which is better crab or bane?

The Arachnos Arbiter Corps is essentially a SoA only RPVG in construction - always happy to welcome new Arbiters to the group.

Eventually looking forward to crazy things like all SoA mothership raids (A distant dream, but still... *drool*)

Just to toss in my take on the Huntsman thing.

The HuntsBane build is simply the most fun character for me. I've deviated significantly from the 'standard' huntsman though. I don't have Frag Grenade, nor do I have the pets. I do have the stealth, Shatter, Crowd Control, Shatter Armor, and the Fighting Pool. Fully IO'd out, my recharge is very nice indeed. The result is a stealthing, big-hitting, AoEing, debuffing, and leadership buff generating all around good time. He can hang back and mow down the minions with the ranged crew, or step up and carve the big single target with the melee-ers with equal facility.

I made the character on a whim and he's been every variety of Soldier at some point or other. During the middle levels I almost hated him, but stuck with it since I had a glimmer of the potential. A while back I realized that he's simply become my favorite character, and I'm still a bit surprised at that.

Looks like I am moving my bane and widow to the blue side and to virtue.

As for the OP, I dont think one is better than the other. It is which one you like to play. I am a big fan of the banes. I wish they got the heal, but the stealth and ability to do higher single target damage is what I am looking for when soloing. When I am on a team I have a Huntsman build that still surprises me eveytime I use it.

the bane is the truth hands down IMO. not only can the bane play at every level, (steath, crits, holds, range, melee, debuffs, team buffs, and pets) but it has a fun factor and playstyle thats packed into one character.

now i'm not saying that a bane will out-tank this, or out-debuff that. but at the same time... why would it have too? the bane is that toon that does nothing the best, but everything well. the only things that would make the bane complete would be a self heal, DDR, or scaling resistance. also to cut down on the casting times.

now about crabs... what can i say? i don't like them. i know some people swear by them. i even can agree that they can have amazing surivability. but i just can't get with thier offense to save my life. its like AoE overkill and nothing else. on the plus side it can be team friendly with the buffs and pets, but i can't get into the one playstyle it seem to offer. i've tried many times but i guess it's not for me. plus i hate that backpack issue.

i will add that just because i feel the bane is better, that doesn't make it true. it's just true for me.

I kept respecing back and forth between bane and crab. I'm a big AoE fan so I really wanted to like crab but somehow they just didn't hit hard enough and I'd always go back to bane.
After hitting 50 and getting IOed out I decided to try my 2nd build with crab and this time I loved it. In fact, I'd vote crab the best all-around build. Durable, great team buffs and able to mow down large swaths of enemies.
That said, the bane is what I always wanted the stalker to be. VERY hard hitting but much better at burst than AoE. Because it's slightly squishier and has much less AoE damage than the crab I'd vote the crab the better overall AT. That said, the bane is a solid AT and much better at taking down tough single targets.

I have a crab spider which is just awesome. He can mow down mobs with ease. I didnt even take Serum and he is soft-capped to range, so I play him in hover quite a bit.

I really want to try a Bane however.

You can build nearly any AT combo for survivability, I guess what really matters is the offense you have left.

It's really as simple as, "Do you like AoE and pets?"

or

"Do you like stealth, ST dmg, and mace?"

Crab can work his build around the pets and brings buffs to the table
Bane can work around spike dmg, and brings one of (if not the) best debuffs around in the game. (Similar buffs to crab)

In the end, any AT can do what you're trying to do with your SoA better than your SoA.. what you bring is buffs and surviability while being able to perform fairly close to the specialized AT's.

You are a force multiplier, just like the widow, and stack incredibly well with other VEAT's and characters that use the leadership pool. Nearly everyone can build a nasty AoE character or ST character, but can they match your buffing capability and survivability? Probably not, that's why you will be loved in groups.

As far as solo, it's a matter of preference. Both builds are mid-late bloomers.

My opinion is a bit biased, as I only have a Crab.
But I loves me my Crab.
I am a little lower on the level end, but I still have my three AoEs. I didn't pick up any of the Wolf Spider powers... Venom Grenade - Suppression - Arm Lash when in range. My damage is slightly lacking, but I have dismal in the way of slotting. I can take out an entire spawn very quickly with just those.
I have wanted to try a Bane, just for the flavour... but it always seemed too Mace Stalker to me.
And as to the backpack/legs issue... Never understood what the big deal was. I think they look cool, and it makes you look unique. Not to mention that Slice and Arm Lash just sound... juicy.

