Maelwys

It doesn't. It works well for Henchmen that happen to be in melee range. It's perfectly possible to use GOTO commands on your ranged henchmen so that they move to (and remain in for the duration of each fight) a melee location. My Bot/Kinetics does it all the time to leverage Fulcrum Shift. My Bot/Marine does it all the time to leverage Shifting Tide and Tide Pool. In fact, IMO ranged pets are actually better suited to /Marine because they tend to stay exactly where you put them rather than chasing off after runners.

Once you get your Alpha slot up to Tier 3 or higher you become level 50+1 and the mobs go from being +4 to you to being +3 (which should solve your accuracy problems if you're following the above builds). Endurance issues will be solved once you get your Destiny slot. The other Incarnates are just there to buff your damage output. Note though that only the level shift from your Alpha slot applies outside of Incarnate Content, so you won't be level 50+3 in AE farms!

Alternatively, just slot 2x Recharge IOs in Fold Space and screw the accuracy aspect. IIRC it brings the same number of mobs to you either way; as long as there are a sufficient number of extra critters in range to use up all your "misses". (Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure I don't have any outstanding bids on those particular DSyncs right now...)

True, but it can make a notable difference in recovery time after almost having your block knocked off. Assuming you don't just pop a green insp or two. (In the old days most of my Blasters used to take Aid Self though; so I'm probably biased...) GET OUT OF MY HEAD 🙉 🙈 🤯 ...yeah, my /TA is Ranged positional softcapped with Hover. Whilst they haven't exactly skimped on their attack selection (they've 9x 6-slotted attacks plus an extra 5-slotted set bonus mule) they had 2-3 floating slots left by the end of the build; and I get a better return from using them in Health/Stamina than in Repulsion Field or FoN.

FWIW, the actual regeneration benefit from slotting it for Healing Aspect will be about roughly 8 HP/Sec. (My /TA Blaster's sustain has exactly the same numbers; and removing the two Heal IOs drops their passive regeneration from 41.68 HP/Sec to 33.65 HP/Sec...) That's a greater average return than two Power Transfer Procs in passives/toggles; so personally I think it's worth it if you have the slots free.

What 20F said. The Preventive Medicine Absorb is the only special enhancement that functions as a Global in the Healing IO Sets.

Asteroid Maps (both the smaller and larger one), "Boomtown" Tunnel map, Carnie map (the one with the Circus tents), Behemoth map (Outdoor with multiple skyscrapers), Adamastor map, Dreck/Freakshow map... honestly, anything outdoor works. As Warshades says, Asteroid Maps tend to throw you straight into combat so there isn't a "safe zone" for lower level allies to stand and they're a common pick for AFK farming runs... but they're quick and easy to spam through with no chance of an enemy running too far or getting lost, and the countdown timer can help give you an idea of how fast you're mowing through mobs on active Farming runs. Play different maps and see what you like best. Just maybe steer clear of the underground CoT cave ones unless you're feeling particularly masochistic... 😛

The Asteroid Maps are the same size and mob density regardless of damage type... but yes; you could. Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor) v3.mbd Smidge less global recharge and a hair less raw damage in a few of the AoEs; but only one small purple insp needed to reach the F/C defense softcap.

That's much better than the original and would be perfectly playable in an Active S/L Farm; if a little tricky to juggle defensively. Still major room for improvement though (and I assume you meant to use Common +5 IOs instead of even-level SOs in the regular slots!) Try this tweaked version: Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor) v2.mbd Note: With Ageless running your AoE attack cycle should be pretty seamless, but you can swap one of the damage procs in Axe Cyclone for a 2nd FF +Rech if required. Realistically with Rad's clickies and 90% resistance you shouldn't have any survivability issues despite mid-20s defense; just pop a small/medium purple insp if needed. If you find you're never in any danger then you can trade a bit of survivability for more global recharge by swapping Swoop's slotting to 5x Hecatomb.

https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=blaster_support.ninja_training.kuji-in_toh&at=blaster It's primarily a Long-Duration +Recovery and +Regeneration Buff. IMO you ideally want ED-capped Heal enhancement aspect in it; plus a decent chunk of EndMod aspect. I'd go for Preventive Medicine Heal + Preventive Medicine Absorb Global + Lv50+5 Heal IO; plus 1-2x Lv50+5 EndMod IOs. The other Healing set uniques are Procs (although I guess if you had enough global recharge to reliably get it down to 120s or les you could put the Numina in there!) The Performance Shifter +End proc is decent in passive/auto powers but not in a 200s recharge clicky. It'd give you a tiny fraction of the benefit of an EndMod IO here.

