Weekly Discussion 44: Arachnos Soldiers

[GM Miss]

Weekly discussion 44 - Week 3/29/20-4/04/20:

⚔️ YOU VOTED: We are back on Archetypes - Arachnos Soldiers ⚔️

 

❓ Things to think about:

 

>How do they compare with other damaging/Survival ATs?

>What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another?

>Are they underpowered/overpowered/okay at the moment?

>What would you like to see changed?

>What do you love about them?

 

Don't just use these prompts, talk about anything Arachnos Soldiers!

 

Let's Chat 😄

[ArchVileTerror]

Fix the Backpack Bug, please.

[Obus Form]

1 hour ago, GM Miss said:

Weekly discussion 44 - Week 3/29/20-4/04/20:

⚔️ YOU VOTED: We are back on Archetypes - Arachnos Soldiers ⚔️

 

❓ Things to think about:

 

>How do they compare with other damaging/Survival ATs?

>What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another?

>Are they underpowered/overpowered/okay at the moment?

>What would you like to see changed?

>What do you love about them?

 

Don't just use these prompts, talk about anything Arachnos Soldiers!

 

Let's Chat 😄

>How do they compare with other damaging/Survival ATs?

Crabs have good scrapper/brute levels of survabillity, especially with permanent Serum giving +HP.  Serum + Accolaldes = 2000 HP = HP of a nonWP or nonRegen brute.

Bane Spider/Fort/Night survabillity = Super Reflexes (Fix Super Reflexes) except better as a team player

 

Damage wise, in a vacuum pylon test, Crabberminds have top DPS, but in a real iTrial fight, Crabs DPS are very low compared to Brutes/Scrappers/(anecdotally) Tankers.  Crab pets die horrendous deaths due to long cooldowns and the low survivability of pets.

 

Bane Spider animation time is terribly long = low DPS.  Might as well role a /Stalker especially with stalker ATO procs giving anecdotally tons of damage.

Fort/Night DPS seems fine given the trade off of being ranged for Fort, and a team buffer for Nightwidow.

 

>What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another?

I only play Brutes/Scrappers and 1 softcap /FF corrupter, thus I am skewed towards desiring tankiness.  Therefore, I only, seldomly, play my Proc crabber, no pets.

 

>Are they underpowered/overpowered/okay at the moment?

The Archetype passive power is nearly useless as it does not give any additional damage/survivability to the VEAT.  Perhaps a dynamic Archetype passive power, similar to defenders or HEATs may resolve the issue? 

 

Solo-wise I feel they are slightly underpowered.  My Brute Crab has anecdotally lower DPS than a soloing defender. 

 

A 8-man team of VEATs are OP.  A team of 8 VEATs running all 6 leadership toggles would hit iTrial defense softcap, give everyone 180% bonus damage which is very near brute at 90% fury, and nobody would miss ever except the innate 5%. Essentially everyone becomes a Brute running /Super Reflexes.

 

An Itrial of 16 VEATS = 30% damage x 16 = 480% damage = everyone at damage cap all the time

 

>What would you like to see changed?

Comparability: Make the VEAT numbers closer to the AT they "choose".  If they choose "crabbermind" make the pets similar in power/nature to Masterminds.  If they choose crab, make their damage and survability similar to Tanks, if they choose Night Widow/Bane, make their damage similar to Stalkers except without the OP Stalker ATO proc.  If they choose Fortunata, turn them into a corrupter.  Personally, anedcotally, I agree with the WoW design philosophy of druids/shamans/paladins.  Vanilla WoW had druids/shamans/paladins take a healing-only role.  However, as the game evolved, multi-class Archtypes could specialize and essentially become the same DPS/survivability of the other Archetypes.  They still had all their abilities but they heavily lost effiency (HUGE mana cost to heal someone if not spec'd as a healer, very low DPS if not spec'd damage, etc).  This is what I hope VEAT and HEATs would change into.

 

>What do you love about them?

