Omega-202

Here's my current build. I'm always trying to figure out some way to fiddle with it though. This set can comfortably and quickly solo +4/8 Council Earth lvl 50 farms solo with literally no risk of dying. It also works really well at Yin and Manticore runs and has full stealth at a really low level to help with stealthing missions to help newbies when I want to exemplar. At lvl 50, it's got 50% resist to all but Psi (which is at 13%, but could be patched up by slotting some of the psi resist IOs, if you want to drop something else), capped ranged defense and nearly capped all else defense without Support Hybrid toggled, and over capped defense with it on. With Support Hybrid activated, even the pets are defense capped, which is amazing. It's the best of a Blaster, Scrapper and Mastermind rolled into one character, while also providing a total of 20%-28% defense aura and a lot of -Def and -Res debuffs for team support. Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Level 50 Natural Arachnos Soldier Primary Power Set: Crab Spider Soldier Secondary Power Set: Crab Spider Training Power Pool: Concealment Power Pool: Leadership Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Fighting Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery Villain Profile: ------------ Level 1: Channelgun (A) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage (3) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (3) Devastation - Damage/Recharge Level 1: Crab Spider Armor Upgrade (A) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) Level 2: Longfang (A) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff (5) Gladiator's Javelin - Chance of Damage(Toxic) (5) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage (7) Damage Increase IO (7) Thunderstrike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (9) Touch of Lady Grey - Chance for Negative Damage Level 4: Stealth (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed Level 6: Maneuvers (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed (46) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) Level 8: Suppression (A) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage (13) Positron's Blast - Damage/Endurance (13) Positron's Blast - Damage/Range (15) Positron's Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (15) Positron's Blast - Chance of Damage(Energy) (17) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed (17) Red Fortune - Endurance (19) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance (19) Red Fortune - Defense (21) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (21) Red Fortune - Defense/Recharge Level 12: Venom Grenade (A) Superior Dominion of Arachnos - Accuracy/Damage (23) Superior Dominion of Arachnos - Damage/Recharge (23) Superior Dominion of Arachnos - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (25) Superior Dominion of Arachnos - Damage/Endurance/Recharge (25) Superior Dominion of Arachnos - Recharge/Chance for -Dmg and Terrorize (27) Superior Dominion of Arachnos - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 14: Hasten (A) Recharge Reduction IO (27) Recharge Reduction IO Level 16: Kick (A) Accuracy IO Level 18: Frag Grenade (A) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown (29) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge (29) Annihilation - Accuracy/Damage (31) Annihilation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (31) Annihilation - Chance for Res Debuff (31) Annihilation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime Level 20: Tactical Training: Leadership (A) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up Level 22: Mental Training (A) Run Speed IO Level 24: Tough (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (50) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP Level 26: Fortification (A) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance (33) Aegis - Resistance (33) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3% (33) Steadfast Protection - Knockback Protection Level 28: Serum (A) Preventive Medicine - Chance for +Absorb (34) Preventive Medicine - Heal/Endurance (34) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime (34) Preventive Medicine - Endurance/RechargeTime (36) Preventive Medicine - Heal (36) Preventive Medicine - Heal/RechargeTime/Endurance Level 30: Weave (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed (36) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance (37) Luck of the Gambler - Defense Level 32: Omega Maneuver (A) Superior Spider's Bite - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (37) Superior Spider's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime (37) Superior Spider's Bite - Damage/RechargeTime (39) Superior Spider's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (39) Superior Spider's Bite - RechargeTime/Global Toxic (39) Superior Spider's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime Level 35: Summon Spiderlings (A) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Recharge (40) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Damage (40) Expedient Reinforcement - Damage/Endurance (40) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (42) Expedient Reinforcement - Resist Bonus Aura for Pets (42) Expedient Reinforcement - Endurance/Damage/Recharge Level 38: Call Reinforcements (A) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Recharge (42) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (43) Expedient Reinforcement - Endurance/Damage/Recharge (43) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Damage (43) Call to Arms - Defense Bonus Aura for Pets (45) Soulbound Allegiance - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge Level 41: Mu Lightning (A) Apocalypse - Chance of Damage(Negative) (45) Apocalypse - Damage/Endurance (45) Apocalypse - Damage (46) Apocalypse - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (46) Apocalypse - Accuracy/Recharge Level 44: Electrifying Fences (A) Accuracy IO Level 47: Summon Striker (A) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Recharge (48) Expedient Reinforcement - Endurance/Damage/Recharge (48) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Damage (48) Expedient Reinforcement - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (50) Soulbound Allegiance - Damage/Recharge (50) Edict of the Master - Defense Bonus Level 49: Combat Training: Defensive (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed Level 1: Brawl (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Dash (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Slide (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Quick (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Rush (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Surge (A) Empty Level 1: Conditioning Level 1: Sprint (A) Celerity - +Stealth Level 2: Rest (A) Empty Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift (A) Empty Level 2: Health (A) Miracle - +Recovery (9) Panacea - +Hit Points/Endurance (11) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery Level 2: Hurdle (A) Empty Level 2: Stamina (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End (11) Performance Shifter - EndMod Level 50: Musculature Radial Paragon Level 50: Ion Core Final Judgement Level 50: Support Radial Embodiment Level 50: Reactive Core Flawless Interface Level 50: Warworks Core Superior Ally Level 50: Rebirth Radial Epiphany

