no. no no no no no no.
Fortunata excell WAY ahead of a crab with single target damage...but to be honest, our AoE attacks kind of suck.
Psionic tornado..well, animation time and it's not the strongest thing, also, not the best power to slot out.
Same with psychic scream.
psionic wail is...well, crashless nuke so that's a GREAT aoe skill, but...I mean
from my experience, both of my AoE attacks come from my Patron power pool :\ and then my judgement.
Crabs will win in AoE over most ranged classes except some blasters.
Magisterum- 50+3 Fortunata--Virtue
Lukerion- 33 Emp/Rad Defender--Virtue
Noah Heartily- 34 SS/SD brute- Virtue
Mika Heartily- 50+1 Fire/MM blaster-Virtue
Maybe, it would depend on the builds; However, the average crab is built for AoE, and the Average Fortunata is not. But each has a range for ST and AoE damage, those ranges do overlap, and are not entirely as dissimilar as the average builds would otherwise indicate.
On the high end, including Patron AoEs, I have the Fortunata toping out at 600 AoE and the Crab topping out at 700 AoE, while the the (Melee Based) Fortunata has 150 to 200 ST, and the Crab has 125 to 175 ST. Note, The ranged Fortunata has lower ST, and I don't have that build handy. Also note, it is very difficult to do both ST and AoE in a single build with either. Further note, specific purple builds with procs can run all the numbers even higher, example being an ST Spec Melee Fort breaking 200 to 225 ST. I run mostly a huntsman for the very reason that while it's neither the best at either ST nor AoE, it's very good at both at the same time in the same build, Hybrid builds being something the other Veats don't do as well, IMO. So, as I said above, it all depends on the individual build and playstyle.
Maybe your friend was assuming the Fort was running both Aim and Follow Up? They can do that, although trying to keep both running kind of messes up your attack chain and damage output...
Also, when calculating the Fort AoEs, don't forget crits from Mask Presence and Spin.
AoE-wise... if you are not using any patron attack, then Crab should be a bit better on average especially with Venom Grenade. However, it doesn't mean Fort's aoe sucks. At some point, you gotta do something other than AoE damage, which I believe even Bane can do.
ST-damage wise, Fort may have the upper-hand especially with one attack being a mag 3 hold. Crab, on the other hand, has pets that help adding damage and Crab has decent resistance shields like a mini-tank.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
I feel that Crab will out-AoE a Fort. With my high recharge I run a chain of Venom Grenade>Heavy Burst>Suppression. It works out pretty well.
Currently on Virtue:
Jinrazuo - Crab Spider
RWZ All-Pylon Solo Run
The Crab pets can as much as double your ST output, if you can keep them alive and they all concentrate on one target.
Yeah, the pets are key on Crab. You're really doing yourself a disservice if you don't use them.
Currently on Virtue:
Jinrazuo - Crab Spider
RWZ All-Pylon Solo Run
I've had it said to me today that Fortunatas are better at AoE AND single-target than Crabs. To which I replied: O_o
But this is a buddy of mine so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. No matter how I look at the numbers though, there's just no way on the AoE front (I handily buy that on the ST front though, oi). Does anyone have any clarification/refutation on this? Who of the two wins in a battle of AoE?
(note I'm not just talking slotted-out 50s here, I also mean on the way up and fresh 50s)
Thanks!