Flux Vector

If you're still looking for new player advice, my suggestion is to play a Corruptor rather than a defender or controller because it's just going to be more straightforward and new player friendly to use your class's core competencies. Choose a blast set from among Fire, Ice, Assault Rifle or Beam Rifle for raw power, or just pick one that goes with your concept. Broadly speaking, the support sets that have the most heal-centric gameplay are (in order of recommendation) Nature Affinity, Thermal Radiation, Pain Domination, and Empathy. I'd add that I rate Time Manipulation and Dark Miasma ahead of Nature Affinity as "support sets with healing in them," but they are not heal-centric sets and rely on using buffs or debuffs and crowd control more than the others on that list. Combine those things in any way you like and you should find success.

New taskforces, especially more redside strike forces or "purple side" task forces. Some well-designed incarnate tier taskforces (as opposed to trials) so that there's a layer of accessible but challenging incarnate content that doesn't revolve around "mini raids." Leave behind the whole "time to complete" as a metric of rewards and do things to counteract "rush culture." The way merit values are currently assigned to content creates perverse incentives for players and can actively detract from the fun. Trials as they currently are designed, I can really take or leave. Most of them are too short and too oriented towards rushing from objective to objective as quickly as possible. Honestly I'm over "rush culture" and would like to have a game with a steadier sense of pacing and fewer incentives to bypass things. If trials could be made more deliberately paced and engaging, use mechanics that provide opportunities for decision-making and managing an encounter, provide good roles for crowd control and support characters, and start using everyone's health pools as a resource instead of having a binary "you're fine or you're dead" feel for most characters, I'd be keen with up to 3-team trials as well. But in doing so, do away with "participation metering" for rewards - again, this creates perverse incentives for players and actively detracts from fun.

I had both claws and DB characters on live, personally I think DB is the more fun and better performing set. There's a few reasons, but a big one is that your optimal chain runs with Sweeping Strike, which is a fast hard hitting single target power that happens to be a cone. It's like if Claws Eviscerate had a 1 second animation speed instead of a 2.5 second one. DB is also neat for having its "second best" attack chain be one of its combos, and be within 10 base dps (before buffing/slotting/procs/etc) of the "best" chain, so you really aren't losing THAT much performance if you wanted to make a DB character who didn't throw everything into recharge and focused on other angles in their build. Claws is still pretty good, but I had more fun with DB.

Follow up - lunge - strike - swipe. If AOE - follow up - lunge - strike - spin. If NW - every other rotation single target, use Slash instead of Swipe. You can also try to work in eviscerate instead of Swipe if you like.

Don't drop medicine. Field medic's not really worth it but aid self definitely is. You'll want it in many cases. Double leadership eats endurance you could be using yourself, because your claws are better dps than most characters. They're in the same ballpark as a dark melee scrapper. You're already giving people 25% tohit or so with mindlink and TT: Leadership so adding tactics is superfluous; you're already giving them almost 30% defense from TT: Maneuvers and Mind Link, adding another 5% from regular maneuvers is kinda silly for the cost. A second copy of assault is okay, but not if you can't support the end cost while still stabbing things continuously, because your dps potential really is that good. That's why you need to redesign yourself around an attack chain of follow up - lunge - strike - swipe and purge all ranged attacks from usage entirely. Never redraw your claws unless it's to use psychic wail.

I assume people want to make the most effective character, especially if they are asking for help on a build. That implies that they aren't getting what they want out of what they're doing, and they aren't going to know what's better if nobody tells them. Widow claws (either side) are better DPS than scrapper/stalker claws, and are in the ballpark with scrapper/stalker dark melee as one of the most damaging melee character setups you can possibly run. Top 10, if not top 5. I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to do titan weapons short of levelling one to cap and then testing it on a pylon.

