Tanker or Brute as a farmer?

[benai]

Hallo,

 

my question is which is the best Archetype for a Fire, Cold or SL Farmer Brute because of its higher single target damage or Tanker because of Gauntlet and its option to hit more targets at the same time?

 

My prefered Powers for Armor would be Fire and Bio, maybe Stone (without Granite Armor (Brimstone Armor should be enough to get high enough fire or cold resist) or maybe Radiation. My go to is Bio Armor - like it.

Maybe another debuff Armor like Radiation or Dark would be a nice second char for a Bio.

 

In terms of attack power I prefer Fire (seems to have the highest damage output) and Radiation (-def, contamination special).

 

Battle Axe should also be quite nice for farming purpose it should have like Fire Melee a lot of area attacks. Spines seem to be also a go to for Farmers.

 

In terms of a none farmer I would prefer Savage Melee with either Bio or Stone. Maybe Rad or Dark Armor for their Debuff auras.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Whole thread for this here:

 

[kelika2]

this has been talked about to death

others had the idea

short version will be "its doable but brute is just more damage oh god locked thread more warnings on my account for the love of god whats going on im sorry you thought you deserved an apology"

and then people go back to their spine/fire brutes when claw/fire and rad/fire brutes do it better and we wait a month or so to do this again because no one, not even me checks catalogs

[benai]

Ok, so a Spines/Fire Brute for Fire Farm.

 

Does it make any difference if I do Cold, Fire or SL Farm? Is one of them easier to slot, faster better with certain combinations?

[Psyonico]

Fire or S/L will be the easiest since they don't have the -recharge that most cold attacks have.  You can get 100% -recharge resistance on ice armor though.

[Maelwys]

On 11/27/2024 at 8:38 PM, benai said:

Hallo,

 

my question is which is the best Archetype for a Fire, Cold or SL Farmer Brute because of its higher single target damage or Tanker because of Gauntlet and its option to hit more targets at the same time?

 

Tanker.

 

Check the link @TygerDarkstorm posted for builds and maps.

 

/Thread

 

(Srsly this comes up every few days. Tankers will always be more effective than Brutes at AE farming because of their larger AOEs that hit more targets; and because building to a sufficiently high level of survivability to farm the maps in question takes less effort on a Tanker and so leaves more wiggle room in the build to buff damage output via procs and set bonuses and extra attacks. That's not to say Spines/Fire Brutes can't farm. They can. They'll just be a bit slower at it than an optimized Tanker)

[Jacke]

12 hours ago, benai said:

Ok, so a Spines/Fire Brute for Fire Farm.

 

Here's my Spines/Fire Brute build good for all content.  Good for SL and F farms Page 5 and after, with Stealth turned off for AFK.  Really needs the +MaxHP Accolades for AFK Farming else it gets defeated too often.

 

Brute Spines-FieryA.20230113.EnergyM Stealth [i27p7] @Jacke - Jacke Rubra.mbd

 

 

[Hjarki]

Honestly, unless your goal is to win some sort of "best farm time" race, I'd just go with a classic Rad/Fire Brute. You can go from zero influence on a new account to a fully tricked out Farmer without any outside help in relatively short time. Moreover, the difference between that Rad/Fire Brute and the ultra-optimized 'perfect' farmer isn't actually all that significant - especially when you're talking about passive farming.

[Maelwys]

For AFK farming you need four things:

1. A PBAoE attack set to Auto; plus ideally 1-2 damage auras.
2. 90% Damage Resistance to Fire (or Smashing/Lethal)
3. 45% Defense to Fire (or Smashing/Lethal)
4. At least ~35HP/Second Regeneration

The more regeneration and maximum HP you have, the less likely you'll die to a string of unlucky hits. My RadM/Stone Brute with 40HP/Sec passive regeneration (before Earth's Embrace) still dies occasionally.

 

Firey Aura Brutes find it extremely difficult to reach the required Regeneration threshold. If you're prepared to stay at the keyboard and manually activate Healing Flames then they do OK, but I would definitely not recommend them for an AFK farmer in the current climate. Never mind that there are much better PBAoEs to put on auto than Burn.

[benai]

Thats why i like Bio Armor you can have health fully equiped and Inexhaustible (auto +hp +regen+ rec) also, while your toggles have -resi and -dmg on foes.

[Maelwys]

29 minutes ago, benai said:

Thats why i like Bio Armor you can have health fully equiped and Inexhaustible (auto +hp +regen+ rec) also, while your toggles have -resi and -dmg on foes.

