Need help with night widow.

Alrighty so...I have my Fortunata nearly IO'd out fully....with it only missing one set, which is a purple one that I don't have enough inf for.


I was contemplating making build 2 a night widow....and while I know the basics, I'm not sure how they differ, and what skills are essential for the night to take.


if anybody could give me basic advice on how the build of the NW will differ from my fortunata, that would be fantastic :3

I'll edit this post with a build if I happen to mids one

Leaving aside a proposed build for the moment, the main difference between a Night Widow and a Fortunata is that the Night Widow is melee. Because of that, the Night Widow does more damage, faster, and is overall more effective.

You're basically playing a Claws/SR scrapper with some neat tricks and stealth. Key powers are Mindlink, the Tactical Training powers except for Vengeance. Avoid the psychic ranged attacks, in general; Poison Dart is good, Dart Burst is an effective cone PBAOE.

while I'm asking stuff also.

Should my fortunata have foresight?


I took fighting for weave instead of foresight, and I'm wondering if foresight might have been more useful, even with minimal slotting on it?

Foresight is 7.5% defense to all unenhanced, takes Resistance sets (drop a Steadfast +3% Def IO in it), and costs NO Endurance.
YES you should have it.
Weave on the other hand is 5% defense to all unenhanced, costs two other power picks, and costs you 0.325 End/sec. You don't need it to hit the soft cap.

I don't play forts but I have a solid NW that I've played since i12. Just my thoughts:

Foresight: take it, slot it, love it. It's an auto power that is 7.5% defense to all unslotted, and it contributes to a widow's scaling resists (one of two powers that does so). The scaling resists kind of the weak icing on the cake, they are nice as a passive but don't ever count on them saving you because they can be bypassed entirely if a boss hits you before they have become active (ever been hit by a KoA boss for 1600?).

I'll agree with Jibikao though... tough (and the pvp resist IO if you can afford) can make the S/L enemies cry when coupled with these scaling resists. You can actually hit the 85% resist cap for S/L this way... not that it would be a safe place to linger for any amount of time (read: you'll have maybe 5 hit points remaining). Question is do you need tough? You will need another power just to pick it up, personally I'd just rather have double assaults instead. Mmm... triple-stacked FU + double asaults + slash...

Damage: Yeah, a NW will out-burst and out dps a fort, by a large margain. I've played the fabled "melee fort" before, I've succumbed to the illusion that they blow away a NW in damage because they can stack FU and aim... but it isn't the case.

What folks don't mention is that to play a high dps fort you need to... play it just like a NW. No ranged controls or damage, just jump in and scrap it out. This is because it's the melee attacks that allow for this (FU specifically), so if you want to be a melee murderer just do a favor for yourself and pick up the NW path. Aim is nice and all, but it simply cannot replace slash + eviscerate.

What you are going to find with the NW is they kill sufficiently quicker than your fort. This is one reason I've never taken a fort seriously: NWs kill at a faster rate and I personally prefer killing than controlling (dominators are another reason I don't play forts anymore, but I won't go there). The one thing forts have that I am envious of is psychic wail... another reason I tried the melee fort idea heh. It's an insane power, but wasn't enough to leverage my opinion of the tree as a high burst/DPS powerhouse.

The one thing you will really need to think about is your choice of patrons. Widows get gloom, which rocks in so many ways. IMO though a better pick is shatter armor and here's why: it does more damage, it has a 20 second resist debuff attached and (best of all) it is smashing damage, which is a godsend as NWs are lethal/psy and robots laugh that off. But they'll stop laughing once you show them that big a** arachnos mace.

It'll cause redraw, but so will gloom so pick your poison =) just understand too that with my NW I don't employ shatter armor in my normal attack chain, it is reserved for bosses and lethal resistant critters. If you are incorporating a patron power into your chain they gloom would prob be the better choice. Better DPA, faster recharge, and way less end cost than SA.

Anyways, just my 2 cents. Build it like your fort (with forsight included), make it melee focused. Be sure to grab FU over BU, that's where the sweet DPS comes in. And lunge, slash and eviscerate are your bread, butter, and ... grape jelly I guess. Some folks don't like eviscerate, but it hits harder than lunge and is a cone. In fact, it's your second strongest melee attack, even accounting for single targets (in terms of raw damage anyway).

Lastly: pick up spin. Spin rules the universe.

There's lots of ways to build a NW, this is just the path I chose. Hope you enjoy the NW as much as your fort.

As long as we have an active topic, I am looking at both build #2, as well as revising my NW build #1.

Anyone have thoughts on the following?
(1) Elude: Is it really worth it as a power? It doesn't seem to offer much that we already lack other than DEF Debuff prot. I dropped it and haven't really missed it or it's crash.

(2) Aid Self: With all that def, seem kind of like a heal would be a nice thing. I've never had this power on any character of mine. However, am considering it here.

(3) Darkest Night: Does it make much difference once you are already capped?

(4) Placate: Anyone think our crits are so good that we want to have them up more often?

So just looking at opinions on those powers before I start tinkering more with my build.

I agree with most of what is said NW do a bit more damage, For have a LOT of control and wonderful PsW. But that is balancing.

Build for what you will be doing. Stick to mostly Melee attacks and AoEs and don't forget you can pull from the main pool for attacks as well as your specialty pool (many forget this).

PLACATE can be very useful in boss fights. If you are fighting a Boss/EB solo and run out of Health/END, Placate stops the fight while you heal and restealth, so if you are quick you don't even lose that much damage. If you are in serious trouble (no Health OR END and out of inspirations) Placate actually lasts long enough to use Rest (although you can't rest fully from 0 before Placate runs out).

