Crabber wishlist

[Neiska]

Hello fellow Soldiers!

 

I just wanted to post my musings and wishlists for the AT, if/when it ever recieves an update. "Crabber" is definately my favorte AT playstyle wise, but sadly it does seem to stumble a bit on higher level content, at least when solo. The upside is I have never been turned down for any team, and often people are pretty much "horray a crabber".

 

But here are some things I just wish they would improve upon. I don't believe anything is really overpowering, but there are better folks than me with heads for maths who may say otherwise. I still have my fingers crossed that they consider this AT worth looking at, because last I looked not many people played them at all. But one can always hope!

 

1. The Pets. Compaired to other pets, I would say ours are fairly weak. Going to break this one down to a few sub-points.

 

1a. Pet fragility. Firstly, they are fairly fragile, even the "tanky" spiders. IIRC, their defenses (without barrier) end up around 32(ish)%. Aside from our toggles, we have no way to help them either unless you spend incarnates to do so. You are more or less forced to decide between Barrier or Rebirth, to either make them more defensive for a time, or to be able to heal them all once every 2 minutes. I have tried both, and on higher difficulties (4/8 w/ bosses) they still seem to die every other spawn. Most builds focus on achieving "permapet" status, which I never really understood if you are playing on easier content. But on harder content, it doesnt matter how fast they can be resummoned, as they are going to splat anyway.

 

Suggested fixes: Maybe bump their base defenses just a little, it wouldnt take very much. I would say even a 5% bump would make a large difference. Or mabye a new recharge pet IO set with a new aura as well. 

 

Another fix that I would like considered would be some sort of "taunt" ability to be added to the crabber. The crabber can actually achieve near tank levels of resistance (85%), but has no way to capitalize on it. Crabber also has several excessive attacks, one of which could be changed out for a taunt. It could even be a weaker taunt, it need not be brute/tanker levels of aggro. but something to pull things off your pets would be a fantastic addition to the class, as well as give something additional to do than to spam the 3 same attacks. I have tried provoke, which was mostly unsuccessful and dicey at best, as well as costing a pool power slot which most builds simply dont have room for. I have also tried the Melee Support hybrid, because it specifically says that it taunts, but it must be a fairly weak one becuase things sure don't stick very long. It certianly isnt a taunt for the full duration.

 

1b. Pet damage. They don't really have an AoE, as the little spiderbots just run in as speedbumps, and the bigger spiders shoot once or twice, and then run in as well, where they get stomped fairly quickly. Even the epic pool pets are middling at best. (although wonderful for theme!). Personally the best use I found for them was using them as DPS cooldowns to help "mop up" the final mobs of each spawn, namely bosses/elite bosses. They do pretty decent single target damage if they all pile onto the same target, but since we don't have Mastermind commands, we cant "tell" them to do that, so either you plan for that in advance, or hope for circumstances to be in your favor.

 

Suggested fixes: I am not expecting huge sweeping damage changes, instead I would like to suggest that the spiders remain melee, and the larger ones have all ranged attacks. That way they wouldnt just run in and get creamed. Maybe even add on an AoE ranged attack for the bigger spiders. Again, I underline their damage is pretty decent for pets, its just their mechanics (shoot once, run in) that I think is the issue. And they arent really tough enough to do much for very long on harder content.

 

Another highlight I would like to mention for not just Crabber pets, but all recharge pets in general is that they do not benifit from the "double effectiveness" support hybrid, which leaves support of questionable use to anyone else but Masterminds. Which begs the question, which Hybrid is intended for Crabberminds? I've heard some folks having mixed results with Assualt + popping pets, but I can never seem to get my pets to benifit from it. Melee hybrid is of middling use as well, which essentially leaves the hybrid slot as a big "bleh" for crabbers. I am not expecting any sort of special hybrid power, but a fix for the "support double effect on pets" would be a welcome sight not just for crabbers, but any AT that uses recharge pets.

