Help !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Help me please
By
Carnifax_NA,
Posted on: 2011-03-22 14:49 in Soldiers of Arachnos
Night Widow: Melee powerhouse with great ST damage, guaranteed crits from Hide, and decent AoE potential. But because the attacks are so fast activating it's easy to suck down your blue bar quickly. This can make long fights against hard targets difficult as you're left winded before the job's done
Fortunata: An excellent blend of control and damage. Primarily a ranged focused variant but can be viable in melee if built for it. ST damage can be a bit lackluster as there's a focus on AoEs. Mind Link is on a longer (+100s) recharge so its more difficult and more expensive to perma.
Bane: Closely related to Stalkers, they've got guaranteed crits from Hide and an "Executioner's Strike" as well as some nifty utility in the form of debuffs and pets. Unfortunately, their ranged Defense is higher than melee Defense unless IO'd for it. They also lack a click power to boost their Defense overall (i.e. Mind Link, Elude, etc.)
Crab: A ranged, AoE focused variant that features some excellent survivability. Has the potential to play as a pseudo Mastermind with a possible six total pets. ST damage isn't great compared to the more melee focused branches.
All of the VEATs suffer from a total lack of resistance to Defense debuffs. So, while its difficult to get hit in the first place, a single debuff can lead to cascading failure.
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They are all hybrids and each can be built many different ways. There is no one rule. They all have good offense and good defense. You really can't go wrong with any of them. That said, the most common builds I see are:
Night Widow: SR Scrapper with Buffs (easiest to soft-cap)
Fortunata: Armored Controller (second easiest to soft-cap)
Fortunata Hybrid: Hybrid Melee/Ranged/Control SR Scrapper with Buffs. (second easiest to soft-cap)
Huntsman: Hybrid Melee/Ranged Defender with Armor (Can be soft-capped, but requires a little work. Huntsman are my favorite. Build Link.)
Bane: Stealth Melee with near Soft-Capped Armor and buffs. (Difficult to soft-cap, but possible)
Crab: Armored Blaster. (Very Difficult to soft-cap, but still possible, and has additional resistance armor.)
Browse Google Docs Build Archive and pick one you like.
Quote:
...The archive file can not be opened, and refuses to download. This suggestion is... less than helpful.
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Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
Browse Google Docs Build Archive and pick one you like.
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-This Space Intentionally Left Blank.-
You need a google docs / gmail account, or maybe internet explorer instead of firefox.
Quote:
Widows in general:|
Originally Posted by Timeshadow
All of the VEATs suffer from a total lack of resistance to Defense debuffs. So, while its difficult to get hit in the first place, a single debuff can lead to cascading failure.
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•RES(Defense) +17.3% for 0.75s from Foresight, enhancable to 29.4%.
Night widow specific:
•RES(Defense) +34.6% for 180s [Ignores Enhancements & Buffs] from Elude.
So it's possible for widows to get up to @ 64% DDR, even if it's only for 180 seconds at a time. Just pointing it out because noone seems to know this. And while the foresight value is small, it ends up at @ 24% with just 4 slotting LotGs. And it is noticable too: the DDR from foresight by itself is robust enough to keep my NW from failing vs x8 spawns of PPDs with just one small purple insp as a buffer.
Edit: Will also point out that widows are the easiest melee toons in the game to softcap defenses with. A lvl 50 SR brute, with all 6 defensive powers slotted hits 30.9% melee, ranged and AE. Widows (both fortunatas and NWs) can hit 49.9% melee and 39.25% ranged and AE using -only- the defenses available to their classes. So, with just the addition of the two defense IO uniques they can be completely softcapped vs all positionals, without any additional assitance from IO set bonuses, weave/CJing, etc.
And on top of this possess 60%+ resistance to psionics along with the best status protection toggle in the game. So they are as much of a defensive powerhouse as they are an offensive one. Very powerful class.
Quote:
Works for me with a Google log-in. Using the Opera browser but any should work (IE should always be a last resort).|
Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
You need a google docs / gmail account, or maybe internet explorer instead of firefox.
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Also no-ones mentioned it yet but one nice aspect of VEATs is that one character can use dual builds to try out different combinations, like a ranged AOE focused Fort and a Night Widow (this is what I do, NW for carving through Tip missions solo or on small teams, Fort if I want to play ranged AOE and Control).
