BOIMLER EFFECT

The Boimler Effect: In-Depth Analysis

Contains Math

Howdy everyone! Thought I’d write up a post on the new trait The Boimler Effect now that Cryptic has buffed it to usable proportions. Here’s what the trait does:

• 17.5% chance on use of any bridge officer powers: Recover the Recharge time of all other Bridge Officer Abilities up to their Shared Category Cooldowns.

Contrary to any advertisement to the contrary, this does work on specialization powers (tested in-game) and the power that activates the effect does benefit from the cooldown reduction. I’ve watched Concentrate Firepower reset itself several times now when that was only power activated.

CAUTION! There be math ahead.

We’re going to be using two concepts that are fundamental to understanding STO mechanics at a high level and I can claim credit for very little in either field. u/tilorfire27 put together a post and a tool to handle binomial distribution. Without going too-deep into the math, binomial distribution will tell you how often, given a set of odds (probability) and a number of rolls, how often you get a certain number of desired rolls. Excel and Sheets have a binomial distribution function and that’s what Tilor’s tool uses. He’s kind of a genius that way. The second fundamental concept is cooldown reduction. Cooldown reduction, broadly speaking, is reducing your bridge officer powers from their base cooldown to their minimum (aka “global” or “duplicate” cooldown) and is something every good build should account for. Two common methods of handling cooldown reduction are A2B (Auxiliary to Battery with Technicians) and Photonic Officer.

Okay, back to Boimler. Boimler's effect is very strong: it resets ALL bridge officer powers to their minimum cooldown. Doesn’t matter where you were in your cycle, it gets reset to minimum cooldown. However, on release, the chance to proc was 2.5%. This is where Binomial Distribution comes in. Let’s look at a fairly-developed 15 second tactical chain on a 1-torp build (i.e. mostly energy):

• Firing mode of choice (Beam Overload OR Cannon Power)

• Attack Pattern Beta

• Tactical Team

• Kemocite

• Engineering Team OR Aux to Structural

• Alternate torpedo power

• Emergency Power ability

That’s seven powers we can expect to rotate every 15 or so seconds. In that time, with 2.5% chance to proc, the Boimler Effect had an 18% chance to trigger and thus was sadder than Boimler on his escort mission in S1E2. It was, frankly, a waste of 200 Lobi/160 on 20% sale

Okay, so Cryptic heard our collective feedback and responded to it promptly. (Make a note in the log!) Now it’s 17.5% chance to roll. Let’s redo the math for the same chain.The Boimler Effect now has a 78.5% chance to trigger in that chain and the numbers go up if we use more boff abilities. Huzzah, it’s useful!

Now that we’ve established that it’s viable, let’s talk applications and limitations. Before we begin, there is a known interaction that’s fairly abusive/possibly broken. We’re going to analyze the trait WITHOUT that interaction and address it at the end.

The Boimler Effect has 3 key limitations:

• You’re still relying on a chance for it to trigger. 78.5% is a high chance, but it will break down sometimes and when it does, you don’t want to be screwed on cooldown reduction.

• Not only is the chance not guaranteed, but you have no control over when it occurs in the chain. It could trigger on the last power (good). It could trigger on the first power (bad). Relying on the Boimler Effect to manage ALL cooldowns is a gamble, depending on your luck. I saw it triggering about once every 13 seconds on a rather spammy build, but where that fell in the cycle was still RNG dependent.

• It’s still an expensive method of reducing cooldowns at 200 Lobi/160 on sale. It was 90M last night on the Exchange and that price has already gone up appreciably.

Let’s compare five different setups.

Boimler versus A2B

There are 2 DPS-related reasons to run A2B. The first is for running the trait Cold-Hearted and thus the second, that lets you run Controlled Countermeasures. Since A2B requires at least 2 engineering seats at Lt or above, this tends to be a popular setup on cruisers and other similar ships with lots of Engineering seating. With 3 purple technicians and 2 instances of A2B, the math becomes very, very easy. Let’s look at a tactical power with 30 seconds base cooldown and 15 seconds global cooldown (which is most of the good ones). A2B with 3 technicians reduces the power’s cooldown by 30% every 10 seconds:

Final cooldown = Base (30) * (1 - 0.3*2) = 30 * (1 - 0.6) = 12 seconds.

That 12 seconds ends up being 15 because you can’t reduce below global. So we can see that A2B is a fantastically effective way of reducing cooldowns, albeit at the opportunity cost of 3 doff / 2 boff slots. Given that those boff slots were Lt+ Engineering, which isn’t a fantastically valuable seat for other things, that’s not a huge deal, but it does mean we can’t take advantage of aux-scaling things like exotic powers, the Temporal Disentanglement Suite, Auxiliary to Structural, or the new Phased Space Membrane.