 

2. The Attacks. For the most part, every crabber takes the same few attacks - Venom Grenade, Suppression, a filler of choice. The other attacks simply arent worth taking, as either the animations take too long, or they don't do enough damage to be worth considering. Which is a real shame, considering the Crabber Backpacks attacks look pretty awesome in melee. Overall their attacks are strong AoE wise, not in terms of damage, but in terms of they can pour on nearly a constant stream of AoE nearly every attack. Not many other AT's can boast such, not even blasters. So while their damage per activation is subpar, the fact its almost always AoE they basically "chew" through groups of enemies. It just might take awhile. Lets not even speak about the T9 power, omega maneuvers. I think it is one of the WORST T9's out of all the ATs. It has an extremely large recharge time, only middling damage, the taunt is "alright" but the long fuse on it makes it marginal use at best. The recharge on it is too long for it to be very useful when Solo, and when on teams they usually move so fast your Omega bomb is simply too slow to really hit much, and when it does its more or less just an extra Shot or two with Supression in terms of damage. The only use I have found for Omega is not as an attack power, but to drop as a taunt to help try and save pets. (they are going to do more damage than it will anyway.) But it's not very successful as a taunt-trap either.

 

Suggested fixes: On the T9, either reduce the cooldown on it, make the taunt stronger, or increase the damage. Or mabye a mixture of them all. Because as it is, its simply not worth taking or even using if it was free. The ranged attacks feel like they are in a good spot, but I would suggest making a difference between the melee and ranged attacks. Mabye the melee attacks do more damage, while the ranged retained the built in debuff effects. That way you could swap modes depending on what you needed, as well as encourage different builds and crabber playstyles.

 

3. Lack of combat options: By this I mean, all crabbers are more or less the same. A few good toggle buffs, with a few fragile dps pets, with some ranged debuff attacks that do middling damage. Which is sad, because as before Crabbers actually have a high resistance cap, but zero way to take adavantage of it in a build or use it on a team. If they had a taunt, they could perform the "offtank" role if need be, as well as help their fragile pets survive. Another thing I would like to point out is the buff/toggles themselves, the only outstanding feature they have to call their own is the 10% Maneuvers, and thats it for the most part. Which is of questionable use later on, when most folks are close to or near the defense cap anyway. It's a welcome feature to be sure, but hardly anything to base an AT around. I suppose my point is that the Crabbermind doesn't really have any role or support. Simply being there helps the team with damage buffs, and its mediocure debuffs, but others have far better buffs/debuffs.

 

Suggeted fixes: I would compare the buff and debuff values/powers damage/pet values against others. Becuase even when "redlining" the crabber, it seems rather lackluster. When homecoming first launched you would see them now and then, but now I rarely see any others. They were never a popular AT to begin with, but I still feel they are behind other ATs in their respective catagories. The toolkit for crabbers just lacks oomph and a defining role. Either its debuffs could be stronger, or its damage could be bumped up (But only a little bit, I don't think they would need much.)

 

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Again, this is just me musing and making a wishlist of changes for my Favorite AT. It's my favorite class, but also one of my weakest which is a bummer, I do love the playstyle and feel of it. It does indeed feel like a ranged tanker of sorts. Like a mobile piece of artillery, even if it is a weak one. (by weak i dont mean in terms of dps, i just mean what the class has overall.)

 

Other imput is certainly welcome! I'm not hoping for a total rehash or even that they make them OP or anything. It just feels like they really need a bump or two compaired to whats possible with everything else nowdays.

 

Thanks bunches! And best wishes.

 

TLDR - Please look at the pet defensive/offensive values, fix the support hybrid "bonus effect on pets" for all recharge pets, possibly add a taunt to the AT, and make it matter if you pick the backpack melee or ranged attacks. And do whatever it takes to make the T9 worth taking and using. Even if it was a new power entirely, that might be better whan what we have now.

