Digirium

Ignore me.

My normal farmer build didn't last long either. "Egghead" time with Mids. From further tests I did, AFK fire farming is still possible. It requires an extreme build with all the accolades, a heavy focus on health regeneration rate and self heal procs (x4). But... even with 400% health regeneration topped off with brute regen proc stacking (between 40-50 hp/sec) it is still a roll of dice f.ex if the majority of critters lobbing fire blasts all roll a hit simultaneously it may be touch and go or faceplant time despite a very strong build. I think it would be classified as "working at intended" by the developers (i.e. an AFK farming brute now has a non-zero percent chance of being defeated). I've been using America's Angel test map - Briggs I've tried too. Both have patrols. Briggs for some reason felt easier and more survivable. That was at +4x8, of course. Might circle back to Briggs to check that out again on the test server to be certain.

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/MARTy

Thanks for clarification. Btw, there are 960 threads during XP gain at veteran levels up to 11 (but not those divisible by three i.e. 3, 6 or 9 EMs are gained). 120 incarnate threads are gained per level.

I assume incarnate shards will not drop either since threads were already mentioned as removed drops. What happens to the XP that is denied? Either it is shared out to the team members or discarded. I assume discarded. Farmers that want their cake and eat it will go old school i.e. find a non-AE farm so still get rewards including vet levels, EMs, etc. Filling out incarnate XP to hybrid in an AE farm is not so great without shards, threads and EMs to actually fill in unlocked incarnate slots. It means farming regular content instead including those repeats that reward incarnate components without time constraint. The grind will still exist just "culturally" forced to other routes.

Yup, you're right - the ability to turn of XP and accept inf instead ought to be re-enabled. It's removal was a mistake and hurt casual players the most. It's intended target, farmers, shrugged their shoulders adapted and moved on getting smarter with how to use the AH in the process. Homecoming massively over-reached in their "April Fools Day" patch.

I am correct; it was a nerf that went too far -- patrol XP ought to have been consumed when a player was under exemplar, it had to be fixed. Disabling the option to receive influence instead of XP was not right. You and others keep rolling out irrelevant economics waffle again and again to dismiss this very obvious issue with what was nerfed. You take affront at the rejection of your patterned economic thinking that you keep repeating mindlessly, when you forget that this is a video game with a pretend market place and fail to acknowledge the real objectives behind the nerf were nothing to do with economics at all. Players that use AE to farm influence have been under attack for a very long time -- the increase to mob damage output in the AE didn't play out, so this was the answer.

Wow, it will never cease to amaze how people can conflate the issue with absurd arguments. With the change to how influence enters the game all the players have to play more, for longer than before to afford their builds. More influence entering the game while a player is playing to gain the influence for that build is longer now than it was before. This flies in the face of things like double XP boosters where the intention was to take half the play time compared to before. The players still end up with the same influence bill for their build but their play time required is that much longer now (casual and farmer both). Still we have the same people disregarding these simple facts and deploying high level pseudo-economic arguments that do not apply here, in a video game. They continually fail to acknowledge that the nerf was only right in one respect (patrol experience was not being consumed while in exemplar mode) and wrong in another (disabling XP for influence). How players gain their influence is rightly a subject of examination here. Those that play the game I've no issue with at all - it doesn't matter how, if you're casual or farming AE. I'd say farming AE was also casual play - nobody farms when they are not motivated to pay for a build. And there are casual players converted to AE farming all the time, for the same reason. But those that gain their influence not playing the game - by exploiting the efforts of those actually playing the game, not enough is being said against them. When players bring this up - we go around in the circular arguments again and it's a distraction: the dead cat hurled on the table. And we're running out of cats.

I'd say the same about your opinions. Only one of us is right though, that's me.

Jimmy. That was part of the justification for the influence nerf. That's a big thing because, you know, he's a dev and runs the game. Inflation is caused when players manipulate the market - we see it at the moment and all the time. A player decides the price is too low and manipulates it to be higher. They can do that in a game when they would not be able to in the real world because the rules are different. Other players join in and in the long-term sets a new higher price.

I reckon the tomatoes have more of chance to grow than of you being correct. Players are patterned in to behaviour and buy enhancements for the same price all the time - sellers will never sell below the established prices because they also follow a pattern. It takes great effort to break a pattern. This nerf was not that effort.

The normal rules of economics (if anyone in the real world really thinks they're normal or benefit everyone, not just a few) do not apply in a video game. That's been said so many times I wonder why it's not sinking in yet? Prices have remained the same on the game market so what Jimmy said was a bust - it was "make believe", that's all, to give a justification for the over-nerf of influence entering the game. That affected everyone, all the players but achieved nothing. And instead of market diversity for enhancements we see enhancements and recipes snatched up and converted in to the rare ones. That's due to enhancement converters being too easily available and exploited. And please don't tell me players are performing a "service" for others - it's really only for themselves. It would be helpful if everyone stopped thinking in a "market is centre" way.

I do both (farming and marketing, including flipping) and know just about what everything sells for. I really don't like the flipping part, to be honest. It means buying far too many enhancement converters and that part I don't think is right - enhancement converters ought to be account bound and not traded. That would mean players are limited to only the amount of converters that they earn through game play (purchasing with merits or drops if they are lucky). That would limit the players that setup niches. Do not underestimate the niche sellers either. One or two might start a niche but that extends to 10 players, then to 100 players and more as players "dog pile" in at the same price. I've not witnessed prices get any lower since the great nerf at the start of the month - they stayed the same.

Peerless Girl is obviously the pivot point for something that needed to be said. Your interventions are obvious for what they are and are not helpful.

