Fortunata hybrid build help

[Warshades]

Looking for some input for my Fortunata hybrid, meant for general and mostly lvl 50 content.

 

Currently debating the value of Fate Sealed vs TT:Assault as this isn't really a control focused build. It doesn't look like FS boosts Psychic Wail stun any unless mid's is wrong. I only picked up AoC as it's a great mob confuse power that can help when there is to much aggro.

 

I've also considered the ST Confuse, but I don't really see myself using it on PUGs to try and perma confuse AVs, so AoC seems like it should be enough for general content. Build is meant to have both great AoE damage (Psychic Wail, Spin, Tornado) and ST damage (Lunge, Dominate, Follow Up, and TK Blast) while being survivable.

 

I generally like to play in melee so I've tried to boost damage resist with set bonuses as much as possible. I'm also considering changing the assault radial hybrid for a melee core slot, would help with regen/resist since I have no heal and will be relying on ageless for endurance. Looking for any other suggestions and improvements that I can make and haven't considered yet.

Arachnos Widow (Fortunata Training - Fortunata Teamwork)2.mbd

[KaizenSoze]

If we are just talking about general content. Fate Sealed vs Assault is fine either way. Take your preference. Don't overlook Scramble Thoughts, as it is a mag 4 stun.

 

I would go with Assault Core, not radial, for max +damage. Also, since you like to melee, my preferred type of Fort, you will need Ageless. The claw attacks recharge so fast that they will eat your endurance. Doesn't matter if you proc them out or use straight sets. Trying to get regen up on a Widow is useless, the starting HP pool is too low. And the inherit doesn't really provide any noticeable buff.

 

There are tanky Fortunata builds around, but really not needed for general content. Just keep some greens on hand for healing. 

 

 

Food for thought:

 

[Imaginary]

You're way overcapped on positionals with Weave. You probably don't need that. Up to you, though.

I generally try to proc out Follow Up more than Spin, because I spam it more. That's a 'personal preference and what I use' choice, though.

I'd put a End / ToHitBuff into the Leadership power and boost it to +5, just because I'm like that.

I'd also pull out Tele Blast and switch Swipe in for it, just because I don't end up in range a lot. Spin is good, but to burn down AV's I use follow up / dominate / lunge /  swipe / strike. Lunge does the most base damage with a tiny cast time, Follow Up and Dominate are set up wtih the Decimation BU just for kicks. Here's my spreadsheet comparing the damages of the four when fully proc'd out. It's really just for flavor, honestly.

 

 

[Warshades]

18 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

If we are just talking about general content. Fate Sealed vs Assault is fine either way. Take your preference. Don't overlook Scramble Thoughts, as it is a mag 4 stun.

 

I would go with Assault Core, not radial, for max +damage. Also, since you like to melee, my preferred type of Fort, you will need Ageless. The claw attacks recharge so fast that they will eat your endurance. Doesn't matter if you proc them out or use straight sets. Trying to get regen up on a Widow is useless, the starting HP pool is too low. And the inherit doesn't really provide any noticeable buff.

 

There are tanky Fortunata builds around, but really not needed for general content. Just keep some greens on hand for healing. 

 

Thanks for the input, I'll give it a go with assault core first and probably stick with TT Assault as well. Not a fan of Scramble Thoughts, tried it before. Long cast time at 2s and and I feel that the mag 4 stun is irrelevant in a team context.

 

7 hours ago, Imaginary said:

You're way overcapped on positionals with Weave. You probably don't need that. Up to you, though.

I generally try to proc out Follow Up more than Spin, because I spam it more. That's a 'personal preference and what I use' choice, though.

I'd put a End / ToHitBuff into the Leadership power and boost it to +5, just because I'm like that.

I'd also pull out Tele Blast and switch Swipe in for it, just because I don't end up in range a lot. Spin is good, but to burn down AV's I use follow up / dominate / lunge /  swipe / strike. Lunge does the most base damage with a tiny cast time, Follow Up and Dominate are set up wtih the Decimation BU just for kicks. Here's my spreadsheet comparing the damages of the four when fully proc'd out. It's really just for flavor, honestly.

 

I'll see what I can get for the power and slots while replacing Weave. Pretty much went for it as I needed Tough, but you're right that I have more def than I need.

 

I will also try procing out FU as well. I went with TK blast to have an extra place for force feedback recharge proc. It's mostly something I plan to use on runners/AVs or nearly dead enemies so KB isn't a big issue. Just because TK blast is a ranged attack doesn't mean I can't use while in melee either.

