Thoughts on Summon Tarantula & Poisonous Ray for an Ill/Rad?

Anyone have much experience with Summon Tarantula from the villain PPP. Is it durable enough, does it do much damage, and does it tend to last for its whole duration or does it get killed too fast. Assume it would be in a build that would make it perma, is it worth while?

Also, with Poisonous Ray, does the -def & -res stack with the other rad toggles? I'd assume so but I'd love confirmation. Is it a noticeable improvement over just using the rad toggles? I'm thinking this would be usefull in soloing GMs and AVs but does anyone have some first hand experience? (Local_Man, I'm lookin at you )

Thank you for your thoughts and suggestions

-Fritz

I've teamed with a friend who runs that combo and his Tarantula definitely seemed to put out the damage. I have the Mu pet on my fire/storm, and his tarantula seemed to be stronger, just from a damage standpoint. Could all just be a perception thing of course, as we weren't running and damage trackers or anything.

I'm torn between /scorp for power (defense shield + damage pet + -res debuff) or /psi for theme on my ill/rad. Really torn. I've started taking him redside, just in case. I suspect I'll probably wind up /scorp, just because I love pets.

i have summon tarantula on one of my dominators, and its a decent pet. it does go into melee range as most of its attacks are in melee range. on a controller, it will be a bigger help, especially with radiation emission. it has 10% S/L resist and 40% toxic resist, most of its attacks are toxic damage and it also has some -def and slow debuffs.

as for poisonous ray, i took it as well on that dominator and it generally wasn't worth it on minions and lts, but bosses+ it made a definite difference in takedown speed. it doesn't stack with itself, but i can't imagine it wouldn't stack with other -resist debuffs. i wouldn't use it as a regular part of my attack chain, just as a debuff that happens to deal damage. ideal use for a controller would be right after mezzing for the containment damage and the debuff for future attacks. sadly, its toxic/eng damage, but at least it will bypass S/L defense.

Thanks for all the replies guys, I think I'm gonna give this a shot. I just gotta wait like 4 more days to get my 30 A-merits and buy the +3 pvpio, then I can go redside to open the villain PPPs. I got the recharge for PR down to just over 6 seconds on the build I have planned, its no 2 second ice blast but its not bad. I'll post the data chunk for my planned build for anyone that wants to take a look. I'm still tweeking but the basics are in place.

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I haven't used Poison ray but I've been using the Tarantula for a while and I loves it. It doesn't seem to die any more than the Phantasm, generally, but it has a bit harder time keeping up since it can't fly. I large team mostly, which tends to leave me spending most of my time re-applying debuffs rather than maintaining an attack chain, so I really like the extra hands off damage :P

That build looks pretty killer with the Alpha Slot to fill in the damage slotting. I didn't go nearly so heavy on the defense since I have super tanks and lots of debuffs but it doesn't look like you really gave anything up for it except lots of moneys.

I feel your pain Fritz. I have been beating myself up over the exact same issue now for weeks. Currently I'm running Ill/Rad/Fire with 218% recharge and while it is awesomely fun, I cant help but get that yearning for just one more pet!
Just one more! I promise I'll stop after that! (until the incarnate pet comes out one day)
that and with my present build if i take out fireblast/fireball/rise of the phoenix, and replace it with poison ray, scorpion shield, and tarantula i can change out my decimation and posiblast sets that currently give me recharge for a decimation in ray, use the shield for a lotg mule, and slot at least 4 expedient reinforcments into tarantula for slightly more recharge. Pushing it hopefully over 220% global. Im at work and dont have mids right now and will check it later but I think that if I'm sporting 220% recharge global and have spiritual in alpha slot then thats gonna be perma on tarantula.

I'm at work, so I couldn't look at your build, but I'm actually going to be completing a respec with the Mace myself tonight on my Ill rad and the build i have has Poison Ray's rech at just over 6 seconds too, I'll be completing scirocco's 2nd and 3rd arc afterwards so I'll let you know how it goes for me too.

*edit* As I don't have Mids at work I can't say the exact amount in my new build, but I'll have between 208% and 211% global rech which, while only tenths of a second over perma PA made the Tarantula Perma with 2 seconds or so to spare using only 4 expedient reinforecement, you definitely don't need even more recharge to do that on your build Griff, I also use the dmg\debuff alpha, so even that isn't contributing.

It seems everyone is doing the same thing. It took me all of last week but I finally switched to villain and took mace. Poisonous ray is under 5 seconds but not fast enough to be part of an attack chain. That’s fine because my tarantula helps to fill in the damage gap . I can’t wait to go back to hero and see how much faster I am at killing pylons and GMs.