Crab single target?

What should a crab be doing against a single hard target, with nothing else to aoe?

I've heard both 'cycle AoEs as normal' and 'cycle channelgun, longfang and venom' and don't know what's right.

Thanks

I use Slice, Arm Lash and Gloom all slotted with purples and -res proc on Slice and AL and Venom every 15 or so seconds

Summon Spiderlings and Call Reinforcements.


Using AoEs (besides Venom Grenade) isn't likely to be as effective as using whatever single target attacks you have because they tend to be lower damage and/or higher endurance cost than single target attacks, but they can still be useful to fill out an attack chain if you've not got a complete one (e.g. because you used all your power choices on AoEs ).

My own Crab cycles Venom Grenade, Arm Lash, Channelgun, and Slice, just because those are the powers I have rather than because I've done some sums to find out what works best. It's the pets that really help me melt single hard targets though.

I've been using Venom Grenade and Arctic Breath, followed immediately with Bile Spray (because it's toxic damage and less resisted). The I use Channel Gun and Longfang while those are recharging.

It's a very endurance-heavy chain, but I can usually kill things before it gets too bad.

My Crab is the melee, no-pets variety. He cycles Slice, Arm Lash, Shatter Armor and Venom Grenade.

I will echo the spiderlings comment.

I was a no-pets crab for awhile, until I tried them out on a secondary build. I tested each pets separately...the spiderlings seemed more like distractions, and their damage small....until I got to a boss. All those 'little' number that roll off of enemies add up. The DoT nature of the delivery is misleading, the little guys do help. Once they have only one target to converge all fire on, those little attacks roll off like rain, all costing you no extra endurance besides the summon cost.

Other fun things to do with spiderlings: achilles heal chance for -resistance, soulbound allegience chance for buildup.

Yeah I've definitely noticed my pets are baller as hell once they've got a target to chew on. They don't have any of those special enhancements mentioned (Achilles, the pet buildup) though, that's something I'd like to try this weekend.

I've never heard of Crabs taking any melee attacks before now--especially the single target ones--or, for that matter, skipping the pets. Is this a recent change to the way crabs build? I don't think I took anything at all from the wolf spider primary, and just Channelgun, Longfang, Suppression, Aim and Venom from the Crab primary. (Which is partly why I made this thread in the first place--not exactly drowning in ST powers, here.)

Melee Crabs are certainly not new. A major benefit of VEATS (and HEATs) has always been that you could design them to work in a variety of different modes. There is no "correct" way to play your Crab. Decent melee Crabs are uncommon, but I have encountered a couple of them on Justice.

My Crab did have pets for a long time, but when I started doing a lot of incarnate trials, they just couldn't cut it. They were vaporized so fast that they contributed basically nothing. It was far more effective to take Tough and Weave and stomp fearlessly down the hallways of the Lambda Sector, or bathe in the radiation pulses of Keyes Island with all my capabilities intact.

A couple of previous tank Crab threads:

Finally getting around to a " Tank " crab build need help
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=254576

Making a Tanker Crab
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=271340

re: Spiderling IOs - unless it's changed recently, Crab Spiderlings cannot slot the Achilles set. It's the PPP versions that other ATs get that can do that. Soulbound should be fine though.

And personally I've had the melee attacks on my Crab since they launched. I just didn't go *pure* melee, for various reasons - I liked the aesthetic of my hulking monstrosity of a Crab charging in to eviscerate things, but I still included Channelgun for fast cycling single target ranged, all the AoEs (because survivable AoEing is, imo, what Crab is all about), the pets for hard targets (not so good against groups), and fighting pool for extra survivability (replacing some patron pool AoE which had ultimately proved redundant - and Tough/Weave let me fight bigger/harder spawns than Arctic/Bile ever did). Obviously team buffs too, cos that's also what VEATs are all about. They're all about a few things

Attitudes certainly haven't changed such that melee is considered the way to go, not even close (nor should they, it's a viable option, but it's really not the Crab's strong point). But I do think they may have softened somewhat from the "oh my god why would anyone ever take melee attacks on a Crab?!" that was initially prevalent.