farm Zen and the art of farming

[Zolgar]

People have often asked me about farming, not so much about builds, but literally ‘how’ to do it. Personally, I am someone who actually enjoys farming. I find it to be quite relaxing and somewhat cathartic, especially after a rough day or a bad task force.

 

Farming is also a great time to catch up on your podcasts or audiobooks!

 

I decided it was time for a guide!

 

First, what this guide isn’t: This guide will not give you specific farmer builds, or tell you to use specific missions. Specific missions may be mentioned, and people are welcome to reply to it to share their farmer builds or the missions they like to farm. This will not cover farming Reward Merits or Incarnate components, as those require a bit different of a mindset for faring.

Second, what this guide is: This guide will help you understand the ideas behind farming, help you find, or make, missions that suit your needs for farming. It will help you understand how different archetypes farm. It will also help you select some of the best tools for farming. It will cover the ideas of farming for influence, recipe drops, and experience.

 

Part the first: the decision!

 

You’ve decided it’s time to start farming! So, do you make a new character just for farming, do you make a second build of an existing character to farm with, or do you just use an existing character to farm?

 

While many characters can farm, not as many can do it highly effectively. Generally speaking what you want from a farmer is the following:

High AoE damage output.

At or near softcapped defense of a specific damage type.

At or near cap resistance for a specific damage type.

 

If you have someone who fits those criterea, you can probably use them to farm fine, for now.

If you don’t, or just don’t want to farm with that character, then you need to-

 

Part the second: building a farmer.

 

“What archetype farms best?”

There’s not a set best, but some do shine. I won’t tell you which to play, I will, however, offer some insight on which archetypes are easy or efficient to farm with.

 

• Brute- Easily the most popular farmer and the easiest to build. Some brute builds are such that they can farm certain types of maps while AFK. Brutes are easily the ‘best’ beginners farmer, they’re super easy to build and pretty efficient.
• Tanks- The most popular farmers before brutes could be started blue. They don’t deal nearly the damage of brutes, but they are far easier to build high defense and resist on, making them slower but safer farmers than brutes. I rank them as an easy farmer, but they are not a popular choice because they’re pretty low on the efficiency totem.
• Scrappers- A less popular choice for farming, but still solid with a good build. They’re a little more challenging to farm with than brutes and tanks because most scrappers lack taunt auras, and while they share the base survival numbers with brutes, brutes have higher caps and more hitpoints. That said, a well built scrapper farmer is more efficient than a brute.
• Blasters- There are two kinds of blaster farmers, good ones and dead ones. I think blaster farmers are crazy, but I have mad respect for them. Farming as a blaster is not an easy task, and definitely not something I recommend as a beginner to farming. That said, when you get one that works, they are some of the most efficient farmers you will ever see because their damage is so high and some have great AoEs.
• Defenders and Corruptors- I am lumping these two together because they’re comparable farmers. These two both require some very special love and attention to farm with. I’ve seen people who farm well with them, and it’s impressive. Definitely not recommended for a beginner farmer, because they’re not even as direct to build as a blaster farmer.
• Controller- Once upon a time, fire/kin controllers were the undisputed supreme leaders of farming. They’re still good. Controllers though are an archetype that is a very slow starter, and if you don’t build them just right, will be one of the worst farmers you can imagine. Again, not a good “my first farmer”.
• Dominators- I have heard of people being able to farm with doms, but I have never personally seen it. Doms don’t have the best damage output, but when built well the can farm pretty safely by just locking everything down and picking them off. Probably one of the worst options for a first farmer, because their only inherent survival mechanic is locking foes down.
• Stalkers- Here’s the thing with stalkers, they’ve got great single target damage output, but most of them are super weak in the AoE department. They range from being about as good as scrappers at farming, to literal garbage at it depending on the power sets chosen. Also, AFAIK no stalker has a taunt aura.
• Masterminds- Not popular for farming, MMs can do it with relative ease, but not the greatest efficiency. The problem with MMs for farming is that your pets often cannot survive sustained fire from +4/x8 mobs. The advantage of MMs for farming is that some builds you can literally just sit there and read or crochet or whatever you like while you farm because they need very little input.
• Sentinel- I am sure someone is going to come along and tell me I’m wrong for saying this, because their sentinel is an amazing farmer, but sentinels are garbage at farming. They have scrapper survival numbers and closer to tank damage numbers. They’re slow, inefficient, and too squishy for the speed they farm at.
• Epic Archetypes- I have insufficient data on the viability of these four classes for farming. I can see specialized builds for each of them being decent at it, but I am not familiar enough with the archetypes to comment on it, and honestly, I don’t think I have ever seen a EAT farmer.

 

At the time of writing this, the most popular farmers on Homecoming are Spines/Fire brutes- they’re not the best, mind you, but they are one of the easiest.

 

For your first farmer, I do really recommend a brute though. Learn the trade with a forgiving archetype, use that to build in to something else later if you want. So from here on out, I will specifically discuss brute sets (because this guide would take me months to write otherwise), most of what I say translates to scrappers and tankers too though. If you want to farm with something else, consider what I expressed made a good farmer, and why I say some of the following Brute sets are good for farming, if you can’t glean from this information how to select sets for another archetype, you’re probably not ready for one of the more difficult farmers.

 

When choosing your archetype and power set, determine what type of farming you want to do. Fire farming is the most popular, smashing/lethal farms are popular as well, if you’re building a character just to farm, then honestly, stick with one of those two.