Just ran around with my spider tonight. VG with DoA was procing as expected. Ran some TFs and definitely had a few enemies cowering in fear in each spawn (just before dying)

Let us know what happens, because theres alway the chance a recent patch broke something. FYI, watch out for certain enemies around PI who are immune to fear. For example Nemesis Jaeger bots. They may not be helping your perception of things.

Works great in Venom Grenade. It definitely works, its just that its only a CHANCE to Terrorize and its a low mag effect so it doesn't work on Bosses. I open with VG with the superior proc and there's always a handful of minions cowering and not returning an alpha strike back.

I disagree. Even before incarnates were released, I remember plenty of times where I was part of total steamrolling teams, not too different than now. They're more common now but they've always existed, and that was back before there even was harder content than PI portal missions. Everyone's experience back then was different but mine wasn't that different from present day.

Its just people buying way above market. I dropped 12 pieces of rare salvage on the AH yesterday after opening some super packs and listed them all at 501,000. 6 sold immediately for 520-600k. There were still hundreds of outstanding bids up, meaning people have standing bids lower that 500k. The other 6 sat for a few mins but then 2 got purchased for 1 mil each and the rest for 600k. The going price is in the 500-600k range, but some people are intentionally or unintentionally overpaying. The system is working fine. The people using it arent. No reason to panic.

Your build looks fine to me, but I can see how you might struggle against bosses when your single target attack chain is some kind of combo of Channelgun>Mace Blast> Venom Grenade. I've got to imagine its even worse when you exemplar and lose Mace Blast. Personally, I've dropped travel powers completely on my Crab and I run Longfang slotted with Javelin proc, Lady Grey proc, Achilles proc, 2 Thunderstrikes and a generic Damage IO. It does very solid damage and works well as part of a Longfang> Mu lightning > Venom Grenade single target chain. I basically just have Channelgun 3 slotted with Devastation multis (for the HP and regen bonuses) and only use it as filler or when I exemplar and need to use something. Also, you can drop the Acc/Recharge in Mace Blast (5% psi defense isn't doing anything for you, the recharge hurts the proc chance and you're probably more than fine on Acc from bonuses + Leadership + Defense debuffs from your other attacks) for another Javelin proc to help out the single target damage there. The procs in those attacks have 55-80% chance of going off and can really help boost your single target damage to burn down bosses. Plus the Javelin procs are Toxic damage, which works really well with Venom Grenade. Venom debuffs all resistance by -20%, but debuffs toxic resistance by -60% so when the Javelin proc hits a Venom'd target, it really hurts. Also, I would move some slotting around. In my opinion, your TT:L is overslotted. The defense set bonus is good, but you're still over the Range cap without it and still nearly over cap on the other two. I'd just leave the Gaussian's proc there, move the slots to Serum, 6 slot that with Preventative Medicine and move the Miracle proc to Health. Crabs are WAAAY below their HP cap so there's never any concern of Serum being wasted. The heal is great and the +HP makes it so your regen increases by the same percentage. If you're getting trashed by bosses, that will help keep you healthy. Being that I don't run a travel, I also have room for Frag Grenade, which does similar DPA as Channelgun as a single target attack and when slotted with a KB>KD enhancement, acts as a solid, but unreliable damage mitigation tool, even against bosses. If you need some breathing room against a boss, pop Frag and you have a 50/50 of the boss spending the next few seconds on their back. Tactically, I'd just recommend staying at range, keep the Venom Grenades flying on cooldown for the damage, -Res, -Dmg and Fear from the proc (which help a lot) and try to work in some KD, either from the Ragnarok proc in Suppression or from running Frag. Your capped Defense and 50% resist + Serum should do more than enough to keep you on your feet. Hope some of those pointers might help.

