Battle Axe/Rad Armor Fire Farming ?

[ResToons]

I wanted to dust off my Spines/ Fire brute that I thought was the best Fire farm toon but it seems after all the new patches and updates this isn’t true.  When I was in the guide section it has been brought up that Battle Axe/Rad armor is one of the top builds.  I never thought Battle Axe would be a farming power.  Does anyone know why?

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, ResToons said:

I never thought Battle Axe would be a farming power.  Does anyone know why?

Ideally for "active" farming you want at least one regular AoE that inflicts Knockdown; so that you can put a Force Feedback +rech proc in it and speed up the rest of your AoE attack cycle. Battle Axe has two such abilities in Axe Cyclone and Pendulum. The former is also a good spot for a Fury of the Gladiator -res proc.

Martial Arts is almost as good (in fact until very recently it was the top Active farming powerset!) purely because of Dragon's Tail.
Super Strength (Foot stomp) is also top-tier; but requires spamming Rage (for +ToHit buffs; which allow you to forgo slotting accuracy) and dealing with the resulting crash.
Other sets can get close depending on the AT; but those are currently the top three IMO.
Spines has never really been top tier for "Active" Farming; although because of Quills it's only beaten by RadMelee for "Passive/AFK" farming.

[ResToons]

Thank you for the feedback it make sense now.  I was using the wrong build this whole time.  I’m curious of how much of a difference this is going to make once I level it up.  I can’t wait!  And Rad armor is pretty much standard on active builds?

[Maelwys]

Rad Armor is still top tier for active farming, yes.
It's just not as much of a runaway winner as it was prior to i28p2 (as both the target cap of Ground Zero and the proc rate of Radiation Therapy got nerfed).
Stone Armor (Brimstone procs + Recharge) and Fiery Melee (Burn + Fiery Embrace) are particularly good on Brutes too if you fancy something different.
 

[ResToons]

22 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Ideally for "active" farming you want at least one regular AoE that inflicts Knockdown; so that you can put a Force Feedback +rech proc in it and speed up the rest of your AoE attack cycle. Battle Axe has two such abilities in Axe Cyclone and Pendulum. The former is also a good spot for a Fury of the Gladiator -res proc.

Martial Arts is almost as good (in fact until very recently it was the top Active farming powerset!) purely because of Dragon's Tail.
Super Strength (Foot stomp) is also top-tier; but requires spamming Rage (for +ToHit buffs; which allow you to forgo slotting accuracy) and dealing with the resulting crash.
Other sets can get close depending on the AT; but those are currently the top three IMO.
Spines has never really been top tier for "Active" Farming; although because of Quills it's only beaten by RadMelee for "Passive/AFK" farming.

Someone has suggested that this power set would be better for Smash/Lethal farming not fire farming.  

Edited Thursday at 02:14 PM by ResToons

[Maelwys]

41 minutes ago, ResToons said:

Someone has suggested that this power set would be better for Smash/Lethal farming not fire farming.  

Which power set? Spines? Battle Axe? Either way; why on earth would they be better against enemies that deal Smashing/Lethal damage??
Your offensive powerset has virtually zero bearing on farming; because the mobs in an AE farming map won't have any damage resistances. The only time it'd matter is if the set has a defensive clicky that is stronger against a specific damage type (such as Katana's Divine Avalanche vs incoming Lethal damage).

If you meant Radiation Armor... it provides no defence to any damage type. Proton Shelter and Alpha Barrier both give identical % resistance boosts (so it's the same vs Smashing/Lethal and Fire) however Fallout Shelter also gives a bit of Fire resistance and it's trivial to get 5x"+6%" Fire resistance from Purple and Winter IO Set Bonuses.

All that said... if you're active farming then you really don't need to cap your resistance and defence to whatever type of damage is being dealt by the mobs; because you'll be behind the wheel to activate defensive clickys, insps + temps.

- - - - - - - - - -

EDIT: Ah. You've been listening to JJDrakken. Go here instead.

The point of running a S/L or Fire farm is NOT for you to wield S/L or Fire damage against your enemies; it's to allow you to have an easier job of surviving the incoming damage dealt by the enemies. You run a Fire farm if you're better vs incoming Fire damage; and an S/L farm if you're better vs incoming S/L damage. If you know exactly what type of damage you'll be encountering; then you can build your toon specifically to mitigate ONLY incoming damage of that type - which allows you to devote more effort (enhancement slots/power selections/set bonuses/etc) to increasing the raw damage you can dish out; which vastly speeds up your farming runs.
 

Edited Thursday at 02:53 PM by Maelwys

[ResToons]

This is the build concept he came up with.  Both of you are extremely helpful.  Just trying to come up with a build before I dump a lot of influence to it.  I’m not calling anyone wrong.  I appreciate the dialogue and interesting opinions.

Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor).mbd

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, ResToons said:

This is the build concept he came up with.  Both of you are extremely helpful.  Just trying to come up with a build before I dump a lot of influence to it.  I’m not calling anyone wrong.  I appreciate the dialogue and interesting opinions.

That build is not going to provide you with a fun or efficient AE farming experience.


 

And I don't see Hasten there either.

For Active Farming, you primarily want lots of global recharge and at least three AoEs that look like this:

(the empty 6th slot is for a -Resistance debuff proc, a Force Feedback +Recharge buff proc, or another damage proc)

- - - - - - - - - - 

If you just want a build to copy; then look here:

 

Active Farming Brute and Tanker builds are usually set up in much the same way; it's a little trickier to reach 90% res and 45% def on the Brute... but remember that for "Active" farming maximum survivability is much less important (I have a RadArmor Scrapper that can Active Farm just fine with only 75% S/L resistance and 15%-ish Defense!). The main considerations are always Mu Mastery and an offensive Primary powerset with at least one KB-inflicting AoE; all procbombed. Having an ability that can slot an Achilles' Heel -res proc is a bonus (e.g. Beta Decay or Corrosive Vial). Stone Armor and Fiery Aura are slightly better on Brutes due to Fury affecting Brimstone Armor procs and Burn.

Passive ("AFK") Farming requires a vastly different setup; and realistically you'd be better off just copying someone else's RadM/Stone Brute or X/RadM Tanker builds.
(One of my RadM/Stone AFK-farmer Brute builds is listed here in the above Farming Microguide thread)
 

Edited Thursday at 04:14 PM by Maelwys

[Shin Magmus]

   Unfortunately, JJDrakken's builds are more examples of how to do everything wrong.  I don't just mean set choice, or not finding the right balance of procc'd attacks and full sets... he makes builds like Energy Blast characters that skip Energy Torrent.  Genuinely, if you copy one of his builds you may be skipping the best power in your powerset, and therein lies the risk inherent in blindly copying builds.  If you take anything away from these farm builds and this thread, it's that you should think about "why" you are taking a power and "why" you are slotting in X way.  If you have so little understanding that you can't answer these questions (because you blindly copied a build), then you have some learning to do.

[Maelwys]

[ResToons]

So with all the advice i have got.  This is my final build.  What do you think?

Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor).mbd

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, ResToons said:

So with all the advice i have got.  This is my final build.  What do you think?

Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor).mbd 39.1 kB · 1 download

That's much better than the original and would be perfectly playable in an Active S/L Farm; if a little tricky to juggle defensively.
Still major room for improvement though (and I assume you meant to use Common +5 IOs instead of even-level SOs in the regular slots!)

Try this tweaked version:

Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor) v2.mbd

Note: With Ageless running your AoE attack cycle should be pretty seamless, but you can swap one of the damage procs in Axe Cyclone for a 2nd FF +Rech if required.
Realistically with Rad's clickies and 90% resistance you shouldn't have any survivability issues despite mid-20s defense; just pop a small/medium purple insp if needed.
If you find you're never in any danger then you can trade a bit of survivability for more global recharge by swapping Swoop's slotting to 5x Hecatomb.

[ResToons]

yes, my mistake it would be invention salvage  Could i make this a Fire Farm build?  there are much more larger maps for Fire Farms than S/L maps

Edited yesterday at 12:57 AM by ResToons

[Maelwys]

23 minutes ago, ResToons said:

yes, my mistake it would be invention salvage  Could i make this a Fire Farm build?  there are much more larger maps for Fire Farms than S/L maps

The Asteroid Maps are the same size and mob density regardless of damage type... but yes; you could.

Brute (Battle Axe - Radiation Armor) v3.mbd



Smidge less global recharge and a hair less raw damage in a few of the AoEs; but only one small purple insp needed to reach the F/C defense softcap.
 

[ResToons]

Maelyws,  I really appreciate you taking your time to help me out.  I have learned a lot about build concepts.  I’m from old school CoH farms like the Drek map.  So the new asteroid maps are better than the large farm maps?  If so I’ll go with the optimized s/l build.

[Warshades]

1 hour ago, ResToons said:

So the new asteroid maps are better than the large farm maps?

 

Asteroid map is often used for AFK farming where you set a char in the center of the map, put your AoE on auto fire, and then let the char clear the map while you do something else. With incarnates you can also fire off BP radial (has an immortal support essence that stays alive, fires a debuff rain, and helps for mobs to cluster), ageless, judgement, assault hybrid at start. Asteroid maps often have a 10 minute timer so that it boots your char out of the map to make it easier to reset. It requires more effort to reach enough survivability (high enough regen, definitely a must to hit 45% def and 90% resist) to survive the asteroid map while AFK. This is easiest to achieve on tanks (usually stone armor, Rooted helps regen a good bit here) who have higher base max HP which helps with achieving higher regen.

