New soldier help

[graeberguinn]

Never played villian/soldier. I know I want to go bane. Anyone have a good beginner build with just basic slotting help. 

 

And any tips for playing soldier up to 24? And bane after? 

Edited August 14, 2019 by graeberguinn

[Justisaur]

Check out the huntsman thread for a decent 1-24 leveling build.  I've got a 'cheap' build for my "ultimate control/support bane" as one of the posts in that thread, which is a good point to aim for once you get to bane.  I actually kept the early ranged attacks for wolf up to at least 32 though, as you can be a bit lacking in bane attacks.  The mace ranged attacks are bad, they do half the damage of the wolf ranged attacks, take those instead if you want more ranged.  Unless you just want them for aesthetics.  

 

I made quite a lot of changes since then, and I'd definitely recommend picking up hasten which I don't have in the cheap build (I do in my current expensive build.)

 

Tips:  VEATS are support and jacks of all trades, banes can deal o.k. AoE (relying mostly on wolf powers and/or patron) and decent ST.  They'll never be up to a blaster or stalker for pure damage, but they're far better support.  Play them on teams and use your strengths of buffing, debuffing, and being tough while handing out some reasonable damage.   Playstyle is pretty simple, just stay somewhere near everyone so they're all within your auras and do damage and/or debuff.   You won't really feel like you're doing much until you see the team split, and your half is doing fine while the other half is all dead.   You can run off after objectives while invis if others aren't doing that and the team agrees.

 

Venom Grenade is a must and your bread and butter on teams and should be your first attack so that -resist lets everyone do more damage, until you've got cloaking device after which it's your highest damage attack against a boss or annoying lt, or Crowd Control once you have that.  Don't worry about the animation time switching from mace to rifle or back, it just shifts the attack to later in the animation, it doesn't actually take any more time - I tested this and posted about it in another thread here.  It feels like it's taking longer but it really isn't.

 

Double maneuvers is a must, just for your own defense.  Double assault I'm on the fence on, it's probably good leveling, but may not be worth the end costs, at least you can always turn off the second assault and/or tactics for a bit - which I often did when eating too much end.

 

I found WAWG and tactics were great leveling, but they dropped off to useless once I had my sets, even exemplared, so dropped those.  

 

Tough and weave are nearly musts but can wait until later in your career, or when you respec out of some of those other things above.

 

Placate and Shatter are questionable, Shatter takes too long and stuff's typically dead on teams before it hits, and Pulverize has higher DPA, you probably want to take it until you have enough recharge to chain Pulverize, Crowd Control and Bash.  Placate is even more questionable, as it's only a 50% increase in damage on one bane only attack (25% average on CC) and like Shatter I often found leading with it on a new target meant things were dead, and hitting a different power would've done more damage.  

 

I'd definitely recommend the pets.   They tend to die a lot on +4 but they're still quite useful for cleanup, and teaming up on AVs, and very useful when you get them for leveling.

 

I'm on the fence on web cocoon and surveillance, but they're both of some use especially on ebs/avs, and web coccoon gets you some nice set bonuses.

 

For initial slotting, mostly slot your favorite attacks up, 1 accuracy will be enough, perhaps even overkill if you've got both tactics, as your bane attacks all have 1.05 base accuracy, you could consider frankenslotting a cheap uncommon acc/end or something since you won't even need a full accuracy enhancement.   A couple damage and recharge, and you'll want a couple end reductions as you'll be using a lot of end with your toggles up.   I went cardiac alpha for that reason, end was pretty difficult to deal with before that, even with sets, I plan to try out musc & agility instead to see if that'll work for me instead and get me a little more damage, but my bane is on the back burner for now as I can't see any more changes besides that that would improve her, though she's still my favorite.

[Demon Shell]

You will ultimately replace it, but Pummel is amazing in low level content. It's chance to stun will feel higher than the listed value.

 

Combat Training: Offensive is not a passive you want at end game, but it can help a lot early off.

 

Venom Grenade. Mandatory on all Soldier builds no matter what.

So is Tactical Training: Maneuvers. It's a group-wide 10% Defense buff. That's massive. It's as much defense as a Defender's Dispersion Bubble.

 

Bane's have fewer AoE attacks and overall use less End than Crabs. Good reason to go double Leadership even while leveling. Well-slotted Double Maneuvers will give you and your team +20% Defense.

 

Web Cocoon is kinda slow for a hold. I tried it, didn't like it, dropped it. I also didn't care for Surveillance. YMMV.

 

Wide Area Web Grenade offers a pretty strong recharge debuff. Stacking that with Mace Mastery's Web Envelope will significantly reduce enemy damage output (by reducing the number of incoming attacks). I didn't ultimately go that route, but it is a very underrated option.

 

Shatter/Build Up are great opening burst ST due to Cloaking Device. Other good overall options are Pulverize, Crowd Control, and Poisonous Ray (due to the increased Toxic -res from Venom Grenade). But in a decent team you will probably just open with Arctic Breath and/or Venom Grenade. Your team will deal more damage than you can yourself.

 

Placate is no where near as strong on a Bane as on a Stalker. It's not bad, but remember that it only works if the followup is a Melee move, and some of your other options have -res on them.

 

Call Reinforcement is pretty good. In addition to the damage they deal (and incoming damage they redirect) the opening move in their rotation is a hold and if they both hit the same target (which they often do) it will hold up to a boss rank.

 

Many Banes go for Mace Mastery for thematic reasons (myself included). It's not necessary, and Leviathan will vastly out-preform Mace DPS versus crowds (which is the majority of the game). Arctic Breath will make Venom Grenade hit harder and cause Bile Spray to hit entire groups for 60% -res toxic damage.

 

Alternately Shatter Armor from Mace will let you deal greater ST damage and give you the previously mentioned Web/Envelope -rech stack.

 

I didn't see it often (ever?) on Bane, but Soul Mastery has Darkest Night, which can be very helpful for survival. There's no explicit reason I know of to take Mu Mastery.

 

One final thing I discovered recently. Spring Attack from Leaping will not impact your Hidden state. If you are Hidden when you use it, it will deal damage but you will still be hidden (though enemies will be aware of you). If you are not hidden it will still deal damage, but will not count as an attack. This means if you aren't being hit, the counter for becoming rehidden will continue to countdown.

If you dodge all incoming attacks, taking a break to resummon both of your pets and finishing with a Spring Attack is about how long it takes for you to become rehidden for an AoE crit/ST Execution.

 

Banes have little natural resist, no Defense Debuff Resist, and no heal. This can result in you dying really, really fast due to cascading defense debuffs.