Soldier or widow?

[Alpha Man]

Hi I'm looking to start either a soldier or widow.

 

I am looking for meta builds for both and influence is no object. I know a few people in the community have an opinion on what is the "best" build for both.

[KaizenSoze]

2 hours ago, Alpha Man said:

Hi I'm looking to start either a soldier or widow.

 

I am looking for meta builds for both and influence is no object. I know a few people in the community have an opinion on what is the "best" build for both.

 Are you looking for mostly melee or ranged?

[Alpha Man]

16 hours ago, KaizenSoze said:

 Are you looking for mostly melee or ranged?

Either one honestly. Both lol

[KaizenSoze]

56 minutes ago, Alpha Man said:

Either one honestly. Both lol

There is actually a multiple varieties. If one catches your fancy. Ask for specifics.

 

Fort melee/range hybrid. Scrapper/controller with a nuke.

Night Widow melee with a bit of ranged. Stalker/Tank/Support. Tied with Banes for the fastest placate recharge in the game.

Crabbermind: Ranged with pets. Mastermind/Lite tank with uncontrollable pets. If you can keep the pets alive you are a damage god, but it's hard to keep them alive.

Huntsmen(Bane or Crab): Ranged/debuffer/support/controller. They do have melee attacks, but ranged IMO is their sweet spot. They are great at immobilizing mobs.

Banes: Melee, but with good ranged. Stalker/Debuffs/Support

 

[tidge]

19 hours ago, Alpha Man said:

Hi I'm looking to start either a soldier or widow.

 

I am looking for meta builds for both and influence is no object. I know a few people in the community have an opinion on what is the "best" build for both.

 

You get 3 builds for each character. The only subtle issue is that for a VEAT character that picks "Crab", all builds will be stuck with the Crab backpack.

 

My personal preference is a Huntsman/Bane, but I used to take my body-swapping Fortunata/Widow through a LOT of crazy content. I preferred the Fortunata (despite it's reliance on Psi and Epic attacks) because of the extra amount of controls I baked into it.

 

The most annoying to play for me was a Crabbermind. It was a fun proof-of-concept but I found it to perform at a lower level than a Hunstbane.

[Linea]

I have so many builds for each ... I'm currently running two MOMA huntsman builds to herd little ducklings.

Crab - MOMAS 1f+ - Incarnate - [i28].mbd  - Mostly just run this one, mostly running KW missions.

Crab - MOMAS 1b - Leadership - [i28].mbd - Sometimes alt to this one for malfactoring

Crab - MOMAS 1d - Medic -[i28].mbd - Not currently running this one.

And two Mind Hunter builds for Forts

Fortunata - Mind Hunter 1c+ - [i28].mbd - Ranged Control  (Needs rebuilding for i28)

Fortunata - Mind Hunter Melee 2a+ - [i28].mbd - Melee, more damage, minimal Control (Needs rebuilding for i28)

And I have dozens more ... VEATS are so versatile.

Edited October 10 by Linea

[Troo]

I didn't even look but take @Linea's and run away happy you got em!

[Linea]

On 10/10/2025 at 1:53 PM, Troo said:

I didn't even look but take @Linea's and run away happy you got em!

That depends.  If you want full offense none of my builds are those builds.  I build with an emphasis on armor and solo play with usually just barely enough offense to solo a +4x8 ITF once fully Tier 4 Incarnated.

 

These particular builds are concept builds.  Still heavily armored, but concept none the less.  Which means I might at times do something completely silly with them, just because.   

 

The Crab was meant to herd teams.  Grab some stun grenades to use with the Immob for a psuedo hold.  Lock down wide areas, debuff and blast them, while herding and buffing the ducklings behind you.  Offense is neither good nor bad, but the versatility and durability are pretty good, and it has moderate defense buffs, and double tactics for good to-hit buffs for team-mates running SOs vs deep purple.

 

The Fort is armored and meant to hunt psionics.  Also, the Fort builds were better before various proc adjustments.  Once upon a time, the procs were effectively 95% guaranteed to lockdown entire spawns.  You'd rotate through them for a huge amount of control.  Still good, but I'd have to test them extensively and rebuild them for i28.

[Six-Six]

You're going to need to narrow down your choices. VEATs are so versatile and can go into several paths:

 

SoA

Huntsman: AR + Nades pure ranged (sentinel on steroids)
Huntsman with melee: AR + Nades with a couple of melee attacks
Huntsman/Bane: AR + Nades + Mace

Ranged Bane, not the most optimum use of the mace, but still fun
Melee Bane (basically a beefy mace stalker) 
Ultimate Bane. Mace + Nades (one of my all-time personal favourites)

Slicer Crab (melee)

Longfang Crab (ranged)
Webmaster Crab (melee + ranged)
Crabbermind

Widow: claws stalker on steriods (pure melee or toss in a couple of ranged STs and cones)

Night Widow: Claws and mind games
Pure Fortunata: massive AoEs and mindbender

Fortunata with claws.

And this doesn't even go to Masteries which can further add dimension to your gameplay
Now you can opt to use Wolf Spider powers to animate from either the mace or crablegs, which solves the weapon switching delay

Secondary-wise, spiders are incredibly resilient even if you suck at builds. They're virtually impervious to cc, and you can build them to be tanky enough even without a self-heal (though the Crab has Serum, and you can cobble one up from the Tertiary Power Pools). You also don't need to double up on Leadership.

As a bonus, the ATOs give you a nice global toxic proc to most attack powers as well as a cc (Terrify) to one -- preferably slotted in an AoE opening strike.

[Lusiphur Malache]

Since influence is no object, start a blood widow, when you respec at 24 make build 1 a Fortunata and build 2 a Night Widow.  Enhancements will cost a lot because you have to slot both.  Same thing with Soldiers and embrace the backpack cause it ain't going away.  Now I got an itch to make another Veat.

[Neiska]

Here is my flying super-tanky crabber. No pets in this build, focus is self-damage and durability. +4/8 with EB soloable, downside is the build is expensive. But its single target is Arcane Bolt + arcane power proc, with Spirit Shark and hunger stacks, Longfang, with Aim. Still has a very strong AoE and standard crabber toggle buffs. And yes, it's quite expensive due to the HAMIs, but hamis were necessary since this build is so proc-heavy in its attacks. But so far this is the best non-pet crabber I have managed to make. 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Neiska