Adventurer Guide o Doom (1/4)
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Class: Adventurer
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Level: All Levels
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The Jack of All Trades
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Breed
3. IP
4. Weapons
4a. Melee Weapons
4b. Ranged Weapons
5. Armor
5a. Beginner Armor
5b. Intermediate Armor
5c. Endgame Armor
5d. HUD/Utils Alternatives
6. Implants + Symbiants
6a. Early Levels
6b. Mid Levels
6c. High Levels
6d. End Game Levels
6e. Symbiant Comparison List
7. Nanos
8. Perks
8a. Shadowlands Perks
8b. Alien Invasion Perks
9. Research
10. Playing as an Adventurer
11. Weapon Specials
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1. Introduction
Back row from the left: Darvi, Quillster, Yaroze, Sinhound
Lying in front: Alizonik
Let me be the first to welcome you to the Adventurer profession, perhaps one of the most flexible professions available in the Anarchy Online Universe. That of course comes with its good sides and its bad sides. We are decent healers, provide great damage, excellent nano support (mostly in the form of our Wolf auras), can potentially tank and have limited crowd controlling capabilities.
Before I jump too deep into this guide, I will make a point of mentioning that my main character is a Melee adventurer. I do have a baby-adventurer that is ranged, however I will not pretend to understand every facet of ranged adviness. So if you do find any errors in my perceptions of ranged adventurers, please do not be afraid to point it out to me, perhaps explain briefly what the issue is and I will be certain to research whatever it might be more. Another point is that this guide, as most others are, will be at least slightly biased. Especially as an adventurer, there are tons of different ways to play so don't be afraid to go out of your way to do something differently. That is the great thing about this game, you are not forced down one path or one way of playing the game. So have fun with it and think of this as a guideline, and not a series of strict rules on HOW to play an adventurer.
First of all, I would like to emphasize that adventurers (as all professions) have to make sacrifices. We can not, contrary to popular belief, do it "all" at once. We can not be doctor/tank/CC/DDer all in one pack, at least not a good one. At endgame you do have more freedom, it becomes easier to swap items to better fit the roles needed in a team/raid. However I believe a great term, that many use, is that adventurers are the "Jack of all Trades, Master of None".
And before we plunge into the abyss of Advieness, I would like to mention Nicholas Sehres' Guide as well, which focuses more on the froob aspect of adventurers.
Ah, the classic Battle of the Breeds. Every profession has this discussion eventually and as always it comes down to: personal preference. However I will list the quick, biased version of what each breeds offers to Advieness.
Solitus



The good ol' average breed. Has an advantage in having no disadvantages, and a disadvantage in having no advantages! Wait what...? Ahem.. Where was I? Ah yes, Solitus is considered by many to be perhaps the best choice for a profession which has so many roles to fill. A Solitus adventurer will, for the most part, have an easier time equipping symbiants than other breeds because of having no darkblue abilities.
Ability Breed Caps | ||
Attribute | Pre-201 Cap | 220 Cap |
Strength | 472 | 772 |
Agility | 480 | 780 |
Stamina | 480 | 780 |
Intelligence | 480 | 780 |
Sense | 480 | 780 |
Psychic | 480 | 780 |
HP per point in Body Dev = 3 Nano per point in Nano Pool = 3 |
Opifex



Those lean, mean fighting machines. As an opifex your Agility and Sense will be higher than the other breeds, this comes at the cost of slightly more expensive Stamina/Strength. Be aware that your Intelligence/Psychic will be slightly lower than a solitus. Your health/nano will be lower than a solitus adventurer. In addition most Ranged skills (read: Pistol, fling shot and burst) rely on a combination of Agility/Sense, meaning an opifex will have a slight edge in those skills because of trickle. Another advantage is that all evades and inits rely heavily on both Sense and Agility.
