Where are crabs weak?

So, we have some good melee attacks, good ranged, we do good defence debuff, we can easily softcap, we can tank fairy well, we get pets.

Where are the crab spider weaknesses and how do you overcome them?

Obviously there are things Crabs cannot do well (like healing teammates), but I'd say their only real kryptonite is defense debuffs.

1. Know the things that can debuff you.
2. Rapidly kill the things identified in Step 1.
3. Keep your combat stats on the screen so you can see what your defenses are.
4. When you see your health and/or defenses dropping, pop a Good Luck, etc.

You can take on the worst of the defense debuffers as long as you don't plunge in too crazily. If you see your defenses failing you can boost them before the cascading failure sets in.

The only real weakness a Crab Soldier has, is the player.

I can honestly say, and i have been told many times, that i have one of the or even the best Crab Soldier on the server. I have spend well over a year playing it on an almost daily base, made a build that is about 26 Billion inf worth, and can handle almost anything i get myself into.
I have no pets, i have dual leadership buffs, melee and ranged attacks and solid resistance and defense numbers. PvP or PvE, i can handle myself, and people know not to worry about Nephila. I get special assignments on trails, and actually brought back the Crab spiders from the death on my home server.
That said, i know my weakness, and i guard it very well. I know solo i am not as strong as in a team. I don't have pets so my damage output isn't top, and a long 1v1 vs a tank/brute/scrapper/AV/GM will leave me with problems, and my tactics against it will help me with it. Place me on a team however, and i'll thrive.
We did a 4 VEAT vs 4 other AT's PvP fight, i instructed people to stay close, max the buffs, and not chase... we won 13-0 on a 10 minute match.

People said that a lvl40 toon couldn't beat a lvl50 toon at all. I told them it was possible, it all depends on how well the players know their toons.
Back then i was playing my lvl35 WP/SS Tank that i was building into a lead tank, went up against a PL'd lvl50 scrapper, and showed it all the corners of the arena map.

Knowing your toon is key, not just with Crabs or VEATs, but with ALL AT's.
You PL a toon to 50, pump 25 Billion inf worth of purple, PvP and such in it, doesn't mean you have a great toon. It just means you potentially have a good toon.

Like they say on G.I. Joe...
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

A well built crab can do "almost" anything in this game. Tweak your build to the task and it gets even better. I find myself wanting more build slots so that I can adapt more closely to more and more situations.

Remember, a well built tank will still be the better tank, just as a well built scrapper will still be the better scrapper, a well built defender is the better defender, and a well built blaster will still be the better blaster.

If you build it well and learn to play it well, you'll find yourself better at all those roles than the average random player you run across, but not better than the really good players. You're not a god, or even an angel, you're just a very skilled soldier in the best armor blood money can buy, con, and steal.

Things that can still kill me, assuming soloing +4x8:
- Arachnos, but rarely.
- Longbow, but rarely.
- Cimies, easily, if I don't react.
- Carnies, when they get lucky.
- Cheat DE if I don't watch myself.
- Anything if it gets lucky enough.
- Endurance Drain - Counter with blue or temp blue.
- Defense Debuffs - Counter with purple or kiting.
- Quartz - Counter by pulling and/or AoE Damage.
- Carnies with 4+ Bosses and 20+ Lts all casting hold at once ... sometimes, but very rarely, they get lucky and hold me and kill me more or less instantly. Call it somewhere between once a day and once a week. The RNG gets good kick backs from those Mistresses, Believe me.

Priorities:
Know your Self: Monitor your MRA Defense and LE Resist as a minimum
Know your targets
Defense Debuffs
Psy Damage
Buffers
Other Debuffers

PS: yeah, KB. Get either 4, 12, or 12+ KB Protection, never 8. I'm happy with 4, but there are rare days I wish I had 12+.

