I think, and this is after experience with a purpled-out spines/dark who hit 50 in three weeks, solo, that spines/fire is the better option.
The survival tools offered by fire and dark (in this situation) are roughly the same, except /dark's are endurance intensive (33 end for dark regen being the big one). Fire costs less end and offers another end recovery tool, it gives you a bonus Build-Up power and its damage type is less resisted. You will find Dark Astoria, for example, far more fun on a spines/fire than on a spines/dark.
They have similar holes and in a large part of PVE content, /fire may fall behind /dark's general utility and survivability tools, but I really do feel like /fire does everything /dark does, without pants.
As far as Endurance problems go, I heard on another thread that slotting the Endurance proc into Dark Regeneration helps greatly with that. Fire still wins because of Consume, but still. It really seems like Dark gets vastly superior potential survivability with an extra defense power and a heal that can bring you from almost nothing to full off of a small number of things around you, AND has a lower recharge time than Fire's heal. I want to try and softcap this guy, or at least try and get a good amount of defense on him, so Dark seems more conducive to that, however I want to know how much damage I'd be giving up by passing over Fire.
My goal is to be able to solo spawns of all Bosses in AE for example, without going squish. Can Fire stand up to that kind of punishment? Also if anyone could post some good builds for either of these on a moderate budget, it would be appreciated.
Spines/Fire does more damage, and is roughly as tough as Spines/Dark provided you don't face enemies that target /Fire's weaknesses. Fire has more exposures than Dark, but in a farming setup, they aren't very relevant. Avoid psi, cold, toxic, end drain, and slows and you'll be in great shape. Fight things that do fire damage and laugh.
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I think, and this is after experience with a purpled-out spines/dark who hit 50 in three weeks, solo, that spines/fire is the better option.
The survival tools offered by fire and dark (in this situation) are roughly the same, except /dark's are endurance intensive (33 end for dark regen being the big one). Fire costs less end and offers another end recovery tool, it gives you a bonus Build-Up power and its damage type is less resisted. You will find Dark Astoria, for example, far more fun on a spines/fire than on a spines/dark.
They have similar holes and in a large part of PVE content, /fire may fall behind /dark's general utility and survivability tools, but I really do feel like /fire does everything /dark does, without pants.
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Er... in what world are their survival tools roughly the same?!
/Dark is much more survivable. /Fire has more damage.
Which is to say;
Dark has an easier time getting off an alpha due to stealth (COD), has two tools to reduce incoming melee damage (OG/COF), and has a more powerful but less reliable heal. It is a more endurance intensive set only for COF and the heal.
Fire ... well, you can still sneak for an alpha if you had to (jump in or stealth io) but it's not as forgiving. You have no way to control melee damage over dark (both get energy torrent, which sort of counts) and the heal does ~48% of your life when slotted and is more reliable (if slower to recharge) than dark's. You get a second buildup, which is awesomesauce. Consume is also worth a mention; refill the blue bar and do more damage.
...
I would recommend Spines/Fire for easy farming and Spines/Dark for hard farming. Spines/Fire performs better than dark as long as you don't challenge it too severely. Dark is more adaptable.
Just my $.02, I have both.
Also, if you're building a spines/fire, don't try to softcap defense (might not even be possible) ... go for recharge. My attack chain is something like buildup, fiery embrace, torrent, throw spines, ripper, and it's all up for the next group. I enjoy clearing CIM walls solo, but I would not dream of trying to melee those folks. Whereas on a dark armor, I can wander right up into the middle of them and spine burst, and the fear will take half of them out of the fight. (Note: You have to fear them before they see you or the surgeon will buff them to protect from it, or whatnot.)
If you want a good softcapped farming scrapper, IIRC ehina's spines/invuln is pretty much softcapped to smash/lethal and can reliably tear apart anything with that damage type. A little slower than a /dark or /fire, but a *lot* safer.
I don't do much farming, but I have friends that do. When I agree to tag along these, I've never found the spawns they chose to be particularly challenging. While I personally feel the difference in survivability between Firey Aura and Dark Armor is quite significant, it may not be too relevant to farming. Farming usually involves wiping out the spawn as quickly as possible, to the point where incoming damage beyond the alpha is trivial. With that in mind, Spines/Fire seems the superior choice for farming.
