A Guide to Farming (without annoying people)
By
300_below,
Posted on: 2009-02-07 08:52 in Player Guides
Some of this info is right, however some of it is entirely inaccurate.
For Arch/Mental Blasters and Fire/Psi Dominators:
No end recovery power except stamina? Excuse me, but what do you call Drain Psyche (for both) and even Domination for dominators. Not to mention that dominators can get Power Sink or Dark Consumption.
You should do some more research before you put bad info into a 'guide'.
Paragon Studios, thanks for all you've done. You've made this a great game, and a great community. I see this as six years well-spent. NCSoft, I'm seriously disappointed in you. This is not how you get or keep customers.
I think you should add a section on 'wall farming' and 'rwz farming' since both are highly efficient, effective, farming methods which requires no fills or annoying tells. It is not, however, as useful for powerlevelling.
It DOES however, require an entirely different set of builds to be effective.
@Anilo, thx for the info, although you could be a little less rude in giving it. As I said in the guide, I'm not as familiar with the builds for hero farming and dom farming.
@Frostweaver, I'm not familiar with either of those types of farms, if someone can clue me in on them, I'll be glad to add them.
The guide was updated with Anilo's info.
I would also add, "do not send tells to random strangers asking them to pad your mission."
I put "NO PAD" as the first words in all of my LFT strings, and still get them.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
Wall farming-
Herding the wall in cimerora. Wall spawns have 10 enemy cimerorans in them. One healer, one firebomb-chucker, 2 luts with shout of command, and 6 grunts.
The wall spawns are unusual in that Cimeroran AI is unique. With the exception of luts which use typical 'melee-preferred' ai, the cimerorans use what appears to be a specialty AI that does NOT appear to have a 'hang back and use ranged occasionaly' quirk to 'make things interesting' like most other 'melee preferred mobs' possess.
What this means is that the ai is highly predictable. a /devices blaster throwing caltrops between herself and the spawn can virtually guarantee that the entire spawn save for the 'fireball chucker' is going to run across them, and they do not seem to have a 'differing path' AI either... they run directly towards you and very seldom attempt to negotiate different paths unless you are in an unusual position which forces them to take a different path to avoid bounding-box issues.(such as standing at the very edge of the wall... many of them will 'fall off' and take a different path to reach you)
But, cimerorans possess two tools which makes their ai strategy make total sense. the first, 'shout of command' allows all cimerorans inside of a certain radius of the lieutenants to gain rather effective (Mag 4 I believe) protection against status effects such as holds, sleeps, immobs, disorients, and confuse. This makes the 'herd 'em and confuse 'em' strategy less effective. It also provides a defense component, and it stacks with multiple luts. As far as I know this shout of command is either melee defense or s/l defense, as it does not seem to affect defense to things such as aoe's and fire/dark damage, but it may be 'all defense' so i will admit my unfamiliarity in the matter.. One would have to ask a bane spider or blaster to determine the exact effects of shout of command or look it up in city of data.
The second complicating factor is the fact that all cimeroran melee attacks contain a hefty -defense component, and when fighting ten at a time, that defense modification can play a serious role in the survivability of melee sets. It is one of the factors which make traditionally 'overperforming' sets, such as willpower, regen, and defense-capped non-native-defense builds such as defense-capped fire/kins far less effective.
In essence this gives two alternate spawn strategies. The first strategy is to ignore aggro limits (allowing aggro-capped enemies to engage you after you have defeated the ones that follow you immediately) by aggroing two spawns at the same time. This is especially effective for sets that contain defense that scales based on the number of mobs present AND resist defense debuffing (ice armor, invulnerability) as well as sets that simply have high enough defense and defense debuff protection to safely engage large groups of defense debuffers at once (Energy aura, super reflexes) also sets which have debuff/mez dynamics that are not overtly influenced strongly by shout of command (radiation, bubbles/storm repel, slows)
In general, the first strategy allows sets which are not as strong on 'traditional' farms to gain ascendance, such as ice armor, super reflexes, invulnerability, and energy aura, due to their ability to virtually guarantee a 'herd' that clumps around them for their melee aoe's and defense saturation (or lack of vulnerability to debuffing) This also brings to ascendance 'attack' sets which are not as strong in traditional mitigation, such as knockback, and strengthens sets which provide more raw damage output or mitigation forms to which the cimerorans are vulnerable (fire melee, dark melee, and electric melee are obvious candidates).
Obviously tankers, scrappers, brutes, and stalkers prefer the first form of farming, and while tankers tend to herd two spawns together, brutes, scrappers, and stalkers tend to prefer to the second due to lower overall mitigation and higher damage for their aoe cones... why waste time herding 2 spawns together, defeat 1 spawn and allow aggro-capped enemies to trickle into range over time, when you can just as quickly defeat two spawns in a row with a greater margin of safety and potentially better damage output? (in the case of brutes, moving to succeeeding spawns at nearly full fury)
the alternative is sets which possess strong abilities to damage 'lines' of enemies, generally those that possess heavy cone damage for catching the initial spawn before it has a chance to move, and generally involves quickly taking out a single spawn of enemies at a time so quickly that they have very little opportunity to respond... and the responses that they DO have are often limited to the much weaker and non-defense-debuffing ranged attacks.
