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Massively's Guide to the Character Traits of Star Trek Online

Adam Holisky
Updated ·10 min read

Star Trek Online offers several levels of character customization beyond the visual aspects, and that first level the player is introduced to is character traits. You select these traits when creating your character, and the choices are numerous. In Massively's guide to the character traits of Star Trek Online, we'll look at the different classes of traits and suggest some builds to get you started.

Please remember a few things when reading this guide. First, the information was all obtained in the late closed beta -- so it could have changed without notice at release. If that's the case we'll update the guide as soon as we know about the changes, but double check everything and don't click blindly. Secondly, the traits are only a recommendation and should be adapted to your personal play style. If you're one of those players who always needs that extra bit of health, get the Peak Health trait no matter what role you're going to play. Finally, there is currently no way to retrain your traits (or skills), so be sure to select them carefully.

Character Traits Guide Table of Contents


How Traits Work

Traits define the basic attributes, and in some cases, a special action that your character possesses. Traits influence the overall strengths of your character and are central in adapting your character to your play style. As of this writing, once you select your traits at character creation, you cannot revise them later on.

Each character is allowed a total of four traits. Each defined species comes with between one and three predetermined traits, allowing you to fill in the rest to your liking. However, defined species also have limited trait choices to select in their customization. For instances, Humans don't make good tanks -- and cannot get the Elusive ability necessary for space tanking. Custom species allow you to select all four traits to your liking.

It's important to think about the role you want to play in the game prior to selecting your species and traits combination. Some species lend themselves to specific roles better than others. As an example, the Betazoids lend themselves well to filling a healing / support role with their trait Empathic, which reduces threat and increases the regeneration rate of team members.

Note too that while the general space and ground traits are available to both Federation and Klingon characters (sans specific species restrictions), some individual species traits are unique. Take the Klingon trait Honorable, which increases threat generation by 10% and gives a damage resistance of 5%. That's an exceptionally powerful tanking trait, and it does not have any counterpart in any Federation species.

Federation Species Traits

  • Human
    Leadership: +15% repair rate
    Teamwork: +5% exploit damage

  • Andorian
    Acute Senses: +20% stealth sight, +10% exploit damage

  • Bajoran
    Creative: +5% damage and healing with kits
    Spiritual: +10% heals received and +10% regeneration

  • Benzite
    Natural Armor: Resist energy and physical damage
    Natural Immunities: Radition and toxic damage resitance

  • Betazoid
    Empathic: Reduced threat generation, increased team regeneraiton
    Telepathic: Increases perception, exposure duration, and chance

  • Bolian
    Corrosive Blood: +20% toxic resistance, deals toxic damage when Bitten

  • Saurian
    Circulatory Redundancies: Toxic, fire, and plasma DoT damage resistance
    Acute Senses: +20% stealth sight, +10% exploit damage

  • Trill
    Hyper Metabolism: Health regeneration, radiation, and toxic resistance

  • Vulcan
    Logical: +30% psionic, confuse and placate resistance
    Physical Strength: +10% melee damage

  • Borg -- Only available to lifetime subscribers
    Borg Nanites: +10% ground health and shield regeneration
    Efficient: +5 starship engine efficiency. +5 starship energy weapon efficiency. +5 starship auxiliary systems efficiency

Klingon Empire Species Traits

  • Klingon
    Honorable: +5% damage resistance, +10% threat generation

  • Gorn
    Cold-Blooded: 25% fire resistane, +10% plasma DoT resistance
    Reptilian Strength: +17.5% melee damage and knockback
    Resilient: +5% physical and energy resistance

  • Lethean
    Rapture: Target and Psionic DoT
    Telepathic: Increases perception, exposure duration, and chance

  • Nausicaan
    Physical Strength: +10% melee damage
    Pirate: +20% stealth, +30% exploit damage

  • Orion
    Seductive: Resist confuse, placate, reduced threat generaiton

Space Traits

Tanking

  • Elusive: Reduces the chance for enemy ships to hit you with their weapons. +0.1 defense.


