Some general questions about melee banes

Hi guys, I was wondering about bane spiders in general, and in spite of having read that bane executioner guide at the top, I still have some questions. Thanks in advance for any replies.

1. CT: Defensive and melee. I've read that soldiers get ranged defense as their auto power while widows get melee defense. I assume there's no possible way of changing the positional defense if one were to go melee bane or ranged fortunata.

Taking this was the easy choice nonetheless, but should I put more than 1 slot on it? I've read that soldiers can cap their ranged def very easily; it's the melee cap that takes some effort to reach.

2. -defense debuffs. I don't see where soldiers get any kind of protection against this. What do you soldiers do when you've got lots of PPP keldians stacking -def debuffs on you?

3. The pets. I understand these are like controller pets, so I can't compare them to my 50 MM. But, knowing how my zombies like to run around if I don't reel them in with the follow button... Exactly how dumb are these spider pets? I don't want them to run off and aggro spawn B when my team is still at spawn A.

4. What's your opinion of CT: offensive? Could I get away with having it and only having 1 accuracy on my attacks? I had planned on doing 1 acc, 0-1 end red, 1-2 recharge on my attacks, along with the 3 damage slots.

Looking over the end costs of toggles and combat jumping, I don't think I'll have a big problem with endurance (taking stamina).

PS: I know widows put out more dps, and are probably more wanted in teams, but after fighting lots of bane scouts and executioners, well... they just look badass

That's the reason I'm going bane.

1) You are correct. A Bane's combat training is against ranged attacks, and is a defense power (not resist).
I recommend 1 slot for defense, and anything after that for procs. There are a few really good procs for a passive defense power.
2) Defense debuffs are your weakness, for sure. If you take both your passive armors that'd give you about 10% resists against them. Pack inspirations or be extra sneaky!
Just to note this part of why ranged defense isn't such a bad thing. There are oodles of defense debuffing ranged attacks in pve.
3) I love the pet AI. The Disruptors you get (call reinforcements) are an awesome thing to summon right before you alpha. They will fire wide area web grenades and ball lightning with you. On top of that they have a hold and a ST attack. They are just awesome.
Crab's spiderlings are a little less useful... they're not as bad as Imps, but three little guys running around can spread out your enemies more than you'd like.
4) CT: Offensive sucks. The Res ToHit is about all its good for :-/. I would recommend you take a look at a couple cheaper sets that have global to hit instead. For example, you could put 4 pieces of Crushing Impact in two of your melee attacks, and you'd get more than CT: Offensive offers.
If you were not considering doing sets anyway, I would take a look at just doing +tohit sets. They are often times cheap and only take 4 slots. I would not recommend only doing 1 accuracy in each attack.
Typically, I do SOs (w/ 1 accuracy) from 22 - 27 then switch to sets. The levels leading up to 27 can be obnoxious just because of how much I miss.

Thanks, it looks like I'll be picking up the pets then because of their added control. And I'll be dropping CT-O from my build and go with acc slots + TT leadership to help overall accuracy.

I'll be IO'ing eventually, but that's a long ways away (soldier is lvl 2 lol). I plan to test out survivability with generic IOs / SOs first, then see what I want to do in terms of IO sets.

I think the only thing I need to cover early on is the -KB IO.

One last question. I see the thread counts on the different ATs, and khelds / SoAs have some of the lowest numbers. I didn't see that many spiders while leveling up my MM, although I did solo quite a bit in getting to 50.

Do SoAs have a low population compared to the other ATs, and any opinions as to why?

if heavily slotted with IO sets, your right. You don't really need CT:O. But then at that point you don't really need Tactics either do you? But until you've got that perfectly IOed out build, CT:O can help out with a slot crunch. For a crab spider at least, you have a lot of powers which want slots. At least 3 added slots to many of them. Some can use six slots. As such, anything to create slotting wiggle room can help out.

Between TT: Tactics and CT: Offensive you can hit a +3 minion roughly 86% of the time. Or at least I do. And that lets me get away with only 3 slotting attacks till I have excess slots. now at level 40 I'm having the extra slots to start putting a fourth one in attacks. however I wont have too many extra slots really. I plan on getting Serum, Frag Grenade, and the two pet powers. Frag Grenade will probably be 4 slotted. Serum and the pet powers will likely get six slotted. Anything extra will go towards a 4th slot in attacks. That way I can slot 4 enhancement sets in attacks.

But then, I didn't ignore the passive +resist powers. I 3 slotted them for resistance. I also 4 slotted CT: Defensive. 3 Def Buff enhancements, and a unique KB Protection enhancement. If I get an extra slot I may try getting one from a resist set too (if I can).

But then, I don't plan my builds around set enhancements usually. I plan any set enhancements around what I can slot after my build's finished.

I LOVE fighting Ritki on my Bane. I set the diff on +0/+5 and I have a blast.

It's true, Shatter Armor does a lot of damage in PvP, but keep in mind the base Resists everyone gets (but then as a Bane Resists are something you can disassemble quite well ).

Also keep in mind Banes are hella squishy in PvP.

Achilles' Heel proc in Surveillance FTW.

P.S. Depending on your build and tactics, Banes tend to be better at setting up kills for others than they are at getting kills themselves, but you can certainly get some kills yourself as well.

WARNING: I bold names.

nvm, just found out that the attack has to specifically say "this power will deliver a Critical Strike out of hide", and i was trying to crit with Shatter Armor (SA does not say it crits)

the power description of Placate isn't very clear

-Placate
This Hide is very brief, and offers no Defense bonus, but it will allow you to deliver a Critical Hit.

A double damage Shatter Armor is the whole reason i made this toon

ooh well, adapt and overcome.

Got my bane this wknd finally

To be honest, my current impression of him is that he's a stalker with fantastic team buffs and mainly relies on purple pills if things go south. Not a complaint, the executioner's strike was totally worth it.

I didn't know this before, but it was nice to have 4 mace variants available. Here's hoping more will be added but I assume they want to keep the signature look of the arachnos mace. That and only those maces have red outlets for the beam attacks.