Slows are valuable for the second type of farming due to their ability to 'clump' the enemies together, and cones do double duty as a traditional aoe AND an ability to quickly thin the ranks while the spawn is in it's original 'line' configuration. And because of the fact that each spawn is EXACTLY ten minions and luts, which is the aoe cap for ranged cone attacks, this makes cone sets such as assault rifle and to a lesser extent archery, fire, and cold, extremely valuable, since cones tend to have slightly higher damage and faster recharges than similar 17-capped aoe's.
Once again, there are several advantages to make up for the fact that cimerorans are harder for 'traditional' farmers-
self-clumping AI
no fills required
10 minions and luts every single time
quick ability to move between fights without losing fury
no 'mission resetting'
full experience/drops/cash rewards
The 'best' farmers I have found for cimeroran wall spawns are actually a surprising pair of sets:
ice tankers with a strong damage primary, due to slows(which cims have no protection against), resistance to defense debuffs, and aoe in the secondary which adds exceptional aoe damage over time. ice/fire is my preferred farmer. Ice/fire is my preferred farmer for type 1 wall farming.
'post upgrade' ea brutes with a strong damage primary, such as ea/fire, and ea/electric, due to the aoe potential and having their heal scaled by the number of mobs present, as well as a strong resistance to defense debuffs. EA/electric is recommended because of the 'non traditional' mitigation of electrical attack endurance drain and endurance drain in their secondary, which, after a few moments, allows you to maintain enemy endurance below the threshold neccessary for the cimerorans to use their most damaging sword attacks.... right about the time your healing drops off due to mob numbers depleting, your fury has been capped for far greater damage and most mobs are wheezing.
sr brutes post-softcap, due to their scaling resistance and strong resistance to defense debuffs, such as sr/fire and sr/electric. Their secondary mitigation of scaling resistance kicks in extremely strongly due to the low-burst, high-dps nature of fighting against a 10 enemy spawn. They might wind up the fight at 10% health, but they almost always will win, and the number of inspiration drops assures that they are immediately ready to fight the next group in moments.
sr/nin/ea stalkers with a strongly aoe damaging primary, such as electric or spines. the top performers are electric/ea (for the same reason as ea/electric brutes, above) ninja blade/ea (due to extreme saturation of lethal defense) ninja blade/ninjutsu (due to strong saturation of melee defense as well as slows and an aoe placate power that allows them to take a breather if things start to turn sour) and sr, although sr will most likely require a stronger set of IO slotting. This is primarily due to stalker's lower hit points.. often scaling resistance buffs are not enough to save a stalker when things start going south, although this can certainly be compensated for by ninja blade's saturated melee defense. spines stalkers also due well due to the inherent mitigation of spines -recharge, of all three sets. having TIME to click aid self or pop a green can often make the difference between success and faceplanting.
Scrappers that excel against cim spawns are katana/broadsword/super reflexes, due to saturated melee defense, strong defense debuff resistance, and strong scaling resistance. scrappers greater hit points as well as access to both a melee-defense enhancing primary and a strong defense secondary make cimerorans very little threat. Unfortunately, katana/broadsword fare less favorably with secondaries that do NOT have defense debuff resistance, although this can certainly be compensated for by proper IO slotting.
So in order (based on my experience and the experiences of others) I would set the viability of sets for farming the wall in cimerora in the following order: (based on expense of io slotting options, survivability, and speed of dishing out damage)
Ice/fire tanker
invuln/fire tanker
fire/sr brute
electric/ea brute
ninja blade/ninjutsu stalker
ninja blade/ea stalker
ninja blade/sr stalker
spines/ninjiitsu stalker
spines/sr scrapper
katana/sr scrapper
so the top of each category for 'type 1' wall farming would be:
tanker- Ice/fire
Brute- fire/sr
scrapper- spines/sr
stalker- ninjutsu/ninja blade stalker
Type 2 wall farming involves overwhelming a single spawn with damage far too quickly for them to respond effectively. Ironically, the unmitigated best farmer for type two wall farming is assault rifle, due to the preponderance of cones for catching all ten members of a spawn at once. This is one of the few situations where the traps and devices secondary actually strongly complements the assault rifle primary, due to caltrops and trip mines, although as usual it's not the strongest complementary pair.
Blasters:
AR/ice is a strong contender for taking out single wall spawns, due to it's cone nature, shiver being an unresisted debuff, and ice patch allowing a high amount of clumping if the aoe string is not enough. AR/Mental is also a strong contender, since, with the assault rifle changes, there is now a rather large hole in ar's cone attack chain without extensive recharge slotting, which psi scream fills rather nicely. Both of these sets have an advantage in the form of buildup, since, barring lots of misses, the cone attack chain alone is enough to kill everything including luts.. although a few misses on a lut or two might leave one standing, which gives ice the edge. AR/devices is actually strong in this case as well, since cloaking device allows cones to be lined up well and, while you will not likely kill the luts when you trash the spawn, caltrops and a trip mine or two during the 'setup' phase can easily make these enemies fall before your onslaught as well. but this costs time, and while ar/devices is more able to survive a bad set of rolls, it also has longer setup time which costs it overall speed.
sonic blast is also a good candidate for farming. Siren's song can be deployed prior to any shouts of command being activated, and thus will have full effect. Sonic shockve loses utility as a mitigation power, but can easily be slotted for damage instead, which, couple with sonic's resistance debuffs, can actually enable speedy defeat of a wall spawn. when coupled with something like mental manipulation for it's extra cone, you can quickly destroy a spawn. The siren/drain psyche/nuke combo is not terrifically useful, however, due to the spread-out line nature of the spawn (Yes, I did my research)
fire and ice, with a slowing/damaging rain, will also go a long way towards defeating a spawn easily, as will archery.
