Skill: Drain Expertise

Drain Expertise

Lieutenant Commander

This skill increases your command of Drain Effects, including both your effectiveness when using them. and your ability to resist the same effects. Drain Effects include all of the following:

• Shield Drain/Damage
• Subsystem Power Drain
• Subsystem Offline
• Power Transfer Rate Debuffs

Each point of Drain Expertise provides both of the following:

• +0.5% Base Effectiveness for Outgoing Drains
• +1% Resistance to Incoming Drains

Overview

Drain Expertise is a Lieutenant Commander Science skill that is available to all Lieutenant Commanders. There are two total skills in this chain and 1 specialty skill, each costing 1 Space Point to purchase.

• The first skill node gives +60 Drain Expertise.
  • Improved Drain Expertise gives an additional +40 for a total of +100 Drain Expertise.
  • Drain Infection adds an Electrical Damage DoT when using drain abilities.

Abilities affected

Bridge Officer abilities

Power drains:

• Energy Siphon
• Override Subsystem Safeties - Reduces time for offlined subsystem to recover
• Target Shields Subsystems
• Target Weapons Subsystems
• Target Engines Subsystems
• Target Auxiliary Subsystems
• Torpedo: Transport Warhead - Random subsystem offline duration
• Tractor Beam Repulsors - When used with an Engine power drain doff
• Tyken's Rift - Hazard
• Viral Matrix - Subsystem Offline

Shield drains:

• Charged Particle Burst - PBAoE
• Gravimetric Conversion
• Shared Fate
• Tachyon Beam
• Tractor Beam - When used with a Shield drain doff

Console abilities

Power drains:

• Activate Aceton Mode - PBAoE
• Aceton Assimilator - PBAoE
• Breen Energy Dissipator
• Emission-Seeking Torpedo - Engine power drain, engine subsystem offline duration, cloak disable duration
• Energy Discharge Array - PBAoE
• Plasmonic Leech - Passive
• Refracting Energy Shunt - Refracts
• Thoron Pulse - Small craft only

Shield drains:

• Deploy Tachyon Pulse Platform
• Destabilized Tachyon Burst
• Omni-Directional Tachyon Wave Siphon - PBAoE Shield steal
• Shield Destabilizer - PBAoE
• Shield Inversion
• Tachyon Inversion Beams
• Tachyon Particle Field
• Tholian Tetryon Grid - Only when used in conjunction with Tholian fighters
• Wing Cannon - Tachyon Burst

Weaponry

Many different weapon procs have drain effects.

Power drains:

The standard Polaron weapon proc reduces all of the target's subsystem power levels by 25 for 5 seconds. This proc, and other power drain procs, can be found on most Polaron-based weaponry, as well as some non-Polaron weapons:

Standard Polaron
Dominion Polaron
Elite Fleet Polaron
Phased Polaron
Protonic Polaron
Polarized Disruptor Disruptor-based
Assorted Others

Not all Polaron-based weapons have drain procs, such as Chronometric Polaron, Piezo-Polaron, Thoron-Infused Polaron and Vaadwaur Polaron emitters.

Shield drains:

The standard Tetryon weapon proc deals bonus shield damage to all of the target's shield facings. This proc, and other shield drain procs, can be found on most Tetryon-based weaponry, as well as some non-Tetryon weapons:

Standard Tetryon
Destabilizing Tetryon
Dominion Polaron Polaron-based
Elite Fleet Tetryon
Phased Tetryon
Piercing Tetryon
Refracting Tetryon
Resonating Tetryon
Assorted Others

Not all Tetryon-based weapons have drain procs, such as Antichroniton Infused Tetryon, Diffusive Tetryon, or the Competitive Wargames Tetryon weapons.

Other

Includes set bonuses, traits, and innate abilities.