I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian. Neither widow should be ranged. The optimal path for fortunatas as well as NWs is to use the claw powers. Both widows have the same top tier attack chain: Follow Up -> Lunge -> Strike -> Swipe. Night widows can replace every other Swipe with Slash for a very small DPS gain but to entirely replace Swipe with Slash you need to use Ageless Destiny, Geas of the Kind Ones, or an external buff. The fortunata psychic powers are bad not because they are psychic, but because their power stats are much worse (much slower animation speeds), and because follow up really is that good. They're about equal for soloing hard content. Fortunatas are mildly better at dealing with nasty crowds via psychic wail and CCs, particularly Confuse (the best thing to do with a nasty enemy is to get it to kick the crap out of its friends). Night widows have placate and elude for making their lives a little easier against AVs and GMs, but it's not going to be decisive just convenient. Both of them will lean heavily on Aid Self in those scenarios. You can do anything with either, and you'll use roughly the same tactics in the process. NWs don't do substantially more damage - one slash every 2nd cycle of your attack chain doesn't add a ton to your output (under 10dps as I recall). AOE probably averages out, though NWs can more consistently use psychic scream because it doesn't make you redraw claws; offsetting that is that psychic wail for fortunatas is a lovely power and with the recharge a fortunata build wants anyway you can wreck about 2 spawns a minute with it. The main difference is you can get a NW close to their maximal potential without any weird build tricks, PVP IOs, or purples. Fortunatas need a 1%'er build to get there. That's really the only practical difference besides psychic wail vs elude.

I recommend this build to people who want an effective NW. It uses no purples, no ATOs, and no PVP IOs. If you are going to go into the realm of using those, I'd recommend looking at Fortunata instead; the only thing I ever missed when going from NW to Fortunata is Elude. Highlights: Optimal self-buffed attack chain for widows available (Follow Up - Lunge - Strike - Slash/Swipe) Softcapped to all 3 positions with some debuff padding. 3 seconds off perma-hasten. Aid Self. Elude to counter defense debuffers/for incarnate content. Benefits from most Alpha slots. Can substitute any travel power. Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Natural Arachnos Widow Primary Power Set: Night Widow Training Secondary Power Set: Widow Teamwork Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Sorcery Power Pool: Medicine Villain Profile: Level 1: Swipe -- Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg(A), Mk'Bit-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Mk'Bit-Dmg/Rchg(3), Mk'Bit-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mk'Bit-Dam%(42) Level 1: Combat Training: Defensive -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 2: Strike -- Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg(A), Mk'Bit-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Mk'Bit-Dmg/Rchg(7), Mk'Bit-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Mk'Bit-Dam%(43) Level 4: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- RedFrt-Def(A), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(37), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(37), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(39), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43) Level 6: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(15), RechRdx-I(17) Level 8: Follow Up -- CrsImp-Acc/Dmg(A), CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9), CrsImp-Dmg/Rchg(9), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), GssSynFr--Build%(13) Level 10: Indomitable Will -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A) Level 12: Lunge -- Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg(A), Mk'Bit-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Mk'Bit-Dmg/Rchg(21), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), Mk'Bit-Dam%(23), RechRdx-I(45) Level 14: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 16: Spin -- Obl-Dmg(A), Obl-Acc/Rchg(17), Obl-Dmg/Rchg(19), Obl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Obl-%Dam(37) Level 18: Slash -- CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(A), CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx(29), CrsImp-Dmg/Rchg(29), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Mk'Bit-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(45) Level 20: Mystic Flight -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 22: Foresight -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def(33), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(33) Level 24: Mind Link -- RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(25), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(25), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(27), RedFrt-Def(27) Level 26: Mental Training -- Run-I(A) Level 28: Tactical Training: Leadership -- GssSynFr--ToHit(A), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg(48), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(48), GssSynFr--Rchg/EndRdx(48), GssSynFr--ToHit/EndRdx(50) Level 30: Mask Presence -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 32: Poison Dart -- Dcm-Acc/Dmg(A), Dcm-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Dcm-Dmg/Rchg(34), Dcm-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Dcm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34) Level 35: Dart Burst -- PstBls-Acc/Dmg(A), PstBls-Dmg/EndRdx(36), PstBls-Dmg/Rchg(36), PstBls-Dam%(36), PstBls-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46) Level 38: Aid Other -- Heal-I(A) Level 41: Aid Self -- IntRdx-I(A), NmnCnv-Heal(42), NmnCnv-Heal/EndRdx(42), NmnCnv-Heal/Rchg(50), DctWnd-EndRdx/Rchg(50) Level 44: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 47: Placate -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 49: Elude -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- UnbLea-Stlth(A) Level 1: Conditioning Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A) Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), Mrc-Heal(43), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(45), NmnCnv-Heal(46), Prv-Absorb%(46) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-EndMod(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(39), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(39), PrfShf-Acc/Rchg(40), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(40), PrfShf-End%(40) ------------ ------------