Ability Breed Caps | ||
Attribute | Pre-201 Cap | 220 Cap |
Strength | 464 | 764 |
Agility | 544 | 944 |
Stamina | 480 | 680 |
Intelligence | 464 | 764 |
Sense | 512 | 912 |
Psychic | 448 | 748 |
HP per point in Body Dev = 3 Nano per point in Nano Pool = 3 |
Nanomage



The masters of nanotechnology, these guys and gals have the highest Intelligence/Psychic available. While many consider adventurers an offensive profession, and thus will perhaps not consider a nanomage for their adventurer... A nanomage will give you an advantage in the nano skills department because of trickledown. Be prepared, however, to suffer from lower Strength and Agility. For a support-orientated adventurer, nanomages will have the upperhand over all other breeds. You will have the highest nano pool of all breeds, but also the lowest HP.
Ability Breed Caps | ||
Attribute | Pre-201 Cap | 220 Cap |
Strength | 464 | 664 |
Agility | 464 | 664 |
Stamina | 448 | 748 |
Intelligence | 512 | 912 |
Sense | 480 | 780 |
Psychic | 512 | 912 |
HP per point in Body Dev = 2 Nano per point in Nano Pool = 4 |
Atrox


The big brutes of the bunch. Obviously an attractive choice for the more offensive adventurers because of higher HP thus being able to take a bit more beating from whatever pesky critter you might currently be pounding on. But the the greater HP, cheaper and higher Strength/Stamina comes with its price as well... Intelligence, Psychic, Sense, a proper nano pool and slightly lacking in the nano skills department.
Ability Breed Caps | ||
Attribute | Pre-201 Cap | 220 Cap |
Strength | 512 | 912 |
Agility | 480 | 780 |
Stamina | 512 | 912 |
Intelligence | 400 | 600 |
Sense | 400 | 600 |
Psychic | 400 | 600 |
HP per point in Body Dev = 4 Nano per point in Nano Pool = 2 |
Last Words about Breed
Any breed works with an adventurer. It all comes down to personal choice, and hopefully I've summed up the major advantages/disadvantages that will help you make your choice. Do not be afraid to go "outside of the box" and start a nanomage adventurer, and likewise do not be afraid to try out one of those "dull" solitus adventurers.
⇑
3. IP
Aaah, Improvement Points... What would the game be without thee I wonder...
As with most professions, be prepared to have to prioritize what skills to improve and what skills to neglect until you get enough IP to spruce it up.
Like I mentioned in the introduction, this will be a slightly biased guide. As such how I spend my IPs are NOT, I do stress NOT, the only way to go about using 'em.
So what ARE Improvement Points (IP)? These are points added to your character when you reach a new level. How many IPs you receive depends on what Title Level you are currently at. There are 7 title levels in AO, and the level ranges for those are as follows:
Level 1-14 :: Title Level 1 :: 5,000 IPs per level
Level 15-49 :: Title Level 2 :: 10,000 IPs per level
Level 50-99 :: Title Level 3 :: 20,000 IPs per level
Level 100-149 :: Title Level 4 :: 40,000 IPs per level
Level 150-189 :: Title Level 5 :: 80,000 IPs per level
Level 190-204 :: Title Level 6 :: 150,000 IPs per level
Level 205-> :: Title Level 7 :: 400,000 IPs per level
By opening up your Skill Window (Quick key: U) you can see that each skill has a different color assigned to it. First of all let me save you the trouble of ending up like my first char (which also happened to be an adventurer) which was a melee/ranged adventurer with maxed swimming, tutoring and other such fun skills. Just because a skill is green does not mean you should automatically raise it, and just because a color is dark blue does not mean you should not raise it. It just relates to how much IP it costs to raise it and how much, per level, you can raise it.
A quick run-down of the colors is:
Green :: Cheapest of all colors, also you can raise the skill by 5 each level.
Light Blue :: Second cheapest color, the skill can be raised by 4 each level.
Blue :: Second most expensive color, the skill can be raised by 4 each level.
Darkblue :: Most expensive color, the skill can be raised by 4 each level.
Another important point is that: You do not have to spend all your IP when you level. IP that goes unused when you have leveled does not disappear but goes to an IP "pool" and will still be there the next time you level. So if you have raised all the skills you wish at one level and you still have IP left, do not feel like you have to put it into a skill you might not use or even need.