Passive, large-AOE (lazy), team buffs.  Else, I don't play this Archetype anymore.

[Blastit]

1 hour ago, ArchVileTerror said:

Fix the Backpack Bug, please.

It isn't a bug, it's a spider.

[kelika2]

>How do they compare with other damaging/Survival ATs?

They survive very well.  Soldiers and Crabs can get ultra tough.  Bane Spiders however need some help

>What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another?

Soldier.  Guns are fun, dots are funner and when stacking +rech you can have 3 spiderbots out all the time.  Crab close second

>Are they underpowered/overpowered/okay at the moment?

Bane spiders feel weak.  The mace blasts have long animations, the cone/taoe do little damage. 

>What would you like to see changed?

Bane Spiders really need Whirling Mace sometime before level 20 and some kinda +def toggle to match Crab's +resist toggle.  Bane spider training would also benefit from accepting +heal enhancements.  Also their Inherent can use some +run/jump speed.  All SoA builds are tight and I have been opting in to skipping travel powers.  Little boost would work wonders. 

Also Crab spider's Spiderlings can get bumped down to level 20 or so.

>What do you love about them?

dots, more dots.  also the low cost group buffs feel nice to bring to groups

[ArchVileTerror]

I seriously need that facepalm Rep button already . . . 

 

ANYWHOODLES!

I'm pretty happy with Soldiers of Arachnos.  Their Inherent is a bit boring, but the Archetype's overall power is pretty solid.  Just like Widows, it would be nice if the Soldiers could have a way to toggle costume slots between Arachnos uniform and regular outfits. 

Favourite Build is Huntsman; easy-peasy!

And, of course, I would like to see gender parity on Arachnos NPCs out in the field.  Official lore and concept art shows that it was always the intent to have male and female Soldiers.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/14940-discord-weekly-discussion-week-36-arachnos-widow/?tab=comments#comment-158178

 

In fact, I think a lot of what was discussed in https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/14940-discord-weekly-discussion-week-36-arachnos-widow/ is probably appropriate here too.

[Troo]

Troo Power Scale ©℗®™

[ under-powered | okay at the moment | overpowered ]

 

Arachnos Soldiers... If only Sentinels were this good.

[tidge]

I have a both a Crab and a Bane (same character, using first two build slots). I like the Crab just fine, as using the backpack attacks comes across as a very fluid attack chain. I am less impressed with the Bane, as the Mace attacks are extremely slow, and switching between the rifle and the mace isn't what I want to do. Other can put up the numbers (they've been in the Archetype subforum), the activation and redraw times are painful. I was able to make the Bane incredible Defensive and Resistant, but with the slow attacks it feels much worse than any Tank.

 

I suppose I should use the third build slot for more of Hunstman and give it a whirl... except that I'd like to *not* have the backpack.

[Redlynne]

8 hours ago, GM Miss said:

>What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another?

HUNTSMAN

 

Huntsman is in a good place.

Crabs that use the backpack, rather than the rifle, come in a close second for me to Huntsman builds.

Bane that use the mace are ... limited ... and the limitations that they labor under feel more punitive in nature than absolutely necessary.

9 hours ago, GM Miss said:

>What would you like to see changed?

The easiest "gimmie" for changes to Soldiers of Arachnos that I'd want to see is adding a (mutually exclusive) Wide Area Web Grenade power to Banes (shoot it from the mace) and to Crabs (shoot it from the backpack).  That way you wouldn't need to (re)draw the rifle to use the Soldier version of Wide Area Web Grenade before resuming your regularly scheduled mace and backpack attack rotation.  Since there are already animations on file for doing exactly that with Venom Grenade and Frag Grenade using the mace and backpack, you'd be able to copy/paste those animations onto new powers that use the mace or backpack (and lock out use of the same attack from the rifle) and just copy/paste the power data into the new alternate versions of the power.  Same stats, different weapon/look.