Bio Armor can't hit the Resistance and Defense prereqs to AFK farm without heavy investment; particularly on a Brute that's using Offensive Adaptation.
It also doesn't get any additional Global +Recharge, which is rather important for an AFK Farmer that only uses one big cycling AoE attack.

IMO the most straightforward Brute to AFK Farm with (assuming you're dead-set on being masochistic enough to choose that AT!) is a non-Granite /Stone. Rooted provides twice as much passive regeneration as Inexhaustible; Minerals gives +Recharge; and Brimstone Armor additional damage procs get buffed by Fury. Getting Fire Resistance hardcapped + Fire Defense softcapped also takes far less work than on a Bio - after Brimstone Armor and the four +Def/+Res Globals; all you need is a few 3-piece Aegis and 6-piece Winter sets plus Weave and you're set. The Primary is less set in stone: RadMelee is pretty decent due to Irradiated Ground plus the procability of Atom Smasher, but there's also something to be said for Footstomp or Axe Cyclone with a Force Feedback +Rech Proc.

If you're after ACTIVE farming then that's a whole different teapot of trout; since the main goal there is MAXIMUM AOE DAMAGE rather than sufficient mitigation to withstand the whole map attacking you indefinitely plus one procbombed attack and a few measly auras.

[Sanguinesun]

 A tanker's are going to clear more inf/hour now than brutes with optimal builds.  This has been discussed (as per the link provided by tyger.  Brutes secondarily with their optimal builds will be fine but still not have the same inf/hour production.

 

This is due to the changes that were implemented by HC years ago giving tanks' aoes the capability to hit more targets (brutes capped at 10 while some aoes on tanks can go to 16), an increase slightly to their damage, brutes receiving a fury reduction, tanks easier to build resistance/def for due to the AT and some other factors.

 

So while a brute still may hit for a bit more damage, the tank is capable of hitting considerably more targets and thus inflicting considerable more damage to more mobs because of it.   

 

Farming is a maths game.

 

Again though, we're talking min/max considerations.

 

Also matching your choice of build/AT properly to a farm map is important as not all maps are created with your build choice nor your play style in mind.  This is also why there are so many different farm maps on the AE.

 

22 hours ago, benai said:

Ok, so a Spines/Fire Brute for Fire Farm.

 

Does it make any difference if I do Cold, Fire or SL Farm? Is one of them easier to slot, faster better with certain combinations?

 

Mobs using cold tend to also have smashing usually in their attacks so you cant really build only for cold. Also as mentioned the -slow will be a pain in the arse since your goals in a farm are to clear it as fast as possible for inf/hour. Typical farms are either Smashing/Lethal  or fire as mobs can be designed in the AE to do damage only for those damage types.  

 

You build your damage resistance around the damage type of the mobs of the farm.   

 

Fire/  on tanks is extremely easy to cap to 90 allowing then for one to work on damage and even defense as well. 

Rad/ on tanks for S/L because not only does it easily cap S/L but it also has lots of healing/regen/recovery capabilities, 2 multi tasking AOEs(with the increased 16 targets for Tank  etc), etc.

 

Before the changes years ago, Rad/Fire brutes were the most optimal due to not just the 2 auras for damage but also that rad gives extra splash damage(albeit minor but every little bit helps) from contamination procing.  Spines/Fire was just a smidge typically lower in inf/hour but due to the secondary effects with spines, made it a little more survivable(ie the -recharge/slow from spines attacks).   But again we're talking very minimal differences so it boiled down to play style / someone choosing out of aesthetics reasons etc.

 

People (as you can see in the link above) for S/L go for Rad/MA tanks for Active farming (remember there's also afk farming) because they can shoot off plenty of high target AoE's and have 1 shorter AoE (dragon tail) they can fire off ever 3 seconds or so constantly depending on how much+recharge they've layered in the build to the +300% cap.

 

However, people use Rad/fire(as tanks get another aoe that brutes dont have)  Rad/Staff  Rad/Axe(lots of aoe but heavy on end unless you build properly)  Rad/spines etc etc.   Also there are other s/l  sets easy to also cap s/l on that some also go with instead.

 

On the fire side,  Fire/    on a tank paired with /rad /spines /axe  /fire and others are just as mentioned above.     

 

But clearing times will vary but fire/rad still tends to be the more optimal in a min/max consideration. 

 

 

All in all, read carefully that linked thread and understand why/how you build both the toon and the map to match your needs.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, benai said:

Thats why i like Bio Armor you can have health fully equiped and Inexhaustible (auto +hp +regen+ rec) also, while your toggles have -resi and -dmg on foes.

