Rad/Bio - Can it make a decent farmer?

[TungstenShark]

I have not tried farming yet, but there are so many combos and powersets I want to try...I'm probably going to have to give in and bite the bullet. I have a Rad/Bio sitting at 50 untouched at the moment. Rather than rolling up yet another random Spines/Fire or Rad/Fire, I was hoping I could use him. Obviously not for fire farms, but maybe s/l farms? I originally rolled him because I liked the idea of two damage auras working while I'm attacking. The recent proc research made me even more excited to try the dual damage auras fully-slotted. Going the proc route means ignoring set bonuses, which has a major impact on defense.

 

I guess my question is two-fold:

 

1.) How best to take a Rad/Bio and build it for farming?

2.) Does it make sense within this goal to take advantage of procs?

 

Anyone else using Rad/Bio to do any farming?

[Bill Z Bubba]

Might wanna check this thread:

Rad/Fire is top of the pile last I checked.

 

Edit: I'm farmpling at rad/fa brute to 50 right now as a replace for my spines/fire brute. Cuz I hate spines.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Bill Z Bubba

[Frostweaver]

Rad/Bio can absolutely Farm well, although it's not quite in the same league as Rad/fire (5 minutes average, rather than 4 minutes 30) but there are some things you need to remember:

1) Bio use s/l farm instead of fire farm. It is slightly more fragile against s/l than /fire is against fire, so you might want to run it at 3/8 instead of 4/8 for faster run-throughs and less risk. However, once you get your Inc slotted well 4/8 is not really that challenging.

2) Bio makes up for this by being of far GREATER utility on all other content, especially praetorian and Dark Astoria stuff for incarnates as well as ITF's, itrials, and simply getting your accolades.
3) You are a brute. with a 600% damage cap. Once you get the inspirations ball rolling, It will be HARD to find time to clickie.
4) procs in the damage auras are nice, but pale in comparison to your primary set damage. When slotting procs in your primaries, go for 1 slotting a utility proc like -res or +recharge and use the rest of the slots to actually slot sets.

5) Use the keybinds from the 'farm fresh builds' post. Obviously you won't use the builds for Rad/Bio, but the binds literally cute my farming times in half.

6) Use your DNA siphon/parasitic aura as often as you possibly can. DNA siphon is NOT just a heal. and Parasitic Aura is more than just an absorb. DNA siphon is a pretty good place for Unrelenting, though.

7) Mu epic cages/ball lightning on top of brute damage bonuses are incredibly damaging. You might not even notice the lack of burn.

8: Always use Atom smasher right after fusion. even if it means changing your attack chain slightly. contaminating EVERYTHING is totally worth it.

9) Proton sweep sucks.
10) You have more ways of screwing with enemies than almost any other combination. Some of those ways only affect you a little, but ALL of them help a team. -regen, -defense, -resist, -damage, you ARE your own pocket defender.

Edited October 2, 2019 by Frostweaver

[roleki]

I have a VL100 TW/Bio scrapper and a VL85 Rad/Fire brute; the Rad/Fire earns the inf, but is exposed as a one-trick pony once it leaves AE.  TW/Bio is about 1/4 as fast at earning inf, but is darn near immortal in content.  I would imagine a Rad/Bio would split the difference.  In either event, stay away from Proton Sweep.  It is just awful.

[TheSpiritFox]

Don't make a rad/bio farmer. Just don't. Make a rad/fire or spines/fire (I much prefer rad/fire and I think it's a blast to play) and make a rad/bio content explorer. Bio exemplars down pretty well and you can build a build made for everything except farming, from soloing to tanking AVs in task forces. But a rad/bio is going to be a slow farmer. 

I used to have a bots/traps farmer. I do now again. Hes all set up, I love him, but he cannot stack damage on top of +4x8 mobs like a /fire farmer can no matter what I do. He can't blend his way through an entire room of minion to boss level enemies in under 6 minutes. His influence gain is maybe a fifth of what my fire farmer can manage on his best day. 

