Builds that can wipe the floors with Arachnos

[KaizenSoze]

Arachnos are the nemesis of a lot of my theory builds. If the builds look promising in mids, then I make them on the beta server.

 

Test them out on 4x8 council, cots, then.... Arachnos. Spat!

 

I only have only been able to make two builds that can handle, not crush, Arachnos.

 

Do you have any builds make Arachnos look like Council?

[Vanden]

Are you sure the problem isn't that you don't know how best to fight Arachnos? Tarantula Mistresses have an auto-hit -25% defense debuff that they love to use. At +4 it'll be -36%. This power alone is about 75% of the trouble Arachnos causes solo players.

[KaizenSoze]

18 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Are you sure the problem isn't that you don't know how best to fight Arachnos? Tarantula Mistresses have an auto-hit -25% defense debuff that they love to use. At +4 it'll be -36%. This power alone is about 75% of the trouble Arachnos causes solo players.

Oh, I know about that def debuff. 😞

While I trying to take out TMs, the Mus are picking my end and hps to pieces. And that is on characters with high defense.

 

Arachnos are a tough bunch. I have to take them slowly. I was hoping someone had found a weakness.

 

If they aren't def debuffing you...

Then they are sapping your end...

Or placating and criting you...

My effective chars have high psi resists... so at least that's not a problem

[TOddSkinRash]

I've done pretty well with dark/dark brute.  The protection from -end just let's you keep healing until you can finish them off.  It does not smash the whole mob in 3 seconds flat but perhaps a stronger primary set would do that?  As an aside I've recently started messing with Battle Axe and the crazy amount of knock ups would likely slow down the debuff rate, plus it allows you to liberally apply FF + Recharge to help counter any -recharge debuffs as well.  Just a thought.

 

EDIT: Now you have me thinking about it and I'm going to have to make a new alt to try my idea.  I only have a dozen or so unfinished alts at the moment so why not?  😄

Edited October 12, 2020 by TOddSkinRash

[Solarverse]

3 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Arachnos are the nemesis of a lot of my theory builds. If the builds look promising in mids, then I make them on the beta server.

 

Test them out on 4x8 council, cots, then.... Arachnos. Spat!

 

I only have only been able to make two builds that can handle, not crush, Arachnos.

 

Do you have any builds make Arachnos look like Council?

In my sig is a build that crushes Arachnos.

[VV]

I do pretty well with my F3 tanker. I mean, I can't just crash through aggroing the whole map like most, but I chug along just fine.

[Sovera]

FIRE/CLAWS!

 

No, seriously, I hardly notice Arachnos. They are pretty squishy compared to some factions out there.

 

Fire is resistance based so the defense debuff does not hurt (as much) and Focused Accuracy allows to ignore the blinds. Consume allows to pass on the woes of the Mu for the most part.

[Solarverse]

6 hours ago, Vanden said:

Are you sure the problem isn't that you don't know how best to fight Arachnos? Tarantula Mistresses have an auto-hit -25% defense debuff that they love to use. At +4 it'll be -36%. This power alone is about 75% of the trouble Arachnos causes solo players.

Not sure why you got the confused face without some type of response why the poster was confused. It implies that they disagree with your assessment of Arachnose. I for one would like to know why they disagree with it. I do know that the Queens are not the ones that do this though, it's the Lieutenants after level 40 (41?) that do this. The Toxic and the Mistress. Probably the two of them stacked reaches -36% Defense Debuff...the numbers I don't know for sure without testing.

However, to add to your comment, the other main issues players have, even players with high Recovery is Mu. Mu can sap you dry in no time flat if you do not have cap defense to either ranged or Energy...and with that -36% defense debuff, well...that debuff opens you up to a heap of trouble. Especially since the soft cap to defense is what...43%...45%? Either way, that doesn't leave you with much after being hit with a Defense Debuff, therefore I believe you gave good advice.