Archery, like fire and ice, only has a single cone, but that cone is a GOODY. while it is not as good as ar or even sonic, archery as a wall farmer is unlikely to let you down in any significant fashion, especially when coupled with the traditional farmer secondary, mental manipulation.
Energy blast is just as bad of a wall farmer as it is a traditional farmer.. sorry.
psi blast also is a ticket to phail as a wall farmer. cims don't have enough lethal/smashing resistance to bring psi's damage type into play strongly, and it is far too strongly st-oriented to make a good wall farmer.
Electric blast also suffers under the same disability, qand allowing that many cims into melee range to use elec/elec's end drain to affect them and maximize your aoe damage meaningfully is a sure ticket to the hospital, especially since ball lightning's aoe is too small to affect the majority of the cim's 'default' position.
For blasters, I would arrange the utility of farming as follows:
ar/ice
ar/mind
archery/mind
ar/devices
fire/mind
cold/mind
AR/energy
Corrupters:
Once again, assault rifle takes the lead due to cone positioning. However, it has a twist.. corrupters do considerably less damage than blasters, and so the cims ARE going to have 'move time' before they are subdued. This makes the secondaries of dark, storm, and traps the obvious secondaries of choice for clumping them together and keeping them out of melee, due to their 'patch slows'. Cold would be a contender, but has little ability to clump mobs due to the wide-open stretch of the majority of the wall... it IS possible, however, to corner pull on the guardhouse and front gate, so cold needs to be at least mentioned for snow storm pulling. fire and ice primaries are actually closer to ar performance for corrupters than blasters due to aim's damage buff, and the negative effects of accidentally knocking enemies out of tar patch and freezing rain's resistance debuffs. However, freezing rain's debuff persists even after the enemies have left freezing rain, and in many cases storm can actually stack two of them, making ar/storm, in my opinion, the strongest corrupter wall soloer.
So in general, I would rate corrupters for type 2 wall farming as follows:
AR/storm
Fire/dark
fire/storm
ar/dark
ice/dark
sonic/storm
sonic/dark
ar/fire/cold/sonic/ice
ar/fire/cold/sonic/traps
Unfortunately, due to the way spawns tend to be spread out, kinetics tends to be far less effective than it would be on traditional farms.
So for type 2 cimerora wall spawn farming I would rate them as follows:
AR/Ice blaster
AR/Storm corrupters
Obviously, you can see the similarities to the way the two combinations would play.
Dominators and controllers-
Of dominators, I would lean heavily towards earth/thorns, due to it's aoe, defense debuffs, and reliance on slows which affect cims regardless of shout of command. The same holds true of controllers... for dominator secondaries, the traditional thorns/fire tends to offer the most of what you need, although my lack of experience with high-level dominator farming requires that I point out that my opinions on any sets OTHER than earth/thorns and fire/fire is limited, at best, and mostly gleaned from watching the other sets working on ITF's. Controllers other than earth also tend to have similar downfalls as dominators due to shout of command.
Other sets, defenders, masterminds, and epics tend to perform more-or-less as they would on a traditional farm, as long as you pay particular attention to the special foibles of cimerorans. They are not top-tier farmers, but specialty builds CAN make them quite acceptable.
-edited to break up text.
<to OP>
I noticed that you forgot to mention the 'Demon Farm' on hero side. It's -excellent- for Spines/Fire scrappers since they do purely fire damage, and the map is really straight-forward. Also there are lost of corner to herd them to for maximum damage.
[ QUOTE ]
I would also add, "do not send tells to random strangers asking them to pad your mission."
I put "NO PAD" as the first words in all of my LFT strings, and still get them.
[/ QUOTE ]
on my kin corr i always get farm requests from different ppl all the time even though my search field says "NO FARMS/FILLS..." lots of ignorant rude jerks that see the search field but stilll ask, or don't even bother looking at what the search says as long as it says "kin".
I like it.
Post deleted by Moderator 08
[ QUOTE ]
Post Deleted by Moderator_08
[/ QUOTE ]
Do you REALLY think that the devs have no clue about farming? It's a well known legitimate way of playing high-level characters. It is somewhat frowned upon, at least as far as PLing is concerned, but 'normal' farming such as wall farming and NON pl farming is strongly, if not actively, encouraged.
Do you REALLY think that the devs expect you to be able to assemble a full set of purples (or the wherewithal to afford them) just running normal content? 'farming' is simply an efficient way of grinding, and one that requires specialized builds and/or archetypes.
Well Said FrostWeaver*claps for a full minute* 8D
[ QUOTE ]
Post Deleted by Moderator_08
[/ QUOTE ]
And do you honestly think the devs are just WAITING for this post to go "Aha! Now we know with archetypes to nerf to make these people more miserable!"? They've -built- the game. The know exactly what goes on, which ATs perform well for farming, and which missions are best for them. They probably know more about it than all of us combined. I bet one of them is probably reading this guide and laughing to himself at how wrong we all are on the most efficient method of farming. xD
What do you suppose those Cimeroran Traitors are there for up on that wall, if we're not supposed to fight and kill them if we want to?
