Kosmos

I put a dual build on my Fortunata to test this out. The build lacks +Rec tools as I only spent about 100M on it.

I was able to solo Swan, but it took a while as I kept having to Placate her or just stand there while I let my END recover a bit.

I tried solo'ing Hro'Dtohz, but his hard hitting forced me to retreat too often and once he got a lucky streak that allowed him to regen from under 80% back up to around 90% I lost patience and used inspirations and temps and took him out.

I could solve the END issues with an investment of INF, but the problem of low HP is more difficult to deal with. Even with Aid Self I had numerous long stretches where I was in danger of being taken down by the next hit while waiting for the self-heal to be available for a 2nd application.

If you're willing to accept defeats until you get a long run of luck, then it's quite doable. But otherwise I think the Night Widow is just a bit too squishy in the presence of one-shot capable AVs such as BABs or Hro'Dtohz to make the AT a good AV killer.

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I am sure this has been brought up many many times before in previous forums. I have been also perusing all the FAQ's on these two to find out which one is best at soloing as I will soon be at level 50 with my Bots/Traps MM and not sure which one to pick? So, to make it easy on everyone, let me break it down like this:

(1) Which Archetype can produce more damage
either in melee or ranged attacks?

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Single target: Night Widow. It might be Lethal, but the DPS is exceptional, so it really doesn't matter.

AoE: Crab.


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(2) Which Archetype is best at soloing?

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Fortunata is probably the easiest, though Night Widows are probably a bit faster. Banes are solid for this too. You just need an insp now and then for the tough fights and some key IOs to provide KB prot. Crabs probably solo the worst of the builds, but they aren't bad. EBs with lots of AoE around can be a problem, as the ST DPS isn't great without the pets unless you use melee, in which case you need significant IO Melee Def buffs to pull that off reasonably well. With that level of IOs though, what doesn't solo well?


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(3) Which Archetype might get more invites to teams as they are seen as more valuable in team play?

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All mine seem to get lots of invites. Crabs perhaps are the most useful due to the AoE.


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(4) In the early levels, which Archetype has more bells and whistles in their arsenal?

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The Soldiers have the better version of Maneuvers and Venom Grenade, which probably qualifies as more bells and whistles. Mid levels Fortunata's get some useful control.


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(5) Which Archetype has better survivability (defense)

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Fortunatas win the survivability sweepstakes hands down due to the controls. Crabs have pets to pull some aggro and a HP boost/self-heal. Night Widows can soft-cap Def pretty easily. Banes are the squishiest.

There were three steps forward and and one-and-half steps backwards:

(1) It now uses Thorny Darts regularly, instead of getting stuck spamming just Entangle.

(2) If its target is able to attack (that is, not Held, Stunned or Confused) then the Fly Trap will close to melee range and Bite; perhaps stopping to use Fling Thorns on the way. It will stay at range and alternate Thorny Darts and Entangle if everything is mezzed. The pet would be better if it closed to melee range all the time. Unfortunately for me, I use Seeds on pretty much every spawn, so Twitchy almost never closes to melee range unless I deliberately aim so that I miss a mob.

(3) The range the pet thinks Fling Thorns has is now 1/2 of its actual range. As a result this power tends to hit more of a spawn when used, but due to the pet's tendency to stay at range it frequently isn't used at all, since the AI thinks it has only a 15' range. The net effect of this change is pretty much a wash.

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Because they're lazy.

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Yes...and I'm also convinced that waaaaay too many people have no idea that you can buy common recipes at the Universities.

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For roughly 4 times the cost. The cost:resale ratio is 4 for L45/50, 5.3 for L30-40 and 8 for L25-. The price on the market is generally only slightly above the resale value to a vendor.

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Just a question: why are people buying Common IO recipes in the market, at pretty much the same price you can sell them far? Not that I mind - I'm selling them like hotcakes to close in on my 2000 sold items badge, but I'm curious as to why they're so eagerly bought to begin with, and what I might be missing.

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There's a demand because:

(A.1) Lots of powers don't take Sets,
(A.2) Many Sets don't have the single aspect IO needed to top off a power,
(A.3) Many people don't like to worry about sets and just use Commons, particularly at mid levels,
(A.4) They're needed for crafting badges,
(A.5) Craft-and-sell on Commons can sometimes be profitable.

And the demand is met through the market because:

(B) The market price of a Common recipe is much lower than the cost to buy one at a crafting station.

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Also, can Mind trollers kill alphas using sleep, or was that only a Dom thing?

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Control Mass Hypnosis is Mag3 with a 50% chance for Mag4. So it will sleep Min/Lt all the time and Bosses half the time.

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You misunderstood that, but in truth it was not clear it was a tongue in cheek.

