Omega-202

It wouldn't be the worst setup in the game. You'd basically be a nuke-less "Mace Blast" Sentinel with support auras, trading out Opportunity inherent for Surveillance to achieve a similar effect, which isnt the worst. However sticking only to the mace attacks means no Venom Grenade, which is in my opinion the single best spammable AoE attack in the game. The mace attacks are not the best DPA, but they're not the worst and with Scorpion PPP, you can have 3 single target attacks, 3 AoE attacks, an AoE immobilize and a single target hold, all launching from the mace. It would totally be usable, just that there are better options that do the same things more efficiently.

I agree that a modern Energy/Fire wouldn't be nearly as bad with Sudden Acceleration, crashless Nova and Bonfire in //Fire. But you'd have to pay me to relive that horrible set up after dragging it to 50 during i1.

Energy/Fire. The whole setup is counter-productive. The primary relies on knockback and the secondary relies on doing heavy damage with point-blank AoEs in order to survive. The two sets have no synergy whatsoever and actively work against each other. Teams hate you because you're a scatter machine with the KB and Hotfeet prevents enemies from bunching up for AoE effectiveness. And with Hotfeet+Cauterizing Aura and constant AoEs, you're a giant aggro magnet. Energy/Fire/Electric was my first 50 on live. Every AT and setup since then has been an objective upgrade.

Fast snipes have really good DPA with a not too long animation (comparable to non crit AS) and can be used at range or in melee. Generally, Moonbeam/Zapp increase DPS of an attack chain even if they're not building stacks. Also having ranged damage options, especially one so strong, can really help in certain fights (AVs and monsters with big splash hits, the Battle Maiden fight in Apex TF, etc.)

Check the below thread regarding Crab build Incarnate discussion. As a quick summary, I run Musculature, Rebirth, Ion, Warworks, Reactive and Support. Rebirth and Support help keep the pets alive, Musculature and Reactive boost damage and Warworks and Ion are just metagamey, top tier picks.

A) Some people like the gun and hate the spider backpack for aesthetic reasons. B) The gun's single target attacks have shorter animations than the Crab single target attacks. If you don't mind the weapon redraw, Single Shot and Burst > Channelgun and Longfang.

Lack of Spiderlings, Serum and Fortification were what I missed the most when I tested Bane Huntsman. The offense isnt that much different. You trade Web and Surveillance in Bane for substantially more bulk, Omega Maneuver and extra pets in Crab. But if you dont like the backpack, Bane Huntsman is still a very strong build. I'd argue that its still stronger than 80% of the other builds in the game when properly built and played.

Bane Huntsman is a perfectly fine build. No team will ever be upset with 20% extra defense, 30% extra damage, Venom Grenade, Surveillance and Achilles Procs in your gun attacks. The damage and support isn't where I feel Bane Huntsman loses out the most; when I tested it, I did however notice that I was more squishy than Crab.

This comment got me looking at the other 3 sets on City of Data. I'm interested to see if they nerf the animations on Toxic Dart and Poison Dagger. 1.07s for 1.6 scale damage and 1s for 1.785 damage scale seems like we have our "supplemental ranged attack" winners when those sets come out, assuming no tweaks.

This whole thread is an unnecessary suggestion, and your comment just highlights how unnecessary it is. The best way to grind Incarnate stuff is solo. Oroboros re-runs of the first Dark Astoria arc literally beats any other method and doing it in a team can only slow you down. We don't need an Incarnate respec trial or TF or team based anything. Just go grind for more components and merits.

Here's a thread with a recent post for my build. I've respeced since, to tweak a few minor things like power order, but its 99% accurate.

This is my preferred setup as well. Regarding your earlier overview on Leviathan, I think that we may just have disimilar playstyles or build priorities. It seems that you are ok with relying on the Leviathan AoEs at the sacrifice of Suppression and/or Frag and/or Omega Maneuver, whereas I wouldn't consider dropping any of those due to their importance to me while exemplared. I agree that on paper Arctic is in most ways superior to Suppression, but in my experience the benefit is not so great that I'd consider dropping Suppression. And if I'm not dropping Suppression, then having two imilar powers six slotted at level 50 just seems redundant, which goes back to my original assessment as "overkill". Let me know if you've had a chance to go back amd play with Omega Maneuver some more. I absolutely vouch for it as an alpha eater and the damage is not as wasted as you might think, as long as you play appropriately. You don't use it on a spawn that the team has engaged, you use it on a spawn just as the team is cleaning up the last group while you run ahead. The count down starts at the beginning of the animation, so it usually goes off during the Suppression animation if you open with OM>Venom>Frag>Suppression. That opening will wipe anything that's not a boss or chunky Lt, and its available once every 3 spawns or so.

