Hi, I need major advice on better equipment

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Exao
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Hi, I need major advice on better equipment

Post by Exao » Thu Dec 06, 2007 9:45 pm

Hi,

my friend and I have been playing on free accounts for a while now. We're level 24 and have decided to disable XP gain so we can stay in the subway. The reason is, we noticed that some other players do WAY more damage than us, some that are even lower level than us o_O. We figured they had found better loot, and we just haven't yet, so we turned XP off to keep looking.

Here's what I don't get. Everything we find is crap. All of it is really really bad, except for Living Cyber armor, and some boots of infinite speed I found. Like.. a pistol will require pistol, shotgun, and burst, and have a total attack time of 3 sec and do 2-30 damage or something. The same is true for items rolled in mission terms.. they're like.. all crap. The beginner weapons from newb island are better (so far).. My friend is a 2h blunt Enforcer, and he's still using the Balanced War Hammer from newb island.. We did finally - finally! - find a new hammer for him deep in deepsub, AND it did more damage, yay - oops, with an 8 second attack time - useless.

We can kill Striker Forman, Eumenides, and Virgil, but even they don't seem to drop anything good. If I remember right, Virgil dropped a club with bad stats a random imp and that was it.

We don't how some other players in the subway do way better than us. I saw a lvl 15 Atrox with an SMG, who had like 7 muties on him and was barely getting scratched, and was doing like 150-200 dmg per shot. I do about 30-80 dmg per punch (I'm MA) and my friend does about 30-50 dmg per swing. I also saw another MA, level 24, same as me, except he was soloing Abmouth, doing like 200+ dmg per punch!! I'd do like 30 per hit to him and die in about 5 hits... I just don't get it.

I asked around a bit and learned of some decent stuff from Totw, like Exarch Robe, and Ring of Three or somethin, but I'm assuming those are from bosses... how are we supposed to kill those bosses if we can't even kill the subway boss yet lol :) And even so, it doesn't seem like those two or three items would make the HUGE dmg difference I was seeing...

Another player told me I should get some armor built, like Carbonum or CAS Symbiotic.. I've seen a lot of players in subway with Carbonum, a LOT. Thing is, we don't have enough money to pay someone for a full set. We each have about 200k... so how do 20 level 15's have enough money each for a full set of that..?

I checked out the Quest Guides on this site and I didn't find too much, I figured there'd be more quests in the game, like quests for that Carbonum armor maybe or quests for those high damage weapons those people use.

Please help us. We're getting tired of useless gear and doing tiny damage compared to the other people we see who rush in and kill the bosses by themselves. It's very frustrating not knowing how they are doing it and what to do... we MUST be doing something wrong. It's also very frustrating fighting a gray mob like a Slum runner, which means the game thinks the mob is too easy for me so it gives me the smallest amount of XP possible (1 xp), and getting a critical hit on this gray mob.. and still seeing this gray mob with 75% of his health afterwards. That should give you an idea of our experiences so far. Advice would be extremely appreciated... Thank you.. :oops:

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Uragon
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Post by Uragon » Thu Dec 06, 2007 10:30 pm

One thing you will have to realize is that a lot of those superior characters you encountered (and will encounter) were made by veterans in the game who can literally spend millions of credits on their starting equipment. There are weapons and equipment out there (some of which require expansions to equip) which mades you vastly superior to your peers. Then there's buff nanos that they can have run on them by their main characters or friends, which make them virtually unkillable at that level. To be completely honest, unless you either pay through the nose for excellent equipment or get big nanos cast on you, your chances to kill Abmouth between the two of you are kind of slim.

If you're on Atlantean, feel free to post your character names. I might be able to get you set up with a set or two of carbonum armor to give you a better start. :)

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Hahnsoo
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Post by Hahnsoo » Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:11 pm

Don't stay in the subway. Keep leveling. There are only a handful of things that are worth getting and aside from the Boots of Infinite Speed, all of the rest are things that you can either buy later from other players or create another character to farm. If you are just starting out, there is no reason to level lock your characters. Also, the Subway doesn't have good loot, overall. The vast majority of it is Nano Crystals (useful to save a bit of early cash) and shop food.

As far as Subway Bosses, they are much more difficult than the average enemy in Temple of the Three Winds, so you should be able to kill at least a few cultists there. The regular cultists drop some fairly decent stuff unique to ToTW. For leveling a bit, I recommend running missions in your home town (avoid missions that take you far away, since your mobility is limited... stick to Rome or Athens or Borealis).

Do you have implants yet? Implants go a long way to increasing the amount of power that you have, and the ability boosts alone will allow you to equip bigger armor/weapons.