 

There's no reason why you can't active farm it also, but it's certainly not something you'd normally farm with a team. You'll far exceed the normal aggro cap and any teammates that aren't built up to also farm and survive at +4/8x will get killed. If you want large outdoor maps, Carnie map is a good one and has a large number of mobs that cluster fairly close and allow for some herding/grouping of several mobs at once. 

[Maelwys]

Asteroid Maps (both the smaller and larger one), "Boomtown" Tunnel map, Carnie map (the one with the Circus tents), Behemoth map (Outdoor with multiple skyscrapers), Adamastor map, Dreck/Freakshow map... honestly, anything outdoor works.

 

As Warshades says, Asteroid Maps tend to throw you straight into combat so there isn't a "safe zone" for lower level allies to stand and they're a common pick for AFK farming runs... but they're quick and easy to spam through with no chance of an enemy running too far or getting lost, and the countdown timer can help give you an idea of how fast you're mowing through mobs on active Farming runs.

 

Play different maps and see what you like best. 

 

Just maybe steer clear of the underground CoT cave ones unless you're feeling particularly masochistic... 😛 

 

[Shin Magmus]

   Map preference is a very personal thing.  The Asteroid map with a Phantom Army ally is the fastest way to get high mob density, and it's the fastest make to make money through active farming, but it involves a lot of resetting and entering/exiting.  If someone wants to just clear the entire Dreck map instead, that's fine as long as it bores them less.  At a certain point, farming becomes very boring.  You have to find a character/map combination that you can tolerate for hours: that's the secret sauce.

[Troo]

14 hours ago, ResToons said:

Maelyws,  I really appreciate you taking your time to help me out.  I have learned a lot about build concepts.  I’m from old school CoH farms like the Drek map.  So the new asteroid maps are better than the large farm maps?  If so I’ll go with the optimized s/l build.

 

So the new asteroid maps are better than the large farm maps? NOPE.. though depending on your purpose, time and resources it might be. They don't last long enough for some folks.

 

There are lots of maps. They are all available for both fire and s/l farms as well as other AE missions. Tunnel, Cave, Carnie, Dreck, City, Asteroid, Warehouse, Cargo Ship, The Abyss, Graveyard

 

Typical keywords for searching might include: "Page 5" "Fire" "City" "Cave" "Carnie" "S/L" "Ally" "30 Min" "15 Min" ..or just the number

 

Example farms:

#65952 '30 min road tunnel'
#46880 'Tunnel' 

#65788 'Tunnel EBs' 
#65709 'Cave' 
#65726 'Carnie' 

#65558 'Carnie'
#65747 'Dreck' (Big Map)
#46599 'City'

 

Popular

Medium

Tunnel: Mission Map Details - 2 allowed any detail type. (2 Front, 2 Back) - 23 allowed ambush, boss, patrol or destroy object details. (23 Front, 23 Back) - 6 allowed floor collection items. (6 Front, 6 Back)

Shorter

Asteroid: Mission Map Details - 16 allowed any detail type. (16 Front, 16 Back) - 4 allowed floor collection items. (4 Front, 4 Back) - 1 allowed giant monster details.

Larger

Carnie [Carnival of Shadows - Commercial]:  Mission Map Details - 62 allowed ambush, boss, patrol or destroy object details. (62 Front, 62 Back) - 30 allowed rescue, escort, or defend object details. (30 Front, 30 Back) - 44 allowed floor collection items. (44 Front, 44 Back) - 1 allowed giant monster details.

Dreck [City Map 02 (Ruined)]:  Mission Map Details - 61 allowed ambush, boss, patrol or destroy object details. (61 Front, 61 Back) - 90 allowed rescue, escort, or defend object details. (90 Front, 90 Back) - 104 allowed floor collection items. (104 Front, 104 Back) - 1 allowed giant monster details.

City [City Map 02]:  Mission Map Details - 32 allowed ambush, boss, patrol or destroy object details. (32 Front, 32 Back) - 30 allowed rescue, escort, or defend object details. (30 Front, 30 Back) - 44 allowed floor collection items. (44 Front, 44 Back)

 

[ResToons]

Wow!!!  I dont even have my incarnate powers yet and im murdering +4/8!!!!  I am having END issues but that will be resolved once i get my incarnates.  Im not as accurate as i thought i would be.  Will that change once i become a lvl 50 +3?  All and all thank you so much for your help this thing shreds!