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i beg to differ on the soft cap part. banes can almost softcap themselves with just an additional pick of the pool maneuvers, before IOs. specifically, soft cap to range and about 35% to melee.|
Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
Bane: Stealth Melee with near Soft-Capped Armor and buffs. (Difficult to soft-cap, but possible)
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i think overall the descriptions in this thread are accurate. from my experience lvling both a bane and a night widow (only to 30 though on the NW), the SoAs are powerhouses right out of the box, regardless of what branch or hybrid you choose.
it is weird though that you will lvl to 24 forced into a particular playstyle, then have the potential to completely change when you go into the forced respec. also, if you really hate redraw, don't take both bane attacks and huntsman attacks, as you'll have both a gun and a mace you'll have to alternate between (although many will suggest its worth it for venom grenade from the huntsman branch - i disagree on this myself and have an awesome bane
).best of luck with your choice.
(of course, with alternate builds now, you could level a widow and a soldier up to 24, respec, and then lvl up the alternate build and choose the other branch or a hybrid and see how they feel to you before you decide on which to lvl to 50)
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Quote:
Their ST melee damage is pretty exceptional thanks to Follow Up/Aim stacking. I honestly think melee is superior for them, barring heavy resist situations.|
Originally Posted by Timeshadow
Fortunata: An excellent blend of control and damage. Primarily a ranged focused variant but can be viable in melee if built for it. ST damage can be a bit lackluster as there's a focus on AoEs. Mind Link is on a longer (+100s) recharge so its more difficult and more expensive to perma.
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The really great thing about Fortunatas is:
-Three AoE lockdowns for group combat (Aura of Confusion, Psychic Wail, and Total Domination).
-Group Defense buffing (about 34% with Mind Link, which is super good).
-Solid boosts to team damage and to-hit.
-Great single-target control with Dominate and Scramble Thoughts.
-Excellent single-target melee damage and good AoE damage.
-Stealthing around is super cool.
They're a Stalker/Dominator/Defender crossbreed. A stominender, if you will.
Nice thread title.
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The basics of Arachnos is that you start out as a widow or soldier. Easy enough.
The original primary and secondary offer your basic attacks, survival tools, and buffs. You'll notice that your original secondary powers are useful in particular, from 1-50.
Once you his level 24, you can choose a NEW pool of powers. Please note, all of the powers you started with are still available, but new ones are too. Keep both in mind, as many of the starting powers should be kept and used even though you are being asked to choose new powers.
The new powers you choose come in pairs- if you are a soldier, using any powers from the crab pools will lock out the bane powers. Bane powers likewise remove crab powers from your selection.
Widows must choose between night widow and fortunata pools.
Those are the basics of Arachnos, but you may have known all that.
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Not too much has been said of crabs, so I'll go ahead. 
Crabs are a personal favorite, being with an incredible variety of AoE potential. The have both high defense and high resistance, and a self heal that also increases their maximum hitpoints. They are fairly unique amongst arachnos with the heal/heavy resistance armor. Note that Crabs have fewer abilities to do a burst of huge damage, but do have a mini-nuke that also bunches foes together. This is on a significant recharge, so it's not very necessary, but it's there. (I'm talking about Omega maneuver, a summoned bomb.)
Though crabs can have melee attacks, you may wish to go for a ranged approach as the many cones they use to deal damage will function more fluidly with you standing back outside of the group, rather than at point blank range. This is based wholly on my own preferences.
The lower single target damage can easily be overcome with the crab unique pets, the spiderlings. They usually have trouble focusing, but if you wipe out all the weak foes, their seemingly small bursts of damage add up to a very helpful chunk of damage versus the remaining tough foe.
Crab 'core' powers, in my opinion:
[That is, powers you simply will suffer more by skipping]
(from training&gadgets)
training: defensive
training: manuevers
(from crab spider: training)
crab spider armor upgrade
fortification
Serum
(from both Arachnos soldier or crab Soldier)
Venom Grenade
Crab extremely helpful powers:
[that is, powers that will significantly improve your performance]
(from Arachnos Soldier)
Heavy Burst
(from Crab Soldier)
Aim
Suppression
(from Arachnos soldier or crab Soldier)
Frag grenade
(from training&gadgets)
Call reinforcements
Training: assault
(from crab spider: training)
Summon Spiderlings
I've just turned redside after 4 years and loving it and I've always wanted to build and level an Arachnos but after looking at them on mids im soooooo confused.
Can someone give me a one line summary of the main aspects and drawbacks of each variety. I'd be eternally grateful.