Fiery Aura/Radiation Melee AFK farming build and why you should start AFK farming now!

[Camel]

Hey all!

Before I start this off, I wanted to give a huge shoutout to @America's Angel, @Maelwys and too many others to name for their contributions in @America's Angel Forum post here:
 

The reason I'm posting this is to put this out in the open so other aspiring AFK farmers, new to the game or veterans, like myself, can easily find the info I was able to find and to be able to see a build that works, immediately. So, let's begin!

Why should I AFK farm?
Great question! AFK farming, if your computer can handle running multiple instances of CoH, is an incredible way to 'passively' make influence, you can even play the game as you normally would on one account, while two AFK farmers in the background are making you 10-11 million influence every TEN minutes! You can be as interactive as you want, checking every 7-10 minutes, or, you can completely forget about it and check every 30 minutes, hour, etc. Regardless of how much effort you put into this, you will be passively making more influence. More influence = more high end IO builds, more P2W buffs and can eventually, possibly, lead to the cure of alt-itis!

Pros:
-Passive influence income with minimal effort and stress.

-The ability to fund significant portions of any build within hours of AFK farming (you make around 5 million per run on the Shiva Shard Asteroid farm map).

-P2W buffs, Team Teleport, Assemble the Team, Mission Transports, etc, on every character you make.

-The ability to donate influence to your friends and new players in-game who are struggling.

-In-game financial security feels great, I'd recommend it to anyone. Gone will be the days of not being able to afford SOs, IOs, temporary powers, temporary buffs, etc. And while this isn't for everyone, not being able to afford the basic building blocks of any build, at any level, is defeating.

-AFK farming requires practically zero skill, only knowledge. I promise you, if you copy and paste these builds you see to the last IO and follow these guides... You absolutely will profit. It's that simple. If you do die in an AFK farm after you have copied these steps, word for word, pound for pound, IO for IO... then it was simply really, really bad RNG. Let me reiterate, because I struggled to make these AFK builds, they were too similar to everyone else's that it didn't feel like "my" build. This is by design; they are so exacting and particular that you essentially have to copy and paste these builds for them to be able to survive. Not 100%, but mostly. Embrace that. These are tools to gather influence and resources, not something that needs to be unique to you.. And while not impossible to make an AFK farmer unique to you, it's very impractical.

Cons:
-Zero!
-Just kidding. It's expensive to start out. A typical AFK farming build will cost you about 1 billion influence, depending on if you use merits, previously acquired purple recipes, etc. It is EXPENSIVE.

-Accolades and/or P2W buffs. You can technically get away without either, but then you're gambling with whether or not you will survive every run. It is INCREDIBLY defeating (literally) to tab back in to you CoH instance to check on your AFK farmers, only to find out that they faceplanted. Getting all 4 accolades or buying the Survival Amplifier from the S.T.A.R.T vendor in Pocket D can help mitigate this. However, this either means you have to invest a decent amount of time getting accolades you may or may not know how to get quickly, or it means spending 2.5 million influence for one hour of buff time. That being said, AFK farming is heavily RNG dependent... these builds have multiple procs that have a 'x%' chance to go off. The enemies that will constantly be blasting you from range also have an 'x%' chance to hit you. MEANING, at all times, no matter how good and sturdy your build is, there will always be an 'x%' chance to fail. I like saving my influence, get the accolades. Your mileage may vary.

-What you make up for in AFK farming, you lose out on in Active farming. Yes, you CAN still Active farm with an AFK farm build, however, it is not ideal. This requires you to either compromise on both AFK and Active farming by making a hybrid build that can do both, or requires you to utilize the 'multiple builds' feature in-game to have both an AFK farming and farming build... Which is.... expensive. But worth it in the long run. Consider this an investment.

-The builds might make you go.... "ick". If you're like me, your idea of what builds should or shouldn't look like is very unique to you. What might be right for you, may not be right for some.. and vice versa. AFK farming builds look really, REALLY weird to those of us who do not have experience in them. But learn to embrace it, they are VERY particular... and oftentimes, changing anything will be the difference between successfully AFK farming at +4x8 for max influence gain, or dying at +4x8.

