Digirium

@Heatstroke Fire farms are still viable but what concerns farmers about fire farming is they are an obvious target (due to their popularity and numbers) leading to strong probability their diminished efficiency will be further disrupted. Smashing/lethal critter power sets are more in number than fire critter power sets and this has lead to a perception that smashing/lethal farms will be more viable and efficient in the long term. To make your existing fire farmer brute viable again your build will need to add health generation (healing flames is not enough by itself). Temperature Protection got a 100% regeneration addition in Page 5 and Consume the ability to boost Max HP to help you get the ball rolling. Other damage type farms are likely going to pop-up too (you could always learn Mission Architect and setup some). However, history with fire farming indicates those other damage type farms are more susceptible to disruption. Tankers are pretty good at farming but more dependent on keeping up the damage bonus compared to a Brute (juice those reds). They can also hit more targets with their AoEs so if you get a tanker juiced up they do good. Brutes are still very viable. Both ATs need to have decent regeneration in the current meta.

I played a DM/Regen scrapper during live and it was awesome (health bar rocketing from near-zero hit points to full in a second). The biggest mistake was nerfing that regen. The second biggest mistake was adding Masterminds.

No, it is not the regular definition of the word "insanity". Einstein's witticism refers instead to the world of quantum mechanics where in fact you can do the same thing many times and get different results. Einstein initially had a rational view and didn't believe in the inherent unpredictability of the world. He found his sanity challenged until he accepted not everything could be neatly determined. Einstein Insanity is insanity from a different context, still related to madness or going mad.

32,000 beans sound like what everyone expects with proc rates when in reality ...

Right to start a new thread - nerf 😛

Wait what the other devs are too numpty-ish to build patches without Faultline??... hallelujah we're safe!

Duh! Take apart your existing laptop and clean the dust and crap inside out of it... no more high temps.

No. The real issue here is thread-starters deleting their original post taking down the entire thread, deleting all the content. This behaviour needs to be stopped. Suggestions, on the other hand, should never stop.

Page 4 also brought in massive levels of aggro against farmers f.ex every critter on asteroid map shooting the farmer. Atta map (a favourite for AFK farm makers) suffered similar fate at the crossroad junctions. How inf/xp was decided in AE was also nerfed. Page 5 changed Burn and Irradiated Ground (pseudo pets, procs, damage) and tried to make Burn a once in forever power, added -def to fiery melee powers. Even shifting when T1-9 powers can be added to lower down in builds is a change in part to counter the "players power level their characters because of large gaps in getting powers" argument - more reason to level up the "normal" way, huh. I think it was better to keep things the way they were except for adding a choice of T1/2 in secondary power which is only what players have wanted forever more or less. Farmers usually catch up with things after the patch. I reckon most players do not read forums or care about what is coming on test servers because they are (or were) enjoying themselves too much to bother. Page 4 caused a lot of farmers to "throw in the towel". Page 5 expecting a ditto. Future will be whatever meta is most popular amongst farmers getting "special" dev attention like "whack a mole". I expect drops within AE will be hit and inf/xp will take further hits. It seems to be a time tested certainty that developers of a game eventually make their game less popular over time. Players accept the fun times are over, fun has died and move on to something else that is still fun.

Yup, despite good stuff being done each page there is bad stuff being done too each page. It's chip, chip, chip away at the "wrong kind of players" with nerf after nerf to farming it's a taster of what is to come in the future. "AE farms are not using the full attack chains" one moment, players adjust to include more attacks and then attacks are modified in a way that will absolutely kill farmers. Players adjust again but expect more chipping away. Instead of being hateful pinheads, community could realise the "wrong kind of players" are players just like them having fun who need their support. I'm seeing some fallout already between players and devs over page 5, some of it disastrous and page 5 hasn't even moved from staging to production.

Yup, as someone pointed out to me in the FM feedback thread, farms can be adjusted to not use any of the sword attacks and still reward 100% on critter minions and Lts, virtually almost 100% on bosses. So RIP fire farms not yet.

Thanks, testing on the map 23824 in AE (critters adjusted to be without sword attacks) and RIP farm farms. After adjustment XP/Inf seemed to be 100% on critter minions and Lts, Bosses slightly under although no big deal.

While the Burn recharge time increase was reverted on Brainstorm Page 5, the defence debuffs that were added to the sword attacks in fiery melee completely decimate defences. If these defence debuffs remain on the sword attacks it will mean the end of fire farms -- RIP.

Tested critters in AE that use FIery Melee and Fire Sword - +4x8 fire farm, spine/fire brute with 45% fire defence, 90% fire resistance and 60 hp/sec health regeneration, 2,200 health max. The 45% fire defence was quickly decimated by the critters in melee range using fire sword. Defences on the brute were driven in to the red, no defence debuff resistance available to mitigate the cascade - brute went to hospital within 20 seconds. I think it is too much really to give all three sword attacks in Fiery Melee a defence debuff, something these attacks never had before. RIP fire farms.

