AoE Crab build?

[Zemius]

So I finally got around to getting my Crab up some more, and noticed that most people run Crabbermind builds, and I really don't care for pets much. I ran a Bane mostly on live, but wanna switch it up.. Does anyone have a good AoE build for Crabs? Suggestions are also welcome!

[Demon Shell]

You can be both. You can have tons of AoE plus 2-3 pet powers.

 

Regardless, Leviathan Mastery is the best choice for AoE damage on a Crab. School of Sharks/Arctic Breath/Bile Spray (especially those last two) work very well with Venom Grenade/Frag Grenade/Suppression. Between the 5-6 of them I don't think you even need Heavy Burst.

[Omega-202]

18 minutes ago, Demon Shell said:

You can be both. You can have tons of AoE plus 2-3 pet powers.

 

Regardless, Leviathan Mastery is the best choice for AoE damage on a Crab. School of Sharks/Arctic Breath/Bile Spray (especially those last two) work very well with Venom Grenade/Frag Grenade/Suppression. Between the 5-6 of them I don't think you even need Heavy Burst.

 

Leviathan is objectively bad and overkill in the AoE department and gives you way worse AoE DPS due to the terrible animation times on School, Bile and Breath (all 2.67 animations with ~1.0 damage scale each)  With Perma-hasten levels of recharge, at level 50, you can chain Suppression, Frag and Venom without any gaps.  If you feel like you need another AoE (which a high end build shouldnt) Ball Lightning in Mu has better DPA (similar damage with a 1.07 cast time, over 2x faster) than the Leviathan powers and gives you a better AoE pet.  High end builds live and die on DPA where Leviathan genuinely sucks due to its animations.   There's a reason farming Brutes take Mu and not Leviathan.  

 

But you are correct that you can be both a Crabbermind and an AoE set, while also maintaining defense cap to all positions, ~50% resist to all but Psi, and very solid single target damage.  

[Demon Shell]

Farm Brutes don't take it is because they aren't buffer/debuffers. The damage buff from Rage makes keeping Rage up more important than any debuff they can provide. And that requires fast abilities. Nevermind the difficulty/time investment in using a long range, narrow cone on a melee AT.

 

If you think your damage on a Soldier will cause your team to hit harder without Arctic Breath than with it, go ahead. But, if you're getting Arctic Breath to boost team DPS anyway, both it and Bile Spray have higher DPAs than Suppression. And Bile Spray will hit harder than that due to the total 60% Toxic Resist Debuff that Arctic Breath/Venom Grenade causes (20% more than for any other damage-type on the first rotation). Their cones are more narrow but that's okay, because Crabs can fight at range, where even their 30 degree cones extend to nearly 20 yards across.

 

You still want Suppression, despite it having a lower DPA than Heavy Burst (which itself has a lower DPA than Bile Spray even before debuffs), because its a massive cone good for wiping out minions. But if you're not the one getting aggro, because you're not a Brute, you can push it back in your rotation in favor of helping your team kill the boss/lieutenants faster.

 

Arctic Breath will also boost the damage of your pets.

[Omega-202]

All good points, but the -Res can be achieved in other ways.  Drop an Anhilation in Frag and an Achilles in Suppression if you want to supplement it, which I do.  

 

More importantly, a full alpha strike of Venom, Frag, Suppression + 3 ball lightnings from my Disruptors+Mu striker = pretty much all minions dead at 8/+4.  By that point, Venoms up again to make use of toxic bonus damage and you will usually be switching into single target mode after that to mop up Lts and Bosses.  From there you get better DPA from procced out Longfang (Achilles or Shieldbreaker +Lady Grey+Gladiators toxic, while still hitting 90% damage and 45% accuracy) + Mu Lightning (or Gloom) than from AoE chaining the bosses.  EDIT: Achilles in Longfang has a 58% chance of procing for a -20% res, has a faster animation than Arctic and beats it by a long shot in straight damage, especially when Gladiator goes off and take advantage of Venom's debuff.  You might say "you can use both" but you can also use another Venom Grenade + a Gloom or Mu in the time it takes to animate Artic.  You'll get more from launching those 2 attacks than you do from 1 Artic.

 

And thats not counting Omega Maneuver or Judgements making the low DPA of the Leviathan powers even less worth it.  