This is farming. Efficiency is the name of the game. And as quickly as you really can get a toon to high level, you'd be better off getting a real farmer PLed and using them to not have to worry about money on the rad/bio you make to actually enjoy content with and get badges on and so on and so forth. If you go with a rad/bio, it's really pretty simple. You build for smashing/lethal defense and do a S&L farm, or you build for fire defense just like you would a fire farmer and do a fire map. 

[Frostweaver]

Just more evidence that burn needs it's damage cut by 2/3rds. or alternatively, turn the fear back on for brutes.

I love my brute farmer, but even I will admit that it's STUPID that she can out-aoe blasters with a tanker's survivability.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Frostweaver

[thespiritfox2]

Burn wasn't a huge problem before we could make fire farms. The real efficiency comes from the AE and being able to design missions around a build that uses burn. If you're farming normal missions on a /fire it's a hell of alot harder to build for. Being able to build exclusively for damage, recharge, and fire defense with sets lets you specialize. I don't really think farming itself needs a nerf, which would be what you'd nerf burn for. The AH has few enough purples as it is. 

 

People are gonna farm. AE gave us the creative control to farm really, really smart. Nerfing powersets because of artifical efficiency that doesn't otherwise exist in the game isn't a very wise design choice, and juding by the fire farms made "developer approved" or whatever to let us grind away the infl, I don't think they're planning on nerfing farming any time soon. 

[Frostweaver]

'artificial efficiency'? I am not talking about exclusively Farming. To be honest, I really don't care about the fact that Brutes trivialize it. I use it too, like everyone else.

Have you actually PLAYED on a brute steamroll team? That is not artificial efficiency in the least. scrappers, Blasters. MM's, Dominators, stalkers, VEAT's,  controllers, tankers, a well-built brute can do every single one of those jobs better than the specialists.

 

Brutes have always been disgustingly OP, but when CoH and CoV were separated, that was perfectly fine. Corrupters, Veat's, and MM's basically played  buff/debuffs, which could 'assist' brutes, stalkers soloed, and nobody gave a crap about dominators except dominators. The only Other AT's that had to compete with Brutes were other Brutes.

But AT Proliferation? That was just a bad idea. All of a sudden people could meaningfully compare other AT's with Brutes, and they realized EVERYTHING else was utterly superfluous... all you needed to steamroll every bit of content in the game was a brute, and a few buffs and debuffs. Sure, there were a few other brutal combinations, but those had to be specially designed... Out-of-the-box, virtually ANY Brute can be banged into shape to trivialize 4/8 content... literally the toughest stuff in the game, SOLO.

If they scaled the difficulty higher, changed the aggro caps to 32, and even boosted it up to +6 content, within a week there would be brutes more than capable of solo steamrolling +6/16 content... and not just farms.

If they had a 'setting' where every single mob in an incarnate spawn was a boss or an EB, Brutes would be right there, untouchable, smashing through them like toilet paper. If their build wasn't the best, they might need a buffer/debuffer along for the ride.

Brutes are the star players. They are like Teen wolf... making all the baskets, singlehandedly humiliating the other team, while the rest of his teammates sit around getting bored and occasionally feeding him the basketball.


I am not saying that Brutes need a nerf. I hate Nerfherding... But I am saying that there needs to be some way, some method where other AT's can shine and become the star player occasionally. Maybe that means relaxing aggro and aoe caps on Tankers. Maybe that means cranking Blaster target and Damage caps. Maybe that means making 'post incarnate' difficulties settings where all enemies have longbow sonic grenades, 95% to-hit chances and no cc protection. That might even mean nerfing Brute's punchvoke. I really don't know... But I do know that I get burnout occasionally, and 'city of brutes' doesn't help that much.

[roleki]

On 10/15/2019 at 8:56 PM, TheSpiritFox said:

Don't make a rad/bio farmer. Just don't. Make a rad/fire or spines/fire (I much prefer rad/fire and I think it's a blast to play) and make a rad/bio content explorer. Bio exemplars down pretty well and you can build a build made for everything except farming, from soloing to tanking AVs in task forces. But a rad/bio is going to be a slow farmer. 