And after that lecture, let us delve into the various skills available to us and which ones are useful for an adventurer. I will rate the skills from 1 to 5, 1 being useless and 5 being very important to max.
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## If it is marked as "WS" (Weapon Skill) please read the description for further explanation as adventurers generally have two different choices when it comes to weapons (Melee or ranged, aka 1 hand edged or Pistol) ##
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Note: I have added a quick reference note of my personal general preferences for which skills to raise. This can be found at the bottom of this section.
Abilities
Name | Rating | Notes |
Strength | 5 | An important skill to raise for most of your armor, implants and symbiants. Both our Tier and Ofab armor rely on strength. |
Agility | 5 | Evades, inits and weapon skills for both melee and ranged adventurers. Not to mention armors, implants and symbiants that rely on this tasty ability. |
Stamina | 5 | Stamina directly affects our HP and our ability to regenerate HP. It is another ability that will be prominent in many armor choices for an adventurer as well as implants and symbiants. |
Intelligence | 4 | Intelligence will give you a lot of trickle into all your nano skills, that reason alone is enough for it to be raised whenever possible. However if the choice is to raise one of the 3 first skills or intelligence, I would most of the time let the IP be spent in Agility/Strength/Stamina depending on the situation. |
Sense | 4 | An ability required in many of our most important symbiants as well affecting a lot of weapons skills and evades/inits. As with intelligence, not the most important one, but keep it up to spec as often as possible. Perhaps along with Psychic it is the ability I first start "neglecting". |
Psychic | 3.5 | When leveling my adventurer this was the first ability that I had to stop raising. I had no armor that relied on it, most of my implants did not require it and it is not the most prominent ability in our symbiants. It does however directly relate to our nano pool and how fast we can regenerate it, so for support-orientated adventurers this ability becomes much more important. |
Body
Name | Rating | Notes |
Body Dev | 4 | More points in Body development means more Health Points. The more HP you have, the less likely you are of dying in PvM. Keep it as updated as possible. |
Nano Pool | 3 | The "nano" equivalant of "Body development". The higher your nano pool, the more nano you have available to cast your nanos with. Very important to not run out of, raise as often as possible but easy to let slip for the more IP-heavy leveling ranges |
Adventuring | 1 | While useful to some degree to equip some of the protection gear (read: Penumbra Glasses) and cast some of the Shadowlands maps, by the time you will be required to cast/wear those you will have a lot of trickle for your abilities, support in some of our symbiants and this tasty The Great Explorer. Some will make the sacrifice to be able to cast "Knowledge of the End" at Title Level 7, but for some it is not worth the sacrifice. |
Brawling | WS | One of the weapon specials for a melee adventurer, and a prominent feature in most (if not almost all) of our available weapons. While leveling, it is enough to raise it to equip a new weapon. It has a hard recycle of 15 seconds, no matter what your Brawling skill might be at. |
Melee
If you are a ranged adventurer, skip this section entirely. You will not need to raise any skills from this section. Note that I only focus on 1hand edged and its specials in this section, since I do not feel that any of the other weapons can be even considered up against 1hand edged, at least as an expansion player.
Name | Rating | Notes |
1hand Edged | WS | The main weapon choice for melee adventurers. We have nanos, perks, research and armor that help us raise it. Dependencies: 30% Strength, 30% Stamina, 40% Agility. |
Sneak Attack | WS | One of the specials available from many weapons melee adventurers will use. It has the added bonus of opening up a second special called "Backstab" once your base sneak attack skill reaches a certain skill. When tight on IP, just raise it enough until you can equip whichever weapon you are currently putting on. |
Fast Attack | WS | Arguably the most common weapon special for a melee adventurer. It does what it says, a regular extra hit every X seconds (X depending on your skill in fast attack) which has a chance to crit. Raise as needed for your new weapons. |
Multi Melee | WS | A skill required to wield two 1hand edged weapons. Something to make a note of is that when having two 1hand edged weapons with different Multi Melee requirements, the one you require is always the lowest one. Adventurers are a duel wielding profession, and we do have a lot of ways to increase our Multi Melee via armor, symbiants/implants, perks, nanos and research. Raise ONLY as needed since more multi melee than required does not benefit you in any way. |
Misc Weapons
There is nothing of interest in this section for adventurers.