 

You do you, but I gave Leviathan a shot and it just didn't seem to be worth it.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Omega-202

[Dr Causality]

On 8/19/2019 at 2:26 PM, Omega-202 said:

Leviathan is objectively bad and overkill in the AoE department and gives you way worse AoE DPS due to the terrible animation times on School, Bile and Breath (all 2.67 animations with ~1.0 damage scale each)

.......

All good points, but the -Res can be achieved in other ways.  Drop an Anhilation in Frag and an Achilles in Suppression if you want to supplement it, which I do. 

You're greatly underestimating Leviathan.  It can use all the same -Res procs as Suppression, except now with PPM weirdness because it has a smaller cone and longer base recharge it has much higher chances of procing, plus starts out an automatic -15% Res ahead.   Sure Leviathan attacks are high animation time, but Suppression is even higher.   If you look at Arcana time and compare DPA it's almost identical to Suppression, so Arctic Breath is just -15% Res debuff better than Suppression in exchange for a smaller cone.  But it doesn't stop there it's also  more -Def, a 30% slow and a chance of KD for mitigation.   The other Leviathan power that's great is School of Sharks.   Again look at Arcana time and you'll see it's nearly identical DPA to Suppression, except it's also Mag3 Immob.  So you get an Immob that does the same DPA as one of your attacks.  It's a smaller cone, but again combined with higher base rech that means better chance of procing.   A Superior Frozen Blast chance to Immobilize procs very reliably in School of Sharks stacking enough Immob for most Lts and bosses.   With all the debuffs and pets I have a big problem with enemies trying to run.  Two Leviathan aoe powers stop most all the runners and keep enemies from closing into melee range, while doing normal Crab levels of aoe dmg.  I open with Arctic Breath, then School, then Venom Grenade.  After that it depends on what's still standing.     Slotting Positrons with +5 boosted Dmg/Range IO means the cones are effectively much bigger since you've increased range to 72.     Bile Spray you can skip.  You already have two high recharge powers, so you're better off with the lower recharge, wider cone, and -Def of Suppression or better DPA of Frag Grenade.   Leviathan's Summon Guardian easily feels like the best pet I have.   After tough ambushes like on a solo ITF run it's often the only pet still standing after the fight is over.   

 

Not sure why you'd compare a single target Longfang to the aoe Artic breath.  Of course LongFang does better single target DPA.  But every decent Crab build will take Longfang, and it does even more Dmg when the target is stacked with an extra -15% Res debuff. 

 

*Edit* I went back and tested Omega Maneuver again.  The delay before detonation is about half of what I remembered so it's not as bad as I recalled.  I still don't like it due to the long recharge, combined with the delay making it a waste on fast moving teams.  But I can see it being useful as an "oh sh*t" power for ambushes, or way draw alpha aggro from pets and cluster mobs.  The high recharge also makes it a good Dmg proc mule, but it's hard for me to justify the slots given it's only up at best around every 90s or longer.    The high recharge you need for making the pets perma means you just don't need many attacks, so I'll probably do some experimenting with a build that drops Frag Grenade or Suppression for Omega on test.  

 

[What I'd previously written corrected for actual detonation time...]  

We also disagree about Omega Maneuver.  Outside of being fun to use, I find it totally skippable and definitely not a useful contribution to DPS.   Even on a high enough Rech build to have all pets perma, Omega is still a 90+ second recharge.  So it can't be used every spawn, nor is it up enough to contribute sustained DPS in AV fights.      With it's roughly 2.244s cast time there's  22s  +10s delay before detonating, enemies are often dead before Omega does any of it's damage.   Your Crab itself could easily get 6 or 7  3 AOE attacks off in that 22s +10s, which with Leviathan does more -Res to boost your pets dmg.    Omega Maneuver is mainly useful for drawing aggro, clustering mobs and preventing runners.  But as I mentioned you can do all that with Leviathan's normal attack chain, whereas Omega will need another 70+ seconds after detonation before you can use it again.    

 

Anyway, thankfully there are plenty of ways to play the game.    

 

*Edit* Corrected Detonation time delay on Omega Maneuvers with Strike out.   That I couldn't remember how long the delay before detonation was tells you how little I've use it...basically respec-ed out of it after leveling...

Edited August 22, 2019 by Dr Causality

[Flitze]

Interesting discussion.

When talking about damage output, do you refer to a set like Positron's Blast in Arctic Breath or procs ?

I use procs and my impression is that Arctic Breath does way more damage then.

[Dr Causality]

8 hours ago, Flitze said:

Interesting discussion.

When talking about damage output, do you refer to a set like Positron's Blast in Arctic Breath or procs ?

