Page 7 Farming Microguide (Maps + Builds)

[Hjarki]

I'm curious why either Radiation or Electric would be superior to Bio in terms of Tanker farming. All of them can hard-cap S/L resist. Bio has the easiest time soft-capping S/L def. Bio has a damage aura like Electric, but it also has a -resist aura. Bio also has a -damage aura, +health/regen and +damage. While Electric and Radiation have +recharge, noprmally this has a trivial effect on damage once you're fully slotted up.

[Maelwys]

9 hours ago, Hjarki said:

I'm curious why either Radiation or Electric would be superior to Bio in terms of Tanker farming.

 

For AFK Farming, you definitely need two damage auras and any additional passive Global Recharge is extra useful (to buff the one single clicky PBAoE attack that you get to put on autofire) - so Elec has the edge there. And it's also got a few extra places in those passive powers to stick useful self-buffing procs (e.g power transfer)

 

For Active Farming, Rad wins but Beta Decay's Recharge buff is almost an afterthought. The main draw is Radiation Decay and Ground Zero because when procced up those two clickies can take out entire spawns by themselves; and you simply never need to worry about Regeneration or Recovery.

[Speed Freak]

Forgive me if this is the wrong place for this, I'll delete the post if so. I'm looking to up my farming game and am looking for some advice from the pro's. Not knowing any better, and looking at 4 year old posts I built a Spines/Fire Brute as my farmer. Then a "knowledgeable" SG member helped me respec him. I am not getting anywhere NEAR the numbers I see posted here. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for cutting edge, nosebleed return on investments, but it would be nice to be able to flex a little. This is the build I'm currently using, I have about 350 million Inf tucked away for a rainy day. Is there anything I can do to improve him?

 

Farmer - Hero Brute
Build plan made with Mids' Reborn v3.7.5 rev. 21
──────────────────────────────

• Primary powerset: Spines
• Secondary powerset: Fiery Aura
• Pool powerset (#1): Concealment
• Pool powerset (#2): Leaping
• Pool powerset (#3): Leadership
• Pool powerset (#4): Fighting
• Epic powerset: Psionic Mastery

──────────────────────────────

Powers taken:

Level 1: Lunge

• (Empty)

Level 1: Fire Shield

• A: Aegis: Resistance/Endurance
• 3: Aegis: Resistance/Recharge
• 3: Aegis: Endurance/Recharge
• 5: Aegis: Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
• 5: Aegis: Resistance

Level 2: Blazing Aura

• A: Scirocco's Dervish: Damage/Endurance
• 11: Scirocco's Dervish: Damage/Recharge
• 11: Scirocco's Dervish: Accuracy/Damage
• 13: Scirocco's Dervish: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• 13: Scirocco's Dervish: Chance of Damage(Lethal)

Level 4: Spine Burst

• A: Obliteration: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• 45: Obliteration: Accuracy/Recharge
• 48: Obliteration: Damage/Recharge
• 48: Obliteration: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• 48: Obliteration: Damage

Level 6: Healing Flames

• A: Panacea: Heal
• 7: Panacea: Heal/Endurance
• 7: Panacea: Endurance/Recharge
• 9: Panacea: Heal/Recharge
• 9: Panacea: Heal/Endurance/Recharge

Level 8: Stealth

• A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed
• 25: Red Fortune: Defense
• 25: Red Fortune: Defense/Endurance
• 27: Red Fortune: Defense/Recharge
• 27: Red Fortune: Endurance/Recharge
• 29: Red Fortune: Defense/Endurance/Recharge

Level 10: Grant Invisibility

• A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 12: Infiltration

• A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed

Level 14: Temperature Protection

• A: Aegis: Resistance
• 15: Aegis: Resistance/Endurance
• 15: Aegis: Resistance/Recharge
• 21: Aegis: Endurance/Recharge
• 21: Aegis: Resistance/Endurance/Recharge

Level 16: Plasma Shield

• A: Aegis: Resistance/Endurance
• 17: Aegis: Resistance/Recharge
• 17: Aegis: Endurance/Recharge
• 19: Aegis: Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
• 19: Aegis: Resistance

Level 18: Quills

• A: Obliteration: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• 42: Obliteration: Damage
• 42: Obliteration: Damage/Recharge
• 43: Obliteration: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• 45: Obliteration: Accuracy/Recharge

Level 20: Combat Jumping

• A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed
• 23: Red Fortune: Defense
• 23: Red Fortune: Defense/Endurance
• 46: Red Fortune: Defense/Recharge
• 46: Red Fortune: Endurance/Recharge
• 46: Red Fortune: Defense/Endurance/Recharge

Level 22: Consume

• A: Panacea: Heal
• 34: Panacea: Heal/Endurance
• 37: Panacea: Endurance/Recharge
• 39: Panacea: Heal/Recharge
• 39: Panacea: Heal/Endurance/Recharge