Why a Tank AFK farmer?
-I'm just going to leave this here...

-Jokes aside, Tanks give you more leeway with your slotting and build, not much, but some. For instance, Superior Might of the Tanker only requires 4 slots to get to 10% global recharge bonus, Brutes take 5. Also, your inherent higher HP values make that 'x%' chance to fail an AFK farm that much lower, on top of the increased AoE radius and target cap for most Tank AoE attacks. Atom Smasher, for instance, hits 16 targets instead of a Brutes 10. Realistically, this isn't going to matter much, you'll clear the map on a Brute as well. But doubling back to the RNG factor, a Tank means that 'x%' chance to fail is always going to be lower.

-YOU'RE A FREAKING TANK, end of discussion. 

The build.
-We've finally made it to the meat and potatoes.
 
-This is pretty standard stuff here, AFK farming is a formula, circling back to that RNG again, you're literally just fighting RNG.. that 'x%' chance, if you will, and minimizing your 'x%' chance of failing. Practically every build you see will look very similar to this. I made this build with inspiration from @America's Angel. I copied practically every power pick and just transferred it over to a Tank. There are some differences though, some specific to not being a Brute and others were just my own personal preference, and I'll cover those now.

-In AA's build, they opted to take Assault and not Tactics. This really isn't a big deal, I've tested taking one or the other and I still cleared the map within the 10-minute parameter. Now, that being said, I did not do a deep dive into whether one or the other clears the map quicker, thus allowing you to reset more often, thus making more influence. If that matters to you, I don't have an answer. AA might. All I know is that I prefer Tactics over Assault in general and that's why I chose it instead.

-AA also took Taunt and 6 slotted Mocking Beratement. This is beautiful slotting, as Mocking Beratement is a fire farmers DREAM IO set. It offers +endurance, +fire defense and +recharge, heck, it even offers smashing/lethal benefits too.. but is more optimally paired in fire farm builds. Anyways, I used that same exact slotting and chose to put it in Consume instead. You're really just putting the Mocking set in there for the set bonuses but Consume has the added advantage of increasing your max HP for 120 seconds, which in turn increases your regen. Annnnnd circling back to R-R-R-R.... RNG and that 'x%' chance (am I sounding like a broken record yet?), Consume lowers this even further by giving you 120 seconds of what I like to call, 'AFK God mode'. It also does extra damage! Albeit, hardly any. 

-I also opted to not Take Super Speed and instead chose Hover  for one more LoTG 7.5% recharge IO, also, because Tanks do not have Superior Conditioning in Energy Mastery like Brutes do, I was left with one extra power pick. I chose Fly so I could easily slot a Blessing of the Zephyr knockback protection IO. Now, Cremate doesn't knock me down in AFK fire farms. Side note; DO NOT TURN ON HOVER!! I REPEAT DO. NOT. TURN HOVER ON!! The enemies can group around you so tightly that you will be pushed up in the air high enough and then Atom Smasher will NOT activate! I learned this the hard way and thought I was being cheeky by being able to bolster my fire defense even more with Hover. I was mistaken.  

-Incarnates... now, AA has a much more in-depth explanation on this, but I'll go over my picks. I went with Musculature for my Alpha, this helps increase the damage of my procced out Irradiated Ground and Atom Smasher, the extra defense debuff helps with hitting enemies too. My testing shows me that Spiritual will work, Agility will work, and Intuition will work. I chose Musculature because I had already T4'd it before I decided to make this build. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Not sure which one clears the fastest, it looks like Spiritual from what I've read, but I am unsure. For reference, my exact build shared here clears the entire map in 7-7.5 minutes if I'm actively checking my AFK farms, which I often don't. For Interface? Reactive or Degenerative, simple. Destiny? Ageless Core, every time. Hybrid? Assault Radial, every time. Judgment? I like Ion, it chains a lot better than Pyronic, but to each their own. Lore? Banished Pantheon Radial, every time. This one is huge, the support pet cannot be killed and also has an AoE rain style power that does damage and also boosts your regen, it also helps aggro more mobs to you, thus ensuring you clear most of the map every run. 

