my finals are approaching.

KITHOMER ACCORDS — SPACE
The first important fact to know about KA space is that you can actually fail it.
Please also note that there is no guarantee for average groups to manage the optional objective when using the tactic this guide suggests, as it takes a lot of concentration and dps, your chances are however, not too bad.

Start Situation:
As you warp in you will (probably) notice two huge gates, with 2 transformers, being protected by 4 generators, a third(different) gate, as well as a tactical cube.
All of these are part of this mission’s objective and have different purposes for it;
While you have to destroy most of them one requires the attention of at least 2 players as its GUARD.

Recommended Abilites to stay alive/ complete the mission:
– Aceton beam
– Gravity well
– Tractor beam or repulsor
– Beam fire at will
– Eject warp plasma
– Reverse shield polarity
– Emergency power to Structural Integrity field
– Engineering team
– Tactical team
– Emergency Power to Shields

Recommended group layout (for private queues):
2 x Dreadnought cruiser
2 x SCI ship
1 x Escort (preferably the SCI Prometheus/BoP)

The Tactical cube:
There is not much to say about this one, despite that it is your first mission objective and that you have to kill it.
Debuff it with Aceton beam to reduce incoming beam damage and use FAW to shoot down

The Transwarp gates:
The layout will probably remind you on Infected, with just two sides, which is essentially true; there are a few differences you have to mind though.

1.) The generators have less Hull, and are thus easier to kill
2.) The generators won’t spawn spheres, instead a cube will spawn as soon as two of them are down
3.) Keep a distance of at least 9 km to it, to not get targeted by its weapons
4.) Not really a 3rd point but a hint: A Dreadnought cruiser MIGHT be able to kill both by flying in front of the first one and targeting the one behind it with a fully buffed Phaser Lance. (Definitely works on normal)

The Middle Gate – also known as “The Time Vortex(TV)”:
Safety check: TV DOES NOT MEAN TELEVISION IN THIS GUIDE

While the TV is neither attackable nor attacks itself it’s one of the most important things in this missions, as you have to protect it from Probes warping in from the Transwarp gate. Doing the whole mission without a single Probe penetrating your gate-defense is also the optional mission objective.
Doing this might sound easy, but is hindered by the fact that these Elite probes have more health points and respond poorly to tractor beams with low energy levels in AUX.
You will also notice a counter in your mission objective window saying 0/10 as soon as the tac cube is down. The first number indicates how many probes have already passed through the gate, while the second indicates the maximum amount of probes allowed to pass before the mission fails.
This amount is namely 9, as soon as the 10 th probe passes through the gate the mission fails and you will get the one hour cool down as if you had successfully completed it.
This brings us to our next step:

The How – to do the mission

After killing the cube, the first thing you want to do is splitting the team across the map.
Send 3 persons to the left or right gate, one to the other gate and the last one to the TV as a last line of defense.
As constantly mentioning both sides is annoying this guide will now assumes that you start with THE LEFT GATE.

Job at the right gate:
Killing probes, AND NOTHING BUT PROBES (!!!!)
(Repairing damage is important here as the probes are tougher than they look like)

Job at the TV:
Killing any probe getting through the defense on either side
(Repairing damage is important here as the probes are tougher than they look like)

Job at the left gate:
2 persons: Killing generators and transformers (and of course the cubes spawning)
1 person: Shooting probes, AND NOTHING BUT PROBES (!!!!)
(Note the advice from the start: Dreadnought might help getting the generators down faster and can tank the cube)

Addendum probe Killers and TV guardian
The following skills are the ones you can use to slow the probes down and therefore giving you additional time to kill them:
– Tractor beam(Watch your energy level)
– Tractor beam repulsors (Attention, this skill should only be utilized by trained players as it can also backfire and push the probes closer to the TV)
– Gravity well
– Eject warp plasma

And again, even with the imminent danger of annoying you by saying it again: repair your ship, or you might not have the dps necessary to kill the probes in time.

