I have 50 invul/fire/pyre, 50 fire/fire/pyre, 50 ice/ss/pyre, 50 wp/ss/earth and 50 sd/ss/pyre. All of them can farm but the fastest killer of them all is sd/ss/pyre. Why? Against All Odds and double stacked Rage puts him at damage cap. Even with only one Rage he's just shy of damage capping, by about 10%. He three shots entire spawns of lieuts with shield charge, footstomp and fireball (damage capped charge is 450-500 damage in one use).
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fire/kins are squishy. my main is fire/ff/earth troller and can solo 8 man invincible demons. kills almost as fast as a fire/kin as well the way i have him built, but plays like a tank as he's softcapped. i do have two fire/kins as well, both with six sets of purples in them, but prefer to play my fire/ff's more.
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Originally Posted by Coldmed
if anyone here is a bigger farm nurd then me then please speak up...but i wouldnt LIE to you.when i say fire/kins are great..but they dont have the open range a fire tank will have..they just cant handle it
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krunchs point was my tank cant do squat against a fire.kin..which apparently he doesnt even have now
so now hes switching toons...well since scrappers are funny as farmers too now..
ill be glad to watch you die in my mission krunnch...but i think its funny that your advice is worthless when you dont even HAVE one..at least my experience is from actual EXPERIENCE...not just random talk from you you "think"
and like i said....its not a regular mish..its not boss farming...its just minions and lts.
but youll soon find out for yourself son.
hope your up for the palace too....cause we going there as well...
maybe we can make it 3 events..
one is a.e...2nd is storm palace..and ill come up with a 3rd one as well...farmers challenage it'll be called.
oh and krunch i wont bother talking about how you lamed up about the fire/kin and changed your toon...however you got 2 months to .l. one..you can get it in two days so get to work son. now that your on the block...put up or get out.
oh and the reason i use a.e. is faster lvling...when you HAVE money...you buy them at whatever price..you dont rely on drops..thats why
this is about farming or p.ling..the POINT of it...is to lvl as fast as possible not get drops.which is why lots of people use a.e. farming...its just simply faster then boring old safe slow missions
oh and ill be glad to frap it all too..
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Originally Posted by Godlike_NA
fire/kins are squishy. my main is fire/ff/earth troller and can solo 8 man invincible demons. kills almost as fast as a fire/kin as well the way i have him built, but plays like a tank as he's softcapped. i do have two fire/kins as well, both with six sets of purples in them, but prefer to play my fire/ff's more.
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apparently your wrong too...so says krunch *shrugs*
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My advice is to chill a bit on the agressivity. Dying against minions and lieutenants? What sort of thing do you have set to cause that? I think you're missing the point in farming if you're aiming for difficulty, the idea is to rake cash/tickets to buy what we need.|
Originally Posted by Coldmed
krunchs point was my tank cant do squat against a fire.kin..which apparently he doesnt even have now
so now hes switching toons...well since scrappers are funny as farmers too now.. ill be glad to watch you die in my mission krunnch...but i think its funny that your advice is worthless when you dont even HAVE one..at least my experience is from actual EXPERIENCE...not just random talk from you you "think" |
Now please, chill. Yes, you're proud of your character and I'm sure it can do wonders.
Coldmed, I have three Fire tanks (Fire/Fire, Fire/SS & Fire/EM) and while all of them are "adequate" farmers, for the fastest (solo) influence or tickets per minute none of them can compete with my Claws/WP scrapper.
While the Fire tanks can kill a single spawn of 10 enemies faster (using a BU + FE fueled Alpha strike) than the scrapper, on a map where the enemies are litterally packed to the walls, the steady DPS of the scrapper allows him to quickly pull ahead in the number of kills per minute.
If I had to farm on a map where I could only kill one group and then it took me 30-40 seconds to round up the next one, then the Fire tank is the better choice.
However, if the mission is crammed with 100+ enemies that swarm my character as fast as the last one is killed then the Scrapper is the much better farmer.
As to the survivability of a Fire Tank vs a WP scrapper, frankly both of them are fairly hard to kill if IO'd out and played right. It all depends on the number of enemies and the damage types and debuffs that those enemies have as to which will be tougher to kill.
I could easily build a map full of endless Psi and Cold Based attackers that would rip your Fire tank to shreds. Conversely, I could build a map full of mobs that have Defense and Regeneration debuff powers which would be a suicide run for my scrapper. My scrapper has no problem at all being on a map solo surrounded by essentially infinite bosses with S/L, Fire, Cold, Energy or Dark based attacks. However just a couple Peacebringer Bosses with their Defense Debuffing attacks can give him Hell.