-45% Fire defense, 90% Fire resistance and at least 35-38 HP regeneration per second is the baseline, anything more, specifically in regen or defense will help tremendously and keep that 'x%' chance of failing to a minimum. Power Transfer +heal procs are also vital, always slot one in Stamina and Physical perfection.

-And uhhh... That's it! 
AFK Tanker (Fiery Aura - Radiation Melee).mbd

The setup.
- Find AA's AFK fire farm. (Arc ID 38973)

-Set difficulty to +4x8. Put Atom Smasher on auto. (Hit CTRL and then click on Atom Smasher, you will see a green ring around it when this is done correctly)

-Talk to contact and enter mission.

-Upon entering, there's a variety of ways you can do this, depending on how much time you want to spend while resetting your AFK farmer. I like to do this; 1. Target an enemy and activate your Ion Judgment while timing a jump the middle of the map. 2. Activate Assault Radial and Ageless, in that order. this allows maximum efficiency, if you do it in the other order, you might miss the timing on an Atom Smasher, it also just feels better. 3. Summon your Banished Pantheon Radial and set them to aggressive. This isn't mandatory, but I like doing it to draw more aggro, do more damage and make be harder to kill. 4. I revoke all inspirations except for accuracies (yellows) and damage inspirations (reds). I like to use them all by hitting F1-F5 until my entire tray of inspires has been used... by the time you finish the map your entire tray will be filled again. 5. Hit Consume. Also not mandatory, but it helps lower that 'x%' chance we've been talking about and does at least a little bit of AoE damage when fully buffed with inspirations and Assault Radial.

-Profit!!!

-Rinse and repeat. You might not be able to summon your Lore pet again if you reset the map too quickly, this isn't a big deal but if you wait the whole 10+minutes (if you have T4 Lore), you should be able to spawn it in every single time!

Notes.
-I currently do not have all 4 auto accolades, I'm missing Invader and/or Task Force Commander. It's a 94 HP buff, it says 93.7 in Mids. I will be getting it eventually, but I have been more than survivable so far. I've done over 50 fully observed AFK farming runs and have had absolutely zero issues surviving.

-I do not use the P2W Survival Amplifier.

-And there we go folks! I want to give a huge shoutout to the AFK farming community for finally inspiring me to eventually get some of my AE farmers out into the wild to get accolades, make a fully functioning AFK farmer and obsess over trying to build one. All of my Tanks and Brutes were born in AE, formed in AE and stayed in AE for over 7k vet levels combined and I just never made the jump. The difference in influence gain and not having to active farm is staggering. It's reignited my passion for farming and has allowed me to experiment with respecs of old characters, using the multiple build feature, fully funding and farming new characters from level 1-50, fully accoladed and incarnates in mere days.

Cheers!





 

Edited yesterday at 01:51 AM by Camel

[Warshades]

This is just a personal opinion, but you don't need to do a ~1B build to have a successful afk farmer. It may take just slightly longer to afk farm, but the goal is 45% fire def with enough passive regen to keep you alive. Fully achievable with much cheaper builds. I made a few adjustments to your suggested build that should significantly reduce the price and still be enough to AFK farm if done with 2 accounts, maneuvers from second AFK account would put both at 45% fire def. I would also use Reactive radial interface on one and Degen radial on the other to get the benefit of both. I just don't see the necessity of building so far towards global recharge to go with purple sets when you're literally leaving 1 power on auto for the duration of the afk farm.

 

Outside of some semi-costly uniques and a single purple proc (Armageddon), most other IOs on this build are relatively cheap and affordable. You could probably get close to building out 2 farmers within 500-600 million at the most.