Damage

  • Accurate: Increases the accuracy of space weapons. +0.1 accuracy


Support / Multispec

  • Efficient: Provides a bonus to your efficiency stats, improving the effectiveness of many of your power management abilities. +5 starship shield efficiency. +5 starship engine efficiency. +5 starship energy weapon efficiency. +5 starship auxiliary systems efficiency.

  • Astrophysicist: Improves your operations stat, which enhances ship deflector, emitter and sensors abilities. +10 starship operations training.

  • Techie: Improves your engineering stat, which increases the effectiveness of maintenance, repair and performance powers. +10 starship engineering training.

  • Warp Theorist: Improves your warp core stat, which increases the power levels of your ship.


Ground Traits

Tanking

  • Aggressive: Improves the damage you deal and makes enemies more likely to attack you over other targets. +5% all damage bonus strength. +5% threat generation.

  • Peak Health: Improves maximum health and toxic resistance. +10% toxic damage resistance. +10% maximum hit points.

  • Damage Resistance Traits

    • Cold Blooded: Provides moderate resistance to fire damage and some resistance to plasma fire damage over time effects. +10 Plasma Damage resistance (only affects certain things). +25% fire damage resistance.

    • Mental Discipline: Provides innate resistance to the effects of psionic attacks as well as confuse and placate. +15% psionic damage resistance. +20% confuse resistance. +20% placate resistance.

    • Natural Immunities: Provides innate resistance to the effects of radiation and toxins. +33% radiation damage resistance. +33% toxic damage resistance.

    • Resilient: Provides innate resistance to physical and energy damage. +5% physical damage resistance. +5% all energy damage resistance.

    • Stubborn: Improves resistance against placate and abilities that reduce your movement speed or prevent you from acting. +40% run speed resistance. +20% hold resistance. +50% placate resistance.

    • Sturdy: Provides innate resistance to the physical damage and knockback attacks. +10% physical damage resistance. +10% kinetic damage resistance. +10% knockback resistance.

    • Sure Footed: Improves resistance against powers that knock you back or root you in place. +40% root reistance. +12% knockback resistance.


Damage

  • Acute Senses: Makes it significantly easier to detect stealthed opponents and increases your exploit damage by 10%. +20% stealth sight.

  • Covert: Increases the effectiveness of your stealth abilities and boosts exploit damage by 20% while stealthed. +10% aggression stealth strength. +10% perception stealth strength.

  • Lucky: Increases critical hit chance and expose chance. Does not stack with other expose chance buffs. +3% critical chance.

  • Physical Strength: Improves the damage of melee attacks. +10% physical damage bonus strength.

  • Soldier: Increases the damage and critical hit damage of your ranged weapons. +5% all energy damage bonus strength. +10 critical severity.

  • Telekinesis: Activatable ground trait. Knocks the target back with telekinetic force. 22.86 meter range, 0.75 sec activate, 1 min recharge, 15 physical damage, Knocks back the target 30 feet.

  • Telepathic: Improves the chance of exposing a target as well as the duration of the expose. Makes it easier to detect stealthed opponents. Does not stack with other expose chance buffs. +20% stealthsight.

  • Fury: Gradually increases your damage once your health drops below half, making you deal more damage the closer you come to death. Andorian only.

  • Teamwork: Improves the exploit damage done by you and your allies by 5%. Bolian, Humans only.

  • Limited Telepathy: Improves the duration of exposes and makes it significantly easier to detect stealthed opponents. Trill, Vulcan only.

  • Mind Meld: Applies a short duration hold and a longer duration confuse to the target. Vulcan only.

  • Nerve Pinch: Precise pinch on the target's neck. Prevents the target from taking action for the duration. Vulcan only.

  • Bite: Deals moderate melee damage and poisons the target. Gorn only.

  • Seduce: Confuse the target and trick them to attack their allies. Orion only.


Support / Multispec

  • Creative: Improves the damage and healing of your kit powers. +5% all damage bonus strength. +5% hit points bonus strength.