The AE Custom Critter version of Evasion , just like the regular Player Character version of Evasion just grants AoE positional defense; not Fire and Ice typed defense. Most defensive powersets provide either typed or positional rather than both. It's Pool Powers and Defensive Set bonuses that grant both (+Area Defense Set Bonuses are the ones that grant Fire and Ice typed defense and vice versa!). The reason AA's original post in the thread I linked above recommends not giving custom mobs Evasion is down to common sense: Evasion increases AoE positional defense; and the most efficient way to farm is to constantly spam multiple procbombed AoE attacks (in the case of a BA/Rad it'd likely be Electrifying Fences, Ball Lightning, Axe Cyclone, Pendulum and Ground Zero)... so you really don't want those AoE attacks to be "deflected". FWIW; the stats of AmericasAngel's mobs inside her Fire Farm AE missions look like this: Common alternative methods are either to not give your mobs a defensive set at all (e.g. Fiery Assault + Fiery Melee) or to cherry pick mechanically weak powers from sets like Regeneration. My own AE mobs; for example; look more like this: If you're no longer getting enjoyment out of it; my advice is to take a break. Speaking from experience real Burnout (e.g. not the Speed Pool power!) is definitely not fun. I'm certainly not trying to join a dogpile here... just addressing the aforementioned claim about "the point of a fire farm" which the newbie OP was apparently taking to heart. What matters for choosing a 'Fire' Farm over an 'S/L' Farm in AE or vice-versa is what damage type you're best at withstanding; not what damage type you inflict.

The way Staff works is that if you build up three stacks of Perfection and then activate either Sky Splitter or Eye of the Storm, it'll do a bit of extra "bonus damage". Both these instances of bonus damage got a slight increase in i28p2; even if the Eye of the Storm one was extremely small and barely makes it into the double-digits. There was no flat damage increase to Staff Fighting as a whole in i28p2 outside of the Combo System finisher bonus damage. One of the Perfection stacks (Body) provides a small damage buff; but that's not a new thing. https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=temporary_powers.temporary_powers.perfection_of_body_level_3&at=tanker FWIW; I know it's a meme thread; but the Devs are definitely aware that the sets we're talking about here are underperforming. And i28p2's changes to Staff were comparatively minor (although I definitely appreciate that a single miss doesn't utterly mess up your perfection stacks any longer!) so I suspect it'll get a bigger balance pass at some point.

That build is not going to provide you with a fun or efficient AE farming experience. And I don't see Hasten there either. For Active Farming, you primarily want lots of global recharge and at least three AoEs that look like this: (the empty 6th slot is for a -Resistance debuff proc, a Force Feedback +Recharge buff proc, or another damage proc) - - - - - - - - - - If you just want a build to copy; then look here: Active Farming Brute and Tanker builds are usually set up in much the same way; it's a little trickier to reach 90% res and 45% def on the Brute... but remember that for "Active" farming maximum survivability is much less important (I have a RadArmor Scrapper that can Active Farm just fine with only 75% S/L resistance and 15%-ish Defense!). The main considerations are always Mu Mastery and an offensive Primary powerset with at least one KB-inflicting AoE; all procbombed. Having an ability that can slot an Achilles' Heel -res proc is a bonus (e.g. Beta Decay or Corrosive Vial). Stone Armor and Fiery Aura are slightly better on Brutes due to Fury affecting Brimstone Armor procs and Burn. Passive ("AFK") Farming requires a vastly different setup; and realistically you'd be better off just copying someone else's RadM/Stone Brute or X/RadM Tanker builds. (One of my RadM/Stone AFK-farmer Brute builds is listed here in the above Farming Microguide thread)