Level 24: Ripper

• A: Obliteration: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• 43: Obliteration: Damage
• 43: Obliteration: Damage/Recharge
• 45: Obliteration: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• 50: Obliteration: Accuracy/Recharge

Level 26: Burn

• A: Superior Avalanche: Accuracy/Damage
• 37: Superior Avalanche: Damage/Endurance
• 40: Superior Avalanche: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• 40: Superior Avalanche: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• 40: Superior Avalanche: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• 42: Superior Avalanche: Recharge/Chance for Knockdown

Level 28: Maneuvers

• A: Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge Speed
• 29: Red Fortune: Defense
• 31: Red Fortune: Defense/Endurance
• 31: Red Fortune: Defense/Recharge
• 31: Red Fortune: Endurance/Recharge
• 34: Red Fortune: Defense/Endurance/Recharge

Level 30: Kick

• (Empty)

Level 32: Tough

• A: Aegis: Resistance
• 33: Aegis: Resistance/Endurance
• 33: Aegis: Resistance/Recharge
• 33: Aegis: Endurance/Recharge
• 34: Aegis: Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
• 39: Gladiator's Armor: TP Protection +3% Def (All)

Level 35: Weave

• A: Reactive Defenses: Defense/RechargeTime
• 36: Reactive Defenses: Defense/Endurance/RechargeTime
• 36: Reactive Defenses: Defense
• 36: Reactive Defenses: Defense/Endurance
• 37: Reactive Defenses: Endurance/RechargeTime

Level 38: Phoenix Rising

• A: Invention: Recharge Reduction

Level 41: Mesmerize

• (Empty)

Level 44: Tactics

• A: Invention: To Hit Buff

Level 47: Harmonic Mind

• A: Invention: Endurance Modification
• 50: Invention: Endurance Modification
• 50: Invention: Endurance Modification

Level 49: Build Up

• A: Invention: Recharge Reduction

──────────────────────────────

Inherents:

Level 1: Fury

Level 1: Brawl

• (Empty)

Level 1: Sprint

• A: Invention: Run Speed

Level 2: Rest

• A: Invention: Healing

Level 1: Swift

• A: Invention: Flight Speed

Level 1: Hurdle

• A: Invention: Jumping

Level 1: Health

• A: Panacea: +Hit Points/Endurance

Level 1: Stamina

• A: Power Transfer: Chance to Heal Self

──────────────────────────────
Incarnates:

Agility Core Paragon

Ion Radial Final Judgement

Paralytic Core Flawless Interface

Ageless Core Epiphany

Assault Radial Embodiment

 

 

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Edited October 26 by Speed Freak

[Maelwys]

9 hours ago, Speed Freak said:

Forgive me if this is the wrong place for this, I'll delete the post if so. I'm looking to up my farming game and am looking for some advice from the pro's. Not knowing any better, and looking at 4 year old posts I built a Spines/Fire Brute as my farmer. Then a "knowledgeable" SG member helped me respec him. I am not getting anywhere NEAR the numbers I see posted here. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for cutting edge, nosebleed return on investments, but it would be nice to be able to flex a little. This is the build I'm currently using, I have about 350 million Inf tucked away for a rainy day. Is there anything I can do to improve him?

The good news is that you're ticked on 90% Fire Resistance and 45% Fire Defense.

However you're only pulling around 21 HP/Sec regen when Consume is down (assuming you've gotten your Passive Accolades) so it likely won't survive meteor AFK farming.
And your AoE damage slotting is very much lacking for clearing maps quickly in Active Farming (aside from Blazing Aura NONE of your attacks have a single damage proc; and you're missing other important things such as Hasten and a Gaussian Proc in Build Up).
You're also missing the Steadfast Protection +Defence; the Reactive Defenses +Resistance, the Shield Wall +Resistance, and the Preventive Maintenance +Absorb Globals; as well as the Miracle +Recovery Proc... and I don't see any Performance Shifters and only one Preventative Maintenance +Healing Procs; at a quick glance.

So as it stands your damage output is going to be poor; and you'll only be able to survive if you're Farming lower level enemies or you're actively clicking on Healing Flames.

Check AA's post a few thread pages back here which contains example AFK and Active Builds for a Spines/Fire Brute. Note that both sample builds there are also Fire Resist Hardcapped + Fire Softcapped... but the AFK build has much greater passive damage buffs and regeneration; and the active build has far more AoE attacks plus Hasten. Both of them have considerable amounts of Global Recharge and most of their important AoEs are completely laden with damage procs.
 