I use procs and my impression is that Arctic Breath does way more damage then.

Sounds like we're mostly on the same page.   I prefer Positrons for the Crab Cones.  Because:

• Positron's set includes a Dmg proc
• Positron's has only one enhancement with +Rech, which can be swapped out for the Dmg/Range IO.   Important bc keeping your slotted Recharge low improves your PPM chances on Dmg Proc
• The Dmg/Range IO which when boosted to +5 adds a good range to cones, which in effect makes the cone wider (if you attack from farther away...)
• Even though it's not 10% like purple or ATOs, a set of (5) does at least get you +6.25 Rech and I desperately need rech bonuses to get all the pets cooldowns low enough to be perma.
• Only needing (5) leaves on slot open for another proc:  like Achilles in Arctic Breath.

[Omega-202]

10 hours ago, Dr Causality said:

Sounds like we're mostly on the same page.   I prefer Positrons for the Crab Cones.  Because:

• Positron's set includes a Dmg proc
• Positron's has only one enhancement with +Rech, which can be swapped out for the Dmg/Range IO.   Important bc keeping your slotted Recharge low improves your PPM chances on Dmg Proc
• The Dmg/Range IO which when boosted to +5 adds a good range to cones, which in effect makes the cone wider (if you attack from farther away...)
• Even though it's not 10% like purple or ATOs, a set of (5) does at least get you +6.25 Rech and I desperately need rech bonuses to get all the pets cooldowns low enough to be perma.
• Only needing (5) leaves on slot open for another proc:  like Achilles in Arctic Breath.

This is my preferred setup as well.

 

Regarding your earlier overview on Leviathan, I think that we may just have disimilar playstyles or build priorities.  It seems that you are ok with relying on the Leviathan AoEs at the sacrifice of Suppression and/or Frag and/or Omega Maneuver, whereas I wouldn't consider dropping any of those due to their importance to me while exemplared.  I agree that on paper Arctic is in most ways superior to Suppression, but in my experience the benefit is not so great that I'd consider dropping Suppression.  And if I'm not dropping Suppression, then having two imilar powers six slotted at level 50 just seems redundant, which goes back to my original assessment as "overkill".  

 

Let me know if you've had a chance to go back amd play with Omega Maneuver some more.  I absolutely vouch for it as an alpha eater and the damage is not as wasted as you might think, as long as you play appropriately.  You don't use it on a spawn that the team has engaged, you use it on a spawn just as the team is cleaning up the last group while you run ahead.  The count down starts at the beginning of the animation, so it usually goes off during the Suppression animation if you open with OM>Venom>Frag>Suppression.  That opening will wipe anything that's not a boss or chunky Lt, and its available once every 3 spawns or so.

[Dr Causality]

7 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Regarding your earlier overview on Leviathan, I think that we may just have disimilar playstyles or build priorities.  It seems that you are ok with relying on the Leviathan AoEs at the sacrifice of Suppression and/or Frag and/or Omega Maneuver, whereas I wouldn't consider dropping any of those due to their importance to me while exemplared.  I agree that on paper Arctic is in most ways superior to Suppression, but in my experience the benefit is not so great that I'd consider dropping Suppression.  And if I'm not dropping Suppression, then having two similar powers six slotted at level 50 just seems redundant, which goes back to my original assessment as "overkill".  

Yeah sounds like different playstyles.   I'm primarily using cones at range.   I use a combo of the slow and KD chance in Arctic Breath, plus stacked Immobilize from  'Schools of Shark' with the Winter Immob Proc to keep things at range.   This helps keep my pets safe, because enemies can't swarm them in melee, plus all the debuff and Immobilize sends most of the aggro at me.    I was previously using Suppression alongside the Epic cones.  I really didn't want to give it up since it has such a great width.  But my most recent build and the one I think I'll stay with I gave up Suppression for Omega and Frag Grenade.   It was a tough choice between Frag Grenade and Suppression, but I think I came to the same conclusion as you that yet another slow cone was redundant.   The difference I guess being I'm not worried about Exemplaring, so Suppression's only advantage was cone width...     For Exemplaring I plan to make a complete 2nd petless build, that will probably be more Bane playstyle.  