I don't see the value in going to 50+5's over attuned. The benefit is marginal and level 50 play is a cake walk for most builds and teams. However, if you ever want to exemplar, attuned builds are great. Just ran through Yin, Manticore and Citadel last week and having all (or most) of my set bonuses for those makes everything a lot easier.

Warning Re: Agility. The recharge reduction aspect will lower your proc rate on attacks, which puts you back to square one on your single target DPS/boss killing problem. That's why I try to avoid Agility and recharge enhancements in my proc builds, and instead focus on set bonuses and Hasten to compensate.

You could go with a Widow or Bane Soldier instead of a Defender. They have great support auras, solid debuffs, operate in melee and you can grab some healing from pool powers. I believe there's even a support Bane build thread.

I run the 8%, but I have to check in game on the other version. I thought the trade off was that the 12% has a smaller radius and therefore was stronger and doubled for pets. I might be wrong, but my recollection comes from the in game info window, not Mids. EDIT: I think you're right. Paragonwiki backs what you said also. And the 6%/12% version does have a smaller radius. Seems like a big point in favor of the 8% version. Generally I also like Spirit Ward, but just not on my Crab. My /Dark Corruptor gets a lot of use from it for the teammates that don't understand "stay near me to be healed" but my Crab has better things to do than play healer, besides popping Rebirth when needed.

^This. KaizenSoze is incorrect. Ageless has no effect on proc rate, its only enhancements and Alpha slot recharge bonuses that have an effect.

For End issues, make sure you have the +end accolades and that you have all of the relevant +end IOs slotted (Performance shifter, miracle, numina, panacea). Also, Support hybrid comes with an inherent end reduction to all powers, even when not activated, just like Assault has + damage and Melee has +regen. You shouldnt need to swap off of Musculature. I can run 10 toggles fine (including Beast Run) and only drain over prolonged fights. With BR off, I literally can't drain my end by attacking. For attacks, Frag can replace Ball lightning or Fences well enough. Less DPA and radius than BL, but the KD is solid and I put a Force Feedback in mine which gives a solid +Rechage Boost to get Omega and pets back up faster.

Regarding your pets, you are missing options to make them tougher. I run Support Hybrid instead of Assault, which when up gives another 8% DEF for one option or 12% DEF that is doubled for pets (24% total). That will halve the damage they take when its running. Also, I run Rebirth Destiny for the AoE heal and regen which keeps the pets up very reliably and works to save idiot teammates. I don't really see the need for Ageless as recharge is plentiful from set bonuses and Hasten. The biggest thing for me though is active defense. Clear the minions before they can hurt your minions. Cycle Frag Grenade (with a KB-KD IO) so that everything stays on its butt. Use Ragnarok's KD and Dominion of Arachnos's -Dam + Fear to keep enemies from attacking. Use Omega Maneuver so your pets don't get targeted. Another option people suggest is using Hover. I don't personally use it, but it works well from what I've seen. If you Hover above your grounded pets, they don't get caught in the enemy AoEs targeting you. For single target damage, the answer is procs, procs and more procs. Get a Gladiator's Toxic proc in your ranged attacks, which takes advantage of Venom Grenades bonus -Res to Toxic. You can Frankenslot your ranged Crab attacks with some combination of 3 damage procs (Lady Grey and Shield Breaker from -Def, Gladiator's Javelin) and Achilles -Res and then slot Mu Lightning with Apocalypse + Gladiators procs. Proc'd out Longfang/Burst + Mu Lightning/Gloom + Venom Grenade does pretty solid damage. You're right that its kind of a fault of the AT that it's single target damage isn't great, but its really not that bad if you build to maximize it. For "other attacks with higher damage" I don't think Frenzy or Arm Lash are really "higher damage" because their animation time is so long. Their DPA isn't actually all that good so they're not going to help with single target damage. I can safely say that once I got the hang of it, my pets die a lot less and there's literally nothing in the game that kills me. Sure bosses can slow me down a bit, but as long as the minions are all gone, your pets do a solid job of focus firing. EDIT: Just re-read and saw that you're running AE farm missions. Yeah, pets aren't going to survive there. Crab pets aren't really meant for farm missions because you're going to be bleeding aggro on to them due to the aggro cap and there's not much you can do to stop that. Save the farms for the Brutes. Crabs shine in general content more (TF runs, Trials, etc.).