It all depends on what strengths or weaknesses are being played to.
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The point of farming is to maximize xp or inf per minute, as you yourself imply. That's it.|
Originally Posted by Coldmed
ill be glad to watch you die in my mission krunnch...but i think its funny that your advice is worthless when you dont even HAVE one..at least my experience is from actual EXPERIENCE...not just random talk from you you "think" and like i said....its not a regular mish..its not boss farming...its just minions and lts. but youll soon find out for yourself son. hope your up for the palace too....cause we going there as well... [snip] one is a.e...2nd is storm palace..and ill come up with a 3rd one as well...farmers challenage it'll be called. [snip] this is about farming or p.ling..the POINT of it...is to lvl as fast as possible not get drops.which is why lots of people use a.e. farming...its just simply faster then boring old safe slow missions |
Farming Fire/Kins are not built to survive the greatest variety of content; on the contrary, they're designed almost exclusively around a fairly narrow type of encounter. Most don't even have damage slotted in their attacks, because they're counting on full groups to power Fulcrum Shift. Frankly, it's not a build that I (and I'm sure many others) would have any interest in playing in any non-farming setting.
The Storm Palace and your cherry picked mission have zero to do with maximizing xp/inf per unit time. All that matters is whether the Fire/Kin (or whatever build) can beat your character's best rate of inf/exp earnings; even if it's only in one mission, even if you run circles around him in every other context -- as long as his best earning rate on that one map is better than your best earning rate on any map -- then you lose a farming challenge.
As someone else pointed out, anyone can craft an AE mission to frustrate a given build. No one has ever claimed that Fire/Kins are the best characters to face any challenge in the game.
Now I personally don't have a dog in this hunt; I don't farm much. But I can't imagine how any Tanker build can beat a well-built Fire/Kin for sheer inf/minute. The numbers just don't seem to add up.
I've no doubt that you're fast -- and beyond a certain point at the high end of farm builds, maybe it doesn't make any practical difference who's faster. I'd be happily proven wrong, but I don't see your responses thus far as the slightest bit instructive.
You make no attempt to explain your tactics; instead you rush to challenge Kruunch to a farming duel, which I'm sure would be entertaining to watch, but which you also appear to be stacking artificially in your build's favor.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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I've always felt my claws/WP to be the best mix of survival and AoE damage, but I have a strange sort of love/hate with Claws. Hate being perhaps a bit of a strong word.
I'm really happy with FU + Spin + Eviscerate and Claws does melt bosses in ST damage, but, I don't know, I play it for a while and get bored despite all the pretty numbers. I have a theory about it being such lengthy animations when doing the AoE, but damn, does it slice and dice pretty.
In the end I go back crawling to my DM/SD and ask forgiveness for having abandoned her. ET is growing on me as well despite my initial reservations about having respecced to try it.
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Actualy, only defence is part of how you place.|
Originally Posted by Speed_Force
It all depends on what strengths or weaknesses are being played to.
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Look at any possible farm set around, care little for AT, just any possible one. All of them only rely on trashload of defence and backed up by a good ammount of resist.
Imho the flaw IO's have made, getting location defence is so freaking easy, every man and his dog can make a 'farmer' AT. Even good old fire/fire blasters nowadays can ditch out huge ammount of damage and stay alive even better then my scrapper. Even got better with the new /psi set and that regen thingie.
The nice thing about /fire scrappers, they can hit cap resist fire without any additional help, so grab a bunch of pure fire based mobs in AE and you are ready to go. As fire has no additional effects (ice slow, dark acc etc) its even easier then any other type of attack you can choose of.
So my choice remains fire/ss, ss/fire brute, claw or spine/fire scrapper.
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Dude, sensitive much? First, you need to point out where Kruunch said he HAD a fire/kin. He only stated that one could farm faster. And he only claimed to have the Scrapper. He hasn't gone back on anything. |
Originally Posted by Coldmed
krunchs point was my tank cant do squat against a fire.kin..which apparently he doesnt even have now
... and like i said....its not a regular mish..its not boss farming...its just minions and lts. ... is a.e...2nd is storm palace..and ill come up with a 3rd one as well...farmers challenage it'll be called. oh and krunch i wont bother talking about how you lamed up about the fire/kin and changed your toon...however you got 2 months to .l. one..you can get it in two days so get to work son. now that your on the block...put up or get out. ... oh and the reason i use a.e. is faster lvling...when you HAVE money...you buy them at whatever price..you dont rely on drops..thats why |
Second, saying your mission is Min and Lts only still doesn't say much. With customized critters, they could still be uber deadly. You're fire tank could be rendered impotent by minion critters maxed out on Rad debuffs and packing full Sonic Blast. If your map has toons with high mez protection, then yes, you'd be able to outdo a fire/kin. It's easy to brag if you've stacked the deck. Also, its pretty suspicious to list all 3 challenges out, without offering your opponent to choose a setting for you to bring your tank.
