Attack Patterns!

Words are unneeded!

Today I'll be looking at some other upgrades from the Defiant package. Specifically, I'm going to focus on the Elite Talent upgrades.

Elite Talents, as I've said before, need to be considered carefully. They need to mesh with how you want to run your ship. They can take a strategy and add to it. Generally, you want to make sure that your upgrades are always adding to your strategy, instead of simply adding utility. This is the difference between a ship Captained by Picard, with Sulu AND Scotty AND Tactical Officer, and one captained by Picard, with Spock, Sulu and Uhura. One build has no redundancy, and another build has a lot of utility, but at least 3 points of redundancy built in. I try to avoid stacking my ships with too many potential actions as I want to be able to utilize the full potential of every upgrade if possible. Sulu and Scotty is not a BAD idea, mind you, in fact, it may blow games wide open, but you're going to be left with some points that aren't doing anything for you, each and every turn. 

Okay, so the first Elite talent that we're going to look at is Attack Patter Delta

Attack Pattern Delta (Federation/USS Defiant Expansion) 
Disable this card to re-roll your entire defense roll. You must re-roll all of the dice and keep the results of the second roll.
Cost: 3

Attack Pattern Delta is a hard ability to come by. If your ships can't cloak, don't bother. That's a pretty hard and fast rule- abide by the hard and fast rules friends- they will keep you from using Attack Pattern Delta on ships with 1-3 defense. The card has been generally put down as not very good, and I would agree with that assessment. You have to re-roll your entire defense roll. You can't keep the good stuff, like evade rolls or battlestations rolls. You'll be rolling defense dice on your Valdore and roll 2 evades and 4 blanks and Attack Pattern Delta is going to be a TOUGH CHOICE. If it was reroll x number of defense dice and keep y, it would be fantastic and worth every point. As it stands, it's one of those upgrades that kind of does what you want it to, but you'd really rather it do something else. It's not very good and really only usable in the situation where you roll all blanks. That situation is DREADED, so I can see some people adding this thing in for some insurance. There's no guarantee that you won't turn 1 evade result into 0 evade results. Most of the time, it's either going to be amazing or mediocre. I usually don't put too much faith into those kinds of upgrades. 

Moving on

Attack Pattern Omega (Federation/USS Defiant Expansion) 
If you damage and opponent's Hull with a [Critical], you may immediately discard this card to search the damage Deck for a 'Warp Core Breach' card instead of drawing a random Damage Card. Re-Shuffle the damage Deck when you are done.
Cost: 3

At first glance, this card is fantastic. You always want your opponent to get hit by a Warp Core Breach. It's sooo devastating to their plans. You have to actually land a crit, so you need some kind of manipulation to make sure it goes through. Toreth can give you some mileage on that front. The cost is about right for what it does- I wouldn't want this card costed any higher or lower. The discard is very good on a card like this and ensures that it isn't abusable. So, it's well designed, I'll give it that much. Other than that, we're talking about a one time use card that throws the biggest punch in the game. Expect that the captain using this bad boy will get hit hard and fast- no one wants to go up against Omega. I don't think it's amazing. If this card turned a blank into a crit, with no other effect, it would be better. You're already landing a critical, and criticals are pretty terrible to begin with. There are times when Warp Core Breach is actually pretty mediocre- in those times that the opponent just counts the ship dead from the moment it lands and still gets a few turns out of it. I generally leave it at home, but in certain builds, it could be very useful. 

Both upgrades are decent, but not great. I can only recommend Delta on a ship with cloak, and even then it's not very good. Omega is a lot of fun, but you may find it not giving you the oomph you desire. Generally, crits are pretty terrible to go up against, and Omega is a bit overkill. 

Tomorrow- Tech/Weapons!