Maelwys

Soul Mastery is mechanically very powerful for a Crabbermind and is my usual goto for any Soldier. Both Gloom and Dark Obliteration when procced give very nice DPA and inflict substantial -ToHit debuffs; and the Widow pet also deals quite high damage and possesses enough inherent defense to let your leadership buffs push them to the softcap (although they "prefer melee" and tend to guzzle endurance). You can also choose to pick up Darkest Night as an additional debuffing support power. Mace Mastery is serviceable if you opt for Shatter Armor, but none of the prerequisites for it are particularly good. The Blaster pet is by far the best of the two "prefer ranged" pets and as such is a reasonable balance between damage output and survivability. Mu Mastery boasts Electric Fences and Ball Lightning. Both are good DPA AOEs, although neither is quite as good as Dark Obliteration. The Striker pet can fly and is very well behaved, staying at range consistently... although they're about as damaging as a wet noodle and slotting a Power Transfer Proc into them unfortunately will NOT let them self heal. Leviathan Mastery has Arctic Breath which can technically inflict -res on up to 10 targets... although as a 30 degree cone it's tricky to do that consistently. The other two Cone attacks aren't worth picking up, but Spirit Shark deals pretty decent single target damage as long as you're spamming enough other attacks to build up Hunger stacks. The Coralax pet prefers melee but lacks much in the way of additional survivability buffs... if you manage to keep it alive then it'll deal reasonable damage; albeit less than the Widow.

This. Aim for >45% Defense to all types (because you'll be up against Defense Debuffs and your Resistance to those is pretty poor without Ageless running. So fighting stuff like Cimerorans will suck) and >83% Resistance to the important ones (as the Superior Might of Tanker proc will be adding 6.7% per stack; and typically sits at 2x-3x stacks. Being able to hit 100% resistance is valuable because it completely negates resistance debuffs, despite the hardcap being 90%) To give you an idea of what an average endgame WP will look like when it actually makes use of the procs and globals; open the below in Mids then add anything between 13.4% -> 30.1% resistance to everything (2x SMoT procs -> 3x SMoT Procs plus the Reactive Defenses Global) zTanker - WP_SS IOed (CrossPunch).mbd

That still looks like a Mids graph. That said, Damage per Activation in Mids should be fairly accurate as long as you're using the Arcanatime of the power rather than it's raw animation time (there's a tickbox on the options screen for it). For full stats you'll need to check each power's City of Data entry. Best case Single Target damage for Katana is typically a combination of Gambler's Cut, Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly. A Tanker could probably sit with DA/GC>SD>DA/GC>GD pretty comfortably, swapping DA and GC around depending on the current level of damage mitigation required (although that will require a fair bit of global recharge to achieve... so substituting SoTW for GC or using multiple filler attacks is an option) Sting of the Wasp is a filler attack. Flashing Steel and Lotus Drops plus Golden Dragonfly (Gauntlet will make it much easier to catch multiple foes within GD's narrow arc on a Tanker) are your AOEs and so in actual gameplay will feature quite a bit. Divine Avalanche is there purely to buff your Defense and can be substituted for one of the other attacks if you need it. You seem to have the wrong notion about Procs chances. The listed approximate "procs per minute" figure is only accurate in auto/toggle powers. Clicky attacks use a formula which means their ACTUAL activation chance rises drastically as the power's recharge time and animation time increases. It is not uncommon to see a capped 90% activation rate for damage procs in Single Target attacks like Golden Dragonfly; and so people tend to load these up with procs whilst using Global Recharge Reduction (from Hasten or Set Bonuses) to get a workable attack chain. AoE powers work similarly but the formula also takes into account their radius and arc (the base values before Tanker Gauntlet). Since a larger part of Tanker performance comes via their buffed AOEs, I'd very much recommend sticking at least 2-3 damage procs into The Lotus Drops (best case I'd tend to aim for 2x Acc/Dam HOs, 3x Damage Procs and a Fury of the Gladiator -res Proc) to drastically increase the average damage it does on each swing.