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
The bosses at least on the Demon map will swat you with smash/lethal in melee.
More points:
[Archetype: Controller
Powersets: Fire Control/Kinetics
Benefits: "...The benefits include good AoE damage from imps, the fire control powers, and fulcrum shift, as well as good sustainability from Transference."]
This is a bit misleading, as the wording suggests that fire imps possess some AoE damage dealing ability, which I don't believe is the case. Fire control kicks out the bulk of its damage through hot feet and Fire Cages; Imps help chiefly with catching aggro and finishing off the victims of Hot Feet/Fire Cages DoT.
[Archetype: Scrapper
Powersets: Spines/Fiery Aura
Drawbacks: "Survivability of the fiery aura set isnt as great as some of the other scrapper secondaries. Quick movement from mob to mob may require use of travel powers, which can eat up a lot of endurance."]
I was greatly disappointed with the overall survivability of my Fire/Kin troller and the solo performance of my Fire/Fire tank at 50, so I made a Fire/Spines scrap. It died like that was its job. Disappointed, I complained to a friend who also had one - he told me that his Fire/Spines doesn't have many survivability issues at all, chiefly thanks to slow powers (which keep foes from moving fast) and AoE DoT. The ranged area effect powers in Spines all have slow components, and you can take caltrops in the epic. Hit 'em with the ranged cone, then dive in, use Spine Burst, drop caltrops then follow it with Burn. Most things run until they die, occasionally pausing to try and hit you. Survivability increases drastically. Also, the Fire set gets Consume, which does wonders for your end drain problems.
Villains
[Archetype: Corruptor]
A Sonic/Miasma, Fire/Miasma, Sonic/Rad or Fire/Rad corr would likely do fine solo in most positions at 50 thanks to decent AoE's/cones and hefty debuffs along with self heals. Miasma is a brutal set, which brings me to...
Archetype: Master Mind
I didn't see this one.
Power Set: Bots/Miasma
Benefits: Miasma is filled to the brim with tohit debuffs. Bots in and of themselves are nothing too special. They KB, which is kind of annoying. The two protector bots double defense bubble the other bots but give each other and their owner one bubble. Their single target pet heal isn't impressive, but with the second upgrade the protector bots get seeker drones. Seeker drones have a tohit debuff; that combined with the bubbles and the miasma tohit debuffs leads to great amounts of safety. I'd suggest laying off of attacks, but taking Pulse Rifle Blast or the Bots AoE disorient is useful. The Miasma fear cone is potent and can be up for each mob. It packs a nice tohit debuff. Darkest Night is a decent tohit debuff toggle, but it also has a dmg debuff - so it's practically armor. The targeted PBAoE miasma heal has a tohit and dmg debuff component. The Miasma pet, Dark Servant, has tohit debuffs and a similar heal superior to that of its owner, and can be made perma with hasten. Howling Twilight, the AoE rez, works only when you have a foe in range to target. It has a long recharge, but is an autohit disorient and (this is where it gets sick) a massive 500% regen debuff. Bots/Miasma can solo most any AV/Hero on Relentless from Sea Witch on, including Positron and most of the other hard ones. Survivability is high, with two AoE heals and a plethora of disorient/hold/fear/tohit debuffs/defense buff and dmg debuff powers.
Drawbacks: Bots are loaded with KB, and foes run after missing ten times in a row - which happens a lot when their accuracy is in the toilet.
On herding in PvE farms:
In my opinion, herding is one of those things that should either be done to save time or lives. The herding cap and time spent engaging in herding usually make it a pointless endeavor when compared to the rate at which you could be clearing things one mob at a time. However, done correctly, herding can move a farm team considerably faster. The best way is to have your meat shield charge a mob, wait until the team has them under control then leave when they're all nailed down via slows/immob's and herd the mob ahead in to the next mob after that, whereupon the team should catch up. Once that group is managed, have the tank leave and herd forward again.
If you're feeling adventurous and have a good team, you can jump five mobs ahead and grab two mobs, then pull mobs 5 and 4 to mob 2 and 3, whereupon your team will likely rejoin you after finishing off mob 1. Voila - a mob well over the aggro cap. This is the only way that herding speeds up task forces, and you don't need two tanks to do it. Just one tank and some one willing to tick off a lot of people who're going to try and kill them.
Often times teams will find themselves with two tanks. In these instances, it's fine for one tank to lead the team while another herds well ahead, leaving once the team tank has the mob's aggro. with two good tanks and one good team, you could theoretically face mobs of around 30 foes each from beginning to end of a mission with little interruption from mob to mob. Some times the herders will leap frog - one grabs a mob, holds the aggro, and when the team catches up the then-team tank takes off to grab a new mob to meet the team with when they catch up after the first herd.
In speed TF's with two tanks, the first one in would herd two mobs towards two other mobs. Such herding speeds up any PvE encounter... unless the foes are tough and y'all haint.
There are many guides to tanking, but I'll point out that herding is all about breaking LoS: Line of sight. If they can't see you, they get curious about what you're doin' and come running to look. If they're shooting you, you haven't broken LoS. All sorts of terrain on maps can be used for herding - pillars, crates, corners, dumpsters, cars, box cars, twisted upright iron beams, stairs, (i've even used) mounds of dirt. Anything and everything that can be hidden behind.
