Which Widow & Why? (the skimpy version)

[tidge]

I enjoy my "Ranged/Control" Fortunata most, but it does suffer from a somewhat reduced amount of direct DPS by not having the melee attacks. I have tri-builds, so the other two builds focus on different approaches... yes, this could cost something resembling a "fortune" I suppose... but being a great team asset doesn't require a huge investment, except in power choices.

 

The build I enjoy most has this going for it (I haven't used respec in a while, but probably should given changes)

 

TK Blast (holding 5xATO Dominion of Arachnos)

Subdue (holding 6xATO Spider's Bite)

Dominate (Franken-slotted for damage and %damage)

 

^ I believe those three choices hurt my DPS quite a bit, partially because of their nature but mostly because it is where I invested the choice of powers and the slots... the single target weak sauce is somewhat sad! The 'better' perfoming options come from:

 

Psychic Scream (franken-slotted)

Psychic Wail (Armageddon)

Invoke Panic + Intimidate (from Presence)

Aura of Confusion + Confuse

 

Along with three attacks from Mu Mastery

 

I won't post the build, as it predates the last two rounds of major HC changes (earlier power picks, the recent VEAT change). I'm not crazy about how it leaned on the Mu Mastery set for more attacks. but they were also serving as a place for slots to get set bonuses I wanted. Because of the earlier power availability scheme, I fit in the team/leadership powers plus a rather full suite of Presence pool to supplement high positional defenses and scaling damage resistances. This character still goes through Hard Mode content pretty well despite not leveraging a more modern approach to power selections.

 

 

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

2 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

I don't understand this part. Please elaborate

 

Kaizen's response is correct but I'll dig into the details.

 

TPK = total party kill; a wipe. 

 

Contagious Confusion Proc = The proc IO from the Contagious Confusion Very Rare set has a chance to inflict a Mag 3 Confuse on an enemy that propagates to nearby enemies, which last 10 seconds. This 10 second Mag 3 Confuse from the proc will stack with the 27.5 second Mag 3 Confuse that Aura of Confusion has, meaning it will affect even bosses (during those first 10 seconds; if they aren't immune).

 

Because of the high Recharge on Aura of Confusion, even if you full slotted it for recharge you're guaranteed to have Contagious Confusion proc on at least one enemy in a large group, which will start the propagation.

That said, even without this endgame slotting Aura is still very strong for redirecting damage from LTs and Minions.

 

 

For the penultimate example of how Aura of Confusion can save your bacon, go to 3:00 of this Trapdoor run (Kanil's first from the eponymous thread) and watch how they go from almost dead to smearing the +4/8 Council and Arachnos against the walls.

Edited April 12 by twozerofoxtrot

[Scarlet Shocker]

8 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

Fire Aura of Confusion and pretty much every mob will start attack each other. Taking the pressure off the team.

 

I actually wondered what you meant by TPK. That is not a TLA I'm familiar with!

[Scarlet Shocker]

6 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

Kaizen's response is correct but I'll dig into the details.

 

TPK = total party kill; a wipe. 

 

Contagious Confusion Proc = The proc IO from the Contagious Confusion Very Rare set has a chance to inflict a Mag 3 Confuse on an enemy that propagates to nearby enemies, which last 10 seconds. This 10 second Mag 3 Confuse from the proc will stack with the 27.5 second Mag 3 Confuse that Aura of Confusion has, meaning it will affect even bosses (during those first 10 seconds; if they aren't immune).

 

Because of the high Recharge on Aura of Confusion, even if you full slotted it for recharge you're guaranteed to have Contagious Confusion proc on at least one enemy in a large group, which will start the propagation.

That said, even without this endgame slotting Aura is still very strong for redirecting damage from LTs and Minions.

 

 

For the penultimate example of how Aura of Confusion can save your bacon, go to 3:00 of this Trapdoor run (Kanil's first from the eponymous thread) and watch how they go from almost dead to smearing the +4/8 Council and Arachnos against the walls.