A2B is mostly commonly used on cruisers and battlecruisers because they have a lot of engineering seating to spare. It can be used on tanks to drive Cold-Hearted, which is a team-wide buff, but will also be at the cost of the tank’s aux (i.e. healing, hangar recharge if applicable, and any exotics). Tanks also don’t really need A2B because they are using Fire at Will (with a higher global cooldown) and have Attrition Warfare to help fill in gaps. I see A2B used more often on DPS ships using cannons or Beam Overload. To use a personal example, here’s the Over Achiever, which is a Quark Marauder build that could easily be copied to the Fleet Shepard/Gagarin.

Taking a look at that Marauder, if I replaced Cold-Hearted/Controlled Countermeasures with something like Promise of Ferocity and CrtH/CrtD energy weapon officer doffs, I end up coming out ahead on DPS by roughly 2% at greater cost. I get similar results with a FAW build running a comparable budget (using the energy calculator). Given that Cold-Hearted is a teamwide buff I think it ends being a wash DPS-wise, especially if the seats were hard-locked to Engineering. If I didn’t have Cold-Hearted to begin with or if those seats that were held for A2B were going to free up a universal seat or were going to be powerful specialization abilities like Narrow Sensor Bands, Recursive Shearing, or Override Subsystem Safeties instead, it’s better to use Photonic Officer and something else (like Boimler) instead. We’ll get to that below.

If you’re considering A2B versus Boimler, there’s no real DPS loss if you’re running Cold-hearted/Controlled Countermeasures unless you have a very high-end trait like Terran Goodbye to replace Cold-Hearted with. Remember that A2B, while limited to certain types of builds and ships, is very good at what it does (at a high opportunity cost), and it’s reliable. Boimler is somewhat unreliable and expensive. If you’re unwilling to farm the B’Tran Cluster colonization chain for Purple Technicians, on PC, a purple Technician sells for somewhere north of 20M a piece. Even if it was 30M per technician, that’s still cheaper than buying the Boimler Effect either directly via keys -> Lobi or via EC.

Boimler and Photonic Officer (Exotic)

What about for exotic builds? All of the previous analysis has been for energy weapon builds. Well, if you’re running Exotic builds and you want cheap cooldown reduction, you’re probably using Photonic Officer I and possibly Torpedo Astrometric Synergy.

Photonic Officer, when active, takes away 2%/3%/4% of the bridge officer’s base cooldown every second. So, if we fire off a Gravity Well (base 60/duplicate 40) and then trigger Photonic Officer I, over the next 20 seconds we reduce the cooldown by 2% * 20 = 40%.

Final = Base (60) * (1 - 20*0.02) = 36 seconds

Okay, that’s all well and good, but Gravity Well has a 3/2 ratio for its base-to-global cooldown. What about those pesky 2/1 powers like Torpedo Spread or Tactical Team?

Final = Base (30) * (1 - 15*0.02) = 21 seconds

Not as good, so we throw in a little tactical recharge haste (let’s say 26.4% from the rep trait and Improved Tactical Readiness) and…

Final = Base (30) /(1 + 0.264) * ( 1 - 15*0.02) = 16.6 seconds

Which isn’t quite global, but if you’re running an exotic build, that’s probably good enough. Most of the exotic powers have much less demanding global-to-duplicate ratios.

Photonic Officer does have a drawback though: it has a downtime. Photonic Officer has an uptime of 20 seconds and a cooldown of 30 seconds that cannot be reduced. No, the Photonic Studies duty officers do NOT affect it. On longer cooldown powers (like most exotic abilities), this is not an issue since their duplicate cooldowns are higher. On short cooldown tactical powers or things like Auxiliary to Structural, this is harder to circumvent.

However, if you’re running an exotic build and looking to spend big-time on maximizing its effectiveness, I would skip Boimler and go straight to … Improved Photonic Officer which extends the uptime of Photonic Officer by 10 seconds to eliminate the downtime AND gives you +25% Bonus Exotic Damage for basically 100% uptime. This is a top-5 trait for SciTorp builds and while it requires a Lobi ship, if you’re looking to spend big EC on something like Boimler Effect, it’s better just to go straight for this. If you’re running a bunch of tactical powers on your sci builds to power Entwined Tactical Matrices, you should run the Morphogenic Set to help reduce those cooldowns even further and get a bunch of crit:

Final = Base (30) /(1 + 0.414) * ( 1 - 15*0.02) = 14.85 seconds

Boom, uptime! See the LSS Pioneer for a non-Morphogenic example that uses IPO. It’s more expensive than Boimler, but it’s reliable and you’re getting 25% cat2 exotic damage out of it. On the lower-budget end, stick with Morphogenic and Torpedo Astrometric Synergy.

