Critique my (general) Night Widow build
By
Linea_Alba,
Posted on: 2011-06-13 19:52 in Soldiers of Arachnos
I would drop TT:Vengeance for Elude (it also accepts an LotG and it's a defense boost when you need it), I would drop Eviscerate for Lunge or Dart Burst, I would probably drop Assault for, well, just about anything else. That's a real endurance hog.
You're going to need Cardiac.
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Now that you mention it, I'm not a fan of eviscerate and Lunge is definitely something that I liked in my builds.|
Originally Posted by Starcloud
I would drop TT:Vengeance for Elude (it also accepts an LotG and it's a defense boost when you need it), I would drop Eviscerate for Lunge or Dart Burst, I would probably drop Assault for, well, just about anything else. That's a real endurance hog.
You're going to need Cardiac. |
I'd rather switch Assault for Elude though, I just have good memories with Vengeance
(edit: forgot to mention, thanks for mentioning Cardiac.)
Other than that, any suggestions or comments?
It's fine. It's not at all how I'd do it, but it's good enough.
I'd slot Gaussian in Follow up.
I don't see the necessity of some of those sets.
I don't see the +3% Def IO. It's cheap and it's one slot.
I don't see the point in 57% defense all if you aren't gonna finish it off to the Incarnate Cap.
I don't see the point of Incarnate capping anyway, that's what Elude is for, you don't have the DDR for barely incarnate capping to really help that much. I'd rather loosen up the slots and take Elude.
I never have seen the point in putting more +tohit in Mind Link. Unless it's enough to cap to-hit vs +4, you still need tactics. If you have more than 95% vs +4, you're just wasting it, why bother ? I'd rather add 1 purple set. You can also use a Kismet for the cost of one slot, instead of 2, and a greater +to-hit gain. Mind link is under slotted for defense. DR, DER, D, DR, Kismet appears much better to me, if you insist on +tohit. If you're worried about pre-hasten recharge on ML, I'd completely frankenslot it, I'd rather give up 12 hp and have the recharge and defense.
I'd probably move hasten earlier in the build to better leverage mind-link.
Gloom can actually hurt your dps due to redraw, if you have it in there with expectations of using it to increase your dps. If you just have it for runners, it's fine.
My build is almost completely different.
Standard Build Link
Apex/Incarnate Build Link
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From a few quick looks at your builds, I'll assume you mean the Chance for Build Up? Otherwise I'm not really getting the point.|
Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
I'd slot Gaussian in Follow up.
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Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
I don't see the necessity of some of those sets.
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Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
I don't see the +3% Def IO. It's cheap and it's one slot.
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Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
I don't see the point in 57% defense all if you aren't gonna finish it off to the Incarnate Cap.
I don't see the point of Incarnate capping anyway, that's what Elude is for, you don't have the DDR for barely incarnate capping to really help that much. I'd rather loosen up the slots and take Elude. |
On Elude; with the few incarnate trials that I've done, I'm feeling as though Elude would be either good or absolutely terrible, depending on when it crash (say, in the middle of a boss fight because 'something' happens) and I've never been quite enthusiast when it comes to crash powers, especially when I have to rely on them.
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Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
I never have seen the point in putting more +tohit in Mind Link. Unless it's enough to cap to-hit vs +4, you still need tactics. If you have more than 95% vs +4, you're just wasting it, why bother ? I'd rather add 1 purple set. You can also use a Kismet for the cost of one slot, instead of 2, and a greater +to-hit gain. Mind link is under slotted for defense. DR, DER, D, DR, Kismet appears much better to me, if you insist on +tohit. If you're worried about pre-hasten recharge on ML, I'd completely frankenslot it, I'd rather give up 12 hp and have the recharge and defense.
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But I'll look into slotting ML for more defense, I'm pretty greedy on set bonuses, so I'm guessing I didn't look enough into it while being carried away.
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Originally Posted by Linea_Alba
I'd probably move hasten earlier in the build to better leverage mind-link.
Gloom can actually hurt your dps due to redraw, if you have it in there with expectations of using it to increase your dps. If you just have it for runners, it's fine. |
As for Gloom, I like to have, at least, two ranged attacks on my characters. In most cases, it's for runners and when closing in on a boss or a pack of mobs is dangerous.
Since you mentioned redraw, I'll assume none of the other EPP would give something worth it damage-wise?
Like I mentioned, I'm not the most optimizing player, so there's a bunch of stuff that passes by unnoticed.
In any case, thanks for the comments, will surely help no doubt.
I used to take Shatter Armor, but once redraw was pounded into my head, I did my own testing and confirmed the redraw really does hurt. It was just as good, or better to take another Assault as to bother with Shatter Armor. It was my understanding that redraw issues had been addressed with many attack sets, but Either I was mistaken, or Widow Claws is one of a small number of exceptions.