[tidge]

There is a lot to digest there... but I will say that my Crabs have never felt the need to have any kind of Taunt, despite my personal appreciation of the Presence pool. (I skip Presence on my Crabs because of Serum.) Provoke is IMO better than any non-aura Taunt, except that of Tanks, for 98% of content.... the VEATs already have a beefy Threat factor.

 

I have a very different opinion of the pets (which are all "recharge intensive"). I'm mostly satisfied with them (including a Patron pet).

[Omega-202]

I do not have the time today to go through this wishlist point by point, but I basically disagree with everything in the OP.  There are a number of things that are just incorrect and some other things that, if changed as OP is suggesting, would just break the balance of the AT completely.  

 

Crabs are in a really solid place and I don't think they need any boosts.  

[Neiska]

Well, lets agree to disagree then. I don't feel they are in a solid place at all, and I have leveled 4 of them now with around 8 different builds and setups in total. Not sure what content others do, but personally I find anything over 3/8 to be pretty tiedious. And not everyone wants to have a build with 3-4 spammed powers, focus entirely on recharge, for lackluster permaspider sort of builds. 

[mcdoogss]

I for one am not sure how a AT being fairly easy to softcap def, plus 50+ res to all non-psionic dmg types, plus having a legitimate ranged AOE rotation, plus pets, plus a dull pain power, is not in a ‘solid place’. 
 

Now Bane Spiders on the other hand...

[Neiska]

I never said it was in a bad place. On teams it is pretty decent. Solo on the other hand, not so much. And its not its defenses that's the issue, its defenses are actually pretty solid.  Its the lack of support options for pets as well as offence besides its aoe rotation. I am currently working on numbers to post but cant post them right this minute.

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, Neiska said:

I never said it was in a bad place. On teams it is pretty decent. Solo on the other hand, not so much. And its not its defenses that's the issue, its defenses are actually pretty solid.  Its the lack of support options for pets as well as offence besides its aoe rotation. I am currently working on numbers to post but cant post them right this minute.

You can reliably keep the pets at or near the defense cap at level 50.  I honestly have no problem keeping them alive with 75%+ up time solo at 4/8. 

 

This might be a "learn to play" issue.  

[Neiska]

That is certainly possible @Omega-202. But as I said I like to think this is a healthy respectful discussion, and I make no claims to be the kiss elbow bestest crabber player. 

 

Anyway, here are the stats of the pets (mine at least) ingame -

 

Spiderling - 
30.94% defense (all)
resistances - 40% s/l, 50% psi, 20% fire, cold, energy, negative, toxic resistance

 

Disruptor -
30.94% defense (all)
resistances - 30% S, L, 40% energy, 50% psi, 20% toxic, negative, fire resistance

 

The defense calculations are as follows -

5% base defense, 16% Tactical Toggle, 4.95% Maneuvers, 5% edit of the master IO.

 

And to be certain I double checked the Support Core t4 ingame, and it gives 12% defense. So with support core activated, everything has a 42% defense. Aside from barrier and pet resist aura IOs, there is nothing we can really do for their resists (solo at least.) So as far as the pets are concerned, the only way to I can keep them defense capped is to alternate Support Hybrid/Barrier, but even then they still end up dying on me, and since I used my incarnate slot on Barrier, I don't have rebirth or any way to really heal them. 

 

So what ends up happening, if I spawn them at the start of a spawn, they will last that spawn, but will get steamrolled on the next one. Or if I save them to pop them to help "mop up", they help me finish off the bosses/EBs, but then they get steamrolled on the next spawn.

 

Far as the pet attacks go, the spiders just run in but that shouldn't surprise anyone. The Disruptors Shoot once or twice, and then run in themselves. I have even tried staying at range, by using things like Web Grenade to keep things away, but the Spiderlings and Disruptors still run in and get creamed, so its kind of a moot point.

