For the last Freakin' Time! A list of Farmers...

Right so why the numbers then? Kinda makes it look like its order of importance and as others have posted before in this thead.. you only need one build to farm SS/Fire. The intentional point I made here is this.. people don't read anything they just look. In this case a nice numbered list of best to worst is something to look at.

Nope, you assume that I think you(others) have some agenda(although not sure what that would be.. you all get paid to convert or start people on ss/fire builds?). Not at all. But in game its hard not to notice the swelling numbers of the #1 farm type.

I am sure that a list with "no particular order" is better understood without numbers beside them becasue for all you are saying it looks much different on paper and in game atm.

Its nice that you encourage everyone to be free and choose what they like.. but if you sticky the thing I am sure most people will look at #1 and say.. ya I guess that's the best.

Maybe the list should just say "Recommended Farm Builds" or something to that effect so as not to make it confusing, if that is the true agenda.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Incubbus A: The OP stately quite plainly that, other than SS/Fire, the rest were listed in no particular order of effectiveness. B: You're assuming everyone helping out new guys here have some agenda to push regarding "the best is the best" rather than "the best -of- the best." Some of us -actually- prefer to simply narrow a list of options down for a player to help them avoid potential problems with a combo because the set, despite how attractive it may be, might not have the tools to do what the prospective player wants done. Yes, one perspective is that we limit a player's options, but the other side of the spectrum is that.. we're not saying "do this and only this," we're saying: "These options here can work very well with what you have in mind, and here are the reasons why I believe that. As for what's 'best,' that's extremely personal, and we encourage you to branch out and find your preferred set." We don't want to keep people from playing anything in particular, but we also don't want them bashing their heads against a brick wall trying to make something do something it's not mechanically inclined to perform.

Updated the OP. Any other suggestions?

Interesting thread and first thing that I saw since it was stickied.
Anyway, for the sake of analysis, I reorganized the melee sets by armor. If it has ( ? ), nobody suggested to pair that melee set with the armor.

-Super Strength/Fiery Aura
-Fire Melee/Fiery Aura
-Electric Melee/Fiery Aura
-Dark Melee/Fiery Aura
-Stone Melee/Fiery aura
-Claws/Fiery Aura

-Super Strength/Invulnerability
-Fire Melee/Invulnerability
-Electric Melee/Invulnerability
( Dark Melee ? )
-Stone Melee/Invulnerability
-Claws/Invulnerability

-Super Strength/Electric Armor
-Fire Melee/Electric Armor
-Electric Melee/Electric Armor
( Dark Melee ? )
-Stone Melee/Electric Armor
-Claws/Electric Armor

-Super Strength/Shield Defense
-Fire Melee/Shield Defense
-Electric Melee/Shield Defense
( Dark Melee ? )
( Stone Melee ? )
( Claws ? )

-Super Strength/Willpower
-Fire Melee/Willpower
-Electric Melee/Willpower
( Dark Melee ? )
-Stone Melee/Willpower
-Claws/Willpower

-Super Strength/Dark Armor
-Fire Melee/Dark Armor
-Electric Melee/Dark Armor
( Dark Melee ? )
-Stone Melee/Dark Armor
-Claws/Dark Armor

As you can see, with the exception of Shield, most of the armors mentioned were suggested to be paired with the 6 melee sets. Based on the above, Fiery Aura seems to be the most paired of all.

I'd like to propose a test, since I doubt that I'd be able to test these all myself. For the following categories, please post your build and your finish time.