 

The other thing that I'd want to see changed is the ABSURD limitation on Bane that mandates that they only get to do extra damage from Hidden status when using ONLY MELEE attacks.  Ranged attacks do not benefit from the extra damage from Hidden modifiers.  This pigeonholes Banes into being melee Stalker-ish a bit too much and completely eliminates any possibility of doing a "snipe from stealth" style of gameplay.  To keep things from getting too out of control, I'd recommend "proliferating" the extra damage from Hidden status to the Ranged single target attacks using both the rifle (Soldier) or mace (Bane) so as to represent a "sniper-lite" mode of gameplay that would help broaden Banes beyond being cheap knock-off Stalkers (with better support power options).

 

I'll also agree that the mace animations for Bane ranged attacks are simply absurdly long.  Most of them are 2.244s arcanatime, so chaining 4 of those together takes almost NINE SECONDS(!) to animate 4 attacks ... pretty pathetic when a Huntsman using only rifle attacks can animate 6 attacks in about 10 seconds(!) ... which suggests to me that Bane got hit with an iron cored nerf bat for their ranged attack animation times.  So quicker ranged attack animations that don't waste so much animation time when using the Bane mace would seem to be in order.

9 hours ago, GM Miss said:

>What do you love about them?

 

Because when you're a Huntsman, the best way to stay alive is to stand ankle deep in spent brass shell casings.

[ArchVileTerror]

I gave you that Like for one reason:

Rhinox

 

Best series.  Will hear no dissent!

Yesssss . . . 

 

 

 

 . . . ahem, anyway.

Also would have Liked for the extra attention and validation given to the Huntsman build!  Seriously, I kind of wish it were an official Build that unlocked something unique which neither the Crab nor Bane could get.  Some kind of Huntsman Signature Power.

[Greycat]

Yeah, I think when I go Soldier, I end up going huntsman.

 

I just *really* don't like the story arcs. I run them through 10 to get a costume change, then ignore them - playing them live nearly made me delete the characters, I was so irritated by them. (I'm also really not a fan of the must-respec-at-24 thing, especially if I'm going huntsman.)

 

They can be survivable, sure. Even enjoyable. I had a few on live, I'm remaking a couple here. (Admittedly mostly from liking the characters. Crab was kind of underwhelming at times.) I just *don't* like the storyarcs... unlike my Khelds, where I try to run them on most of my PBs and WS.

[drbuzzard]

I have a crab at 50 and a fort at 50. The crab has 2 builds, crabbermind and a very tanky blasting build. All are thoroughly IOed and incarnated out. 

 

>How do they compare with other damaging/Survival ATs?

 

The fort works well as a team buffing, mind blasting, dominator with solid defenses and status protection. It's pretty solid, though the damage is probably just OK. However given the control and survivability with team buffs, I can't really complain. 

 

The solider depends on the build in use. 

 

I did up a crabbermind because of all the talk of it being a damage king. I suppose it theoretically might be, but with pets dying constantly, and slow recharge on those pets, it's a very bursty damage and cannot be considered sustained. I do hand out quite a bit of defense to the pets, but that doesn't keep them alive. 

 

In blasty tank mode the build is crazy durable, but the damage is really nothing to write home about. I have all position softcap, as well as 85% l/s resistance and 60ish resistance to everything else. That makes for a damned hard to kill character, but none of the attacks hit that hard (use the Ghost Widow Patron set for the dark blasts). It's not bad, but I feel sentinels blast better. 

 

>What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another?

 

I'd say my fortunata is the better of the two. It's quite handy on teams, and stacking up a lot of confusion is quite amusing. 

 

>Are they underpowered/overpowered/okay at the moment?

 

A crabbermind might be overpowered if you could keep the pets alive. As it is, you get to me a damage god until AOEs kill all your pets. If you aren't a crabbermind, you can be a ranged tank, but with meh damage. 

 

Not sure if I'd argue that my fortunata is overpowered. It's very helpful on teams, but  death is a real possibility, and except by abusing confuse, I wouldn't expect to be soloing TFs or anything. 