Ranged
If you are a melee adventurer, skip this section entirely. A note though, many pistols/rifles in Anarchy Online offer some very seductive modifiers which can be interesting when twinking on that new piece of gear you just got, however most of the time it will not be necessary (and I would recommend against it) to raise any of the skills in this section to equip these.
Name | Rating | Notes |
Pistol | WS | The weapon for a ranged adventurer. Perks, research, nanos and armor all support this weapon choice. Dependencies: 60% Agility, 40% Sense. |
Fling Shot | WS | Basically this is an extra regular shot every X seconds (X relying on certain factors, your skill in Fling Shot being one of them) that has a chance to crit. Raise as needed for new weapons. |
Burst | WS | Also a very important skill. This will shoot 3 bullets on your opponent in one shot. Very prominent in most ranged adventurer weapons, max it when possible. |
Full Auto | WS | Some would say, the main weapon special of a ranged adventurer past level ~100. This will empty the entire remaining clip on an opponent. Once you have a weapon requiring Full Auto, max it to hit more reliably and to shorten the recycle duration. |
Multi Ranged | WS | A skill required to wield two pistols. Something to make a note of is that when having two pistols with different Multi Ranged requirements, the one you require is always the lowest one. Adventurers are a duel wielding profession, and we do have a lot of ways to increase our Multi Ranged via armor, symbiants/implants, perks, nanos and research. Raise ONLY as needed since more multi ranged than required does not benefit you in any way. |
Speed
Name | Rating | Notes |
Melee Init | WS | The more inits you have, the faster you will hit with a melee weapon. If you are a melee adventurer, max this whenever possible to allow yourself to hit faster and also to be able to move your agg/def bar more towards def. |
Ranged Init | WS | The ranged equivilant of melee init. As a ranged adventurer, try to keep it as high as possible to allow for faster shooting and to move your agg/def bar more towards def. |
Nano Init | 4 | This affects how fast you will cast your nanos. As the second best healing profession ingame, this is quite important, but can easily be neglected at lower levels if you can get hold of a Viral Compiler or Nano Formula Recompiler. |
Dodge Ranged | 5 | Adventurers are an evade class, keep this maxed to help you: Prevent critical hits and evade hits from ranged mobs/players. |
Evade ClsC | 5 | The melee counterpart of "Dodge Ranged" also important to keep maxed. |
Duck-Exp | 4 | A bit more controversial than Evade Close Combat and Dodge Ranged since very few mobs ingame seem to check against this particular evade. However when possible I would recommend keeping it raised, and if you are going to PvP, better keep it maxed. |
Nano Resist | 3 | This skill determines the chance to counter/resist nanos such as roots, damage nanos, init debuffs, etc. However since most of the time in PvM you will face mobs that are much higher than you in level, chances are you will not counter their nanos that much. However if you are going to move into the world of PvP, this skill gets an instant 5 rating by me. |
Run Speed | 3 | As an adventurer, we have a few nanos that provide us with run speed buffs (Wolf form and parrot form) But it is still handy to raise it until you feel you aren't lagging behind your team. As with Nano Resist, if you are going to try out PvP it will be very handy to keep up with your enemies or to "Bravely Run Away". |
Trade & Repair
Name | Rating | Notes |
Comp. Lit | 5 | This skill is universally important for ALL professions. It affects the ability to equip better NCU belts and NCU chips, thus giving you more NCU and more room for more nano buffs. It also means you will able to use the Grid, Once you get a new belt, or new ncu that you want to equip, raise it as necessary. If none are needed at the moment, it's ok to ignore this skill for a few levels, as it won't affect your fighting skills. |
Nano & Aiding
Name | Rating | Notes |
Matt.Metam | 5 | Extremely important, MM is one of the skills required for our heals. Raise this when you can use a new heal and keep yourself and your team alive a bit longer. In addition it is required for all of our morphs. |