Tanker (Fiery Aura - Radiation Melee).mbd

[Camel]

1 hour ago, Warshades said:

This is just a personal opinion, but you don't need to do a ~1B build to have a successful afk farmer. It may take just slightly longer to afk farm, but the goal is 45% fire def with enough passive regen to keep you alive. Fully achievable with much cheaper builds. I made a few adjustments to your suggested build that should significantly reduce the price and still be enough to AFK farm if done with 2 accounts, maneuvers from second AFK account would put both at 45% fire def. I would also use Reactive radial interface on one and Degen radial on the other to get the benefit of both. I just don't see the necessity of building so far towards global recharge to go with purple sets when you're literally leaving 1 power on auto for the duration of the afk farm.

 

Outside of some semi-costly uniques and a single purple proc (Armageddon), most other IOs on this build are relatively cheap and affordable. You could probably get close to building out 2 farmers within 500-600 million at the most.

Tanker (Fiery Aura - Radiation Melee).mbd 44.37 kB · 1 download

I appreciate the input! That's a pretty solid build for being sort-of on a budget and would definitely help get people to eventually afford the more expensive build. Which is pretty nice!

It's obviously all personal preference, as you mentioned. I actually do have two 'AFK' farmers that utilize the strategy you mentioned. I've been doing it for a while now and it has been working for me, no doubt. They don't quite have 45% Fire defense alone, but together they do. They will eventually get a respec into the build I shared, or something similar, the other two are Brutes.

Because I have this AFK farmer and the other two going, I have a direct comparison. My solo fire farmer nets quite a bit more influence per run on average and his recipes fill up nearly twice as fast when compared to the two Brutes I have in the same farm. My solo 4x8 AFK farmer currently has 232 million in his bank account, my two Brutes who AFK farm as a duo have 123 million and 119 million. They all started at 0 influence and have been farming the exact same amount of time. I have not sold anything on AH and have only sold my generic recipes and things I do not want to put in my storage to the vendor in PD. 
 

For the longest time I was doing duo AFK farms.. but after seeing the results, it's undeniable how much more efficient it is. I would have 222 million more influence if those other two Brutes could handle 4x8 AFK farming solo. It's been almost two full days of casually AFK farming to get these results. So that's about a 1.4 billion influence per week lost by having those two Brutes duo AFK farm. This doesn't include the increased chance at getting purples and PvP IOs either. 

This is why I whole heartedly think it is worth it to invest the big bucks while making these AFK builds, you can casually make your return-on-investment in literal days once you get the ball rolling! 😄

Edited yesterday at 02:15 AM by Camel

[Maelwys]

I suspect if I was to recommend a single AFK farming build it'd be using something other than Fiery Aura. Fiery Aura really doesn't bring much to the table unless you're actively sitting behind the wheel to activate its Clicks.

 

Stone Armor however does. It also has a damage aura; plus Rooted for +Regen, Minerals for +Recharge, and Brimstone Armor for both Fire Resistance and damage. Throw in Stone Skin and Weave and a few set bonuses (3 piece Aegis is great) and it's pretty trivial to get hardcapped Fire resistance plus enough typed Fire Defense to reach the softcap, so you have a lot more wiggle room to include extra powers, procs and set bonuses that passively boost your damage and recharge.

You could also cheese it and run Rooted plus Granite until you've got enough influence built up to afford the pricier IOs.

[Maelwys]

15 hours ago, Camel said:

-In AA's build, they opted to take Assault and not Tactics. This really isn't a big deal, I've tested taking one or the other and I still cleared the map within the 10-minute parameter. Now, that being said, I did not do a deep dive into whether one or the other clears the map quicker, thus allowing you to reset more often, thus making more influence. If that matters to you, I don't have an answer. AA might.

 

Tactics is generally a waste unless your attacks don't already have a capped (95%) hit chance versus +3 enemies. Best case you may get a Gaussian Proc activating very occasionally.