I used to have a bots/traps farmer. I do now again. Hes all set up, I love him, but he cannot stack damage on top of +4x8 mobs like a /fire farmer can no matter what I do. He can't blend his way through an entire room of minion to boss level enemies in under 6 minutes. His influence gain is maybe a fifth of what my fire farmer can manage on his best day. 

This is farming. Efficiency is the name of the game. And as quickly as you really can get a toon to high level, you'd be better off getting a real farmer PLed and using them to not have to worry about money on the rad/bio you make to actually enjoy content with and get badges on and so on and so forth. If you go with a rad/bio, it's really pretty simple. You build for smashing/lethal defense and do a S&L farm, or you build for fire defense just like you would a fire farmer and do a fire map. 

I agree that of the two, my Rad/Fire is a far better farmer than my Rad/Bio.  The weird thing is, the Rad/Fire has higher S/L def and comparable S/L resist relative to my Rad/Bio, so it can do pretty much any farm I want.

 

That said... Rad/Bio is MUCH more survivable outside of AE.  I made the mistake of soloing Bobcat with my R/F (like I did easily with my R/B) and got mailed back to the hospital in six pieces.

[roleki]

5 hours ago, Frostweaver said:

'artificial efficiency'? I am not talking about exclusively Farming. To be honest, I really don't care about the fact that Brutes trivialize it. I use it too, like everyone else.

Have you actually PLAYED on a brute steamroll team? That is not artificial efficiency in the least. scrappers, Blasters. MM's, Dominators, stalkers, VEAT's,  controllers, tankers, a well-built brute can do every single one of those jobs better than the specialists.

 

Brutes have always been disgustingly OP, but when CoH and CoV were separated, that was perfectly fine. Corrupters, Veat's, and MM's basically played  buff/debuffs, which could 'assist' brutes, stalkers soloed, and nobody gave a crap about dominators except dominators. The only Other AT's that had to compete with Brutes were other Brutes.

But AT Proliferation? That was just a bad idea. All of a sudden people could meaningfully compare other AT's with Brutes, and they realized EVERYTHING else was utterly superfluous... all you needed to steamroll every bit of content in the game was a brute, and a few buffs and debuffs. Sure, there were a few other brutal combinations, but those had to be specially designed... Out-of-the-box, virtually ANY Brute can be banged into shape to trivialize 4/8 content... literally the toughest stuff in the game, SOLO.

If they scaled the difficulty higher, changed the aggro caps to 32, and even boosted it up to +6 content, within a week there would be brutes more than capable of solo steamrolling +6/16 content... and not just farms.

If they had a 'setting' where every single mob in an incarnate spawn was a boss or an EB, Brutes would be right there, untouchable, smashing through them like toilet paper. If their build wasn't the best, they might need a buffer/debuffer along for the ride.

Brutes are the star players. They are like Teen wolf... making all the baskets, singlehandedly humiliating the other team, while the rest of his teammates sit around getting bored and occasionally feeding him the basketball.


I am not saying that Brutes need a nerf. I hate Nerfherding... But I am saying that there needs to be some way, some method where other AT's can shine and become the star player occasionally. Maybe that means relaxing aggro and aoe caps on Tankers. Maybe that means cranking Blaster target and Damage caps. Maybe that means making 'post incarnate' difficulties settings where all enemies have longbow sonic grenades, 95% to-hit chances and no cc protection. That might even mean nerfing Brute's punchvoke. I really don't know... But I do know that I get burnout occasionally, and 'city of brutes' doesn't help that much.

I don't even know what shape or form it would take, but it sounds like what we need are farms geared towards blasters and defenders or whatever.  I guess that would be a whole crapload of Clockwork Gears?

[Frostweaver]

why, is there actual interest in 'cold' farms, electric farms, dark farms, and psi farms?

