Night Widow-Lunge vs. Slash

I'm working my way up the levels with a Widow (currently 18). As I plan out my (tight) build, I find that I can fit in either Slash or Lunge during the teens, but the other will have to wait until late 30s/early 40s. Which is better to take early? Slash does more damage, but eats up much more END and is slower to rechg. Lunge has somewhat lower damage.

Here's a quick look of what I've planned for my respec at 24:

1, Poison Dart
1. CT: Defensive
2. Strike
4. CT: Offensive
6. TT: Manuevers
8. Follow Up
10. Indomitable Will
12. Spin
14. Swift
16. Health
18. (Lunge or Slash)
20. Stamina
22. Foresight
24. Mask Presence
26. Mind Link
28. Mental Training
30. TT: Leadership
32. Eviscerate
35. TT: Assault
38. (Lunge or Slash)

As you can see, the 20s are taken up with my defenses. Let me know what's the best strategy here.

Here's a sample travelless Night Widow build through level 30:

Level 1: Mental Blast (or Poison Dart)
Level 1: Combat Training: Defensive
Level 2: Strike
Level 4: Tactical Training: Maneuvers
Level 6: Hurdle (or Swift; considering Mental Training's +Run, Hurdle is the better overall compliment to your movement)
Level 8: Build Up (or Follow Up)
Level 10: Indomitable Will
Level 12: Lunge
Level 14: Health
Level 16: Spin
Level 18: Slash
Level 20: Stamina
Level 22: Foresight
Level 24: Mask Presence
Level 26: Eviscerate
Level 28: Smoke Grenade
Level 30: Mind Link

Notes:
Lunge and Slash are your big hitters, you need them both ASAP.

Yep, Smoke Grenade, and Smoke Grenade before Mind Link. Why? 3 slotted with debuffs, the power is autohit stacking about 6% Defense in the form of ToHit debuff on top of your already considerable Defense. Mind Link is good, but it isn't perma like Smoke Grenade is (recharges in 15 seconds, lasts for 60 seconds, doesn't stack) and is therefore delayable. Smoke Grenade is the single most under-appreciated NW power (it's the power that makes NPC Night Widows so annoying). If you really want ML first, you can do: Mind Link>Eviscerate>Mask Presence>Smoke Grenade. Saying "no" to SG is saying no to approximately 47.5% more damage mitigation over your base toggles and passives.*

The non-Defense leadership toggles (Tactics and Assault) are OK but you can definitely delay them for much later in your build, or even exclude them completely with little lost. This goes double for Assault. If you really want them, take them after level 30 where NWs have a lot of room. Taking them before Lunge and Slash is a big build mistake.

People tend to overvalue Mental Training. It's nice, you're going to take it, but it is highly delayable for more important powers.

CT: Offensive. You should think about doing away with this completely, but if you must take it, take it after level 30 when your build runs out of "must haves" and is much looser.

Elude. Definitely skippable, but keep in mind that it is the one source of Defense debuff resistance VEATs get, and it gives lots of +Movement as well as +Recovery. Large spawns of Kheldian PPD will make you long for this power as they disassemble most VEATs with relative ease with tons of ranged -Defense. But yes, it's very skippable.

Take Ghost Widow as your Patron. It's not only thematic (Night Widows work for her) but Darkest Night on a NW is downright unfair.

For whatever reason, the devs decided Night Widows would be completely unkillable in PvE, and do insane damage on top of that.

*Base Defense with Mask Presence suppressed but acitve is 34%, so you're still taking 32% of incoming damage. SG makes critter ToHit 44% (down from 50%), which is the same as 6% Defense. This reduces incoming damage to 20%, which is a whopping 47.5% reduction in incoming damage just by using SG.

WARNING: I bold names.

What Daemodand said. You really want both Lunge and Slash, and there are powers that can either be delayed or downright not taken, especially if considering IOs sometime in the future.

This is some great information, guys. Thanks. I'm definitely going to move Slash up in my build and test out Smoke Grenades as well. I usually don't worry about IOs until the low-mid 30s. Is Mind Link perma-able?

I have a lvl 45 Bane who I really enjoy playing a lot, and I've been trying to get his defenses up to the magic 45%. It's tough, but he's close. It looks like that goal will be much easier with my Night Widow.

[QUOTE=GGG247;2709396]Is Mind Link perma-able?[QUOTE]

With haste 3 slotted with lvl 50 recharge IOs and mindlink 3 slotted with 3 membrane exposures you have almost a dead even recharge on mindlink: 90 second duration with a 90.6 second recharge. Add in mental training and the recharge becomes 84.2. It is pretty easy to perma mindlink as you can see.

Once you hit lvl 50 and you get some global recharge in your build you could probably drop lunge, depending on whether you took BU or followup. I only use 4 main attacks : followup, slash, spin and shatter armor. I have psychic scream if i need a second AE and then have a few ranged attacks for set bonuses. Again, there's a ton of ways to build an effective widow.

And yeah banes take some planning to softcap defenses. They are for some reason stronger with ranged defense than melee, so I've always needed 2 or 3 sets of ToDs to bring melee up to cap. CD:defensive, CT:maneuvers, cloaking device (which if memory servers does not suppress out of hide, unlike widow's mask presence), weave, CJing, steadfast prot unique and 3 sets of ToD put my bane at cap for melee and ranged and about 36% AoE. Run tough and the two passive armors and you can get to around 40% S/L resists as well.

What's ever more interesting though is with tough and the pvp +3% resist IO you can actually cap S/L resists on a widow (which is 85%). The downside to this is you have to be at 2 or 3% health for this to happen, at which point a gnat could fart in your direction and you'd die.

If I absolutely HAD to make the choice between the two I'd take Lunge over Slash. However, in your build, I'd ditch (or heavily postpone) CT: Offensive, and slide the rest of your picks up to get both Lunge and Slash in there asap. CT:O is like an extra yellow DO of accuracy in your attacks; it's alright as a lowbie but once you get reasonable slotting in your attacks, it's unimportant. Smoke Grenade is also a nice addition when you're leveling and haven't fully developed your defenses. Admittedly, I haven't used it all that much; my Widow spends most of her time as a Fortunata instead.

Mind Link can be made perma without too much investment as a Widow, since it has a lower base recharge than the Fortunata version and Mental Training is a quick 20% recharge boost. If you get it perma, then you won't need much extra defense, although because VEATs get very little defense debuff resistance, it's good to get a bit of padding over 45% if at all possible.