My understanding of it is (Still working on getting my SoA to be a crab) is that Crabs CAN tank, but they're not designed for it. Mostly they're Area of Effect fighters with good defenses, but a weakness to Knockdowns. I have, however, heard stories of Crab tanking and tanking well when called upon.
If i compare the Stats of my lvl50 Shield Tanker to the Stats my Crab will have at lvl50 i the Crab will have similar positional Def, higher damage-specific Def, higher Resistances, more HP + 60-80% Serum-Heal. So I can understand thinking about using a Crab as Tanker.
In this case i think the main Aggrotool would be the AOE-Damage. Go in first, shoot first and take the Alphastrike for your team. With that you will help weaker teams enough (Remember that Redside-ATs are designed to do well without any pure tankerclass). Infight it will be difficult to hold the Aggro vs. bigger Spawns due to the lack of Gauntlet and an Aggroaura even if you take Provoke, but in return you get enough other Powers to support the Team: Damagebuffs, Tohitbuffs, Defensebuffs, Res-/Defdebuff, Webgrenade with it's -50% Recharge.
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How much IO-based KB protection do you think is enough?
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Originally Posted by DoctorWhat
Mostly they're Area of Effect fighters with good defenses, but a weakness to Knockdowns.
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1 -KB IO (4 points) will cover 95%-99% of the KB in the game. The problem is that the other 5% or so generally needs 12 or so points. KB either comes in the minor variety (mag 1-3) or the HUGE variety (mag 12-15)|
Originally Posted by Ang_Rui_Shen
How much IO-based KB protection do you think is enough?
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If you can spare the slots, a crab certainly has enough places to slot 4-5 -KB IO's, but thats a lot of slots.
As for tanking - your general defenses will be good, especially if you soft cap and take tough to boost your smashing/lethal (tough/weave are good choices for a crab that wants to tank - you get tanker values for those pool powers). You don't have a tankers HP though, you don't even have a scrappers HP - VEAT's and HEATS base HP are the same as defender/controllers/corruptors/dominators (1000 hp at L50). Your HP cap is high though, the same as a scrapper (2400 hp) so if you can get enough bonus HP through accolades and/or get serum perma, you will be better off than the usual squishy.
The other difference is aggro - with no taunt aura and no taunt in attacks you are going to only be able to hold aggro through damage. However, in many cases if you can take the alpha for a group that will be good enough as far as 'tanking' goes, especially in a group of villains, who tend to be more self sufficient than heroes. After GR, if you go blueside or have a more squishier blasters in your group, it could be tough as blasters can steal aggro from a full tank if they are not careful.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
So I've been looking into Arachnos Soldiers lately, because the thought of providing a team with such huge constant buffs makes my mouth water. My main is currently a tanker. While looking into the Crab Spider options, I noticed that their durability is quite respectable; actually it seems almost exactly as good as the durability of my Shield Tanker. You can cap defense, increase hit points through serum, and get very good mitigation from crab spider armor and Fortification. You also resist a good amount of status effects. The problem then becomes aggro, which the Crab Spider has none. This would leave you wholly dependant on the Presence pool for one single target and one AOE taunt. They have to hit, and the durations are poor compared to tanker versions, but I can't help but think they just might be enough.
So my question is, has anybody tried to play a crab spider as a tank, and if so, how is it? I don't expect a crab spider to be *as good* as a tanker at tanking, but if they can do the job to a satisfactory degree, their additional team buffs would be a powerful incentive to use them as tanks.