Now, you could be called out for "laming up" yourself. Because only now have you mentioned that this is farming for PL. Which means needing a different farm tactic entirely from doing it for drops/money. Most people refer to PLing as "PLing" not "farming." But that's rhetoric, so I won't hold you to it so much. Would you be able to say you can farm for drops faster? Which is probably what most people in the thread have been concerned with.
On a side note, thanks for buying things at whatever price. I'm sure you've helped pay for builds of mine without me having to do much work myself. Though, I hope you're not the reason in-game emails are so littered. After all, if all you've been doing is PL and done little for inf itself, one has to wonder. . .
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
Coldmed is lulzy 
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Why do you assume that Fire/Kins can't be softcapped?|
Originally Posted by Godlike_NA
fire/kins are squishy. my main is fire/ff/earth troller and can solo 8 man invincible demons. kills almost as fast as a fire/kin as well the way i have him built, but plays like a tank as he's softcapped. i do have two fire/kins as well, both with six sets of purples in them, but prefer to play my fire/ff's more.
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All else being equal, a Fire/Kin will kill roughly twice as fast as a Fire/FF Controller. Might turn out to be a little less in practice, because travel time and whatnot degrade the advantage from Fulcrum Shift -- but by the numbers, you're looking at attacks enhanced for ~200% damage versus attacks FS'ed to ~400% damage.
The FF has mez protection, which is nice in a general sense, but not particularly important for farming -- which allows you to choose non-mezzy enemies if you desire. What is helpful for farming is Transfusion, a power for which FF has no analog.
Thus, if anything, the Fire/Kin is a good deal less squishy than the Fire/FF when you're on a non-mezz farming map.
I suspect your Fire/Kins seem squishy to you because either you want a more generalized play experience (understandable), or you concentrated a little too much on those sexy purples to the detriment of other, cheaper sets which provide +DEF (specifically S/L DEF).
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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A Fire/Fire Blaster (or really, any Blaster, but particularly anything Fire/* or */Fire) cannot "stay alive even better than" a well-built Scrapper -- except in isolated circumstances. You can, for instance, cap out S/L DEF on such a Blaster fairly easily (relying largely on Frozen Armor from the Cold Mastery EPP), but the second you head into content that presents different challenges, you're mortal again -- still better off by far than your basic Blaster, but nowhere near as sturdy as your average Scrapper, much less an equivalently tricked-out one.|
Originally Posted by SinergyX_EU
Imho the flaw IO's have made, getting location defence is so freaking easy, every man and his dog can make a 'farmer' AT. Even good old fire/fire blasters nowadays can ditch out huge ammount of damage and stay alive even better then my scrapper. Even got better with the new /psi set and that regen thingie.
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The IO system is actually rather elegant in that sense; the devs appear to have intentionally deprived characters with lots of targeted AoE powers of meaningful +DEF bonuses. If you want to keep the powers themselves useful -- which after all would be half the point of playing such a character in the first place -- then you have to do what amounts to wasting slots, which could be used to pick up more +DEF bonuses, on them.
DEF bonuses appear to be concentrated within melee sets (both offensive and defensive), and within control or debuff effect sets. Same thing goes for procs, interestingly.
My Controller, as an example -- an Ice/Storm -- can achieve very nearly soft-cap DEF to both ranged and AoE attacks, and still maintain a very nice global +recharge (67.5%, IIRC). By contrast, my Fire/Mental Blaster can only soft-cap ranged DEF, or S/L DEF --not both, mind -- without making obscene build sacrifices elsewhere.
The main intrinsic, overall difference between the two characters, of course, is that the Controller is only capable of high offense in very limited circumstances, whereas the Blaster is a death machine.
IO +DEF bonuses are a very, very nice supplement for those people who want a more resilient squishy, but for general play, there are enough challenges in the game which either degrade or bypass entirely the defenses you can realistically achieve on most squishy builds.