Assault = more damage unless you're already at the damage cap (and if you're AFK farming then you won't be, as playing the inspiration combination minigame to have lots of red skittles constantly active requires manual clicking and/or hitting keybinds)

 

The rule of thumb for AFK farmers is that after you reach your survivability thresholds, chase +damage and +global recharge as much as possible. But 5-10% here or there isn't going to overly matter in terms of influence per hour. So unless you're trying to beat your own personal bests I'd still say go with whatever sounds the most fun to you.

 

(Which brings up a rather good point: if/when farming stops being enjoyable then it's time to go do something else. Even AFK farming requires enough attention that it's usually not just a case of "go watch a movie and come back later"... if you want that level of hands-off influence acquisition then you'd be better off picking up your Ebil Marketeering membership card!) 😉

[Warshades]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

I suspect if I was to recommend a single AFK farming build it'd be using something other than Fiery Aura. Fiery Aura really doesn't bring much to the table unless you're actively sitting behind the wheel to activate its Clicks.

 

Stone Armor however does. It also has a damage aura; plus Rooted for +Regen, Minerals for +Recharge, and Brimstone Armor for both Fire Resistance and damage. Throw in Stone Skin and Weave and a few set bonuses (3 piece Aegis is great) and it's pretty trivial to get hardcapped Fire resistance plus enough typed Fire Defense to reach the softcap, so you have a lot more wiggle room to include extra powers, procs and set bonuses that passively boost your damage and recharge.

You could also cheese it and run Rooted plus Granite until you've got enough influence built up to afford the pricier IOs.

 

This is very true. Quick revamp of the fire/rad to stone/rad. With addition of bonus damage from Brimstone and combined with Musculature alpha, it's doing ~521 per hit with Atom Smasher. Probably room for improvement in the build, but still trying to keep it cheap if at all possible. The bonus recharge from Minerals is also very nice.

Tanker (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee)farm.mbd

[Camel]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

I suspect if I was to recommend a single AFK farming build it'd be using something other than Fiery Aura. Fiery Aura really doesn't bring much to the table unless you're actively sitting behind the wheel to activate its Clicks.

 

Stone Armor however does. It also has a damage aura; plus Rooted for +Regen, Minerals for +Recharge, and Brimstone Armor for both Fire Resistance and damage. Throw in Stone Skin and Weave and a few set bonuses (3 piece Aegis is great) and it's pretty trivial to get hardcapped Fire resistance plus enough typed Fire Defense to reach the softcap, so you have a lot more wiggle room to include extra powers, procs and set bonuses that passively boost your damage and recharge.

You could also cheese it and run Rooted plus Granite until you've got enough influence built up to afford the pricier IOs.

No doubt! I have builds in Mids for Bio/, Elec/ and Stone/. All Radiation Melee. The reason I made this one is because I don't have any of those particular armor sets already at level 50 with full Incarnates. Except for a Rad/Stone Scrapper... and well.. he definitely can't and will not attempt AFK farming lol. 

My rationale is that, like me, many others probably only have level 50 Fiery Aura Tanks and Brutes as their farmers and never felt the need to roll anything else. Moving forward, I will be making other farming builds but currently only have three, all Fiery Aura. So, while I know that Bio/, Elec/ and Stone/ are superior, I didn't want to invest that extra time for minimal benefit and/or the same results. I did test Assault vs. Tactics, Assault on my build actually is better, for some reason my 'chance to-hit' enemies was disabled in my combat logs. I have 95% chance with or without Tactics, so I will definitely be putting Assault in there over Tactics. I'm honestly surprised, I figured having absolutely zero enhancement value in Atom Smasher (before global acc and Focused Acc) would definitely mean I did not have a 95% chance to-hit... but I do. We will be making that change very soon.

When I AFK farm it is super casual, unless I have the time to spare, I don't set timers for 10 minutes, 7 minutes, etc. My Fiery Aura build clears the entire map anywhere between 6.5-7.5 minutes depending on procs going off, how the mobs are patrolling, etc. So regardless of if I could do that faster with a better build, the benefit of having something that is better or clears faster is lost since I am not aggressively AFK farming 90% of the time. If I was, I would definitely choose a better armor set for the added benefit of being able to reset faster and make more influence/hr. 