As far as Martial Arts, there is a peculiar behavior due to the fact that the Martial Arts "fist attack" is actually an invisible weapon that is changed/equipped upon logging in and out and zoning to new areas. If you spent a lot of time in a single zone, you do not give the weapon a chance to "update" based on your new skill (assuming you have leveled up several times and maxed out your MA skill each time). This isn't important in later levels (where leveling is slower and the damage increase isn't significant), but it is very important in early levels.

2HB enforcers have a rough start unless you can get your hands on an Icebreaker (dyna boss loot, goes for 1m-4m on the open market). There aren't very many weapons for them early on, but they do have a great endgame weapon (Howlet). Most people playing enforcers have an easier time with 2-Handed Edged, because of the plethora of free and strong 2HE weapons in Temple of the Three Winds.
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OTdude
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Post by OTdude » Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:08 am

These kind of people you see in the subway are called "Twinks." The only purpose for these people are to power level lower level alts, PvP, or tower battling for their org.

But i would strongly recommend you level your first toon, atleast to level 150+ to get a good feel for the game. However, if you choose to twink your first character, you must learn how to get buffs from the right proffessions and what those buffs are called. Most people at level 24 have QL 75-100 implants in, which boost their stats tremendously to get better weapons on.

Main Buffs for Twinking Include:

Essense of Behemoth (+27 Strength and Stamina) - Enforcer
Enhanced Senses (+15 Sense) - Agent
Feline Grace (+25 Agility) - Agent
Iron Circle (+20 Strength) - Doctor
Superior First Aid (+80 Treatment) - Doctor

Normal Buffs Include:

Expertise (+20 to specific stat) - Bought in any store, Basic Nano Section
Boost (+12 to specific ability) - Same as Expertise
Surgery Clinic (+100 Treatment) - Any Store selling Implants
Med Suit (+78 Treatment) - Bought for about 5k in Clothing Section (Random Parts Available, but fairly easy to get full set).

Then, finding the right weapons:

You must know the dungeons, Know or kindly ask higher level players to get you items from dungeons such as: Temple of Three Winds, Crypt of Home, etc. Most enforcer people twink using either 2hb weap (Ice Breaker) or use 2he weaps (Scythe or Stygian.) However, for a Martial Artist, I would recommend getting armor that boost your evades, make sure you max your evades, and try asking a Meta-Physicist or higher level Martial Artist to buff your evades before doing anything. This reason is because if you have enough evasions skill, NOTHING can hit you (unless its a high level mob).

And their are other proffession twinks that use different types of weapons that require very low requirments such as the trader (Pump Trainee, Pump Master, or anything that isnt trader specific, but can equip using drains and wrangles), an Doctor (using mostly Skulls or Pistols for damage and Heals if they are low on HP), but theres just too many to name them all.

But to do this, you must gather a lot of money and to do that, you must: level, get to know the game, roll or loot items that sell good.

So, dont worry about twinking for great damage at low levels until you think your sure you have the knowledge to do it and have the money.

I sure hope this helps you understand what they are, how they did it, and why you should wait until your ready, good luck on your travels and welcome to Rubi-Ka.

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Post by Snakebite » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:54 am

Ok, I'll admit that I didn't real all of this thread, however...

I didn't notice any mention from you about implants?
Check out the base ability buffs then go leaver in the biggest set of ready made profession implants you can get in (in the implant room of basic shops...)

Buff items to have, 2 x lvl10 Concrete cushions, 2 x Old English Trading Co Pistols... That's a good start, will help with implants...
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Post by OTdude » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:45 am

So.. basically what I just said... just more detailed in 1 part of it.

Exao
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Post by Exao » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:32 pm

Thanks for the replies, I'll try and respond to everything

@Uragon: I was afraid of them being low level alts of high levels.. sigh. It confuses me why superior armor like that exists for low levels if a normal low level could never have enough money to buy it or be skilled enough to build one himself :( Also, thanks so much for the offer, but we are on Rimor :)

@Hahnsoo: Darn, the reason we wanted to stay in the subway is for the unique items that Abmouth drops. My previous character was a Doctor and with a random deepsub team, we beat Abmouth and they gave me a ring from him, Ring of Bacola..er.. somethin? Think it increased NCU.. Well basically I read he drops items unique to him, plus, I just feel like I need to kill him before moving on to the next area, but maybe that's just not possible

The Icebreaker sounds interesting, but who is Dyna? A Totw boss?