There's definitely better options. Regarding to-hit debuffs, generally they need to hit you to have an effect. But with capped defenses, which you should have, the debuffs won't even hit you. Add in the ~50%+ acc enhancements you have in every power, TT:L and Mind Link and there's no way you're missing anything in standard play.

Looks like most of the standard Fort power picks. My only comment would be "why no patron picks?" Gloom has a really good DPA for a single target attack and Dark Obliteration, Ball Lightning and Electic Fences are solid choices to give you more good DPA AoEs. Some people swear by Artic Breath as a good AoE and great debuff but I don't like the long animation. Just some additional picks to consider. Edit: also CT offensive is not needed. You'll be fine on accuracy without it.

The Spiderlings are very fragile when not covered by your defensive auras, and still pretty fragile when they are. The Disruptors and Striker/Widow/Blaster/Coralax aren't substantially beefier. The spiderbots come in using the web-drop animation and can get hit before they are even able to react. So personally, I'd never summon any of them on an enemy target, unless you're totally cool with them getting flattened immediately. If you want a pet for eating an alpha strike, thats what Omega Maneuver is for, or use your free buff pet from the P2W. Generally, I just spawn all 3 pets on me/just use the reticle to make sure they're spawned away from any nearby mobs. I also have started using the P2W pet more because its an extra friendly target for triggering Gaussians proc in TT:Leadership.

This isn't totally accurate and needs clarification. Permanent global recharge bonuses from IOs (set bonuses and Gamblers), outside buffs (speed boost, acc metabolism etc) and personal buffs, both temporary and permanent (hasten, mental training, siphon speed, Ageless incarnate) don't affect proc rate. Recharge enhancements and Alpha slot bonuses (Agility for example) do affect proc rate. I highly encourage that everyone read all of the research done in the Guides section thread. To answer OPs question, both is best, but recharge definitely has a point of diminishing returns, whereas defense just gets more and more effective until you hit the soft cap. +5% recharge when you already have 120% global recharge is not that useful, but +5% defense when you're at 40% defense will literally double your durability, taking you from 10% chance to get hit to 5% chance. Also heavily depends on your power sets. For example, a Kinetics controller definitely has less use for a ton of recharge bonuses because they are hitting diminishing returns after just hasten, siphon speed and a few Gamblers. On the flip side, Power Boosted Foresight can get some builds to the soft cap without a ton of other defense bonuses, so a lot of defense bonuses isn't helping that build much.

One thing to consider is the changes to procs since live. Procs now work on "procs per minute" which takes into account the enhanced recharge of a power. So for example, the recharge IOs in Scream and Tornado are hurting the chance of those power's procs going off. Otherwise, I'm no Fort expert, but I'd drop the extra slot in Assault and move it to Health and grab the Miracle and/or Panacea procs. I'd also shift Stamina around and go for the standard 2 slot Performance Shift combo there (+end proc and EndMod). Generally, I'd recommend looking up the way procs have changed since live because I think some of your slotting worked better then, but doesn't translate as well now.

Nope, between IO bonuses, sprint, mental training and beast run, I am plenty fast. I regularly beat super jumpers and fliers to mission doors. Regarding kick: yes, it could help and I have enough accuracy in bonuses and tactics that it might be a decent idea. However, I just never use kick. Its basically a waste of time in my attack chain to ever use it when I could be using literally anything else. However I will probably drop the Chance for Hold purple in Fences. Just haven't bothered yet. Edit: also regarding Beast Run, my build has enough recovery that I can even run it in combat for a while without draining too badly. With it off, I literally cant drain my end, even with every other toggle on and launching AoEs.