• Improved Plasma Shockwave (Only on Rare Singularity Cores with [Wave] modifier)
• Bajor Defense Hyper Injection Warp/Singularity Cores - Siphoning Field Passive power steal
• M.A.C.O. Resilient Shield Array/Adapted K.H.G. Resilient Shield Array - Passive
• Delta Alliance Deflector Array/Delta Alliance Trajector Warp Core - Passive
• Nadion Inversion - Power drain resistance
• Point Jump - Shield Resistance debuff
• Quantum Destabilizing Beam (3-piece: Quantum Phase Catalysts) - Power steal
• Trait: Heavy Tachyon Mine - Shield drain hazard
• Trait: Forced Challenge - Increases forward shield drain
• Trait: Piezo-Electric Weapon Amplification - AoE shield drain from weapon damage
• Trait: Pilfered Power - Power steal when using Control Abilities
• Trait: Reverberation - Increases duration of Shield subsystem offline
• Trait: Subnucleonic Transferal - Power steal when using Subnucleonic Beam
• Tholian Radiation Field (3-piece: Tholian Technologies Set) - Shield drain
• Power Siphon Drones' power drain
• Tachyon Drones' shield drain
• Tetryon Glider (2-piece: Omega Force space set) - Passive shield drain
• Mutually-exclusive abilities: Due to requiring certain equipment, you may only have access to one of these abilities at a time:
  • Antiproton Sweep (3-piece: Jem'Hadar Space Set) - Shield drain
  • Assimilated Tractor Beam (3-piece: Assimilated Borg Technology) - Power steal
  • Breen Energy Syphon (3-piece: Breen Absolute Zero) - Power steal
  • Capacitance Transfer (3-piece: New Romulus Command Advanced Prototype Space Set) - Shield steal
  • Energy Weapon Entanglement (3-piece: Quantum Phase Applications)

Abilities that are not affected by Drain Expertise:

• Enhanced Weapon Systems Efficiency 2-piece set bonus
• Overwhelm Emitters
• Reroute Reserves to Weapons
• Sensor Analysis directly improves the potency of power drains, but is not affected by Drain Expertise.
• Weapon System Efficiency
• Warp Cores that innately boost power drain resistance.
• Carrier pets:
  • Orion Interceptors' weapon and engine power drain
  • Stalker Fighters' aux power drain

Modifiers

• Abilities & Traits
  • K-13 Survivor Science Bridge Officers (+10)
  • Astrophysicist trait (+10; +15 on the Superior version)
  • Inspirational Leader (up to +30)
  • Joined Symbiote (+9)
  • Science Fleet captain ability (up to +40)
  • Critical success on duty officer assignments:
    • Assignment: Assay State of Power Flow Capacitor Coolant System (+25 for 2 hours)
    • Assignment: Rebalance Thermal Deflector (+25 for 2 hours)
• Deflector Dishes with the [DrainX] modifier, as well as numerous special deflectors. See the Deflector Dish page for a list.
  • All Graviton Deflector Arrays
  • All Neutrino Deflector Arrays
  • All Tachyon Deflector Arrays
• Secondary Deflectors with the [DrainX] modifier
  • Solanae Secondary Deflector
• Other Equipment:
  • Crafted Impulse Engines with the [Damp] modifier (+33)
  • Quantum Phase Combat Impulse Engines (up to +30)
  • Krieger Wave Disruptor weapons (proc: up to +25 per weapon)
  • Saboteur's Disruptor weapons (proc: +30)
  • Temporal Defense Initiative Regenerative Shield Array (up to +31.9 at Mk XV)
  • Singularity Cores with the [PI] modifier, as well as a few special warp and singularity cores. See the Warp Core page for a list.
• Science Consoles:
  • Console - Science - Flow Capacitor / Power Insulator (up to +37.5)
    • These 2 consoles function identically; they had separate functions in the past.
  • Console - Science - Emitter Refocuser (up to +18.8)
  • Console - Science - Exotic Particle Field Exciter [DrainX] (up to +37.5)
  • Console - Science - Nausicaan Siphon Capacitor (up to +39.4)
  • Console - Science - Shield Refrequencer [DrainX] (up to +25)
  • Threat-Scaling Science Consoles [DrainX] (up to +37.5)
  • Particle Focuser Science Consoles [DrainX] (up to 37.5; up to 62.5 with [DrainX]x2)
• Other Consoles: (max one of each)
  • Console - Engineering - Conductive RCS Accelerator [DrainX] (up to +37.5)
  • Console - Universal - Destabilized Tachyon Emitters (+20)
  • Console - Universal - Enhanced Breen Energy Dissipator (+25)
  • Console - Universal - Nukara Particle Converter (up to +21.7)
  • Console - Universal - Sensor Burnout (+15)
  • Console - Universal - Tachyon Particle Field Emitter (+25)
  • Console - Universal - Quantum Phase Converter (up to +37.5)
  • Console - Universal - Zero-Point Energy Conduit (up to +24.6)
  • Console - Universal - Rule 62 Multipurpose Combat Console (up to +28.1)
  • Saboteur's Supercharger Universal Console (up to +7.5)
• Set bonuses:
  • 2-piece: Apex Predator Set (+17.8)
  • 2-piece: Dyson Joint Command Technologies Set (+20.3)
  • 2-piece: Hypercooled Technology Set (+35.5; Breen starships only)
  • 2-piece: Lukari Restoration Initiative Armaments (+20)
  • 2-piece: Lukari Restoration Initiative Starship Technologies (+20)
  • 2-piece: M.A.C.O. / Adapted Honor Guard (+17.8)
  • 2-piece: Nukara Appropriated Munitions (+17.8)
  • 2-piece: Saboteur's Gambits (+20)
  • 2-piece: Tachyon Manipulation Technology Set (+35.5)
  • 3-piece: Temporal Defense Initiative Starship Technologies (+20) - When using certain abilities
  • 2-piece: We Are Smart (random chance of +50)