@OTdude and Snakebite: Thanks for theinfo, I'd like to try that a little bit, so hmm.. everything I could try by myself is?:

expertises, boosts, clinic, buy med suit, 2x level 10 concrete cushions from missions,

and could you explain what 2x old english trading Co pistols are/do? do they add to base abilities or something? do they require pistolskill to equip?

also I've noted all the buffs I could ask for from others. but I have a question, am I supposed to tip them for the buff? I had a guy create like a level 35 imp for me (2 clusters), and I asked him how much people usually tip, and he said 500k. Not sure if he was joking or trying to rip me off or what but I told him I only had like 150k and asked if I could just give him 10k..

About implants: I haven't been using the implants from the personalized profession implant terminals, should I be? I heard once that implants that add to base abilities are better since they drip off into all subskills. For example my Chest implant is faded: STR, bright: PSY, shiny: SENS instead of like riposte, sensory.imp, etc. I have made some of my own using imps with nanoProg added and a NanoProg buff, but they are mostly QL 25-35. Is this the problem?


Thanks for the advice guys... also one more question, is there a full quest mission database for AO that says what level you should be and what faction etc? There seems to be a quest list on this site but it doesn't seem to have all of them (or does it?). I'm thinking even little stuff like quests for "Intelligent Kevlar Shoulderpads" would be of some extra help to us.

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Snakebite
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Post by Snakebite » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:18 pm

Ok, here we go... (this may ramble around a bit...)

First off, yes, get those proff implants, at the cost you can't beat them for ease & use...

Money... Loot EVERYTHING!!!!oneoneone fill all but 6 spaces of your inventory with small (the gray ones) backpacks & loot everything that isn't nailed down (& any you can crowbar up) or that isn't nodrop... throw it in the terminals, & I realy do mean everything...

You need a couple of third party programs Clicksaver & Nano Nanny... just browse for them... (if you need help setting clicksaver up, give me a shout, are you on Rimor (remember I didn't read everything lol), if you are, send a tell to Greasegirl, I'll help you, I'm not on that often lately, work is terrible but I'm English so it will be after 5:30GMT...

You know what concrete cushions do, trading co pistols give 5 int each...

errr... what else...

Do missions for cash, remember to loot everything, use clicksaver to get yourself missions that give cash instead of xp & with your xp gain switched off you'll stay steady...

The temple of the winds is a painful place... There are many trains running thru it & you get wiped out on a regular basis, but the xp in there is great!!! So are some of the items, you'll get next to zero cash out of the temple because 99% of the stuff is nodrop, so it's definitely somewhere to lvl up...

Are you Omni Neut or Clan? My org on Rimor effectively trashed the Clan trade on tipping for buffs by having our meeting place on the hill in OA, & while we chatted ppl would come & ask for buffs from us (always several of us there & usualy reasonably high lvl) & we'd refuse all offers of payment...
Buffs should be free (so long as you don't hastle ppl for them...)
When looking for a buff I always ask like this...
/tell <name here> Hi, could I trouble you for <buff> & <buff> please?
when I get to them (asker always does the running around), I /bow then when I've got the buff I say / thanks /curt... It gets you known as a friendly person & ppl buff you more readily...

Again with the proff implants, whatever proff you are, check out the soldier leg implant, can't remember off the top of my head but I always use it on my docs...
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Post by OTdude » Fri Dec 07, 2007 9:55 pm

Snakebite wrote:Money... Loot EVERYTHING!!!!oneoneone fill all but 6 spaces of your inventory with small (the gray ones) backpacks & loot everything that isn't nailed down (& any you can crowbar up) or that isn't nodrop... throw it in the terminals, & I realy do mean everything...
I wouldnt loot "EVERYTHING," however it is a fast way to make money, but since your XP is turned off, theres no rush to make the money. I would just as around, to see whats worth the take and what isnt. This is because most items in subway (if you shop food them) wont sell for over 1k and is a very slow way to make money. So, yes, do missions, roll for good items thats sell good (Intell Pistols, Concrete Cusions, etc.) and (what I do), loot all armor and weapons you find in that missions. I found in the time I play that those are the two things that sell the most. And make sure you buy atleast 6 backpacks and put them in you inventory for extra space.
Snakebite wrote:The temple of the winds is a painful place... There are many trains running thru it & you get wiped out on a regular basis, but the xp in there is great!!! So are some of the items, you'll get next to zero cash out of the temple because 99% of the stuff is nodrop, so it's definitely somewhere to lvl up...
All you need to do is loot cultist, they give you 500-900 credit per loot, and is a very fast way to make moneya s a lower level. Thats probly the only way to make money in ToTW unless you make a level 60 twink that can solo all bosses. But thats far out of my twinking expertise (if you call it expertise :P).

