Need Critique - PVE - Ranged Crab - Mids' Included
By
Mod_Noc,
Posted on: 2011-10-17 04:44 in Soldiers of Arachnos
With Mental Training + Ninja Run + Sprint + Swift = about 65mph and I dropped my travel powers for PvE and slotted 4 KB IO's and I am fine.
If I remember I will look at your build when I get home, but from what I can tell it doesn't look like your defense or resist is slotted to well, but I really cannot tell until I see the numbers.
One of the things that frustrated me when coming up with an IO spec for my Crab was having to slot Positron's Blast in everything. With pets factored in you could have about 10 of those 6.25% recharge bonuses. I ended up taking melee attacks instead. Obliteration is a great set for Arm Lash and Frenzy. I would avoid taking perfectly good damage-dealing powers and slotting them for debuff or knockback. Better to violate the Rule of Five than to gimp one of your major damage dealing powers.
Suppression is your biggest and best room sweeper for removing all the minions from the area. You don't need to debuff their defense by an extra 2.51% at a cost of half the power's damage output. I would slot it with 5 Positron's Blast and 1 Recharge IO for maximum carnage.
If you want an enhanced debuff capability, Shield Breaker will work just fine in Channelgun where you can use it to debuff the Elite Bosses and Arch Villains without sacrificing a lot of your AoE damage. You are way over soft-cap for ranged defense so you can lose a copy of Thunderstrike without feeling it. Actually, the full set of Shield Breaker would add to your melee defense which is currently lacking.
Frag Grenade is one of those powers I skipped when I embraced melee. I feel the scattering from knockback makes my other AoE attacks less effective. If I were using Frag Grenade, I would slot it for damage, as above.
The Achilles' Heel proc is useful for characters that cannot naturally debuff damage resistance, but you have Venom Grenade which delivers the same debuff 100% of the time.
The Kismet Accuracy IO would be great if so many IO sets didn't already come with accuracy bonuses built in. A character with decent IO sets should already have a 95% chance to hit virtually everything in the game without popping any yellow inspirations.
You actually have more then enough ranged attacks to make a continuous attack chain, even without Hasten. You might consider dropping one of the single-target filler attacks altogether.
Omega Maneuver.... It's a fun power and it's so rarely seen that people often ask what the heck that big red explody thing was. The big problem with Omega Maneuver is not the 6 minute recharge time, it's the time between when you summon it and when it goes off. A modern team can roll through a spawn so fast that all potential targets are completely dead or scattered by the time OM goes off. Even if you are solo, the taunt is weak and you have to get very close to aggro range yourself to summon it. If you get a little too close, or if you have pets in tow, half the targets of your OM are liable to ignore it and come right at you. In any case, it is most useful as a damage dealing power and not as the world's slowest and most cumbersome crowd control power.
Your ranged defense is much higher than it strictly needs to be, and your melee and AoE are below soft cap.
Tactical Training: Maneuvers is by far the best defense power you've got and it will reward you the most when you slot it for defense. At the very least it deserves one more slot for the pure defense IO from LotG.
Weave comes in a distant second but it's still worth slotting until ED starts to apply.
Quote:
Venom grenade and the Achilles proc stack. More damage resistance debuffs: more damage. I usually prefer to put it in a faster recycling power, though.|
Originally Posted by Two_Dollar_Bill
The Achilles' Heel proc is useful for characters that cannot naturally debuff damage resistance, but you have Venom Grenade which delivers the same debuff 100% of the time.
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My thoughts on the build are it does a bit too much chasing IO bonuses while forgetting to enhance powers for what they're good for. You could get a bit more than 2% def to all out of tactical training: Maneuvers if you did nothing more than put one more slot in it and stick a generic defense IO in it. And that's defense that's given to you, teammates, and pets. You could easily do that, while dumping omega maneuver (since you seem to be using it mainly for the recharge and ranged defense bonuses), and have 4 slots to put somewhere else. You could then, say, use 1 slot each on your pet powers to get full damage out of them.