I appreciate the time you put into making builds; but the above statement is blatant misinformation. On AE Fire Farms the enemies you encounter INFLICT fire damage; they're not weak or strong vs a player character's fire or ice damage. (and similarly, the enemies on AE Smashing/Lethal Farms merely inflict Smashing and/or Lethal damage - they don't care what type of damage the player dishes out!) The custom critters in all of the popular AE farming maps are specifically crafted to have zero damage resistance; MaxHP boosts or defense of any kind... and that's because the whole point of those farms is to provide the player with an enemy group that (i) deal a specific damage type with little/no CC (ii) die as fast as possible whilst still giving full XP. If the player knows in advance exactly what damage type they'll be facing, they only have to mitigate against incoming damage of that type (and can ignore debuffs or CC other then Knockback). Which gives shedloads of build leeway that can be used to boost damage output, maximizing your influence and/or exp gain per hour. Prior to the advent of AE; the older traditional farms did indeed contain enemies that were stronger/weaker vs specific damage types. If memory serves the usual culprits were Freakshow (e.g. "Dreck") which are strong vs Cold and weak vs Energy, Council which have no particular resistances (other than mekmen and warwolves), Praetorian Behemoths which are strong vs Fire and weak vs Cold and Carnies which are weak vs Lethal and strong vs Psychic. But AFAIK about the only farming that happens these days outside AE is Mapserver events and the Labyrinth; neither of which will overly care about your damage type. And regarding Incarnates for AE farming: Assault Core is more useful than Assault Radial for Active Farmers because they will be using the Inspiration-combination keybind from the above farming thread and spamming it so that they convert inspiration drops to Reds and chug them as they go (which effectively lets them constantly sit at the damage cap, therefore additional +damage buffs from Assault Radial stacks would get wasted). It's possible to swap the Alpha to something other than Musculature on Active Farmers for the same reason. "Passive/AFK" farming has the same Incarnate setup as above but much stricter survivability thresholds (90% res, 45% def and 35+HP/Sec Passive Regeneration) and is currently most efficient on either a X/RadM Tanker or a RadM/StoneArmor Brute.

Which power set? Spines? Battle Axe? Either way; why on earth would they be better against enemies that deal Smashing/Lethal damage?? Your offensive powerset has virtually zero bearing on farming; because the mobs in an AE farming map won't have any damage resistances. The only time it'd matter is if the set has a defensive clicky that is stronger against a specific damage type (such as Katana's Divine Avalanche vs incoming Lethal damage). If you meant Radiation Armor... it provides no defence to any damage type. Proton Shelter and Alpha Barrier both give identical % resistance boosts (so it's the same vs Smashing/Lethal and Fire) however Fallout Shelter also gives a bit of Fire resistance and it's trivial to get 5x"+6%" Fire resistance from Purple and Winter IO Set Bonuses. All that said... if you're active farming then you really don't need to cap your resistance and defence to whatever type of damage is being dealt by the mobs; because you'll be behind the wheel to activate defensive clickys, insps + temps. - - - - - - - - - - EDIT: Ah. You've been listening to JJDrakken. Go here instead. The point of running a S/L or Fire farm is NOT for you to wield S/L or Fire damage against your enemies; it's to allow you to have an easier job of surviving the incoming damage dealt by the enemies. You run a Fire farm if you're better vs incoming Fire damage; and an S/L farm if you're better vs incoming S/L damage. If you know exactly what type of damage you'll be encountering; then you can build your toon specifically to mitigate ONLY incoming damage of that type - which allows you to devote more effort (enhancement slots/power selections/set bonuses/etc) to increasing the raw damage you can dish out; which vastly speeds up your farming runs.

Unsubstantiated claim about X being very good or very bad. Screenshot of a Speadsheet showing something overly complicated. EMPHASISED unsubstantiated claim about X being very good or very bad. Lots of Numbers and Acronyms. Claim to have finally addressed a falsehood/settled an argument that nobody else was actually aware of and/or participating in. (Sneakily edited to quietly amend some of the numbers in the hope that nobody has yet noticed they were wrong)

If you *repeatedly* change the mode of a pet then it typically takes a second or two to reorientate itself; set the correct AI brain and choose a target. Personally I just do /bind G "petcom_all aggressive" then tap the G key once at the start of each mission and/or upon resummoning it.

