Crabmind general questions

[Dixa]

In light of this thread...

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20120905230405/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=286886

 

...I am looking at making a crabmind. I have never played the veat's and the regular at's are starting to bore me for various reasons. I generally play MM's.

 

Having never played the class, I am curious on how well it survives. I mean the guy solo'd pylons without dying and his times on the stalker post without lore pets was still sub 2 minutes (fully io and incarnate obviously) but I don't see any self healing in his build at all.

 

So how is it to level one of these things without being powerlevelled in teams? I can't find a single youtube video of a crabmind solo'ng an av even level or higher so if anyone has any experience with that it would be much appreciated.

 

thanks

[Adeon Hawkwood]

So I had a Crabmind on live. They can solo just fine. Even with basic enhancements they were solid soloers, adding IOs and Incarnate took them from decent to excellent. They play very well on teams due to their built in Leadership powers but since those also affect them they can solo just fine. I can't comment on their ability to solo AVs though since that was never really my thing.

 

Regarding survivability they are pretty tough. Stacking Tactical Training: Maneuvers and Combat Training: Defensive and Fortification gives them pretty decent Defense and Resistance that you can build on with IOs (and pool powers). It's relatively straightforward to softcap ranged defense from there although softcapping all positionals is harder.

 

They do have a self heal in the form of Serum although since it's a clone of Dull Pain the recharge is quite long. Getting the MaxHP boost from it permanent isn't that hard since a Crabmind needs perma-haste anyway if they want permanent pets. In my case though I supplemented Serum with the Rebirth Destiny power for extra healing (this was also nice since it healed my pets).

[SirJeal]

I'd also like to state that the Crabbermind pets on their own overall are technically "stronger" baseline than Mastermind pets. Sure you can't command them, but since they are actual mobs that you summon they have higher base hp and such that matches the mob type and rank they are. So a Lt level mob would actually be like a Lt level mob, rather than say a Tier 2 MM pet that has little hp difference between a T1 MM pet.