 

 

Thanks. That's what I needed to know. I am familiar with Contagious Confusion proc since I really enjoy plant as a power set and it turns Seeds of Confusion into something wonderful. It was mostly TPK. I've never heard that - I'm far more familiar with Team Wipe

 

Also very impressive run by Kanil.

 

Leads me on to my next question - do I mix and match powers from the Fortunata pools and the Training & Teamwork poos. It seems there's some useful powers in Widow Training and Teamwork

Edited April 12 by Scarlet Shocker

[twozerofoxtrot]

9 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Leads me on to my next question - do I mix and match powers from the Fortunata pools and the Training & Teamwork poos.

 

It's certainly an option. That's what I was referring to in my original response when discussing the so-called Blood Widow build.

[tidge]

20 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Leads me on to my next question - do I mix and match powers from the Fortunata pools and the Training & Teamwork poos. It seems there's some useful powers in Widow Training and Teamwork

 

With Fortunata, I don't reach outside the VEAT choices for "teamwork" powers, except possibly as some sort of very late power-pick that can also be an Enhancement mule. Earlier in builds I could usually find some number of power pool picks that (in my mind) improve some aspect of team performance or personal Quality-of-Life in a more obvious way.

[Scarlet Shocker]

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Struggling to copy my build to the forum but hopefully the data chunk will give something to go on. Very close to the Fortunata build in KaizenSoze's Intro thread. I'm pretty happy with it

 

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Struggling to copy my build to the forum but hopefully the data chunk will give something to go on. Very close to the Fortunata build in KaizenSoze's Intro thread. I'm pretty happy with it

 

I took a first hack at it. Tried to stay somewhat in the build budget you've shown in your post, removed Strike for TT:Vengeance, as I think you have enough ST options between Dominate, Follow Up, Lunge, Telekinetic Blast, and Scramble Thoughts. In the image you'll see a bit more defense and S/L resistance, along with more recharge. Some downside... your net end recovery went down slightly, and your regeneration and max HP took a hit. You can adjust things to get some of that back, if you like. Scramble Thoughts slotting might be my first choice in ditching some recharge to gain back those health stats.

 

 

Shocker Widow - Bopper Edit.mbd

[Scarlet Shocker]

I thought I'd replied to this. Thanks for the build.

 

Gave her a good work out last night, about 3 hours in First Ward, so tough content on a pretty good team and she is a lot less impressive post-respec than before. I far preferred her as a stock widow than I do as a nascent fortunata. Had to turn off XP to ensure we didn't outlevel content so that's an entire session without having to worry about learning new powers and it seemed a lot less satisfying than previously.

 

I do appreciate that there is a drop off in the mid-level range in terms of powers and abilities. Lower levels are pretty impressive as a new character but this does seem to be quite sub-par despite that, compared to regular ATs.

 

It's made me wonder if I shouldn't respec into the stock widow and use that as a core focus. How viable is that?

[Bopper]

9 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I far preferred her as a stock widow than I do as a nascent fortunata

Forts blossom a bit later when they can get their Psi Wail and Aura of Confusion. If you're playing at level 24ish, I could see your concern with how the Fort plays. 

 

That being said, you could go with Night Widow branch for that level range. It'll give you more health/resistance and you go back to Strike and add Slash to your ST chain.

 

Another option is to try a hybrid Fort, which leverages the best melee attacks in your "stock" powers, and ditch powers like Scramble Thoughts.

 

Let us know how you like playing the widow so far, and we can leverage that into build ideas. Plus, we can factor in more of the leveling up experience, if you haven't gotten to lvl 26 yet.

[Scarlet Shocker]

I'm level 28 currently and not burning XP so I expect to stay that way for a shortish while. We play on Saturdays so I'm anticipating maybe 4 weeks at that level(ish) while we go through FW and NW and then back to Redside.

 

I don't know if there's a comparison, but when I had a Spider on live, I deliberately went the Huntstman route at the respec - ie continued on that path and I was very glad that I did. He became one of my deadliest toons, delivering a sea of orange numerals with big AoEs and cones and was highly survivable. I am surprised more people haven't chosen that option honestly.