[BrandX]

19 hours ago, roleki said:

I don't even know what shape or form it would take, but it sounds like what we need are farms geared towards blasters and defenders or whatever.  I guess that would be a whole crapload of Clockwork Gears?

 

Make the enemies pure melee.  Use hover.  Have capped S/L defense.  Got to town.

 

Don't think it would work as well on a defender, as their damage is just low, but I would imagine it would work well on a Blaster.

[Crysis]

On 10/19/2019 at 12:00 PM, BrandX said:

 

Make the enemies pure melee.  Use hover.  Have capped S/L defense.  Got to town.

 

Don't think it would work as well on a defender, as their damage is just low, but I would imagine it would work well on a Blaster.

It’s been since LIVE days that I made an AE map.  I should try that again, it was kind of fun.

 

But back then, and I think its still true today, the only way to maximize XP per mob (which is the goal of a farming map) is to give a balance of ranged/melee attacks to the MOBs.  This is why the “Investigate Warrior Earth” and the Alternative Earth Council portal missions remains very popular for S/L oriented characters outside of AE.

 

Anyone know if this remains true on HC?

[BrandX]

5 hours ago, Crysis said:

It’s been since LIVE days that I made an AE map.  I should try that again, it was kind of fun.

 

But back then, and I think its still true today, the only way to maximize XP per mob (which is the goal of a farming map) is to give a balance of ranged/melee attacks to the MOBs.  This is why the “Investigate Warrior Earth” and the Alternative Earth Council portal missions remains very popular for S/L oriented characters outside of AE.

 

Anyone know if this remains true on HC?

Still allows you to cap S/L Defense and go with a claws build.

[DeepRootz]

On 10/18/2019 at 7:41 AM, Frostweaver said:

'artificial efficiency'? I am not talking about exclusively Farming. To be honest, I really don't care about the fact that Brutes trivialize it. I use it too, like everyone else.

Have you actually PLAYED on a brute steamroll team? That is not artificial efficiency in the least. scrappers, Blasters. MM's, Dominators, stalkers, VEAT's,  controllers, tankers, a well-built brute can do every single one of those jobs better than the specialists.

 

Brutes have always been disgustingly OP, but when CoH and CoV were separated, that was perfectly fine. Corrupters, Veat's, and MM's basically played  buff/debuffs, which could 'assist' brutes, stalkers soloed, and nobody gave a crap about dominators except dominators. The only Other AT's that had to compete with Brutes were other Brutes.

But AT Proliferation? That was just a bad idea. All of a sudden people could meaningfully compare other AT's with Brutes, and they realized EVERYTHING else was utterly superfluous... all you needed to steamroll every bit of content in the game was a brute, and a few buffs and debuffs. Sure, there were a few other brutal combinations, but those had to be specially designed... Out-of-the-box, virtually ANY Brute can be banged into shape to trivialize 4/8 content... literally the toughest stuff in the game, SOLO.

If they scaled the difficulty higher, changed the aggro caps to 32, and even boosted it up to +6 content, within a week there would be brutes more than capable of solo steamrolling +6/16 content... and not just farms.

If they had a 'setting' where every single mob in an incarnate spawn was a boss or an EB, Brutes would be right there, untouchable, smashing through them like toilet paper. If their build wasn't the best, they might need a buffer/debuffer along for the ride.

Brutes are the star players. They are like Teen wolf... making all the baskets, singlehandedly humiliating the other team, while the rest of his teammates sit around getting bored and occasionally feeding him the basketball.


I am not saying that Brutes need a nerf. I hate Nerfherding... But I am saying that there needs to be some way, some method where other AT's can shine and become the star player occasionally. Maybe that means relaxing aggro and aoe caps on Tankers. Maybe that means cranking Blaster target and Damage caps. Maybe that means making 'post incarnate' difficulties settings where all enemies have longbow sonic grenades, 95% to-hit chances and no cc protection. That might even mean nerfing Brute's punchvoke. I really don't know... But I do know that I get burnout occasionally, and 'city of brutes' doesn't help that 

I hated when they mixed the ATs for that exact reason.  My kited out ss/invul on live was a tank and dps.  I remember getting turned down from an ITF pre GR by a group of heroes because they wanted a dps and not a tank.  I just lol'd because they were clueless how strong Brutes were at the time, especially since we could easily roll with a full fury bar.