All in all, I believe that melee ATs still are most elegible for the have-their-cake-and-eat-it-too award, even if a Fire Blaster can be crafted specifically for farming a particular mission.
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| So my choice remains fire/ss, ss/fire brute, claw or spine/fire scrapper. |
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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Never claimed to have one ... but I farm with a couple of them and I know how fast they farm ... and how fast a Fire/Fire/Pyre Tanker can farm. They win ... and its not even a contest. My Spines/Fire Scrapper farms faster then them. So even less of a contest.|
Originally Posted by Coldmed
krunchs point was my tank cant do squat against a fire.kin..which apparently he doesnt even have now
so now hes switching toons...well since scrappers are funny as farmers too now.. |
And this isn't bragging ... its just numbers. Look at the builds ... they just pour out more damage over a wide range of targets. So I'm not sure why this is even a debate.
The claim to fame that your Tanker can make (any Tanker for that matter) is that you can farm more difficult stuff then either my Scrapper or their Fire/Kins. That I wouldn't argue.
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ill be glad to watch you die in my mission krunnch...but i think its funny that your advice is worthless when you dont even HAVE one..at least my experience is from actual EXPERIENCE...not just random talk from you you "think" |
P.S. - I haven't seen a min/lt farm I couldn't afk through yet.
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and like i said....its not a regular mish..its not boss farming...its just minions and lts. but youll soon find out for yourself son. hope your up for the palace too....cause we going there as well... maybe we can make it 3 events.. one is a.e...2nd is storm palace..and ill come up with a 3rd one as well...farmers challenage it'll be called. |
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oh and krunch i wont bother talking about how you lamed up about the fire/kin and changed your toon...however you got 2 months to .l. one..you can get it in two days so get to work son. now that your on the block...put up or get out. |
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oh and the reason i use a.e. is faster lvling...when you HAVE money...you buy them at whatever price..you dont rely on drops..thats why this is about farming or p.ling..the POINT of it...is to lvl as fast as possible not get drops.which is why lots of people use a.e. farming...its just simply faster then boring old safe slow missions oh and ill be glad to frap it all too.. |
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Thats why i said 'my scrapper'. My BS/fire is only SO slotted, and where i have the money some normal crafted IO's. No sets, no purples, no nothing. Kinda like a pre-IO scrapper. So i have no defense, okish resist but thats about it. Getting too much damage, and without healing flames i'm pretty much dead. (where the blaster had backup from shield/tough, if a hit went through his 60ish% resist would take the hit).
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Originally Posted by Obitus
A Fire/Fire Blaster (or really, any Blaster, but particularly anything Fire/* or */Fire) cannot "stay alive even better than" a well-built Scrapper -- except in isolated circumstances. You can, for instance, cap out S/L DEF on such a Blaster fairly easily (relying largely on Frozen Armor from the Cold Mastery EPP), but the second you head into content that presents different challenges, you're mortal again -- still better off by far than your basic Blaster, but nowhere near as sturdy as your average Scrapper, much less an equivalently tricked-out one.
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Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
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While you're technically correct due to HPs only, I wouldn't say this is precisely true and in many circumstances far from true. The reason being is that most farming Blasters are going to have Hover/Fly and any Blaster that is running soft capped S/L, will have the ranged advantage over Scrappers which adds quite a bit to survivability. From a pure farming standpoint.|
Originally Posted by Obitus
A Fire/Fire Blaster (or really, any Blaster, but particularly anything Fire/* or */Fire) cannot "stay alive even better than" a well-built Scrapper -- except in isolated circumstances. You can, for instance, cap out S/L DEF on such a Blaster fairly easily (relying largely on Frozen Armor from the Cold Mastery EPP), but the second you head into content that presents different challenges, you're mortal again -- still better off by far than your basic Blaster, but nowhere near as sturdy as your average Scrapper, much less an equivalently tricked-out one.
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I agree in that you can't make a Tanker replacement Blaster, whereas you can with certain Scrapper builds for virtually all other content.
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I was just clarifying. I didn't mean to imply that somehow you had badly built your Scrapper, or that your general point about farming builds was wrong.|
Originally Posted by SinergyX_EU
Thats why i said 'my scrapper'. My BS/fire is only SO slotted, and where i have the money some normal crafted IO's. No sets, no purples, no nothing. Kinda like a pre-IO scrapper. So i have no defense, okish resist but thats about it. Getting too much damage, and without healing flames i'm pretty much dead. (where the blaster had backup from shield/tough, if a hit went through his 60ish% resist would take the hit).