But at the end of it all.. If you are checking back every 15-30 minutes because of work, other games, watching a movie, etc. Then any added benefit of having a build that is better is completely lost, especially if you have to roll a brand-new character, get him to 50 and full Incarnates, etc. As long as you can clear the asteroid map in 10 minutes or less you are golden! But for a more aggressive, 'active' AFK farming session, absolutely, there are much better armor sets available for this!

Edited 10 hours ago by Camel

[Shadowstormprime]

Just curious, and not to hijack the thread, but Rad Melee seems like a great choice for these farms. How does it compare to the other sets for general content or 4* stuff? It seems to have a lot going for it (decentish AOE, can slot -res procs, a heal). Some of the animation times are crazy (looking at you Devastating Blow). Proton Sweep just seems bad.

 

I'm wondering if you could get an attack chain of Rad Smash, Cross Punch, Rad Siphon, Atom Smasher? Maybe pick up Contaminated Strike and an epic AOE to mix in? Or is Devastating Blow a must?

Edited 9 hours ago by Shadowstormprime

[Maelwys]

38 minutes ago, Shadowstormprime said:

Just curious, and not to hijack the thread, but Rad Melee seems like a great choice for these farms. How does it compare to the other sets for general content or 4* stuff? It seems to have a lot going for it (decentish AOE, can slot -res procs, a heal). Some of the animation times are crazy (looking at you Devastating Blow). Proton Sweep just seems bad.

 

I'm wondering if you could get an attack chain of Rad Smash, Cross Punch, Atom Smasher? Maybe pick up Contaminated Strike and an epic AOE to mix in? Or is Devastating Blow a must?

 

It's good for AFK farming because it's one of only two offensive powersets with a damage aura (the other being Spines) and it has a large radius + target cap PBAoE attack that you can put on Autofire (Atom Smasher).

 

As for general content? The main gimmick of the set is Contamination, which effectively makes it's attacks deal a bit of extra damage to nearby foes... which is a good thing, because other than the damage aura and Atom Smasher it just gets a single underperforming cone attack. However it also has a self heal (Radiation Siphon) and its attacks Proc well due to inflicting -Defense (e.g. two extra Damage Procs plus an Achilles Heel -Res). It won't be breaking any pylon time records (it's in the bottom half for ST damage and a smidge above average in terms of AoE) but it's got a fair amount of utility and makes a good platform to inflict consistent -res debuffs. And yes take a few Epic blasts and/or Cross Punch as fillers - whilst you can technically chain DBlow > RSmash > RSiphon > RSmash you won't really want to!

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Maelwys

[Shadowstormprime]

45 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

 

It's good for AFK farming because it's one of only two offensive powersets with a damage aura (the other being Spines) and it has a large radius + target cap PBAoE attack that you can put on Autofire (Atom Smasher).

 

As for general content? The main gimmick of the set is Contamination, which effectively makes it's attacks deal a bit of extra damage to nearby foes... which is a good thing, because other than the damage aura and Atom Smasher it just gets a single underperforming cone attack. However it also has a self heal (Radiation Siphon) and its attacks Proc well due to inflicting -Defense (e.g. two extra Damage Procs plus an Achilles Heel -Res). It won't be breaking any pylon time records (it's in the bottom half for ST damage and a smidge above average in terms of AoE) but it's got a fair amount of utility and makes a good platform to inflict consistent -res debuffs. And yes take a few Epic blasts and/or Cross Punch as fillers - whilst you can technically chain DBlow > RSmash > RSiphon > RSmash you won't really want to!

 

Thanks for all of this! Quick follow up:

1. So you’d suggest getting Devastating Blow regardless, since the set is lacking ST damage otherwise?

2. Any tanker primaries you feel really mesh well with Rad Melee?

[Maelwys]

27 minutes ago, Shadowstormprime said:

Thanks for all of this! Quick follow up:

1. So you’d suggest getting Devastating Blow regardless, since the set is lacking ST damage otherwise?

2. Any tanker primaries you feel really mesh well with Rad Melee?

 

1) Not really. Its ATBE (Animation Time Before Effect) is so long that your target is very often dead before it lands. Procbomb Proton Sweep instead. And take Atom Smasher and Irradiated Ground and Fusion, obviously. Radioactive Smash isn't exactly good but it's less bad than the rest.