[ EDIT: TV Lib kill all might take too long just for a test, so I propose an infamy per minute version:

Infamy test, 20 mins
1. Record starting infamy
2. Set alarm to 20 mins
3. Record end infamy, # of deaths ( if any ;D )

Peddler Category: +0 x 8 Nemesis TV Lib farm, Solo.
- for BRUTES with just common IOs or SOs.
Goal: Skip all mobs with glowies and kill fast for 20 mins

Broker Category: +2 x 8 Nemesis TV Lib farm, Solo.
- for BRUTES with builds that cost 1 billion or less to make.
Goal: Skip all mobs with glowies and kill fast for 20 mins

Tycoon Category: +2 x 8 Nemesis TV Lib farm, Solo.
- for BRUTES with very expensive builds or purple sets.
Goal: Skip all mobs with glowies and kill fast for 20 mins

[ end EDIT ]

Kill All Test:
Starter Category: +0 x 8 Nemesis TV Lib farm, Solo.
- for BRUTES with just common IOs or SOs.
Goal: Skip all mobs with glowies and kill everyone else.

Champion Category: +2 x 8 Nemesis TV Lib farm, Solo.
- for BRUTES with builds that cost 1 billion or less to make.
Goal: Skip all mobs with glowies and kill everyone else.

Ultimate Category: +2 x 8 Nemesis TV Lib farm, Solo.
- for BRUTES with very expensive builds or purple sets.
Goal: Skip all mobs with glowies and kill everyone else.

Why 3 categories? Because not everyone may have the infamy to spend on a purpled build. So, what build is good to start with without much investment? That's what the Starter Category is for.

If you would like to suggest a particular farm, please do so. I suggested Nemesis since there's a good chance that people have this farm and if you don't, you can ask someone to start it for you.

AE farms might not be available for all servers, and I haven't done a lot of AE to suggest a farm that will test a build.

If you would like to participate, please do the test in the applicable category and post your finish time.

I like it better now that the ranking feel is gone. I mean SS/Fire might be the meal ticket for the moment but that could change sooner than later as we all know so more reason to try something else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robot_Apple Don't get me wrong BBJ, I am not exactly happy with the current state of the game either. It's not cool to see tons of ss/fire brutes running around. Personally I think SS/fire sucks and I would LOVE to see someone other than myself running around with a claws/fire or omg heaven forbid! Claws/DA (I know, it's terrible, why would anyone want all that awesomeness?! I mean what's the point in having tons of mitigation for minions/LT's, an amazing self heal, and oh yeah... cool looking armors too?) The point of the list however is to prevent some of the crap threads from people asking "Hey whats the best farmer?" from popping up.

Testing using 1 specific farm will not give you accurate overall results. While Shield is not that great at nem farms once the LTs die it can be great in other areas vs mobs without to hit buffs. Likewise /fire vs all fire mobs will do much better than vs all psi mobs but WP may do just fine vs both.

Also when shooting for the best inf/min ratio, +4 mobs are the worst way to go. +2 is normally the best setting w/o bosses.

I find +3x8 without bosses yields the best results for pure inf generation. My SS/Fire/Pyre usually earns 600k - 650k inf/minute on the Liberate TV mission with those settings.

I think it would be easier to just list the best farming primaries along with the best farming secondaries. Match then as you desire. Perhaps add a section that addresses a particular synergy between two sets.

And FWIW, a Claws/SR can pretty easily get Spin and Ball Lightning down to around 4 and 6 second recharge respectively while going a bit over soft cap.

Robot, I think your AE tests would cover more ground than my proposal. I agree that mine has limited coverage, but I at least wanted to start somewhere since I haven't seen any real numbers about a certain build's performance.
These tests take time, so if we can nail down the format to get results that will help us measure performance, then I'm all for tweaking the test parameters.
If you don't plan to, I'd be happy to gather any data that anyone posts and organize it. I'll try the AE tonight with my elec/Shield and post my results.

EDIT: pardon my newbie question. How do I turn off Bosses?

Any sort of sampling is a waste of time unless it happens in a short amount of time, is more controlled or is done by a robot or program in a repeatable, consistent fashion. Leaving it to the likes of me and Craaaaazy Larry is the wrong thing to do.

But good luck with it.

