So what Crab powers are better than basic SoA?

[DougGraves]

I just hit 24 and respec'd and looking at the aoe powers they look identical as crab to normal SoA - just whether you use your backpack or gun to shoot.  And the single target shots look worse on crab than basic.

 

So what Crab powers are better than SoA basic powers and is there a reason to take one over the other? 

[Omega-202]

8 hours ago, DougGraves said:

I just hit 24 and respec'd and looking at the aoe powers they look identical as crab to normal SoA - just whether you use your backpack or gun to shoot.  And the single target shots look worse on crab than basic.

 

So what Crab powers are better than SoA basic powers and is there a reason to take one over the other? 

Suppression has a much larger cone arc than Heavy Burst.  That's about it.  But you can definitely use both if you want.  

 

Single shot and Burst have faster animations than Channelgun and Longfang.  The only benefit to Channelgun over Single shot is that it is energy damage instead of lethal damage, which is more commonly resisted.  Otherwise, the longer backpack animations do give you an extra few percent of proc chance for any slotted procs, but its not so much that you could consider it an advantage, just more of a mitigating factor.  

 

I run the backpack attacks for thematic reasons and because I have Longfang slotted with triple procs.  I rarely use Channelgun.  You will still be fine with either gun or backpack.  

[Tigress]

They also avoid having to redraw you gun every now and again, but all in all it doesn't really make much of a difference. Suppression is a beast though. Pure energy damage and a cone that is so freaking wide, its hard not to get an entire spawn into the area. Unfortunately only 10 targets max. I don't really care much for the melee attacks or the Omega Maneuver though, so I usually skip these.

 

The good things however come in the secondary pool. Armor upgrade, Fortification, Serum, Spiderlings, all excellent powers!

[mcdoogss]

Frag and venom grenade are the same, channel gun is energy instead of lethal (and 1.3s v .9s activation) and longfang is a slower to activate (1s vs 2s) than burst but otherwise identical.  The main gain to the crab spider soldier tree is suppression imo, and if you are going to take suppression then you might as well take channelgun, longfang, crab venom/frag instead of the wolf spider versions because the gun redraw will ultimately eat into your dps.

 

Also if you go full crab spider you won't have redraw issues (since no gun) with the cones from leviathan if that's your jam (personally I enjoy an aoe tankmage crab over a full crabbermind build, ymmv).  The crab melee attacks are kind of crap imo, if you want a melee SoA a Bane spider or a widow variant should be on your radar instead, unless you love the theater of the crab as a melee character (they do look pretty good admittedly)

Edited November 17, 2019 by mcdoogss

[DougGraves]

Dang, I didn't take suppression.  Looks like I might need to do a quick respec.

[oldskool]

I opted to keep using the gun versions of the attacks for my Crab.  The only crab attacks I have are the melee which mostly mule things but the cone attack isn't too shabby when hitting multiple enemies.