If someone can get me the info on the demon farm (who gives it out and the in-game name, as well as defeat conditions, I'll add it into the guide). Thanks to frostweaver for the info on wall farming. I'd love to add it into the actual guide post, but am pretty sure there wouldn't be room. That'll teach me to save the next post down in the thread next time I post a guide.
I didn't mention masterminds or corruptors as farming builds because they're uncommon compared to brute/kin teams or dominators. It's not that they can't farm, just that a lot fewer people do it, and I don't think they're quite as efficient at it. I'm a firm believer that any AT/build can farm, it's just a question of how efficiently they can do it.
I also clarified a couple points in the build section.
Demon farm is given out by Harvey Maylor.
Mission: Empower the Bands of Shu (part 2)
Mission is a defeat all, so the mission holder needs to take special precaution that any team members do not accidentally complete the mission objective. One way to do this, is to skip all enemy groups that are not at street level. It does result in skipping more groups than you have to, but is easier to keep track of on a fast-moving team.
Post deleted by Moderator 08
The only farm I think they ever nerfed was the RWZ Farm, of course that was an actual cheat more than a farm... God I miss that thing ((cries a little))
[ QUOTE ]
Post Deleted by Moderator_08
[/ QUOTE ]
This is a wonderful thread and a great resource for current and future farmers.
The Devs know all of this already, and probly a few more that even the players dont know about. They have proactively nerfed farming exploits and have left the real farming missions alone.
Its part of the game, and they will not (have not) removed it.
First..I been farming for like when tanks farmed and there was no cap arrgo "Freak farm" went to the new hottest thing fire/kins i farm the wall alot with my fire/kin with no problems
never die.I think its how u slot the build that counts more then the Archtype that your using to farm the wall.
You guid is at most fair to about half of it. The other half is red side farming and i cant tell you nothing about it 4 i dont care to play red side it bores me to death.
Now back to farming heroes side
1. farming boss's can be done if you know what your doing
i solo 8 man under 17mins where it takes most farmers to run 6 man 15min-20 but thats cuz their new "maybe"
2.On boss farming add this note to guid 1"stay out of range 4 feet so u dont make em pull out axe.2 char em now sometimes u hit they still fight but siphon anything and they begain to choke keep spaming char and us what ever mastery u have plus siphon and cage imps will kill off the rest
while u get contol over boss's if u use fireball u are adding to the imps same with psi tornado,
Its really not hard once u get the hang of it,
If u want to see me do it ill be glad to show anyone,
[ QUOTE ]
First..I been farming for like when tanks farmed and there was no cap arrgo "Freak farm" went to the new hottest thing fire/kins i farm the wall alot with my fire/kin with no problems
never die.I think its how u slot the build that counts more then the Archtype that your using to farm the wall.
You guid is at most fair to about half of it. The other half is red side farming and i cant tell you nothing about it 4 i dont care to play red side it bores me to death.
Now back to farming heroes side
1. farming boss's can be done if you know what your doing
i solo 8 man under 17mins where it takes most farmers to run 6 man 15min-20 but thats cuz their new "maybe"
2.On boss farming add this note to guid 1"stay out of range 4 feet so u dont make em pull out axe.2 char em now sometimes u hit they still fight but siphon anything and they begain to choke keep spaming char and us what ever mastery u have plus siphon and cage imps will kill off the rest
while u get contol over boss's if u use fireball u are adding to the imps same with psi tornado,
Its really not hard once u get the hang of it,
If u want to see me do it ill be glad to show anyone,
[/ QUOTE ]
OW! My eyes! My brain! My sense of literacy! Please do the internet a favor and invest in a dictionary, as well as learning about the amazing new inventions called "punctuation" and "grammar". 
Good guide. A few missing points, like the demon farm as some already said, but nothing that cant be added
And FYI it's not the first farming guide for CoX on the net, it's not like it will get anything nerfed. Devs added the option to stop xp in i13, I really start to think they dont especially hate 'farming'
Post deleted by Moderator 08
Add the tidbit that its possible to increase the xp spread by including a lvl 38 and a lvl 1 in any pl farm. The addition allows you to use a 43 mentor and standard 42's get xp with no mentor. They got rid of that trick with 42z issue before last but in the doing actually made a better xp spread. I dunno if that was on accident or not.
My inclination is to believe it was an intentional omission because why leave that and remove the 42z?I mean any farmer whether a pl'er or merit farmer or influence farmer is going to test and try things to see what works and IF it will work or not. Making 42 NOT effect lvl spread but leaving the 38 certainly couldnt have been overlooked.The levels are too close together for them not to have noticed the same result with a slightly different level combo.
Since I've never seen a guide on the topic of farming, I thought Id write one myself. Farming is a controversial topic, but that will not be the focus of this guide, and is a discussion for another time and place. The focus of this guide is on how to farm safely, efficiently, and most importantly, without irritating your fellow players. Most of my farming experience is brute/kin farming villainside, so my knowledge of dominator farming tactics and heroside farm tactics are not as great. This is also my first guide, so if anyone has advice that could help me improve it Id really appreciate it. With that being said, lets get started.