[TheSpiritFox]

11 hours ago, Crysis said:

It’s been since LIVE days that I made an AE map.  I should try that again, it was kind of fun.

 

But back then, and I think its still true today, the only way to maximize XP per mob (which is the goal of a farming map) is to give a balance of ranged/melee attacks to the MOBs.  This is why the “Investigate Warrior Earth” and the Alternative Earth Council portal missions remains very popular for S/L oriented characters outside of AE.

 

Anyone know if this remains true on HC?

This is half true. I've built mobs for farms for my Mastermind and early on for my fire farmer so I could make custom maps before I could handle +4x8. 

There's a bar that tells you the percent experience of a regular mob that your created mob is equivalent to. You pick your powers set and you can choose any, all, none, whatever you want from that powerset, each power choice has like a percent value. Choosing any ranged and any melee together will almost immediately get you into like 70% or more of a normal mob's experience. But, also, if you're farming melee you want them to have melee attacks so that they choose to close to melee.  Ranged only mobs don't cluster up on you, and only corner pulling can bunch them up. 

After that, it depends on the powers you give them. You can give mobs two offensive powersets. I made a lethal/cold farm for my Bots/traps. They got a lethal ranged attack, a lethal sword attack, an ice punch attack, and an ice sword attack. Lots of potential DPS for them, but I maxed out their experience without giving them any survivability options of any kind, without giving them higher than T3 or T4 attacks, and my bots with the pet uniques are 40% resistant to both lethal and cold and defense capped so they survive pretty damn well. Full experience, same basic powerset on all the mobs from basic to boss, boss got greater ice sword to cap it's experience. 

You could also do shit like giving a boss fiery aura when you do toxic, psi, smashing, or lethal damage to jack up it's experience without significantly inconveniencing yourself. But the game has it's own metrics for what makes an enemy strong enough to justify full experience. 

 

Ranged attacks aren't required, but enemies who have both are considered more balanced and if you don't include both ranged and melee you'll have to give them higher level attacks, buffs, etc to compensate for the XP loss. 

If you want to farm a blaster, the easiest way is to just try to cap S&L defense and get as much resistance to it as you can and make a farm that has only those attacks. It's basically the same thing we're doing with fire damage, it's just harder to build a blaster to those specific defenses because you don't have a defensive secondary designed to get you half to three quarters of the way there before set bonuses. That said, I know people who dual box with a spines/fire to hold aggro and an ice/fire blaster to dump aoe damage and controls on the mobs and focus down bosses. The spines/fire is built to auto farm, set on follow, and burn is set to autocast. The ice blaster they actually play. 

That is free to do and specifically allowable by the homecoming rules, just keep a tab open to server status so you can keep an eye on server populations, don't dual box over like 1200 people online. 

There are not often 1200 people online and the rule is 1500. 

Edited October 21, 2019 by TheSpiritFox

[Frostweaver]

BTW, I played an incarnate mission from the Mot chains where, in fact, the spawn was bigger than 17 mobs and every single enemy was an EB.
Yup, I was right. My brute rolled through it like tissue paper. There's a reason the Joker is BATMAN's nemesis and not Superman's.

[Colder]

I run SM/Bio. It's more interactive than my fire farmer. Including shred the aoe dmg is nonstop. I also run the lethal farm. I'd imagine rad would be just as good if not better. 

 

I have to admit though, savage is real nice on the AoE as well. I also slotted bios heal for dmg, I've got the absorb heal and God mode regen up so often I don't need it but for its base heal and recovery and it's more useful for dmg IMO

Edited November 9, 2019 by Colder

[lokpyrite]

Rad/bio is great until you hit serious debuffs