  

It can farm, but it will take more effort to build properly for and be less optimal overall for infl/hour clearing.    Rad has similar tools but with better optimization for farming really.

 

Again many different paths up the mountain but some paths are easier to use and more efficiently in getting to the summit.

 

As for AFK farming, again, read the linked thread and understand why Elec/ is used for that more optimally.  Again its not the only one people have used (stone for example used to be used alot for AFK farming too by some).

 

 

 

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In summary, read the linked farming guide thread.

 

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Edited November 29 by Sanguinesun

[benai]

I have currently 3 Tankers: 

Fire/Fire/Fire (50+1)

Stone/Rad (below 50)

Bio/Rad/Mind (50+1 starting to be slotted rest IO's - works for +3x8) Took the build that Stendhals showed that his his friend used which seem to be an old tanker build bio/rad afk farmer.

 

I prefer Tanker over Brute and in the threat that was posted there i only saw brute here, brute there.

 

I took Tanker because of the threat I read in the Brute forum that Tankers overpower Brutes in area damage and with almost any Attack specially the good once (Savage, Fire, etc pp) which is the basic concept of farms to do as much damage on as many enemies as possible. And the second guy that answered bubbled something about brutes spines, fire and other things that confused me and Tyger too because of the pikachu confused emoji.

 

I have no preference for any type of primary, secondary or archetype in terms of a farmer. I just want to have some that is good at it and maybe do this one 2 accounts to either level my own toons or take others with me as i was taken often as a payback and earn influence, recipe and ressources. And I also dont care about the concept if i have to build it for 90% fire R + 45% fire D or 90% S/L R+ 45% S/L D.

[TygerDarkstorm]

The thread I gave you has literally this right at the top of it:

 

It even tells you where to go to find the tanker information for farming:

It was all literally right there at the top of the thread.

[benai]

Must have skipped/read over it because of the rest of the thread she explains how to fire farm and you find tons of brute spines/fire builds and most of them doesnt work anymore.

My newest idea was a invlu/MA tanker for a SL Farmer, but Radiation Armor and Martial Arts works too. Ty to make that clear.

Edited November 29 by benai

[Maelwys]

That Farming Thread contains lots of Brute builds because that was what a lot of people were used to using prior to the Tanker Damage Scalar buff and Gauntlet changes in Issue 26 Page 4; and which really only stopped being viable after the Aggro Revamp in Issue 27 Page 4.

This doesn't mean Brutes are the current recommendation; and America's Angel even highlights this fact in BIG BOLD LETTERS on the very first few lines on the very first post. The later advice (including AA's followup testing) is still solid; and you can find a lot of up to date builds towards the end of the thread. I've even contributed a few myself.




By far the most important thing to ask yourself is: WHAT TYPE OF FARMING DO I WANT TO DO?
Do you want to just enter a mission then leave your toon there whilst you walk away from the computer for 10+ minutes? That's AFK farming.
Do you want to be behind the keyboard actually playing the toon and paying attention? That's Active farming.

Those two types have VASTLY different build goals. Active farming builds can rarely AFK farm safely; and AFK farming builds will rarely be enjoyable if you try to actively farm with them (they're sloooooooooow).

Homecoming allows you to play up to three accounts simultaneously (providing the servers aren't overloaded) meaning that it is quite possible to juggle multiple accounts so that 2 toons are AFK farming whilst you actively pilot a 3rd.

Personally I like having at least one toon on each of my accounts that is capable of farming... but I don't enjoy pigeon holing a toon into the role of being solely an AE Farmer, so I'll always ensure they have 'unnecessary' attacks and other types of damage mitigation in order that they can run general content as well. My AFK Farmers can actually actively solo their way through the Dark Astoria missions and main Tank on teams at +4x8 just fine.
 

Edited November 29 by Maelwys

[benai]

I can see to a degree why elec/rad tanker is an option for a SL Farmer, but why is Radiation Armor/Martial Arts one? You have 1 area attack and two buff single target attacks, no damaging aura no debuffs nothing. Do you pack Dragons Tail full with dmg proccs and hasten them into dying?

 

When I see farmer (active or passive) they have 2 damaging auras (for ex. Genetic Conamination + Irradiated Ground) which are either packed with damaging proccs or at least packed with signature Enhancements.