 

>What would you like to see changed?

 

Omega maneuver should be made to not be utterly horrible. It's got the recharge of a nuke, but without the damage, and the whole delay nonsense just means it goes off after your teammates have killed everything. Honestly just replacing it with a different power or something which isn't close to useless would be nice. Right now it is purely a power choice trap. 

 

 Perhaps drop the recharge on the pets so damage could be sustained. Also removing the take out the gun delay would be nice. 

 

Fortunata is fine IMO. 

 

>What do you love about them?

 

Actually since the introduction of sentinels, I've played my VEATs much less. Back when they were the only real option for a tanky blaster back on live, that's what I played all the time. I do like the crazy level of durability I can attain on a SoA, but the damage could use a bit of help. Crazy durability doesn't really do you a world of good with an aggro cap of 17. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by drbuzzard

[The_Warpact]

Crabs while very resilient are handicapped by long rech on pets, and dmg is just meh.

Bane dmg meh maybe more toxic dmg might do it, they are spiders after all.

Recharge, low dmg, pets are too squishy.

[tidge]

37 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

Crabs while very resilient are handicapped by long rech on pets, and dmg is just meh.

Bane dmg meh maybe more toxic dmg might do it, they are spiders after all.

Recharge, low dmg, pets are too squishy.

With investment, it is possible to get the pet summons under 3 minutes. My only complaint about the summon is that IIRC any pets summoned (as a replacement for a fallen Spiderling) will expire with the original remaining pets.

[siolfir]

As mentioned... Bane attacks animate slowly. Due to the slow animations you could make a complete melee attack chain from 3 powers because any 1 attack will recharge in the animation time of the other two without even investing in a lot of recharge on the build.

 

19 hours ago, Redlynne said:

The easiest "gimmie" for changes to Soldiers of Arachnos that I'd want to see is adding a (mutually exclusive) Wide Area Web Grenade power to Banes (shoot it from the mace) and to Crabs (shoot it from the backpack).  That way you wouldn't need to (re)draw the rifle to use the Soldier version of Wide Area Web Grenade before resuming your regularly scheduled mace and backpack attack rotation.  Since there are already animations on file for doing exactly that with Venom Grenade and Frag Grenade using the mace and backpack, you'd be able to copy/paste those animations onto new powers that use the mace or backpack (and lock out use of the same attack from the rifle) and just copy/paste the power data into the new alternate versions of the power.  Same stats, different weapon/look.

This part is only true for Crabs: Banes swap from mace to rifle to fire grenades, then swap back. They don't shoot them from the Mace, and there is not a no-redraw option. This adds to the already slow animation times since you're swapping back and forth to use your best attacks, since all of the ranged mace attacks are trash compared to the rifle attacks. The easiest "gimme" would be a no redraw option, which is why it's been asked for in many threads, but using the animation from the patron pool for Web Grenade to launch Frag or Venom Grenades as a Bane would help.

 

That said, they're very easy to play, stack well with each other and in mixed teams, and while the upper end on Bane performance is fairly low compared to other "damage ATs", a Crab with pets (and a build to keep them alive, as mentioned earlier) puts out an insane amount of damage despite having a complete trash power in Omega Maneuver, which serves no function other than to reduce your damage output and keep you from taking and slotting an actually useful power.

 

I'd also like to see VEATs get a +400% damage cap instead of the current +300% - Soldiers and Widows show up under both the "Melee Damage" and "Ranged Damage" playstyles if you use the filter during character creation, yet have the "non-damage AT" cap. Khelds (and Defenders) could also use the bump, as they're classified as Ranged Damage.

[Crashen]

I don't have too much to add, besides seconding Huntsman becoming an officially recognized build. Something they could add for a Huntsman build is the ability to summon a pair of wolf spiders. Not sure how you would differentiate it from a Crabbermind though. Or give a Huntsman a Wolf Spider version of Gang War, where you summon a strike team of Arachnos Soldiers for a minute or two on a long cooldown.

