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

[arcane]

My farmer has three builds, so no one build has to work overtime. (1) AFK farm build (2) Active farm build (3) Non farm build. I recommend it.

[Grizlee]

My mind boggles at how expensive that one hero is 😄 

[Maelwys]

Most Active Farmers tend to be pretty good at general PVE anyway; because "killing all the things around me as fast as possible" works just fine for most content.

AFK Farmers however will likely need an alternative build or a bit of outside help. Outlasting stuff like Arachnos or Carnies or Longbow is a lot different than outlasting predictable non-mezzing Fire or S/L damage. Although Stone Armor can tackle most stuff by making some very minor build sacrifices; so if I had to choose a single "do everything" build it'd probably be a Stone/Rad Tank or Rad/Stone Brute.

But I'd much prefer to run three accounts with 2x dedicated AFK builds and 1x dedicated Active build. Or just 3x dedicated AFK builds whilst watching a movie.

[Warshades]

You can always switch to a second build and make that your farm build. The stone/rad I posted was a very quick build that I put together, I intentionally tried to avoid using purple sets wherever possible and get any cheap sources of global recharge. Theoretically, for AFK farming the global recharge isn't a big deal unless you plan on setting alarms so that you can reset runs without wasting time and having gaps in between. The difference between a cheap build and more expensive with more purple sets might be maybe 2-3 minutes extra time to clear the asteroid map for the cheap version. There are probably a few things that can be more optimized if I spend more time on it which I can try to do later if you're still interested.

 

I'd definitely suggest just using a second build for AFK farming though as the build ignores a lot of stuff besides capped fire resist, soft cap fire def, and cheap sources of global recharge and enough tohit/acc buffs to get accuracy of Atom Smasher to 95% at +3. It's not something I would ever use for general content.

[Camel]

3 hours ago, Grizlee said:

 

Not intentionally, at first, but yes, now I was angling it towards that possibility. I'm probably better off creating a dedicated farmer, this would fund that foray in the way of, well, funds 😄 And make the actual farmers life (mine!) simpler to get going. 

 

I may be over thinking this.

 

A tad. 😄

It's up to you! The beautiful thing is that Stone/Radiation can easily clear the 10-minute AFK farm if you utilized the multiple builds feature and made a dedicated AFK farmer. At this point, unless you are setting a timer and trying to clear faster than 10 minutes, you'd be making about 50 million influence an hour, give or take. Which would be more than enough to fund a PvE build for that same Tank or just other builds in general. You'd be able to fully slot a level 50 or two every week. Except for maybe if you tried to slot a plethora of those Acc/Recharge Hami-Os and D-Syncs that cost 250-300 million a pop 🤑

Making an actual farmer would be nice, especially if you want to active farm and make even more influence per hour on the days you feel like only farming and not actually playing the game. But you're in a good position either way and you have a powerset combination that can both active and AFK farm effectively enough to make you a decent chunk of change per day!

Edited March 13 by Camel

[Grizlee]

12 minutes ago, Camel said:

It's up to you! The beautiful thing is that Stone/Radiation can easily clear the 10-minute AFK farm if you utilized the multiple builds feature and made a dedicated AFK farmer. At this point, unless you are setting a timer and trying to clear faster than 10 minutes, you'd be making about 50 million influence an hour, give or take. Which would be more than enough to fund a PvE build for that same Tank or just other builds in general. You'd be able to fully slot a level 50 or two every week. Except for maybe if you tried to slot a plethora of those Acc/Recharge Hami-Os and D-Syncs that cost 250-300 million a pop 🤑

Making an actual farmer would be nice, especially if you want to active farm and make even more influence per hour on the days you feel like only farming and not actually playing the game. But you're in a good position either way and you have a build that can both active and AFK farm effectively enough to make you a decent chunk of change per day!

 

I appreciate, you're ace!

[arcane]

Just to chime in here: I’m primarily farming with my spines/fire still because I’m addicted to the vet levels. But I did make a new afk farming assistant on my main account in the last year for when I’m not already sitting on something on that account. And Stone/Rad is where I wound up too. Brimstone + Rooted is just exactly what the afk farm doctor ordered.

 

Edit: and I do believe the Stone/Rad was notably faster than the Spines/Fire, the few times I’ve had them simultaneously sitting in separate maps. 