[u]Section 1: What is Farming?[u]
Farming is the act of running a particular piece of content repeatedly in order to efficiently get some kind of reward. The name farming comes from the similarity to real-life farmers who sow their crops in the same fields year after year because it is more efficient. By this definition, many things can be farmed (and sometimes are, in the case of healing and damage farms when trying to get certain badges), however the most common type of farming is farming for influence/infamy and salvage/recipe drops, and that will be the main focus of this guide.
So as it applies to farming influence/infamy and salvage/recipe drops, farming means running a particular mission repeatedly, without ever completing it in order to quickly earn inf. Later on in this guide, I will discuss common farm missions both redside and blueside, as well as farming builds, and farming etiquette. This type of farming can also be used for powerleveling, and that will also be discussed. The developers of the game have a mixed outlook towards this type of farming. They have stated that they dont really agree with the practice, but do not have a great desire to stop people from doing it (If Ive misquoted anyone, I apologize).
Since the merit system was added to the game in issue 13, a new type of farming, merit farming, has been taking place. Merit farming involves repeatedly running a story arc through the ouroboros flashback system in order to quickly earn merits. Some task forces are also farmed for merits, although due to the restrictions placed on task forces, this is somewhat less common. This type of farming will not be discussed much in this guide. The game developers seem to be less tolerant of this type of farming, since a recent patch to the test servers has seen the merit rewards for the most commonly farmed story arcs reduced.
[u]Section 2: Farming Missions[u]
In this section, I will discuss what makes a good farm mission and commonly farmed missions for heroes and villains. When it comes to finding a good farm mission, there are several criteria to look at to evaluate whether it will be a good farming mission or not. These are discussed below.
1. Enemy Type: Some types of enemies are much easier to farm than others. Good things to look for are enemies that deal primarily smashing/lethal damage, enemies that have low overall damage resistance/defense, and enemies that dont have a lot of annoying special abilities (such as lots of mez, endurance draining powers, etc.).
2. Map Size and Layout: Generally, larger maps with more enemies are better than smaller maps with less enemies, due to the fact that they require less time spent resetting. This is not universally true however. The layout of the map is important as well. You want a map that is easy to travel through with an easy path to each spawn. You also want maps where the enemies are spaced close enough together that you dont spend a long time travelling between each group, but far enough apart that you can easily take on one group at a time without accidentally aggroing a second group.
3. Difficult to complete: Since you are running the missions without completing them, you want a mission that is difficult to complete accidentally. This means that kill all missions are not good farming missions, and neither are single glowie missions. Kill boss and minions missions are somewhat better, and can be very good if the boss you have to kill is an AV, since it will be difficult to accidentally kill an archvillain. Probably the best maps are those that require several glowies to be clicked or destroyed to complete them.
With those criteria in mind, well take a look at the most commonly farmed missions for both heroes and villains.
[u]Heroes[u]
For heroes, there are 2 missions that are commonly farmed, with a couple others that make decent farms, but arent as commonly used.
Mission Name: Save Warrior Clans Village (AKA Warrior Farm)
Contact: Maria Jenkins
Enemy Group: Warriors (praetorian)
Completion Conditions: Click 15 glowies
This is one of the two most commonly farmed missions for heroes. The map is somewhat small, but has a good path without backtracking, and its very difficult to complete accidentally. The enemies are praetorian warriors, which are a good group, since they do all smashing/lethal damage and have fairly low damage resistance.
Mission Name: Defeat Battle Maiden and her Minions (AKA BM Farm)
Contact: Maria Jenkins
Enemy Group: Warriors (praetorian)
Completion Conditions: Defeat Battle Maiden (AV) and minions
This is the second of the two most commonly farmed missions for heroes. It is the same map and enemy group as the Save Warrior Clans Village map and good for farming for the same reasons. Instead of clicking glowies to end the mission, you must defeat an archvillain, which also makes it very hard to end accidentally. Care should be taken not to aggro Battle Maiden though.
Other missions that make good farms, but arent as commonly used are:
Mission Name: Get Data From 1st Dimension (AKA Freak Farm)
Contact: Unai Kemen
Enemy Group: Freakshow
Completion Conditions: Click 3 glowies
Mission Name: Close the Dimensional Ruptures (AKA Council Farm)
Contact: Unai Kemen
Enemy Group: Council Empire
Completion Conditions: Click 20 Glowies
Mission Name: Empower the Bands of Shu (part 2) (AKA the demon farm)
Contact: Harvey Maylor
Enemy Group: Circle of Thorns
Completion Conditions: Defeat All
[u]Villains[u]
For villains, there are also 2 missions that are commonly farmed, with one of these (the lib farm) being the most common by far. There are also a couple other missions that make decent farm missions, but arent as commonly used as the other two.
Mission Name: Liberate Television (AKA the lib farm)
Contact: Television
Enemy Group: Nemesis
Completion Conditions: Defeat 4 special fake nemesis, and destroy 4 glowies.
The liberate television mission (or the Lib Farm) is by far the most commonly farmed mission by villains. It is a very large map, and moderately easy to get around in. It is also fairly easy to determine a path through the mobs that requires little backtracking. The enemies are all nemesis, and only a few types of them as well. By the criteria above, nemesis make somewhat good enemies for farm maps, due to doing mostly smashing/lethal damage, having low damage resistance, and doing lots of damage over time. They have some irritating abilities though, with colonels having a special form of vengeance, fake nemesis having personal force field, and warhulks and jaegers exploding when they die. If you plan on farming this map, you will need to learn strategies to deal with these abilities.