[TechbotAlpha]

Give Crab Spiders KB protection. Please. It's so tiring having anything that's supposed to be able to toe-to-toe with a KB hole. Yes, I know there are IOs for that, but that's a stop-gap, rather than addressing the issue. When you have something that's meant to be a walking, multi-armed tank getting batted about like a support class, it's just not fun.

Other than that? Soldiers are pretty fun. That's the main issue that always stood out to me.

[selfunconsciousness]

I really love playing my Fortunata. I feel like balance wise, he’s in a good spot, though the inherent lacks flavor and value imo. 
 

My main gripe is that VEATS lack “no redraw” option for their powers, as well as power customization. I would really love to see that change considered. Especially the no redraw. It is an annoyance with my Fortunata, while I suspect it contributes to underplayed specs (bane spider, looking at you) being even more gimped than they need to be. 

[drbuzzard]

18 hours ago, tidge said:

With investment, it is possible to get the pet summons under 3 minutes. My only complaint about the summon is that IIRC any pets summoned (as a replacement for a fallen Spiderling) will expire with the original remaining pets.

My crabbermind is focused on recharge, and I'm well past permahasten. However even with the summons under 3 minutes, the pets often last less than a minute, so you're spiking at high damage for only a limited time. At best even if some do last, I've almost never seen the whole troop last for their recharge time unless I'm doing something completely easy. In team stuff, they die in droves. 

[Redlynne]

2 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

they die in droves.

Soldier Pets have one mode of operation ...

[tidge]

24 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

My crabbermind is focused on recharge, and I'm well past permahasten. However even with the summons under 3 minutes, the pets often last less than a minute, so you're spiking at high damage for only a limited time. At best even if some do last, I've almost never seen the whole troop last for their recharge time unless I'm doing something completely easy. In team stuff, they die in droves. 

A couple of (perhaps unremarkable) observations:

 

Team play is different than solo play. Without true MM controls or Supremacy, a Crabbermind isn't going to be able to match a Mastermind in terms of team play w/ pets. If you expect the recharge to be like Dominator or Controller pets I can see how you can be disappointed, but I don't expect Crabs to be exactly where Masterminds (or Dominators, or Controllers) to be with the pet situation . I appreciate the damage (and control, with the right slotting) the pets add but I don't think they are meant to be 'perma' additions to Crab firepower given that they are in secondary power sets and aren't even available until lvl 35 (Spiderlings) and 38 (Disruptors)... and if you take them at that level, I think the earliest you can choose a Patron pet is level 47. This is very different (in several ways) than the situtation with other pet spawning ATs.

 

The pets aren't going to easily survive +4 content. The Spiderlings IIRC only have two attacks (one melee, one range) so again, without MM controls they will do what they want. IIRC a Crab's Tactics will improve their perception as well, so if you are in the thick of it, they will be all over the place. You can buff them quite a bit (including with Incarnate powers), but they won't stay close, especially if you run at x8. I run even level x8, and I usually lose a few Spiderlings and all but one Disruptor/Patron before the recharge is up. My Mastermind has much more control but even he has to respawn pets on roughly the same cycle... the difference is that my Crab can take out those enemies by himself whereas the MM can barely do that.

 

[drbuzzard]

I rarely play solo, so the pets fall to AOEs all the time, and they are just burst damage, as I mentioned before. 

 

I'm not saying a SoA should be a mastermind, as I'd play a mastermind if I wanted a pet build, I was just saying if the crabbermind was supposed to be a pet build, there's issues with keeping pets alive. 

[Snarky]

I made one SOA on Homecoming.  Then that backpack statred showing up everywhere

 

please. Do not explain it will show up on the character

 

it showed up on a lot of my character.  All my new characters had it. Some of my existing ones

 

i had to delete that character and do some ghetto hacks to get rid of it

 

it atill shows up every month or so in a new alt

 

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Snarky

[klulka1]

While i have no issues with this set per se, I think that the archetype should be completed by adding a mu option; with the respec option being either a guardian or tarantula. 