I'm guessing this vitriol about observing other characters standing around motionless in AE is coming from a server that tends to sit on more than one green dot. Also, it'd be a very poor "AFK farming guide" that didn't tell these people (i) To put a PBAoE on Autofire and (ii) Not to just enter the mission and then take their hands immediately off the keyboard (the idea is to CLICK THE GLOWIE FIRST to disable the countdown ejection timer unless you're actively using it as a performance metric + throwing the toon out and back in again once the mob horde starts to thin...) Anyways. I'm one of those filthy soulless monsters who not only occasionally AFK AE farms on HC; but also AFK farmed quite a fair bit on Live back in the day (with two accounts whacking each other in Warburg no less. So technically anyone who was bothered enough could have walked up and disrupted it. Nobody ever did). I could argue that I was paying my subscriptions, and purposely going out of everyone's way, and generating useful loot that increased supply of highly-desired IOs and brought auction prices down, etc, etc... and all of that is technically true. But the MAIN reason? Honestly I'm a min/maxer at heart. And so finding a method of generating major inf with minimal effort has a dopamine inducing draw to me. Plus, my computer wasn't doing anything else at the time anyway (I often left them overnight or whilst I was out at Uni. This was 20+ years ago after all). Most of the influence generated was spent by me or my coalition buddies on IOs and costume changes, so it "went back into the system" and the farming itself simply removed the need to sink any of our precious real playtime into influence generation. I personally don't see any current harm in AFK farming in AE on HC unless the server you're on is oversubscribed and your toon's presence is therefore potentially negatively impacting on someone else's ability to play the game. However if any AFK toon is genuinely blocking folk clicking on something important then by all means shove their silly polygons elsewhere or force log the bugger off.

I managed to correct the names of some toons that I'd played extensively on Live and had recreated on Reunion: + Coulomb (previously "CouIomb" with a capital i in place of the L) + Ripstar (previously "Ripstar II") + Mighty Quinn (previously "Might E. Quinn") + Purple Lightning (previously "PurpleLightning") Unfortunately "Unit Omega" and "Tejas" still weren't available; so those two are still sporting a few extra punctuation marks for now... but 66.7% success rate ain't bad! 👍

Close CoX, log in again, then make a NEW throwaway character with the name you want to get. If you get the name, go to the character select screen; rename that throwaway character to something random + give the name to the character you want to have it. (I've managed to grab 4 out of the 6 names I wanted; including the two that were most important to me....)

Stone Armor plays very well ever since the rework - Granite Armor has largely been reduced to a mule power. The good things for damage output are the +recharge from Minerals and the "chance for additional damage" (think of it a bit like a glorified Global Damage Proc; which Scrapper Critical hits apply to) from Brimstone. Energy Melee has been reworked to include a slight combo mechanic which lets you do a "Quick" Energy Transfer for a few seconds after you use Total Focus (or two in a row if TF Crits!). It actually plays pretty well on a Scrapper and whilst the set isn't huge on AoE; Whirling Hands is pretty decent and Power Crash gets to hit 10 foes instead of 5 after a Total Focus. My EM/Rad is one of my favourite Scrappers. And yeah /Bio really needs the whole powerset to shine. Although you could get away with skipping Meltdown on /Rad. /EA is very solid. Think /SR with "self-healing, endurance recovery and a damage aura" in place of the "scaling damage resistance as your HP drops". Energy Cloak is skippable, as is Overload if you're not fond of crashing T9s. The downside is that it has hardly any damage resistance to speak of; but you can build it up a bit via Tough + set bonuses (or Rune of Protection) if you want.