All the APPs cause widow claw redraw, which kills ST DPS. If you get them for AoE, it's not as bad, assuming you have 3 to 4 targets minimum. I take the patron for the immobilize to keep things in close, once I cause redraw, I figure I might as well optimize the damage I do in the process and drop the other fast dpa AoE.
In place of Gloom, you might want to consider one of the other Widow or Night Widow ranged attacks. As I understand it, none of those cause redraw. (Poison Dart, Dart Burst, Mental Blast). If it was me, wanting to alpha spawns, I think I'd go with Dart Burst. Mind you, that's never really been my style, but given the objectives and redraw, I think that would be my pick.
Alternately, you can add 0.65 to 1.1, to estimate redraw. I honestly don't know how much redraw is, but I'm pretty sure it's not less than .65 nor more than 1.1. From the minimal testing I did, It "felt" like about the same as a .83 attack, which is about 1.1 once you add arcana time. But "felt" is not exactly scientific.
Alright, I made some changes and adjustments, hope I didn't mess anything! But I think it looks quite good.
In general:
- Replace Eviscerate by Lunge, personal favoritism mostly.
- Took Elude (instead of Assault), I'm assuming there's no real need to slot it for anything beside recharge reduction.
- Removed Kick, Tough and Weave, took Maneuvers as well as Darkest Night (and retook Assault).
- Moved Hasten earlier.
- Invested a little more in the build (well, not yet but eh!) for Numina's, Miracle's and Chance for Build Up (as well as some changes to the sets).
- Defenses moved up (a little), although I tried to stop them.
http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...ADFF018013DD3C
I'm really getting excited over nothing -can't wait to try this on the test server!
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As for the redraw, I've never been bothered by it much, I find it to be extremely minor compared to other weapon wielding sets (say, Katana) that bother me much, much more.
But with that said, I did look into Dart Burst, but even on paper, it isn't appealing. The cone seems to be so small, even lining perfectly may not net satisfying results (let's not forget that jumping around will probably hurt more than a quick redraw -at least that's the way I see it, could be wrong).
Yes, the cone effect of Dart Burst seems to be small. That's why you put in Positron's Blast, which has +range as one of the IOs, and with Cardiac, you get some +range as well IIRC. That widens and lengthens the cone considerably; you can possibly catch an entire spawn with it at range. It's not a power you'd use all the time, but on teams and when there's suddenly more enemies than you thought there were, you can bounce out and fire it off while they're running up to you, neatly lining themselves up for it.
looks much better. You've got Incarnate Melee/Ranged. Add Darkest Night and you have very solid Incarnate defense to all. You won't even need Elude except for special circumstances, which slotted with only the default slot will only be available for special circumstances. Furthermore, Darkest Night gives you enough defense to withstand Defense Cascade Failure for most situations. This means your build is on average more durable than mine.
Note: Toggle Anchors love to run, and if something is outside the toggle radius, you lose that protection.
I personally pulled more out of defense, and put that into AoE Offense while relying more on Elude; But each build has it's own strengths and weaknesses.
You've got Incarnate Melee/Ranged
+17% Darkest Night as well as -17% Damage (aka resistance)
+60% Elude
+29% Vengeance
As a comparison, I find I need ~70% defense to solo +4x8 Cimerorans and not suffer defense cascade failure too easily. It can still happen, but as long as I monitor my defense and kite a few seconds as it drops low, I'm fine. Cimerorans CAN drop you by -100 defense or more, if you let them. The key is to delay them a tad if they get you too low, and let a couple of the debuffs to expire.
You really have defense covered solidly, perhaps too solidly. At this point, if you aren't tough enough (each person has their own subjective measure of tough enough), you need resistance. (Tough + Paralytic Radial 75% chance for -damage + Darkest Night) could be up to ~60% S/L resistance Equivalent with ~38% FCENTP Resistance Equivalent. However, taking Paralytic over Reactive drops your offense by 60 to 90 dps, or -.25x, or equivalent to 4 x assault. I also assumed use of AoEs to keep Paralyitic Radial saturated. I don't think your build has enough AoE to actually keep it saturated, so your resistance equivalent would likely be 10 to 15 lower, unless you picked up more AoE. Also Note, that you have to hit each target on average 5 times per 10 seconds to saturate, and if the targets run or get out of range of your toggle and -damage proc attacks, you loose that -damage/resistance equivalent.
I'm not much into AoE when it comes down to widows, especially Night Widows.
And thanks for the help, I'll have to keep those things in mind once I start unlocking the incarnate stuff.
I'm not the best build-maker, but I don't think I'm too shabby either. That being said, my widow is extremely old in terms of used respecs, so before I respec her (and buy the remainder of her IOs), I'd like to get some critiques and suggestions on the build that I decided to aim for. Please keep in mind that I am no min/maxer (at least in this game -not that I have anything against min/maxing) and therefore might have made some terrible mistakes.
