Issue 28: Page 1 Farming Microguide (Maps + Builds)

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, Xalon said:

Why rush even more with multi-boxing? I really want to understand what goes through someone's mind to think that this is fun. Honestly, lmk.

 

Personally I do it to generate drops and influence. AFK farming in particular requires minimal attention and is easy to spin up on a second screen whilst I'm catching up on a TV show etc. Farming isn't as efficient for generating influence as marketeering, but I prefer generating drops to flipping them. It helps keep the non-buy-it-now AH prices down.

 

Including drops, each Passive ("AFK") Farming toon typically pulls in 40-80m inf per hour (depending on the map and how fast the toon can physically defeat stuff). That's roughly half of what an Active Farming toon can pull in, but since you can have three accounts simultaneously logged in on different AE Farming maps per non-busy shard? If you fancy pushing hard for an hour or two then it can all add up very fast.

 

Sometimes I'll park an alt from a different account on the map to get them easy exp. Typically I'll do that after they hit Lv45 in order to get them up to veteran level 100... but sometimes I'll stick them on temporarily earlier to get them over a hump in the 30s etc. so they get a fresh batch of contacts (I like getting all the contacts up to at least phonable status as I level up each character... but I don't see any point in running the Lv45 contact missions until after they hit Lv50)

 

You do see some requests for power leveling in global chat... but IME those requests are also typically from folk who have played the game for decades and genuinely want to skip part of the regular level up process. 

 

Edited Saturday at 07:23 AM by Maelwys

[Tyriwan]

Good morning,

 

I've recently come back to the game (few weeks now) and have got my kids to start playing. I was multiboxing before with 3 brutes (2 spines/fire and 1 rad/fire). My sons started playing two of the brutes(to see if they liked playing) and my daughter made a fire/kin corrupter. It was working really well, but now they want to try different things while still farming. Farming is easy and fun watching everything blow up.

 

My one son is making a fire/fire blaster and that seems great.

 

The other wants to try a tanker. We leveled him a rad/rad but then I read that was nerfed bad recently. We thought the debuffs would help. Any suggestions to what would fit our team comp the best? To hold aggro off the blaster and corrupter the best? Maybe add some debuffs so they kill faster?

[lemming]

1 hour ago, Tyriwan said:

We leveled him a rad/rad but then I read that was nerfed bad recently.

There was some correction done.   Honestly, I think the only people that would notice are the ones pushing performance to max levels.  

[Maelwys]

20 hours ago, Tyriwan said:

My sons started playing two of the brutes(to see if they liked playing) and my daughter made a fire/kin corrupter.
It was working really well, but now they want to try different things while still farming. 

My one son is making a fire/fire blaster and that seems great.

The other wants to try a tanker. We leveled him a rad/rad but then I read that was nerfed bad recently. We thought the debuffs would help.
Any suggestions to what would fit our team comp the best? To hold aggro off the blaster and corrupter the best? Maybe add some debuffs so they kill faster?

The setup you're describing (bringing three different ATs onto the same map which act as if they're all playing together in a regular team; attempting to manage aggro and defeat stuff methodically) isn't really a commonplace setup for "farming" -  typically these days you'd either bring one self-sufficient toon per map (most efficient) or potentially three self-sufficient toons into a large map where they can buff each other but defeat stuff independently.

It's still possible to bring multiple different ATs into the same map, but you need to be very mindful of the aggro cap. The point of a "farm" is generally to defeat stuff as fast as possible; but no matter how good of a Tank the Brute/Tanker is; they will only be capable of holding the attention of 17 foes simultaneously... so if you're waiting for proper aggro control to be established; then the going will be slow.

If you're intent on bringing a Blaster and a Corruptor for damage; then my advice would be to either:

(i) Bring a Brute/Tanker that has as many AoEs as possible plus the Soul Mastery Patron Pool (for Darkest Night)
I'd recommend a BattleAxe/StoneArmor; BattleAxe/FieryAura or BattleAxe/RadArmor. The idea here would be to try to bunch at least SOME foes up whilst defeating stuff as fast as possible via AoE attack spam; but be able to situationally pull aggro very quickly when needed and improve allied survivability a bit (via Darkest Night). BattleAxe is excellent at AoE damage and has a place for FF +Rech and FotG -res procs in Axe Cyclone (which also has a minor reverse repel "get over here!" effect).
FWIW; Radiation Armor is still good for AoE; it's just not the automatic runaway winner any longer. The nerfs were to Ground Zero's target cap (which affects Rad's performance in "regular" farming; but won't impact your tri-boxing kids if they're never engaging more than 16 targets simultaneously) and to Radiation Therapy's proc activation rate (which won't overly matter if you're bringing a Fire Blaster and a Fire/Kin Corruptor!).

(ii) Bring a something else that can group foes up via Crowd Control whilst buffing itself and the other two toons.
My money'd be on a Gravity/Cold or Gravity/Time Controller (the latter could leverage Power Boost and Radial Clarion to bring Farsight's defense numbers up to scratch). I imagine the Blaster and Corruptor are already using an Epic/Patron resistance shield; so between some +Def buffage and multiple Barrier Destiny rotations you should be fine.
 

Edited Monday at 11:23 AM by Maelwys