I have both a Crab and a Bane (and indeed a Night Widow and Fortunata), and I love them both. I do however have a favourite child, and it's the Crab - both in terms of my "fun" playing the char, and in terms of how effective it is.

It's perhaps simplifying the differences a bit, but basically I find that the Crab is more survivable (similar defense, more resists, serum) and better at AoE, while the Bane is better at single target. However, I find that my Crab isn't actually *that* bad at single target (especially with pets out), and that the lead in AoE makes more of a difference to me than the Bane's lead in single target - perhaps because I favour the target rich environment difficulty options.

In fact my Crab is probably my favourite character overall, not just within the VEATs.

I have a Bane and Huntsman, no crab as of yet.

But the question is crab vs bane.

ST Damage: Bane > Crab
AoE Damage: Bane < Crab

Can't really compare much else, yes the crab has Fortitude. However my Bane is softcapped to positionals so thats another argument. I guess its a matter of taste since neither is really better. Bane is like playing a scrapper/stalker. Crab is like playing a sturdy Blaster with slightly less DPS, they do get an extra pet though.

I have 3 Veats, a bane with dual builds for huntsman/mace bane, a crab and a widow who has builds for both nightwidow and fortunata.

For groups the huntsman build on my bane is my best character, he adds 20% def, 30% damage and 15% to hit to all everyone and can stack up debuffs from venom grenade, arctic breath and surviellance and does huge amounts of AE damage with venom grenade + arctic breath + bile spray, especially since VG and bile spray benefit from VG's 40% resistance debuff to toxic damage. However, you could build a crab to work exactly the same way - the only difference is that you would trade cloaking device (nice def + stealth) and surveillance for fortification (resistance) and serum (dull pain clone) - its really a style choice. In either case you want to go with the gun attacks + patron pool rather than the crab attacks as they all have faster animations.

The mace bane build is great for soloing and handing really hard targets but is probably the squishiest of the 3 characters - he can't keep things at range like the huntsman can and doesn't have the resistances of a crab.

My crab is currently a jill of all trades - she is sofcapped to all positions except AOE (40% to that), has 50% smashing/lethal resistance and 40% to everything else, has a good mix of melee and ranged attacks (arm lash + frenzy and the standard ranged attacks) plus she has two pet summons: Summon spiderlings will be perma when I finish her build at L50 (she is 47 now) and Call Reinforcement's disruptor bots will be up 2/3 of the time, more when hasten is up.

My widow can switch between a ranged psi-blaster with holds and confuses and a claws/sr scrapper with team buffs.

All 3 characters are fun to play and which one I pick depends on my mood. When I get my crab to 50 she might replace the bane as my heavy duty group support char but its hard to say. I use my nightwidow for hamidon raids - she has better status protection than the soldiers (who have a huge KB hole that is only partially fixed by -KB io's) and dishes out a truly huge amount of single target damage. The fortunata build is not quite as effective in doing either single target as the nightwidow or mace bane and the huntsman build does better AE but she has some interesting control options that make her different enough that its worth playing.

Go Bane. You can do a huntsman build, and a traditional bane build. That is what I did. One build is an AOE killing machine extraordinaire and the other is a mace wielding head crusher. Plus you can you can have a ranged spec and a melee spec minus the stupid crab backpack that shows up in your other build even though its not a crab build. Plus who wants crabs? They are hard to get rid of

There is a huntsman guide and some decent bane guides.

This thread is making me even more annoyed at the legs. I'd like to try a HuntCrab build, one that uses the Soldier attacks, but has the pets (spiderlings, I mean) and Fortitude/Serum instead of Stealth/Surveilance. Might even take Omega Maneuver on a build like that.

At the very least they could make it so that only an attack that uses the legs causes them to appear, rather than any power at all from either Crab pool.

I will preface my points below by first pointing out that I DID mention you could do a crab huntsman just as easily as a bane huntsman in my original post, but its important to keep in mind that a huntsman build is really a concept build - making a soldier who just uses gun attacks and group buffs. Argueably dipping into the patron pool as much as I did violates the concept but not as much as attaching crab legs to your back does, at least IMO.

