My killer opening:
-Target a foe in the middle of the mob (Pref a Lt or boss, NEVER a minion).
-Drop Omega Maneuver in the middle of the mob.
-Use Venom Grenade on selected foe.
-Use Suppression on selected foe.
-Hit selected foe with Ion Judgement.
-Use Venom Grenade on selected foe.
If any foe is still standing, God bless him.
Dark Energon, Founder of the Freedom Legion SG on Guardian server.
(SG founded on 12-08-'09, Top100: 08-17-'10, Top50: 12-23-'10, Top25: 12-11-'11)
Crab Spider Nephila on Titan Tracker
Weekly events on Guardian: W.A.V.E. & FNFN
Just a minor point:
Quote:
You mean to say status protection, and not resistances.| This is very nice to have as it knocks the crabs total status resistances up to 14 and gives 15% res to all damage apart from psionics. |
Interesting build, nonetheless. Not sure it's my playstyle; if I feel like tanking, I play a tank. I think of my crab as more of a melee/mm/blaster. Like a kheld, but actually good and useful for the team.
"Look how many pages of crap are in this thread already!" -r0y to all threads on these forums.
Why I'm doing this.
This community has given a lot of help to me with my Crab spider and now I'm wanting to try and give something back.
Why I made a Tanking Crab.
In my spare time, I'm on a number of writing forums and have a number of OCs. One of which is a 6 armed alien character. The crab started as an attempt to recreate her in this game, cause I'm sad like that, but as I started to level, I started to like my crab more and more. Around about 25 I ended up having to tank a SF, as I was the only one who wasn't a squishy and that was a lot of fun. I started to also like the idea of using the crab arms as shields, blocking punches and attacks using 4 giant crab arms. I asked around, got a lot of help, and my tanking crab was born.
Disclaimer.
I am not the best crab. I am not the best tanking crab. I'm sure others out there know more, do more DPS and whatever. What I am trying to do here is help out, share what little knowledge I have and explain how I play. If others know a better way to slot or do this, or do that, I am very happy to hear it. I'll stop trying to improve when I'm dead.
So why play a crab? (and general Crab info)
From the wiki. "Crab Spiders function much like SWAT teams in other cities, and are dispatched to deal with high-level threats like super-types. They're equipped with full body armor, larger weapons and a set of mechanical spider arms that turn them into death-dealing machines."
In a world of super powered villains and heroes, the crab spider is the SWAT team of Arachnos. You've got 4 arms and a backpack grafted to your spine, which fires lasers. So already, you are pretty badass.
Crabs have the following benefits:
- 14.3 points of protection from hold, stun, sleep and immobile.
- 6 points of protection from Confuse and Fear
- Increase recovery and regeneration
- An extra costume slot with unique (if limited) costume options
- Up to 6 pets at once. (8 with lore pets)
- A mix of lethal and energy attacks
- A crashless nuke in the form of Omega Bomb
- Great team buffs
- Lower resistance cap than tankers and brutes, but a higher cap than every other none epic AT
Crabs also have a few flaws.Powers.
The Crab Spider has access to more powersets than most ATs. They have the Crab Spider Solider, the Wolf Spider Solider, Training and Gadgets and Crab Spider Training. Now, Wolf Spider Solider I don't know much about, so I'm going to start and go through the powers I know and rate them according to how useful I think they are.
Channelgun: A moderate ranged energy attack with a -7.5 defence debuff for 5 seconds and base recharge of 4 second. If you just have this on auto, you will keep an enemy constantly debuffed.
Rating: 4/5.
It is a nice starting power and a good start for a crab, but it isn't the most amazing power ever.
Slice: A moderate damage melee lethal attack with the 7.5% debuff on it. It does more damage per animation and the debuff lasts a second longer.
Rating: 2 /5
If you are going for a melee crab, knock yourself out, but I didn't take it.
Longfang: A high damage lethal attack consisting of 3 short bursts. Has the debuff, but a longer rechare time of 8 seconds and 2 second casting time.
Rating: 4/5
It deals more damage than Channelgun and is part of my ST chain, defiantly worth taking.
Aim: Aim is Aim is Aim.
Rating: 3/5
Damage boost is nice, but I don't really need the accuracy.
Suppression: A 60 degree cone of energy, comprised of 3 shots per enemy in the cone.
Rating: 4/5
The damage isn't great, but the debuff is nice and it makes a nice opening attack.
Arm Lash: A 30 degree short range cone of heavy damage.
Rating: 2-4/5
It can be sometimes hard to use or hit more than one enemy but it does decent damage and it looks really cool.
Venom Grenade: A targeted AoE which deals toxic damage, debuffs resitance to all but toxic damage by 20% and debuffs resistance to toxic damage by 40%, but no defence debuff.
Rating: 5/5
A great power to open up on. If you can reduce the timer on venom grenade to lower than 16 seconds, it can take advantage of that reduce in res on toxic.
Frag Grenade: A targeted AoE with a knockback and moderate smashing/lethal damage, but no defence debuff.