My vote would be for a BattleAxe/Rad. BattleAxe doesn't have any combo gimmicks; but its main PBAoE "Axe Cyclone" causes inverted repel and knockup; which sucks nearby enemies towards you. This drags them into range for other AoEs such as Pendulum and any Auras (e.g. /Rad's Beta Decay). It's a little bit like a miniature "Fold Space"; and you can also use it to move mobs by jumping away from them and then immediately activating Axe Cyclone to "suck" them along for the ride with you. Radiation Armor is primarily a +resistance powerset; but it also gives a very high Absorb "buffer" (Particle Shielding) plus substantial Recharge Rate, Regeneration and Recovery buffs. It has quite a good set of resistances to some nasty debuffs (Regeneration, Recharge, Recovery, Endurance, RunSpeed) and it can inflict -Regen (via Radiation Therapy) and -ToHit (via Beta Decay). The main draw of the set for most people however is Ground Zero - a big radius PBAoE that can hit up to 30 targets and copes extremely well with damage procs (even slotted for ED-capped recharge they'll have a maximum chance to trigger). The only real weakness of the set is Defense - and whilst you can build for that with set bonuses, it's often easier to just pick up Shadow Meld from the Soul Mastery Epic pool and/or Barrier Destiny for the few times you really need it. Axe Cyclone + Pendulum + Cleave + Ground Zero + Radiation Therapy is a very good range of AOE. Chop + Gash + Swoop + Cleave is good Single Target; and you can pickup Moonbeam to round it out enroute to Shadow Meld. Note that BattleAxe is very good for both ST and AoE damage... but it's also very endurance heavy. However with /Rad that issue will be partially countered by Gamma Boost and will totally evaporate once you get "Radiation Therapy" and stick a Performance Shifter proc in it. Both sets love additional Global Recharge and damage procs, but it shouldn't need specific IO sets to "work" other than that single Performance Shifter Proc. .......... If you don't fancy the look of BattleAxe/Bio then looking at the sets you've played.... perhaps a Claws/ or MA/ primary plus a /SR or /Stone (Non-Granite) secondary? Claws has a number of decent AoEs; MA only has one (Dragon's Tail) but it's exceptionally good and fast-recharging. Savage Melee is another option- technically it has a combo mechanic (Blood Frenzy) but you can largely just ignore it. Unfortunately /Fire is better on Brutes and Tankers; and whilst /Bio is fantastic it has a stance-shifting mechanic that you may not enjoy.

That one you can at least partially work around via Prismatic Aether disguises.

Options --> General Tab --> Disable Earning XP Or just use the slash command "/option_set NoXP 1"

IIRC MoG originally buffed Defence and Damage Resistance by about 71% base; but locked your Health to 25% and completely disabled your regeneration. Most of us us thought that was a bad trade, and EvilGeko produced a whole thesis on it here. Using MoG on a Regen Scrapper meant that your effective survivability actually went DOWN when fighting certain mobs; because its Defense buff didn't apply vs stuff like Psychic or Toxic damage; and certain enemies had sufficient +ToHIt buffs (Nemesis and Rularuu etc.) to still reliably hit you. Brute HP Cap is 3212 at Lv50; and Regeneration rate is based on your Current HP. The regeneration hardcap for Brutes is 2500% - and if you're at 3212HP that's 334.66 HP/Second. Personally, the only character I have that can reliably reach the 2500% cap solo (without "cheating" via the Rebirth Radial Destiny incarnate) is my Bio Armor Tanker. Saturated DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura will get them to 1822%. Toggling on Melee Core Embodiment Hybrid pushes that to 2241%. Efficient Stance bumps them to the cap. However they typically run in Offensive Stance with an Assault Core Hybrid; and so realistically they tend to sit constantly a little bit North of 200 HP/Sec (and roughly 9.6 Endurance/Sec) in actual gameplay. Plus their Defense, Resists, Absorb and -Res/-Dmg/-Regen debuffs. All of which has utterly put me off playing Regen or Willpower. Back when IH was a toggle, you could 6-slot it with Healing SOs and triple its base enhanceable regeneration. That would have resulted in either +1200% or +2400% Regeneration (I can't remember offhand if the first 600% was always unenhanceable or not!). Fast Healing with the same treatment would have granted another +225% and Health (from the Fitness Pool!) a further +120%. So the absolute maximum you'd have been able to each would have been either 1645% or 2845%. Scrapper regeneration hardcap is 3000%. With Perma Dull Pain and the +HP accolades a Scrapper could sit at a smidge short of their 2409 HP cap (~2340 ish; since IIRC Pre-ED you needed 4 Recharge SOs plus Hasten to achieve perma Dull Pain, which left two slots free for Healing SOs). So I suspect you'd have been able to reach a maximum of either ~160 or ~275 HP/Second. However your average pre-i6 Scrapper wouldn't have picked up Health at all, as the Fitness Pool was considered irrelevant if you had Quick recovery 6-slotted. And IIRC a lot of them didn't bother with Fast Healing and/or Perma Dull Pain either.

