nzxo

its been a little since I checked the thread sorry. But as of late, I've built a few farmers and had some mixed results. I leveled a Rad/Fire, but I can't say I'm too thrilled with the result. Its also been a little tight on inf because I keep getting side tracked and investing in other characters. But for the most part I've continued the Axe/Fire with decent results. Its a little mind numbing doing it like this, so I've also made some adustments to make things easier than just 8x+4. I get a fire farm based on the Dreck Map, and theres about 6-8 'hot spots' where about 3-4 groups are close together. I usually Fire off the Ion Incarnate to hit 2 groups, ball lightning to a third, and then AoE the first after jumping into it. There is an aggro cap, but I find that the groups' minions and lts get wiped so quickly, as the other groups are waiting to fight, they anxiously jump in for every slot that opens up from the first groups. Within the first 8 seconds or so, you end up with mostly Boss/Elite Bosses clamoring. Other than that, I will say that one thing that has really boosted my clear speed would be some of the slotting changes I've made. Theres a surprising amount of damage output from powers being slotted almost strictly for procs. I've switched to using the Vigor Alpha Incarnate (+acc for hitting bosses and +endredux for end) and find that by substituting my alpha in such a way it allows me to exclusively slot procs on some of the main attacks. The attacks I've seen that most benefit from this are actually universal to any */Fire/Mu farmers. Things like Ball Lightning and Elec Fences, Burn are all pretty good Proc attacks. Burn having only a 5 max target limit still thrashes those 5 with I believe its 5 (or 6) procs slotted, and its all instantaneous on cast so it plus the 3-4 procs each of Ball lightning and Elec Fences usually wipe the light weights of a group, and then Pendulum, Whirling Axe, and the like to the remaining. Each 3-4 Group collective yields very good 'burst' xp. I guess I've honestly just been farming so much I am kind of sick of it. My vet level is 86 I think on my axe farmer, 45 on my staff, but only like 8 on my Arch/Tact Blaster. But yeah I so far am impressed with how good proc heavy AoEs have been. I wouldn't slot certain attacks using only procs like Cleave or even Whirling Axe for that matter, though. They do yield benefits but the odds of each proc firing get lower or are low out the gate for those powers. Cept Cleave, theres just not much consideration as its a 2-3 mob attack at best. So I slot those normally

I actually often experiment with other farm builds, as it can help shake things up. I've got about 6 different farm builds I've tried, I'll weigh in on what my experience was and maybe it'll be useful to you. 1) Axe/Fire - This one is definitely one of my favorite. Its got mostly KD, and if only for the sheer fun of mowing through stuff with Pendulum, Cleave, Whirling Axe and the Mu Patron Pool. It really was kind of dare I say fun to farm again. One of the best little tricks I used, was since almost all of Axe has KD, you can slot Force Feedbacks into the attacks, so if you're on a tight budget you can sort of pseudo perma hasten , or at least give your overall recharge somewhat of a boost. I have almost nothing bad to say about this build, its really fun and probably the best experience I've had thus far. 2) Street Justice/Fire - Don't do it. I got one up to 50, IO'd it out, and it was very quickly apparent that it would never work. While it was fast and snappy, and I loved the fluidity of the experience, The Radius of Spinning Strike was so tiny, it just took a great deal longer to mow through the groups. It just got more and more frustrating when I'd only hit 3 of the 9 mobs huddled together. I tried to make it work but StJ's AoE is just not good due to its limitations. That and PBAoE's have some more slotting options open to them. 3) Elec Melee/Fire - Kinda obvious, this one was just fine. But to be honest I was a little disappointed, it kind of still felt slow and like I was always waiting for LR to recharge before I could move onto next group, etc. Theres nothing wrong with it though. 4) Staff / Fire - This was my most recent attempt at a new fire farmer, and it has yielded some good results. Not the best, mind you - but its very much capable of doing the job relatively quickly due to the multiple cones. The only complaint I might have, would be it really feels like the animations just take a little too long to get used to. Its honestly a minor detail though, I've gotten this build to work quite well. 5) Mace / Fire - I woulda thought this build would have worked out well, but since the attacks didn't have KD enhancement slots on all the attacks (note, some actually DO) and it just didn't have the satisfying crunchy death spree inducing experience axe had, I can't say I really liked this build. Thats all I've managed to level and play up with so far. I love Dual Blades, am really tempted to try making a DB/Fire, but I also have a feeling it might be more middle of the road than I'm hoping. The reality is, its really, really not cool to have levelled a farm build up all the way to 50, IO'd them out, only to kinda find that it was more or less workable but not enjoyable. Dunno if my experiences would assist you at all, but you had the same idea I did so I figured I'd chime in.