[Machariel]

2 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Not sure why you got the confused face without some type of response why the poster was confused. It implies that they disagree with your assessment of Arachnos

general snarkiness at a question that I perceived to be "are you sure you're not just doing it wrong?", which when i read i thought both unhelpful and condescending.  Obviously I don't expect people to agree with this which is why I didn't bother posting, but you asked 🙂

 

My preferred tool for +4x8 solo Arachnos is a Plant dom because you don't have to worry about nasty things like auto-hit defense debuff, Mu sapping your endurance, or banes placating you for free crits when they're all using the powers on each other.  Caveat: Fortunata Mistresses have very high confuse resists and can dish out a lot of psi damage very fast, so when things go wrong that's usually why.  (they are managed with stacking holds or kiting with immobilize powers).  On the other hand sometimes Toxic Tarantulas will venom grenade a whole mob for you and that's pretty slick.

 

that said, I agree that when fighting them "honestly" the biggest issues are defense debuff (especially if the defense is coming from IOs or other sources with minimal DDR) and the fact that things like endurance drain and slow effects start getting really obnoxious in long fights.   Blind too is very annoying if you are only relying on yellows (even with tactics) if the insps dry up.  My overall pick would probably be Dark Armor with its massive heal, high resistances to nasty things like end drain and psi, and Cloak of Darkness' perception boost.

[DreadShinobi]

Electric armor typically fairs very well against factions that other sets struggle with sporting psionic resists and capped energy resists, end drain and slow resists, a self heal and regeneration, then slap on soft capped S/L def with your IO slotting. Carnies, Malta, and Arachnos will little different than council.

[Solarverse]

16 minutes ago, Machariel said:

general snarkiness at a question that I perceived to be "are you sure you're not just doing it wrong?", which when i read i thought both unhelpful and condescending.  Obviously I don't expect people to agree with this which is why I didn't bother posting, but you asked 🙂

 

My preferred tool for +4x8 solo Arachnos is a Plant dom because you don't have to worry about nasty things like auto-hit defense debuff, Mu sapping your endurance, or banes placating you for free crits when they're all using the powers on each other.  Caveat: Fortunata Mistresses have very high confuse resists and can dish out a lot of psi damage very fast, so when things go wrong that's usually why.  (they are managed with stacking holds or kiting with immobilize powers).  On the other hand sometimes Toxic Tarantulas will venom grenade a whole mob for you and that's pretty slick.

 

that said, I agree that when fighting them "honestly" the biggest issues are defense debuff (especially if the defense is coming from IOs or other sources with minimal DDR) and the fact that things like endurance drain and slow effects start getting really obnoxious in long fights.   Blind too is very annoying if you are only relying on yellows (even with tactics) if the insps dry up.  My overall pick would probably be Dark Armor with its massive heal, high resistances to nasty things like end drain and psi, and Cloak of Darkness' perception boost.

Yeah, I can see a Plant Dom, or any other Dom/Controller with AoE Confuse really do a number on them, heh. All those debuffs be it Defense, To-Hit, -Perception, -Recovery or even -Damage can all very quickly work in your favor, since they seem to unload all of those abilities up front. That would be fun to watch sometime.  🙂

As far as Vanden goes, yes, he can be a bit snarky sometimes, but overall he's a good guy and very helpful. So I cut him some slack. One thing about Vanden is that he will have your back if he agrees with you and point out why he does not agree with you when he doesn't. He doesn't play favorites or doesn't seem to click up with groups, Vanden is just Vanden doing Vanden's thing. He was the same way on live, and one thing I do respect about him is his consistency. You never have to guess what type of guy he is going to be from one day to the next. And no, I don't "know" the guy persay, but I have seen him post enough over the many years to get used to how he posts.  😄

Edited October 13, 2020 by Solarverse

[nihilii]

SR with Ageless Destiny (left tree) is IMHO the go-to build for Arachnos. Ideally a Tanker, but a Brute or Scrapper might do. Stalkers might get a little light on HP.

 

As mentioned, there is at least one Tarentula Mistress (lieutenant) per spawn, guaranteed, and their defense debuff being autohit means you need the DDR. Then, Ageless gives you enough +recovery to sustain your attack chain and essentially ignore endurance drains.