If you want the set bonuses from reactive armor, swap the end/recharge enhancement for the Resist/recharge enhancement so you can have your resistance toggle fully enhanced for resistance. Same deal with tough. This barely touches the end drain of the powers(1.61/sec total end drain to 1.64, oh no!) and gets you an extra 3% resistance to smash/lethal, and 2% to the others that aren't psychic.
Culex's resistance guide
Quote:
Against opponents that have more damage resistance than you can debuff with Venom Grenade, the Achilles' Heel proc does have a 20% chance of increasing your damage.|
Originally Posted by Pitho
Venom grenade and the Achilles proc stack. More damage resistance debuffs: more damage.
|
I personally think there are better ways to increase your damage output than that. However, if the OP is very attached to the Achilles' Heel proc, I recommend placing it in a rapid filler attack so it can spam the maximum number of those 20% chances on an Arch Villain or some other worthy target. I would not use it with Suppression.
Considering the lowest resistance can go is -300%, there's nothing I know of that can be resistance floored with just venom grenade.
Culex's resistance guide
Cross-posting from the Build Workshop...
So I had a lull in playing and decided to give the Arachnos Soldier/Crab a try and, as of L25 and almost done with First Ward, I am loving my experiences. My first try with a Crab ended poorly with deletion (went Crab, made a Bane build, didn't like having the legs...) and this newer version has been a straight blast, yes, pun intended.
What I am asking, Forum, Crab, and Mids' Gurus is if this build could be fixed up any, or if someone could find a way to make a better leveling build with the power choices and sets in mind. I am one that does not like to Respec as much as possible and have no problems running standard SOs until I can start earning the actual recipes needed. The build I am currently toying around with is...
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.952
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Level 50 Natural Arachnos Soldier
Primary Power Set: Crab Spider Soldier
Secondary Power Set: Crab Spider Training
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Channelgun -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(5), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(7), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 1: Crab Spider Armor Upgrade -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), S'fstPrt-ResKB(17)
Level 2: Longfang -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(13), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(40), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 4: Combat Training: Defensive -- Ksmt-ToHit+(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+(17)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 8: Suppression -- ShldBrk-Acc/DefDeb(A), ShldBrk-Acc/Rchg(9), ShldBrk-DefDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(9), ShldBrk-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(11), ShldBrk-%Dam(11), Achilles-ResDeb%(13)
Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(23)
Level 12: Venom Grenade -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(25), Posi-Dmg/Rng(27), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(27)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Frag Grenade -- KinCrsh-Dmg/KB(A), KinCrsh-Acc/KB(19), KinCrsh-Rchg/KB(19), KinCrsh-Rechg/EndRdx(21), KinCrsh-Dmg/EndRdx/KB(21), KinCrsh-Acc/Dmg/KB(23)
Level 20: Tactical Training: Leadership -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(42), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(42), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(43), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(43), GSFC-Build%(43)
Level 22: Mental Training -- Run-I(A)
Level 24: Fortification -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-EndRdx/Rchg(45), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45), RctvArm-ResDam(46), RctvArm-EndRdx(46)
Level 26: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 28: Serum -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Dct'dW-Heal(31), Dct'dW-Rchg(46)
Level 30: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-EndRdx/Rchg(31), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(34), RctvArm-ResDam(37), RctvArm-EndRdx(37)
Level 32: Omega Maneuver -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg(A), Stpfy-EndRdx/Stun(33), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx(33), Stpfy-Stun/Rng(33), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg(34), Stpfy-KB%(34)
Level 35: Summon Spiderlings -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(36), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(36)
Level 38: Call Reinforcements -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(39), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(39)
Level 41: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(42)
Level 44: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(45)
Level 47: Soul Tentacles -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(48), Posi-Dmg/Rng(48), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(50), Posi-Dam%(50)
Level 49: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(50)
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Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A), Mrcl-Rcvry+(3), RgnTis-Regen+(5)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-End%(A), P'Shift-EndMod(3)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
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