Edited March 13 by arcane

[Maelwys]

On 3/13/2025 at 12:08 AM, Grizlee said:

 

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

Going to chime in here too again briefly.

For *most* PVE and Active Farming builds you'll want to procbomb your AoEs. However for AFK farming builds it can actually be detrimental to do so.

As an example; consider a 5 piece Armageddon set plus an Achilles Heel in the below Atom Smasher on my RadM/Stone Brute:


With no Dmg/Rech IO and only the Dam and Dam/End Boosted to +5 (standard slotting to "maximize proc chance" whilst gaining +rech set bonus):

9.53+3.168=12.698s cycle time.
521.5/12.698 = 41.07 Dmg/Sec

With no Dmg IO and everything except the proc Boosted to +5 (in order to maximize enhancement damage and local recharge aspect):

8.19+3.168=11.358s cycle time.
508.5/12.698 = 44.77 Dmg/Sec


Now consider the same loaded up with damage procs:


13.64+3.168=16.808s cycle time.
650.2/16.808 = 38.68 Dmg/Sec

TL;DR: When AFK-farming you'll only have a single active PBAoE attack on autofire; so ED-capping its recharge aspect can actually be better than procbombing it!
 

Edited March 14 by Maelwys

[Camel]

11 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Going to chime in here too again briefly.

For *most* PVE and Active Farming builds you'll want to procbomb your AoEs. However for AFK farming builds it can actually be detrimental to do so.

As an example; consider a 5 piece Armageddon set plus an Achilles Heel in the below Atom Smasher on my RadM/Stone Brute:


With no Dmg/Rech IO and only the Dam and Dam/End Boosted to +5 (standard slotting to "maximize proc chance" whilst gaining +rech set bonus):

9.53+3.168=12.698s cycle time.
521.5/12.698 = 41.07 Dmg/Sec

With no Dmg IO and everything except the proc Boosted to +5 (in order to maximize enhancement damage and local recharge aspect):

8.19+3.168=11.358s cycle time.
508.5/12.698 = 44.77 Dmg/Sec


Now consider the same loaded up with damage procs:


13.64+3.168=16.808s cycle time.
650.2/16.808 = 38.68 Dmg/Sec

TL;DR: When AFK-farming you'll only have a single active PBAoE attack on autofire; so ED-capping its recharge aspect can actually be better than procbombing it!
 

This is how I slot most of my PBAoEs in PvE content. Especially if I only have one. I tend to favor set bonuses over procs when making my personal builds but have a tendency to try and do a hybrid build where I feel comfortable proc bombing attacks and being able to slot IO set for set bonuses. I'm sure I have a build somewhere where this can be shown.. but basically.. 5 piece Armageddon > proc bombed PBAoE attack. This isn't always true if I have two PBAoE attacks, but typically, if I can slot a 5 piece set of a very rare, I will. 

[BILL_C]

When making, ahem, ADDING a second account hitter to the mix, presumably on auto-follow lets say. Allegedly. 

 

After meeting the obvious defensive and resistance requirements - would global recharge, getting the auto firing AOE triggering as often as possible, be my next focal point?

 

 Asking for a friend ... 

Edited Saturday at 06:19 PM by BILL_C

[Maelwys]

3 hours ago, BILL_C said:

When making, ahem, ADDING a second account hitter to the mix, presumably on auto-follow lets say. Allegedly. 

 

After meeting the obvious defensive and resistance requirements - would global recharge, getting the auto firing AOE triggering as often as possible, be my next focal point?

 

 Asking for a friend ... 

 

Typically in an AE farm the aggro cap is the major bottleneck. So the big benefit that bringing a second account along will accomplish is to attract an extra 17 targets into melee range so that everything gets AoE'd to death faster. Therefore I'd say bring something with an AoE taunting ability, either a Taunt Aura (so some Scrapper secondaries will count) or Gauntlet/Punchvoke (Brute/Tank PBAoE abilities). And aside from that? Moar Damage. Resistance debuffs always help, but most times an Active AE farmer will be combining inspirations into reds and sitting at their damage cap, so bringing a Kinetic buffbot etc will be largely pointless.