 

Fire is a popular choice because it is super easy to cap fire resist, and fire damage doesn’t tend to come with annoying secondary effects. Smashing/Lethal is popular because it’s super easy to resist and defense cap (or close to), and it doesn’t tend to have as many annoying secondary effects. Energy isn’t popular because while it’s not hard to resist/defense cap to it, it almost always comes with stuns or endurance lost (in a farm environment enough stuns can stack on you to stun you for an instant, which is enough to drop your aggressive toggles). Psi isn’t popular because it’s not easy to resist/defense cap, and it tends to come with slows or other annoying side effects. Cold is fairly easy to resist/defense cap, but like psi it is unpopular because of the slows. Negative energy damage is not particularly easy to cap against, and tends to come with accuracy debuffs.

 

Unlike archetypes, I won’t cover ALL the brute power sets, just the ones that tend to shine in farming. That said, any brute can be specced to farm, seriously.

 

Primaries:

• Spines- Super popular for farming because it’s got decent animation times, a lot of AoEs, and comes complete with a PBAoE DoT aura.
• Radiation Melee- I actually like Rad more than spines. We could argue until we’re blue in the face which is better, I think they’re pretty equal. The place where I feel rad surpasses spines, personally, is that all your attacks have a defense debuff in them which means it’s easier to hit +4s, and you can slow Achilles’ Heel procs if you have slots to spare. -resist is always good.
• Titan Weapons- I don’t really like TW on brutes, but it still an immensely powerful AoE set that deals a metric shitton of damage. Side note: One of my favorite farmers is a TW scrapper.
• Super Strength- Once upon a time, SS was the top tier melee farmer set. This was due to Rage being bugged. Rage got ‘fixed’ so that the defense crash was unavoidable and SS went from top tier to … not that good. SS only has one AoE, Footstomp, but it’s a beast, if you’re fine with every 2 minutes having your damage and defense tank to exactly nothing, SS still works well as a farmer. While Rage is up, SS is amazeballs, without Rage, SS is butts.
• Claws- An oft overlooked set for farmers, Claws works well as it several good AoEs and is an extremely fast set both in animation and recharge. As an added bonus, it's build up power is an attack, so you do not even have to stop dealing damage to use that.
• Staff- Not an optimal choice for farming, but it works none the less. It has a couple of decent AoEs, and its PBAoE is on a fairly short recharge time. While it lacks a build up power, the forms lead to some interesting benefits, and if you have three stacks of perfection your PBAoE gains an extra benefit.

 

Secondaries:

• Fiery Aura- If you’re wanting to farm things that deal fire damage, you cannot go wrong with /fire. You sneeze and you’re resist capped, defense is a little harder to get, but can be made up for with Luck inspirations until you have the money to get your fire defense up. Great thing about a Fiery Aura farmer is that you can actually farm yourself to 50 with this set, because it has the distinction of being able to farm adequately without set bonuses. Fiery Aura also offers some serious extra damage output in form of Burn, and Fiery Embrace. Scrapper note: No taunt aura for scrappers.
• Bio Armor- Where do we start with bio? Boasting two separate taunt aura, a wide array of baked in debuffs, a mix of defense and resist in the set already, one of the greatest armor T9s in game (which can almost be perma’d), health and endurance management, absorb, and the versatility of the Adaptation stances, literally the only bad thing I can say about bio armor is “there are no skippable powers”. Bio is an amazing choice if you want a farmer who sees play outside of farms, or you want to change up what you farm. Scrapper note: Bio has a taunt aura for scrappers, making it a great farmer set for them.
• Invulnerability- If you want to do Smashing/lethal farming, Invuln is a great option for you. It provides a mix of defense and resist, easily resist capping to smashing and lethal, defense softcapping with a little work.
• Willpower- Kind of like Bio, WP is a mixed bag. Defense, resist, and regen are its big things. Can be super solid as a smashing/lethal farmer with a bit of work.
• Stone Armor- A very unpopular option for farmers, and for good reason, it slows you down and reduces your efficiency by a lot, but especially if you want to do smashing/lethal farming, you could do worse than Stone Armor for a secondary. Once you get Granite it takes basically nothing to get capped smashing/lethal resist and softcap or close to smashing/lethal defense, you could also build for fire pretty easily with IOs. And while it's true that this means you have a reduction in recharge speed and damage, you also have a lot more power picks and slots free to build for offense. It will, as I said, be a less efficient option.. but also a very safe one.

 

As I said, any brute can farm. Just because it’s not listed here doesn’t mean it won’t make a good farmer, it means that either it’s not as good as what’s listed here, or I am unfamiliar with the elements of the set that make it a good farmer (because I am one man, I haven’t extensively played every brute primary and secondary yet).

 

As an aside, my primary farmer is a Titan/Bio scrapper, FotM sure, but I built her before I knew it was a popular combo.

 

Epic/Patron pool selection:

It’s pretty flexible at this point, your primary and secondary are usually your main elements. Mu and Fire are the two most popular options for farmers due to the damage output and animation times.

 

Power pool selection:

So, as far as farmers go, the popular choices for power pools are things that add more defense, mostly.

 

Fighting, so you can get Weave. Tough is also super helpful if you want to do smashing/lethal farming.