Well, since Page 4 I've been waiting for the "other boot to drop" and now we have it with Page 5 (beta). The boot landed hard on those that AFK farm. Fiery melee attacks with defence debuffs, Burn recharge nerf. If Page 5 is about powers then may be Maneuvers and Weave need some DDR protection added? I AFK farm to fund builds (it's not 100% AFK, I press some buttons sometimes) but I have problems with active farming as I'm getting old and my hands and fingers can't take as much of a beating nowadays as they used to be able to do. May be over time a way will be figured out to overcome this issue. There is a lot I like about Page 5 f.ex Sentinels finally receiving some help, plus a lot more. I think it would be great if the HC devs and their GM minions didn't stifle/hide debate and communicated their goals and reasons more openly than they do at the moment. Their aggression level against player opinion is oppressive - the Karens/Kens don't help either.

The health regeneration component added to Temperature Protection is really strong. Needing health to be 75% or less to use Phoenix Rising reminds of that epic fail of when Defiance on Blasters worked better in proportion to when health was lower. Do it the other way around -- activate Phoenix Rising, lose some health with devastating effect like the health was being channelled into damage (no need to give a heal to hit points when the power is activated). Losing some health works better with the change to Temperature Protection. Burn changes are good on the whole except for the 25 -> 45s recharge time change. I think it's too much.

Duh! Being honest, skip the "cheap build" and instead focus on your "end build" for a farmer. Play a main character, earn reward merits, rinse repeat and get to around 3,000 RMs. Use those to buy the winter and purple sets your "end build" needs from the merit vendor. Use the 300M Inf to fill out the remainder of the build. Notes for "end build": 90% fire resist, 45% fire defence AND good hit point per second regeneration (35+/sec). Further note: come up with your own distinctive build instead of "monkey see, monkey do" copying of other builds.

I rarely converted EMs to RMs -- I thought it was wasteful because EMs were more useful kept as they were and RMs are easy to acquire anyway. The only times I did a conversion were to buy recipes from the merit vendor for enhancements needed to complete a build that were being kept artificially priced high in the auction house i.e. to bypass the needy greediness of other players. It was actually more efficient to use converters but I did not fancy rolling dice. May be removing the conversion was a reasonable trade off to keep VLs available in AE? And if it has any impact on RMTers then may be it had to be done? A grievance I actually have with this and the beta for page 4 was the lack of explanation of rationale from HC.

Burn recharge speed on an AFK farmer does matter in edge cases where critters have swarmed. Rad/fire will always attain a little less hp/sec compared with spines/fire (with hp/sec a goal) because rad has no ranged attack (at least 1x ultimate regen less i.e. 16-28%). IG is a power I think few understand f.ex accuracy has to be added to the power so the pseudo-pet actually hits anything (all procs is no good if the power is whiffing all the time). Yes, Quills is easier to slot. I use three types of AFK farmer: spines/fire and rad/fire (brutes both with HP accolades), spines/fire brute without HP accolades (a clone of the other spines/fire to satisfy my curiosity that it can live the AFK life too). Page 4 has not stopped them yet while they AFK but I realise they are one-RNG extinction event away from being stopped (fire blasts all rolling a hit simultaneously for a long moment) so I am curious to witness if that actually happens.

Plus some of the critters use Aim or Build Up type powers (it means instead of 54s rolling sub-10% chances to hit, they roll nearly 50%!).

@Meknomancer IMO your build is lacking in health regeneration hp/sec but you are on the right track. The Mids regen figure without the Unrelenting Fury proc for your build is 330% which is a good start but if you can find an extra 100% that would be ideal. Next issue is max hp -- more hp means more hp/sec. It is possible (without accolades) to reach 1,900 ish (2,200 with accolades), your build is on 1,650. I suggest splitting Apocalypse in to 2x3 in to Impale and Laser Beam Eyes for 2x16% health regen and 2x3% hit points. Use the set finder in Mids to identify set bonuses for 16%, 12%, 10% regen etc and more hp and figure how to alter your build further. You may need to sacrifice some of your mule slotting f.ex Brawl and Boxing. Overall (without accolades) you are on 22.76 hp/sec despite 330% -- your goal is 35+ hp/sec. The Unrelenting Fury proc will stack on top of that for another 3-5 hp/sec approx. If you get the HP accolades add another 5 hp/sec approx. Try the open asteroid map again, see how well it goes. An AFK build that can withstand the aggro can be done, has been done (but not shared in this thread).

You might be right, I could not see it mentioned in the "official" Page 4 patch notes at the top of the forum. It was mentioned in the beta patch notes and a topic of discussion in the beta feedback threads so perhaps check those?

Are you accounting for the fix to Double XP boosters (it explains the 1-31 in place of 1-36 now you have fixed it up to 100% again)? Edit: I would really like to be able to push the bar beyond 100% for increased XP/Inf.

A lot of farms will be out of date now since Page 4. This means there is a new mechanic that has modified XP/Inf based on the completeness of the attack chain that critters use in the data stream. XP/Inf may only be 75% of what is used to be prior to Page 4. As said, search for "Fire Farm" but then go to the last page of the results and seek newer farms that have the attack chains fixed to give near to 100% XP/Inf reward. NB The XP booster fix does not affect the attack chain Inf/XP new reckoning that came with Page 4.

That may be true however I look at it the other way around. Make a farming build that can survive AFK, it will work no problem at all running active and without needed healing flames in the build freeing up slots for something else. The purpose of an active build is to complete ASAP having to use healing flames interrupts the attack chain. Admittedly, it is a small difference but percentages matter. There are probably active builds with healing flames that won't survive now.