 

All that said, making the second account into an AFK farmer and throwing it into its own separate AE map instance will always give you a better return than partnering two accounts up in the same map. The only time I'd bring two toons on the same farm is if one of them isn't level 50 yet or I'm just messing around (watching a Bot/Kin Mastermind plus a VEAT Crabbermind destroy one Asteroid after another is utterly hilarious but not exactly the most efficient!) 😉

 

Edited Saturday at 09:49 PM by Maelwys

[BILL_C]

4 hours ago, Maelwys said:

 

Typically in an AE farm the aggro cap is the major bottleneck. So the big benefit that bringing a second account along will accomplish is to attract an extra 17 targets into melee range so that everything gets AoE'd to death faster. Therefore I'd say bring something with an AoE taunting ability, either a Taunt Aura (so some Scrapper secondaries will count) or Gauntlet/Punchvoke (Brute/Tank PBAoE abilities). And aside from that? Moar Damage. Resistance debuffs always help, but most times an Active AE farmer will be combining inspirations into reds and sitting at their damage cap, so bringing a Kinetic buffbot etc will be largely pointless.

 

All that said, making the second account into an AFK farmer and throwing it into its own separate AE map instance will always give you a better return than partnering two accounts up in the same map. The only time I'd bring two toons on the same farm is if one of them isn't level 50 yet or I'm just messing around (watching a Bot/Kin Mastermind plus a VEAT Crabbermind destroy one Asteroid after another is utterly hilarious but not exactly the most efficient!) 😉

 

 

You evil, evil alt enabling fiend! 😄 

[Maelwys]

7 hours ago, BILL_C said:

 

You evil, evil alt enabling fiend! 😄 

You're welcome 😉

(Pilot the MM, since you'll want to 'goto' and buff the pets with ID and Speed Boost a lot whilst spamming Fulcrum, Fireball, Bonfire and Transfusion. Set the VEAT autofollowing the MM [with Group Fly disabled on them via Null the Gull] with either frenzy or Venom Grenade on autofire and all their toggles running. Resummon the VEAT's pets when their timer's up; alternate Support Hybrids; and try not to blink!)
 

Edited Sunday at 09:21 AM by Maelwys

[BILL_C]

10 hours ago, Maelwys said:

You're welcome 😉

(Pilot the MM, since you'll want to 'goto' and buff the pets with ID and Speed Boost a lot whilst spamming Fulcrum, Fireball, Bonfire and Transfusion. Set the VEAT autofollowing the MM [with Group Fly disabled on them via Null the Gull] with either frenzy or Venom Grenade on autofire and all their toggles running. Resummon the VEAT's pets when their timer's up; alternate Support Hybrids; and try not to blink!)
 

 

We might have just become best friends. I am a long time lover, and creator of excel spread sheets for games 🙂 I still have my Fallout New Vegas spread sheet. Works a charm! Made one for Disco Elysium as well. Ok, pretty much most games I play for any length of time 😄 Except CoH .. I've gotten lazy in my dottering old age, it seems. For shame . . . 

 

Now about those alts . . . * opens the DL'd files *

[Fengalion]

On 3/12/2025 at 1:20 PM, Warshades said:

 

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 41.72 kB · 38 downloads

 

I was checking this out to see how it might feel to use as an AFK farmer. I want to make a farmer as I don't have one and this seemed like a nice pick to just do that. But I'm not sure the best way to level it or if I should go another route for my first farmer. I do have a Mastermind at max level with tons of merits but want to make sure I sink those into a good setup. Any advice on how to level it and if I should go another build for my first farmer?

Edited Sunday at 08:20 PM by Fengalion

[Maelwys]

39 minutes ago, Fengalion said:

I was checking this out to see how it might feel to use as an AFK farmer. I want to make a farmer as I don't have one and this seemed like a nice pick to just do that. But I'm not sure the best way to level it or if I should go another route for my first farmer. I do have a Mastermind at max level with tons of merits but want to make sure I sink those into a good setup. Any advice on how to level it and if I should go another build for my first farmer?

Be careful of running that one as-is, since it looks very endurance heavy.

According to Mids it's getting a Net recovery rate of 0.17 End/Sec but it'll require at least 0.91 End/Sec with Atom Smasher set to Autofire (assuming no non essential toggles running like Travel Powers/Sprint/Tough/etc). The Panacea and Performance Shifter Procs will be adding an average of 1.1 End/Sec over time; so It should just about be OK as long as you get all your +MaxEndurance accolades... but don't go fighting any foes with electrical attacks let alone active endurance drains or recovery debuffs.