Technically THREE summon powers, since you can get a third one from your Patron pools which unlock after Lv35. But yes, the idea of most Crabbers is to lead a squad of pets, either from the front (Melee build - acts more like a Tank/Brute/Scrapper) or from the rear (Ranged build - acts more like a Defender). With sufficient build investment all the summons can be out permanently and the pets' defense pushed to the regular-content softcap, alongside granting substantial +Damage and +ToHit buffs and inflicting major -Resistance debuffs (and the crab themselves is also no slouch when it comes to raw AoE damage output). It's quite common for the resulting character to be able to quickly drop tough targets like GMs and Pylons (during the last week or two my own Crabbermind has soloed the Halloween GMs on several occasions for lowbie alts who wanted the badge). The only real downside is that unlike MMs whenever one of your pets dies (and they WILL die) you need to wait a few minutes to get back to "full strength" again. But once you get their Defence high enough that becomes much less common, and the right Lore Incarnate (go for either Talons or Arachnos Radial) helps too. And don't forget that your character can have multiple builds and swap between them - my Crabbermind has a totally different Bane build that he can switch to if needed, even during a mission. - - - - - - - - - - There's a reasonably recent thread on the subject here with lots of numbers, screenshots and example builds. As mentioned in that linked thread, my preference is to go Melee and take the Soul Mastery patron pool + Talons Radial Lore + Barrier Destiny + Support Core Hybrid. The -ToHit from Gloom and Dark Obliteration can help your Spiderling and Disruptor pets close the gap to the Defensive softcap whenever Support Hybrid is down. The Widow can softcap her own defense without Support Hybrid running; and is also consistently the highest damaging Patron Pool pet (providing you can keep her alive and with a healthy-looking endurance bar!). The ongoing healing and AoE Resistance/Defence/HealingRecieved buffs from Talons Lore rounds the whole thing out nicely; providing a much smoother ride over time than Arachnos - Arachnos Crab Spider (Soul).mbd

Issuing the "Defensive" command unfortunately does not completely clear your henchmens' internal record of already engaged foes, instead it just alters their targeting preferences for any subsequently engaged foes. Likewise, issuing the "Goto" or "Follow" commands just instructs your Henchmen to move to a specific location - it does not reset their existing aggro list. This is admittedly much less of an issue for Ranged pets these days ever since the AI changes in issue 26 pages 4 and 5 (which tethered Henchmen much more strictly than before to the general area that they have been told to "stay" or "goto") ...but "Henchman Scrapperlock" can definitely still happen occasionally, particularly with the melee primaries. Issuing the "Passive" command will clear the list completely however; therefore quickly tapping "passive follow" (or "passive goto") before immediately swapping to "defensive" can still be a very useful tool to force the stubborn little blighters to behave themselves and LISTEN DAMMIT... 😠 📢 🙉 🙉 🙉

EVERYONE STOP WHILST I CORNER PULL! WAIT FOR FOLD SPACE TO RECHARGE BEFORE THE NEXT MOB! Look, just STOP WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING AND GO PUT THE KETTLE ON WHILST I TAKE AGES TO PERFECTLY SET EVERYTHING UP! DAMMIT I SAID STOP!