Mission Name: Go to Cargo Vessel and Eliminate Demonic Infestation (AKA the demon farm or ship farm)
Contact: Tavish Bell
Enemy Group: Circle of Thorns
Completion Conditions: Click 2 glowies
This is probably the second most commonly farmed mission for villains. The circle of thorns enemies would seem to make it a poor choice, but as long as the mission is set for 6 people or less, only possessed scientists will spawn, and they are relatively easy to deal with. The map is much smaller than the lib farm map, which means more resetting, however one benefit is that the arcane salvage that the scientists drop when defeated is often very valuable.
Other missions that make decent farms, but arent in common use are:
Mission Name: Help Fix the Movie
Contact: Television
Enemy Group: Freakshow, devouring earth (stone only), and 1 group of nemesis
Completion Conditions: Lead two hostages back to the entrance, defeat nemesis group.
Mission Name: Battle for Television
Contact: Television
Enemy Group: Nemesis and Family
Completion Conditions: Rescue hostage, defeat nemesis boss and minions.
If Ive forgotten any, please let me know.
[u]Section 3: Farming Builds[u]
In this section, I will discuss what makes a good farming build and common farming builds for heroes and villains. Just like choosing a good farm mission, choosing a good farming build relies on a few criteria. These are discussed below.
1. Survivability: In order to be able to farm successfully, you need to be able to withstand the damage that you will take while fighting each mob. If youre constantly dying, your farm wont be very efficient.
2. Damage: The second part of the equation is being able to quickly and consistently do enough damage to defeat the enemies in each group. This makes AoE damage more important than single target damage for the most part. If you take forever to defeat each group, your farm wont be very efficient.
3. Sustainability: The final requirement for efficient farming is sustainability. That means being able to deal damage/take damage/and keep your endurance up all the time. If youre relying on powers that are only available part of the time to farm or running out of endurance frequently, your farm wont be very efficient.
So with those requirements in mind, lets take a look at common farming builds for heroes and villains.
[u]Heroes[u]
There are 3 main farming builds that are used by hero farmers. Other builds may be able to farm too, but these are the 3 most common. A discussion of each is below.
Archetype: Controller
Powersets: Fire Control/Kinetics
Benefits: Fire/kin farmers are the most common farmers in City of Heroes. There is a ton of information out there about the build and its pretty easy to play. The benefits include good AoE damage from imps (although the imps don't have AoE themselves, there are 3 of them, so they're kind of an AoE as a power), the fire control powers (mainly hot feet and fire cages), and fulcrum shift, as well as good sustainability from Transference.
Drawbacks: The biggest drawback of a fire/kin farmer is that their survivability is dependent on their control powers, so bosses can cause problems for them.
Archetype: Scrapper
Powersets: Spines/Fiery Aura
Benefits: Spines/fire scrappers are also a very common farm build in City of Heroes. They arent quite as common as fire/kins though. The benefits include good across the board survivability, with nice damage resistance and a good self-heal. AoE damage is also very good, and single target damage can help them take out bosses easier than a fire/kin controller.
Drawbacks: Survivability of the fiery aura set isnt as great as some of the other scrapper secondaries. Quick movement from mob to mob may require use of travel powers, which can eat up a lot of endurance, but consume can help mitigate this.
Archetype: Blaster
Powersets: Archery/Mental Manipulation
Benefits: Archery/Mental blasters are probably the least common of the 3 builds listed here, but are becoming more common. Their benefits include spectacular AoE damage from aim, buildup, and rain of arrows, and good sustainability with drain psyche.
Drawbacks: Quick movement from mob to mob may require use of travel powers, which can eat a lot of endurance. Survivability is dependent on defeating a mob quickly, so bosses can be a challenge. The 3 main powers used to defeat a mob quickly are on long recharge.
[u]Villains[u]
Villains have 3 main farming builds as well, and a 4th build is mentioned due to its common inclusion in villain farms. A discussion of each is below.
Archetype: Dominator
Powersets: Fire Control/Psionic Assault
Benefits: This build is similar to the fire control/kinetics build heroside. Benefits are good AoE damage, and good survivability with perma-domination. Single target damage is also decent. Drain Psyche and domination helps with endurance.
Drawbacks: This build is very dependent on getting domination to be permanent, otherwise damage and the ability to control enemies consistently is low. Survivability is based almost solely in control powers so enemies that can't be controlled will be a problem.
Archetype: Brute
Powersets: Super Strength/Willpower
Benefits: An SS/WP brute has good AoE damage, very good survivability, and good endurance management. It also has good single target damage, making it easier to deal with bosses. The to-hit buff in rage also makes dealing with nemesis mobs defense easier.
Drawbacks: Quick movement from to mob may require travel powers, which can eat a lot of endurance. Damage is only good if the brute has a near full fury bar. Most brute farmers bring a kinetic corruptor along to mitigate these drawbacks.
Archetype: Brute
Powersets: Super Strength/Fiery Aura
Benefits: The benefits are similar to those of a SS/WP brute, but with even better AoE damage.
Drawbacks: The drawbacks are also similar to those of a SS/WP brute, but survivability is not quite as good.
Archetype: Corruptor
Powersets: Anything/Kinetics
Benefits: Kinetics corruptors arent really a farming build by themselves, since they cant really run a farm mission alone. They are included because it is very common for farming brutes to bring a kinetics corruptor along with them to use speed boost, transference, and fulcrum shift.