 

2) Rad Armor is the obvious one as Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy pull a lot of weight, and Beta Decay helps get Atom Smasher up sooner.

The other angle is "anything without a self heal"- so SR and/or Shield Defense for example... and Shield Defense brings a bit of extra damage via Shield Charge and AOO.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Maelwys

[Shadowstormprime]

25 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

 

1) Not really. Its ATBE (Animation Time Before Effect) is so long that your target is very often dead before it lands. Procbomb Proton Sweep instead. And take Atom Smasher and Irradiated Ground and Fusion, obviously. Radioactive Smash isn't exactly good but it's less bad than the rest.

 

2) Rad Armor is the obvious one as Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy pull a lot of weight, and Beta Decay helps get Atom Smasher up sooner.

The other angle is "anything without a self heal"- so SR and/or Shield Defense for example... and Shield Defense brings a bit of extra damage via Shield Charge and AOO.

 

That begs the question for me: How is Shield/Rad compared to Shield/Dark? They seem to bring similar tools to Shield Defense.

[Spaghetti Betty]

20 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

The other angle is "anything without a self heal"- so SR and/or Shield Defense for example... and Shield Defense brings a bit of extra damage via Shield Charge and AOO.

Ouch! Goodbye blue bar!

 

I would throw in another vote for Rad Armor! Rad Melee really needs a lot of help in the damage department after the IG nerf. It's just kind of subpar overall and generally not worth the amount of investment you'd have to put in endurance management and global recharge in order to keep your rotation looking good.

 

That said, I do have a Rad/Rad/Soul meme cannon that runs Whirlwind and it's pretty fun to break out sometimes!

 

 

As for the OP, while I don't do any AFK farming (I much prefer active (Which is probably why I never have much inf)), I do have to agree that Stone Armor would be the best way to go! I believe cases have been made for Elec as well, but I think that's more for consistency in survivability more than anything!

 

I don't really pay a lot of attention to the farming scene!

[Spaghetti Betty]

3 minutes ago, Shadowstormprime said:

That begs the question for me: How is Shield/Rad compared to Shield/Dark? They seem to bring similar tools to Shield Defense.

Dark Melee is better than Rad Melee in all aspects by a respectable margin!

[arcane]

AFK farming is alright.

 

 

I guess I’ve done it once or twice.

[Maelwys]

7 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Dark Melee is better than Rad Melee in all aspects by a respectable margin!

Definitely this for Single Target performance. Albeit with the caveat that Rad Melee is probs slightly ahead when it comes to stacking -res (because Achilles Heel)

 

I believe it's also a fair bit ahead of DM when it comes to "active" AoE damage though (because Irradiated Ground + Procbombed Proton Sweep + Procbombed Atom Smasher beats Procbombed Shadow Maul + Procbombed Touch of Fear. Plus the aforementioned Achilles Heel proc applications) although if you're leaning heavy into Patron AoEs that might be moot.

 

15 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Ouch! Goodbye blue bar!

 

Very true! Though partially mitigated at Lv50+ by Shield Defense toons tending to run Ageless anyway for additional DDR.

 

My first "farmer" in CoH was a Spines/DA Scrapper. I remember very very fondly the first time he managed to get his T4 Cardiac Alpha... 😂

[Spaghetti Betty]

18 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

Definitely this for Single Target performance. Albeit with the caveat that Rad Melee is probs slightly ahead when it comes to stacking -res (because Achilles Heel)

 

I believe it's also a fair bit ahead of DM when it comes to "active" AoE damage though (because Irradiated Ground + Procbombed Proton Sweep + Procbombed Atom Smasher beats Procbombed Shadow Maul + Procbombed Touch of Fear. Plus the aforementioned Achilles Heel proc applications) although if you're leaning heavy into Patron AoEs that might be moot.