Ever since the aggro cap behaviour changes it's gotten much tougher for Brutes to survive AFK AE farming; and so realistically you're probably going to have to fork out a fair amount of Inf to get a top-tier Brute build that can manage it (at least with anything approaching acceptable speed - Stone's Granite Form is there as a bargain option!)
It's also possible to make a Brute build that is viable in most PVE and can also AFK farm pretty well - but due to the Regeneration requirements your best option there will probably be (non Granite!) Stone Armor. The one I'm currently using on-and-off is Brute - Rad Melee - Stone Armor (Fold Space).mbd - it can handle AFK Fire Farming on meteor farms at +4x8 no problem; if a smidge more slowly than a dedicated AFK-farmer with Assault and procbombed damage auras. I completed it a few months back and it probably cost me ballpark 300m excluding the couple of Winter sets and Boosters - and the toon made that back the first day just by me throwing it into a meteor map every 10mins whilst I was supposed to be working. 

For ACTIVE farming - there's more leeway in terms of survivability because you're there to activate Heals and clicky buffs on demand. But in those cases you really want to load up on as many big-radius-many-target-cap AoEs as you can and proc them front+back+sideways. Tankers have the advantage there mainly due to Gauntlet's increased Target Cap buff (its radius buff is a smidge less important as it only affects certain AoEs + when farming your targets are usually tightly clustered)

If you want to farm with a lower-cost build, honestly I'd go for a Tanker over a Brute any day of the week. It's much easier to hit the important survivability figures (90% res, 45% Def, >35HP/Sec Regen) on a Tanker, which gives a lot more wiggle room for slotting or power picks that aren't bleeding-edge min-maxxed.
 

Edited October 26 by Maelwys

[Hjarki]

On 10/25/2024 at 3:20 PM, Maelwys said:

 

For AFK Farming, you definitely need two damage auras and any additional passive Global Recharge is extra useful (to buff the one single clicky PBAoE attack that you get to put on autofire) - so Elec has the edge there. And it's also got a few extra places in those passive powers to stick useful self-buffing procs (e.g power transfer)

 

Let's assume +100% global recharge and +25% global damage.

 

Electric's Atom Smasher would be 81.886 * 1.25 / (3.168 + 22/2.2) = 7.77 dps.

Bio's Atom Smasher would be 81.886 * 1.5 / (3.168 + 22 / 2) * 1.06916 = 9.27 dps.

6 procs in Atom Smasher would be 71.75 * 3.5 * (22 + 2.93) / 60 / 2.125 * 6) / (3.168 + 22/2.2) = 22.37 dps for Electric and  71.75 * 3.5 * (22 + 2.93) / 60 / 2.125 * 6) / (3.168 + 22/2) * 1.06916 = 22.23 dps for Bio.

Electric's Irradiated Ground would be 6.8845 * 2 * 1.25 / 2 + 71.75 * 3.5 / 60 / 2.125 * 6 = 20.42 dps.

Bio's Irradiated Ground would be (6.8845 * 2 * 1.5 / 2 + 71.75 * 3.5 / 60 / 2.125 * 6) * 1.06916 = 23.68 dps.

 

Lightning Field would do (10.5659 * 2.25 / 2 + 3.5 / 60 / 1.9 * 71.75 * 4) = 20.70 dps.

Genetic Contamination would do (7.9245 * 2.5 / 2 + 3.5 / 60 / 1.9 * 71.75 * 4) * 1.06916 = 20.01 dps.

 

DNA Siphon would deal (26.419 * 1.9 + .9 * 71.75 * 5) / (1.848 + 90 / 2) * 1.06916 = 8.51 dps.

Bio can also slot a Psionic damage proc in Evolving Armor for another +2.20 dps.

 

Dragon's Tail, assuming automatic proc of FF, would deal (62.4341 * 1.25 + 71.75 * 3.5 * (14 + 1.5) / 60 / 1.9 * 5) / (1.716 + 14 / 3.35) = 42.20 dps.

Radiation Therapy would deal (23.7734 * 1.65 + 71.75 * .9 * 5) / (1.188 + 60 / 3.35) = 18.96 dps

Ground Zero would deal (105.6597 * 1.25 + 71.75 * .9 * 6) / (3.168 + 90 / 3.35) = 17.30 dps

 

So:

Electric = 7.77 + 22.37 + 20.42 + 20.70 = 71.26 dps

Bio =  9.27 + 22.23 + 23.68 + 20.01 = 75.19 dps, or 75.1 + 8.51 = 83.61 dps active

Radiation = 42.40 + 18.96 + 17.30 = 78.66 dps

 

Note that Radiation would have a substantial advantage against 10+ targets.

