Well, that depends largely on what you do with your Crab. If you are a non-melee AoE death machine type of Crab then you'll be fine with no Serum. If you like to be in melee, you're better off keeping it. It's also worth noting that you can theoretically replace it functionally with a Rebirth Destiny power in the end game. For a non-incarnate replacement power you could get Aid Self. You'd need to squeeze one of the prereqs in though, and Aid Self is just a heal with no +HP component.
I don't really think it'll be too bad not having it in any case though, you'll just need more green inspirations on average than you would while having Serum.
@Rorn ---- Blue Baron ---- Guardian
I like Serum for the self heal for soloing. And when I play leagues, generally there is so much power spam you don't notice it.
However, some colouring options would be nice. Same for the lazer beams.
You suspect that Serum may be a big part of what being a Crab is all about, and you skipped Suppression? I encourage you to take Suppression and see what you're missing.
I have a melee Crab Spider with soft-capped defenses and 50% smashing/lethal resistance. He doesn't have Hasten and his Serum is nowhere near permanent. He takes damage very slowly and infrequently 95% of the time. Very few attacks get through, and those that do are considerably reduced in strength.
When his health bar begins to move in the wrong direction, the list of suspects is short. Often, the problem is defense debuffs and the correct response is to pop a Good Luck before the cascading failure sets in. How much health you have is not the critical factor if you're waist deep in Praetorian Victorias or Cimeroran Traitors and your melee defense is -20%.
My advice would be not to worry about perma-Serum. Use it when you actually need it, which should not be very often. In many cases, the correct time to use Serum is before charging in to combat with an archvillain or a room full of psychic damage mobs, but it doesn't need to be permanent to be used that way.
There's quite a few powers that I just can't handle on characters. I used not to be able to play a bubbler as the dispersion bubble quickly gives me a head ache, I find the blazing aura generates a lot of eye strain, my purdy costumes not visable yada yada.
My way of dealing with it is to make a couple of marcos so you can turn off effects on your characters. It turns all effects off, so you can't pick and choose (I'd love this to be an option in game).
It also only effects your display. Your team still cant see your pretty costume.
/bind control+S suppressCloseFxDist 300
/bind shift +S suppressCloseFxDist 0
You can change the control+s and shift+s for any other key combination.
So in game, I can press control+s and most visual crap on my character is removed for me. Shift+s and I see it again.
Note that if your team is getting bubbled, it will look like to you that you haven't been, as the shield wont be visible to you.
It's also a setting that sticks for next characters logged in until you change it, so initially there's a bit of setup to get it to every character. You can save the keybinds for new characters.
You may also need (as a one off) to go into Menu --> Options --> display Settings --> Advanced Graphics Settings --> Suppress FX When Close is Enabled.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
I started out making a build for a Crab Spider in Mids. I liked it. Softcapped on all the positionals, attacks were effective, perma Serum.. Not perfect by my standards, but good enough.
Then I actually leveled up far enough to take Serum. Used it.
Am I the only one who finds the mixture of pale, sickly green glow atop the black and red of Fortification absolutely vomit-inducing? The ebb and flow of the green and the red makes me nauseous.
If I'm exaggerating, it's only slight. I honestly do not think I'll be able to keep Serum in my build with the way it looks like right now, and since I can't customize it... At any rate, the question I have is this: Is it going to be a character-breaking decision not to take Serum? Something where, if I'm not going to take it, I should perhaps just go bane instead? I'd hate to think that was the case, but I suspect the extra chunk of HP is supposed to be a significant part of what being a Crab is all about. On the other hand if I do drop it, I could pick up Suppression or the Spiderlings instead, but I figured I'd ask and leave it to the veteran soldiers to advise me on this.