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Pics of your tongue in cheek or it didn't happen.

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Earth/TA/Primal. Anyone that tells you something else is either doing so because they haven't played an Earth/TA or they have a particular bias or favortism of the other primary in question.

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It's the Primal part that makes me say Mind might compete. Every Mind power is boosted by PB.

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I also think the activation time for Stalagmites is much faster.

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Flashfire 2.37s, Stalagmites 2.1s. So only a little faster (0.27s nominal, 0.264s ArcanaTime).

Interestingly, Stalagmites only costs 10.4 END versus Flashfire's 15.6 END.

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Oh.. and does stalagmites work like flashfire?

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One difference is that you have to be on the ground to use Stalagmites.

As for the original question; I'll agree that Salt Crystals and Stone Prison are skippable. Though the latter does have its uses.

I'd say Earth/TA. Mind/TA is close second. I have a Mind/TA myself, and find the lack of a fast Recharge hard mez AoE a bit of an issue at times. Terrify is great, but I think Stalagmites is better. Overall, it's think it has to be decided by play style. If you have the knack for TK and a team that knows when to let sleeping dogs lie, then Mind is probably better.

One bonus of Earth/TA is that Volcanic Gases can light Oil Slick.

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mid's wont show me the numbers on pets, at least I don't know how to see it. is there a need for more accuracy to call for a one ACC/DAM?

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Entangle has a 1.2 Accuracy modifier, while all of the rest of the attacks have base Accuracy but do -Def.

I personally went for 3 Blood Mandates for the Set bonus, capped Damage, and took what Acc I could get in the process. I could have upped Damage a trivial amount (due to the 85% discount from ED) or added some meaningless EndRdx, but I decided that more Acc would be useful against Rikti Drones, +4s, Romans, etc.

Looking now I see I have a BL A/D/E in there rather than an A/D. My Acc on Entangle is 1.97, on the rest 1.64. Roughly the equivalent of 2 SOs.

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My current slotting for Fly Trap is 3x Blood Mandate (Acc, Dmg & Acc/Dmg), 1x Dmg IO, Achilles' Heel proc, Lady Grey proc. I find the procs to be well worth it since they have a chance to fire with 3 of Fly Trap's 4 attacks.

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My slotting is very similar:

Blood Mandate A/D, A/D/E and D
Brilliant Leadership A/D
Achilles' Heel proc
Touch of Lady Gray proc

It's an overhand smash with both hands. Same as Haymaker from Super Strength and Air Superiority from Flight. Oh, and Cremate from the Brute and Scrapper Fire Melee. There are probably others I can't think of right now.

You left out the Patron Pets that all villain archetypes except Masterminds can get at level 47, the pets that Crab Spiders get at 35 (3 Spiderlings) and those that any Soldier of Arachnos can get at 38 (2 Disruptor Bots).

Additionally, there are a bunch of other lesser pets and pseudo-pets similar to the Peacebringer's Photon Seekers. Traps Corruptors and Masterminds get several, Illusion Controllers get Phantom Army, Plant Controllers get Carrion Creepers, Devices Blasters get Gun Drone and so on.

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Ok, I have been staring at concrete joist bluelines from 1921 too long today Castle.....

Do they now get the bonuses from the Soulbound set or not?

Just asking cuz I be confused....per normal

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While the Patch Note said that it was the Soulbound set that wasn't working, it appears to have been that NO Purple IOs worked in any pet summoned at lower than level 50. This was the case whether the pet was sub-50 due to mechanics as Imps and tier 1/2 MM henchmen are, or due to Ex/Mal.

Soulbound Allegiance is now working in Imps on the Training Room at L33 (with me Ex to L34).

Given that, it seems probable that now all Purple IOs will work in pets regardless of what level they are summoned at.

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I hope some super IOed WS can test this too.

Mine isn't anywhere near there. Yet.

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I'll check. I'm pretty sure the recharge is working correctly though, based upon the cycle rate of Dwarf Mire.

It's 4.73 pts per tick at level 50.

I take it from all the +PER that this is a PvP build? I really can't comment on effectiveness of power choices in that case, but I can give some ideas about slotting choices.

You don't need capped S/L Def if you have capped M/R/A. As far as I know there are no S/L attacks that are untyped positionally.

Given the large sums spent on the slotting of Health, I'd suggest spending the cash for the Gladiator's +Def special too. That 3% Def will allow you to take all those wasted slots out of Wolf Spider Armor without losing the bit of Melee Def you seem to crave. Even if you don't do that, move the slots out of there into a single target attack and use Touch of Deaths to get the bonus. Yanking these slots will allow you to slot out Arm Lash, one of the Pool attacks and make some other improvements as well.