While the other 3 ships kill probes the two remaining ships have to start killing the generators on their side; do again start with the left set of generators, as they are probably the closest after the cube explodes.
Now kill two of the generators and immediately attack the cube afterwards, now it is again time to utilize Aceton beam to reduce incoming beam damage as well as FAW to finish off High Yield Plasma torpedoes.
Furthermore, use every resistance buff you can possibly think about, such as Emergency to Structural Integrity, and if your shields drop reverse shield polarity (just examples), it is further recommended to have a distance of at least 5 kilometers to the cube, to make sure that its warp core breach doesn’t kill you and does thus not add a debuff to your ship.
Furthermore, it gives you some time to shoot the plasma torpedoes down.
As soon as the cube is down kill the next two generators, from at least 9 km distance to the Transwarp gate, as soon as the generators are down, kill the transformer, an additional cube will NOT spawn.

Now fly a big circle around the gate, and make your way to the right set of generators, there you have to repeat what you did at the left set, cube included.

After the second transformer is down, start firing at the gate while helping your probe killer out by using multi target attacks such as FAW or Torpedo spread, the one shooting probes can help you out too, while his area is probe free, but should continue his work as soon as new probes enter the area.

Now shoot the gate down to 5 %, I repeat, to 5 %, so DO NOT KILL THE GATE
(credit for this part goes to @crusader- (or something similar to that) who suggested this during a run)
While I admit that I was skeptical at first it is actually pretty logical, not recommended though if 4 or more probes have already passed.

As for the reason:
As soon as the gate goes down, the other gate will send two spheres along to every set of probes, so when not killing the gate you just have to kill probes and won’t have to bother with spheres.

Now the game continues on the other side:
The two people having killed generators should fly over to the other gates RIGHT set of generators, while the probe killer resumes his work and solely cares about the probes coming from the gate.

Now Repeat what you did at the left gate, and, as soon as the gate is down to 40% inform your TV guardian as well as your left gate probe killer that they can now shoot down the left gate; Yes you read right: your TV guardian is gone now, so you have to watch out for the probes as well as killing the right gate.
If everything went according to plan, and you repaired damage as soon as you got it you should have managed to do it with no more than 3 probes passing the gate, the ideal situation is that you even did it in time for the optional.
(Someone should fly over to the TV to grab the group loot there)

(Should the gate fall down or should four probes have already passed utilize, if you have them, the two Dreadnought cruisers to take on the spheres, and don’t assist them, they should be able to do them by themselves, while it has to be noted, that every dreadnought has to engage just one sphere and only help his teammate when his own sphere is down)

Congratulations, you just did the hard part of KA – Space and can now no longer fail the mission.

The final part – Donatra

Despite her toughness and damage, no changes were made to her on Elite.
It is notable though that, both on normal and Elite, her Thalaron beam got repaired.
As a result you have to watch your six after she de-cloaks.
Other than that consider her a differently shaped tactical cube that can doe torpedo spread and cloaks from time to time.

As soon as Donatra is dead, fly over to the TV to grab your loot bag.

KA-Ground is the easiest STF of all, as it has a logical flow and no way to fail the mission, I’ll therefore mostly write about general things to know than tactics (though a few will be in), you just have to talk with each other and the instance, as well as the optional shouldn’t pose a problem.

Required things:
– Minor + Major regenerators (amounts see above)
– Large Hyposprays
– Remodulator/3 pieces STF Set bonus

Advantageous:

– Ground Weapon Battery
– Ground Shield Battery
– Cryo Grenades
– Collective Stun grenades*
– Cordrazine Hypospray*
– Collective immunizer Hypospray*
– Critical Regenerator*
– A Shotgun(Pulsewave)
– A Sniper Rifle

*randomly drops inside the instance;

Trash drones = Drone, Infected Drone, Tactical Drone

You start out in an ‘empty’ room with no enemies and a huge ‘column’ featuring several Borg alcoves around it, don’t worry they are just for show, this room is save and also your primary respawn point.