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My goal is to be able to solo spawns of all Bosses in AE for example, without going squish. Can Fire stand up to that kind of punishment? Also if anyone could post some good builds for either of these on a moderate budget, it would be appreciated.
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I think you could do it with either - and on NEITHER would I recommend getting in melee range. Energy Torrent & Throw Spines. 3-4 bosses is enough to give you a really, really bad day.
Again, spines/invuln might be a better option if you're trying to stand up to that kind of punishment.
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Er... in what world are their survival tools roughly the same?!
[/ QUOTE ]In farms.
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Er... in what world are their survival tools roughly the same?!
[/ QUOTE ]In farms.
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lol
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/Dark is much more survivable. /Fire has more damage.
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G_Tanker pretty much nails it with this, but there is one other question you need to ask, -
How much Inf will you spend on the build?
Armageddons in Spines burst, and the recharge to have it up often means they probably won't have time to all alpha you anyway, but then, that's not cheap.
Basically, I'd suggest Spines/dark, I find the survivability on mine is very good, and it was a very cheap build.
but if you want to spend your first billion earnt on the farmer, then yeah, go /fire, it will start to pull ahead dramatically.
Spines/Fire on an all Fire damage boss farm.
Spines/Fire here too. Lower end costs and more damage so you can blow through enemies continuously.
Not that a Spines/Fire doesn't have end issues - you will, for a good amount of the time. Consume doesn't come up fast enough but at least your heal doesn't take a 3rd of your end bar every single mob group.
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Hmm, so it seems this depends on the context of what you're doing to farm. I'm new to this stuff; is it usually faster to just get on an AE team doing Boss missions or go solo stuff, and in what area? Seems like Dark would be better for soloing in difficult areas but would be less useful on a Boss AE team for example, because then you have a tank taking the hits and you just need to dish out maximum damage. I'm leaning more towards Fire right now because of this.
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The 33 end thing is a bit overblown. No one in their right mind would leave out endrdx in DR.
Then there's the Theft of Essense +end proc. It is a rare and expensive item, but we're talking about a farming build here.
I am a big fan of spines/dark for the simple fact that the mez auras give you a mitigation tool fire simply lacks, but it is probably a push between spines/dark and spines/fire.
Having said that you specified you wanted to farm bosses, I dont think spines is the way to go in that particular case. I thing you would want a set with the highest possible single target dps. Beyond that farming bosses with /dark or /fire sounds painful. I think I would go for a secondary with capped defense and work in aid self for farming bosses.
I have just recently been playing my spines/invulnerable again for the first time in a couple years. He seems a lot tougher than I remember after the changes to invulnerability, not really sure what has changed.
If you are dead set on farming bosses with spines, I might consider spines/invulnerable the combo feels tougher than my spines/dark in long sustained fights. Funny thing is with my spines/dark the fights just dont last as long before everything is usually dead. It just seems more efficient to make a spines/dark or spines/fire and mow down massive spawns of lts and minions. You might be able to build a spines/dark with a real high melee defense number that would be pretty darn tough toon, but I shudder to think what the IO cost would be.
To make a long story short, I would like a character that can make me money quickly via farming, and is fun to play. I have a Fire/Kin I'm working on but he just doesn't do it for me, I like doing damage a bit more directly.
In any case, I've boiled it down to Spines, and then Dark or Fire. I've seen good cases made for both but I'd like to see a discussion specifically comparing their merits as related to each other. Which has more potential when IO'd on a cost-efficient budget?
Seems like they both have similar resists. Dark gets 3.75% more base defense. Dark gets a much better heal. It also gets a choice of a couple of minor control auras (Cloak of Fear catches my eye mainly for the tohit debuff, both controls don't seem that great to me because they can only affect minions). Fire seems like it gets more damage from a slightly higher damage aura, and then Fiery Embrace. It also gets Burn which I have heard mixed opinions on. Seems a bit more squishy overall but faster kills. Is it really that much more damage compared to Dark?