Can EATs farm (well) ?

And by farm, I am mostly looking at +4/x8 or something similar that involves killing large amounts of enemies. Because really, any character can end up farming something that will transform into an advancement, but I'm interested in the power-leveling genre of farming (which, honestly, I've never been any good at, playing support-ish characters and all since recently).

I've been looking around my alts for one of them to become a dedicated farmer, but I'm stuck playing the epic archetypes (mostly the widow and warshade), so I'm beginning to search around and ask (hence this thread) about what some of the EATs can do in terms of farming.

I understand the basics of getting spammable / constant AoE abilities and the likes, but since my soldier is still going through the leveling process (as a bane, while I believe crabs have more AoE potential?) and so is my peacebrigner, it brings up multiple questions when it comes to what these characters might be able to do and what they wouldn't be able to.

So, hum, anyone have any experience or thoughts on the matter? I really haven't seen that many EATs recently... they used to be everyone a few years back, especially red side, did something wipe them out?

I'd say a crab would be your best bet. WAWG the group so they don't move, then hit them with VG, Sup, and FG. If you get high enough, 2 of the cones (forget names) in Leviathan are good to use. One debuffs resistance, and the other is all toxic, which VG debuffs extra. Just make sure your ranged defense is at least 32.5, which should be easy with the soldier maneuvers, and use purples as they drop, which will be a lot since you are farming. Also make sure the group isn't too spread out when you hit WAWG.

Crabs and Warshades can both farm the standard stuff pretty well to very well, depending.

Nightwidows can move through stuff very fast despite their high usage of ST damage. With a single PBAoE (Spin) and single-target chain aimed at the bosses you can clear a group as fast or faster than a Crab or Warshade.

It does depend on your playstyle to some extent to, but EATs are great.

If you are farming, why do you need it to be +4x8? Isn't +2x8 better or less?

As far as EATs go, Warshade should be able to. WS thrives in large crowds. Peacebringer... it will be tough. You definitely need a very well-slotted Human form because Nova can't survive and Dwarf takes forever to kill on its own.

I think a WS can definitely farm +0x8 depending on what type of enemies. Preferred one without too many mez attacks.

For warshades, do a standard PI farm (demons is good), at +anything/x8, no bosses. Bosses slow them down too much as their aoe is soooo much better. You need enough recharge to get and keep 3 pets going, perma-eclipse and close to perma-mire. The pets will more than double your dps. You can plow through those mobs as fast as anyone else. I wouldn't really try to get extra dwarf mires, that will just take up too much time for too little return.

If you want to use a NW, you could try your hand at ambush farms in AE. That would allow you to make best use of spin. Crabs have better cone attacks, and will do better in the standard PI farms like warshades.

I should've thanked you for linking the guide, sorry for forgetting this.

The only reason why I'm looking into making a farmer out of an EAT is because I enjoy their playstyle, or at least the feeling that I get by playing them (might have to do with the costumes too), and wouldn't be able to farm on a /fire toon. I've leveled a /fire Brute and Scrapper with the AE alone, and although the scrapper reached 47, the brute has been stuck at 26-8 (can't remember since I don't even think of playing her). I have since come to the conclusion that /fire is not really for me.

As for the +2/3 vs +4, it is mostly for pling purposes, since while I do not intend to simply do that, I did not want to completely forgo the option. Probably should have mentioned it first, but I didn't think about it enough, I guess.

On the kheldians feeling overshadowed, it was mostly about a general level of play rather than anything specific.
(On a personal experience, I had insane trouble soloing Trapdoor on my warshade, even when knowing what to do, while on my widow I simply walked up to him and beat him to death, without knowing what his 'clones' did.)
I think they are the two ATs that I simply do not see outside of AE and, perhaps this is just a misconception but, people seem to want almost anything except a warshade on their team, more so on TFs than the typical team.

Lastly, thanks for the advice on the Warshade and Night Widow, Microcosm.

Although I'd still like to know what people think of a melee fort for farming

Farming daemons on my incarnate Warshade is just beautiful and IMHO a lot of fun. I run at +0x8 as that is the quickest and easiest for me:

Eclipse, Mire, Well, Unchain, Quasar, Blue, Stygian, Nova and pick off stragglers
Next group, Mire, Judgement, Nova and pick off stragglers
Extract Essence as available. Rinse, repeat.

My Crabs are great farmers but only in a pair, on their own they are a little anaemic.

My warshade farms on x8+4 without bosses when solo, and on teams with bosses as long as there's a steady supply of vengeance bait (usually not a problem.) You'll definitely need perma eclipse if you want to make it happen.. That high recharge will help you with your mire stacking also. The faster they recharge the better. Against non rezzing enemies, I like to stealth or TP into a spawn, eclipse>dwarf mire>human mire>quasar>small blue>stygian circle and then dwarf mire>unchain essence, gravity well, dwarf mire, Nova AoE's... Against rezzing enemies, I open up with eclipse>judgement since it's crashless and then stack mires for quasar that way I know I have bodies to fill my end up with. (Judgement will not be enhanced by mires, so no need to stack them up first)

It goes pretty smoothly against most enemy groups. The AE farms can be hard with the beginning of waves because the enemies always rez, so you'll have to kill some a couple of times for unchain essence and stygian circle but it's still doable.

My warshade also soloed the incarnate arc, I think he killed Trapdoor in under a minute as an elite boss... He could probably solo AV's now if I switched the 75% DoT in interface over to 75% -regen (or worked to get it to t4, but meh.)