Like other have said KB Prot can be a pain if your enemies use a lot of KB attacks (anything with grenades like Cims, Council, Freakshow, or Energy attacks).
Hover is great for this as it IN EFFECT grants an approx 50% reduction in the time before you can attack.
Instead of being knocked down, lay there for a sec and struggle back to your feet (~4-5 secs) you do a flip and are back in the action (~1-2 secs).
It also allows you to slot the Karma -KB (4 pts).

And DefDebuffs. With little DDR Cims can seriously cause your Def to crumble.
Again Hover can help (if not in caves) to stay out of reach of the majority of their attacks.

My Crab has Serum about 7 secs off perma (still need 1 more LotG proc but that wont make it perma) which gives approx +400HP and 800 Heal.

On the rare occations ive teamed with 3+ other VEATS (with team buffs) it is AWESOME!!!!!
Whenever a team is forming and the TL says we have the "core roles covered" what more do we need I always shout for VEATS.

What 1 VEAT cant do, 2 can.
Where 1 VEAT is weak another will compensate/cover the weakness

VEATS RULE!!!!

as mentioned the defense debuffs, kb and enemy tohit buffs are prolly the worst

kb is the most easily worked around with a few -kb IOs

defense debuffs are harder to avoid especially if you got cascading failure setting in

enemy tohit buffs are not very common outside of of incarnate trials, the 2 biggest offenders are rularuu eyeballs and DE quartz (the quarts provide a +100% tohit buff to the DE so you would have to basically be at the defense hard cap in order to counter it, the rularuu are tough since their attacks have very high hit chance (even with 90% defense their attacks can still have 88% chance to hit) and their attacks do -def)

outside of that, i dont think they really have too many other problems

I heard they were soft in the belly (but still tough).

I'm bumping this because it is in a similar theme, rather than make a new thread but opening it up to all SoA's. What changes would you make to SoA's in general.

I'm thinking:
Colourable lasers
More options for assault rifles/claws.
Unlocking patron pools at 35 rather than 40 (as I recall).
The ability to use trenchcoats with crab backpacks (bolos work and they flow behind you a bit like capes)
More uniform options (for example, more eye coverings like sonic vision for Widows).
The ability to remove the crab backpack while in bane spec or huntsman or whatever (maybe a clickable toggle to hide backpack when it isn't used)
Some kind of intro arc before going into the meat and potatoes stuff, maybe the last day of boot camp or attacking galaxy city for Lord Recluse.
Ability to remove arachnos symbols from the crab backpack.
Some Arachnos themed costume changes or auras, like the Khelds have.
Options for the backpack, like maybe Lord Recluse style arms or bladed ones.

I know a lot of this stuff I kinda stupid appearance stuff or would require redone animations but for me it would make a difference and I can dream!

If you go an all ranged build you'll have a lack of Single Target attacks making it harder to deal with hard targets (Bosses, Elite Bosses) by yourself. On the flip side you have lots of pets to help mitigate that.

Also, as mentioned, KB and Defense Debuffs. The first is best fixed with IOs, the later by being an AoE machine and murdering the debuffers.

I agree with everything people have said so far. I know that when I solo on +4 =8, I use a lot of strategy, such as pulling, etc. Since I'm perma hasten/perma pets, I have to pay attention to when my pets die and return a lot. I would also say though, that I take advantage of popping purple and orange inspirations, I use Demonic for when I'm red lining and on the verge of dying, I also use the accolade power Frenzy. Oh heck, know what your powers do and use them to their full advantage, that's what I do.

Ever since I rolled an Arachnos Soldier I played him as a bane or Huntsman and never wanted to play a crab because I was not a fan of the leg backpack. When Incarnates came out I wanted to get the pets for more damage and decided to respec into a crab build until I am maxed out on incarnates. Well long story short, I freaking love my crab and having the ability to have 8 spider pets at one time is amazing! The only weakness I can think of with a crab is the players and how they enhance the toon. With the build being very tight, I think it is easy to over look something.

These things ?

An old thread, I know, but it's still on the first page.

You could take Soul Mastery for Darkest Night as a counter for Defense Debuffs, Def Debuffs don't work on a ToHit Debuff.