Definitely level it up as a different more regular build first (lots more attacks; Hasten; no leadership pool) and then respec into it at level 50 for AFK farming. Some ideas here for regular builds; though for anything I'm levelling quickly + don't overly care about I typically just use a few choice Global/Proc IOs (like a Panacea and some LotGs) and slot the rest with either SOs or Common Crafted IOs with or a little bit of junky frankenslotting that all get NPC-vendored or sold on the AH for 1 inf each after the respec.
 

Edited Sunday at 08:59 PM by Maelwys

[Warshades]

1 hour ago, Fengalion said:

 

I was checking this out to see how it might feel to use as an AFK farmer. I want to make a farmer as I don't have one and this seemed like a nice pick to just do that. But I'm not sure the best way to level it or if I should go another route for my first farmer. I do have a Mastermind at max level with tons of merits but want to make sure I sink those into a good setup. Any advice on how to level it and if I should go another build for my first farmer?

 

I don't quite recall if that build has Musculature Core or Radial in mids, but definitely go with the Radial side to fix endurance. I will second what @Maelwys said about it being endurance heavy. It would progressively get lower on endurance so I went for the radial musculature and it fixed the endurance issue for me. After getting the alpha T4 though, it is able to sustain with AS on auto for me. I do plan on reworking that build a bit to get the fire def to 45% without running it with a second account to double stack maneuvers. You'll get better inf earnings by AFK farming the map solo.

 

I will say that starting out, it was useful running 2x of that build together. Did it on +3/8x initially until I got the first lvl shift with T3 musculature and then bumped it to +4.

[Maelwys]

FWIW, I've rejigged my "all rounder" AFK-Farming RadMelee/StoneArmor Brute build into a StoneArmor/RadMelee Tanker build to try + provide another example:
zTanker (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee).mbd



Looks like it's clocking in at ~2.2 End/Sec Net Recovery and a passive regeneration of ~45 HP/Sec without Earth's Embrace running.


It's worth noting that Atom Smasher on Autofire slotted as it is above (procbombed) will be dealing an average of 34.585 Dmg/Sec (38.778 with Assault Core Hybrid active). If instead it was slotted with a 5 piece Armageddon Set (ED-capped for both local recharge aspect and damage; and with a smidge more global recharge) then it'd be dealing an average of 34.933 Dmg/Sec (37.208 with Assault Core Hybrid active). So there's really not much in it there between procbombing and ED-capping recharge + damage aspect... unless you're also combining + popping red insps (or being Fulcrum Shifted!) in which case the Procbombed version will start pulling much further ahead. 

 

Edited Monday at 10:39 PM by Maelwys

[Warshades]

This is the rework of the first stone/rad tank I posted. I decided to sacrifice the slots in EE to have room for a few more procs and end mod buffs. Reaches 45% def, has 3 power transfer chance for self heal procs for additional sustainability, and should fix endurance problems to be able to run with musculature core alpha (though I've not tested that yet and mids build has radial side). I will say again that this is a cheap-ish build, but that's also intentional. I found that the hybrid assault radial side provides a better boost for me, though that may be because I have more damage buffs from the 3 Armageddon pieces in Atom Smasher.

Tanker (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee)farm4.mbd

[Maelwys]

5 hours ago, Warshades said:

I found that the hybrid assault radial side provides a better boost for me, though that may be because I have more damage buffs from the 3 Armageddon pieces in Atom Smasher.

Assault Radial Hybrid (the one with the "chance for Double Hit") always gives the same boost regardless of your damage scalar... which means that it'll end up providing more proportional benefit to you the lower your current AT's "base damage" is. So if your AT's melee damage scalar is considerably higher than 1.0 (Scrappers are 1.125) then using Assault Core Hybrid will be better; and if your AT damage scalar is considerably lower than 1.0 (Brutes are 0.75) then using Assault Radial Hybrid will be better. Tankers are very slightly weighted in favour of Radial (0.95) - so it really comes down to if you prefer spiky or consistent damage... IMO if you're farming lots of EBs (which will smooth out the spikes!) or if you're at the damage cap (via chugging Insps or Fulcrum Shift) then go for Radial; but otherwise chances are that many of its additional damage spikes will end up doing a lot of "overkill" damage on lower-tier foes like minions and LTs.