Definitely looks pretty close to it! 👍 IMO exact optimal slotting is going to differ depending on your secondary (you may not need the +Def uniques on something like an FF or Power Boosted Time, for example!) but I tend to go with the below. Numbers assume a Musculature Core Alpha; but it works fine with other flavours: That way Gang War is giving decent set bonuses; and the T1s are benefitting from the Soulbound Proc (Bruiser gains proportionally less from +damage% due to Fury; and the T1s tend to benefit more from additional +ToHit). Note that Bruiser can also make decent use out of an Explosive Strike damage proc. With Leadership and Incarnates etc. I find Enforcer Maneuvers Defense is typically sufficient to push the henchmen to softcap with just a single LoTG global; but the Lv50+5 Soulbound can be swapped for a 53+3 Cyto HO if you really want all the +defense you can get. +19.63% Def to all (Enforcer Maneuvers, slotted with a single attuned LoTG +7.5% global) +10.00% Def to all (Aura IOs) +3.94% Def to all (MM Maneuvers, slotted with a Lv50+5 EndRed/Def, Lv50+5 EndRed/Rech/Def and an attuned LoTG 7.5% global) =33.57% Def to all SCoM Aura IO grants another 15% to AoE Def; putting everything beyond the AoE softcap. Barrier Core Destiny will add a minimum of another 5% Def to all, constantly. Support Core Hybrid will grant another 12% Def to all, with 50% uptime. Lore Radial can grant some more too (Talos or Arachnos, etc) albeit with lower uptime. And that's without even considering your secondary. Also if you're not taking "Tactics" and slotting the Gaussian proc into it, then that proc should be worked into Enforcers if possible (and in that case the pets may also require a smidge more accuracy to cap their hit rate versus higher-level foes; even with Supremacy + 2x Enforcer Tactics...)

Despite having a full set of fine-control numpad binds, I (still!) find myself using only three keys and two power tray macros the vast majority of the time: B "petcom_all defensive follow" [Bodyguard mode]G "petcom_all aggressive" [aGgressive]H "petcom_all passive follow" [Heel]and usually also a Variable key which sets most pets to Bodyguard mode and leaves one alone (to instantly give me some survivability but let one pet continue to attack etc) e.g.V "petcom_pow 'Battle Drones'follow defensive$$petcom_pow 'Protector Bots' follow defensive"PowerTray #1 is set to "Attack this target" ("petcom_all attack" mostly, sometimes altered so just one pet attacks) and PowerTray #2 is set to "Go here" ("petcom_all goto").On most maps I can enter a mission, press G then V and then amble around instructing my little engines of destruction to "go here" quite a lot. Don't switch modes too often unless you need to - shifting from Passive into Defensive or Aggressive will reduce your kill speed as pets take about 5-10 seconds to reacquire targets before they'll start shooting again.An important thing to have though is a method of quickly resetting your pet AI whenever they're misbehaving - especially on teams. Setting pets to PASSIVE FOLLOW then immediately to DEFENSIVE FOLLOW (tapping H then B in my above examples) will clear their aggro list and force them to instantly start running back towards you... however if you just spam DEFENSIVE FOLLOW or DEFENSIVE GOTO then they will very likely just keep trying to chase whatever is currently shooting at them.