Run around the column and enter the tunnel on the other side, and STOP.
When you look at the situation you will see that there is a fork ahead of you, while it doesn’t matter if you go left or right, it is still important to know what awaits you down there:

ATTENTION:
You have to fight the following mobs regardless of which way you choose:

On the left side you will find a mix of Borg drones and on the right side you will find your worst enemy in this instance: A tactical Elite drone, and you have to fight both at the same time.
Have one or two people going into close range combat with the elite drone and melee it at least from time to time, as this will stop it from using its spray shot which can kill the entire group in small rooms like this.

After you have defeated it continue your way down, again it doesn’t matter which way you choose, just remember which one it was in case you have to respawn.

After descending down the tunnel, you will get into another room, which is incidentally directly below your starting point.
The room’s layout is pretty simple: Two ways in (from either side you went down) and one way out (for descending deeper into the structure)
Depending on way you went down you will find another Elite Drone on either the left or right side of the room. The best way to phrase it is probably vis-à-vis the tunnel leading down; you will again have to fight several mixed drones as well as the Elite Drone.

After killing everything descend further into the base.
You will again find yourself in front of a fork, it doesn’t really matter which one you choose, if you take the right way though you will have to fight a patrolling Heavy Tactical drone as well as its friends.

The right ways group stands still until someone gets too close or shoots at it, so taking the left way will spare you one Borg group.
BOTH WAYS LEAD TO THE SAME TARGET.

Continue to follow the way and kill anything in your way, until you reach yet another room.
If you look around you will notice:

– An Elite drone standing on a pedestal
– A tactical and Infected Drone on the ramp leading to the bottom of the room

You can ignore both.

Instead turn right and jump down the platform, this way you don’t have to fight the Elite drone.
Below you will find a few additional Borg (Heavy Tactical Drone included) – Kill them and leave the room.

(Personally I recommend doing the WHOLE room as people might forget about jumping down instead of running through the room when respawning.

As soon as you have left the room you will find yourself in a long floor with several rooms being protected by force field, there is for know nothing you can do about that so just ignore them and follow the flow until you reach a ramp, where yet another Borg mob waits.

Optional: As soon as you reach the middle of this floor, marked by a console the optional objective starts – -> DO NOT READ the BOFFf text. You only got 15 Minutes.

I won’t fully explain every mob in the next room as it has many of them and is huge:
It has a few Heavy Tacs, an Elite Drone as well as several trash drones inside.

Don’t wait for your comrades to resurrect you as you have unlocked a new respawn point as soon as you have entered the room, its less time consuming this way.
Oh and did I tell you to heal your injuries yet?
Because you will need as much DPS and damage resistance as you can utilize to bring down the nodes before the shields pop up again, especially if your shield dropper doesn’t manage to extend the downtime (Which is also dependant on your dps).

The room itself consists of four levels with the 4 th not being accessible due to a force field.
With shielded nodes on each floor as well as a console on the middle floor – ignore both of them for now, and do not interact with the console.
You have to clean all 3 accessible before you can even think about starting the next step, so do it, and do it fast as the time is running.
As soon as the room is clear ONE group member has to return to the middle floor where he does now interacts with the console.
Who should go there:
– The team member having the highest amount of injuries (especially critical)
– Scientists
– Engineers
In this sequence.

The remaining team members have to walk down to Node BETA 3 (Explanation follows)

Now, that they are relevant I will start talking about the nodes: The room has 6 shielded nodes which you have to destroy in order to overload the IMR’s in the floor and on the rooms 4 th level.
The nodes on the left side of the room are the Alpha nodes, with the one on the bottom being the 3 rd (Alpha 3/A3), the left ones are the beta nodes. You will also hear a Borg voice stating which Node has been approached.