Quote

Let me know if you've had a chance to go back amd play with Omega Maneuver some more.  I absolutely vouch for it as an alpha eater and the damage is not as wasted as you might think, as long as you play appropriately.  You don't use it on a spawn that the team has engaged, you use it on a spawn just as the team is cleaning up the last group while you run ahead.  The count down starts at the beginning of the animation, so it usually goes off during the Suppression animation if you open with OM>Venom>Frag>Suppression.  That opening will wipe anything that's not a boss or chunky Lt, and its available once every 3 spawns or so.

 

Yeah, I changed my tune.   There are still things I don't like about it.  Mainly the somewhat short range, long cast time and long recharge.    (I guess I have an irrational dislike for powers that aren't up every spawn.  Perhaps I like the "rinse repeat" play style more than I should...)     But I found a way to move some of my IOs into Omega Maneuvers for better overall set bonuses.    And also with the PPM chances Dmg procs make it into a nuke of sorts.    It's also useful for bunching mobs.   

 

So my current build that I think I'll stay with has now added it.    Glad you made me look at it again.  

Edited October 3, 2019 by Dr Causality

[Sinfinite]

Dr Causality & Omega-202,  would you mind posting your current builds? Would love to take a look at them :)

Edited October 4, 2019 by Sinfinite

[Omega-202]

6 hours ago, Sinfinite said:

Dr Causality & Omega-202,  would you mind posting your current builds? Would love to take a look at them 🙂

 

Here's a thread with a recent post for my build.  I've respeced since, to tweak a few minor things like power order, but its 99% accurate.  

[Papaschtroumpf]

It would have been nice if you had exported the data blob too, makes it easier to import in Mid's for tweaking.

Maybe I'll recreate it and post it.

[Papaschtroumpf]

I think this should allow you to save Omega's build for import in Mid's Reborn.  I know back in the day my crab had Mako's pool for Bile Sptay or whatver it's called for extra -res, so I will play with that instead.

 

 

Click this DataLink to open the build!

 

[Papaschtroumpf]

I'm at lvl40 with this build and getting pretty down on it. Pets are always laughing behind. I didn't realized pets died after 4 minutes, even if they take no damage, and one set recharges at 8:00 minutes base. 

I feel useless on teams, I'm not taking any damage, but also not dishing anything to a level that matters. Maybe double maneuvers, etc... helps the team, but I don't want my main contribution to have that I showed up.

I'll need to take couple days break. Maybe PL to 50 and try the purples and superiors, but I doubt it's going to.ake much difference since it mostly brings me extra recharge.

 

 

[Omega-202]

19 hours ago, Papaschtroumpf said:

I'm at lvl40 with this build and getting pretty down on it. Pets are always laughing behind. I didn't realized pets died after 4 minutes, even if they take no damage, and one set recharges at 8:00 minutes base. 

I feel useless on teams, I'm not taking any damage, but also not dishing anything to a level that matters. Maybe double maneuvers, etc... helps the team, but I don't want my main contribution to have that I showed up.

I'll need to take couple days break. Maybe PL to 50 and try the purples and superiors, but I doubt it's going to.ake much difference since it mostly brings me extra recharge.

 

 

I can't really tell what you may be doing wrong, but "lack of damage" really doesn't make much sense from my experience, so it has to be something you're doing incorrect with your attack chain or playstyle.

 

Even at lvl 40 against +2 or +3 enemies, Venom Grenade>Frag Grenade>Suppression can reliably be cycled on loop with no gaps.  Solo, after the first loop, all minions in a spawn are dead.  After two loops, all Lts will be dead.  Then you just need to mop up the bosses.  I've played basically ever AT and there aren't any others in the game that can chain AoEs that effectively, and outside of Nukes, there aren't a lot of builds that can level a full spawn that fast.  And beyond that, even if you feel that your damage is not up to snuff, with my build, all 3 AoEs are also applying -Res so you're helping the team do more damage with their attacks.

 

Regarding the pets, at lvl 40, the Spiderlings should be more than permanent and the Disruptors are at or near permanent.  Yes, they time out, like all non-MM and non-Controller primary pets.  I'm not sure what you expected.  Respawning them is less than 5 seconds and can be done as you run to the next spawn after they die, especially if you get used to jump spawning so you keep moving during the summoning animation.  

 

Maybe its not for everyone, but I know for sure that the build works and is one of the most effective and indestructible AoE builds in the game.  

[plainguy]

I have and it is posted somewhere here.. A full defense capped Perma pet build ( or very close to perma ) Crab. 

I will post when I get home.. 

 

its basically AOE attacks and pets. But sadly Omega does not fit into the build because it does not get me defense cap.