For /Traps? + Force Field Generator grants the set its Defense and Mez Protection; but it drastically limits the speed at which a /Traps can move; and the little bugger has low HP and no inherent damage resistance so it tends to get blown up and need resummoned fairly frequently even whenever it's not getting stuck on random scenery. + Acid Mortar inflicts a -20% AoE damage resistance and defense debuff; stackable with other copies of. So -40% is common and -60% is possible versus multiple foes. However if you're fighting a single pack of regular foes for long enough to get 2+ copies of it out (without any teleporting shenaniganry) then there's something wrong. + Poison Trap inflicts -1000% AoE regen; and frequently locks foes into the vomiting animation. + Caltrops is mainly an AoE movement speed debuff with scatter. But its lengthy base recharge means damage procs are likely to kick in for the initial summoning. + Web Grenade is a reasonable -Recharge debuff; although a lot of folk seem to skip it. + Triage Beacon can be slotted with a Panacea Proc; so it can technically provide AoE +Endurance, +Health and +Regeneration (300% when slotted). + I've never liked Seeker Drones; but they do inflict an AOE -Perception and -Damage debuff. + Personally I quite enjoy toebombing with Tripmines, but as an "explodes upon summoning" power damage procs do nothing for it. + Detonator exists, but has been a firm skip on every MM I've played. Altogether that's ~16% Defense (with slotted FFG); -20-60% resistance debuff, -20-60% defence debuff, -1000% regen debuff, -50% recharge debuff, -40% damage debuff (from 2x Seekers), substantial -RunSpeed and -Fly, a bit of AoE damage; plus +300% AoE +Regen (and potentially some +HP/+Endurance over time from a Panacea proc). For /Time? + Temporal Mending - a hefty AOE spike heal + additional healing over time that does not require a target. It also grants resistance vs runspeed and recharge debuffs. + Time Crawl inflicts -100% Regen, -60% recharge, and floors their RunSpeed. + Time's Juncture inflicts a constant PBAoE -15% Damage debuff and -ToHit Debuff (roughly -18.5% with slotting), plus -Fly and -RunSpeed. + Temporal Selection buffs Regen (300% when slotted), Recharge (30%) and Damage (+18.75%) of an ally; a typical build can keep it up on 3-4 allies simultaneously. + Distortion Field is a debuff patch (-50% Recharge, Runspeed and -Fly) that can stack with itself and has a chance to apply a Mag3 hold. The Lockdown proc plus the two Slow set Damage Procs work nicely in it. + Time Stop reduces a foe's healing strength (by 37.5%), Regeneration rate (-50%) and applies a Mag3 hold. + Farsight is an AoE buff to Perception. ToHit and Defence for 240 seconds. Since Power Boost and Radial Clarion both apply to it; with typical slotting (ED-capped Defense) it works out at ~28.3% Defence and ~18.4% ToHit. + Slowed Response inflicts a -15% Defence and -22.5% AoE Damage Resistance debuff (rising to 27% if the target has been hit by Time Crawl) + Chrono Shift is a massive AoE which grants a chunk of endurance and restores HP over time, plus a 30s +30% Recovery buff and a 90s +50% recharge buff. The recharge buff can be made perma with sufficient global recharge. Altogether that's ~28.3% Defense (with slotted Farsight + PB + Clarion); -22.5-27% resistance debuff, -15% defense debuff, -150% regeneration, -110% recharge, -15% damage, substantial -RunSpeed and -Fly, a smidge of AoE damage (via procs in Distortion Field); plus +300% +Regen to ~4 allies. Plus +18.75% Damage and 30% recharge to ~4 allies; ~18.4% AoE ToHit buff, -18.5% ToHit debuff, resistance to runspeed and recharge debuffs and a single-target hold. And shedloads of AoE healing and +recovery and +recharge buffs (including +50% global recharge to self, which can be made "perma"). - - - - - - - - - - Compared to /Traps, /Time has considerably lower debuff numbers for damage resistance (assuming multiple Acid Mortars) and regeneration rate; but its buffs are much stronger and it brings a lot of other tools that Traps does not. Notably for MMs, it provides high +Defence to you and your henchmen that does not disappear if they momentarily drift out of range of you or your FFG, considerable +Damage buffs to ~4 henchmen; and can eliminate the need to slot additional accuracy or endurance reduction in your pets (-Defence debuffs get resisted by AVs something shocking; but +ToHit buffs do not). For a primary like Bots/ which does not have a pet IO set mule; has multiple pets which are very endurance heavy (the Protector Bots and Assault Bot will both drain their blue bar even with Hefty Endurance Reduction slotting) and typically requires ED-capped accuracy slotting in its T1 pets to cap hit chance versus regular +3 foes; not having to slot for multiple aspects in each pet is a godsend. Since Bots/ already has substantial -Regen; and the +Damage Buffs take up a lot of the -Res slack; a solo Bots/Time doesn't exactly compare poorly to Bots/Traps even against AVs. The Mez Protection granted by FFG also isn't hugely impactful if the /Time is running with Clarion anyway and has Incarnate-Content Softcapped Defence. Traps gets to toebomb with Tripmine; which can increase its killspeed on average mission maps. But /Time is substantially faster at setting up and when moving between mobs (since it doesn't have to rely on FFG, and Slowed Response beats a single Acid Mortar) and also doesn't have to rely on Pet AI to get all its important debuffs applied to things. When teaming with other players, /Time is a substantially better force multiplier due to all the +recharge rate buffs (which henchmen ignore but players do not), plus the +damage/+tohit/+recovery, higher +defense, and on-demand healing. And it can also keep up much more easily. However the one thing a Bot/Traps can definitely do that a Bot/Time can't is take lots of Epic and pool powers. Going /Time will allow you to avoid taking Maintenance Drone and/or the Medicine Pool; but IMO the only skippable power in /Time itself is "Time Stop". Whereas a /Traps can skip more than half of their secondary and still be effective. Quick example build: zMastermind - Robots - Time.mbd (The MM has 58.1% Defense to all; Henchmen have 59.4%. Chrono Shift and Hasten are perma and Temporal selection can be up on four Henchmen simultaneously) I suppose it might be worth pointing out here that I don't consider /Traps to be a bad set by any stretch. Whilst IMO its main forte lies in being slow and unstoppable (which goes against the current state of the game) and in debuffing AVs (which resist debuffs drastically and can be brute-forced these days anyway) I'd still put it ahead of the majority of MM secondaries, roughly on par with /Dark. However /Time is better performing than both (as is /Kinetics in some cases) and /Marine is leagues ahead of all of them. [EDIT - Spelling and Formatting. That'll teach me not to start posting powerset comparisons at 3am...] 😴

