What sort of MM build would be best at farming?

[Pale_Enchantress]

I will start with saying I know MM won't get anywhere near the farming power of the fire brute. I exclusively play MMs. I want to rise to the task and carve out a reasonably efficient farmer. 

 

I'm not a fan of Bots but feel free to mention them anyway. 

 

In classic CoX I had many 50 MMs before I decided I wanted to work on making money and get drops from solo farming. My best was easily Thugs/Dark. I ran x8 +3 (Sometimes +2 when I didn't want to pay as much attention) I wasn't soft capped on def but I was never really in danger of dying. Usually kept some on big mode sent others to attack target. 

 

We have a lot of new tools now. New support power sets, new power pools, and more. I'm not asking for a full mids build but you can post one if it pleases you. Might help others. 

 

I was possibly considering Thugs/Cold.  Thugs/ Dark might still be the golden standard. Throw your opinions out but please refrain from. "MM can't farm roll a brute." I know we cant farm but some MMs are still going to be better at it than others. 

[Maxzero]

 

 

Well farming is basically about AoE. So you need sets that AoE. Bots have good AoE but only the Assault Bot so you are a bit limited by his 2 x 16s AoE cooldowns.

 

Thugs and Demons are on the next line. Both their T3 pets have limited AoE, Bruiser has Footstomp while the Prince has two cold PBAoEs. Both sets of Lts have a good range of selections with multiple AoEs each.

 

On minions Thugs win out because of Arsonist but he is rather suicidal.

 

It's up to you which you go. Thugs go well with defence based secondaries (FF, Traps, Dark, etc) while Demons are good with resist based ones (Thermal, Sonic).

Edited July 26, 2019 by Maxzero
typo

[Tacheyon]

9 hours ago, Maxzero said:

Thugs and Demons are on the next line. Both their T3 pets have limited AoE, Enforcer has Footstomp while the Prince has two coold PBAoEs. Both sets of Lts have a good range of selections with multiple AoEs each.

Actually you mean the Bruiser has foot stomp.  Also a few of the Enforcer pistol/uzi attacks are AoE/Cone as well.  And once you have the Bruiser then you already have your tank and your thugs and enforcers can sit back in relative safety.

[plainguy]

Robot Traps but has to be linear map. EG not the moon base comic con map.

[kelly Rocket]

Bots is the best AoE. Just bar none. Yeah, it's all the Assault Bot, and only two of his attacks (Three if you count the Flamethrower), but one of those attacks is just SO ridiculously potent that it leaves all other MM primaries in the dust for AoE damage.

 

That attack is his Incendiary Swarm Missiles.

 

The Minion and LT Bots do actually have some AoE as well, but they're cones or small AoEs. They do still add to your AoE, and if you can corner pull, it gets insane. If you can partner with a Grav controller or Dom it starts heading into actual OP nonsense territory, and quite possibly out-damages a good Brute even.

 

This is because Wormhole will gather a spawn into a very tiny space for you. You and your controller partner then immobilize the spawn (You DID take an APP/PPP with an AoE immob right? If you're Bots/ this is pretty much mandatory), and the bots will burn that spawn to the ground in an incredibly short amount of time.

 

You see, what happens when your Big Bot fires Incendiary Missiles, is that the he targets one enemy to fire it at, and it will affect all enemies within 20 feet of that target, setting them on fire and doing 8 ticks of 3.82 damage to each of them (If you're at level 50). This is 30.56 damage each, nothing serious really.

 

However, it also creates a burn patch under each of these targets. The burn patch inflicts 26 ticks of 3.34 damage over 20 seconds. This is 86.84 damage, which still may not seem that incredible. Until you realize that each of these burn patches are wider than one mob. Any overlap stacks. So if two mobs are close enough together, they each take 173.68 damage instead.

 

Now Wormhole is a targeted, ranged AoE ability, as is the Incendiary Missile Swarm. This means the target cap for both abilities is 16. Assuming that your Grav partner manages a perfect pull with it, you have packed 16 mobs into a very tiny space. Small enough that the burn patches should ALL overlap. This means that if you can immobilize the spawn, every single mob in that spawn will take 86.84 * 16 damage, in addition to the flat 30.56 damage they each take. This is 1389.44 + 30.56, or, oddly enough, exactly 1400 damage per mob.