[Warshades]

Updated build following the changes. Swapped out Weave for Vengeance and proc'd out Follow Up. Didn't really see a better use of some extra slots besides going for a 2 piece superior blistering cold for the recharge debuff resist. Global recharge is slightly lower, but should still be well within range of perma Hasten/Mind Link when factoring in the force feedback procs and Ageless.

 

Looking over the slotting of Mind Link, I could probably just 3 slot it with 2x membrane HOs and the LotG unique. That saves 2 slots and if I pull the slots from Boxing and Brawl, I have enough to nearly 6 slot another power in place of Vengeance which is more of a situational use. However, I don't really see anything else that I strictly need in terms of ST chain or AoE attacks. Alternatively I could add back the Confuse and replace TT Assault with Fate Sealed to be able to contribute more as a pseudo confuse controller, but that to would be a very situational use power.

 

Lastly, also considering potentially going back to Sorcery for RoP by swapping Super Speed for Mystic Flight and doing Arcane Bolt and RoP in place of Vengeance and TT Assault. Had this on my previous build as well and while it was very effective during the uptime of RoP, it wasn't up often enough. My last build did not focus as much on resist bonuses so I'm hopeful that this version has a less overall need for RoP.

Arachnos Widow (Fortunata Training - Fortunata Teamwork)3.mbd

[Imaginary]

I haven't tested it, but apparently Hami O's don't reduce the recharge of Mind Link. So before you dump those slots look at it fairly carefully. Even so, I would personally consider boosting the Def / Recharge IO's and the LoTG IO in there and stuffing Total Domination in there. I just like having an AOE hold, I guess, and in this case you could get +10% recharge out of it.

 

I'd also prioritize Knockback Reduction over the slow / recharge resistances you've put into brawl / boxing.

[Warshades]

7 hours ago, Imaginary said:

I haven't tested it, but apparently Hami O's don't reduce the recharge of Mind Link. So before you dump those slots look at it fairly carefully.

 

Thanks for the heads up, I do see that mid's isn't letting me slot any regular recharge IOs so I'll take a look at in game and see if the recharge from the HO is being counted or not (mid's does, but wouldn't be the first time it's wrong on something). I'll also take a look at Total Domination, an extra AoE hold certainly won't hurt when Aura of Confusion is on recharge. Should also be more useful than a situational vengeance.

[Maelwys]

Membrane HOs do nothing in Mind Link.

I doesn't accept any regular Recharge Enhancements at all (which those HOs are technically typed as!)

See top right corner of Mind Link's CoDv2 entry - it does allows slotting of regular ToHitBuff and DefenseBuff enhancements (but NOT Recharge enhancements!) as well as ToHitBuff and DefenseBuff Set IOs. This means the only way to get "+Recharge%" slotting into the power is to use IOs from ToHitBuff or DefenseBuff IO sets which contain some Recharge Rate Reduction.

Regular Non-Set-IO Recharge Enhancements simply won't work (regardless of whether they're multi-aspect HOs or single-aspect SOs/Common Crafted IOs).
An Alpha slot that grants +Recharge won't work either since that's also coded as a straight regular Recharge Enhancement.
It has to be an IO from either a DefenseBuff or ToHitBuff Set (although a Global Recharge Bonus like a LoTG +7.5% will also work just fine)




The reason that Mind Link still benefits from any Recharge Rate Reduction within these Set IOs is that it does NOT possess the "Disallow:RechargeTime" flag.


This means it still gets affected by Recharge Rate buffs (including from enhancements providing they're of a type that it can accept!)

So as things stand currently, a Lv50+5 Adjusted Targeting:Recharge IO plus two other multiple-aspect Def/Rech or ToHit/Rech IOs is probably the most slot-saving way to ED-cap Mind Link's Recharge... although most builds will benefit from ED-capping its Defense too.



This has been the case for ages. See Player confirmation here too:

 
 

Edited November 12 by Maelwys

[Nemu]

Does anyone else besides me take leviathan mastery for arctic proc breath on their widow/fort/hybrids?

 

Seems like most of the posts here advocate gloom/dark oblit. Fuck that! I trow sharkz and spit mad procs and you should too!

[Maelwys]

49 minutes ago, Nemu said:

Does anyone else besides me take leviathan mastery for arctic proc breath on their widow/fort/hybrids?

 

Seems like most of the posts here advocate gloom/dark oblit. Fuck that! I trow sharkz and spit mad procs and you should too!

Nope. 'Cause Gloom and Dark Obliteration's higher raw DPA simply make Soul the optimal choice for both ST and AoE unless you're rocking enough Pets (including teammates) to justify going all-in on -res debuffs.