Boimler versus Photonic Officer (Tanks)

What if I want to use Photonic Officer on a weapon build? Improved Photonic Officer is essentially wasted if I’m running no exotics. If I have a bad spell where Photonic Officer I is down for 10 of 15 seconds, even with the rep trait Chrono-Capacitor Array and Improved Tactical Readiness, I get this on a 15-second tac power:

Final = Base (30) /(1 + 0.264) * ( 1 - 5*0.02) =  21.4 seconds

If I’m on a tank, I can use things like Attrition Warfare and Calm Before the Storm, plus tanks have a 20 second global chain on FAW rather than 15. So tanks, even if running Photonic Officer, probably don’t need any cooldown help. You could squeeze in a Krenim if you really wanted:

Final = Base (30) /(1 + 0.364) * ( 1 - 5*0.02) =  19.8 seconds and that’s in the worst case

Add in Attrition Warfare and Calm Before the Storm, possibly Tactical Initiative if running a Tactical captain and you’re completely fine on a tank without Boimler. Just use Photonic Officer I and don’t worry that Torpedo Spread isn’t at global because you’re rotating it every 20 seconds anyway.. That’s how the Stormbreaker handles cooldowns.

Boimler versus Photonic Officer (Energy DPS Builds)

Now let’s say I want to use a non-FAW weapon build on a ship WITHOUT using A2B. Improved Photonic Officer is a mostly-wasted slot and I’m on a 15 second rotation. That’s a lot of words to say “I want to run cannons, torps, or Beam Overload with PO.”

Even running Photonic Officer II will run into a few cooldown gaps if you’re in the worst case scenario for 10/15 seconds on your chain. The rep trait and Tac Readiness only help so much.

Best case with PO II:

Final = Base (30) /(1 + 0.264) * ( 1 - 15*0.03) = 13 seconds   

Worst case with PO II:

Final = Base (30) /(1 + 0.264) * ( 1 - 7*0.03) = 18.75 seconds 

I used 7 instead of 5 here because you’re going to go over and by then your PO will start ticking again. It’ll be somewhere between 17 and 18 seconds instead of 15. Adding a Krenim costs you a potential Senior Romulan Operative and will not fix the problem.

Final = Base (30) /(1 + 0.364) * ( 1 - 7*0.03) = 17.37 seconds 

For energy builds, Calm Before the Storm is a common answer. Even if Calm Before the Storm’s Storm buff is only up for 10 seconds of the worst case scenario, you end up with this:

Final = Base (30) /(1 + 0.484) * ( 1 - 6*0.03) = 16.6 seconds 

Not quite perfect, but close enough, especially since this is truly the worst case scenario and won’t happen all the time. If you want to fill that gap even more, this is where Boimler Effect could be used, and would let you drop down to Photonic Officer I. That said, I suspect there are more impactful traits for that slot if you have Calm Before The Storm (which I would prioritize over Boimler for the 33% energy weapon haste with 50% uptime anyway).

Boimler versus Photonic Officer (Torpedo Builds)

What about if I’m not running an energy build? The current torpedo meta, per this post by u/Startrekker, involves wants high aux to power the Phased Space Membrane so no A2B. Since the current torpedo meta is using mines in the aft slots, there’s a good chance that there’s no Morphogenic set to help either. Even worse, THE key power for torpedoes is Concentrate Firepower III, which has a 9/4 base/global cooldown ratio (i.e. worse than 2/1). That means using Photonic Officer and 1-2 copies of a very expensive duty officer, 38 of 47, for cooldowns (chance of lowering Tac cooldowns on using Command abilities and vice versa).

Now THIS is where Boimler Effect shines. Torpedo builds, due to using Entwined Tactical Matrices, tend to be really spammy on their powers and Calm Before the Storm is a wasted slot on them. Here’s a typical 15-20 second rotation:

• Torpedo High Yield

• Attack Pattern Beta

• Tactical Team

• Engineering Team/Aux to Structural (feeds logistical support)

• Kemocite

• Cannon: Scatter Volley (for free torpedo spread)

• Fire at Will (for free torpedo spread)

• Photonic Officer

That’s 6-8 powers before adding other powers like Emergency Power to Engines/Aux or any other non-specialization powers you’ve got in your chain, which brings us back to that 78.5% or more chance of Boimler Effect triggering somewhere in there. You’re still relying on Photonic Officer with some readiness to do the heavy lifting, but to fill in the gaps when it has downtime and to help reduce Concentrate Firepower, Boimler makes the most sense. Concentrate Firepower is hard to bring to global since it’s not affected by Tac Readiness and has a high ratio, but Boimler Effect circumvents that by reducing it straight to global.