There are a lot of semantics to argue when it comes to this! One of the things I'm factoring in is ramp-up time. Mobs die so quickly in this game that effectiveness is left up to how quickly damage can be applied over how much accumulates over time, and I reckon Dark Melee can fire off Soul Drain -> ToF -> Shadow Maul -> ToF -> Proc'D Dark Consumption faster than Rad Melee can apply Contaminated! to mobs and spread its AoE damage. I'd agree that eventually Rad Melee would win the AoE race the longer a fight draws out! Of course, I'm going off of gameplay experience and not rigorous testing, so I'm more than happy to change my mind if I'm proven wrong!

 

Including pools also muddies the argument a lot as well, so I wasn't going to bother with that!

[Grizlee]

I have a question, 

 

 Would my PVE non farm build actually fair ok as a fire farmer?

 

Crystal Cristal v1.0 lvl-up - Tanker (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee).mbd

 

It seems to tick all the boxes the OP laid out. 

[Warshades]

49 minutes ago, Grizlee said:

 

 Would my PVE non farm build actually fair ok as a fire farmer?

 

It will survive and won't be at risk of dying. All you need to really survive is 45% fire defense and cap, or very close to cap, fire resist. With AFK farming, regen can end up playing a role as well. In terms of damage dealing, that's an entirely different discussion. If you wanted to AFK farm, you could simply adjust the slotting on Atom Smasher. If you're looking to actively farm, you're better off with a fire armor farmer.

[Grizlee]

5 minutes ago, Warshades said:

 

It will survive and won't be at risk of dying. All you need to really survive is 45% fire defense and cap, or very close to cap, fire resist. With AFK farming, regen can end up playing a role as well. In terms of damage dealing, that's an entirely different discussion. If you wanted to AFK farm, you could simply adjust the slotting on Atom Smasher. If you're looking to actively farm, you're better off with a fire armor farmer.

 

The frankenslotting procs is that much more effective in damage output? I've not dabbled too much with it yet. 

[Warshades]

34 minutes ago, Grizlee said:

The frankenslotting procs is that much more effective in damage output? I've not dabbled too much with it yet. 

 

It can be, as long as procs are slotted in good powers that provide high proc rates and aren't boosted with any recharge enhancements (or recharge boosting alpha incarnates). Your tank's Atom Smasher is shown as dealing 238 DPA. If you open the stone/rad I posted and look at Atom Smasher, it has a DPA of 521. With musculature turned off since your build has cardiac, it still shows on average 484 DPA, a lot of that is coming from the high proc rate chance since the power has a long base recharge and isn't slotted with any recharge boosting enhancement.

 

You end up running into 3 main issues if you try to frankenslot and proc out powers:

1. Fewer set bonuses. This may mean less global recharge, less defense, resists, etc.
2. Lower accuracy, this can be offset by looking for sets that boost accuracy, picking up powers like Tactics/Focused Accuracy, slotting Kismet unique, etc.
3. Lower damage enhancement in powers. This can partially be offset by using musculature or other damage boosting alpha incarnates, only partially procing out attacks and including some damage enhancements from sets or even using the acc/dam HOs, and having access to powers that can help offset damage enhancement (SS does this best by double stacking Rage, which also fixes the low accuracy and allows it to pretty much fully proc out attacks).

 

To make it worthwhile, you still need a lot of global recharge in the build, so the ability to 4-5 slot LotG +rech procs or even FF +rech procs becomes useful as most sets have global rech bonuses at 4+ pieces.

 

Edit: some powers with extremely long base recharge can take recharge enhancement and still have max proc rates. You can actually easily check if you can slot a recharge or not by having procs turned on and putting a recharge IO, or maybe something like acc/rech from an IO set and see if the DPA goes down.

Edited 3 hours ago by Warshades

[Grizlee]

Amazingly well explained. You're a legend @Warshades