 

I would like to re-iterate that the pet damage feels fine, its just they cant really hold up for melee, for me when solo at least. It feels like an AI + attack type interaction. I mean, if you guys see something I am missing to keep my pets from dying every spawn then I am all ears. Because I have even tried a "Crabber Lord" sort of setup, to try and make pets as good as possible, and they still got creamed. I've even tried things like provoke, melee hybrid (for the taunt), with the thought that since I am far tougher than my pets, if I could keep enemies focused on me, the pets would live far longer. It wasn't that successful.

 

I still think our T9 is pretty... bad. It has a 600 second cooldown, only does supreme damage, and has a fairly weak taunt. Its too long of a cooldown to really be useful as a taunt, and doesn't do any damage or debuffs. As I mentioned in my first post, the only way ive really found use for it was to use it as a sort of emergency taunt to try and save a pet thats about to die. But even then, the range on it is fairly small, and you have no control over what it taunts really. If you guys use this one regularly, I am all ears far as how/why on that as well.

 

I do agree with all of you that Crabbers have a pretty solid AoE chain, nearly every attack is solid as far as AoE is concerned. Where it stumbles for me is when fighting elite bosses/boss ranks, they just take so long to die without my pets. And since they are already dead usually, I am stuck spamming my attacks until either the boss dies, or my pets come off recharge. 

 

Far as patron/epic pools go, I usually go for Mace Mastery mostly for the web grenade, shatter armor for bosses, and the thematic pet. I have read that Mu and/or Leviathan is the superior choice though. I have used Mu time to time, but I wasn't really impressed. The only attack that seemed good was Mu Lighting to help down bosses, but Shatter Armor from Mace Mastery seemed better for that. 

 

I have heard people tout Leviathans damage, pointing to the -toxic res from Artic Breath and Venom Grenade, and then using Bile Spray for the Toxic damage cone. I have not tried this yet, and it's sort of difficult to guess what the damage might be like in Mids.

 

I still stand by my opinion about "attack bloat" for the crab attacks. I mean if its fine, why does so few people take things like slice, arm lash, etc, and pretty much every build I have seen both here in forums and in discord say all the crabber melee abilities are trash? If they are all trash, couldn't they be made better and worth using somehow? The only one that I personally use regularly is Frenzy, because its fantastic for farming. 

 

Anyway, I am not saying the AT overall is "bad" by any means. It is great for teams. I am just saying their solo game feels kind of a struggle. It takes so long to kill bosses/elite bosses for me solo on 4/8, that I either just turn them off or do missions on 3/8. 

 

But this is getting longer than I intended, I do hope that people will provide specific examples of what I may be missing or why they feel as they do. I mean, it very well could be a "L2P" issue, but I don't think that it is. I might be missing a tool or option, but if so I can't really think of anything that it could be. You guys say your pets are fine on 4/8 with bosses, but mine crumple like paper every other spawn, and no matter what I do or try, I can't make them solid enough to rely on. And since mine die, I suspect that's a huge chunk of my damage I'm missing, and why I stumble vs bosses/elite bosses when solo. But that's just me musing.

 

Looking forward to replies. And nothing I posted is meant to offend, only to disagree and I really am hoping that there is either something I am missing out on or not doing correctly that you guys can point out. Because out of all my 50s my crabber is my favorite one to play, but also the only one who struggles on 4/8 solo, and it is kind of depressing.

 

Best wishes!

[Six-Six]

I'm with Omega on this one. I think the crab is in a fairly solid place. And without meaning any disrespect, I do think you need to get to know your pets a little better. Sometimes the stats don't translate directly to actual play. As for spamming 3 attacks, no one's limiting you to just 3 or 4 attacks. My tankermind crab has 4 melee attacks including Shatter armour from BS pool, 3 ranged attacks (4 if you count web envelope which I rarely use except for pesky runners), 6 pets (blaster, reinforcements, spiderlings)--of which 3 are always by my side and rarely die before they expire. I do have the ginormous Toxic Tarantula T4 lore pet (and another giant spider from Recluse Victory in the pocket), but they rarely comes out to play since I rarely have need of them.

