Is there a huge benefit to patron powers on a crab?

[Argus_The_Risen]

I have been running my Crab Spider without any patron powers for a while, and was wondering if there is a huge benefit to having them other than the pet? I am def soft-capped, all resist at 47-50% (except psi), +49% dmg, perma-pets, and able to run the Venom Grenade, Frag Grenade, Suppression chain with no delay. Is it worth it to respec my character at this point for the patron powers?

Edited December 10, 2019 by Argus_The_Risen

[Gulbasaur]

They all have an AoE immobilise, which is very useful if you have a lot of AoE. You can get another spider pet if you take the mace mastery pool, although I personally quite like Mu for the AoE damage over time. 

 

If you've got utility powers you could live without, give it a try. You could always try it out on the beta server first. I'm a bit inclined to say that the patron pools probably don't really solve a problem that soldiers or widows have, so they're fairly low priority unless you want that extra pet. 

Edited December 10, 2019 by Gulbasaur

[Omega-202]

The biggest reasons for me are the extra pet and the extra blast.  Gloom and Mu Lightning have better DPA than Channelgun or Longfang, especially Gloom, and especially with procs.  

 

The extra pet can be very nice too, especially since you're already specced for perma pets and are a walking buff beacon.  Adding the Mu Striker's Ball Lightning to the Disruptor-bot Ball Lightning and your personal AoEs adds up to an even more devastating alpha strike.  

 

The extra AoE attack / Immobolize can be nice, but to me, its not needed.  VG, FG and Suppression are really all you need.  

 

Then again, if its working for you as is, there isn't a huge reason to change.  Crabs are one of the most powerful, low maintenance sets in the game, so its hard to go wrong.  

[Redlynne]

11 hours ago, Argus_The_Risen said:

Is it worth it to respec my character at this point for the patron powers?

A better question is whether you've got the power picks AND the additional slots to put into those power picks available given the rest of your build.  A lot of the patron powers "need" to be enhanced in order to make them worthwhile to use in the overall context of a lot of builds ... so if you can't support them without cannibalizing the rest of your build, the tradeoffs involved can start getting pretty steep.

[Argus_The_Risen]

Hmmm, this gives me a lot to think about and is really good! I really like the AoE Immobilize and extra pet, and Mu seems to be a pretty popular choice for that (also for the dmg over time aspect). I'll do some tinkering in the beta server then and see what I can do. Thanks for the help y'all!

[Gulbasaur]

Mu is very popular on tankers and brutes as it has two solid no-frills AoEs with quick animations which work really well with a tanky playstyle as you can just fire them off point-blank and hit everything around you.

 

I'd argue there's less room for them on a tricked out VEAT. As Redlynne rightly says, they need slots to shine.

[Shockacon]

Back in the day, I had Mako's Patron Pool as my choice and took School of Sharks (didn't use much) and Bile Spray (always felt like my toon had been at a bender of an Arachnos holiday party when using it). Omega, then Bile Spray, then Suppression while the spiderbots were blasting away was always fun for thinning a herd. I don't know if it still works because my poor crab spider is still in the early 30s because alt-itis is an addiction.

[Machariel]

I've heard people sing the praises of Bile Spray because it's pure toxic damage and thereby takes advantage of the -40% res in Venom Grenade, but I'm skeptical that it's anywhere close to Mu Mastery.  Mu seems to be hands-down the best for added AoE damage with its 2 good AoE attacks and the ball lightning from the pet.  But, I'm not sure how much AoE you need.  The VEATs are in an interesting place IMO in that all of their Patron Pools are pretty decent, but they have so many powers to choose from that you can skip the pools completely and be fine.

 

Personally I'm hoping that Mace Mastery proves to be tolerable because I kind of wanted to go all Arachnobots pets for theme.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Machariel

[Omega-202]

12 hours ago, Machariel said:

Personally I'm hoping that Mace Mastery proves to be tolerable because I kind of wanted to go all Arachnobots pets for theme.

If it is any consolation, the infamous "RWZ pylon solo" build used Mace.  

 

But generally, I think it brings less to the table than the other options.  Crabs benefit from PPPs for 4 things: better DPA single target damage, AoE immobilization, solid DPA AoE damage and a 6th pet.

 

Mace tier 1 has a low DPA single target blast, with redraw, so that's not good.  Tier 1 also has an AoE immobilization power that has a long cast, redraw and no damage, 0 for 2 there.  Tier 2 has an AoE with low DPA and redraw, 0 for 3.  

 

The last two powers are the only good ones in the set.  Shatter Armor is awesome, even if it is melee only.  It does hefty damage and has a -res that stacks with all of your other potential -res sources.  It's the reason the pylon build went Mace.  

 

The bot is also very good.  In my testing, I liked it about the same as the Mu Striker, but it has a longer summon time, which is a bit annoying.  

 

So 3/5 of the Mace pool is duds.  The other two are solid to very good, but you need to take at least one of the Tier 1 duds to get to the good stuff.  I'd just take Webs, slot an Acc or the Chance to Hold proc and use it sparingly, if you wanted to take the set.  

[Shockacon]

For what it's worth I've used Mu on any other VEAT I've had over the years; it's only been the Crab Spider that I used Leviathan. I originally had Soul for my NW but specced out to Mu. Never have tried Mace, though... a SG-mate I used to team with gave me a good set of points in favor of Mu, but I don't recall what they were now, just that it seemed to work out as they said. Besides, who wouldn't like shooting electricity around? (except as electrical blast... just no on that one)

[Seroster01]

Leviathan mastery has been mentioned in passing, but I'll bring up something that no one else seems to have mentioned at this point: Arctic Breath is a very strong AoE debuff to be sitting in the early parts of a PPP. Does decent damage & Gives a -20% res to all damage on the mobs it hits, along with a defense debuff (which is kinda just a tack-on bonus these days, as -def effects typically aren't very impactful in the modern game...). People have brought up that Bile Spray does Toxic damage & how that interacts positively with Venom Grenade, but I just don't know that it's worth taking even then. Crabs don't really need more AoE, and unlike Arctic Breath it doesn't do anything other than damage (at least that I can remember...).

 

Something I'll throw out there tonight & maybe look into it myself tomorrow: I've personally never done the math to check, but its theoretically possible that Venom Grenade's debuff makes Bile Spray's DPE & DPA become better than the alternatives. Taken with the "opportunity costs" standpoint of also gaining access to Arctic Breath, it might make the PPP worth taking. At the same time, Toxic Resistance is the most prevalent type of resistance for mobs to have, so that probably cancels out this bonus if you're considering overall pros & cons. More importantly, I feel like if VG mathematically made BSpray worth using then folks would already be talking about it, & I've yet to see anyone say that. As such I doubt that's the case, but I'm curious now that I've thought about it...