[Harangue]

I main SoA.  Despite what it is now, the game is forgiving enough I can still play it regardless if I see anything I like below.

 

>How do they compare with other damaging/Survival ATs?

 

crab:

-damage: low damage for a long cast time.  Wolf has mostly the same powers with cast in half of the time.  The damage is decent, but now matches what a tank does.  Technically, it was better than a tank before the tanker damage buff.  So now, it is essentially trade that aggro control for... a few ranged powers and crummy pets?  large adjustment is needed.

-survival: great.  it is right up there with tanks and brutes.  Serum provides a strong hp boost and a reasonable heal.  I would personally prefer it have half duration and half the recharge so it can be used a little more than every 2 minutes.

-other notes: I know there are pets here.  Too bad they just can't handle higher difficulties and incarnate content.  Their lack of control just makes them a distraction at best and one that doesn't last long.  I feel the pets are out of place on a set that is largely built around tanky blapper play.

 

bane:

-damage: subpar for what you get.  Damage is on par with a mace tank now post tank damage scaling buff.  You are basically running Super Reflex for defense.  I don't see a real reason to use it other than just the concept with a little resist debuff to try and pull a tiny bit ahead of the new tank.  The hide/placate mechanic is a waste and it is the reason why stalkers saw a huge change on i25 on top of ATO's that make a huge change in play away from placate.  With no assassin strike as well, it is a mechanic that people usually ignore.  In short, SR/mace tank with built-in stealth.

-survival: meh.  Super Reflexes without the DDR.  CDF will be a frequent problem because you are in melee range.  No serum to help heal or bring hp out of stalker hp range.  Might as well be a blapper without the damage.

-other: it is practically required to take mace epic pool to round out the attack chain.  Stalkers saw changes away from hide/placate requirement, bane set needs a change too.  Hide/placate is not team friendly on an AT that has team support powers.

 

wolf:

-damage: not bad, not great.  A little low for what I would expect, but not horribly out of line.  The set needs 2 more attack powers at the end.  A lack of a capstone is notable.  I think the damage would be fine if they got their own secondary set instead of their secondary being common between the other 2 options.

-survival: N/A, see the other 2.

-other: feels more like temporary power set to get you to the other 2.  it seems incomplete and the damage is too comparable to a defender with no trade-off for only really supporting leadership powers.  It is only chosen because the crab set gets the same powers but different cast time and they are fine with the lower survival of bane armor.

 

>What is your favorite build - do you think they compare with one another?

 

My favorite is my crab tank, even if using medicine and taunt is far less than ideal.  It brings the experience of a blapper with less damage and without the taste of concrete.  Bane brings an interesting concept of part stalker, part support; the role could be better tuned to the role of melee dps with more support and less survival.  Wolf could be made into a concept of a MM that has pets as the secondary power and attack as primary power.

All unique hybrid experiences.

 

>What would you like to see changed?

 

Crab:

1. needs aggro management.  A tank without any real taunt is a waste

2.  if not (1), a damage bump is needed.  Otherwise, I could play tank with better results.

3.  make the cast speed comparable to wolf attacks.  the top 2 attacks aren't enough to really justify double cast times and that speaks to balance problems.

4.  The pets are underwhelming solo for late game. They're worthless on a team that isn't completely VEAT.  They need better scaling and potentially some control.  However, they don't really fit the theme of crab spider.  It would make more sense to put all the pets into a MM-style secondary and put a different capstone for crab secondary.

5.  Omega Maneuver just plain sucks.  It needs a total re-work.  I say give it to wolf spider as a capstone attack with a much shorter fuse, larger radius, and faster recharge time.  Still require the gun out so you are forced into redraw if you really want to pick it up on other sets.