No, because the Staff improvement was primarily an increase to their Single Target damage, and the nerfs to Tanker damage output that actually made it to the Live servers really only affected their AoE damage output and for the most part is only noticeable when fighting more than 10 foes simultaneously (although Cone arcs got narrowed which hurts when fighting lower numbers of foes) I'm getting about ~135 additional damage per Sky Splitter cycle, before external damage buffs and Hybrid. The increase to Eye of the Storm bonus damage however is negligible.

Rad Armor is still top tier for active farming, yes. It's just not as much of a runaway winner as it was prior to i28p2 (as both the target cap of Ground Zero and the proc rate of Radiation Therapy got nerfed). Stone Armor (Brimstone procs + Recharge) and Fiery Melee (Burn + Fiery Embrace) are particularly good on Brutes too if you fancy something different.

I loves my snooker-queue-wielding Tanker... but yeah. The buff to Sky Splitter's bonus damage helped a smidge; however IMO they could really do with redoing the stances so that they're actually useful for something other than just spamming 1-2-3 combos (which really discourages epic/patron dipping). I'd happily take a Damage Proc baked into the stance forms al-la Brimstone Armor; plus an Arc buff to Guarded Spin and Innocuous Strikes in lieu of raw damage buffs or cast time tweaks to the Staff attacks themselves. Dark Melee is beloved thematically and has great potential in Soul Drain... but unfortunately half the set is hot garbage and procbombed Touch of Fear is its best AoE. Kinetic Melee though. Even if you halved the cast time of all its attacks and completely rejigged their ATBE; IMO you'd still be left with a set that is mediocre at best.

Ideally for "active" farming you want at least one regular AoE that inflicts Knockdown; so that you can put a Force Feedback +rech proc in it and speed up the rest of your AoE attack cycle. Battle Axe has two such abilities in Axe Cyclone and Pendulum. The former is also a good spot for a Fury of the Gladiator -res proc. Martial Arts is almost as good (in fact until very recently it was the top Active farming powerset!) purely because of Dragon's Tail. Super Strength (Foot stomp) is also top-tier; but requires spamming Rage (for +ToHit buffs; which allow you to forgo slotting accuracy) and dealing with the resulting crash. Other sets can get close depending on the AT; but those are currently the top three IMO. Spines has never really been top tier for "Active" Farming; although because of Quills it's only beaten by RadMelee for "Passive/AFK" farming.

I stand corrected. I was thinking more along the lines of the constant -res, +recharge, +damage buffs and/or damage auras, PBAoEs and Damage Procs that other defensive powersets get... but you're correct. Regen does indeed get a short duration damage buff in its T9 "Godmode" clicky.

Looks fine to me. Completing the smaller asteroid map at +4x8 in anything under the 5 minute mark is passable for an Active farmer IMO. Tanker Elec Melee isn't half bad, because their copy of Lightning Rod is a Power Execution so it actually Procs decently so Thunderstrike isn't having to carry everything by itself. Lightning Rod on other ATs however is coded as an Entity Creation, so it Procs badly. Also IME Stone Armor (non Granite) is consistently one of the top performers regardless of AT, it's just that Brimstone damage procs are specifically tagged to benefit from Fury (but not crits) so it's particularly good on Brutes. Typically for Passive farming, being able to clear the map out in under the 10m mark doesn't really matter... but I find that mob density will start to really peter out after about ~6-7 mins. I've yet to bother making up a bunch of 6 minute autokick AE missions though!

Meh, it's fine now. Better than fine actually; with some work you can make what survivabilitywise is top-tier build. It just lacks any form of damage increases and (on Scrappers at least) a Taunt Aura. IMO pairing Regen with an offensive powerset that has a situational +Def buff - like Katana, Titan Weapons or even Staff - makes a pretty good starter toon. It'll withstand a LOT of punishment and let you get used to the game and solo anything short of a GM... it just won't be breaking any damage output records. Or keeping runners from bolting.