The team member having left the battlefield:

You will find yourself in a room with several consoles you can’t use as well as a big one in the middle; do not activate the transporter but the symbols.
First you have to choose a number and then a node, the first node your team should have gathered is BETA 3, and it is notable that the shield will pop up again, if the team fails to do it in time

As soon as you activated both the number and letter you will see that some Borg might randomly walk into your direction; they usually ignore you but sometimes attack, so try to [b]evade[/i] them.
Another thing you will notice is that one of the former useless consoles in the corner now has a plasma ball above its top.
Sprint to this console as fast as you can.
You will probably not be able to do anything when you arrive, but don’t panic and be patient, because as soon as the corresponding node has received enough damage you will get the chance to activate the console and give your team additional time to kill the node as a result.

As soon as A1 is DOWN you can leave the room.
Please note that your team might not be able to kill every console in the first try, so just activate the HIGHEST number possible and wait to input the Letter until your team tells you to do so. You can leave the room as soon as you cannot input another position, by activating the transport device.

Side note:
The spawning trash drones will sometimes not beam out but stays near the Symbol console. Should this be the case for you, you will have to kill them before you can activate another symbol.

After you have extended run back to the console in the middle, and WAIT again.
The best thing is that you wait for someone telling you at which console they are, because this also indicates that at least 2 persons are already there, making it possible to kill the node if you manage to extend.
Listening to the Borg voice has its disadvantage as she will spout it out as soon as the first one gets within a certain range.

The ones killing the node:
Start at Beta one and quickly kill the node.
You will soon realize that the Borg won’t let you do as you please though and have sent a security team to stop you from killing the node.
IGNORE THEM and continue to shoot down the node.

After the node is down CONTINUE TO IGNORE THE Borg, and run to the next node.
Do not shoot at them, just run. The shortest (and least time consuming) way is.

B3 – -> A3 – – > B2 – -> A2 – -> B1 – -> A1;
As soon as all six nodes are down, the shields around the IMR’s will drop and you can activate a console to their right.
The fastest way is if one person runs up to the 4 th level while the rest runs down to the one in the and activates the console there.

With the two IMRs down the force field around the Tosk of Borg will drop.

Run to the now free room but do not enter it, let ONE team member go into the small hallway between the room and the floor and quickly get out again, for triggering the Borg queens dialogue and the encounter.
While Tosk himself is an assimilated Reman and can therefore use Telekinetic damage and hold attacks, other than that he is just a tougher version of an elite drone.
He is however not the only one you have to worry about, because the room is also filled with 2 Heavy Tactical drones as well as several trash drones.

Wait a few seconds until you can attack him and use a sniper shot from outside the room to pull him out, since the room itself has little room for cover which you will unavoidably need due to the 3 spray shooting drones.
Try to not die as your respawn point is now (again) in the starting room, so you have to run a long way if you have to respawn.
Instead try to get behind the corner to regenerate shield energy and use your hypo sprays to restore your lost health.
It is also advisable to actually your fallen comrades, as they have a long way to run when respawning.

I recommend using an energy shotgun as soon as Tosk and his minions leave his room, as it does the most damage and also stops him from spray killing you if shot from a short range (where it does most damage)
You can either start with Tosk himself or with the weakest drones and run up to the strongest.
I actually recommend someone going into Melee with Tosk while the rest of the team kills the other drones, as they are a lot more annoying than him, and you also hinder him from using his spray this way.

As soon as Tosk and his minions are dead, your BOFF will offer you to leave, DO NOT TAKE THIS OPTION, as you will really leave the instance, leaving your loot bag behind.
Instead enter the BOSS room, where your loot, and (with luck) your XII token waits for you.
As soon as you have grabbed your loot, you can leave.

Oh and don’t fret if someone leaves the team:
You can do this mission as long as you have at least three people with two of them having NOT A SINGLE INJURY