Leadership, Manuevers is a nice bit of extra defense, Tactics is useful if your IO build isn’t super strong and you want to farm +3/4s as soon as possible. Venge is a nice LotG mule.

Speed, Hasten. Maybe super speed too, if they’re feeling frisky.

Leaping, Combat Jumping, super cheap source of +def/Luck of the Gambler mule.

Stealth, it’s an odd choice to some, but it provides several Luck of the Gambler mules.

 

IO selection:

So this is where things will get super vague, because the exact IOs you choose will depend on what your build is and what kind of farming you’re doing.

 

Your main concerns from set bonuses are going to be defense against your selected damage type if you’re not already softcapped, resist against your selected damage type if you’re not already hard capped, recharge speed, because you want your best powers up constantly. Most anything else you’ll need will come as part of reaching these benefits. Accuracy, Max Endurance, and Recovery are super useful though.

 

Some generally useful specific IOs:

Steadfast Protection: Resist/Defense

Gladiator’s Armor: +defense

Shield Wall: +resist

Reactive Armor: +maxHP

Reactive Defenses: Scaling Damage Resist

Fury of the Gladiator: chance for -resist (great in your DoT aura)

Performance Shifts: Chance for +Endurance

Numina’s Convalesence: +regen/recovery

Miracle: +recovery

Panacea: Chance for Hit Points and Endurance.

Kismet: +accuracy (generally more useful before your build is ‘done’)

Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Global Recharge (Slot as many of these as you can up to 5)

 

Pretty much regardless of the archetype you’re choosing to farm with and the type of farming you want to do, your Archetype sets will be super useful for you to 5-6 slot.

 

If you are fire farming, the Winter sets are really nice because they offer fire resist and defense. They help a fire farmer reach the point they’re resist capped with only one toggle running. Side note: Don’t make the mistake of slotting Avalanche: Chance for Knockdown in Burn. It sounds like a great idea, things flop around you and can’t hit you…. Burn ticks so fast that the Knockdown can stack up to Knockback, and send foes flying. Funny, but terrible for a farmer.

 

Very Rare sets, like Armageddon, Ragnarok, etc. are super useful as they tend to offer high recharge, high accuracy, and the usually something else nice like recovery or regeneration.

 

Incarnate selection:

Hybrid: Basically assault is your best option here. I’m not going to tell you which version of Assault to get because the arguments of which is better are endless. I like the +damage more, YMMV.

Lore: Find a set with a support pet you like, but don’t bank on your Lore pets for farming due to the long recharge time.

Destiny: Ageless is almost always the best option here, typically you want the +recovery version because farming is thirsty work. You may find though that Barrier closes gaps nicely for your farmer build.

Judgement: Take basically whichever you want. I dislike the cones for farming, personally. Pyro has a slightly quicker activation type than the rest. Their damage is pretty uniform over all, and for farming you want to crit version, not the secondary effect version.

Interface: For farming, Reactive is probably the strongest. A DoT paired with a resist debuff. It may not be much -resist but every little bit helps in farming.

Alpha: Choice of Alphas is going to depend on what power sets you choose, and what holes you still need to fill. Spiritual and Agility are my two main go-tos, but if you’re sitting at permahaste and softcapped defenses without your Alpha, Musculature or Intuition is a great choice too. 

Update: I had a discussion with a friend regarding Alpha selection (specifically for a /fire brute, though this will apply regardless), we were bickering a bit about whether Alpha or Musculature was better for DPS, so being the nerd I am, I mathed it out. The damage per second of individual powers varies based off the activation and recharge time, but at a certain point based off global damage and global recharge, Spiritual will eventually eke slightly higher DPS than musculature. However, spiritual also improves the recharge of Build Up and (where applicable) Fiery Embrace. If you're popping reds constantly, +recharge is definitely a higher value to you than +damagae.

 

Now that you have all of that stuck in your head, go tinker with a build.. OR… Start your character and work on getting them to 50!

 

Part the third: What to farm?

 

Now that you have a farmer, or have decided to farm with an existing character. You must decide what you’re going to farm.

 

If you’re running a fire farmer, your two choices are AE (there are more fire farms on AE than I can keep track of. I like Bloody Rainbow Comic Con farm myself) or the Praetorian Demon farm from Harvey Maylor (to get this arc, be prepared to fight a bunch of carnies and other annoying enemy types before you get it).

 

If you’re running smashing/lethal, there’s some good smashing/lethal farms in AE (I don’t know the names of any off the top unfortunately), the Council Empire farm from Unai Kemen is my preferred option for this, you get it from Unai pretty quickly. If you don’t mind being below 50 and can soak some energy too, the Freakshow War arc in Ouroboros is decent to farm, and offers merits at the end as an added benefit. Plus you can always just get Council radio missions (which is super inefficient for farming). I am sure there are some other good Ouro arcs for farming Smashing/Lethal, if anyone would like to share them.

 

If you’re running something else, you’re kinda limited to just using AE, and you’ll probably need to custom build an arc for it. I may go into some detail on doing that at a future point if there is demand.

 

You’ve decided what to farm, you have your farm ready to go.. Now it’s on to…

 

Part the Fourth: Farming and Fine Tuning.

 

The goal is to eventually be able to farm +4/x8 with bosses without breaking a sweat, sure.. But odds are, especially if you’re just starting out, you’re not there yet.

