Some newbie crabby questions!

[Neiska]

Hello everyone!

 

I've been playing around with this AT, and have a few questions for the people in the know please. My Soldier is only 12 or so, but shes moving along!

 

1. Perma-pets - I've read on other posts here that its possible with the right IO's, but how effective are they? Can they fight effectively at higher difficulties or are they basically speed bumps?

2. Toughy-crabby - I perfer tougher characters in games (I hate being glass cannon), so how durable can this AT be made to be? Is it similar to Brute level toughness or is it more like scrapper or stalker?

3. Crabby-role - I am trying to understand the Crabber's "role" in team play. It looks like it has some yummy group buffs, but what else does it bring to the table? Does it fulfill a niche?

4. Crabby damage - How much oomph does a decent crabber have? Is it a hammer or is it a limp noodle?

5. Crabby-cosmetic - is the Crab-pack "required", or can you remove it and still use powers later?

6. Melee or Guns - is there a superior way to build? Energy guns or Spiderleg stabbing?

 

What I am sort of hoping for is to make a Crabber who is tough, has permapets (if thats worthwhile!), with buffs for its pets and team mates but specializes in the ranged attacks/guns, or the melee, depending which is better.

 

Thank you in advance Crabbers! I had more questions but most of them have already been answered in other posts.

 

Happy hunting!

Edited August 28, 2019 by Neiska
Added a quesiton!

[Omega-202]

1 - Pets can be made perma if you have perma Hasten levels of recharge and 90+% recharge slotted in the pet power.  I think they are objectively worth it and a substantial contribution to your overall damage.  They're not controllable like MM pets ao sometimes its hard to tell because the damage spreads out, but you can see it when you get down to that last boss in a spawn and watch them melt pretty quick as everything focus fires.  Keeping them alive does require some build focus though.  You'll want both +Def aura IOs and a +Res aura one.  Those, plus double Maneuvers makes them pretty tough, and then add Support Hybrid and you can defense cap your pets.  I slot 6/4/4 of Expedient Reinforcement in my pets for the 6.5% recharge bonus and then fill the 2 extra slots in each with one of the +Def/+Res auras and the Dam/Rech or Acc/Dam/Rech from Soulbound Allegiance.  

 

2 - Capped defenses, 50% resist to all but psi if you run tough and weave, and a stupid strong +HP/heal in serum.  Psi hole can be filled with Aegis etc. if you want but I just ignore it.  Compared to most Scrappers I've played, I definitely feel tougher, but squishier than higher end Brutes and defitinely sqyishier than Tanks.  But survivability is binary.  Either you're dead or you're not, and in most scenarios I never die so any more surbivability is just overkill.  On level 54 missions, I can easily main "tank".  I often "tank" Manticore and Yin runs as well.  Its not true tanking because I have no aggro control but I take the alpha strike for the group.  You also need to slot 1 or 2 - Kb ios because you dont get kb protection, but you get good protection to all else.  

 

3 - Group buff auras, MASSIVE AoE damage that comes with a healthy dose of -Res and -Def in Venom Grenade and Suppression.  I out AoE many Blasters on the team, having only slightly worse base damage (1.0 vs 1.125 base scale) but more than make up for it in the fact that I can have an uninterrupted attack chain made of only AoE attacks + Venom Grenades -20% resist.  And then on top of that, no Blaster is giving their group a 20% Defense and 10% to hit aura for just being there.

 

4 - Lots of damage.  Like I said above, you're only 12.5% damage behind a Blaster, but easily make up for it by having Venom Grenade and by having a more reliable AoE chain than most blasters.  Add in pet damage and you probably out AoE most Blaster sets.  Its not "oomph" damage.  It feels more like a steamroller.  You don't nuke groups, you just chew through them.  

 

5 - Backpack is non optional.  If you hate the backpack, look up the Huntsman/Bane build for spiders.  It plays similar to a Crab.

 

6 - For me, its backpack attacks.  Others prefer the faster single target damage with gun attacks.  Either is decent.  Melee on a Crab is...not as good.

 

Crabs are unstoppable monsters solo and an unstoppable monster and force multiplier in teams.  I sometimes feel bad because they completely invalidate Sentinels as a class.

[Justisaur]

3 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

Crabs are unstoppable monsters solo and an unstoppable monster and force multiplier in teams.  I sometimes feel bad because they completely invalidate Sentinels as a class.

More like, why'd they bother making sentinels when you have VEATS?  

 

I assume you could tank if you took provoke.  I know my Bane is pretty tough, I can solo a +4 cyst in ITF without any inspirations, it's close though, if I pop an orange it's easy. I still die on occasion if I get too cocky or don't pay attention.  Crabs are even tougher than Banes.