Teaming with your spider. Just showing up with your double dipped Leadership is enough. Any damage, debuff, or tanking you do is just icing on the cake.

My crab can solo an ITF at +2 or +3, Tank one at +4 without breaking a sweat. My usual attack chain is: open with Venom to soften them up, follow up with Suppression, jump in with Arm lash and Frenzy (and Slice/Shatter), then frag to disperse them again, jump back for another suppression. The recharge is fast enough that either just melee attacks or just range attacks are almost always up when i need them. The pets just do clean up. Armour holds up and rarely dips low enough to need Serum. And I don't even have any purples slotted (save for Panacea and a couple of Shield Walls IIRC)... I'm a cheapskate with many alts to feed. I did spring for the ATOs which I think are two of the best ATOs there are.

You can take provoke from presence pool, if you opt for a taunt. I don't think you do if you open with either venom nade, frag or suppression as the attack will draw aggro to you anyway. but if you do, it does open up Unrelenting which you can supplement Serum with (though I think Serum + the villain alignment power is enough).

I also have a pure Bane who cannot handle 4x8, but can solo an AV and a few GMs. The mace attack is slow so cycling through 4 or 5 is all right for her.

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Six Six

[Omega-202]

@Neiska

(1) Yes the recharge on OM is probably too long, but when its up, it sound like you're using it completely wrong.  You drop it into a mob to start a fight, not midway.  It won't save your pets midfight, but it will soak the alpha, cluster enemies and then knock them on their butt.  And while it's too long, you can still stagger OM and Judgement every other spawn usually, so you have a nuke to soften things up and open the fight.  

 

(2) The "knock them on their butt" part seems to be part of your pet survivability issues.  With Ragnarok in VG, Frag Grenade and the Dominion Fear Proc in Suppression, you can. asically lockdown half of a mob with soft control.  I can usually have bosses on their ass 50% of a fight, not attacking me or my pets.  By the time minions and Lts are standing up from the initial volley, they're basically dead, even on +4/8.  

 

(3) You went Mace, so therefore you're probably in melee a lot.  The pets don't survive as well in melee.  By comparison, if you went Mu and stayed at range, the Spiderlings don't all clump up in the center of a spawn following you, and instead will stick to range for the first bit of the fight before diving in.  Additionally, without Mu Lightning or Gloom, of course your single target DPS rotation feels bad.  Shatter Armor is great, but for day to day DPS, the good patron blasts are much more useful (in my opinion), especially when procced out.

 

I really think this is a L2P issue.  No offense meant.  

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Six Six said:

I'm with Omega on this one. I think the crab is in a fairly solid place. And without meaning any disrespect, I do think you need to get to know your pets a little better. Sometimes the stats don't translate directly to actual play.

This is where I land as well. Crabbermind pets require a different sort of thinking than that of Masterminds or Controllers/Dominators/Defenders/Corruptors.

 

The OP's immediate concern appears to be on the pet survivability, but I believe that sort of thinking is backing the OP into a cramped, dark corner. There is plenty of advice in this sub-forum that can guide the OP away from there.

 

Now, if anyone wants to propose that the Spiderlings get a third attack (preferably ranged)... I'll be behind that with no other changes. It presumably wouldn't radically change the AI behavior but it should help... unfortunately I think the side effect of such a change would be that more folks would simply want them to become MM pets.

[Six-Six]

@tidge I won't mind. I'm currently learning my first MM. and I think it would be great to have more attacks as well as more control over the robotic spiders. They could be in the form of power picks, so you have to sacrifice a couple of personal attacks to equip your pets with another attack and/or control... which makes you closer to an MM if you so choose. Or it could be a 3rd path altogether... making a total of 4: the huntsman, bane, crab, and brood mother.

incidentally, I propose that all the spider pets get a Fear aura, because c'mon they're huge spiders. I also propose that this aura be called the Heebeegeebees. 

