Introduction to Arachnos Widows - Night/Blood/Fortunata

[tidge]

9 hours ago, Heraclea said:

From Victory days I seem to remember a slotting trick for Mind Link, where you couldn't slot the power for recharge in a straightforward way, but if you slotted Defense/Recharge buttons from many different defense sets, you could add substantial recharge to the power.  Does this still work? 

 

I'm pretty sure it does. (It doesn't work for Membrane Hamidon pieces)

 

This is what I believe to be the optimal (1), (2) slotting for Mind Link. After this you hit the point of diminishing returns HARD.

 

Level 24: Mind Link

• (A) Adjusted Targeting - Recharge: Level 50
• (31) Shield Wall - Defense/Recharge: Level 50
• (31) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed: Level 50

 

 

(1) You can boost the the Shield Wall Defense/Recharge to +5

 

(2) The Shield Wall Global Resistance piece can be added here for the Regeneration bonus, if you don't have it elsewhere and have an extra slot.

Edited April 4, 2021 by tidge

[JawDropper]

Yep it definitely still works. Have it slotted with Def/Rech IOs on my currently levelling Widow and it is not far off perma. 

[Voltak]

On 3/4/2021 at 5:09 AM, Gulbasaur said:

I'd say that PDD are almost incarnate tier and I wish there were more mobs like that. I'm one of the "the game gets too easy too easily" people and mechanics that can't by bypassed by just having lots of defence are always welcome.

 

Oddly, fortunatas (and mind controllers) might be the best weapon against Peacebringers - psi damage is their weak point.

A non-flying Fortunata is sure to be in a world of danger or trouble in the Master ITF challenge.  Just make sure you have inspirations disabled if you really want to test it. 

Go alone or in a very small team, and you will see what I am talking about. 

Cimerorans will be on you like Piranhas 

[Gulbasaur]

2 hours ago, Voltak said:

Cimerorans will be on you like Piranhas 

 

Yeah, but that's one specific bit of endgame content designed for groups, and what's life without an element of risk? I have tanked ITF on my fortnata, incidentally, but that was on a team mostly made of defenders and corruptors so we obliterated everything anyway. 

[Voltak]

Yes, I understand very well, but without the team and without inspirations, the whole thing changes and they become formidable opponents.  

Now don't get me wrong.  
I have solo'd it without inspirations and done also teams of 3, at all times inspirations disabled and temps

But Cimerorans belong right up there with the list of dangerous foes for Widows .  That's for sure. 

Tanking with help is one thing

Same thing can be said with just about any mob, with the right help, it can be done.  

But do it without that and you will appreciate just how dangerous they are. 

Even with a team of suupport, take that team without inspirations or temps or amplifiers and see if it survives.  

Cimerorans are up there among the very dangerous mobs. 

I am only saying that from experience, not trying to give hyperbole 

Cheers

Edited October 26, 2021 by Voltak

[Nostromo21]

This is a fantastic guide/exposé of the Widow class, thanks guys! I'm trying my hand at one & just hit 20. Very end hungry and squishy so far, but I will power through to 24 & def re-spec as a purely ranged Fortunata, as I mostly solo and love to snipe from above (so Fly/Hover are almost mandatory).

 

So, does anyone have a link to a good, cheap, relatively beginner-friendly Fortunata Mids build please? I have around 100million Inf across all my mains/alts, but really don't want to blow it all if it's going to cost that much (or more!) to get a Fortunata viable!

 

If a low cost Fortunata will be a struggle, I'll prob just go back to my Ill/Dark troller or PB or even Beast/Nature MM, which are all fairly solo/low-cost friendly for levelling to 50, in my experience so far. I have no idea what I want to do at 50 - obviously, I may need to dip my toe in the team waters, although I hate letting others down if I'm crap at playing a particular role/class eh. Perhaps I should just go back to one of my Defender/Blaster builds for a pure ranged sniper hero...? Sorry, I know this is duplicate question/post from another thread,

 

So, any good, cheap, starter build for a Fortunata from 24-50 would be much appreciated, cheers folks, at least until this alt-o-holic finds his niche heh.

[Lockpick]

On 4/4/2021 at 6:48 PM, tidge said:

 

I'm pretty sure it does. (It doesn't work for Membrane Hamidon pieces)

 

 

 

Sorry, what do you mean by Membrane not working?  I have slotted 3 Membrane and seems to work fine.

[tidge]

8 hours ago, Lockpick said:

 

Sorry, what do you mean by Membrane not working?  I have slotted 3 Membrane and seems to work fine.

 

You are only getting the Defense and To Hit enhancements from the Membrane HO slotted in Mind Link, not the recharge, unless Homecoming (recently) changed it.

 

You can do this experiment: click Mind Link with your current slotting and note the recharge time. After the power has recharged, use unslotters (I suspect you can afford them if you have 3 Membranes slotted) to pull out the Membranes and repeat the experiment. As long as all other things are equal (keep Hasten from being on auto, don't have temporary Global Recharge buffs that are different) you should see the recharge times are the same.