I think your issue is less about the lack of challenge/power creep than the fact that you're playing PI content that most teams are overtuned for while wanting to play a very undertuned build. No offense meant, but even among Controllers, Mind/FF is definitely underpowered. Try running Dark Astoria content at +4/8 with less than a full team, where people need another 10% Defense to hit the incarnate defense cap. Or Shadow Shard content where your bubbles matter because of the +tohit on enemies nullifying everyones personal defense. Or +4/8 Cimerora content where the -Def makes the bubbles worth it. I don't think its valid to complain about power creep in PI. PI is outleveled content.

Crab Spider. I'm not sure what you're looking at for recharge times, but they're not abnormally long. By the time you get some solid slotting up in the late 20's /30's, you can have an uninterrupted AoE attack chain of Venom Grenade, Frag, and Suppression, with the option of adding Heavy Burst, dropping one of them later once you're fully slotted up. You provide solid -Res and -Def with your attacks and +Def, +Dam and +Tohit with your leadership. Your damage is scale 1.0, which isnt far behind a Blaster's 1.125, and is basically the same after Venom Grenade's -20% resist debuff. Also, you can be tanky as all hell. Soft capped defense, 50% resists across the board and a strong heal/+HP in serum. In my opinion, the best AoE character and general +4/8 content grinder. I am currently struggling with playing anything else because of how strong it is.

Definitely worse than threads, but not useless. I stockpile shards, grab some Grai Matters and Nictus shards and hold on to some Notice of the Wells from weekly TFs on my 50s and cash them in for pieces of my second Alpha or to help go from tier 3>4 on my first.

Now where the heck am I supposed to find an extra power slot for that? 😀 But seriously, its just not that necessary. Usually, the damage output is enough to keep substantial focus on me. Anything that bleeds off is usually manageable. The runners are the bigger issue, but electic fences + Dominion ATOs fear proc in Venom Grenade + Fear Incarnate alignment power give me some runner deterrents.

1 - Pets can be made perma if you have perma Hasten levels of recharge and 90+% recharge slotted in the pet power. I think they are objectively worth it and a substantial contribution to your overall damage. They're not controllable like MM pets ao sometimes its hard to tell because the damage spreads out, but you can see it when you get down to that last boss in a spawn and watch them melt pretty quick as everything focus fires. Keeping them alive does require some build focus though. You'll want both +Def aura IOs and a +Res aura one. Those, plus double Maneuvers makes them pretty tough, and then add Support Hybrid and you can defense cap your pets. I slot 6/4/4 of Expedient Reinforcement in my pets for the 6.5% recharge bonus and then fill the 2 extra slots in each with one of the +Def/+Res auras and the Dam/Rech or Acc/Dam/Rech from Soulbound Allegiance. 2 - Capped defenses, 50% resist to all but psi if you run tough and weave, and a stupid strong +HP/heal in serum. Psi hole can be filled with Aegis etc. if you want but I just ignore it. Compared to most Scrappers I've played, I definitely feel tougher, but squishier than higher end Brutes and defitinely sqyishier than Tanks. But survivability is binary. Either you're dead or you're not, and in most scenarios I never die so any more surbivability is just overkill. On level 54 missions, I can easily main "tank". I often "tank" Manticore and Yin runs as well. Its not true tanking because I have no aggro control but I take the alpha strike for the group. You also need to slot 1 or 2 - Kb ios because you dont get kb protection, but you get good protection to all else. 3 - Group buff auras, MASSIVE AoE damage that comes with a healthy dose of -Res and -Def in Venom Grenade and Suppression. I out AoE many Blasters on the team, having only slightly worse base damage (1.0 vs 1.125 base scale) but more than make up for it in the fact that I can have an uninterrupted attack chain made of only AoE attacks + Venom Grenades -20% resist. And then on top of that, no Blaster is giving their group a 20% Defense and 10% to hit aura for just being there. 4 - Lots of damage. Like I said above, you're only 12.5% damage behind a Blaster, but easily make up for it by having Venom Grenade and by having a more reliable AoE chain than most blasters. Add in pet damage and you probably out AoE most Blaster sets. Its not "oomph" damage. It feels more like a steamroller. You don't nuke groups, you just chew through them. 5 - Backpack is non optional. If you hate the backpack, look up the Huntsman/Bane build for spiders. It plays similar to a Crab. 6 - For me, its backpack attacks. Others prefer the faster single target damage with gun attacks. Either is decent. Melee on a Crab is...not as good. Crabs are unstoppable monsters solo and an unstoppable monster and force multiplier in teams. I sometimes feel bad because they completely invalidate Sentinels as a class.