All suggestions and critiques are welcome, as long as they can help, of course. I am not dead-set on everything inside the build and my budget is, for the sake of this build, limited (hence some of the choices, mainly the Health IO, but also a few others), so I would like to stay away from purples and PvP sets.
With all due haste, I present to you, my semi-good-average-soon to be bad build!
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Natural Arachnos Widow
Primary Power Set: Night Widow Training
Secondary Power Set: Widow Teamwork
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Poison Dart
- (A) Decimation - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
- (3) Decimation - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
- (5) Decimation - Damage/Recharge
- (11) Decimation - Damage/Endurance
- (34) Decimation - Accuracy/Damage
Level 1: Combat Training: Defensive- (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
Level 2: Strike- (A) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
- (3) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
- (5) Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage
- (7) Touch of Death - Damage/Endurance
- (34) Touch of Death - Damage/Recharge
- (40) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)
Level 4: Tactical Training: Maneuvers- (A) Red Fortune - Endurance
- (7) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance
- (13) Red Fortune - Defense
- (34) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
- (36) Red Fortune - Endurance/Recharge
- (46) Red Fortune - Defense/Recharge
Level 6: Combat Jumping- (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
Level 8: Follow Up- (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
- (9) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
- (9) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
- (11) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage
- (36) Crushing Impact - Damage/Recharge
Level 10: Indomitable Will- (A) Reactive Armor - Endurance
- (37) Reactive Armor - Resistance
- (39) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
- (40) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance
- (46) Reactive Armor - Endurance/Recharge
Level 12: Spin- (A) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
- (13) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage
- (15) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Endurance
- (15) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Recharge
- (17) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Recharge
Level 14: Super Jump- (A) Winter's Gift - Slow Resistance (20%)
Level 16: Tactical Training: Assault- (A) Endurance Reduction IO
- (17) Endurance Reduction IO
Level 18: Slash- (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
- (19) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance
- (19) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage
- (23) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
- (23) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge
- (40) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
Level 20: Mask Presence- (A) Red Fortune - Endurance
- (21) Red Fortune - Defense
- (21) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance
- (36) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
- (37) Red Fortune - Defense/Recharge
- (39) Red Fortune - Endurance/Recharge
Level 22: Mental Training- (A) Run Speed IO
Level 24: Mind Link- (A) Adjusted Targeting - Recharge
- (25) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff/Recharge
- (25) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Recharge
- (27) Luck of the Gambler - Endurance/Recharge
- (27) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
Level 26: Foresight- (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
Level 28: Eviscerate- (A) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage
- (29) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
- (29) Scirocco's Dervish - Accuracy/Recharge
- (31) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Recharge
- (37) Scirocco's Dervish - Damage/Endurance
Level 30: Hasten- (A) Recharge Reduction IO
- (31) Recharge Reduction IO
- (31) Recharge Reduction IO
Level 32: Tactical Training: Leadership- (A) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff/Endurance
- (33) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff
- (33) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff/Endurance/Recharge
- (33) Adjusted Targeting - Endurance/Recharge
- (39) Adjusted Targeting - To Hit Buff/Recharge
Level 35: Tactical Training: Vengeance- (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
Level 38: Kick- (A) Empty
Level 41: Tough- (A) Reactive Armor - Endurance
- (42) Reactive Armor - Resistance
- (42) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance
- (42) Reactive Armor - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
- (43) Reactive Armor - Endurance/Recharge
Level 44: Weave- (A) Serendipity - Endurance
- (45) Serendipity - Defense
- (45) Serendipity - Defense/Endurance
- (45) Serendipity - Defense/Endurance/Recharge
- (46) Serendipity - Endurance/Recharge
Level 47: Gloom- (A) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
- (48) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
- (48) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
- (48) Thunderstrike - Damage/Recharge
- (50) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage
- (50) Thunderstrike - Damage/Endurance
Level 49: Assault- (A) Endurance Reduction IO
- (50) Endurance Reduction IO
------------Level 1: Brawl
- (A) Empty
Level 1: Sprint- (A) Unbounded Leap - +Stealth
Level 1: ConditioningLevel 2: Rest
- (A) Recharge Reduction IO
Level 4: Ninja RunLevel 2: Swift
- (A) Run Speed IO
Level 2: Health- (A) Healing IO
Level 2: Hurdle- (A) Jumping IO
Level 2: Stamina- (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
- (43) Performance Shifter - EndMod
- (43) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Recharge
------------You may notice that I have left out everything incarnate-related, that is mostly due my recent decision to play my widow (again) after an extended break, so she only has her alpha unlocked. I'm also not too sure about which alpha to take (debating on Cardiac and Musculature, mostly).
As a final note (and question), I know that most like the Medicine pool for the self heal, but I find it rather clumsy, if only for the animation/activation time. I've been thinking about the +Regen Rebirth Destiny, how well would that work out?