 

Additional Notes: Contrast Dark vs. Electric. Electric's +20% recharge is only worth about 2.12 dps (it only impacts the portion of damage from Atom Smasher). Dark has the same damage aura, but it also has two other auras that can slot procs (3 procs in Cloak of Fear, 1 proc in Oppressive Gloom) - and even a single extra proc outweighs the value of that +20% recharge. Given that Dark also has a +5% defense toggle (which makes building a farmer significantly easier) and it has potential proc bomb heal if you're so inclined, I'd argue that Dark is almost strictly superior to Electric for this purpose.

 

On the active farming front, consider Staff. If I ran the numbers right, 6 proc Guarded Spin (on Radiation Armor) does 46.91 dps and 6 proc Innocuous Strikes does 49.87 dps. While they're only 10 targets, that's still an enormous disparity in potential dps between this sort of set and Martial Arts - especially when you consider we haven't yet talked about the third AE in the set (a PBAoE KB attack).

 

For that matter, Ripper runs about 50.56 dps with 5 procs and is as reliable as Dragon's Tail for generating FF procs. It's also in a set with a damage aura and large radius PBAoE to add even more damage.  A build like Radiation/Spines seems like it would be directly superior to Radiation/MA for the purposes of active farming.

Edited October 28 by Hjarki

[Speed Freak]

Uhhhh....what's a meteor farm? 😆

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Hjarki said:

Let's assume +100% global recharge and +25% global damage.

Don't forget that you need substantially higher S/L resistance with Bio Armor + Offensive Adaption enabled compared to Elec Armor.

You could certainly take AA's Page5 A/L AFK build and swap out Elec Armor for Bio Armor with a few minor tweaks (see below) however as soon as you toggle on Offensive Adaption your S/L resistance is going to be sitting well below the 90% mark.

(That said I did manage to rejiggle some slots and gain it back at the expense of a little Recharge/Regen/Recovery though - see build #2 - so whatever floats your boat I guess?)

AA_AFK_SL_Page5.mbd - Original Elec Armor build
AA_AFK_SL_Page5-Bio1.mbd - Bio Armor Build #1, slight tweaks only.
AA_AFK_SL_Page5-Bio2.mbd - Bio Armor Build #2, more tweakage for Offensive Adaption.
 

Edited October 28 by Maelwys

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Speed Freak said:

Uhhhh....what's a meteor farm? 😆

 

 

[Speed Freak]

Maelwys and Hjarki, thank you. 350 million tucked away for a rainy day turned into just over 500 mil scraped from every available source AND some grind farming for the rest but I now have Angels AFK Spines/Fire build. Wow. Just...wow. 😁

[easykillforyou]

Unable to find the data/texts/English/menus in my directory.

 

Data folder is empty with no hidden files

[CrowcusPocus]

What's the go-to Alpha these days?

[DarknessEternal]

On 11/2/2024 at 7:22 AM, CrowcusPocus said:

What's the go-to Alpha these days?

Always Musculature Core.

[Sanguinesun]

On 11/2/2024 at 9:22 PM, CrowcusPocus said:

What's the go-to Alpha these days?

 

It is going to depend on how you've built your farmer. If you've built well for for your res and def  etc already then the best damage oriented alpha would be a logical choice.  However if you still have/need a reliance on some other deficit in the build due, then you may have to make other choices.   People for example sometimes make builds strongly focused on damage, but then neglect endurance needs, acc, and more.  

 

Its always about the recipe, not one specific ingredient.

[Xhieron]

I want to say thank you to AA and everyone else who has contributed to this information. Coming back from a long hiatus, and this resource has made all the difference in easing up the tensions for inf when feeding the bottomless appetites of my alts for funds. Setting and pushing toward this goal has tickled the architect part of my brain, and especially in the last few weeks it's been nice to have something fun to work on.

 

One thing I want to mention for anybody else starting in or returning (since I didn't think very hard about the math until I'd been working on builds for a few days): Most of these builds are tight enough to be very exacting. You need whatever it takes to hit the thresholds (90Res/45Def/~35Regen), and nothing less--and that means you have very little room to move slots around or make power/Enh choices. There are obviously plenty of options, but it's not a green field of customization. I've made the mistake of thinking I could skimp on the expensive sets, but it turns out that last couple points of regen are the difference between surviving 10 minutes and having to show up every three and heal. You wouldn't think 42% Def vs 45% would be a lot--but it's just enough to matter. You may be wondering, like I did, whether you really need that Frozen Blast set, for example: You do.

 

That's not to say there aren't budget options--just that this is a part of the game where the difference between being capped and not capped is the difference between the build doing what it's supposed to do and not.

Edited November 24 by Xhieron

[Derek Icelord]

On 10/28/2024 at 2:49 PM, easykillforyou said:

Unable to find the data/texts/English/menus in my directory.

 

Data folder is empty with no hidden files

 

There won't be one unless you've already installed other mods or popmenus. Create that folder structure yourself and drop the .mnu file into it.