 

The HOs (and presumably D-Syncs) don't enhance those attributes of a power for which you cannot slot an IO. Mind Link doesn't take Recharge IOs; the recharge aspect from a Membrane isn't doing anything for Recharge time of the power. There was a period on Live when an HO could buff an otherwise unenhanceable attribute of a power, but that was changed prior to sunset IIRC.

 

This is different than it is for non-IO enhancement sets of a particular type (e.g. "Defense" or "To Hit" enhancement sets), which is why slotting something like the Adjusted Targeting Recharge piece works to reduce recharge time of Mind Link.

 

I should note: In the year+ since I've posted the optimal (minimal) slotting, on most of my solo Widow/Fortunata builds I no longer use the three-slotting in Mind Link because those builds typically were dedicating 6 slots elsewhere to get the Reactive Defenses set bonuses. I decided that it was a slightly more optimal situation to shift the diminishing returns from the other power and move it into Mind Link. Diminishing returns are still returns! I still can't bring myself to boost the ToHit portion of Mind Link, even for my team-friendly builds, the only content I ever ran where I felt like I missed that was lower level TFs at max difficulty in which I witnessed teammates missing a lot of attacks because of level shifts.

 

[Lockpick]

On 11/2/2022 at 6:21 AM, tidge said:

 

You are only getting the Defense and To Hit enhancements from the Membrane HO slotted in Mind Link, not the recharge, unless Homecoming (recently) changed it.

 

You can do this experiment: click Mind Link with your current slotting and note the recharge time. After the power has recharged, use unslotters (I suspect you can afford them if you have 3 Membranes slotted) to pull out the Membranes and repeat the experiment. As long as all other things are equal (keep Hasten from being on auto, don't have temporary Global Recharge buffs that are different) you should see the recharge times are the same.

 

The HOs (and presumably D-Syncs) don't enhance those attributes of a power for which you cannot slot an IO. Mind Link doesn't take Recharge IOs; the recharge aspect from a Membrane isn't doing anything for Recharge time of the power. There was a period on Live when an HO could buff an otherwise unenhanceable attribute of a power, but that was changed prior to sunset IIRC.

 

This is different than it is for non-IO enhancement sets of a particular type (e.g. "Defense" or "To Hit" enhancement sets), which is why slotting something like the Adjusted Targeting Recharge piece works to reduce recharge time of Mind Link.

 

I should note: In the year+ since I've posted the optimal (minimal) slotting, on most of my solo Widow/Fortunata builds I no longer use the three-slotting in Mind Link because those builds typically were dedicating 6 slots elsewhere to get the Reactive Defenses set bonuses. I decided that it was a slightly more optimal situation to shift the diminishing returns from the other power and move it into Mind Link. Diminishing returns are still returns! I still can't bring myself to boost the ToHit portion of Mind Link, even for my team-friendly builds, the only content I ever ran where I felt like I missed that was lower level TFs at max difficulty in which I witnessed teammates missing a lot of attacks because of level shifts.

 

 

Thank you for the response!

 

I did the test with unslotting the Membranes and you are correct.  I have a Membrane in TT: Vengeance and assume the Recharge portion doesn't work there either.  Kinda sucks because Membranes are not cheap!

 

I slotted ML with your slotting above, but used a LoTG Def/Rech.

 

Looks like I can reclaim a slot, so maybe I can 4 slot ML.

 

Seems weird to me that you can use IOs for recharge, but not HOs, but it is what it is.

 

Glad I stumbled on to this thread.

 

 

 

[Glacier Peak]

@KaizenSoze

 

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I really appreciate your guide, among the handful of other amazing Widow guides in this sub thread, this one has given me a lot to think about for my second build slot. I'm in the process of saving up inf for a super purple crazy build, but know the situational purposes of these powers has given me pause to think. Like Confront and Subdue both get AVs to stop running, but otherwise aren't much use in a teaming build, that sort of thing. 

[Ozgamer69]

I've just returned to this thread as I'm levelling a red-side widow on Torch, hit the level 24 respec and am using Gulbasor's Build 4 Fortunata guide. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/11319-best-of-both-blood-widower-fortunado-build/

 

My white side Level 50 Widow, Funnellweb, is a beast, but I wouldn't recommend her unless you have a stupid amount of inf to throw at the build.

 

She is a favourite character of mine, and thus NO expense was spared in making her feel appreciated, but my bank balance felt it.

 

All six Superior Dominion of Arachnos, and all six Superior Spiders Bite, plus all six of Superior Blistering Cold, Ragnarok, Armageddon, Hecatomb, and Apocalypse. All done in the days where you didn't see change from 20 million an enhancement, so a long way to a billion inf just there, at least back then.

 

Then there's the six Shield Wall, six Reactive Defenses, five Panacea etc.... Even all the IOs are at 50+5

 

1293HP, capped psionic resist (a Widow speciality), resistances running around 35% except energy and negative at 12.5%, 44% damage bonus and 177% recharge bonus so she never ever slows down.