 

Start by increasing the spawn size until you can comfortably handle x8 (some will go to -1/x8, if you need to do that by all means. I refuse to acknowledge -1 exists, personally), then start raising the enemy level. Lastly, add bosses.

 

You will find the rewards/minute are best from more enemies, and least from bosses (until you can rip through bosses like they’re nothing, too) - as a side note though, bosses are noticeably more likely to drop a recipe, so you’re less likely to get purple drops if you don’t have bosses on.

 

Figure out your optimal attack chain. This might involve respeccing later if you slotted poorly for that particular chain. That’s great because you’re still learning, and realizing you made a mistake and tweaking it teaches you more about making a build than reading a dozen Pines builds.

 

Make sure you’re not running any unneeded toggles. This is especially noteworthy when you have a build that is meant to run outside of a farm as well. Things like on a Fiery Aura character, don’t run Tough in a fire farm, depending on your build you make be able to do without Plasma Shield on.

 

If you’re farming with Bio Armor, play with your efficiency between stances. Sure, sitting in Offensive all the time may be tempting, but you might find you do better in Efficient due to the endurance benefits of it.

 

Something that needs to be said as well:

Do not be ashamed to use inspirations in farming. People may try to shame you if you munch purples while farming, those people are jerks and should be stabbed with a spork.

 

Following that up, once your build is completely done, hopefully you no longer need anything but reds while farming. Until that day comes, use whatever you need to maintain the most efficient rewards/minute you can muster.

 

I recommend going to the P2W vendor and disabling Awaken and Break Free inspirations, and then setting up either a macro or a popmenu to convert inspirations of the other types to the type(s) you’ll need. If you’re using inspirations heavily while farming, I also recommend against enabling Dual and Team inspiration drops, because you can’t convert those and they clog up your inventory. (There are guides for quick insp. conversion elsewhere on the forums, so I won't cover that here). I shared the popmenus I use A few posts down.

 

That's all, for now. Feel free to ask questions and myself, or one of the 10,000 other farmers around will probably answer them quickly enough.

 

Edited July 27, 2019 by Zolgar
Small incarnate note, link to post about insp menus

[Lockpick]

If you do the Bloody Rainbow Comic Con farm which reward type should you select?  Standard or tickets?

[Shinobu]

I'd say it depends on what you want.

 

Standard rewards:  few recipes but the chance for a PvP or Purple recipe drop.  Incarnate XP.

 

AE rewards:  You can buy a lot of recipes (or other stuff) with tickets, and you earn tickets fast, but you don't get incarnate XP and there's no chance of a random purple.

 

If you haven't slotted out your incarnate powers yet then choose standard rewards, at least most of the time, I'd say that much.  ^_^

 

Also I want to plug my farmer of choice:  claws/fire brute.  The AoE damage on Claws is not to be overlooked, Spin recharges very fast and is an awesome PBAoE, and can be supplemented by cones Eviscerate and Shockwave (I usually slot Shockwave with a knockback > knockdown IO.)  Toss in Fireball or Ball Lightning/Static Discharge, you got tons of AoE going.

 

 

 

 

[Void]

on Hybrid Assault: If you are farming, you’ll be at or near damage cap from combining reds (if you arent combining reds while farming, start doing so). the double hit therefore gives you something that the + damage cant. You can always pop more reds, theres no insp to give you the double hit effect.

 

[Zolgar]

If you do the Bloody Rainbow Comic Con farm which reward type should you select?  Standard or tickets?

 

Excellent question, I was going to address that and forgot!

 

Addendum the first: AE farming rewards.

 

The first thing that should be remembered with AE farming is that on all Homecoming servers, AE only offers 50% xp, making it less efficient for powerleveling and grinding veteran levels, though this can be made up for by the enemy density and speed of access.

 

When farming in AE you are offered two flavors of rewards; standard and Architect.

 

Standard rewards are drops just like you would get when running any other content. Recipes, enhancers, salvage, etc.

Architect rewards offers Tickets in place of those rewards. As far as I can tell, you cannot get incarnate threads/shards in this mode, but I may be mistaken.

You will get the same XP and influence in either mode.

 

So which is better?

If you ask me, I vastly prefer standard rewards due to the chance for high value items like purple and PVP recipes, also I don't have to worry about the ticket cap*. That being said, there are some who like tickets. Tickets are kind of like mini-merits that you can spend at the top floor above the AE portal. You can get recipe rolls, salvage, etc. with them, it's worth checking the vendor to see what you think of the rewards. You'll generally get about 1000 tickets in 5-10 minutes of farming, so keep that in mind.

 

*It's also very import to note that if you choose tickets, maps have a max amount of tickets they can award based off their size, which you will often hit before you clear the map, so you need to keep an eye on your tickets and, if you're going for efficiency, end it as soon as you hit the cap.

[Zolgar]

 

Also I want to plug my farmer of choice:  claws/fire brute.  The AoE damage on Claws is not to be overlooked, Spin recharges very fast and is an awesome PBAoE, and can be supplemented by cones Eviscerate and Shockwave (I usually slot Shockwave with a knockback > knockdown IO.)  Toss in Fireball or Ball Lightning/Static Discharge, you got tons of AoE going.

 

On live my farmer was Claws/Fire :)

 

on Hybrid Assault: If you are farming, you’ll be at or near damage cap from combining reds (if you arent combining reds while farming, start doing so). the double hit therefore gives you something that the + damage cant. You can always pop more reds, theres no insp to give you the double hit effect.

