City of Heroes Night Widow Guide

City of Heroes Night Widow Guide by TopDoc

I finally settled on a build for my Widow, and I thought I’d share it. This is a PvE build designed for max Defense and Damage. It’s kind of like a Claws/SR Scrapper, only better. This is a VERY expensive build, designed for doing silly hard things. But if you have the Inf and enjoy doing silly hard things, read on.This is a Night Widow build, but it doesn’t actually use any powers from the Night Widow primary. It does use Mental Training from the Night Widow secondary in order to get enough Recharge, but you could drop that and just use more LotGs if you really wanted to go Fortunata to take a couple different powers, or perhaps grab Vengeance. Hasten is perma.

Widows have a slightly lower melee damage base than Scrappers, but the attack chain loaded with high DPSA attacks and double stacked Follow Up makes up for it. The attack chain is: Follow Up, Lunge, Strike, Swipe, Repeat. (I had to use the Database editor in Mid’s to get Follow Up to double stack.) That’s 962.5 damage (taking into account average proc damage and DoTs) in 4.62 seconds, or just over 208 Damage Per Second (DPS). The only Scrapper that might beat this is a highly purpled Fire/Fire Scrapper, who can get 191 DPS before taking Fiery Embrace into account.

I wanted to use Slash in my chain, but that 16 second recharge is a killer. I’d have to replace Swipe with alternating Slash and something else, like Poison Dart. Those powers are both longer than Swipe, and I’d lose the double stacking of Follow Up right before using Follow Up. It would increase my DPS by 2.5%, but it would cost 9.6% more END and make the chain more difficult. It wasn’t worth the effort.

For AoEs I’ve got Spin on a fairly fast recharge, and Dart Burst that’s even faster. In fact Dart Burst recharges in the time it takes to use Spin. I can spam Poison Dart and Dart Burst to stack up a nice Regen debuff. Ball Lightning would be nice as it’s fast to animate and has a nice area, but that long Recharge is a killer. Psychic Scream isn’t really worth it for the nice Recharge debuff. Eviscerate is a decent melee cone, but I couldn’t fit it in.

For Defense, this build has effectively capped (45%+) Melee and Ranged Defense, with AoE Defense at 44.5%. No need for Elude for extra Defense. Mind Link is perma with plenty of overlap. Any team she is on gets 23.5% Defense all the time, so she’s VERY team friendly. The only drawback is you have to “Gather for Mind Link” every 80 seconds or so. Even against Psi attacks with no positional typing, she’s got 34.4% Defense and 62.6% Resistance.

She’s pretty well off for END. Her toggles excluding Super Speed and Tactical Training: Leadership cost 0.42 EPS, but she recovers 3.72 EPS. Her attack chain costs 3.85 EPS. She can fight non-stop for over 2 minutes before running out of END, or she can slow down a little bit and fight forever.

Like any good SR Scrapper, she’s got Aid Self for the damage that gets through. Her Defense should allow her to get it off when needed. She’s also got decent HP (at least for a Widow) and Regen as well.

She’s got Super Speed as her main travel power. Hurdle with Combat Jumping will let her get over the bumps, and I’ve done just fine with those on other villains. But she’s got the GvE Jump Pack and temp Mayhem travel powers if needed.

While it’s important to list why I took certain powers, I think it’s also good to list why I skipped others. So here’s the list…

Widow Training/Confront: Taunts are for Brutes and Tankers.
Night Widow Training/Mental Blast: Lower DPSA than Poison Dart.
Night Widow Training/Build Up: Can’t take with Follow Up, and Follow Up gives a 60% bonus all the time.
Night Widow Training/Smoke Grenade: I already have full PvE Invisibility and capped Defense, so the debuffs aren’t needed.
Night Widow Training/Slash: It just doesn’t fit into the chain.
Night Widow Training/Eviscerate: Just not enough room in the build.
Night Widow Training/Psychic Scream: Lower DPSA than Dart Burst, at twice the END and Recharge.
Teamwork/Combat Training Offensive: No need for +10% Accuracy with all the ToHit and Accuracy bonuses I already have.
Teamwork/Combat Training Assault: Just not enough room in the build.
Widow Teamwork/Placate: The bonus Hidden damage doesn’t make up for the time I lose by using Placate, and I don’t need the Placate effect.
Widow Teamwork/Tactical Training Vengeance: People on her team shouldn’t die with the 23.5% Defense she provides.
Widow Teamwork/Elude: Doesn’t need it for Defense or the other buffs it provides.