I went Warworks. The only thing Crabs lack in the big picture is -Regen, which both Warworks pets have. Longbow does too, so thats another option. But between the two, I feel the Warworks fit the Crab aesthetic better.

I don't disagree with the premise, but at the same time, nobody should be guilted into or forced to stay on a team with someone not pulling their weight. And that includes a leader politely removing an anchor from the team at an appropriate time. I've bailed on teams with players who were just god awful and brought the whole team down because my play time is limited and it's not worth wasting it. It's rare for someone to be that bad or badly built but it does happen. You dont need to berate them for it, but its valid to leave the team or offer suggestions if they spend 50% of the mission on the floor.

For the sheer simplicity of them, I nominate a pair of tricked out Crab Spiders. Stacking leadership buffs, 12 total pets, stacking Venom Grenades, alternating Omega Maneuvers for each spawn, WAY over capped defense to everything and with so many pets a Gaussian proc in Tactics will be going off about every 20 seconds. It wouldn't be complicated, but there's not a lot in the game that a pair of Crabs couldn't handle.

All good points, but the -Res can be achieved in other ways. Drop an Anhilation in Frag and an Achilles in Suppression if you want to supplement it, which I do. More importantly, a full alpha strike of Venom, Frag, Suppression + 3 ball lightnings from my Disruptors+Mu striker = pretty much all minions dead at 8/+4. By that point, Venoms up again to make use of toxic bonus damage and you will usually be switching into single target mode after that to mop up Lts and Bosses. From there you get better DPA from procced out Longfang (Achilles or Shieldbreaker +Lady Grey+Gladiators toxic, while still hitting 90% damage and 45% accuracy) + Mu Lightning (or Gloom) than from AoE chaining the bosses. EDIT: Achilles in Longfang has a 58% chance of procing for a -20% res, has a faster animation than Arctic and beats it by a long shot in straight damage, especially when Gladiator goes off and take advantage of Venom's debuff. You might say "you can use both" but you can also use another Venom Grenade + a Gloom or Mu in the time it takes to animate Artic. You'll get more from launching those 2 attacks than you do from 1 Artic. And thats not counting Omega Maneuver or Judgements making the low DPA of the Leviathan powers even less worth it. You do you, but I gave Leviathan a shot and it just didn't seem to be worth it.

Leviathan is objectively bad and overkill in the AoE department and gives you way worse AoE DPS due to the terrible animation times on School, Bile and Breath (all 2.67 animations with ~1.0 damage scale each) With Perma-hasten levels of recharge, at level 50, you can chain Suppression, Frag and Venom without any gaps. If you feel like you need another AoE (which a high end build shouldnt) Ball Lightning in Mu has better DPA (similar damage with a 1.07 cast time, over 2x faster) than the Leviathan powers and gives you a better AoE pet. High end builds live and die on DPA where Leviathan genuinely sucks due to its animations. There's a reason farming Brutes take Mu and not Leviathan. But you are correct that you can be both a Crabbermind and an AoE set, while also maintaining defense cap to all positions, ~50% resist to all but Psi, and very solid single target damage.