I play a fortunata primarily; anecdotally speaking I can say there have been multiple people ingame at level 50 who are confused about why their snipe power changes behavior while I'm on the team giving them a bunch of tohit buffing via TT:Leadership and Mind Link. And then are really happy that it became instant and start using it as often as they can. Many others just don't have their snipes, most likely because it was an "almost always skip" power back on Live for a lot of folks and the fact that fast snipe exists seems not to be widely known. I'm not going to say that these specific changes are the best idea, but I do think it does address those particular flaws. More importantly in my opinion, it puts another attack in the hands of a lot of sets that don't have complete attack chains without taking powers from elsewhere or getting extremely high recharge from IO builds. The traditional model of the ranged attack sets had 3 "standard" single targeted attacks, while the traditional model of the melee attack set had 4 - frequently the 4th being an extremely hard-hitting power. Changing sniper attacks to be a 'tier 4' type of blast for everyone is a valid - if not obvious - means to bring some additional parity between ranged and melee classes. I think any veteran COH player with two eyes and a brain can recognize why that parity is badly needed. I understand people are concerned about their particular builds and their particular characters, but I'm also sure there will be ways you can incorporate and improve on this change with your knowledge and talents. Getting tactics to buffed tohit rates for fast sniping imposes an endurance, slot, and powers tax on your build - what can you accomplish by moving those things elsewhere? It may well end up being superior for your IO build. And it definitely will be superior for the players who do not want to play with IO builds, or just aren't very good at them. One of the Live team's ideals was not to balance around the end-game, highest tier of potential character builds and to keep the game accessible and fun at all stages.

All I'm reading is that Blasters might be a little less worse than melee ATs, who were gods among ants for years back on Live. Both Cryptic and Paragon literally reduced the game's death penalty more than once because of Blasters, and blasters were the only AT with that kind of problem. I don't think we're anywhere near them getting out of hand.

Psychic assault, fire assault, and martial assault are my favorites at the moment.

Sure, if you believe everything "they" say. Personally I think it was the other way around, given the hate-on that the Cryptic team had for farming in general. They wanted to nerf PSW, and noticed that the set was garbage without it, so they rebalanced it to try to compensate and keep the players who had it from causing too much ruckus. It didn't, in my memory, work out quite that way. People who already were playing /psy dominators were largely doing it to farm, and then losing their edge on that made them switch to brutes. It took a while for the population of /psy dominators that I saw around to recover. Whether or not you like or dislike farming, Cryptic was on the record as disliking it and made more changes to combat farming than almost any other thing, even to the point of making the game hostile to 'squishy' characters in many ways without any compensation, and it 100% drove the aggro cap and the AOE target cap, as well as playing at least some role in the global defenses nerf and the addition of ranged attacks to numerous enemies who didn't have them before, along with proliferation of crowd control among NPCs and a variety of other solutions that never actually worked because players will always find a way. Paragon eventually gave up on trying to discourage/punish farming; whether this was because they realized that they couldn't or because the changing of the guard led to a new mindset, I'll never know. But Cryptic definitely despised it. And IMO, they made the game worse in material ways for everyone trying to stop it.

Every power can proc a proc individually, though I believe multiple instances of the achilles proc from the same person may refresh the duration rather than stacking the -res. I don't remember it clearly, and I do know that you at least used to be able to briefly see the Numina and Miracle buffing procs "double up" if you are tracking recovery/regen and zone fast enough ingame, but I just seem to remember that Achilles Heel may be a special case in this regard and not stack extra -res because of how popular it got.

PSW was nerfed on Live many years ago because of dominators being too effective at farming with it.

I think gravity is fine. Singularity is an amazing defensive pet and wormhole is a highly useful power that is unique in the game - nothing else does what it does. And you can easily have it up every spawn. Suck those enemies o ... in, I meant in. It forces them to be very closely stacked and makes them a lot handier to AOE for your friends. Or you.