Honestly, the difference between Spirit Shark and Gloom isn't huge providing you're leveraging Hunger stacks... but Dark Obliteration can reliably hit far more targets than Arctic Breath can; and that plus the much faster activation time tends to more than offset the inherent -res debuff. Whilst there's some argument for taking it on a Fortuna or Widow purely as a place to leverage the Achilles Heel -Res Proc... unless you're soloing a Pylon IIRC it will contribute roughly the same to your clear times as a regular 3.5 PPM damage proc. And even on teams, because multiple copies of the proc don't stack it can encounter some pretty harsh diminishing returns.

Now on a Crabbermind VEAT? Getting maximum -res debuffs via Mace Mastery (for Shatter Armor) or Leviathan (for Arctic Breath) is definitely a viable way to approach your Epic Pool choices... and Spirit Shark's Hunger mechanic means that the Leviathan Mastery option has at least a partially-attractive prerequisite.
However unfortunately whilst Arctic Breath can technically hit up to 10 targets, its narrow 30' arc makes hitting more than 1-2 foes an uncommon occurrence; its duration is half that of Shatter Armor and it inflicts only -15 base resistance debuffage to Shatter's -20 (and Crabs and Banes have plenty of better places to slot an Achilles' Heel Proc; so its ability to slot that is superfluous).
The Coralax pet is also the worst of the four options (having "prefer melee" AI and therefore being highly suicidal, with no additional defense and lower damage output than the Widow).
So sadly Leviathan still tends to get skipped in favour of Mace or Soul even on Crabberminds.
But hey, at least it's not as bad as Mu... 🙈 

[Nemu]

The most glaring problem that I've experienced on non-Fort VEATs is lack of AoE alpha strike power. The first iteration of my bane followed forum recommendations on patrons and it folded against stuff like Rularuu despite impressive survival numbers because it just didn't have enough burst AoE to take down fodder to equalize the odds and stabilize from all the debuffs. Meanwhile my Blaster can just joust inferno and trigger fear AI and have a better fighting chance against them.

 

I'm a very simple person. Sometimes MFs just need to die in 2 hits instead of 4. And when I spit mad procs it tickles my special crabby place. I just happen to like that type of killing power on any AT that can get arctic breath, so I take it on my VEATs and I'm probably the only person that also takes it on my RAD/SS tanks and brutes.

 

But this is also coming from a person that has a Staff/Regen Brute with whirlwind and a Storm/Elec blaster with whirlwind. I'm crazy man! I do craaaazy things man!

[Maelwys]

9 hours ago, Nemu said:

The most glaring problem that I've experienced on non-Fort VEATs is lack of AoE alpha strike power. The first iteration of my bane followed forum recommendations on patrons and it folded against stuff like Rularuu despite impressive survival numbers because it just didn't have enough burst AoE to take down fodder to equalize the odds and stabilize from all the debuffs.

To be fair, Banes are the Stalker analogue. IMO the best AoE Tool they have available is Placate. 

That said, a good Build Up (with a Gaussian Proc) + a procced-out Venom Grenade and Dark Obliteration spike is going to be dealing upwards of 700 damage in a huge radius; and following it up with Crowd Control will inflict a further 800+ in a 180 degree cone. Even without Build Up that combo will still output more than 1000 damage total every <15 seconds. Before Assault Hybrid and Crits.

Rularuu, DE Quartzes, Defence Debuffs (see: ITF) and Vengenced Nemesis mobs are definitely going to cut a swathe through a Bane's Defenses, sure; but that's what Placate (especially since the revamp in i27p3) is for... and/or Orange Insps, Barrier, RoP and Melee Core Embodiment, etc. 
My Soldier tends not to bother too much with inherent +Res stacking and just go all-in on Stalkering; though I tend to run it as a Crabbermind more often than a Bane - Arachnos Bane Spider.mbd

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Crazy Antics (I've a /Kinetics Mastermind that AE Farms and a Fire Blaster that uses RoTP as part of their attack chain!) but I think VEATs can almost always be tweaked to cover whatever playstyle you want just fine... 🤷‍♂️


[EDIT:]
I did a quick bit of back-of-napkin math on using Arctic Breath instead of Dark Obliteration in a "Build Up" alpha strike. Unfortunately due to the way the Gaussian Proc timings work, there is only a maximum of 0.727 seconds remaining buff duration after "Build Up + VenomGrenade + Arctic Breath". That's just about enough to squeeze a 'Pulverize' or a 'Bash' in (both of which have 0.5s Animation Time Before Effect) but not a Crowd Control or a Shatter...
 