 

In the end I want both on both accounts an afk and an active farmer but first I want just one that feels decent and can do the trick either as a fire farmer or a SL farmer, dont care which one. So that I can tandem them or use one to push a new toon.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Rad Armor has Beta Decay and Ground Zero

[Sanguinesun]

1 hour ago, benai said:

I can see to a degree why elec/rad tanker is an option for a SL Farmer, but why is Radiation Armor/Martial Arts one? You have 1 area attack and two buff single target attacks, no damaging aura no debuffs nothing. Do you pack Dragons Tail full with dmg proccs and hasten them into dying?

 

When I see farmer (active or passive) they have 2 damaging auras (for ex. Genetic Conamination + Irradiated Ground) which are either packed with damaging proccs or at least packed with signature Enhancements.

 

In the end I want both on both accounts an afk and an active farmer but first I want just one that feels decent and can do the trick either as a fire farmer or a SL farmer, dont care which one. So that I can tandem them or use one to push a new toon.

 

....

 

Stop just skim reading both that thread that was linked and people's responses here, use mids to actually see what the build for Rad/Ma in that linked thread has and you would've already answered your question.  Multiple times now you've admitted that you're not carefully going through the information provided.

 

 

So while, I covered Rad/Ma in my reply already in this thread and I believe the linked one also discussed it regarding Rad/MA, I'll try to speak to it a little more succinctly.  Keep in mind this is in relation to Active farmer builds of course.

 

1. When you farm with an optimally built toon you need of course AoE damage so that you're distributing as much damage as possible to as many toons as possible so that you clear as quickly as possible.  

 

2. You also want to have at least one decent single target damage attack to help mop up stragglers or Elite bosses(if you opt for a map with EBs in it).

 

3. You will also likely have a couple of other attacks that allow you to fill in the attack chain(so you're constantly doing damage.

 

4. You'll want to have very efficient endurance management.  This is because you want to be attacking as much as possible without any down time from endurance issues or worse getting detoggled.  It can still of course happen on the best of builds but setting it to where it happens much more rarely is a good goal. To achieve this, builds will in general have a solid endurance recovery to endurance use base (toggles etc)  and as well have perhaps some decent amount of enduance reduction in the case of globally or within the  IO sets for those specific powers etc.

 

5.  You want in many builds(not all) to have high +recharge to be at or just under the +300% recharge cap.   This is so your best attacks can be faster of course to recharge but also any other utility powers but there has to be a balance of course so that you're not drawing upon issues from Point 4.

 

6. And other factors.

------

 

Had you actually looked at the Rad/Ma build in mids(seemingly you didnt or "skimmed" as you seem to do)  you'd have understood what it brings to the table in 1-6 and why there is favoring given to it.

 

1.  No, it doesnt have 1 AoE attack in that build. It has 7.  Yes 7:

 

-Dragon Tail(your primar bread and butter up often aoe)

-Ground Zero

-Radiation Therapy

-Electrifying Fences

-Ball Lightning

-Static Discharge(cone)

-Cross punch

 

You're of course not going to utilize all  7 all or some of the time actually as some are used as mules for set bonuses.  But there is enough there for a relatively if not constant AoE attack chain for large mob group needs.  However again the main semi constant one you use is Dragon Tail because it is doing 350 damage every 3.5 seconds in conjunction with rotating some of the other AoEs with short or long recharges into the fray. When Focus chi is up, that jumps to 450 damage plus the other higher damage capabiltiies of other powers for 10s with a 22 sec cool down. (thus up fairly often). 

 

This is also of course not necessarily factoring assault radial embodiment's double damage chances.

 

 

2. You have 3 single target abilities that because they fire off so quickly and recharge so quickly mean you're capable of doing roughly 520+ damage in a single target rotation less than every 3 seconds if you include mu lightning) You could also be rotating in instead cross punch with it for a smidge less damage but getting its +recharge benefit needs. One could rotate between other combinations Sk Mu Bx or Sk Mu Br or other mixes between but fast activation and recharge attacks rotated between with optimal damage is what's the goal though there may be a call for other utilities some of the powers give. 

 

 

3. As mentioned above, some of the 7 AoE options wouldn't always be necessarily used but could be used for some situations as some are ranged and can be used to pull groups of mobs to you vs you going to them to better maximize time to clear efficiency(this varies on player playstyle and maps too).

 

4.  The Rad/Ma build in the linked thread has a Recovery to base endurance consumption ratio of 4.1/s to 1.67/s

 

Additionally it has:

Ageless core epiphany

Radiation Therapy (which also does aoe damage in one's potential rotation since its 400+ dam to 16 targets up every 15 secs)

 

It has a small endurance redux on attacks as well through both global and individual attack's sets.

 

Overall it is a very managable endurance situation with the set and can also be supplemented with blue insp or other means too if desired.