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So if I gave either impression, I apologize.
It was just a matter of clearing up for anyone who might read your otherwise accurate post the matter of over-arching balance. Farming build have always, and I suspect will always, exist -- and as long as there's even one extremely effective farming build, it doesn't strike me as a balance problem that others can do it too, with imaginative use of IO set bonuses.
For general purpose play, a Blaster set up specifically for farming isn't going to be the best choice. I'm personally toying with the idea right now of tricking out an alternate build on my Fire/Ment specifically for farming, just to see how well I can make it perform, but you can bet I won't be ditching the current build, because it's about 200% better for most any TF I do, and it's about 1000% more exemplar friendly for those TFs which require exemplaring.
Your experiences are entirely valid, and accurate for what they're worth. The only thing I'd say about your specific case -- with the non-IOed BS/Fire Scrap -- is that Fiery Aura is about as weak as they come, by default. I'd still take it, narrowly, over a soft-capped ranged or S/L DEF Blaster in general play, because it has mez protection -- but at that point we're spliting hairs, and no one can demonstrate with any authority what particular form of mitigation is most important over a wide range of playstyles. The basic gist of my point was only to mention that a Scrapper, even without IOs, will tend to have many fewer holes in his protections.
And so I made that case, in my typically over-verbose manner.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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Well, there are any number of approaches possible, and any number of preferred farming environments. Perhaps my recent experience has exaggerated the importance of boss farms, because those are the only so-called farming maps I've run recently.|
Originally Posted by Kruunch
While you're technically correct due to HPs only, I wouldn't say this is precisely true and in many circumstances far from true. The reason being is that most farming Blasters are going to have Hover/Fly and any Blaster that is running soft capped S/L, will have the ranged advantage over Scrappers which adds quite a bit to survivability. From a pure farming standpoint.
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That said, if you're not fighting something that will melt in the first salvo, then the fully ranged approach may run into problems keeping the mobs in place for easy AoEing.
Mostly I was looking at the question from the perspective of the two builds the poster specifically mentioned -- Fire/Fire and Fire/Mental. Both have compelling reasons to enter melee range, the former because one of his best AoE powers is a melee power, and the latter both because his second (or third, depending on how you look at it) best AoE attack is in melee, and because Drain Psyche, the +regen/+recovery power mentioned, is PBAoE.
My theory, in short, is you almost have to choose S/L DEF over ranged to maximize AoE damage potential for farming, because if you pick an exclusively S/L-damage mission, then you're covered from all positions. Also, if you are going to dash back and forth from melee to cone range for maximum AoE DPS, then flying is less efficient than jumping or running.
The flaws in the S/L +DEF approach, for non-farming scenarios -- and these were foremost in my mind when I wrote the quote you cited -- are that:
A) Nearly half of your DEF shuts off when you're mezzed, because you're relying heavily on an APP toggle power.
B) By the same token, any time you join a team doing exemplared content, you're likely to lose nearly half your DEF.
C) Apropos of SynergyX's theory, you cannot layer meaningful amounts of RES underneath your S/L DEF on such a Blaster build, because the choice of the Cold APP Shield precludes you from taking the Fire, Force, or Electrical shields.
Thus, for the general game, I would, and have, gone with the all-ranged, ranged-soft-cappd, Hovering Blaster -- and I agree it's a very solid choice, but it isn't without its holes. As with the previous poster, though, I don't think there's any definitive way to prove whether the range advantage compensates for the much more robust collection of mitigation powers offered to Scrappers -- and an all-ranged Blaster almost always pays a significant opportunity cost, because many of Blasters' best attacks are melee.
Either way, while we can debate the relative survivability of tricked out Blaster builds and SO Scrapper builds -- there should't be any question that equivalently tricked out Scrapper builds are far, far sturdier.
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| I agree in that you can't make a Tanker replacement Blaster, whereas you can with certain Scrapper builds for virtually all other content. |
Part of the reason I like PuGs, despite the bad rap they get on the forums. I like trying to turn lemons into lemonade.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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Ah true ... its very dependant upon the builds we're talking about and I certainly wouldn't recommend a Blapper build for farming (especially over a Scrapper). However my Fire/Dev Blaster can keep mobs in place (Caltrops) and disintegrate bosses (usually takes two full cycles of my AOEs (15 secs?)) and generally doesn't have a problem surviving salvos from the pack, between his defense and ranged attacks being generally weaker then melee. I definitely feel more comfortable on my Scrappers although I would say while my Spines/Fire Scrapper is a faster farmer, the Fire/Dev Blaster does it more safely and almost can match the speed. My Dark/Inv Scrapper can snooze through boss farms but doesn't do them with the speed of either the aforementioned.|
Originally Posted by Obitus
Well, there are any number of approaches possible, and any number of preferred farming environments. Perhaps my recent experience has exaggerated the importance of boss farms, because those are the only so-called farming maps I've run recently.