> Tank farming - Not sure if this is right, but it works!

Whilst my Bot/Traps is firmly on the shelf these days (/Time + Clarion just has a much higher performance ceiling); it's worth pointing out that Triage Beacon and a few similar powers (e.g. Spirit Tree, Spirit Ward, etc) have an interesting interaction with the Panacea Proc. It will reliably grant HP and Endurance to any allies within its range; including Henchmen, placeable pets and NPCs. And having multiple copies of it out will multiply the activation rate. Medicine carried my Bot/Traps on Live for many, many issues. However these days you can definitely get by without it... and personally, I'd just take Triage Beacon + Maintenance Drone + Talons Radial Lore and call it a day.

Oh it's 100% a thing. If you do a keyword search in AE for "FIRE FARM AFK" on either the Live or Test server you'll find relevant missions with various guideline completion times (the "10 minute" ones are the Asteroid maps that give the best bang-for-your-buck; but there are longer "40 minute" versions that you can choose instead which involve following a NPC helper around a cave map). I'd recommend checking the below linked thread for more detail and plenty of example builds (including Spines + FA) Personally I've got several toons that can farm decently, although I don't really like chasing the "meta" builds. I tend to make a bit of a game out of it and pick setups that are (i) useful in both regular PVE and Farming; and (ii) not "meta" but still effective... such as an AFK-farming (Non-Granite) Stone Armor Brute; a Bot/Kin Mastermind + "Crabbermind" VEAT dual-box pairing, a Bio/Staff Tanker and even a EM/Rad Scrapper. As long as you've some decent AoEs and a reasonable level of survivability; influence + drops tend to flow in pretty quickly no matter what type(s) of toon you bring.

ACTIVE or AFK Farming? (e.g. are you intending to actually be behind the keyboard the entire time or not) This makes a major difference to the build. AFK farmers will take two damage auras and proc out one big AoE, then the rest of their build is devoted to passive damage/recharge/survivability bonuses. Active farmers don't care so much about damage auras or passive bonuses, but will take as many big AoEs as they can get their hands on and procbomb every single one of them. [EDIT] - rereading your post... do you mean your 50 fire/spines tanker is on a 3rd account + so you're intending to triple-box a rad/fire brute, a fire/kin troller and a fire/spines tanker at the same time to farm on the same map all together? (Whilst that's a perfectly valid way to play, just be aware that the return-per-hour will be substantially slower than if you threw the Brute and the Tank into different maps and left them to AFK-Farm at +4/x8 whilst your 'troller actively solos at +1/x8 or just spams the Freaklympics arc)