With this build, I’ve solo’d a Rikti pylon using only blue Inspirations (because I don’t have the Miracle unique slotted yet). I also took out a level 53 spawn of Rikti which included 3 bosses, without using any Inspirations (the Scrapper RWZ Challenge). A similar level 54 spawn defeated me when 2 Chief Soldiers both hit around the same time. I haven’t gone back for a rematch, yet. So yes, it’s overpowered and fun. I have yet to try soloing AVs, but I certainly think it’s possible.

Villain Plan by Mids’ Villain Designer 1.4006
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Little Widow PvE: Level 50 Natural Arachnos Widow
Primary Power Set: Night Widow Training
Secondary Power Set: Widow Teamwork
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Medicine
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Swipe — Hectmb-Dmg:50(A), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(29), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg:50(37), Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx:50(37), Hectmb-Dam%:50(37), Mako-Dam%:50(43)
Level 1: Combat Training: Defensive — DefBuff-I:50(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(3)
Level 2: Strike — C’ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:50(A), C’ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:50(3), C’ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(11), C’ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(13), C’ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(13), Mako-Dam%:50(15)
Level 4: Tactical Training: Maneuvers — RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(5), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:50(5), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(9), RedFtn-Def:50(36), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(40)
Level 6: Hasten — RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(7), RechRdx-I:50(7)
Level 8: Follow Up — C’ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:50(A), C’ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:50(9), C’ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(11), C’ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(19), C’ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(19), Mako-Dam%:50(45)
Level 10: Indomitable Will — EndRdx-I:50(A)
Level 12: Lunge — C’ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx:50(A), C’ngImp-Dmg/Rchg:50(15), C’ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(17), C’ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(17), C’ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(40), Mako-Dam%:50(46)
Level 14: Super Speed — HO:Micro(A), HO:Micro(43)
Level 16: Hurdle — Jump-I:50(A)
Level 18: Health — RgnTis-Regen+:30(A), Mrcl-Heal:40(23), Mrcl-Rcvry+:40(27), Numna-Heal:50(45), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+:50(45)
Level 20: Stamina — EndMod-I:50(A), P’Shift-EndMod:50(21), P’Shift-EndMod/Rchg:50(21), P’Shift-End%:50(50)
Level 22: Foresight — DefBuff-I:50(A), DefBuff-I:50(23), S’fstPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(27)
Level 24: Mind Link — HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(25), HO:Membr(25)
Level 26: Poison Dart — Apoc-Dmg:50(A), Apoc-Dmg/Rchg:50(34), Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(36), Apoc-Acc/Rchg:50(39), Apoc-Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), Apoc-Dam%:50(40)
Level 28: Spin — Armgdn-Dmg:50(A), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(29), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg:50(31), Armgdn-Dmg/EndRdx:50(31), Armgdn-Dam%:50(31), EndRdx-I:50(46)
Level 30: Mask Presence — RedFtn-Def/EndRdx:50(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg:50(33), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg:50(33), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg:50(33), RedFtn-Def:50(34), RedFtn-EndRdx:50(34)
Level 32: Combat Jumping — LkGmblr-Rchg+:50(A)
Level 35: Tactical Training: Leadership — HO:Cyto(A), HO:Cyto(36), ToHit-I:50(39)
Level 38: Aid Other — Heal-I:50(A)
Level 41: Electrifying Fences — GravAnch-Immob:50(A), GravAnch-Acc/Immob/Rchg:50(42), GravAnch-Acc/Rchg:50(42), GravAnch-Immob/EndRdx:50(42), GravAnch-Hold%:50(43)
Level 44: Dart Burst — Ragnrk-Dmg:50(A), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(46), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg:50(48), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx:50(48), Ragnrk-Knock%:50(48)
Level 47: Aid Self — Numna-Heal/EndRdx:50(A), Numna-Heal:50(50), Numna-Heal/Rchg:50(50)
Level 49: Mental Training — Run-I:50(A)
————
Level 1: Brawl — Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint — Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest — RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
————
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[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]

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