Is Fire/Kin what it used to be?

[Noimnot]

Hey guys,

 

First day coming back after what seems like 14-15 years. I played this game a ton in my high school years and remembered having so much fun. Back then on live I remember power leveling with a fire/kin controller speed running the same map over and over. I was wondering if this was the standard or if things have changed? I would like to level up the best farmer for power leveling and find that sweet map again. Thank you!

[Noimnot]

18 minutes ago, 5099y_74c05 said:

I see plenty of  Fire/Kin farmers around. AE has helped optimize farming. If I am not mistaken Spines/Fire, SS/Fire, and Rad/Fire Brutes were the top picks. The first being more of a self starter, the others need some investment to get them going. There is a big farming build thread in one of the non AT sub forums; I'll see if I can track it down for you. 

I'm sorry I'm not familiar what is AE? I've been reading through the forums and it looks like a lot of things have been added that I didn't know about that seems like the game won't be as much of a grind lol. Any tips to make things more familiar if I haven't played this game in so long?

[Hjarki]

For pure farming, the consensus builds are Spines/Fire and Rad/Fire Brutes. The Tanker changes earlier this year probably mean that there are Tanker builds that equal/exceed the performance of these sorts of Brute builds.

 

The controller builds are a bit of a step back from the Brutes/Tankers and tend to require a bit more interaction - you can literally go afk with your Brute/Tanker and come back to a pile of influence/xp.

 

FIre/Kin remains perhaps the most popular build in the game. It's a fairly flexible build that also works well in team settings. However, a build like Plant/Storm is likely to beat it for sheer mass carnage.

 

 

[Silverado]

Fire/Kin may not be able to do +4/x8 afk farming, but it is still a damn powerhouse both offensively and defensively, both solo and in teams. It's probably one of the best support in the game at all level ranges

[Without_Pause]

5 hours ago, 5099y_74c05 said:

Only big change you may have missed was the Incarnate system. its basically a post 50 power system.

If they don't know what AE is, they might not now about changing their difficulty setting.

 

An "Idiot's Guide to Spines/fire Farming."

 

Make a Spines/fire brute. 

Grab eight 2x XP boosters.

Do one run in AE of the "Bad" space map.

You now are level 5.

Grab the damage aura.

Change your diff sitting to -1/xY with Y being whatever you are comfortable with.

Search for "Fire" or "Comic Con" mission in AE and run the space map version until your eyes bleed and then some more. 

As you add inspir slots and powers, increase diff. A basic level 50 should be able to do +2/x8.

Get your Alpha Incarnate slot to Tier 3 asap after locking it and you now are 50 +1.

Bump diff setting to +3/x8.

As you add in more Incarnate abilities and IO sets you can up to +4/x8.

Congrats, you have been assimilated and now are part of the Spines/fire brute Borg.

 

Fire/kin still remains the leader in terms of controller builds and it isn't that close, so yes, it still works and that/those old map(s) which people still do run are still around. It's just in terms of farming specifically, the game has literally changed. 

[Noimnot]

5 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

If they don't know what AE is, they might not now about changing their difficulty setting.

 

An "Idiot's Guide to Spines/fire Farming."

 

Make a Spines/fire brute. 

Grab eight 2x XP boosters.

Do one run in AE of the "Bad" space map.

You now are level 5..

Are you saying you can farm missions now yourself right out the gate?

[Noimnot]

2 hours ago, 5099y_74c05 said:

Yes from level 1. The guide subform has a guide discussing this. There is also a YouTube video guide discussing how to do so.

Is there a link somewhere on how to go from 1-50 on your own? I haven't been able to find it.

[Without_Pause]

1 hour ago, Noimnot said:

Is there a link somewhere on how to go from 1-50 on your own? I haven't been able to find it.

I double checked, you can select Blazing Aura at level two. Brutes with damage auras using fury is a beautiful thing. Grab the 2x XP boosters and go kill something to hit level 2. Grab the aura and follow the list from there. My Spines/fire has never teamed outside of dual boxing with my own characters and PLed herself to 50. About the only other note worthy thing is managing inspirs and more so early on when you have room for so few. It is actually better to hit level 3 before trying to farm due to this factor. It is okay to hit up the vendor inside of a mission as well.  The last two times you level where inspir storage increases is 25 and 40. You will want to use the P2W vendor to restrict inspirs drops to what you want. I filled up on purples, reds, and blues while leveling. At peak, you should be fine with just reds for drops.

 

* The vendor inside AE. There's no vendor inside the actual mission.

 

His starting point is a bit different but the "Bad" space map will get you to 5-6 faster than pretty much anything else. I haven't run his specific map, but the "Comic Con" one to me is the standard. There are obviously others, but some of them might be intentionally harder to where they are more for builds who can handle the extra load of lets say having EBs in them or being extra boss heavy. I tried a boss heavy one at the time of where my build was at and got smashed for it. If you ever feel the need to dual box, you will want to look into maps where mobs don't wander or just have a character who can stay stealthed, ie a stalker. Also, there is a 1,500 online accounts limit, IIRC, you have to be under when dual boxing as doing so hogs resources so you might want to check the server status before going in. AE is well know for how much resources it takes to run. Finally, they nerfed XP in AE, but using 2X XP boosters still makes leveling easy. I dual boxed a level 1 to 20 in 2-3 runs running only on +2/x8. I should be able to run +3/x8 tonight or tomorrow.

 

 

The forum link listed above is what I use as reference.

Edited March 29, 2020 by Without_Pause
Clairification

[Without_Pause]

Also, if you have questions, just try it and see how it goes. I died a lot on my journey and I'm still learning. No one is there to see you fail unless you wan them to be. Just note each added character slows down your personal drop rate for inspirs.  So yes, it is harder to farm even adding in one single character.

[ambpup]

I recently lvl a spine/fire brute to 50th lvl using the guide above, and it was actually pretty easy both time-wise and getting varies IOs to complete the build. But if I had the time and didn't need the cash so bad, I might had gone fire/kin troller for the simple fact that its more useful outside of AE then my new brute. 

[Without_Pause]

My vote for all-purpose farmer and regular content would be Rad/bio brute. It would just farm S/L maps. Also note if you want currency/time, farming isn't the ideal. Playing the market is.

[Boone1]

I have a rad/fire brute leveled and fully io'ed for not only farming, but also a non-farm TF build. I'm still working on my incarnates, I just need to get 2 more to max level.