 

[tidge]

As I wrote at length in one of the weekly threads: I'm perfectly happy with where Crab VEATS are, and this include the way pets function. I don't want to rehash all of those posts, but I will try to summarize my opinion as: The pet powers play different roles for the different ATs; any desire to standardize the behavior of pets across classes (MM, "Controllers", Crabs, as well as ATO-spawned, Epic and Incarnate pets) is deprioritizing the different roles those pets play. Personally: I don't like the Fury mechanic, so I don't play Brutes. I'm not asking for the mechanic to be changed to be more like the ATs that don't have it... I'll play those ATs.

 

The VEATs are all really quite strong across almost all content, and that includes leveraging the Crab pets. The only part of the ban against making public videos is that we can't obviously demonstrate such things to disbelievers.

[mcdoogss]

I'd definitely recommend popping spiderlings out for hard targets, they possess no AOE attacks and thus are fairly useless clearing x8 spawns.  Also like others said, being in melee will get them to follow you into melee sooner than they otherwise would.  I also wouldnt expect them to survive long in a x4/x8 especially in melee, remember they spawn as your level -2.  Btw, with all pets out if you can keep the aggro on the player (since a good build can survive most single targets), you are in contention for the highest single target DPS in the game.

 

We won't get fine-tuned MM pet control or bodyguard mode or the kind of pet balance that henchmen get.  Nor should we since the crab spider is vastly more powerful on it's own than the MM.  The crab is pretty unique as it's the S-tier ranged AOE tankmage, plus pets.  I think this whole thread is down to incredibly unrealistic expectations, because the crab spider is already a powerhouse, but that status comes as a hybrid that can do several things at once very well.  It sounds like you want to be able to melee like a stalker/scrapper, blast like a blaster, tank like a brute, with pets like a MM.  Sorry, you can only do a couple of those things at once with one build but at least Crabs are about the only AT that can.

 

Omega Manuever does suck though, I dropped it. +4 spawns are hurting badly enough after a Venom -> Suppression -> frag -> ball lightning(or dark obliteration) rotation that its down to mopping up with a seamless ST rotation longfang -> mu lightning(or gloom) -> channel gun.   Bile spray in particular is nasty but leviathan's ST attack has a ludicrously long animation unfortunately

Edited December 13, 2020 by mcdoogss

[Neiska]

Well, I'm sensing a bit of snark with a few peoples replies, which is what I had hoped to avoid.

 

I don't think the AT is as good as some people are claiming it out to be. I am not sure what activates they are using to base their claims upon, and I would argue that the activity in question really matters when making such claims. And a few seem to be thinking I said things when I never did. I never asked for bodyguard mode, or MM commands/control. I never asked for a change in pets attacks, aside from maybe changing their attack types, or maybe changing one to an AoE attack. I even made it a point to mention several times that pet damage was fine.

 

And I am sorry, but the claim of saying Crabbers are S tier ATs made me spit out my tea. I am not sure what people are comparing them to in order to say such a thing. Tankers, Brutes, and even Widows and Scrappers for example when well built can be entirely hands free on the hardest content. (I am not asking for crabbers to be this way at all, only using that as an example for AT comparison.)

 

I also noticed some points of mine have never been addressed -

-Support Hybrid "double effectiveness" bug doesn't work on pets. Thoughts? Should it be fixed, not for crabbers sake, but for all ATs with recharge pets?

-Several of the Crabbers melee attacks are sub-par, even mentioned so by many people, several times, in any request for crabber build. Should these remain completely untouched? Because 99% of builds I see "never" use them, and if nobody ever uses them, what's the point of them?