That said, the point of a huntsman build is to capitalize on the fast activating gun attacks while providing a ton of group buffs by combining the toggles in the soldier's secondary with the leadership pool. You can build a suprisingly effective character with just these powers.

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Originally Posted by DrGamma Regarding Arctic Breath versus Supression though, to me Supression seems to come out on top. While its animation is indeed slower (3s versus 2.67s for AB - not considering Arcana Time), it does a bit more damage, so the DPA is nearly identical: 20.67 for Supression, 20.97 for AB, unenhanced at level 50. That .3 difference in DPA, though, is more than made up by Supression's arc of 60 degrees, which is twice as wide as AB's 30 degrees. I also think Supression looks much cooler, but that's besides the point.

I would agree that on a crab huntsman build you could substitute suppression for arctic breath - and I do agree that suppression looks cooler than arctic breath (heck - the appearance of both arctic breath and bile spray almost turned me off them entirely). However, one point you miss above is the fact that arctic breath includes a -15% resistance debuff which stacks on top of the debuff from venom grenade. On a group support build the debuff trumps anything else that suppression offers.

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Originally Posted by DrGamma Heavy Burst is faster (unless it comes with redraw) and actually has considerably better DPA than Supression: 2.67s activation and 22.85 DPA, about 10% better than Supression. It's all Lethal Damage though, very resisted, so I -still- prefer Supression's energy damage most of the time. HB's arc is also half of supression's, only 30 degrees.

Its a case of potato/potatoe here - on a crab version of a huntsman you could take either or both of these. Since my huntsman is a bane, mostly because my concept did not include a set legs attached to my back, I didn't have that option. In any case you can only fit SO many attacks in a build, especially if you want to slot IO sets in various powers for def or recharge bonuses, so its really up to the individual - both are good attacks.

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Originally Posted by DrGamma Frag Grenade has the best DPA by far, with 1.67s activation and 38.92 DPA, it's pretty impressive compared to the others. Even factoring redraw and damage type in, it would still come out far ahead. It mixes in some smashing damage, too, which is not as badly resisted as lethal. It has KB, but WAWG counters that. It's 10 feet radius - half of VG's and as small as WAWG - is a little disappointing. I seem to always hit more targets with my arcs. But I'll agree passing up Frag Grenade is a debatable choice.

I liked frag grenade while leveling - but the tiny area made it an easy choice to drop when I got tight on attacks.

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Originally Posted by DrGamma So, the only clear winners in the Crab AoE choices are Bile Spray (with VG) and Frag Grenade (even with the small radius and KB). Supression is better than Arctic Breath (nearly identical damage, twice the arc) and trades 10% DPA for a less resisted damage type, twice the arc and no redraw when compared to Heavy Burst.

As noted above I have to disagree with you here - in a generic crab build you might be correct, but the resistance debuff in arctic breath makes it a better choice than suppression IF you have to pick one or other and on a huntsman build you ARE going to be using the gun, so redraw is already present. The fact that NONE of your other cones has as large an area as suppression is also going to lessen the effect. By that I mean that the mobs on the edges of suppression are only going to be hit by its damage, not by the narrower cones, which leaves partially damaged mobs that you have to finish off with extra attacks OR you have to cluster everything up anyway, in which case the larger area of suppression doesn't add anything.

In general, I would not recommend a huntsman build for the crab - if only because the crab has much better pet options (spiderlings are yummy) and some nice melee attacks and other gimmicks that give you a lot more options. With a huntsman based on a bane, it is pretty clear that venom grenade + arctic breath + bile spray is the best AE combo you are going to get (and you might as well take heavy burst for cleaning up the leftovers) since the areas overlap and you stack up an impressive amount of debuff before hitting everything with the toxic damage in bile spray.

About the only reason I can see for taking any gun attacks on a crab is if you can't stand the long animations on channelgun and longfang, in which case I would just take single shot and burst and live with the redraw for those two attacks. If you wanted to do a crab devoted to AE damage, I would go with venom grenade + arctic breath + bile spray + suppression and skip the gun attacks entirely - this gets you the nice -res stacking in venom grenade and arctic breath AND the huge area in suppression. However, I wouldn't consider this a huntsman build.