 

Fair assessment, and if your build is purely for farming, I suppose that is definitely a very valid consideration. I tend to build characters to Farm and... (or I build them to do something else then discover "oh, this farms well!")

[AboveTheChemist]

Interesting reading, I read it cover to cover then read it again. I never tried farming before a few weeks ago, when I made a spines/fire brute just to check it out. I enjoyed it far more than I expected but my one concern was not being able to play him outside of AE fire farms. I've never played a scrapper but this guide has inspired me to look into a TW/Bio scrapper as a more multi-purpose farmer. Thanks!

[Zolgar]

Interesting reading, I read it cover to cover then read it again. I never tried farming before a few weeks ago, when I made a spines/fire brute just to check it out. I enjoyed it far more than I expected but my one concern was not being able to play him outside of AE fire farms. I've never played a scrapper but this guide has inspired me to look into a TW/Bio scrapper as a more multi-purpose farmer. Thanks!

 

So, this is my Titan/Bio scrapper. Titan Hunter. She handles +4/x8 Council Empire like it's nothing, the S/L version of Bloody Rainbow Comic Con is a little more dangerous for her, she can still handle it at +4/x8 but it can get dicey (pun maybe intended). It's important to note though, her focus is not farming, farming is tertiary for her. Her primary purpose is killing GMs, her secondary purpose is TFs, trials, and other content.

 

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.962

http://www.cohplanner.com/

 

Click this DataLink to open the build!

 

Titan: Level 50 Magic Scrapper

Primary Power Set: Titan Weapons

Secondary Power Set: Bio Armor

Power Pool: Fighting

Power Pool: Flight

Power Pool: Speed

Power Pool: Leaping

Ancillary Pool: Weapon Mastery

 

Hero Profile:

Level 1: Defensive Sweep -- SprAvl-Rchg/KDProc:50(A), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(3), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(3), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(5), SprAvl-Acc/Dmg:50(5), LucoftheG-Rchg+:50(48)

Level 1: Hardened Carapace -- UnbGrd-Max HP%:50(A), UnbGrd-ResDam:50(15), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx:50(15), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam:50(17)

Level 2: Inexhaustible -- PrfShf-End%:50(A), PrfShf-EndMod:50(34), PrfShf-EndMod/Rchg:50(50)

Level 4: Environmental Modification -- LucoftheG-Rchg+:50(A), LucoftheG-Def:50(17), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx:50(34), Rct-ResDam%:50(50)

Level 6: Crushing Blow -- Hct-Dam%:50(A), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx:50(7), Hct-Acc/Rchg:50(7), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(9), Hct-Dmg/Rchg:50(9), AchHee-ResDeb%:20(46)

Level 8: Follow Through -- SprBlsCol-Rchg/HoldProc:50(A), SprBlsCol-Dmg/EndRdx/Acc/Rchg:50(11), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(11), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(13), SprBlsCol-Acc/Dmg:50(13)

Level 10: Adaptation

Level 12: Build Momentum -- GssSynFr--Build%:50(A), GssSynFr--ToHit/Rchg:50(36)

Level 14: Kick -- Empty(A)

Level 16: Ablative Carapace -- Pnc-Heal/+End:50(A), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux:50(36), Pnc-EndRdx/Rchg:50(36), Pnc-Heal/Rchg:50(37), Pnc-Heal/EndRedux/Rchg:50(37)

Level 18: Rend Armor -- SprCrtStr-Rchg/+50% Crit:50(A), SprCrtStr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(19), SprCrtStr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(19), SprCrtStr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(21), SprCrtStr-Dmg/Rchg:50(21), SprCrtStr-Acc/Dmg:50(48)

Level 20: Evolving Armor -- UnbGrd-ResDam:50(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx:50(43), UnbGrd-Rchg/ResDam:50(43), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg:50(45)

Level 22: Tough -- GldArm-3defTpProc:50(A), GldArm-ResDam:50(23), GldArm-End/Res:50(23), StdPrt-ResDam/Def+:30(31)

Level 24: Weave -- LucoftheG-Rchg+:50(A), LucoftheG-Def:50(25), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx:50(25)

Level 26: Whirling Smash -- SprScrStr-Rchg/+Crit:50(A), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(27), SprScrStr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(27), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(29), SprScrStr-Dmg/Rchg:50(29), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg:50(50)

Level 28: DNA Siphon -- TchoftheN-%Dam:50(A), TchoftheN-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg:50(45), TchoftheN-Acc/EndRdx/Heal/HP/Regen:50(45), TchoftheN-Heal/HP/Regen/Rchg:50(46)

Level 30: Hover -- LucoftheG-Rchg+:50(A), LucoftheG-Def:50(31), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP:50(31)

Level 32: Arc of Destruction -- Arm-Dam%:50(A), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx:50(33), Arm-Acc/Rchg:50(33), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(33), Arm-Dmg/Rchg:50(34)

Level 35: Genetic Contamination -- FuroftheG-ResDeb%:50(A), FuroftheG-Acc/Dmg/End/Rech:50(37), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(39), Obl-%Dam:50(39)

Level 38: Parasitic Aura -- Prv-Absorb%:50(A), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx:50(39), Prv-Heal/Rchg:50(40), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg:50(40), Prv-Heal/EndRdx:50(40), Prv-Heal:50(46)

Level 41: Hasten -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(42)