-Our pets while are good offensively, defensively they are sub par. Other Pet ATs are not forced to use incarnate powers in order to make their pets have capped defenses/good resistances, where crabbers are. Other ATs with pets get tools, heals, buffs, or some way to help their pets. Crabbers have only their toggles, making us entirely reliant on incarnates as our only tools for them. This is fine?

-A lot of what people say "use suppression, frag grenade" and say that is a ton of aggro I find questionable, as I do exactly that, and my pets still end up dying, or else we wouldn't even be here. I would think we all aggre that 99% of all crabbers spam suppression and frag grenade on cooldown.

-Some people pointed out "don't go into melee", which sort of makes me tilt my head. Because crabbers don't exactly do enough damage quick enough to keep them from running in, and don't have any baseline CC powers unless you take web grenade from mace, or electrical fences from Mu. But its more or less a moot point, because even if you CC things, your spiderlings are going to run in anyway, wither you are in melee or not. I mean spiderlings even chase a mob off and aggros the next group, and you cant even stop them from doing that. Melee pets, are gonna melee, because they have no other attacks, and you cant tell them to do otherwise.

 

I am not out to paint crabbers as a terrible AT, I do agree they are fairly decent. They aren't the worst, but they certainly aren't the best either. And they certainly aren't worth the glowing reviews that people seem to be claiming. Some of which, makes me quite dubious. And I say this as a Crabber fan. It is difficult to give examples of what I am talking about, without being able to post videos to go by. But some of the comments here really make me scratch my head. I am not a fresh 50 crabber, as I said I have leveled 4 of them, my highest one is around vet level 40 with all of her main incarnates being T4 rank. I have played crabber quite a bit. Now I will admit that it can be a L2P issue, but people saying use 2 of the main attacks in the cycle and you will be fine, when its not, does make me giggle a little. 

 

I do think the melee abilities should be tweaked to make them worth taking and using, a single tool for pets would be a welcome addition, wither its a taunt, or a heal, or a cc ability, or "something" with the "baseline" AT power-set, so we aren't pigeon holed into specific incarnate abilities just to make our pets useable at higher difficulty content.  

 

But lets try some more direct questions then -

1. What destiny power do you use to keep your pets alive? Barrier, or Rebirth?

2. What Hybrid power do you use? Support?

3. Is there any truth to using Assualt Hybrid and then activating pets during its cycle? I recall reading that affects pets, but I don't see the buff icon on them anywhere.

4. Leviathan pool - worth using for the -toxic res stacking + bile spray for damage, or no?

 

Again, I would like to underline that I am not saying the AT is bad or broken, only that there are room for improvements, certainly where viable builds are concerned, because as it stands everyone is more or less shoe-horned into the same sort of build setups, which are - permapets, spam suppression, spam frag, get 2 or so high damage single target powers for bosses. But if there were few small tweaks made, I believe the AT is solid enough to open up other viable builds and playstyles.

 

Best wishes  

[KaizenSoze]

Not taking side, since I know very little about crab soldiers.

 

I think one way to resolve the contrasting views would be to copy chars over to the beta server and test them out together.

 

You cannot record videos, but you can do screenshots. I was able to demonstrate how effective the new trick arrow changes were but posting screen shots of me wiping out 4x8 council in under a min.

 

Otherwise, it's feels like posters are just talking past each other.

 

I will say I do consider the pylon tests to be of limited value. Galaxy Brain's testing missions are a much better predictor of "real" world performance. IMO.

[Two Dollar Bill]

I've played multiple variations of every archetype except Stalker, and my favorite character is my Crab Spider. So, in that regard, I think the Archetype is great and it doesn't need buffing to make it fun or playable. Maybe every ability isn't amazing, but I don't think any are trash and we have a good variety of viable builds.

I have a bad habit of examining the build of every Crab Spider I encounter and taking a screenshot of it, so I would like to offer this unscientific sample for whatever it's worth and just say that my own observations do not match those of the OP. I find that Crab Spider builds are actually quite varied and people have fun with pretty-much all the powers, even if they are not all perfect.