That said, if you're not fighting something that will melt in the first salvo, then the fully ranged approach may run into problems keeping the mobs in place for easy AoEing. Mostly I was looking at the question from the perspective of the two builds the poster specifically mentioned -- Fire/Fire and Fire/Mental. Both have compelling reasons to enter melee range, the former because one of his best AoE powers is a melee power, and the latter both because his second (or third, depending on how you look at it) best AoE attack is in melee, and because Drain Psyche, the +regen/+recovery power mentioned, is PBAoE. |
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| My theory, in short, is you almost have to choose S/L DEF over ranged to maximize AoE damage potential for farming, because if you pick an exclusively S/L-damage mission, then you're covered from all positions. Also, if you are going to dash back and forth from melee to cone range for maximum AoE DPS, then flying is less efficient than jumping or running. |
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The flaws in the S/L +DEF approach, for non-farming scenarios -- and these were foremost in my mind when I wrote the quote you cited -- are that: A) Nearly half of your DEF shuts off when you're mezzed, because you're relying heavily on an APP toggle power. |
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| B) By the same token, any time you join a team doing exemplared content, you're likely to lose nearly half your DEF. |
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| C) Apropos of SynergyX's theory, you cannot layer meaningful amounts of RES underneath your S/L DEF on such a Blaster build, because the choice of the Cold APP Shield precludes you from taking the Fire, Force, or Electrical shields. |
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| Thus, for the general game, I would, and have, gone with the all-ranged, ranged-soft-cappd, Hovering Blaster -- and I agree it's a very solid choice, but it isn't without its holes. As with the previous poster, though, I don't think there's any definitive way to prove whether the range advantage compensates for the much more robust collection of mitigation powers offered to Scrappers -- and an all-ranged Blaster almost always pays a significant opportunity cost, because many of Blasters' best attacks are melee. |
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| Either way, while we can debate the relative survivability of tricked out Blaster builds and SO Scrapper builds -- there should't be any question that equivalently tricked out Scrapper builds are far, far sturdier. |
But having said that, I agree that this is not normally the case.
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Yeah, and you can come close on some Controllers/Defenders, after a fashion. I guess what those builds do wouldn't be fully analogous to tanking as the term is technically understood, but in a pinch such a build can carry even a bad team. Part of the reason I like PuGs, despite the bad rap they get on the forums. I like trying to turn lemons into lemonade. |
And Fire/Kins are just sick ... especially well built ones. I've yet to see another AT that has *that* big of a difference from one build to another.
And I enjoy PUGs mainly to see the good and the bad operate. I learn from both and usually get a giggle out of it to boot.
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Yeah, Devices is a bit of a black sheep in that it doesn't have any true melee powers to speak of, and it has a little more ranged control than most other sets (which is to say, not much, but enough for farming purposes). It also provides native +DEF, even if only a little.|
Originally Posted by Kruunch
Ah true ... its very dependant upon the builds we're talking about and I certainly wouldn't recommend a Blapper build for farming (especially over a Scrapper). However my Fire/Dev Blaster can keep mobs in place (Caltrops) and disintegrate bosses (usually takes two full cycles of my AOEs (15 secs?)) and generally doesn't have a problem surviving salvos from the pack, between his defense and ranged attacks being generally weaker then melee. I definitely feel more comfortable on my Scrappers although I would say while my Spines/Fire Scrapper is a faster farmer, the Fire/Dev Blaster does it more safely and almost can match the speed. My Dark/Inv Scrapper can snooze through boss farms but doesn't do them with the speed of either the aforementioned.
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At the risk of going off-topic even more than I have already, my current plan for my Fire/Ment experiment is to slot Snow Storm for slow (Curtail Speed has some incidental S/L +DEF and a very small +rech bonus) to keep mobs more or less in place. Remains to be seen how well it will work; I know that on my Controller, Snow Storm tends to make mobs scatter a bit, even though there's no avoid effect explicitly listed on City of Data.
Then again, Slammer bosses seem to have an unusual predisposition towards clumping. We'll see.