 

5.  The build as the +300% cap as long as dragon tail's +rech procs (2ppm 33% (chance on hit)) and cross punch are used. Without Dragon tail or cross punch its like +198% so still very solid.  So in the least ideal rotation situations, its for example a 5s recharge on using Dragon tail vs 3.5 seconds and other powers are between  a 1-5 sec difference.  That seems small but given the plethora of attacks available, it still doesnt interrupt attack chains that can be used(ie just adding another 1-2 attacks from the choices in those cases) most of the time, that's not going to be an issue though.

 

6. Other factors that the set brinds to the table can include:

 

-Storm Kick giving you a 10% defenses boost when used.

- rad's aoe damage abilities giving you+regen/heal

 and many other things if you read the power descriptions.

 

--------------------------------

 

So with all that said and knowing that you're really not paying attention significantly to what the sets nor that thread entails with regards to farming discussions, at this point and seem rather skeptical of what people are explaining perhaps too, I think its time for you to then actually take those builds to the Beta test server, load them for free(as you can build anything on the beta test server and try it out, including AE farm missions).  Beta server lets you insta level to 50, give yourself all the incarnate stuff and accolades instantly, and lets you slot and get all the sets freely too.

 

So there is no excuse then for you to not test things for yourself and find what best suits you and your play style.   

 

15 minutes ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

Rad Armor has Beta Decay and Ground Zero

 

 

They're essentially just not taking the time to actually look at the builds meaningfully nor reading the details on the powers meaningfully.  At this point its better for them to take the time to do so and test for themselves.  

Edited November 30 by Sanguinesun

[benai]

I wanted to answer something but why give a damn.

[Maelwys]

4 hours ago, benai said:

In the end I want both on both accounts an afk and an active farmer but first I want just one that feels decent and can do the trick either as a fire farmer or a SL farmer, dont care which one. So that I can tandem them or use one to push a new toon.

 

Then go to the thread that was linked in your first reply. Locate some builds within it that were posted in 2023 or later. And PICK one. 

 

You originally asked which was better at farming, a Tanker or a Brute, on specific Powersets. You were referred to the Farming guide thread for answers.

You now appear to be saying that you don't care about AT or Powerset or even AFK farming versus Active + you just want a viable build to use. Those builds are available in exactly the same place.

 

Read. The. Darn. Thread.

 

 

Quote

When I see farmer (active or passive) they have 2 damaging auras (for ex. Genetic Conamination + Irradiated Ground) which are either packed with damaging proccs or at least packed with signature Enhancements.

 

As I pointed out earlier, AFK Farming builds and Active Farming builds are vastly different. Neither of them have auras packed with damage procs. Damage Procs in auras only get an opportunity to activate once every 10 seconds (and even then it's typically a very low chance to do so).

 

AFK farming builds tend to have multiple Damage Auras. This is because in an AFK build you only get the opportunity to set one power to autofire (typically THAT power is an AoE with a large radius and target cap which gets Procbombed). They also need to have enough mitigation to survive 50+ enemies attacking them simultaneously (it used to only be 17, then the Issue 27p4 aggro changes happened) and a lot of global recharge. The main idea is to survive indefinitely whilst dealing decent "passive" damage.

 

Active farming builds don't tend to have multiple damage auras. In fact the only aura they need at all is one that Taunts. They do however tend to have multiple Clicky AOEs, all procbombed, and the bigger the radius and the larger the target cap the better. The main idea is to inflict as much AOE damage to as many enemies in as short a time as possible. Survivability is not as important because you can pop inspirations and buffs like candy.

 

There are many, many examples of people saying "Can I have an Active/Passive farming build for [insert AT and/or Powerset combination here] please" in the farming guide thread. People are generally quite willing to help providing there is at least a modicum of effort put into thinking through and phrasing the request.

 

Edited November 30 by Maelwys

[TygerDarkstorm]

8 hours ago, benai said:

I wanted to answer something but why give a damn.

Literally all the answers have been provided to you. You are, at this point, being intentionally obtuse about it. Everything you want to know about farming in the current game is available in that thread that I linked.

 

Melwys and Sanguinesun have now also provided rather detailed explanations for you here. If all it's going to amount to is you coming back here to say "yeah, I didn't really read that and I don't want to do that" then why are you here?

 

The answers are available here in the forums for you to help yourself. If you don't want to use one of the optimal farming builds and try your own thing, then you'll probably get better results by coming up with a build in mids and posting it here or in the farming thread and asking folks to look it over. As of right now, it's hard to figure out what it is you're asking looking for because we've given you the answers.