Suggested Trait Builds

For custom species, you are allowed to select a total of four traits that will define your character. While it's possible to entirely stack traits in either space or ground combat, it's not advisable. Missions and other encounters almost always have both space and ground combat elements in them, and it's vital that a character is able to be effective in both situations. In this regard, we've decided to go with a 2-to-2 ratio for the following recommended trait specs: two ground combat traits combined with two space combat traits.

Tanking

  • Elusive
    Space trait. Will make your ship less likely to be hit.

  • Techie
    Space trait. Will increase the rate at which your ship is repaired and recharges.

  • Aggressive
    Ground trait. Increases threat and damage dealt.

  • Peak Health
    Increases maximum health and provides some toxic damage resistance.

Damage

  • Accurate
    Space trait. Increases the accuracy of your weapons.

  • Efficient
    Space trait. Increases the efficiency of your energy weapons, amongst other things.

  • Lucky
    Ground trait. Increases critical hit chance and expose chance.

  • Soldier
    Ground trait. Increases base damage and critical hit damage.

Support

  • Astrophysicist
    Space trait. Space trait. Increase the operations stat.

  • Warp Theorist
    Space trait. Improves your warp core stat, which increases the power levels of your ship.

  • Creative
    Ground trait. Improves the damage and healing powers of your kit.

  • Peak Health
    Ground trait. Increases maximum health, which never hurts to have in a support role.

Balanced Tanking / Support

  • Elusive
    Space trait. Will make your ship less likely to be hit.

  • Astrophysicist
    Space trait. Space trait. Increase the operations stat.

  • Aggressive
    Ground trait. Increases threat and damage dealt.

  • Creative
    Ground trait. Improves the damage and healing powers of your kit.

Balanced Tanking / Damage

  • Elusive
    Space trait. Will make your ship less likely to be hit.

  • Efficient
    Space trait. Increases the efficiency of your energy weapons, amongst other things.

  • Aggressive
    Ground trait. Increases threat and damage dealt.

  • Soldier
    Ground trait. Increases base damage and critical hit damage.

Balanced Damage / Support

  • Warp Theorist
    Space trait. Improves your warp core stat, which increases the power levels of your ship.

  • Efficient
    Space trait. Increases the efficiency of your energy weapons, amongst other things.

  • Creative
    Ground trait. Improves the damage and healing powers of your kit.

  • Soldier
    Ground trait. Increases base damage and critical hit damage.

Suggested Species and Trait Builds -- Federation

Tanking

Suggested Race: Andorian
Predetermined Trait: Acute Senses (Increased stealth detection)
Suggested Traits: Elusive (Increased ship defense), Aggressive (Increased ground threat), Techie (Increased repair rate).

Damage

Suggested Race: Human
Predetermined Trait: Teamwork (5% increase in exploit damage), Leadership (Increased space repair rate)
Suggested Traits: Accurate (Improved accuracy of space weapons), Lucky (Improved ground critical hit chance and expose chance).

Support / Healing

Suggested Race: Betazoid
Predetermined Trait: Empathic (Increased team regeneration, reduced threat), Telepathic (Increased perception)
Suggested Traits: Creative (Improve healing and damage of your kit) and Astrophysicist (Improved starship operations training)

Suggested Species and Trait Builds -- Klingon Empire

Tanking

Suggested Race: Klingon
Predetermined Trait: Honorable (Increased ground damage resistance and threat), Warrior (Increased ground damage)
Suggested Traits: Accurate (Improved accuracy of space weapons), Techie (Increased repair rate).

Damage

Suggested Race: Nausicaan
Predetermined Trait: Physical Strength (Improved melee damage), Pirate (Improved exploit damage)
Suggested Traits: Accurate (Improved accuracy of space weapons), Warp Theorist (Improved ship power levels)

Support / Healing

Suggested Race: Orion
Predetermined Trait: Seductive (Improved resistance to confuse and placate, decreased threat)
Suggested Traits: Creative (Improve ground healing and damage), Astrophysicist (Improved starship operations training), Warp Theorist (Improved ship power levels)


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