I use "enough dps to solo an AV without -regen, a reactive interface, or lore pets" as the benchmark of good single targeted damage, because of how I stood there and brawled a war walker to death in the Lambda trial ~8 years ago with no enhancements in it and a tier 4 reactive interface. It worked, but that doesn't mean I'd call brawl on autofire a viable attack chain or "sufficient" single target damage hehe. (I was testing my theory about how they assigned rewards in iTrials). As for lunge - widow claws didn't receive the "redraw animation fixes" that most/all other weapons-type attacks received. You lose some dps every time you have to pop out your claws, so you don't want to mix attack types at all on fortunatas (night widows have special claws-out animations for mind blast and psychic scream; fortunatas do not, but even NWs don't want to use patron attacks or pool attacks alongside claws because they will lose dps). Even one of the best ranged attacks in the game (Gloom) doesn't really improve the dps of a widow who's running claws otherwise (it's a godsend to ranged fortunatas though). That's also why I don't take Shatter Armor despite its being pretty popular with widows back on live - it should be about a 17% dps increase from -res, but when I tested it on a pylon back in the day it gave more like a 7% increase because there's a double weapon draw causing dead time in the chain. 7% isn't worth how clunky it feels and losing other powers I like better to me - YMMV there ofc. Finally, the claws attacks just vastly outperform the ranged attacks statistically. Yes, the game has a pretty low bar statistically speaking to be pretty good. And like I said, I don't doubt that it works for you. But for the money you spent you can do better still. The reason to take aid self over fighting is that weave is redundant - you cap out without it - and tough only adds about 25% resistance to smashing and lethal damage, but widows have the 2nd-lowest hp pool in the game (tied with controllers, above masterminds) so the value of that resistance isn't very high. Your defense is doing way more work for you than Tough is, and you've got better melee attacks than boxing/kick/cross punch native to your own sets. So at that point, you might as well grab different powers. Instead, with aid self and a soft-capped character you can leverage the anti-one-shotting code by keeping yourself at full hp and then when you're hit by something serious (for example an AV with total focus, or even just a +leveled longbow warden with knockout blow), it drops you to 1 hp instead of killing you. Then you're making a gamble, but it's a good gamble, that you can heal back to 100% before you're hit hard again; aid self ensures that you're not in DOT or 'feather tap' range of death before you get back up to max. You can do it with greens, but on +4x8 you'll run out fairly fast, and if you're solo vs an AV you won't have a source of new drops. The Rebirth destiny is good here too but even running that I find there's just no real fully-equal substitute for having aid self, especially with how nicely it fits in to a build. The real AOE in my build is psychic wail and a judgement. You have one of those available for 2 out of 3 spawns in a team, or one every spawn solo. Everything that's susceptible to being AOE'd down is gonna be, and then you're into the mop-up where you're using your single target on a boss. You use the followup-lunge-strike-swipe chain, if you have extra targets you replace swipe with spin in that chain to AOE while focusing the biggest thing still around with your single target. You'd never just spam spin unless you are lazy. Total dom and aura of confusion are very useful powers, though they aren't strictly necessary (neither is confuse, or assault, or mask presence really... they're icing and everyone likes icing, right?) and I don't usually use them the way a controller or dominator would - as a primary team-oriented defensive power. Instead they both hold some useful sets for their bonuses and provide my answer to fortunata not having Elude like night widow does. Instead I can use them reactively when I need to stop -def cascade failures by making things stop attacking me until the debuffs expire. The other option for that is escaping and breaking line of sight to delay more attacks coming in, and that looks weak and is unworthy of a <Megamind> SUPER villain! </Megamind> 45% is the softcap to ordinary pre-Praetoria content. Incarnate tier enemies (Dark Astoria, iTrials, Tin Mage and Apex TFs, etc) have a higher base To-Hit of 64% as opposed to the ordinary enemy's To-Hit of 50%; and therefore the softcap vs them is 59% instead. Going over the normal content softcap also helps to partially counter -def debuffing and enemies who have To-Hit buffs like the PPD. This is another place where confuse, aura of confusion, and total dom come in really handy, some incarnate enemies also have some kinds of autohit or effectively autohit damage or more To Hit buffing on top of that. Making them quit attacking, or attack each other, is way more effective than 25% smashing/lethal resists in my opinion. There's a similar mechanic at work with Arachnos's tarantula mistresses, they have a very nasty -def power that I have never seen miss.