 

Works well with my play style, but oh so expensive. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Ozgamer69

[Plummtw]

On 3/1/2023 at 11:02 AM, Ozgamer69 said:

My white side Level 50 Widow, Funnellweb, is a beast, but I wouldn't recommend her unless you have a stupid amount of inf to throw at the build.

 

She is a favourite character of mine, and thus NO expense was spared in making her feel appreciated, but my bank balance felt it.

 

All six Superior Dominion of Arachnos, and all six Superior Spiders Bite, plus all six of Superior Blistering Cold, Ragnarok, Armageddon, Hecatomb, and Apocalypse. All done in the days where you didn't see change from 20 million an enhancement, so a long way to a billion inf just there, at least back then.

 

Then there's the six Shield Wall, six Reactive Defenses, five Panacea etc.... Even all the IOs are at 50+5

 

Oh. Fortunata must be the most expensive archetype to build.

[KaizenSoze]

7 hours ago, Plummtw said:

Oh. Fortunata must be the most expensive archetype to build.

Actually, I believe a maxed out Crabbermind is the most expensive. Any build that has to chase a lot of recharge gets very expense, because that requires purple pieces.

[KaizenSoze]

I have updated the first three sections of the FAQ to take the page 7 changes into account.

 

I'll be working on the rest over the next couple of weeks.

[tidge]

I finally got around to the (post issue 5!) respecs of my Fortunata / Widow duo-form. Since they are two halves of the same character, I avoided all melee attacks on the Fortunata.

 

I need to get some play time with them across more content before I post the builds. As I wrote briefly elsewhere, I modified each of them:

• Use the new Page 7 power(s) available (Pain Tolerance for the Widow, Fate Sealed for the Fortunata)
• Remove (at least) one attack from each
• Sacrifice set bonuses to add some %damage (especially for the Psi-heavy Fortunata)

Long-time members may remember my deep fondness for the Presence pool. I kept this for the Fortunata, but for the Widow I wasn't quite able to leverage it... I wanted the "real" version of Placate! I swapped out Presence for Force of Will to get what I feel to be a more complimentary set of tools for a Night Widow.

 

My immediate thoughts on the (currently unshared) builds:

1. The Night Widow's performance is significantly better, for somewhat subtle reasons (Force of Will is a better force-multiplier than Presence)
2. The Fortunata performs better against psi-resistant enemies, and is better at control (even though my build previously was control-heavy).
3. The Fortunata runs incredibly hot... such that I have to pay even more attention to Endurance.
4. (Positional) Defenses are slightly lower, but I haven't faced serious threats yet.

The final point is a wall (chain-link fence?) that I still want to try to negotiate around via build choices. I had been leveraging set bonuses to address Endurance (and improve positional Defenses), the Fortunata took a big hit when I dropped attacks and leaned into %damage (and upped Global Recharge). Ultimately I may have to simply mash buttons less fastly.

 

[KaizenSoze]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

 

1. The Night Widow's performance is significantly better, for somewhat subtle reasons (Force of Will is a better force-multiplier than Presence.
2. The Fortunata runs incredibly hot... such that I have to pay even more attention to Endurance.

 What is your Night Widow attack chain? For me it's, stealth->Build Up->Spin->Placate->Slash->Psychic Scream if things are spread out. Then it's hitting the nearest targets while waiting to placate->slash or spin. The build is high recharge so placate and/or Build Up are up pretty quick. Takes nice meaty chunks out of the mobs.

 

Does you Fort build have a lot of procs? Just wondering why it's running so hot.

 

[tidge]

I am still working out the kinks, and trying a variety of content.

 

My Night Widow skipped Build Up, the attacks it has available are:

Poison Dart (I wanted the -Regen), this pretty much only gets used on a very injured single target.

Strike

Followup (was the compromise made so as to have 3 attacks under level 10)

Spin (my last attack before level 24)

Eviscerate

Psychic Scream (with %damage and Knockdown)

Wall of Force (%damage) I have this at level 30, I could have taken it earlier, but I felt like I would have been sacrificing some of the 'Night Widow feels' for an important range of content. I have it slotted so the range is almost the same as Psychic Scream.

 

I realize Eviscerate is not well-loved, but with AoE Cone knockdowns from Psychic Scream and Wall of Force, I can usually position to use it semi-effectively. The Widow has a Weaken Resolve to toss against harder targets.

 

I have Placate, although I delayed it until level 32... I was having too many choices bunch up around level 20!

 

The Fortunata ended up with %damage in Psychic Tornado (which I did not use previously) and Static Discharge (previously slotted with Annihilation). There are %damage in Dominate, which has very little Endurance reduction in it, but this is slotted for Accuracy, Hold and %damage. I'm considering adding an End/Hold piece here, because the cycle time on Dominate makes it a fast ST attack.

 

Ultimately I think  it comes down to making a lot of attacks, in short periods of time, using attacks that don't have a lot of Endurance reduction slotted in them. The main issue I was having before leaning into %damage on the Fortunata was that Psi-resistant enemies would take forever to defeat, even if I never quite ran out of Endurance.