Away Team Build (Starter)

As important as space combat is, occasionally you’ve got to beam down to the planet and get your hands dirty. You’re not about to let your first officer make you stay on the ship, are you? Never! So shaka (when the walls fell) your butt down to the planet and bring civilization to the natives at the end of a phaser rifle.

This is a custom variation of an away team build I found online, and it doesn’t include any special event skills or weapons. As for equipment, deck these officers out with the best you can give them… you know you can have your away team wear rep gear, right? MACO is a pretty good choice, and the Gamma Armor is pretty good too, or you can mix and match. I know I said no special event stuff, but if you've got them, feel free to use them. Special note on event reward weapons - you can get multiple copies… just reclaim the weapon, equip it on one of your Boffs, and then reclaim it again. Rinse and repeat, although I like to have all the members of my away team dealing different damage types to speed up the "damage type ground" endeavors.

## Team Member Recommendations

Before continuing, let me say something about the race of your Away Team members: If you have the means, you want Androids and/or Voth for your science and engineering Boffs. The reason why is because Androids have the “Superior Reboot” trait that automatically revives them without penalty after a few seconds, and the Voth have a similar ability called “Suspended Animation.” This allows defeated members of your away team to revive themselves and get back in the fight. Androids are hard to come by: you get 1 Engineer for being a lifetime subscriber, you can get the Starfleet 0718 Model Android Officer (science) from a purchase on the zen store, the Andrea type (Engineer) from K-13, or Dr. Brown (Engineer) from K-13. Alas, those are all the Androids you can get, so at most you can use 2 of them for this build. You can get a single Voth Science Bridge Officer for reaching Level 5 in the Dyson Joint Command Reputation. Don't feel you have to break the bank to get these, but they are nice to have.

This first section will cover your team when you beam to a zone that only allows 2 Boffs (I’m looking at you, Kobali Prime). If you can only take one with you, choose either one of the first two. If you’ve got plenty of self heals, take the Engineer (especially if you're using an Android). If you need a healer, make sure YOU have a mortar in your kit frame.

## Bridge Officer 1: Engineer

Always have an Engineer on your away team. They can equip mortars that can hit glitched enemies who you couldn’t otherwise kill (and that can force you to restart a mission, which sucks).

### Skills

* Ensign: Take Cover (Command) – Makes your team crouch sometimes (which is good). Buffs all damage, and if you’re crouching it’s got a great health regen and immunity to knockback, repel, and stun. Goes without saying that you should be crouching too!
* Lieutenant: Hammer and Anvil II (Command) – Bonus damage when you’re flanking and improved resistance when not.
* Lieutenant Commander: Return Fire I (Command) – Bonus damage and improved recharge times that increases as your health decreases.
* Commander: Quantum Mortar Fabrication II (Engineer) – This creates a mortar that can hit enemies indirectly. Every away team should have a mortar to deal with those glitched enemies who appear inside a wall or underground. If you’re playing an engineer and have a mortar as one of your kit modules, you can replace this with a turret.

## Bridge Officer 2: Science

Your sciency types are your healers, but they can also buff your party and debuff your foes.

### Skills

* Ensign: Medical Tricorder I (Science) – Big Heal. Removes Debuffs. Increases resistances. What’s not to love?
* Lieutenant: Tricorder Scan I (Science) – Decreases an enemy’s resistances and exposes stealth enemies. Also increases your perception.
* Lieutenant Commander: Strategic Analysis II (Command) – Lasts for up to 30 seconds, giving you increased damage and resistance rating that continues to tick up over the course of the ability.
* Commander: Nanite Health Monitor II (Science) – You can use Nanite Health Monitor III here too, but it is very expensive unless you make it yourself. This comes with a certain number of charges, and when an ally drops below 75% health will give a big heal, improved resistance rating, and removes expose effects.

For this second part, you’ll want to add these two when you go to a zone or mission that allows all 4 bridge officers. An example would be Nimbus III, but most of the story missions that involve beaming down will let you bring the full party.

## Bridge Officer 3: Tactical

Ah, tactical. The tactical AI is, well, not great. They love running up and punching people, even when you don’t have melee weapons equipped. They’re not great at firing on enemies either. These abilities force them to be kind of decent though. For your Tactical Officer, a great choice is the FREE Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer Candidate you can receive as an award from the Mission "Facility 4028."

### Skills

* Ensign: Resonant Tachyon Stream I (Intelligence) – Causes some decent shield damage to enemies and gives you both shield regen and resistance.
* Lieutenant: Suppressing Fire I (Tactical) – This will cause your targets to have a third of their usual run speed and about half their damage for a short time, with a chance to root them in place.
* Lieutenant Commander: Deploy Tripwire Drone I (Intelligence) – I must admit, I love this one. It creates a small ground-based drone that heads toward your target with a spinning wire around it that will knockdown foes, cause shield ignoring physical damage, roots them, and has a chance to hold them. Even better, when it reaches your target, it will explode doing kinetic damage that ignores half their shields.
* Commander: Overwatch II (Tactical) – This summons Tracer, Widowmaker, Mei, Mercy, and D.Va… oh, wait, sorry. Wrong Overwatch. What it really does is gives all of your allies damage resistance, and when someone attacks them, it debuffs the attacker’s damage and gives you a chance to expose them.

## Bridge Officer 4: Science

So, yeah, almost all the skills for the second sciency type are the same as the first. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, you’ll be glad you took two science types down and hailed the ship in the morning.

### Skills

* Ensign: Medical Tricorder I (Science) – Big Heal. Removes Debuffs. Increases resistances. What’s not to love?
* Lieutenant: Tricorder Scan I (Science) – Decreases an enemy’s resistances and exposes stealth enemies. Also increases your perception.
* Lieutenant Commander: Frictionless Particle Grenade III (Intelligence) – AoE that decreases your foe’s resistances and gives them a chance to be knocked down (but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down).
* Commander: Nanite Health Monitor II (Science) – You can use Nanite Health Monitor III here too, but it is very expensive unless you make it yourself. This comes with a certain number of charges, and when an ally drops below 75% health will give a big heal, improved resistance rating, and removes expose effects.

## Conclusion

There you go! You’re now ready to beam down and kick butt for the Void. Keep in mind, this is only a rough guide. There are a lot of great abilities you can give your away team, but this is meant to be a cheap starting point that will still let you steamroll any mission in the game. If you’re constantly topped out on health, feel free to replace one of the science healing skills with Hyperonic Radiation to kill stuff faster. Temporal and Miracle Worker specializations have some great skills too, this is just intended as a starting point. Customize as you see fit to suit your play style! If you've got access to special event skills, by all means, use them!