More power to people that can, but I have never been able to do reliably well against +4/x8 Arachnos on a resistance build. Including Fire Armor with Consume, or Elec Armor with capped S/L defense, and more. I will be OK, as long as I pop lucks/Barrier/Shadow Meld and eliminate Tarentula Mistresses fast. But every now and then I slip up, and death happens. This is why I have to give the nod to SR+Ageless. That combo doesn't rely on your own ability to be proactive, instead it just nullifies the two main Arachnos hurdles passively (well, you do have to click Ageless every 2 minutes, but basically you can do that on auto; as opposed to a short duration +DEF buff you want to pop in advance).

Make it SR/Dark or SR/Rad for a heal in the secondary. Or go ultimate damage output with SR/TW. SR/Claws could also keep them flattened on their back. Then you have a build that crushes, not merely handles, Arachnos.

[KaizenSoze]

11 hours ago, Solarverse said:

In my sig is a build that crushes Arachnos.

Yes, it does! I tried it out on the beta server.

 

Kill rate is a lot slower, but the safety is unmatched. Compared to my Blood Widow.

 

I also tried the build out against CoTs, Carnies, and Council. They went down noticeable faster than Arachnos.

 

Why energy melee? Given it's post nerf performance? The constant stunning is nice though.

[Solarverse]

1 minute ago, KaizenSoze said:

Yes, it does! I tried it out on the beta server.

 

Kill rate is a lot slower, but the safety is unmatched. Compared to my Blood Widow.

 

I also tried the build out against CoTs, Carnies, and Council. They went down noticeable faster than Arachnos.

 

Why energy melee? Given it's post nerf performance? The constant stunning is nice though.

I never got over the nerf, so I was compelled. My main Tank on live was an Invuln/Energy Tank. Once Will Power came out, I rerolled my Invuln to a WP/EM Tank. I shelved him after the Energy Transfer nerf, but I had to make him here again anyway. I have always been a fan of all the Energy Classes. In fact, my main Blaster is Energy/Energy, so go figure, heh. 

Once the ET nerf is hopefully reversed, I will be right as rain and Energy Melee will no longer be the "meh" child of CoH, lol.

[Tath99]

My friend and I were discussing somewhat around this subject recently.  Ultimately to defeat the hardest foes, I put it to him, you have to defeat certain enemy groups at their own game:

• Rules of Engagement: Rule the fight.  Open the fight on your terms.  Control distance.
• Longbow and Arachnos come at you with strong debuffs.  -perception, -to hit, -end and more.  Debuff them first.  Harder.

The -perception and -hit are a case in point.  If you can open with making yourself harder to see, harder to hit from the get go, you can overcome the numbers and maybe sweep the entire group of minions off the board as a threat.  Then you can focus on the bosses.  Or the immediate threat.  The trick is laying down the initial debuff without being overwhelmed by any mass retaliation strike.

 

It may be Queensbury rules to square off with a mob and dive in regardless but it can be safer to inflict "dirty tricks" and ambushes.   

 

A little Trickery and maybe a few arrows.  😉

[Nemu]

15 hours ago, Vanden said:

Tarantula Mistresses have an auto-hit -25% defense debuff that they love to use.

Is it autohit though?

 

 

This is the reason that I shifted away from building for S/L/E/F/C softcap to S/L/R softcap on my blasters.

[KaizenSoze]

Side note, if Arachnos are not "fun" enough for you.

 

Try any of the AE 801.x missions. I didn't make them, but whoever did know how to make nasty mobs.

[KaizenSoze]

39 minutes ago, Tath99 said:

My friend and I were discussing somewhat around this subject recently.  Ultimately to defeat the hardest foes, I put it to him, you have to defeat certain enemy groups at their own game:

• Rules of Engagement: Rule the fight.  Open the fight on your terms.  Control distance.
• Longbow and Arachnos come at you with strong debuffs.  -perception, -to hit, -end and more.  Debuff them first.  Harder.

The -perception and -hit are a case in point.  If you can open with making yourself harder to see, harder to hit from the get go, you can overcome the numbers and maybe sweep the entire group of minions off the board as a threat.  Then you can focus on the bosses.  Or the immediate threat.  The trick is laying down the initial debuff without being overwhelmed by any mass retaliation strike.