Bio.Metamor | 5 | Used in our heals, calms and morphs this yet another important nano skill. Raise it when you can use a new heal/morph! |
Psycho Modi | 3.5 | A skill found in many of our weapon and other assorted buffs (Treatment, perception, etc) However it is not required to max this skill to make use of these. So raise as necessary to get that new weapon buff going and you should be fine! |
Matter Crea | 2 | Matter Creation is a fairly useless skill for an adventurer, at least an expansion player. It is used in our shields and AC buffs, but the advantage gained by raising it is minimal. Perhaps after level 160 or so when you are breed capped on all your abilities and have quite a bit of IP to go around you can afford to spend a bit in it to cast our top shields and AC buffs. I would personally not recommend raising it. |
Time&Space | 2 | None of our nanos require Time and Space, however nano rechargers and Nano Coils require it, so when you notice it taking a while to regenerate your nano out of combat feel free to raise it slightly to get a better nano recharger. |
Sensory Improvement | 4.5 | Used mainly in our morphs and calms, raise it when you are able to make use of a better calm or morph. |
First Aid | 2 | A useful place to put IP into when you have a bunch of it to go around. Personally I mainly raised it to be able to use higher nano kits/spindles and thus get off maybe a heal or two more. |
Treatment | 5 | As with Comp. Lit this one of those (almost) universal skills to raise. A requirement for all implants/symbiants. It will also give you the ability to use higher QL treatment laboratories. Also as with Comp. Lit, it is a HIGH priority skill, but that does not mean you have to max it every level. If you're not planning on getting new symbs/imps for a few levels, it is okay to forget it for a bit. At 220 you will however be having this skill maxed. |
Spying
Nothing much of use here for an adventurer.
Note: Even though one of the specials available as a melee adventurer is Sneak Attack you will rarely have the IP available to incrase your concealment enough to actually be able to use it. Sneak Attack is mostly useful for the Backstab special.
Navigation
Name | Rating | Notes |
Map Navig. | 0 | DO NOT RAISE THIS SKILL. While uou will be able to IP Reset it, this will remove any maps and map upgrades you have installed. It is used for Rubi-Ka Maps and Map Upgrades, however always, ALWAYS "twink" Map Navigation with the use of implants and armor/gear that buffs it. You can have ALL maps and map upgrades without a single IP spent in this black hole of a skill. The Cartographer perk line alone can help you get the most important upgrades and is quite lowbie-friendly. |
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3a Quick IP Reference
Note: Highly biased reference to my own prioritizing of skills for my adventurer.
Highest priority, always max
Pistol or 1h Edged
Matt.Metam, Bio Metamor, and Sensory Impr
Treatment
Dodge Ranged and Evade Close Combat
Attributes (Note: As a froob maxing all attributes is not quite as important, since implants only depend on one attribute so choose the most important attributes.)
Max if possible
Computer Lit.
NanoC Init.
Body Dev and Nano Pool
Ranged or Melee Init
Important skills that are easy to neglect
Fling Shot, Burst, and Full Auto or Brawl, Dimach, Fast Attack, and Sneak Attack
Duck Exp (For a PvP-specced Char this becomes a higher priority)
Nano Resist (For a PvP-specced Char max this)
First Aid
Runspeed (For a PvP-specced Char max this)
Matter Creation, Time and Space and Psycho Modification.
Multi Ranged or Multi Melee
Next Section: Weapons and Armor |
Last updated on 10.17.2012 by Llie
Originally written by Quilluck.
Additional Information about Research Procs provided by Glarawyn.
Additional help by: Ophiuchus & Tinkerz.
Models: Nahuatl, Speedyadvy, Burntorun, Yoham, Darvi, Yaroze, Sinhound
Do you have questions about this article or found an error? No comments yet - Please login first to post a comment.
Originally written by Quilluck.
Additional Information about Research Procs provided by Glarawyn.
Additional help by: Ophiuchus & Tinkerz.
Models: Nahuatl, Speedyadvy, Burntorun, Yoham, Darvi, Yaroze, Sinhound
Do you have questions about this article or found an error? No comments yet - Please login first to post a comment.