Rating: 2/5
I know it can be good, but when I'm using PBAoE's and cones, knockback isn't really what I want.
Frenzy: One of the coolest crab powers. A PBAoE that does heavy lethal/energy damage.
Rating: 4/5.
If you are in there tanking, how can you go wrong with this? It also is a good slot mule.
Omega Bomb: The crab spiders crashless nuke. Big smashing/energy damage. Has a small built in taunt to get everyone attacking it. And it stuns them when it goes off with a mag 3 stun.
Rating: 1 or 5/5.
If you guys are speeding past mobs, it may not be so good for you, but as a pulling device/putting the hurt on AVs, it is brilliant!
Wolf Spider Armour: A small status and resistance auto buff.
Rating: 3/5
Good slot mule and part of what makes a crab spider so good agaisnt status effects.
Combat Training Defensive: 7.5% ranged defence
Rating: 5/5
Great place to slot a LotG recharge and defence and lets you easily reach or exceed the ranged softcap.
Combat Training Offensive: 10% accuracy and 33% resistance to accuracy debuffs.
Rating: 1/5.
Good if you are using SOs and need all the accuracy you can get, but if you are using IOs, waste of a slot IMO.
Tatical Training Manoeuvres: for the cost of 0.21 end a second, you give your team 10% defence.
Rating 5/5
This is an amazing power. It stacks with other crabs Manoeuvres and the normal version. Slotting wise, it is also great, another place to stick a LoTG.
Tactical Training: Assault: Exactly the same as normal assault but with a reduced end cost.
Rating 2/5
If you usually take assault take this, but otherwise cant recommend it.
Tactical Training: Leadership: Exactly the same as normal Leadership, but with a reduced end cost.
Rating 3/5
I take it to slot for build up/defence set bonuses, but it is a power I could easily live without if need be.
Mental Training: An auto run speed bonus, a 20% recharge bonus and a resistance to recharge debuffs and no need to slot it.
Rating 5/5
One of the best powers in the crab arsenal.
Call Reinforcement: Summons 2 uncontrollable pets who do energy damage with some immobilize effects.
Rating: 4/5
A crab is a mix of corrupter and MM, and these are part of his MM side. Well worth taking in my opinion.
Crab Spider Armour: A small status and resistance auto buff.
Rating: 3/5
Same as Wolf Spider Armour
Fortification: A larger general resistance buff with some status protection too
Rating: 4/5
This is very nice to have as it knocks the crabs total status resistances up to 14 and gives 15% res to all damage apart from psionics.
Serum: 40% base heal with a 40% HP boost
Rating: 4/5
Knocks a crabs hitpoints up to around 1500 and can be permed or used situationally, see tips and tricks.
Summon Spiderlings: 3 small spiders that do moderate lethal damage
Rating: 3/5
It is nice enough to have more pets and it is a nice enough power to take and slot, if only for the defence bonus, however they are quite weak unless you are taunting off them. They can also very easily be made permanent.
My Build
Now Ive discussed the powers, time to share my build.
Click this DataLink to open the build!
This build has the following:
· 90% recharge
· Softcapped or just below
· 58% S/L resistance
· 42-48% to everything but Psi
· Provoke to help taunt
It is also reasonably cheap. No purple or PvP sets. The biggest cost will be the LoTGs and Obliteration Sets.
What is weak in is:
· Perma anything.
· Only 8 points of knockback protection
For me, that is perfect. On groups and leagues I will hit the incarnate softcap. Solo, Im pretty good on defence and resistance. The only thing that tends to kill me is when I start getting defence debuffs faster than I can get purples, oranges and greens . I use pets and serum situationally to add some control, extra dps or survive an alpha strike. I could also, at the cost of defence, permaspiderlings, or take Hasten over provoke for extra recharge.
Tanking as a Crab
So, on my crab Ive tanked ITF, UG, Keyes, Lam and BAF before and Ive picked up a couple of tricks to help me.
· You dont have to take the Alpha strike yourself. Smart use of pets works to spread out the damage.
· The Omega Bomb is a great pulling tool. It taunts mobs into it, then explodes dealing damage and a stun. Great for large spawns for taking out weaker enemies and stunning anything that is left. The bomb can also be used to take the alpha strike.
· For single target I tend to cycle provoke, channelgun, longfang, channelgun so much as possible before provoke wears off. It is my best single target combo and I find it builds me the best agro. Ive used it to tank the Lichin War Walker off Des before.
· Provoke then suppression is a good AoE opener, especially if followed by a venom grenade.
· Dont be afraid to jump into a close spawn and hit off frenzy. It is a good damaging attack and applies the debuff for the rest of the group. Works even better if you have your pets up because they will run in and start holding and killing enemies aswell.
· Pop Oranges before purples. If you rely on purples too much, you can get over complacent when you do iTrials, where defence debuffs are common and often huge.
If you have any questions, comments or if I'm just wrong and stupid. Let me know. Thanks.