I will make it very clear for you. Farmers do not and never have set the prices on the market. There are people that create niches to make profit for themselves - they are the actual exploiters. Farming is a response to those profiteers. People playing the game just because they need influence to buy those enhancements -- they fall in to the same category as farmers. Your bias against farmers extends to any player playing the game and your arguments and narratives undermine anyone and everyone playing the game. Fixing the patrol experience so it was used up when under exemplar would have been fine and not lead to any backlash. Removing the option to have influence instead of experience at the same time? It's a step that went too far and it affects everyone. Anyone saying they're fine with that are like "turkeys voting for and agreeing with Christmas/Thanksgiving". The amount of influence entering the game is not and never was the issue - saying that it is, is a blind. A blind to the real issue. The real issue was and still is marketeers manipulating the market, creating a niche, setting their prices high. Sure, that can be competed with but who has the time to take for that when all everyone wants to do is play the game, Entering in to market PvP for the hell of it against the niche may be fun for a short while but you can be certain that the profiteers will to profit is strong/obsessive. It was a sad day when influence instead of experience was removed as an option - it needs restored and I hope the devs are reading.

Err, I've been reading their posts - they're biased completely against farming, keep on repeating the same unhelpful false narratives.

What the? Your bias has been obvious for a long time. If farmers were farming a lot of influence from farms why would they also farm the auction house for influence as well? Attempting to take those two things together does not tie together within any sensible sense of reason. On the contrary, farmers tended to be "market neutral" and in fact supported the market selling recipes dropped during farms on the cheap - directly to the real negative drain on the game, the profiteering "doesn't play the game" marketeers providing a so-called "service" (for themselves, may be).

Yes I was not looking at it right in Mids for Fire Ball ... sigh, again. The numbers and operands are so tiny on a 4K screen and I can't see them well. Concur, 1.3845. I guess for doing the patron arc the reward is slightly better powers than the standard epics. My farming builds might get a small rethink now. Spine Burst seems ok to me with DPCC = 2.494 (if I read the numbers right!).

As said above - Mids. Did you get the numbers from in game? DPCC = (total damage) / (recharge + cast). Neither epic pool matters in an AFK farm except for the set bonuses and it sometimes works out better having the variety in that respect Pyre over Mu. With higher global recharge it feels one extra AoE is better than two in the attack chain - two of them work better in low recharge.

Yes and no. I was looking at Fire Blast, Fire Ball is 2.41 which is still greater than either Electric Fences (1.57) or Ball Lightning (1.84).

Alright, rebuttal: Looking at the stats in Mids (they might be wrong) to calculate DPCC (damage per cast cycle) I'm coming up with 1.57 for Electric Fences and 1.84 for Ball Lightning. Fire Ball comes up as 6.72. It appears FB out does EF+BL combined. They both appear to have very long cast cycles compared with FB. A single proc from each ATO set is what I am talking about, not the whole set. Five IOs from Multi-Strike or Scirocco's Dervish + Brute ATO proc. For 8M + catalysts gain an 18-19% endurance discount, fury and health regen. It's a part of the reason Healing Flames never needs to be used - health bar is on fast enough regen not to worry any more. If I AFK farmed a map with Elite Bosses they would all be defeated - I would not return to find my character surrounded by the undefeated because Burn is firing. In your case, the regen on the NPCs is greater than your damage output ever is because your build does not survive without HF. Take all the slots out of Healing Flames and you'd have two slots for the extra Aegis and meet the 45% fire defence soft cap. Bottom line is, you compromised too far on not fitting IOs that cost less than the influence from one room in a farm e.g. Panacea: + Hit Points/Endurance Power Transfer: Chance to Self Heal Miralce: +Recovery Numina's Convalesence: +Regeneration/+Recovery With Healing Flames not slotted at all, you have the slots for Health and Stamina to make your build survivable without Healing Flames. With the confidence to commit to this, Healing Flames might be needed (with 1-slot containing a health IO) rarely until Alpha is level shifted and/or enough rooms have been cleared to afford the IOs listed above. And that's still a cheap build compared with the maximum farmer build (several hundred million more) for 70-80% of the clearance speed.

My rotation goes like this: Fire Ball (you: Electric Fences, Ball Lightning) Spine Burst Fiery Embrace, or Build Up Burn For 1+2, pressing those buttons to run damage inspiration macro until the powers fire. I have damage bonus on monitor, if it's capped (600%) then it's an option to skip FE and BU. May be if the inspirations are starting to blink, I'll hit them anyway. All powers are 95% hit roll. I like the rotation this way, with damage inspirations being loaded up, ending in Burn as the coup de grâce (the finisher) on anything left standing.

I read the build, thanks for sharing - some feedback: Spines/Fire always a good choice - my preference after that is Pyre Mastery it simplifies the build and does the job No Brute ATO procs? I think these are needed to build fury, regen, endurance discount - they certainly help Burn is usually the power on auto - If Healing Flames is needed, then something is not right Two more slots on any of the powers with Aegis in them and you have 45% fire defence The insp macros don't matter for AFK farm on active farms night/day difference Global recharge is really low, even a budget build could squeeze in 4xLoTGs I can share an alternative budget build, if you'd like to see (meaning: it has no Winter or Purple sets in it but has other IOs > 2M inf)?

If converters are locked to characters, then the same goal is achieved: IOs will still end up on the auction house. What won't happen, is the ability to farm converters from the AH and flip IOs over and over without limit - you'll only be able to profit from the converters earned on that character.

Add: how many convert operations are performed, broken down by operation type Enhancement converters possibly need to be bound to a character, not able to trade, to persuade the recipient to use them. As it is, they are being used to exploit for profit, to extract influence from others actually playing the game, by characters not playing the game and not directly earning influence. Influence has become more valuable than before with the disabling of influence in lieu of experience option. Limiting the use of enhancement converters would help to maintain the value of influence.