As has been pointed out above, we need more information on what you actually want to do with this toon. "Spines + Fiery Aura" is one of the classic older "AFK" farming combinations (where you zone into a specific mission map in Architect Entertainment and leave your toon parked there with a particular power to Autofire - in this case, typically "Burn" - whilst you go off and do other things... then come back later to find the map clear of enemies and a fat pile of XP and loot). So the first thing many players will assume here is that you want this character to either exclusively or primarily be able to AFK-farm on AE missions. However perhaps instead you just want a general PVE build? Solo? Teamed? Something that can handle Incarnate content? Or "4 Star Hard Mode" content? If you are looking for a farming toon... @Warshades is correct in that Brutes were at one time the most popular flavour of the Spines+FA combo. Back then Tankers had yet to receive their "Gauntlet" revamp (they've since completely eclipsed the other melee ATs in terms of how quickly they can defeat large numbers of foes) and most Brutes could be built to comfortably cope with having up to 17 enemies attacking them simultaneously (aggro mechanics have since been altered; and now enemies over the aggro limit will continue to hurl attacks at you if you're the only available target within their range... and this has led to considerably higher levels of incoming damage than before - more than most Brutes can survive if someone isn't behind the wheel to occasionally click on a healing ability). Whilst it is still technically possible to build a Spines/FA Brute that can AFK-farm; throwing the same level of investment into a Radiation Melee Tanker will get you something that does it faster and safer. - [EDIT] - IceSphere's dropbox currently has two FA/Spines Tanker builds listed in it; if you just want something to glance at. Looking at the damage mitigation numbers it appears both of them are intended as farming toons rather than for more general PVE... although neither of them meets the currently required regeneration rate threshold to survive AFK-farming and both of them have chosen Epic Powers that are better suited for "Active" Farming. Build #1 - labelled "Cheap Farmer" with lots of inexpensive + common IOs used. Build #2 - unlabelled; but has the more expensive Winters + Purples + considerably more damage proccage going on. I don't have a "generic PVE" FA/Spines Tanker build to hand; but here's a Brute variant that's softcapped to melee etc: zBrute - Spines - Fiery Aura (Fly).mbd

Short Answer: AoE things. ALL the things. My first foray into Spines was a Spines/DA Scrapper Issue 7 or so. Leaping from spawn to spawn with double Damage Auras and Spine Burst after setting them up with Throw Spines + Energy Torrent was hilarious. Endurance Management was a challenge until IOs and Alpha Slots; but ST damage was and still is pretty rubbish - because that's not what Spines is about. That said... IIRC the best DPA attack in the entire powerset is the T1 (Barb Swipe) which procs really badly. However Ripper and Lunge aren't quite utterly horrendous and thanks to the redraw not causing any delays nowadays you can always pick up more attacks from pool powers (like Arcane Bolt or Cross Punch) or your Epic Pool (Gloom is great; and opens the way to Dark Obliteration. Spirit Shark is the other obvious standout, or possibly a procced-out Char)?

Energy Melee is one of those sets where I love its performance but I really struggle to justify taking it on anything other than Scrappers (or at a pinch, Stalkers). IMO the ST chain is the main draw; and it's just so much more satisfying whenever you can stack the Energy Focus mechanic with a Superior Critical Strikes ATO Proc (or guaranteed Assassin's Strike Crits). Perhaps part of it is nostalga for the old days when my EM/Regen Stalker's Energy Transfer was always "quick mode", much to the dismay of many lowbie Zone PVPers... Power Crash's scaling Target Cap is a nice touch; although I suspect it may be more useful on a different secondary. I usually skip PC on /Rad because with all the extra AoE that Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy bring to the table; my AoE spike chain is typically just WH -> GZ -> RT -> WH; followed by finishing off any surviving EBs (plus the occasional Judgement). And my relationship history with cones attacks on melee ATs is firmly in "it's complicated" territory

Kryten: "They've taken Mr Rimmer. Sir, they've taken Mr Rimmer!" Cat: "Quick, let's get out of here before they bring him back..." Holly: "Nothing wrong with dog's milk. Full of goodness, full of vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly. Lasts longer than any other type of milk, dog's milk." Lister: "Why?" Holly: "No bugger'll drink it." *Ahem* What were we talking about? Oh yes: So Kryten's a Tanker. Lister's a Scrapper. Cat's a Stalker. Rimmer's a [Smeeeeee...]