The folks selling 38 of 47 know this as well. That’s why the price of that doff has plummeted from 300M+ to 150M as of this morning. This is where the Boimler Effect has the most value, especially since he’s still cheaper than 38 of 47 as of this writing, not to mention easier to get.

Also, if you were previously mixing PO1 and 1 instance of A2B, I think Boimler Effect completely supercedes that setup if you can afford it. It has much less opportunity cost and will generally trigger sometime during your chain if unreliably so.

Boimler Alone

I took my torpedo boat out to the Doomsday Device shooting gallery and spent a little over a minute of combat activating powers then analyzed the results. In 1:20 of shooting, I had 6 triggers of Boimler Effect over 41 boff power activations. If we go back to our analysis with a tactical chain of 7, that fits the math pretty well. The longest I went without a trigger was nearly 45 seconds and 17 boff power activations, though, which illustrates relying solely on Boimler Effect for cooldown management is a bad idea. I deliberately did not use Photonic Officer just to see how good he was on his own and the answer is not very.

Channeling Boimler

There’s a rumor out there that the Boimler Effect’s chance is being rolled on every tick of channels like Tractor Beam, Distributed Targeting, and Tractor Beam Repulsors. It’s true, I’ve tested it, and if left unchanged, then Boimler’s the best way to fix CDR since pre-nerf Attrition Warfare during the Threat Tank meta. Slot TB, TBR, or Distributed Targeting and Boimler Effect and collect your global cooldowns because it's a guaranteed proc, assuming you can afford it. I also suspect that’s the sort of thing to get fixed/nerfed so I’ve done the analysis, assuming that Cryptic is going to change that behavior.

Conclusions

Boimler Effect is good now but shouldn’t be the only basis for a cooldown scheme due to its unreliability (barring any channel cheese). It’s a gap-filler that works best on kinetic torpedo builds, builds that were running PO1 and 1 instance of A2B, and to a lesser extent energy builds using Photonic Officer.

Energy builds using full A2B with Cold-Hearted/Controlled Countermeasures don’t need Boimler Effect and won’t see any DPS gains dropping A2B unless they can free up universal / specialist seating from engineering and/or have a high-end traits like Terran Goodbye alongside doffs and boff powers to replace the A2B setup with. If they do, then that's stronger. Energy builds running A2B see basically no benefits just from adding the trait and tanks don't see much either since their firing chain is longer and they have Attrition Warfare to fill gaps.

Energy builds using Photonic Officer and Calm Before The Storm would see some benefits from Boimler but only a few seconds of cooldown saved per minute. PO energy builds can probably reduce to PO1 if running Boimler as he greatly diminishes the need to use PO2 on weapon builds as long as you don’t mind a little RNG. If CBtS is not available, then his effects are relatively higher. However, Calm Before the Storm is a good enough trait for energy just based on its weapon haste alone that I don’t see Boimler Effect displacing that trait. I'd rather have CBtS and PO1 than Boimler and PO1. Having all three is small gains aside from avoiding PO2.

Improved Photonic Officer likewise is strong enough for exotics that Boimler Effect has no real place on a higher-budget build. Lastly, for torp boats, Boimler Effect seems an obvious winner, probably alongside Photonic Officer unless Cryptic leaves the channeling thing unchanged.

TL;DR

• Boimler Effect is very good alongside PO1 on kinetic builds and energy builds (especially if the latter aren’t using Calm Before The Storm). It is better than A2B without Cold-Hearted/Controlled Countermeasures combo. He reduces the need to use Photonic Officer 2 greatly.

• Boimler + PO 1 can be better than A2B+CH/CC but only if you have pricy-but-powerful things to replace the doffs/boffs/traits devoted to A2B.

• Boimler Effect is not needed (nor is Photonic Officer 2) for tanks due to a longer cycle time on the main rotation.

• Boimler Effect is also not needed for Exotic builds which would rather have Improved Photonic Officer.

The trait is currently broken with channeled powers like Tractor Beam so if Cryptic doesn’t change that, it’s all you need for cooldowns anymore on any weapon build. However, this analysis generally ignores that broken interaction; it’s still good in the situations above without it. If you buy this trait solely because of that interaction, that’s on you. I expect they will nerf or change that.