Gaussian Proc duration = 5.25s plus 0.5s ATBE = 5.75 seconds total time window

 

0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Build Up itself]
1.848 [Bane Venom Grenade]
1.188 [Dark Obliteration]
0.900 [Crowd Control's ATBE]
= 4.603 seconds
So perfectly doable even with server delays or a bit of fat-finger-syndrome going on! 🥳

0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Build Up itself]
1.848 [Bane Venom Grenade]
2.224 [Crowd Control] (Using this before DO is actually optimal since CC can slot a Fury of the Gladiator -Res proc then let DO clear up any stragglers)
0.800 [Dark Obliteration's ATBE]
= 5.539 seconds
Cutting it a bit close, but technically achievable...🤞
 

0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Build Up itself]
1.848 [Bane Venom Grenade]
2.508 [Arctic Breath]
0.900 [Crowd Control's ATBE]
= 5.923 seconds
Nope, sadly that last attack's never going to benefit from the Gaussian proc buff. 😠

 

 0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Build Up itself]
1.848 [Bane Venom Grenade]
2.224 [Crowd Control] (let's try it this way around?)
1.167 [Arctic Breath's ATBE]
= 5.906 seconds
Unfortunately not. I'm starting to sense a pattern here... 😡

And on a Fortuna?
 

0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Aim itself]
2.640 [Spin] (Psi Tornado is 2.508 if you want to use it instead, but Spin can take a Fury of the Gladiator -res Proc)
1.188 [Dark Obliteration]
0.567 [Psychic Wail's ATBE]
= 5.062 seconds
Again, fine. 😛
 

0.667 [Remaining Arcanatime in Aim itself]
2.640 [Spin]
2.508 [Arctic Breath]
0.567 [Psychic Wail's ATBE]
= 7.243 seconds
Yeah, nope. 🤬
 

Edited November 13 by Maelwys

[Warshades]

15 hours ago, Maelwys said:

So as things stand currently, a Lv50+5 Adjusted Targeting:Recharge IO plus two other multiple-aspect Def/Rech or ToHit/Rech IOs is probably the most slot-saving way to ED-cap Mind Link's Recharge... although most builds will benefit from ED-capping its Defense too.

 

Thanks, good to know. I'll play around to see if I can scrap up some slots that way and maybe use them for a 5 set unbreakable in Total Domination.

 

14 hours ago, Nemu said:

Does anyone else besides me take leviathan mastery for arctic proc breath on their widow/fort/hybrids?

 

I find myself never having the power or slots to really afford fitting it in when building forts, but if I did then I wold go for soul mastery. The low activation time and better power typing (target AoE vs the dreaded cone) just makes it a lot more attractive.

[Warshades]

Updated build with the changes. Realized I forgot the spider bite proc so added that as the 6th slot in Total Domination.

 

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

but Spin can take a Fury of the Gladiator -res Proc

 

Thanks for the reminder about that as well, also was missing it from my initial build so added that to Spin. I also swapped in a dominion of arachnos proc into Psionic Tornado, haven't ever tried to use it before but maybe it will be a nice layer of mitigation with the fear/damage debuff.

Arachnos Widow (Fortunata Training - Fortunata Teamwork)4.mbd

[Nemu]

A lot of times I appreciate the math work pioneered by people like you that elevate my understanding of the game. Other times I find it disheartening to see players strictly look at numbers when determining efficacy and more importantly, synergy that powers offer a build.

 

Arctic Breath is an opener when I approach mobs, procced it has higher raw damage than the other options available to me, Build up is not available every spawn even at ridiculous recharge levels, but AB is. I can use it consistently to open every engagement, stick the native and proc -res and in some cases the KD and follow through with my other AoEs. The high initial damage means I can equalize the numbers game faster and be less susceptible to rapid cascading failures. Depending on mob con AB alone can one shot some fodder and if there's one thing I learned from playing blasters, it's that mob fear ai is a wonderful survival tool when you are at a disadvantage.

 

1 hour ago, Warshades said:

The low activation time and better power typing (target AoE vs the dreaded cone) just makes it a lot more attractive.

Are these the same type of "conventional forum wisdom" evaluation criteria (Animation time, damage, blah blah) you took to handclap when you omitted it from your original RAD/SS build? And what happened when you actually tried out the power after I recommended it? To be clear I'm not saying you should take AB, but I just really want to challenge these conventional forum wisdom that's so deeply seeded in many players' minds.

 

Regarding the comment about cones and how it can't hit more than 1-2 foes. Here's me standing within opening range of mobs about 47ft away from the iron strongman

 

 

And here's me hitting more than 2 foes with it

 

You can use math and numbers to tell me that AB is inferior, but there's something to be said about the gut feel of something and fun factor. AB is fun first and foremost to me, and my gut feel is that it's the best power suited to what I want to do and the holes I seek to address.

