Digirium

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.

No, because selfishness will increase and it's more likely players will cotton on to hording IO enhancements in base storage for their needs later because the recipes, components and converters are worth more than they get on the AH. What's available in AH will still be higher priced for the big kill - gatherers will get turned off.

What to say? Let's have a run: Frustration with the developers, if you're a farmer, for them implementing a change impacting their play style - those farmers could either think "Do I trust these developers any more? What further attacks will be made on my play style? Could stuff stop dropping in farms? And should I roll more accounts to run parallel farms to compensate?" More converting, clicking and stacking up of enhancements on the AH than before in compensation Economy dries up It's pretty boring waiting for stuff to sell on AH when the queue of buyers disappears. It was actually a very good thing that farmers used to tap in to large influence streams because they spread the wealth to everyone. Now that stream is halved, everyone else will feel the negative effect. Profiteers/marketeers and converter exploiter attempts to gather influence limited more than they were. On the face of it, players will make do and pretend "it's a good change" - the qualified economic experts will continue to post, enjoying the limelight for a moment. Really, the struggle for everyone has increased. I reckon there is a feeling of insecurity in the long term coming to everyone. Especially when discussions are held after the fact, instead of building consent.

View the set totals in Mids with the toggles turned on and off and you'll have your answer! For example, Tough is often used a place holder for globals like Steadfast Protection but is not toggled on. Weave would be toggled on because the defence is usually required -- aiming for 45% defence versus the damage type.

Seems to me taking away influence from exemplar or switching off experience to gain influence merely switches players from one exploit (infinity patrol experience) to other exploits (low bidding, huge mark up on IOs after converting). The world praises and looks up to capitalists so may be explains why nobody can see the problem?

No difference between "standard content" and AE on inf/min plus drops are identical. This is a solo farm character running +4(x8) the influence equals the bounties from the defeated NPCs, the drops add extra influence (enhancements, recipes and salvage) There is no predictability on what drops equates to in terms of influence, it's random - it could be less than the bounties it could be more. The last build was reaching toward 1 billion influence, in total -- it started before the patch and finished up after when it was more of a struggle to complete the remainder of the IOs required for the build. Instead of 20 hours farming, may be it is now 40 hours instead -- burnout is the more likely to happen consequence now. Without farming how long would it take to casually build up a character? A hundred hours, two? It would not surprise me. Before AE in live, farmers would pick a mission map and farm but never complete it, reset and go again. It's even easier now with flashback.

1M influence/minute since the double influence fuelled in error by patrol XP is now disabled. Note however, that rate is only possible on the extreme builds that have macros converting and consuming damage inspirations - YMMV for characters less setup/perfected to farm. My feeling about the change is still depression and I know many others are feeling it too - there is a disconnect opened between the aspiration to build characters and the ability to do what is required. A post above outlined how much it costs to outfit a character.

Exemplar/influence instead of XP ought to have remained the way it was, IMO. Instead, the real issue that may be ought to have been fixed was the non-consumption of patrol experience while in exemplar mode. Was it right that a character could log out for an hour to gain some patrol experience and then become locked in to infinite patrol experience without it being used up? No. The Homecoming developers have done a complete hack job on this and not solved it the correct way, IMO.

A broken patch for patrol experience under exemplar in AE -- the correct fix was to consume the patrol experience. Instead, in AE we get characters forced to accept experience even if they didn't want it or need it. The option to turn off experience and take influence in lieu always existed. If the effect is outside AE too then the patch is very broken.

Not so much any more. With the farming nerf, more farmers will cotton on to cutting out the middle-man i.e. buying the winter super packs themselves, converting them and adding a catalyst. There will be less incentive to flip winter enhancements like this as they won't sell. They won't have as much to throw at inflated cost enhancements as before. Nerf farms = nerf marketeers.

Despite what server status indicates, Reunion is actually running.

Server status indicates Reunion is still down.

I tried this as well a couple of weeks ago i.e. fire/fire/fire blaster -- as described, the mob flees all over the map and made it too unmanageable. It was fun for about an hour until mob fleeing made consistently quick map clearance unrealistic. Getting 75% fire resist and 45% fire defence was not a problem and the healing tick from cauterising aura was helpful. This is +4/8 with T3 incarnates, +1 level shift. It stood in the middle of the mob and survived without any intervention. I will eventually return to try farming with a different blaster primary/secondary combination i.e. */*/fire but not */fire/fire again -- perhaps fire/rad/fire because the level of generated recharge looks interesting. It may be viable for fire/fire/fire to not use either burn or hot feet to avoid the fleeing but for me it was either "burn or go home" and try another blaster combination for farming.

Looks like an OK starter build to acquire some inf and spend it on more enhancements and improve the build. Things you could look at to improve the build: Increase fire defence -- it's 16.6% on the current build. A goal is 45% plus. Try to figure out a build that only needs Fire Shield and Temperature Protection to reach 90% fire resistance i.e. drop Plasma Shield. Have an eye on the Winter event sets -- there are five sets each gives 5% fire defence (one set is 7.5%) and 6% fire resistance. Aegis set of five enhancements gives two fire defence additions (this is a resistance set i.e. (3.13 + 1.56) x 2) Aim to lower endurance rate of usage significantly. At the moment, your build is propped up a lot with Healing Flames, Consume, epic choices and health regeneration to keep alive -- due to the low fire defence. Endurance use is pretty high it looked like 2.25/s. While fighting the farm there is added stress to stay alive at the same time. Solving the defence issue solves the staying alive issue and provides freedom to make another epic choice (for example Pyre Mastery or Mu). It also allows other choices, like dropping one or other of leadership or fighting. For incarnate choices: Alpha - Musculature core paragon (overcomes ED by 45% more damage) Judgement - whatever you like (Ion or Pyronic perhaps?) Interface - Degenerative or Reactive perhaps? Diamagnetic might help at the moment with -ToHit to shore up fire defence a little Lore - Carnival Radial with untouchable Seneschal is pretty good (buffs ToHit and Damage) Destiny - Ageless is pretty much the go to pick here but Barrier might be helpful at the moment too Hybrid - Assault Core Embodiment (damage buff) Take a look at the farming guide - the macros for combining inspirations in to reds are pretty useful, quite often let a brute run at the 600% damage cap.

Standard rewards at AE include these drops: SO enhancements, salvage and recipes (which are L50 and can, if being lucky, include purples). Door sitters gain a variable amount of inf with double-experience turned on through selling those drops -- every little helps.

Has anyone tested with a spine/fire brute so far? (NB. Testing - please note what you have tested - while it's great to read you've tested successfully and that's good news, the important feedback is what you tested!)

I see farm brute still ahead, slightly, to farm tanker but not as massively as before -- this is due to fury. In either scenario, the edge case of how many red inspirations are available to consume during a farm can swing it one direction or another. A tanker is more viable to farm with than it used to be.

Taunt aura on brutes is currently broken, a fix is being tested but not deployed to live yet -- please see beta patch notes 29 January, 2020. The effect, as noted in the OP, is that NPCs run in and out of brute auras. Supposedly, there is a ritual that helps circumvent the brute's taunt aura defect and I've been following it - toggle auras off and on across session changes. It doesn't seem to help a lot, firing brute taunt seems to help. May be a rad/fire farm brute isn't being affected so much with the taunt aura bug?