Yes, you can buy catalysts with merits, but if the AH does the conversion for free, its definitely a waste of merits/inf to use them on anything but Winter IOs or ATOs. I'd rather craft and sell an IO for X inf and buy back the same attuned IO for X-Y inf where Y is the loss on listing fees etc. because Y is always going to be less than the cost of a catalyst or 20 merits of value. Or better yet, craft a cheap yellow IO, convert it to a rare with converters, sell said rare, use profits to buy whatever attuned IOs you want. Made a quick 100 mil doing that on my first character.

I did some testing yesterday and it definitely is working as theorized. With a full team of 8, including 6-8 pets myself, a MM and a smattering of random lore pets, the proc was going off a lot more than when just sitting by myself. And, while arguments can be made for putting it in Aim/BU for the near guaranteed proc, it really depends on what you prefer. I dropped Aim because I needed an extra power pick for the Fighting pool and noticed that I wasn't using it due to the speed I was moving between spawns and the activation time. Having it trigger passively is nice. My only letdown is that 80% damage boost is just not as impactful as I'd hoped. I'm passively running at ~265% (out of 400% crab damage cap) between enhancements, alpha slot, IO bonuses, hybrid support, etc. Add in smashing the red inspiration "combine and use" macros and I cruise at 330ish% pretty regularly. So just running solo, that 80% boost up damage bonus is only a 25-30% boost of my personal overall damage and it doesn't impact the pets or my proc damage. Definitely nice, but nothing game breaking.

A lvl 22 can't slot the level 50 enhancement, so your plan doesn't work. The better option would be to either: a) craft the lvl 50 enhancement, sell the lvl 50 on the auction house for the going rate and then buying an attuned version from the auction house at a similar price. Once put on the market, all enhancements of the same name lose their level/attunement and just become whatever level (or attunement) the buyer asks for. b) sell the recipe, buy a lower level recipe you can slot, craft that and attune it. This will be more expensive, because even if you break even selling and buying the recipes for the same price, you're using a catalyst to attune which can cost 2-3mill currently. Check the market subforum for some guides and suggestions.

Definitely going to gives this a try and see how it works out. Duoing or trioing with other crabs could get pretty ridiculous. A trio of crabberminds, without lore pets sits at 75%. With lores, its 83%. Even without these niche examples, in a standard 8 person team, you're going to be floating at or above 50% proc rate.

Well this info totally changes my opinion of slotting tactics with it on my Crab spider. Teaming with a second Crabbermind and a full additional 6 in the team, you're looking at 75% chance to proc every 10 seconds, not counting any pets from others on the team or Lore pets. While its interesting on a MM, buildup off of a 0.55 damage scale is nothing compared to a Crabs 1.0 scale.

I stand corrected. The tool tip synopsis is wrong : Toggle, Self: +Resistance(Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Fear), +Defense(Psionics)

Do they? What power is that in? When I had my Fort on live, I remember taking Acrobatics. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Arachnos_Widow I'm not seeing any protection listed on any of their powers. You are right about Soldiers, I know for a fact that they don't have kb protection.

You get them by leveling up at every 3 vet levels. That's the easiest way. By the time vet levels stop giving them out, you'll have enough for a level 4 incarnate power in each slot. If you want faster rewards, running incarnate level content gives incarnate materials. TFs and trials like Apex and Tin Mage and the BAF trial give Empyrean merits and incarnate crafting materials. If you are interested in soloing, you can run the first mission arc in Dark Astoria over and over through Oroboros which can be done in 10-20 mins. Each run of that gives an Emp merit and a random roll of a incarnate crafting item. If you get good, you can run it at -1/1 with bosses turned off and finish in 10 mins flat. Also, ITF refers to the Imperius Task Force in Cimerora. That does not give Empyrean merits. You can select a Nictus shard as a reward which can be used to craft certain alpha slot incarnate powers, but I would not recommend running it for that unless you have a specific alpha upgrade in mond that needs that specific material.