In any case, I pretty much have to be in melee at least part of the time on that build. While living at range is generally safer, one of my biggest mitigation powers comes from melee.
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| Any of my toons that don't have mez protection are usually well stocked with Break Frees and this never really presents a problem except with the oddball case of timing between getting mezzed and breaking free (if I happen to catch another salvo). |
Mind Control powers, which are quite prevalent, bypass positional DEF, too -- which means you're going to get hit with a lot of them whether you choose S/L DEF or ranged.
In any case, mez may not be a huge factor in the general case, but there is a distinction to be drawn between the S/L-DEF blaster who's reliant on toggles for the bulk of his mitigation, and the ranged-DEF Blaster (or whatever), who still can have 35% DEF even when his toggles are down.
And when exemplared. Most of my builds are exemplar friendly down to about level 30. YMMV, but I usually feel that, if I'm going to be spending mondo cash, I want to maintain maximum effectiveness when someone shouts about a lower-level TF or whatever.
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| True but Scrappers run into this problem as well ... both suffer from squishy syndrome at the lower levels. Change mindsets up, especially if you don't exemp a lot is sometimes tough for the player to do (I know it is for me). |
Regardless, the major disadvantage, throughout the wider range of game content -- and which I forgot to mention -- for S/L DEF as opposed to ranged DEF is that it covers you against a smaller proportion of attacks, in my experience. When S/L DEF is good, it tends to be very, very good, but when it's bad, it tends to be very, very bad. Assuming you play primarily at range, with Hover, the ranged DEF build provides a more consistent experience, throughout the level range, throughout most of the game's varied content, and when for whatever reason you're in danger of losing your toggle powers.
And, as previously noted, the ranged DEF approach allows you to stack ~20-50% S/L RES beneath it.
AoE attacks are pretty common, but they're also not overwhelmingly typed as S/L attacks for the purpose of opposing DEF. At least not IME.
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Generally speaking true, but again within terms of farming only I can see some Blaster builds (Fire/Dev being one of them) that can be superior to equivelant Scrapper builds in that they both survive but the Blaster in some cases can farm faster. But having said that, I agree that this is not normally the case. |
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| And Fire/Kins are just sick ... especially well built ones. I've yet to see another AT that has *that* big of a difference from one build to another. |
So if your habit is to farm in a small team, as I suspect many people do, even if they don't technically consider it farming, the Fire/Kin still wins, even if Coldmed or anyone else can find a way to prove the solo case for his Fire Tanker.
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| And I enjoy PUGs mainly to see the good and the bad operate. I learn from both and usually get a giggle out of it to boot. |
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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The fact that fire/kins can self buff speed and damage lets the build focus on other things. I don't think tank, scrapper or blaster archtypes have a build that can cap S/L defense, cap damage, come close to HP cap, capable of achieving permahasten and do it for under 20 million. This sample build uses minimum level IOs to achieve everything I listed.
For the low end cost farmer, I don't think there is anything close to a fire/kin... unless it is a something else controler/kin.
| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
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I can do all that on my SD/DM Tanker now .... but it's not a 20mil build either (more like 300mil at this point).
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Originally Posted by NeonPeon
The fact that fire/kins can self buff speed and damage lets the build focus on other things. I don't think tank, scrapper or blaster archtypes have a build that can cap S/L defense, cap damage, come close to HP cap, capable of achieving permahasten and do it for under 20 million. This sample build uses minimum level IOs to achieve everything I listed.