You don't really need both Jump Kick and Boxing do you? I'd replace Jump Kick with Venom Grenade. I'd suggest slotting Boxing up more. A second set of Touch of Deaths there might work well. Venom Grenade can use cheap frankenslotting or Posi's for more +Rech, depending on how many slots you have.

5-slotting Numinas in Serum is wasteful too. Either add a slot and go with 3 Numinas and 3 Miracles to get the most +HP or use Doctored Wounds for a bit more +Rech. The Miracles give a little more +Rec, which you could use.

Moving the 2nd EndRdx in Tactical Training: Assault to Tactics and using Adjusted Targeting T/E and T/E/R would provide a better overall END use.

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I'm going to assume they're comparable to villainside - the recipe sells from 500-600 mil and the crafted goes from anywhere to 200-500 (a WTF kinda moment for me).

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They're actually a bit more blue-side: 625-700M for the recipe (6 for sale) and 603-760M crafted (2 for sale).

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I'm working with 5 slots in temp inv and 6 in force of nature, any uniques I might want to take advantage of other than the sexy R/D one you pointed out?

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Not really, just the Gladiator's R/D; which will cost a fortune. The Aegis special would be OK on a Blaster in TI.

For TI consider 3 TC (R, R/E, R/E/R), a Steadfast R/D and either the Gladiator R/D (if you're swimming in INF), the Aegis special or a Steadfast -KB.

With FoN having 6 slots I might consider 3 Titanium Coatings for the HP. Say the R/R, R/E/R and R. You only need an R/R from Reactive Armor to get to the Res you want. You could then use Efficacy Adaptors to get some HP and the rest of the Recharge. Say the EndMod/Rech and the EM/R/A. You could use lower level IOs to get to the soft cap and have the Set bonuses for Ex.

The problem with the Aegis in FoN is that it is a bizarre proc that gives Set bonuses. So you have to activate it 5 times after zoning before it reaches full strength. When was the last time you used FoN 5 times on one map? The other two are worth less combined than the Eff Ad +HP.

Cheap slotting for Temporary Invulnerability is 3 Titanium Coatings (R/E, R/E/R, R) and 1 Reactive Armor (R/E).

If you want the bit of Def more than the HP, then replace the TC R, R/E/R and the RA R/E with those same IOs from the Aegis set (you can use the RA R/E to round it out or the TC R/E).

A more expensive slotting that I like is the Steadfast R/E and R/D along with the R and R/E from Impervium Armor. A Steadfast -KB IO can be added and will give a few HP if you don't have a better way to get -KB.

I suggest frankenslotting Force of Nature. Res/Rech from 4 sets such as Reactive Armor, Impervium Armor, Titanium Coating and Aegis works well. If you want to go with a touch less enhancement to get some extra Recovery then the Impervium Armor R/E/R makes a good 4th instead of the Aegis.

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There is no PvP / PvE difference. However, there is a Fortunata / Night Widow difference.



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Actually, there is due to diminishing returns in PvP. You will need significantly higher recharge bonuses in PvP if you want perma ML, if it is even still possible.

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True, the powers and the +Rech needed are the same, but you need a lot more buffs to get there in PvP.

If the Recharge cap of +400% is applied before DR then the most +Rech you can get in PvP is +212.1% (that's Enhancement plus Buff). Which isn't enough to perma-ML a Fortunata. If not then you need about +536% before DR. This is essentially impossible even if the cap isn't applied till after DR.

For a NW you need about +292% before DR (again, that's total +Rech: Enhancement plus Buff). Which is basically a perma-Hasten build +15%.

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The worst possible thing that I can think of as a non-melee focused squishy is having a newb shielder standing next to me with a taunt aura running thinking he's saving me by granting me 13% defense.

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Good point. My Blasters' main defense is MOVEMENT. The last thing I want is some scrapper with a taunt aura chasing me around and yelling at me to stop so that they can give me an insignificant little buff.

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Mids is incorrect, GC is just under 14% def to others at base (scrappers) and around 23% def to all slotted up. Thats serious mitigation no matter how you look at it and is far from insignificant. You can see how effective it is on the mission with all the freak tanks at the end, if the tanks (of the hero variety) ventured outside the radius of my GC their HPs started to fall at an alarming rate.

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Mid's is correct. I think you're confusing the Defense Debuff Resistance strength (13.84% at level 50) with the Defense (8.4375%). Because the toggle doesn't grant Defense to the user, it is implemented as two powers and Real Numbers Detailed Info only lists Res to Slow and Defense Debuffs.

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For my MM:
3 acc/mez HO
3 recharge

My dark def frankenslotted mainly for -tohit and acc, whilst grabbing a couple of +recovery 2 slot bonuses.

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I'd use Acc/Debuff HOs rather than Mez.