Level 44: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Rchg+:50(A)

Level 47: Caltrops -- PstBls-Dam%:50(A), Ann-ResDeb%:50(48)

Level 49: Fly -- WntGif-ResSlow:50(A)

Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)

Level 1: Critical Hit

Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)

Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)

Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)

Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)

Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)

Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I:50(A)

Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)

Level 4: Ninja Run

Level 2: Swift -- Flight-I:50(A)

Level 2: Health -- NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+:50(A), NmnCnv-Heal:50(43)

Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I:50(A)

Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%:50(A), PrfShf-EndMod:50(42), EndMod-I:50(42)

Level 10: Defensive Adaptation

Level 10: Efficient Adaptation

Level 10: Offensive Adaptation

Level 1: Momentum

Level 50: Spiritual Core Paragon

Level 50: Mighty Core Final Judgement

Level 50: Degenerative Core Flawless Interface

Level 50: Vanguard Radial Superior Ally

Level 50: Assault Core Embodiment

Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve

Level 0: Portal Jockey

Level 0: Task Force Commander

Level 0: The Atlas Medallion

Level 50: Ageless Radial Epiphany

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

[Mr. Vee]

I'll third claws/fire. Follow up can be consistently double stacked and spin recharges super quickly. I run a chain of follow up and spin with whichever of burn or dark obliteration is up at the moment. I throw in a shockwave with -kb IO in here and there. But it's a very versatile set with good single target for that last leftover boss or for running whatever else besides fire farms.

[Warlawk]

As someone who also enjoys the zen of a nice farming run I appreciate this thread.

 

I would be very interested in seeing a post (or another thread) on scrapper farming builds. I've tinkered just a little and I think that they have the potential to be very good. The scrapper ATO sets are more offensively oriented than brutes and I think that could help improve clear speed.

 

I've got a TW/Bio that farms quite competently of course and built a dedicated farmer spines/bio but I haven't incarnated it completely yet so I'm not sure how it will perform in comparison to its more brutey counterparts.

 

Might have to give a claws/fire broot a spin though.

[Zolgar]

I've talked to a few people about it recently, so!

 

Addendum the second: Scrapper farming.

 

So if you want to farm with a tank, you can just basically follow what I said about brutes word for word, scrappers are a different beast. One would think that since their raw damage numbers are better than brutes, and their survival isn't much worse, that a scrapper would make a great farmer, and they do, but they follow slightly different rules to it.

 

Something I didn't explain in the Brute section- Taunt auras. What are they and why do they matter for farming?

A taunt aura is a toggle that while active, actively makes anything it hits focus on you. I didn't cover this for brutes because most, if not ever, brute secondary has one, and any time a brute deals damage they taunt what they hit. Same with tanks.

Scrappers, on the other hand? Scrapper attacks don't come with an inherent taunt effect. This means that powers like Blazing Aura and Quills won't keep things focused on you like they do as a brute or tank.

 

Some scrapper secondaries though include a taunt aura!

• Bio Armor- In my opinion the king of farmer sets for scrappers. It includes a taunt aura, Evolving Armor, and it provides enough tools for survival to make up for the lower resist cap of a scrapper. As with a brute, you have defense, resist, regeneration, recovery, heal, absorb, and a pile of debuffs at your disposal, plus the versatility of being able to pop stances if you need to.
  
• Invulnerability- If you don't want to play Bio, Invuln is a good second choice. It doesn't have the tools for survival that Bio has, but it's still a mixed resist/defense set which makes capping both easier, and it comes with Invincibility as a taunt aura, which boosts your defense and to-hit, making it easier to hit those +4s.
  
• Willpower- Another good choice if you don't want to play Bio, like bio it offers you resist, defense, regeneration, and recovery. It's taunt aura is Rise to the Challenge, which not only gives you more regeneration for every foe near you, but also debuffs their to-hit, improving your survival. WP lacks a click to restore HP, unfortunately. It does have a 'god mode' T9 that has a very minor crash.. Still not one I would use, but it can be good in an emergency.
  
• Radiation Armor- I have very little experience with this set, so I cannot comment on its quality for farming at all unfortunately. Going by its stats, it should be a decent farmer set though. While it doesn't offer any defense, defense is easy enough to build through pools/IOs, it offers you resists, regeneration, recovery, absorb, healing, and foe debuffs. Its taunt aura is in form of Beta Decay which reduces your foes to-hit and defense, while increasing your Recharge which is a nice bonus.
  
• Shield Defense- Probably the worst choice for a farmer scrapper. This is not to say Shield is a bad set (it's not, it's an amazing set!), just that it doesn't stand up well to farming. Shield is pretty much a one trick pony, +def. Unfortunately defense is the easiest survival trait to build up from pools/IOs. You will softcap with shield super easily, it does offer a small amount of resist, and a +max hp passive which are nice. Shield's taunt aura comes in the form of Against All Odds, which increases your damage for every foe nearby, and decreases their damage as well. You can certainly make a Shield farmer, especially since it does come with a nice PBAoE attack in form of Shield Charge, but it's going to take some work.
  

 

Another important note about farming with a scrapper, is your DoT auras cannot crit, so Spines, and Rad are not AS strong of choices for a primary, Titan on the other hand, has a lot of AoEs that can crit. I was misinformed on this information. Apparently it is only your secondary sets that the DoT auras can't crit.