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Post by OTdude » Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:00 pm

Exao wrote:@Hahnsoo: Darn, the reason we wanted to stay in the subway is for the unique items that Abmouth drops. My previous character was a Doctor and with a random deepsub team, we beat Abmouth and they gave me a ring from him, Ring of Bacola..er.. somethin? Think it increased NCU.. Well basically I read he drops items unique to him, plus, I just feel like I need to kill him before moving on to the next area, but maybe that's just not possible

The Icebreaker sounds interesting, but who is Dyna? A Totw boss?
Dynas are random mob groups with bosses. They are mostly found in Newland Desert and level range from 45-100. They sometimes drop shop food items, sometimes drop very.. very useful items such as the IceBreaker, and the Pump Trainee + Master. And the ring you are reffering to is called the Ring of Nucleus Basalis. Upgrade to require 427 Treatment and gives +20 NCU. Upgrading fully is farely easy at low levels as well, just make sure you have enough NCU for expertise, sfa, and only ability boost required. Then equip a Medsuit (full) and use surgery clinic. But remember, equip ring, get buffs, then un equip so you can fit them, right click them to upgrade them, then re equip after you cant upgrade anymore.

Good Luck in your travels, hope this is helping.

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Hahnsoo
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Post by Hahnsoo » Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:40 am

Exao wrote:@Hahnsoo: Darn, the reason we wanted to stay in the subway is for the unique items that Abmouth drops. My previous character was a Doctor and with a random deepsub team, we beat Abmouth and they gave me a ring from him, Ring of Bacola..er.. somethin? Think it increased NCU.. Well basically I read he drops items unique to him, plus, I just feel like I need to kill him before moving on to the next area, but maybe that's just not possible
Unique items are not NoDrop. Thus, you can always buy them later.
The Icebreaker sounds interesting, but who is Dyna? A Totw boss?
Dynas are short for Dynamic Boss Camps, and a Dyna Boss is simply a wilderness mob who has been "beefed up". They can be distinguished by their glowing auras. They are much tougher to kill than a regular mob, but they drop random loot off of a loot table that is unique to them, at the appropriate QL (in other words, to get an Icebreaker which is QL 40-50, you would have to kill approximately a level 40-50 Dyna boss in the wilderness, and it could be ANY dyna boss).
About implants: I haven't been using the implants from the personalized profession implant terminals, should I be? I heard once that implants that add to base abilities are better since they drip off into all subskills. For example my Chest implant is faded: STR, bright: PSY, shiny: SENS instead of like riposte, sensory.imp, etc. I have made some of my own using imps with nanoProg added and a NanoProg buff, but they are mostly QL 25-35. Is this the problem?
Base abilities are only useful if they fit in your overall character scheme. A Psychic buffing head implant, for example, is of no use to a Fixer (even though it's in the Fixer booth) or an Enforcer (who generally isn't supposed to raise much Psychic). The Profession booths give you a good example of how an overall implant scheme works, but I highly recommend "shopping around" among all the different booths. The Martial Artist booth actually is pretty good, and you can probably pick up almost all of your implants from that booth alone if you are a Martial Artist. Also, buying implants from the booths is almost always cheaper than making a custom implant. I would avoid making custom implants unless you are making a low level twink (level locked character for a specific purpose) or you are beyond the QL of the premades.
Thanks for the advice guys... also one more question, is there a full quest mission database for AO that says what level you should be and what faction etc? There seems to be a quest list on this site but it doesn't seem to have all of them (or does it?). I'm thinking even little stuff like quests for "Intelligent Kevlar Shoulderpads" would be of some extra help to us.
The mission booth gives completely random missions. There are literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of missions that you can get from the mission boothes. Some loot, like the Intelligent Kevlar Shoulderpads aren't rollable (available as a reward) on missions at all, but instead drop from bosses at the end of team missions or dyna boss camps.

I highly suggest checking out my AO guide in my signature. It is written for the brand new froob in mind, and gives you a rough outline of what to do at particular levels. I would also appreciate feedback on the guide, if you end up reading it.
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Post by Vickie » Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:51 pm

at lvl 24, Omni med suit (fulls et) is way better tan any armor ya can cough up. gives ya alot of treatment and First aid, allowing you to have a high ql first aid stim that heals most yar health in one click. (however, i would not reccomend it on boss in subways)

The Stims/med suit will beat any armor (exception of a carb armor that allows ya good outside buffs du to more NCU). At least thats what i do, i get a decent gun twinked on (with buffs/implants/Wrangle) and go full treatment/FA on toon, and full med suit for good Stims. (think my NT wore medsuit til' he could equip his full set of Notum Saturated Metaplast Armor.

good luck, and dont bother spending much time in subways :D

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