How do you do damage? You barely have any attacks, and many of the attacks you have aren't particularly well slotted (some aren't slotted at all). What's your attack chain? Why are you just randomly taking lunge with no other claws attacks? I'm sure you enjoy this build, but I can't recommend it to anyone else, especially for the resources that go into this. I'd strongly suggest someone who wants their widow to be highly survivable to forget the fighting pool and get medicine/aid self and, if you have powers headroom, field medic, instead. Also, to take and slot attacks before patron pools in the 40s. The build below is what I'm working toward for my fortunata. Depending on your personal preferences in the below, you can swap the order of injection/aid self with mask presence, assault, or confuse pretty easily. The build achieves softcapping vs incarnate tohit with its alpha slot active, perma-hasten/ML, and enough dps to solo an AV without a -regen power. And then yummy psy wail every 40 seconds, and CC roughly comparable to a mind controller. Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Natural Arachnos Widow Primary Power Set: Fortunata Training Secondary Power Set: Fortunata Teamwork Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Sorcery Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Medicine Villain Profile: Level 1: Swipe -- SprSpdBit-Acc/Dmg(A), SprSpdBit-Rchg/Global Toxic(42), SprSpdBit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43), SprSpdBit-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43) Level 1: Combat Training: Defensive -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 2: Strike -- SprDmnofA-Acc/Dmg(A), SprDmnofA-Rchg/DmgFear%(42), SprDmnofA-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), SprDmnofA-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), SprDmnofA-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46), Mk'Bit-Dam%(46) Level 4: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(5), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(5), RedFrt-Def(7), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(7), RedFrt-EndRdx(19) Level 6: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 8: Follow Up -- CrsImp-Acc/Dmg(A), CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx(9), CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(11), GssSynFr--Build%(17) Level 10: Indomitable Will -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A), UnbGrd-Max HP%(48) Level 12: Lunge -- Hct-Dam%(A), Hct-Dmg/Rchg(13), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), Hct-Acc/Rchg(15), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx(15), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17) Level 14: Spin -- Arm-Dam%(A), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(19), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(21), Arm-Acc/Rchg(21), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(23), SprAvl-Rchg/KDProc(23) Level 16: Mystic Flight -- WntGif-ResSlow(A) Level 18: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31) Level 20: Tactical Training: Leadership -- HO:Cyto(A) Level 22: Foresight -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), LucoftheG-Rchg+(29), LucoftheG-Def(31), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg(31), Rct-ResDam%(50) Level 24: Mind Link -- RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(25), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(25), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(27), RedFrt-Def(27), LucoftheG-Rchg+(29) Level 26: Mask Presence -- LucoftheG-Rchg+(A) Level 28: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 30: Confuse -- MlsIll-Acc/Conf/Rchg(A), MlsIll-EndRdx/Conf(50) Level 32: Psychic Wail -- ScrDrv-Dam%(A), ScrDrv-Dmg/EndRdx(33), ScrDrv-Dmg/Rchg(33), ScrDrv-Acc/Rchg(33), ScrDrv-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34) Level 35: Total Domination -- GldNet-Acc/Hold(A), GldNet-Acc/Rchg(36), GldNet-Rchg/Hold(36), GldNet-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(36), GldNet-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(37), GldNet-Dam%(37) Level 38: Aura of Confusion -- CrcPrs-Conf(A), CrcPrs-Acc/Conf/Rchg(39), CrcPrs-Conf/Rchg(39), CrcPrs-Acc/Rchg(39), CrcPrs-Conf/EndRdx(40), CrcPrs-Conf%(40) Level 41: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 44: Dominate -- BslGaz-Acc/Hold(A), BslGaz-Acc/Rchg(45), BslGaz-Rchg/Hold(45), BslGaz-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(45) Level 47: Injection -- SphIns-Acc/ToHitDeb(A) Level 49: Aid Self -- IntRdx-I(A), HO:Golgi(50) Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- UnbLea-Stlth(A) Level 1: Conditioning Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Flight-I(A) Level 2: Health -- Prv-Absorb%(A), Pnc-Heal/+End(46), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(48), Mrc-Rcvry+(48) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-EndMod(A), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg(3), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(3), PrfShf-Acc/Rchg(34), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(37), PrfShf-End%(40) Level 50: Agility Radial Paragon Level 0: Born In Battle Level 0: High Pain Threshold Level 0: Invader Level 0: Marshal ------------ ------------