 

Outside of that, when selecting your primary for a farming scrapper, it's really no different than selecting your primary for a farming brute. You don't have to put as much weight on sets that have DoT auras, because those don't add to your holding agro as a scrapper and don't help your damage much- though they are nice to drop Fury of the Gladiator's proc in!

 

Scrappers make great farmers if they have a few good AoE attacks, because their single target damage is exceptional, so they can usually turn bosses on before brutes can, they focus on the boss and typically the lesser ones will fall to the AoEs in the attack chain. It's also easier to get a scrapper to damage cap than a brute, and at damage cap, scrappers deal more damage than damage capped brutes, once crits are factored in.

 

Scrappers are softer than brutes though, so they require you to pay more attention to your farming, and be quick on your click survival powers. Scrapper farming is kind of training wheels to lead you in to farming with a 'squishy', because you're still survivable enough, but it teaches you to pay more attention to your HP and how much agro you've gotten.

 

Do not expect an addendum any time soon regarding squishy farming. That's outside of my wheel house, to be honest. >.>

[Cheli]

Having played lots of different sets, I would say the only optimal route to recommend as a scrapper farmer is TW/Bio. Other secondaries with taunt auras don't contribute anything to your damage output, and other primary sets don't synergize well with the scrapper's bread and butter, critical hits. TW is also loaded with strong AOEs, and combined with the Critical Strikes proc it gives you insane damage output, capable of outpacing a brute slogging through with full fury. In addition, the 75% resistance cap for scrappers really handicaps your survival, but Bio gets around this by having 3 powerful active mitigation abilities and a decent baseline for defense. TW/Bio scrapper is probably my favorite farming setup.

 

I also think elec is a workable secondary as a brute secondary for fire farmers. Res capping fire is pretty trivial, it has some damage output, and the increase to recharge is always welcome. Claws/electric/mu can do a lot of work.

[Zolgar]

Having played lots of different sets, I would say the only optimal route to recommend as a scrapper farmer is TW/Bio. Other secondaries with taunt auras don't contribute anything to your damage output, and other primary sets don't synergize well with the scrapper's bread and butter, critical hits. TW is also loaded with strong AOEs, and combined with the Critical Strikes proc it gives you insane damage output, capable of outpacing a brute slogging through with full fury. In addition, the 75% resistance cap for scrappers really handicaps your survival, but Bio gets around this by having 3 powerful active mitigation abilities and a decent baseline for defense. TW/Bio scrapper is probably my favorite farming setup.

 

I also think elec is a workable secondary as a brute secondary for fire farmers. Res capping fire is pretty trivial, it has some damage output, and the increase to recharge is always welcome. Claws/electric/mu can do a lot of work.

 

 

Both Radiation and Shield contribute to your damage output, Invuln does indirectly by debuffing foe defense which allows for Achille's Heel proc, and tends to ensure you'll hit more often.

 

I do agree that Titan/Bio is easily one of the best options for a scrapper farmer, but I am not sure I would say it's the only optimal one. I can see rad/bio, titan/rad, and rad/rad all being solid options for farming as a scrapper as well, and that's just off the top of my head. I could also see Electric/Rad working. I can also see a /shield scrapper build being an utter powerhouse farmer, focusing on damage output instead of survival and nuking foes where they stand.

[Cheli]

I haven't played rad so I wasn't thinking about that one yeah <<

 

As for shield... I don't know. The thing that makes bio so good for farming is both its +dmg adaptation and the clicks, which in addition to dealing some AOE damage also help you stay alive. Sure it's easy to defense cap on shield, but defense cap isn't really as durable as it sounds in a +4/x8 setting, and shield has to sacrifice a lot to res cap fire.. and that's still only 75% resistance. With no survival clickies to get you through giant pulls or streak breaker, you're going to be filling your tray with orange and green insps, which means you can't overdose on reds to boost your damage output. Admittedly I prefer to be unkillable baseline while farming, since it lets me use reds and feels more efficient, but shield does deal some good damage. I just don't feel confident in it being as durable as I like, I guess. I don't like having to shore up weaknesses with insps when I could have -no- weaknesses and pump reds instead xP

 

Shield -could- get around by choosing barrier destiny and cycling it with One with the Shield, but that prevents you from taking the heal if you need it, or ageless for the +rech, and still leaves you potentially vulnerable for two minutes or so between the two of them. And the recharge is especially significant, imo... since more of it means more shield charges. As a side note, the max damage boost from Against All Odds is 68.75%, and it decays as you kill enemies in range, whereas the damage boost from Offensive Adaptation is 31.25%. Honestly I'm talking myself into making another Shield scrapper lol << but probably not as a farmer. 

 

I might also have to try TW/rad now though. It seems like a really cool combo for a scrapper farmer. I would try rad primary, but... idk. The OCD part of me is driven crazy by scrappers having powers that don't scale with their inherent in their primary sets. It's why I refuse to ever play savage on a scrapper again. 

[subbacultchas]

Just wanted to give a shout out for mentioning us controller/dominator farmers. We exist, and it's a hell of a thing to see.

 

This is overall a very good guide, and I'm glad to see stuff like this. There's a lot of threads asking how people afford IO sets when levelling, and this is one big component if not the main one (merits and conversion too). So this will be a good guide to point people toward if they are trying to supplement their income .

[Warlawk]

Another important note about farming with a scrapper, is your DoT auras cannot crit, so Spines, and Rad are not AS strong of choices for a primary, Titan on the other hand, has a lot of AoEs that can crit.