On teams PLACATE is a good way to say "He said your Momma's ugly" and get a mob off you. A questionable practice sometimes but hey that is what tanks are for.

I'll refer you to the Guide in my Signature. It's been a while since I wrote it but it is still about 95% accurate.

The biggest updates are basically the ease of getting what used to be rather expensive IO's. With Alignment merits, task forces, and so on it doesn't take a huge effort anymore just to earn the ones you want outside of purples (I don't have a single purple on my Widow and there are very few and far between toons out there that can keep up with her in terms of damage AND survivability.)

Additionally, the option to get a Cardiac Boost Alpha slot makes Elude a lot less attractive than it did before. I can still think of situations when I would want it but not as many as before. Anyway again I recommend reading the guide.

Ok. So my thoughts on a Night Widow are slightly different because I am trying a hybrid.

I took my melee, and I took Psi Blast, Poison Dart and Dart Burst. I did this because I enjoy building Doms, but realized I only liked them because of the mix of melee and range. So I built my widow this way.

Foresight is amazing. I love it. It's practically the thing that makes me love my Widow the most, and if I team with lowbies and it vanishes, I feel like I am fighting naked.

Smoke Bomb is good. Although it's not something everyone praises, I play with a ton of stalkers and nearly always my stealth is not gonna cut it, and so it helps, and also it allows me to pull more effectively in those situations that are in need.

As for Elude...I wanted to get it, but now Im slightly concerned about taking it. It sounds good though on paper.

I am avoiding Psi Scream, because I wont need it, although it does decent damage, but I only want one Psi related power and thats Psi Blast, because it's fast, efficient, hits things that are resistant to lethal and toxic with more oomph and does not draw a ton of aggro on me.

I was going to avoid Placate, but after hearing about possible enjoyment of spousal abuse, how could I. Although now I just need a spouse or teach my cat how to play City of Heroes. I think he would be a scrapper.

So many opinions on Night Widows...

Rather than go on here's a link to 2 of my builds that I posted on the forums. There is actually 3 builds there...two suggested by others and what I call my original build, along with my post about the results of my new build.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=252246

Basic Summary:

Original Build-

For Defense my original build included:
2 sets of leadership without vengeance,
MindLink, Elude, Foresight, and CT Offensive (not really defense),
Combat Jumping, Indomitable Will, and CT Defense

Attack powers: Swipe,Strike,Lunge,Slash,Eviscerate,Spin, and BuildUp.
No Patron Powers.
I dont count Air Superiority as Attack...I use it for knockdown.

Cardiac Alpha

-The build is very playable and is all melee with no ranged except for vet staff. Endurance heavy but the Cardiac mitigates that. I wanted a straight up melee, jump in the middle of it build. This one is almost what I wanted. I go into more detail on the forum post.

New Build-

For Defense my new build has:
4 TT Leadership powers,
3 pool Leadership powers,Foresight, MindLink,
Indomitable Will, and CT Defense

Attack powers:Poison Dart,Strike,FollowUp,
Lunge,Spin,Slash,Electrifying Fences, and Ball Lightning.

Cardiac Alpha

-My new build is quite different so I'll just kinda sum up the main points. Again more detail is on the post.

The first major difference is the loss of Eviscerate. I am not missing it.

The second major difference...no Elude...and so far it is not missed.

The third major difference...Aid Self...worth getting...I have it 5 slotted with a interrupt recharge but it lands almost everytime I use it surrounded by 5-6 critters.

The final major difference...FollowUp instead of BuildUp. This depends on whether you want a huge hit on ST or if you want to have a steady 30% bonus to your damage all the time. BuildUp has an 80% bonus for 10sec(I think). What I found with FollowUp is that with this build I can actually have it triple stacked!! Not for very long but long enough to get one or two hits in. That's 10% more than BuildUp and even if your double stacked its still 60% bonus. (Those numbers may differ in reality but I'm not dealing with that here anyway)

I have played my Widow with several different builds but this new build and my original have been the most fun. I did have him, actually still have a build that is a dom/stalker type build. I liked the build a lot but wanted a more aggresive build. I just like the idea of confusing a mob and then jumping in and demolishing them..lol. It also comes in handy if there are enemy healers/buffers because they will instead heal/buff you and allies. Just a thought...

I've just decided to roll a NW having never played a SoA before, I've had them unlocked for ages just never was interested before. I was thinking of rolling a /SR brute or scrapper and thought, "hey I should just do something a little different". I was thinking of starting a new thread but this one looked liked it could fit my questions.

Basically, I am just curious for tips you guys might have about playing a NW. I've been cruising pretty smoothly so far but I've definitely realized I am neither scrapper or brute, and I've read a lot of stuff about how to play a NW at lv 50, but I think getting there is going to be a little different. Do you guys have any suggestions on play style before I get my defense soft-caps? I'm finding any group that has -def in their attack chain can make me lose what little life I have pretty quickly and so I'm having to make a lot of use of rest and/or just waiting on regen.

Also curious about end usage, so far I've been running fine with leaving sprint on even and not really having to pop any blues, but it looks like claws is pretty end heavy. From my quick look at Mid's my toggles aren't going to be taking a whole lot of end up, so are my attacks really going to kill that? I noticed that I am going to get tons of recharge so I'm sure that'll go into my total end usage - my first thoughts were for spiritual alpha for amazing recharge, but I'm thinking that might not be a wise decisions (although one that is still far off).

So basically, any tips for someone who hasn't ever played a SoA and is kind of curious where I fall in the spectrum of play style (thinking maybe stalker, but never rolled one of those either).

Also super new on the forums, but I figured this might be a good place to start.