Edited November 13 by Nemu

[Maelwys]

52 minutes ago, Nemu said:

To be clear I'm not saying you should take AB, but I just really want to challenge these conventional forum wisdom that's so deeply seeded in many players' minds.

Oh there's a lot of misinformation out there.
Overwhelming Force being a flat 20% chance rather than 2.5 PPM is a common one (and I was guilty of that myself for a while).
Accuracy Set Bonuses not inheriting properly to Pseudopets.

Burn being better on a Tanker than a Brute.
...
I'd better stop before I incriminate anyone... 🫢

Anyway. I suspect a lot of the "conventional wisdom" is taken third hand from the really obsessive builders (the guys who always spend days working out optimal attack chains including multiple convoluted aspects such as Build Up and -Res Proc durations and Scrapper Critical Hit ATO windows and even the ATBE of alternative attack animation choices... rather than the rest of us who just look up a few values on CoDv2 and plug them into their favourite PPM calculator and call it done). There's a definite trend there towards maximum damage output at the expense of everything else... perhaps because after a certain point CoH can become almost trivial to survive in indefinitely without "wasting" time activating powers that do something other than deal optimal damage. 
(don't get me started on the couple of basketcase math/testing heads who have deconstructed Arcanatime as "not accurate enough" and implemented their own bespoke truncation/rounding systems... as if there weren't already insufficient hours in the day for my OCD to run rampant...)

But it's a game, not a stock exchange. Go have fun.
By all means build for additional mitigation over damage if that's your preference (and/or you're struggling with certain content) 👍

[Warshades]

5 hours ago, Nemu said:

Are these the same type of "conventional forum wisdom" evaluation criteria (Animation time, damage, blah blah) you took to handclap when you omitted it from your original RAD/SS build?

 

My approach to Hand Clap was something that I took back from when CoH was still live where practically no one (from what I recall) ever picked it up (this was well before some of the KB to KD procs that, iirc, were released later on after IOs and sets were implemented). I'm happy to admit I was wrong and I may very well be wrong about taking soul mastery as well. Cones absolutely can hit multiple targets, but at the same time it requires proper positioning of yourself relative to mobs whereas Dark Obliteration you can click and not have to worry about anything else. Another reason why Dark Obliteration is more appealing to me is that I plan to be in melee range often when using FU, Spin, Psychic Wail, Lunge, etc. This in theory isn't a problem if you always open with AB, but I am more likely to open with Psychic Wail and Spin/Psionic Tornado. Also eliminates the need to reposition by going from from range to melee if I can go straight to melee and unload my attacks.

 

For me personally, I'm not even looking to go into epic pools at all for my fort, was just stating that soul is more appealing if I were to go with an epic and just clarifying more as to why I said that. Also didn't mean for it to come off as though I'm trying to convince you or anyone else to take /soul over /leviathan or anything else.

[Nemu]

1 hour ago, Warshades said:

Also didn't mean for it to come off as though I'm trying to convince you or anyone else to take /soul over /leviathan or anything else

Don't worry about it buddy friend pal guy, you didn't come across that way and I didn't take it that way. I've played this game long enough to be comfortable following my own build paths. I'm also not trying to force you to onboard my suggestions either, simply pointing at a path lesser traveled as an option 😃

 

For what it's worth this is my current build. Writhe in horror as you slowly or fastly realize I didn't even take the fighting pool or ROP...

 

Fortune Weaver i27 p6 - Arachnos Widow (Fortunata Training - Fortunata Teamwork).mbd

[tidge]

Short post about HO Membranes in Mind Link/Link Mids.

 

If a power won't accept a "regular" crafted IO of a type (here, Recharge Reduction), then a Hami-O or D-Sync that contains an attribute of the unacceptable type won't contribute to improving that attribute in the power. HO Membranes DO buff the ToHit and Defense buff components, but not the Recharge time component.

 

This was changed (for HOs) way back on Live, specifically because certain powers were not supposed to have certain attributes boosted by IOs.

 

Mind Link can accept, and benefit from the Recharge component of Defense Buff and ToHit Enhancement sets, such as the Recharge-only piece from the Adjusted Targeting set.

 

I used to 3-slot Mind Link with a LotG Defense/Global Recharge, a Defense/Recharge and the Adjusted Targeting Recharge piece (boosted)... but I noticed that my Fortunata was 6-slotting Reactive Defenses elsewhere in the build, and that I actually got more bang-for-the-slots by moving the 6-pieces of Reactive Defenses into Mind Link. Obviously this is only buffing Defense and Recharge time, and not ToHit.