 

This was an all-VEAT Operative Renault Strike Force from a couple weeks ago. We had 2 Night Widows, 1 Fortunata, 2 Bane Spiders and 3 Crab Spiders.

- Operative McStevens has every pet power including Omega Maneuver (though we did tend to steamroll over it).

- Dread-Hunter has all three of the regular spider pet powers, as well as Slice and Arm Lash. Level 50/76 with excellent IO sets, so seems happy with this build.

- Operative Borelli (me) has Call Reinforcements, Slice and Arm Lash and I can attest that the melee attacks are in my normal attack chain and many a foolish mook has been slain by those spidery cyborg appendages.

 

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[Neiska]

@Two Dollar Bill- that screenie of all those spider team buffs makes me wana cry. 😂

[drbuzzard]

I'm actually going support the OP here and say I also find the pets to be too flimsy for my liking. Of course I'm not a big fan of pet classes in general, but I did make a crabbermind build for my crab, and while the damage was most impressive while the little buggers were up, they died like mayflies. Sure it was great for soloing a pylon, since I'd stand back and blast and keep all the aggro so the pets could go to work, but on most other things (ITFs being a favorite), the spiders wouldn't last any time at all. Though given pylon times with the pets, having them be durable and faceroll easy to use would be too much.

 

Personally I'm an oddball and play my crab as a very durable blaster type. Given that the crab attacks are massively suck in DPAS(damage per animation second), I use the gun ones which are far better. I add in the GW pool attacks also since they are good DPAS. I basically just keep back hovering, and blast everything to bits in complete comfort and at minimal risk. On teams this makes everyone happy since I run double assault and maneuvers (and SoA tactics).

 

The stuff I would like to see are fairly small changes(no pet changes since the pet damage when up is what makes the AT verge on too powerful):

A) Omega Manuever sucks and shouldn't suck. No other offensive tier 9 that I can think of is nearly as clearly skippable. If someone takes this power it is for reasons I cannot comprehend. The recharge is ridiculously long for the damage. Then it's like a coffee break before it bothers to go off, making it all the more pathetic. It is clearly useless on teams, and solo, maybe it would keep aggro off the pets, but the uptime is so bad, you must really meander through missions for it to be consequential. I've played on another server where they adjusted the recharge to reflect the damage formula (or so I assume) and it recharges in 90 seconds base for the current damage (which makes sense since it is sentinel nuke level damage at the same recharge and about the same damage scalar). Just fix the recharge and make it go pop faster, and someone might have a real reason to take it.
B) Just about every other weapon set in the game has a no redraw option- give that to crabs. It's a big penalty for using PPP or pool powers in your attack chain, and I would just as soon it be gone.

[TheSpiritFox]

On 12/11/2020 at 12:51 PM, Omega-202 said:

I do not have the time today to go through this wishlist point by point, but I basically disagree with everything in the OP.  There are a number of things that are just incorrect and some other things that, if changed as OP is suggesting, would just break the balance of the AT completely.  

 

Crabs are in a really solid place and I don't think they need any boosts.  

The pets are the one area I disagree. Investing a ton into pet powers should have returns in all content and the pets squish absurdly easily. I personally think the defenses as they work are fine, but I think that crab pets need upwards of 50% resistance to all damage like the gun drone for blaster devices got 80 goddamn percent resistance to all damage. Granted, blasters can't defense buff their gun drone, but hey what's why innate 50% resistance instead of 80%. 

 

Crabs themselves I agree. I would like to see maybe like a 10% bump in damage on suppression just to make it a bit better DPA, but even that's just a "it would be nice"

 

The pets though? It really sucks to take them into an i-trial and realize that there's pretty much zero point in summoning them at all. Give the pets an innate 50% resistance, remove all melee attacks and make them all ranged only, and crab pets will suddenly be awesome without I think being in any way actually unbalanced. Keep the DPS the same, just make it ranged and give them resistance.