(Also FWIW Stalkers have a scalar of 1.0; but realistically should always go for Radial because their ATOs plus a Gaussian Proc in Build Up means they'll often be at the damage cap even when soloing. If that wasn't the case then running Core would work out a bit better for them because Radial's damage proc doesn't scale with Critical Hits)
 

Edited Monday at 11:35 AM by Maelwys

[Warshades]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Assault Radial Hybrid (the one with the "chance for Double Hit") always gives the same boost regardless of your damage scalar... which means that it'll end up providing more proportional benefit to you the lower your current AT's "base damage" is. So if your AT's melee damage scalar is considerably higher than 1.0 (Scrappers are 1.125) then using Assault Core Hybrid will be better; and if your AT damage scalar is considerably lower than 1.0 (Brutes are 0.75) then using Assault Radial Hybrid will be better. Tankers are very slightly weighted in favour of Radial (0.95) - so it really comes down to if you prefer spiky or consistent damage

 

Appreciate the info. I'll at some point try to compare the difference between the two, but considering it's only up for the first 2 minutes when entering and popping lore, destiny, and hybrid, I don't know if it will make a major difference either way. I've already crafted the T4 radial but whenever I'm done with judgement, I'll work on crafting the core version to compare.

 

I just respec'd into the final build I posted earlier and ran it on the asteroid farm (38973). It survives just fine at +4/8x with AS on auto (I do pop all the incarnates and EE at the start). This is also without any accolades to boost HP/end (really don't care to go through the trouble of getting them on a farmer and appears that I don't need to either). I'll make one final update as I realized that I was playing around with boosting some of the LotG pieces to +5 to see if there was a noticeable jump in defense, but the final build hits 45% even with all the LotG at lvl 50, so no need to boost those.

 

You do occasionally see the HP go down as low as 60% or so, but there's basically no risk of dying in the first 5 minutes since you're getting the support from BP lore pet. In the last few minutes, the mobs are dwindled down enough that your own regen/heal procs will keep you alive. This build is clearing that asteroid map in ~7-8 minutes solo without any other buffs.

Tanker (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee)farm5.mbd

Edited Monday at 02:22 PM by Warshades

[Fengalion]

19 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Be careful of running that one as-is, since it looks very endurance heavy.

According to Mids it's getting a Net recovery rate of 0.17 End/Sec but it'll require at least 0.91 End/Sec with Atom Smasher set to Autofire (assuming no non essential toggles running like Travel Powers/Sprint/Tough/etc). The Panacea and Performance Shifter Procs will be adding an average of 1.1 End/Sec over time; so It should just about be OK as long as you get all your +MaxEndurance accolades... but don't go fighting any foes with electrical attacks let alone active endurance drains or recovery debuffs.

Definitely level it up as a different more regular build first (lots more attacks; Hasten; no leadership pool) and then respec into it at level 50 for AFK farming. Some ideas here for regular builds; though for anything I'm levelling quickly + don't overly care about I typically just use a few choice Global/Proc IOs (like a Panacea and some LotGs) and slot the rest with either SOs or Common Crafted IOs with or a little bit of junky frankenslotting that all get NPC-vendored or sold on the AH for 1 inf each after the respec.
 

 

Thanks for all the information on this. It did seem very endurance heavy since there's a lot running but also see some of the updated builds and will check those out. I'll also look at the links you provided for builds to use to get to 50 and then get the enhancements and respec into the farming build. Really appreciate all the advice!

[BILL_C]

 

 Interestingly my dual purpose build is doing fine in +4/+8 with 1 sitter ( for stress testing, so far )

 

 I do need to eat my vitamins once in awhile, endo is "not there yet" but I have yet to slot my last incarnate and the proceeding ones are on on the first tier. As such this is in NO WAY an AFK build. I'm hoping the upgraded incarnates give that little bit of wiggle room. So far I've been thrilled with the Stone Armor/Rad melee tanker. It's certainly a serviceable fire farmer, if a bit slow right now 🙂

 

It's not quite at my original intended build ( when are they ever? ) but it's ok. I may not change anything honestly. Them purples be EXPENSIVE! 😄 

 

 This is the current state of her:

 

Crystal Cristal - Current - Tanker (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee).mbd

Edited Monday at 11:30 PM by BILL_C
fat finger gubbins . . .