Strategy

Science Vessels and Carriers have built-in Subsystem Targeting abilities, putting four bridge officer drain abilities at your disposal. Even if your ship is built around using projectiles, you can equip at least a single energy weapon just to execute these abilities continuously.

Many drain items and abilities have a degree of synergy with one another:

• The deflector and engine from the Quantum Phase Applications set boost Drain Expertise, which will improve the set bonus Energy Weapon Entanglement ability, and its shield provides a shield heal when using certain drain abilities. Likewise, each piece of the Quantum Phase Catalysts set either boosts Drain Expertise or benefits from it, and its set bonus gives the Quantum Destabilizing Beam ability that benefits from DrainX. Using both sets will greatly benefit a Phaser-focused drain build.
• Two pieces of the Hypercooled Technology Set are drain abilities, its 2-piece set bonus grants Drain Expertise, and its 4-piece set bonus lowers the cooldown of those abilities. The other Breen set, Absolute Zero, has a Deflector that boosts DrainX and a singularity core that grants Improved Plasma Shockwave when flying in a Warbird, and its 3-piece grants the Breen Energy Siphon ability.
• The 2-piece set bonus from the Jem'Hadar Space Set boosts Drain Expertise, while the 3-piece grants the Antiproton Sweep that benefits from it; if flying on a Cardassian or Dominion ship, Polaron weaponry is enhanced.
• The 2-piece set bonus from the M.A.C.O. set boosts Drain Expertise, while the shield from that set provides a passive drain ability.
• The deflectors from the New Romulus Command Advanced Prototype Space Set provide a large bonus to Drain Expertise, which will benefit the 3-piece Capacitance Transfer ability.
• Both the Apex Predator and Nukara Appropriated Munitions sets have a 2-piece bonus that boosts Tetryon damage and Drain Expertise, which their weapons benefit from, and a 3-piece set bonus that improves their main weapon's firing gimmick. Since almost all Tetryon weapons benefit from Drain Expertise, this can be combined with other Tetryon-focused sets, such as Nukara Strikeforce Technologies and Krenim Temporal Manipulation.

Note

The current maximum drainX that can be put on a ship with no buffs (circa 2021) is 985.