For the low end cost farmer, I don't think there is anything close to a fire/kin... unless it is a something else controler/kin. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1419;679;1358;HEX;| |78DAA5944953135110C7DF64B240F610206189C82A0804B8B 91CAC12A15488A6C4F| |2A452310C3055D4249589557A12172C0FA8E07212D4AF61F9 355C4EA21F40BD7BB0| |6277FF5F80426F4E25FFDFBC7EDDAFDFF4EB99DCAD3361A55 64F29233EB95270DDF| |9C99253AD945656AC8A2F5758B28B2AA094EADAB3D61DB2D3 76C5AA0FD2FBE64FDF| |5C5CCCCED88E55B58B6EE29CB36C552CA79AADDF84F3250A9 EB50A65DB59C260DAA| |E3A96EB06653057B6AC8558DD69C1AAB8CB76B969AA6C17B3 73D59263CDE70A6ED5| |AADC4ED3B686E8FFC050FAAAF9D44B1A2495E705B021F06E0 2CF05FE6782A9FD511| |7699051FEBCA06116B82008CE002D26E3210D0C1D65205718 B9C2C81545AE2892C4| |91728DD44494697EF028D5A8E21F054D9F80CF8256AAB44F9 6AF797D31BA49ABE62| |81014B4868088E01169406F26F0D6E015D25BC0B6A0FD35F0 46D0C9BE5E539DE591| |E191DD342AD83A13E0A103F4534C083B52A1286C29B245905 645B42D40B618FC8C5| |810B609CD1E9A4B60CE9338B0FE61CD06F249C2C74CFAF5DC 014ED4E852E7C9AB45| |676FD14F9420A610ED4BA16EDDA85B37EAD68DBAF5A26EBDB F15D72349516D7ACF6| |DAFE4007AB704699AE9D0393A748EE6009F3FBC33F0EE83F7 3AADD1A54FB7EB0B66| |7604035F816F026EAB1E7D5C3D9B646A567D1B828175C191C 7C013E0A9204751FDD| |27335B35F9FD650E2DFFC4E4D36A8330CDE97D63B7A075805 EE0A46EE016B92E107| |450DEBAE1B46F54650BD51546F14D51B45F57ED1D722AB1F3 78B661E43338FA199C| |7D0CC3F69D9715DB071BDC189143AD1BBFBEED18F4F75F62F 4BDEBBFBA629432C99| |3D9FFFBADE85EBEB345EE216BDCC9267B9C27295E51ACB759 602CB0D96224BEDFD6| |E74EC186FE838CB0996932CEBEC1408918458C22C1196284B 8C25CE926469656967| |D966A9FD0161ACF144| |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |
Quote:
My mid's dont wanna import it - weird, but a rough gues this is all plain based on /kin.|
Originally Posted by NeonPeon
The fact that fire/kins can self buff speed and damage lets the build focus on other things. I don't think tank, scrapper or blaster archtypes have a build that can cap S/L defense, cap damage, come close to HP cap, capable of achieving permahasten and do it for under 20 million. This sample build uses minimum level IOs to achieve everything I listed.
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In that line, i would pick any other primairy of troller (or even a defender/corr) and they would possibly do the same. The 'succes' is pure due kin, grab a /rad or even /storm (dunno if that even is viable), and suddenly u can scratch quite a few options. (perm.hasten, speed, cap dmg).
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
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Quote:
Nooooo ... Fire is easily the most damaging of the Controller sets and paired with Kin, exponentially so.|
Originally Posted by SinergyX_EU
My mid's dont wanna import it - weird, but a rough gues this is all plain based on /kin.
In that line, i would pick any other primairy of troller (or even a defender/corr) and they would possibly do the same. The 'succes' is pure due kin, grab a /rad or even /storm (dunno if that even is viable), and suddenly u can scratch quite a few options. (perm.hasten, speed, cap dmg). |
I have a 45 Ill/Kin and while decent, it doesn't have anywhere near the kill speed of a Fire/Kin. It's the synergy of both that makes it such a great damage set.
Back in the day of the 9 monkeys, a Fire/Rad was really nice (still not nearly as disgusting as a Fire/Kin but certainly less button mashing involved). Today however the difference is staggering.
I was playing with a Fire/SD scrapper and invited a friend to join me, he's a ice/SS tank. I was actually surprised he was killing at least as fast as I was, but then I only have a 30 second SC and a 7 seconds FSC. Whereas he's playing with Icicles, Footstomp and Fireball.
I'm a long time lover of tanks but I've changed to scrappers (nowadays pretty much as tough as tanks and able to smack all that breathes at them wrong). Watching him got me an itch to try a tank again for the only reason I can't settle on a scrapper that satisfies me across the board.
I was looking at a SD/Fire in particular. Combustion is the suck, low low low damage and a three second cast, yikes. FoB is nice, but requires jumping and out of the spawns which is a loss of time and of AaO buff. FSC is its usual lovely self, same with Fireball.
In the end it's really just two extra AoEs than the scrapper version, which I suppose might be enough to overcome the lower damage of scrappers and actually catch up.
Click this DataLink to open the build!
I roughly see it as a potencial to do a chain of BU + Fire Sword Circle + Shield Charge + Fireball + Combustion + Fire Sword Circle. And then while BU is down just cycle those three while using a chain of Incinerate + Fireblast + Greater Fire Sword + Fireblast + Incinerate for ST.
Of course it's not a scrapper, but it looks good enough on paper, mostly the burst opening with the BU chain, mop the remainers and use the leftover time until BU is up to herd a couple spawns more (bosses I mean).