 

It may be Queensbury rules to square off with a mob and dive in regardless but it can be safer to inflict "dirty tricks" and ambushes.   

 

A little Trickery and maybe a few arrows.  😉

I agree. Especially, since I am usually fighting Arachnos with a Blood Widow build.

 

I get all the same tricks and use them. 🙂

[Nemu]

Sometime overwhelming damage trumps any survival you put into a build. I have a similar issue with my bane. Fantastic res/def on paper but takes forever to kill spawns due to lack of burst AoE and slow animations. I imaging widows are in a similar boat, you fight a war of attrition and the lack of burst AoE will be your undoing when you drag the fight out. All those little hits from fodder adds up and when the -def starts stacking that's when things really go down the toilet.

 

My blasters on the other hand just nukes/AoEs the spawns, and do it fast enough to activate mob fear AI which makes even bosses run. Splash in some soft controls and enough defense to not die from the alpha and they just roll through the same mobs compared to the bane. And if they are going to die, at least they'll take out the mobs as well in a blaze of glory.

[KaizenSoze]

2 minutes ago, Nemu said:

Sometime overwhelming damage trumps any survival you put into a build. I have a similar issue with my bane. Fantastic res/def on paper but takes forever to kill spawns due to lack of burst AoE and slow animations. I imaging widows are in a similar boat, you fight a war of attrition and the lack of burst AoE will be your undoing when you drag the fight out. All those little hits from fodder adds up and when the -def starts stacking that's when things really go down the toilet.

 

My blasters on the other hand just nukes/AoEs the spawns, and do it fast enough to activate mob fear AI which makes even bosses run. Splash in some soft controls and enough defense to not die from the alpha and they just roll through the same mobs compared to the bane. And if they are going to die, at least they'll take out the mobs as well in a blaze of glory.

You are correct about Banes, there are two threads discussing their issues in the VEAT forum.

 

Night Widows can have such high defense with perma Mind Link and 85% psi resists. That they can duke it out with Arachnos and they have much better AOE than banes.

 

Fortunata builds have a massive burst AOE, AIM->Psychic Wail->Spin most minions are dead and the lts are stunned and going ouch. Plus a bag of controls, claws, and ranged attacks.

 

Also, Widows and Fortunatas get scaling resists based on health. Banes do not, instead they get better -resist powers.

 

The Achilles Heel of Arachnos, except Crab builds with serum, is low points. Low hps plus def debuffs and some bad RND. Spat!

[Hew]

6 hours ago, DreadShinobi said:

Electric armor typically fairs very well against factions that other sets struggle with sporting psionic resists and capped energy resists, end drain and slow resists, a self heal and regeneration, then slap on soft capped S/L def with your IO slotting. Carnies, Malta, and Arachnos will little different than council.

I don't know why electric armor gets so low usage here. It is actually a pretty top tier armor, with all sorts of utility! Combine that with aggressively going after arachnos lts  and select boss targets (widows, tms, BANES!!!) helps a lot, but elec has end management built in to help not get your blue bar floored. Really though, if you get blinded by a widow or the like, a bane has a good chance of smoking you when you arent looking with crits. They HURT!

[Arcanum]

Recommended Powerset: Boot Heel

*squishes spiders*

[Carnifax]

Just now, GM Arcanum said:

Recommended Powerset: Boot Heel

*squishes spiders*

😤

For shame. Spiders are amazing. All spiders in my house are sacrosanct (and also named Basil. Even the moms and their delightfully weird egg sacs)

[Vanden]

2 hours ago, Nemu said:

Is it autohit though?

The info window doesn't mention if powers are autohit, and it doesn't show up in the combat log, but I've never seen it miss, even on characters with substantial Ranged defense, or when I've aggroed very grey Tarantula Mistresses in Grandville.

[Luminara]

18 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Do you have any builds make Arachnos look like Council?

 

Hm... no.  None of my characters can even sew.  I can offer them directions to the nearest Icon/Facemaker, though.  I'm reasonably certain they have Council outfits in stock.