Farming with an Archery/Energy Melee Blaster

As I have played through the CoH universe, I have noticed everywhere I go there are Fire/Kinetics controllers. About a year ago, I asked my friend why there were so many, and he responded with "They are the best combination for farming missions for experience and money." After learning this, I decided to make a Earth/Kinetics controller in the hopes of one day being able to out-farm my fiery counterparts. This was a futile effort however because I soon learned that Earth control just didn't have the damage to compete. I despaired, and began to think that all hope was lost in finding another AT that could farm as well as Fire/Kin. Then I met a Archery/energy blaster who's name I wont mention, who showed me the wonders of the set, and how easily it can destroy large spawns in a matter of seconds. This prompted me to make my own Archery/energy blaster, and upon reaching level 32, and obtaining my Rain of Arrows, I realized that this was the answer I had been looking for. Now that my archer is at level 50, I can run the popular Demon and Council Empire farms at the same speed, if not faster than a Fire/Kin.

The secret is having RoA (Rain of Arrows), Aim, and buildup back every time you are ready to attack a mob. Now I'm sure some of you have archers, and are thinking, well RoA comes back pretty fast to start (1 minute recharge base) and I should be able to farm from the start. Here is where you have to ask yourself if you want to just be able to farm, or if you want to be able to show Fire/Kin's who's boss.

I am new to posting on this forum, (this is my first post ), so I dont know how to put my build in here for all to see and compare, BUT I can tell you that when I opened up Mids to make my farming build I focused on the three R's.
Recharge
Regeneration
Recovery

While ensuring that all my powers had the desired % in them, I looked for all the set bonuses that would make my powers come back faster.

As I am a casual player, I knew that including the high priced IO's in my build was not an option, so I made a Purple-less build that cost me just under 200 million influence. I encourage anyone who wants to farm with an archer to make their own builds rather than just copying mine (because I cant post it anyway ). The values that are actually important are posted below.

With hasten up:
RoA = 19.6 second recharge
Aim and Buildup = 29.5 second recharge
Hasten = 2 minutes and 43 second recharge

Since RoA will not kill everything in a group (especialy if they have high lethal resistance like Malta) follow up attacks such as Fist full of arrows and Explosive arrow are key to making this build work. After you hit with Aim+Buildup+RoA+FFoA+explosive arrow, there will most likely be some straggler lts that you can pick off easily with you single target attacks.

The only problem that I ever face when farming are runners, and as long as you pay attention, and act quickly, you can take out the cowards before they get too far away (boost range really helps here). Actually on the subject of boost range, many people don't consider it to be a worthwhile power. For farming, it is an amazing asset! It allows you to hit groups with RoA from further away, AND since it boosts the range of EVERYTHING, your cone Fist full of arrows, will hit more enemies without the need for you to run into almost melee range. Once I figure out how to post my build, I will.

This guide is basically just to inform you all that Archery/Energy is a viable farming build, and I'm sure once people start working out builds that are better than mine, Archery/energy will be the new Fire/Kin.

Oh wait.... what have I done!!!?!

Did I miss the guide?

Nope, never going to happen. i know because i have done an purpled out arch/mental and they do kill fairly fast on 6 man maps.

Bosses will own you, so you have to map for 6.

My fire/kin can do a 6 man BM map in 12 min and a 7 man in not much longer then that.

To replace my fire/kin I have tried,
Plant/Kin Not enough damage to kill fast enough
Arch/Mental - Not enough Def to Live long enough
Spines/Fire - No hold or imob so they run from burn and caltrops.

Only thing that come close to my fire kin is my spines willpower scrapper. He can destroy the "Defeat Sam Naples" mission from Unai. That map is huge and again mapped for 6 he can do it in like 15 min. The enemies are council and have wicked knockback and Aoe which makes for a difficult time having lowbies sk'd to you. But they are pretty much drawn into quills and they try and walk away but just walk right back into it. There are 4 or 5 patrols that roam through the map and will usually wipe out the door if people are sitting and afk.

Its fun you should all try it.

My apoligies if this doesent constitute a guide, but I wasent 100% sure where to post this other than the guide section. Also I farm my council mish spawned for 6, BUT I have tried it with bosses and have 0 trouble taking them out. My blaster has ice mastery so the lethal and smashing damage that the bosses dish out often bounces right off me, that plus aid self, knockback protection, and hibernate if things go bad makes it easily farmable with bosses if I choose to run with more than 6.

I'm not IOed out and I can take down some large spawns with my Archery / Energy.

a guide is showing the benefits and doughts of powers, and by showing this you which can help someone farm. Then posting your build showing which powers you recomend

Aside from posting the build, I think it's a fine guide. OP gave us the pertinent information as related to the key powers and their recharge times. The OP gave us the percentages we'd need to get those powers to an every mob recharge rate. And the OP showed us that a fire/em blaster can farm. It's true that most ppl think that only fire/kins can do it well. I've seen an ar/em blaster farm on Freedom and it really was pretty fantastic. This blaster has multiple purple sets so his recharge was on point for every spawn, no waiting at all.

So yeah, nice guide if for nothing else but letting everyone know that.

I have one of these myself, IOd out and I can do the Council and Demon maps as fast or faster than a fire/kin. Like the OP I got the idea from watching another archery/energy doing it and it is just amazing how fast they can demolish a huge mob, even outside farming. Before I made my archery blaster, I would have said my fire/fire was the ultimate AoE blaster but now I'd have to think about it :P.

I would think any well-IOed Archery blaster would be good at this, as there's nothing in Energy except Boost Range that really affects your AoEing skills, and I know I don't need Boost Range on my Arch/MM to murder huge spawns.

Granted, there aren't any AoEs in /EM but who cares? After BU+Aim+RoA+Fistfull+Explosive+Fistfull , everything except for any possible bosses is dead. If you're using the toon for PvE, You have several ST attacks to finish off bosses and if you're just farming, chances are you set your map to 6 so you don't get any bosses. I'm sure Archery/MM is just as good as Archery/EM but What is the point of getting more AoE damage when there's nothing to kill? :P

That's what I said, you just used different words. All you need is BU+Aim+RoA+Fistful+Explosive+Fistful. Secondary doesn't really matter, as long as it isn't Devices.

Boost Range is a nice toy, but every secondary has nice toys that will help a farmer out.

wonder how arch/fire would be with the burn and hotfeet from /fire

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wonder how arch/fire would be with the burn and hotfeet from /fire

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Go to protector and look up "Fyerro"

...or just wait for City Vault to come out and then check them out .