 

A small but potentially critical distinction here is that quills from the spines set is apparently coded as an attack power, not a dot and can indeed crit. I just tested it on my spines/bio scrappah I rolled to try out scrap farming. Will test Irradiated ground momentarily.

 

EDIT: Irradiated ground can crit as well.

[Mr. Vee]

/rad is great. i'd put it close to bio and fire just based on my psy/rad scrap which wasn't even supposed to be a farmer. i've been planning to make a TW since i wasn't able to finish my tw/elec on live, but i'm now unsure whether to make it bio or rad. not as if i need another farming toon but it's not as if i needed the last 3 melee toons i've made either.

[Papaschtroumpf]

I wouldn't mind seeing a claws/fire build.

I started one from lvl 1 and was trying to build with SOs only but he can only handle x8+2 that way so eventually I intend to IO him out.

[brigg]

Thanks for the shout out in your guide!

 

As mentioned, there IS a Comic Con S&L version as well. I've made some changes to it in the past month, so it's much more manageable. AND I've been adding the missing costumes from the Fire Farm. 

[Morsabalto]

Since OP doesn't want to give it a go, does anyone else have tips for squishy farming? For example: the 5th Column maps for Doms/Trollers, perhaps? Find a AE with an actual Story and one map that is just perfect to farm? etc etc.

 

My own personal experience marks Ninja MMs as sub-optimal for solo farming. Single-target for days, if you let your pets go aggressive and keep a tight leash on their targeting. But their single-target focus in general makes the huge spawns not so much fun when they melt your pets as fast as they can spawn.

[subbacultchas]

5 hours ago, Morsabalto said:

Since OP doesn't want to give it a go, does anyone else have tips for squishy farming? For example: the 5th Column maps for Doms/Trollers, perhaps? Find a AE with an actual Story and one map that is just perfect to farm? etc etc.

 

My own personal experience marks Ninja MMs as sub-optimal for solo farming. Single-target for days, if you let your pets go aggressive and keep a tight leash on their targeting. But their single-target focus in general makes the huge spawns not so much fun when they melt your pets as fast as they can spawn.

Sure. I farm damned near exclusively with controllers and dominators now, and there's a few AE missions that I use for it. Don't know about story, or why you'd want on on an AE farming mission though.

If I can remember I'll try to find the ArcIDs when I get home, but there is one in particular that I've used across several characters and builds.

The title is something like Smash/Lethal Farm, Tickets and Inf (no ambushes)

Edited July 25, 2019 by subbacultchas

[Zolgar]

A couple of custom popmenus for farming, one for the pros who need nothing but damage, one for the upandcomers who need defense too.
Just a note, both of these are built to assume you have disabled breakfree and awaken family inspirations, I find those two get in the way too much when doing heavy combining, and as a brute they are ones I basically never need even outside of farms.

New farmer option:

Spoiler

//

Menu "FarmNoob"
{
Title "Damage and Defense"
Option "&Enrage" "inspcombine insight enrage$$inspcombine catch_a_breath enrage$$inspcombine respite enrage$$inspcombine sturdy enrage$$inspcombine keen_insight focused_rage$$inspcombine take_a_breather focused_rage$$inspcombine dramatic_improvement focused_rage$$inspcombine rugged focused_rage$$inspcombine uncanny_insight righteous_rage$$inspcombine second_wind righteous_rage$$inspcombine resurgence righteous_rage$$inspcombine robust righteous_rage$$inspexecname righteous_rage$$inspexecname focused_rage$$inspexecname enrage"
Option "&Defense" "inspexecname luck$$inspexecname good_luck$$inspexecname phenomenal_luck"
}

This one will combine everything but purples in to reds, and use reds when you hit 'e', it will use purples when you hit 'd'.

 

Experienced farmer option:

Spoiler

//

Menu "FarmPro"
{
Title "Unlimited damage!"
Option "Make &Enrage" "inspcombine insight enrage$$inspcombine luck enrage$$inspcombine catch_a_breath enrage$$inspcombine respite enrage$$inspcombine sturdy enrage$$inspcombine keen_insight focused_rage$$inspcombine good_luck focused_rage$$inspcombine take_a_breather focused_rage$$inspcombine dramatic_improvement focused_rage$$inspcombine rugged focused_rage$$inspcombine uncanny_insight righteous_rage$$inspcombine phenomenal_luck righteous_rage$$inspcombine second_wind righteous_rage$$inspcombine resurgence righteous_rage$$inspcombine robust righteous_rage$$inspexecname righteous_rage$$inspexecname focused_rage$$inspexecname enrage"
}

This will turn everything that gets dropped in to reds and eat reds. Bind the popmenu to E, spam E, win. If you bind it something other than E, I advise changing the option key, too. (such as if you bound it to r, you would also change option to "Make En&rage" as an example).

Edited August 1, 2019 by Zolgar
Fixed the popmenus

[Papaschtroumpf]

I've been asking for help on a different thread trying to get help with getting a bind to combine and consume reds so this is time.

Do you know if you can stay close to the damage cap by doing it or do you have to be lucky/with drops?

[Mr. Vee]

 

 

Nevermind, nothing to see here.

Edited July 27, 2019 by Veelectric Boogaloo

[Papaschtroumpf]

Did you restart the game? Popmenus get loaded at startup