As promised, here are my results in the 1 billion or less category, +2x8:

Powersets - Elec Melee/Shield/Soul Mastery
Build Focus - Defense/HP
Inspirations? - Yes

Farm ID - 449116 (Nemesis Farm)
Time Completed - Unfinished, 30% of map only

Farm ID - 449127 (rikti)
Time Completed - Unfinished, 50% of map only
Inspirations? - Yes

Farm ID - 449129 (freak)
Time Completed - Unfinished, 80% of map only

Sadly, I wasn't able to finish any of the maps within the time limit. So I'm posting how much of it I finished. Some observations:
- Nemesis is suicide for this build. I asked a SS/Shield why he picked SS over elec melee, and he said Electric doesn't kill fast enough. I have to agree. There's not enough single target damage, so when the venge activates, it's a lot harder to kill.
- The Rikti were not that hard to fight, but a lot of them were ranged, so they were outside my AOEs, especially those healer types. Grrrr... They were also tuff to herd. But I laugh when their psi just rolls off me. Not a single stun.

Anyway, I'd prefer some data over something like:
- my xxx just destroys bleh
- xxx is more survivable, nothing can touch it

I think the only thing I'd tweak for the tests is to make the common IO/SO build difficulty to +0x8. The map is big enough, so the challenge for this build would be to try to finish it. Thanks for setting it up Robot!

The 1 bill vs very expensive/purple IOs would be an interesting comparison to have because it will show how much of a performance difference there is. Unfortunately, I am too poor to even buy purples, so I don't have any purpled brutes.

I'll do another run tomorrow. Anyway, I hope folks will do better than me, so dust off your favorite brute and show your stuff. To me, it was fun to do the tests and since I planned to farm anyway, why not take the challenge as well?

It seems a bit odd that LF would make such a huge difference in such a short amount of time.

To leverage Spin to its fullest, a taunt aura is needed. I can't imagine not having it on my Claws/DA Brute.

Well, I've only completed two of the maps so far. I think I'm going to wait until Justice server stops LCMing me before I do the third one.

Anyhow, my Brute is:

Electric / Fire Aura / Mu, 1+ billion build, using inspirations that drop

Although I have a 1+ billion build, I don't consider it essential for the build. For reference, my more relevant combat stats are roughly:
Smashing/Lethal: 51% resistance, 13.5% defense
Fire: 90% resistance, 11% defense
Energy: 35% resistance, 12% defense
Ranged: 13.5% defense
Max HP: 1800
Accuracy Bonus: 1.89x
Damage Bonus: 7%
Recharge Bonus: 60% (not counting hasten)

Most of the money in my build goes towards purples that I don't feel I really need, but they provide a nice recharge and accuracy bonus. I don't have any interesting procs (3 damage procs). I farm with this brute fairly often on a map with lots of fire-heavy attacks, and I have PLed people on it before (fewer inspirations drop, but on the fire heavy map I really don't need any insps to keep going). Oh, side note: I haven't respecced for a while... I do have burn (I used to combo it with immobilizations) but don't have Fiery Embrace. I haven't really looked into the new Fiery Embrace, so I don't really know if it's better to have, just noting that I don't have it.


So, map 1 (Nemesis) I think I did ok. I cleared the map with 11m46s to spare. I think I could probably do a bit better if I cared to though.

On map 2 (Rikti) I had some trouble. I only cleared about 90% of the map before time ran out. Part of this was frequent LCMing (I'm surprised I didn't die) and part was probably that I'm unfamiliar with the best way of farming these guys. The rikti are annoying. A lot of them will never run into melee, so you pretty much have to herd them (I went through several spawns before figuring that out) and frequently I would have ranged runners. Also, there are several locations on the map which are poor for herding. To get a spawn to a hard corner I would sometimes have to pull them quite a ways.

I'll give map 3 (Freakshow) a whirl at some point when the server likes me more.

Edit: I did map 3 (Freakshow) with about 13m30s left on the clock, barring a few rezzers and runners that weren't worth chasing down.

I did one run of the Nemesis farm with my SS/Fire, had approximately 19:45 left.