[u]Section 4: Running a Farm and Farming Etiquette[u]
In this section, I discuss how to start and run a farm, and the etiquette of farming. I consider farming etiquette very important since rude farmers are part of the reason some people dislike the practice so much. Farming for the purposes of powerleveling will also be discussed here.
Once you have a farming character up to level 50, and you have the right mission to farm, its time to actually start up a farm and run it. How youll go about starting your farm team depends on what you want to do with it.
If you are only trying to earn influence/infamy and drops, youll want the fewest number of people actually on the map with you possible. This usually means just your farming character, or you and one other person. This is because when an enemy drops something, it randomly has a chance to go to anyone who is on the map. So the more people who are on the map, the less chance youll get it. It isnt efficient to just farm the enemies which you alone will cause to spawn though. Ideally, you want the map to spawn enemies with the team set for 6-8 people. Setting the map for 6 people will cause almost all minions and lieutenants to spawn. More than that will cause bosses to start to spawn. So in order to have only a few people on the map, but spawn it for 6-8 people, you need to find fillers.
A filler is someone who joins the team long enough for you to start the mission and then leaves. It is also important to map the mission when using fillers. This means running around the map within visual range of every spawn. This is because any unrevealed spawn point will only spawn for as many people as are on the team at the time you reveal it. There are a couple of points to keep in mind when looking for fillers. First, you should try to get people who are in the same zone the mission is in. This is due to a bug that wont let you start a mission unless everyone is in the zone. Typically, people will use the broadcast channel to find fillers. This tends to work better for heroes than villains for some reason. In either case though, dont go crazy and spam broadcasts looking for fillers every 10 seconds. Asking every minute or two is okay.
Another option is to send tells to people who are in the zone asking if they would mind filling for a second. However, this is something you need to be careful with. Some people get very annoyed by getting tells to fill. So if youre going to send tells looking for fillers, ask politely, only send a single tell to each person, and dont be rude to them if they say no or dont respond to you. Also be sure to check peoples search comments, if they say they are not willing to fill, dont bother asking, itll just annoy them. Once youve gotten enough fillers, enter your mission, map it, thank them, and let them know they can leave. Then youre good to farm that map.
If you are farming for the purpose of powereleveling, the process is a little different. Instead of running the mission alone, you will be bringing along one or more characters to be powerleveled and maybe some mentors. In order for the lowbie to get experience at all, he/she must be within 5 levels of the highest level person on the team. For a farmer at level 50, this means the lowbie must be at least level 45 to get xp. Since most are lower level than this, they are sidekicked to a higher-level hero (the mentor) in order to bring their level up. The lower their level compared to yours, the more xp they will get. This means that if they are sidekicked to someone who is level 46, they will get the largest possible amount of xp from each enemy killed.
Looking for a mentor is much like looking for fillers. You can use the broadcast channel, or send people tells. If sending tells, use the same guidelines as looking for fillers. There are some other things to be aware of as well when looking for mentors. Some people have turned off xp gain at level 46 to stay there permanently, others have not. Those that have not may level up during your farm run which means somewhat less XP for your character. So if you specifically want a perma 46 mentor, say so. Also be aware that many level 46 mentors will expect to be allowed to sit at the door and not help you farm the map. If you expect their help running the farm, you should also make people aware of that.
Some people also powerlevel other peoples characters for a fee. This is a commonly accepted practice as long as you are only being paid influence/infamy. If you are being paid real currency for the service, that is against the User Agreement and grounds for having your account suspended/cancelled. It is very common to see low level characters in peregrine island/Grandville broadcasting that they will pay to join a farm. If you want to let paying lowbies join your farm, a broadcast is generally enough to get several responses. It helps if you put what level mentor they would get, whether they can doorsit or not, and what you charge per run in your tell. It is not considered okay to send tells asking people if they want to be powerleveled. If you are a lowbie who wants to be powerleveled, sending broadcasts saying so in Grandville/peregrine island is okay as long as you dont spam them quickly. It helps to say what level mentor you want and how much youre willing to pay. Do not send people tells asking them to powerlevel you.
[u]Other considerations when farming[u]
- Some people are very against the practice of farming, and may be very rude if you send them a tell. Its best just to apologize and move on. If they continue harassing you use the /ignore function.
- On the flip side, dont be rude to others if youre sending tells or broadcasts for any reason. Remember, you are generally the one asking them for a favor, so be polite and dont harass them.
- Some people will go so far as to join your team and purposely try to complete your farm mission so you cant farm it anymore. This is pretty rare, and usually only happens if you have done something to irritate someone. In order to prevent this, keep a close eye on the mission bar and make sure none of the mission objectives are being completed. It helps to remind everyone at the beginning that you are farming, so leave the objectives alone. If you suspect someone is intentionally trying to end your farm, kick them from the team, leave the map, and reset the mission.
- Under no circumstances should you rapidly spam broadcasts looking for fillers/mentors/a farm to join. This is against the code of conduct and can get your account suspended/banned.
- If you are a lowbie looking to join a farm, you should be able to safely reach the mission door unaided. Its rude to join a farm and expect them to teleport you around.
So thats it. I hope you enjoyed the guide. If you have any questions/comments or ways I can improve it, please let me know.