 

Bane:

1.  damage upgrade across the board.

2.  if not (1), add a solid crit mechanic to get it away from the placate mechanic that still doesn't offer an assassin strike.  Stalkers got away from that in i25. This gives an opportunity to go ranged crit using wolf, or melee crit with mace.

 

Wolf:

1.  Needs more attacks to complete the power set.  A capstone using the omega maneuver bomb but shorter fuse and larger radius seems like a good use of game assets.

2.  New secondary set for wolf that encompasses all the pets and improve them.  This makes wolf spider option a MM that trades support for an offensive active role.  The current wolf training would be renamed to something like Soldier training and keep it common across all types.

 

>What do you love about them?

I like the flexibility and team buff utility they provide while giving an interesting experience you can't get elsewhere.  I like having a tanky blapperish character - I'm tired of chasing after knocked-back enemies.  I like the mace theme for bane, just needs some adjusting for the AT.  I used to play AR blaster back in i7 so I like the start of the wolf set but it feels too incomplete for me to really enjoy that 3rd aspect.  

 

Outside of the categories above:

1.  Lose the level 24 respec.  Forcing us to play wolf to 24, then respec entirely into the tree we wanted from the beginning is silly.  When you do flashbacks, you aren't in wolf anymore if you specced out, which just makes it even more silly.  Just let us choose from the beginning.

 

2.  Allow costumes to have access to the AT costume parts AND common costume part.  only the first slot has them and is locked into those assets while the rest don't have access at all but has all other options available.

 

3.  The crab backpack I think should be detectable in build swapping.  Why does my mace bane need to have a crab backpack because another build has it?

 

4.  I disagree with the notion that redraw needs to be fixed.  I think it is a soft encourage to use specific set themes but still allows the cross play if it is genuinely desired.  Mace Bane's don't need venom grenade: they have surveillance and if they chose mace epic pool, they also get shatter armor for more res debuff.  Adding non-redraw venom grenade and IO res debuffs would be giving bane's the option to -100% res debuff and that is just unbalanced.

(math for you:  Surveillance - 20% all, shatter armor - 20% all, venom grenade - 40% toxic 20% all else, Achilles heel IO - 20% all.  That is 80% all res, 100% toxic res from one person.  This doesn't factor in incarnate, other IOs, or weaken resolve in force of will pool. No wonder bane is the most popular choice.)

 

 

My vision of where it should be:

primary sets:

Wolf - I think it is close to where it should be. potentially small dmg increase.  needs capstone attacks.  Should stay common pool.

Crab - Overall damage needs a small adjustment and/or cast times need to change.  Omega Maneuver must go.  To make it stand out more over wolf, I suggest potentially add low-mag taunt to each attack

Bane - damage upgrade if no crit mechanic added to secondary.

 

Secondary sets:

wolf+crab - needs some defense debuff resist.  in a good spot, though the pets are out of place for the overall tanky theme. Serum might need to have half duration and half recharge if aggro becomes a thing.

wolf+bane - needs some defense debuff resist.  makes sense to put a crit mechanic in the bane secondary to balance against crab and the poor hide/placate mechanic.  help make it scrappy.

wolf+mm - new mm set to take all of the pets and make them controllable and pass incarnates to them.  It preserves a mm style that is liked, but ends the crabbermind idea that is usually built around the crab pets and wolf primary. I think it easier to balance a new set for MM play than try to continue to shoehorn the very specific build into the crab set.

 

This preserves these playstyles:

wolf/bane - becomes a middle ground between sentinel and scrapper to trade some scrapper dmg for more team support

bane/bane - more mdps scrappy for the squishiness, but not quite there due to team support

crab/crab - make use of its strengths and enhances them a little

wolf/crab - lets you be more sentinel without giving too much dmg thanks to survival

wolf/mm - preserves the crabbermind play but balance is needed over the armor. it shouldn't be crab levels if you can control the pets and they get to be close to MM effectiveness.

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Harangue
added vision