 

The only way to get rid of the backpack is to go full Bane, you can't even have an alt build with Crab in it.  I keep intending to try Crab again, but I found it a more difficult in the mid levels and found Bane easier to level with for some reason, plus I just like beating on things with my big spider bat.

[Omega-202]

13 minutes ago, Justisaur said:

I assume you could tank if you took provoke.

Now where the heck am I supposed to find an extra power slot for that? 😀

 

But seriously, its just not that necessary.  Usually, the damage output is enough to keep substantial focus on me.  Anything that bleeds off is usually manageable.  The runners are the bigger issue, but electic fences + Dominion ATOs fear proc in Venom Grenade + Fear Incarnate alignment power give me some runner deterrents.  

[Justisaur]

I was poking around the wayback, found a Tanking Crab guide🙂

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20120911102446/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=281913

 

Obviously a little out of date on the enhancements, but good read if you want to tank with a crab.  They did take provoke 🙂

 

[Neiska]

Hello again!

 

Well, I've had pretty good luck with my Crabber, but I seem to have hit a bit of a wall. I can run +2/8 but when bosses start to spawn, they always seem to over whelm me. 

 

Here is the current build I am running. I tried to make it Tanky with Perma-pets and focused on the ranged crab-pack attacks.

 

http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1488&c=675&a=1350&f=HEX&dc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

 

I have all the IOs here except the super expensive ones, which I am currently saving up for. So ignore Ragnarok, Soulbound Allegiance, and Apolocypse. I DO have the superior AT ones though, the Superior Spider Bite and Superior Domination of Arachnos.

 

Started working on Incarnates too. Right now I run cardio or muscleature, swapping between them sometimes. I also have Ageless and Warbot. All of them are Rank 1.

 

Anyway, I pretty much breeze though anything but the bosses. They seem to just thrash me every time. Can anyone give any insight how to get over this wall? Because I dont think its a damage issue. I just go from pretty much full health to SPLAT, and I'll be darned to figure out why.

 

Thanks bunches

[Omega-202]

Your build looks fine to me, but I can see how you might struggle against bosses when your single target attack chain is some kind of combo of Channelgun>Mace Blast> Venom Grenade.  I've got to imagine its even worse when you exemplar and lose Mace Blast.  Personally, I've dropped travel powers completely on my Crab and I run Longfang slotted with Javelin proc, Lady Grey proc, Achilles proc, 2 Thunderstrikes and a generic Damage IO.  It does very solid damage and works well as part of a Longfang> Mu lightning > Venom Grenade single target chain.  I basically just have Channelgun 3 slotted with Devastation multis (for the HP and regen bonuses) and only use it as filler or when I exemplar and need to use something.  Also, you can drop the Acc/Recharge in Mace Blast (5% psi defense isn't doing anything for you, the recharge hurts the proc chance and you're probably more than fine on Acc from bonuses + Leadership + Defense debuffs from your other attacks) for another Javelin proc to help out the single target damage there.  The procs in those attacks have 55-80% chance of going off and can really help boost your single target damage to burn down bosses.  Plus the Javelin procs are Toxic damage, which works really well with Venom Grenade.  Venom debuffs all resistance by -20%, but debuffs toxic resistance by -60% so when the Javelin proc hits a Venom'd target, it really hurts.  

 

Also, I would move some slotting around.  In my opinion, your TT:L is overslotted.  The defense set bonus is good, but you're still over the Range cap without it and still nearly over cap on the other two.  I'd just leave the Gaussian's proc there, move the slots to Serum, 6 slot that with Preventative Medicine and move the Miracle proc to Health.  Crabs are WAAAY below their HP cap so there's never any concern of Serum being wasted.  The heal is great and the +HP makes it so your regen increases by the same percentage.  If you're getting trashed by bosses, that will help keep you healthy.

 

Being that I don't run a travel, I also have room for Frag Grenade, which does similar DPA as Channelgun as a single target attack and when slotted with a KB>KD enhancement, acts as a solid, but unreliable damage mitigation tool, even against bosses.  If you need some breathing room against a boss, pop Frag and you have a 50/50 of the boss spending the next few seconds on their back.

 

Tactically, I'd just recommend staying at range, keep the Venom Grenades flying on cooldown for the damage, -Res, -Dmg and Fear from the proc (which help a lot) and try to work in some KD, either from the Ragnarok proc in Suppression or from running Frag.  Your capped Defense and 50% resist + Serum should do more than enough to keep you on your feet.  

 

Hope some of those pointers might help.