 

PER MOB.

 

And that's not counting the Minion Bots cone lasers, or the Protector Bots' grenades.

 

There's simply not any other MM primary that can compete with that kind of AoE damage. Bots suffers against a single target though, unless that big single target keeps summoning more minions to fuel the burn patches.

 

If you're looking to farm with a Mastermind, I recommend Bots/Time/Mace, as this will soft cap all of your Bots, and allow you to run +4/x8 farms. With my Bots/Time I can pull in about 300k inf per minute solo, on wide open maps, because the soft-capped bots can handle 3-4 spawns at once if I have to. That's not as good as a Fire Farm specialized Brute can do, but it's not bad. If I had a partner who could throw Wormhole and help immob spawns, I'm certain I could double that, and that IS Fire Farm Brute territory.

[Pale_Enchantress]

I decided to do Thugs/Time

[Maxzero]

22 hours ago, kelly Rocket said:

Bots is the best AoE. Just bar none. Yeah, it's all the Assault Bot, and only two of his attacks (Three if you count the Flamethrower), but one of those attacks is just SO ridiculously potent that it leaves all other MM primaries in the dust for AoE damage.

 

That attack is his Incendiary Swarm Missiles.

 

The Minion and LT Bots do actually have some AoE as well, but they're cones or small AoEs. They do still add to your AoE, and if you can corner pull, it gets insane. If you can partner with a Grav controller or Dom it starts heading into actual OP nonsense territory, and quite possibly out-damages a good Brute even.

 

This is because Wormhole will gather a spawn into a very tiny space for you. You and your controller partner then immobilize the spawn (You DID take an APP/PPP with an AoE immob right? If you're Bots/ this is pretty much mandatory), and the bots will burn that spawn to the ground in an incredibly short amount of time.

 

You see, what happens when your Big Bot fires Incendiary Missiles, is that the he targets one enemy to fire it at, and it will affect all enemies within 20 feet of that target, setting them on fire and doing 8 ticks of 3.82 damage to each of them (If you're at level 50). This is 30.56 damage each, nothing serious really.

 

However, it also creates a burn patch under each of these targets. The burn patch inflicts 26 ticks of 3.34 damage over 20 seconds. This is 86.84 damage, which still may not seem that incredible. Until you realize that each of these burn patches are wider than one mob. Any overlap stacks. So if two mobs are close enough together, they each take 173.68 damage instead.

 

Now Wormhole is a targeted, ranged AoE ability, as is the Incendiary Missile Swarm. This means the target cap for both abilities is 16. Assuming that your Grav partner manages a perfect pull with it, you have packed 16 mobs into a very tiny space. Small enough that the burn patches should ALL overlap. This means that if you can immobilize the spawn, every single mob in that spawn will take 86.84 * 16 damage, in addition to the flat 30.56 damage they each take. This is 1389.44 + 30.56, or, oddly enough, exactly 1400 damage per mob.

 

PER MOB.

 

And that's not counting the Minion Bots cone lasers, or the Protector Bots' grenades.

 

There's simply not any other MM primary that can compete with that kind of AoE damage. Bots suffers against a single target though, unless that big single target keeps summoning more minions to fuel the burn patches.

 

If you're looking to farm with a Mastermind, I recommend Bots/Time/Mace, as this will soft cap all of your Bots, and allow you to run +4/x8 farms. With my Bots/Time I can pull in about 300k inf per minute solo, on wide open maps, because the soft-capped bots can handle 3-4 spawns at once if I have to. That's not as good as a Fire Farm specialized Brute can do, but it's not bad. If I had a partner who could throw Wormhole and help immob spawns, I'm certain I could double that, and that IS Fire Farm Brute territory.

 

Each burn patch has a 5 target limit IIRC from live 

[Frosticus]

bots/storm can somewhat improve the aoe potential of the assault bot if you are quick and skilled at packing mobs with herdicane and gale

[Shoulung]

I’m thinking that heat mastery with bonfire with kb->kd IO might be a better way to go. You lose another shield but with bonfire’s crazy cc you might not need it. Also you get another single target hold to help lock down tougher mobs.