Agreed with the above to an extent - the biggest problem with the crab spider is the backpack. On a lot of characters it looks visually clunky and unappealing, to the point that I actually would personally see more wolf spider builds ingame than crab spiders. To a different extent - pets in general ended up being less attractive in the extreme high end in my experience. Even masterminds would not be played, or even would just skip using some or all of their pets, depending on build, when in teams because teams moved faster than pets could keep up with, bypassed spawns that pets would aggro, and pet HP pools meant they couldn't be kept alive anyway. Summoning animations were long and so were upgrading animations. So basically... pets aren't very team-friendly in a lot of endgame teams. Or maybe I should say, endgame teams aren't very pet-friendly. Crab spiders are less damaged by this than actual masterminds (or controllers), but aren't quite as good without their pets as permadom dominators. Or say, brutes.

Out of the 4 VEAT branches, my opinion: NWs are probably the best solo character for doing the widest range of content on an inexpensive build. Fortunata is probably the best solo character for doing the widest range of content on a fully-stacked build with no budgetary concerns. Crab spider is probably the best solo character for anything involving mass AOE. Bane spiders are that cousin we don't talk about anymore. Wolf spiders are a fun concept character that's effective enough to play but is a worse version of the crab spider for people who don't like having enough arms to game, knit, and juggle all at the same time.

I've been working on a full guide, but my advice from playing both the NW and Fortunata branch extensively on Live and going back to it with my main character here is... fortunatas aren't as great with cheap builds as many other characters, but they are substantially better with "stacked" expensive builds than most. NWs are amazing on a cheap build relative to other characters, but don't benefit as much from "stacked" builds (cause they hit their recharge target and softcaps without them). What it comes down to is that NW mind link at base recharges a full minute faster than fortunata, and then NW also gets an inherent passive recharge boost of 20% from mental training. This makes perma-ML easy to reach, and thus, perma-softcap to all 3 positional defenses. The fortunata however when you can get there, adds in "basically being a mind controller while having a tier 9 nuke" to the mix. So it's really good stuff. Fortunatas need to "work around" this difference to realize their potential. That said, both widows start kinda slow and only hit their stride in the 20s when they get foresight in particular, before that they are extra squishy thanks to 2nd-lowest-in-the-game hp tier, and taste good with ketchup. Finally, since you specifically mentioned psychic character - the ranged psychic attacks blow goats compared to the claws, statistically speaking. You won't be worthless if you go ranged, but bear in mind it's not maximizing the character's potential. Also - get Gloom asap from the patron pools because your attack chain won't be complete just on psi blasts for single target. It's also better than any of the blasts you get normally.

Honestly, there's probably more comic book characters that "fit" either sentinel or dominator than fit blaster, defender, controller, or corruptor. I can't think of very many prominent "support" heroes or powers in comics, or ones who are just raw damage all the time, even when you go outside of ones who have major motion pictures that just came out. I can however think of a lot of them who use some kind of energy or elemental attack, and either take hits to their face or are very dodgey. The Shadow could easily be pistols/ninjitsu. Punisher is probably rifle/willpower. Iceman is probably more properly am ice/ice sentinel than a controller or blaster. Human Torch is probably more properly a sentinel (though I guess it's arguable, he gets punked a lot just like blasters). Cable is probably beam rifle/wp or invuln. Could make Deadpool as pistol/regen. Pretty much anyone who uses power armor would fit in here. Most "battle psychics" who aren't Psylocke would probably fit in here too as super reflex characters. The Shocker would probably fit in here too. Heck. Space Ghost.

The buff to boss tier enemy damage in I think it was issue 3 made me quit playing until after they patched it out again, after the same war wolf one-shot my defender multiple times in a 5th column storyarc about where the war wolves came from.

@Flux Vector here. Former characters of note being Flux Vector, Misako, Zalyndra, and Devanna Jade.