Epic Slayers Stat Farming Guide
Speaking as Flarrg, Leader of the Epic Slayers alliance, this is my feeble attempt at crafting a guide to stat farming in Legacy of a Thousand Suns. First off, what is
farming?
Farming is the act of participating in many raids at one time while dealing an optimal amount of damage in order to maximize your returns. Depending on your build, and how you want to gear your character, the type and difficulty of raids you'll want to target will vary. This is a guide that will help you to not only understand
how to farm, but which raids to choose, and where to go to find them.
Why is stat farming important?
The importance of stat farming really depends on what you expect to get out of your time in LoTS. Many of the raids that are being released these days require massive amounts of damage to score the epic loot items available, and unfortunately without banking loads of stat points it is nearly impossible to meet some of these damage requirements. Additionally, many of the larger bosses, especially mission bosses, deal extremely heavy damage. In an alliance raid this isn't much of a problem, because you can simply heal by purchasing a refill. On a Mission boss, however, that isn't the case, and without a proper defense score, your world can get easily rocked.
So, in order to output decent damage with minimal stamina or honor, and to keep yourself from getting smashed by mission bosses, as well as to excel in other areas of the game (such as Galaxydome), it's important to score as many stat points as possible. And, of course, logically, the more stamina and energy you have, the higher your LSI and the quicker you will gain levels.
Where can I find stat farming raids?
There are several places to find farming raids.
Forums
While the LoTS forums are a great place to locate raids, it's a complete hit or miss for finding an active one, and your chances of landing in a raid with attackers that are following FS rules for farming are slim to damn-near none. But alas, the forums
are a means to finding raids.
Alliance
Alliances are another resource for farming raids. The Epic Slayers are striving to build a good foundation of farming raids of all sizes and difficulties. The benefit to participating in alliance-only raids is just that; they are
alliance only. You don't have to worry about any outside attackers barging in and mucking up the optimal rewards system by dealing eight times the FS, and you don't have to worry about taggers.
Farming Groups
Undeniably the BEST solution to finding farming raids is to join a group on FB that is dedicated to farming. These groups often have stipulations and guidelines that one must follow, but the rewards that can be gained from such a structured system are phenomenal. It is feasible that you can log nearly 100 stat points in a day with just a little bit of effort, determination, and self-management. If you are looking for a farming group, we have posted a few of them right
HERE (this document is for Epic Slayers members only, and is stored on our FB page).
Okay, now that you know
what stat farming is, and
where to go to find the proper raids,
how exactly do you participate? Well, that part is simple. Determine which raids are right for you, join them, and stay within the FS to Optimal FS range.
FS (Fair Share)
- A term that refers to the fair amount of damage that each attacker should be dealing. To determine Fair Share, simply divide the boss' total HP by the total number of possible attackers. A
FANTASTIC spreadsheet for Fair Share and Optimal Fair Share values was created by RIVAL at the Kongregate forums. That document can be found
HERE.
***The following information was pasted from Rafael's post on the LoTS forum. I do not take credit for any of the information below. The original article can be found
here.***
From a purely theoretical point of view, optimizing your farming routine is quite simple. All you need to do is follow 4 simple rules. I decided to give each of them somewhat fancy names so it would be easier to reference them later (plus, they sound cool):
Principle of Logic: always use Better to Receive.
Principle of Priority: if you have to waste resources on level up, waste energy.
Principle of Efficiency: always aim for the correct damage ranges.
Principle of Consistency: concentrate on the good raids.
So let us discuss each of these principles more thoroughly.
1. Principle of Logic
This should be fairly obvious - if you're stat farming, you'd want BtR on all raids. In general, it would be correct to have BtR right from the start. An early BtR has 2 advantages:
- It brings people to the raid, which translates to indirect damage.
- It prevents the raid from dying without it.
2. Principle of Priority
Also pretty straightforward. Basically this principle tells us that whenever you have more than enough resources to level up, you should use stamina (or honor), and the resource to be wasted should be energy. This is because energy is the least efficient resource for stat farming.
3. Principle of Efficiency
In order to be an efficient farmer, you would need to spend your stamina wisely. That means, avoid underhitting and overhitting.
There are basically two things that control the loot - time, and damage. Let's assume all farming raids end up fast. So in general terms, we could say damage determines the loot.
Generally speaking, dealing your "fair share" (ie, the HP/Max_Slots value) yields 1 epic. Sure, it's random - so sometimes you'll get 0, and sometimes 2, possibly even 3. But on average it should be 1.
The "fair share" is not the ideal amount though - if you deal more than your fair share, you'd get more epics. Many players would agree that the ideal damage would be the least amount that gives 3 epics (almost always). Shooting for 4 epics is possible, but requires way too much damage, whereas shooting for 2 epics usually requires almost the same amount of damage anyway.
Let's see some examples. From personal tests, it seems that the following damages (usually) give 3 epics on normal difficulty (for NM raids, deal twice this value):
Void Killers: 250k
Ragebeast: 300k
Telemachus: 400k
Cybertollahs: 550k
Carnus: 650k
Carnifex: 800k
Cruiser: 1.1m
Rautha: 1.2m (not sure, I don't farm them much)
Dealing more than the damages shown is only bad because it means you've wasted stamina. So if you end up overhitting because of a proc, critical, or tactic, then no harm done.
Also, we're assuming here the player wants the epic components - if you're after the lower ones, it would be advisable to deal lower damage than the values above. In this particular case, overhitting can be hurtful even if it happens for free.
4. Principle of Consistency
If you want to be a consistent farmer you'd need to farm only the good raids. The definition of a good raid, however, is subjective, and it depends on your firepower, available playing time, and your goals.
Though Rafael did post some general FS numbers in his stat farming guide, I suggest using the spreadsheet I linked to earlier in this document. On Rafael's post you can also find a generic 'raid choice depending on goal' outline.
So there you have it, a complete guide to stat farming in LoTS. I hope this helps you pump stats into your character like they're steroids. If you have any questions or concerns don't hesitate to bring them to our attention!
This document, though written by Flarrg, is comprised of knowledge gathered from many different sources, and is ultimately a collaboration of those sources, regardless of their direction contribution to this article. Thanks goes out to Rafael, Gehv, and Tarv for bestowing their techniques and knowledge.
Commemorative Coin Slot Machine
Felendis
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Odyssey
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Emporer's Signet
Azrael Battle Cuirass
Hujing of the First Emporer
Death Machine
Antimatter Whip
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Upgraded Antimatter Whip
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