Creeping towards 150

Baba showed up at PW dunes ready for some borg action, only to find a team leeching experience off an NT dominating the spawns. Before he left, he observed for a while, taking notes for Babaente our own NT. Standard practice seems to be to fly around in a yalm to gather up as many of the Borg as possible on the helipad. Once all all the Borg have been pulled from the dunes to the Helipad, then the NT ditches the yalm and starts the usual kiting procedure.

Area of 110-120 mobs in Eastern Foul Plains, click for larger view.

We have not had our NT Babaente out in a while. We have decided to concentrate on getting Baba to 150 and in the process also upgrade his implants. Hopefully once he hits 150, leveling will go faster, as he will be able to participate in the title 5 Froob RL2 Group. Its a loose group, not a organization/guild, but more of a series of organized raids.

With hitting Borg out of the question, with the NT dominating the PW Borgs, Baba decided to try hunting mobs in Eastern Foul Plains. He first tried the an area south east of a player city in the upper north west corner of the region, but this did not work out too well. The mobs there were running from 120 to 135 and they sent him to reclaim several times.

He moved further south east until he reached a patch of desert surrounded by verdant land. This turned out to be a perfect hunting ground. It held a good number of infectors and desert eremites in the 110s and they re-spawned fairly quickly.

Baba fights and kills his first Desert Eremite, click for larger view

Baba had been using his hot key to tab through the nearby hostile mobs and almost panicked when he saw the dreaded words ‘desert eremite’ appear. It was only after he got his breathing back under control that he realized that it was not deep red but, light orange. He had just done a save at a terminal, so he figured he had nothing to lose so even though he could not see the eremite, he went ahead and fired off a taunt at it. In a few seconds the eremite was towering over him while he cycled through his alpha attacks and specials.

During the fight he had time to inspect the eremite to see that it was QL 110. He only lost about 25% health before the thing went down and Baba got to take his first desert eremite trophy shot.

Baba's first Desert Eremite Trophy Shot, click for larger view.

He went on to spend about an hour at that spot and brought his exp bar about 2/3’s of the way to the top, however his bags were getting full and he decided to head back to civilization to fence his goodies. Back at Newland City, Tireen our trader logged on and proceeded to fence Baba’s most recent take.

The next evening when Baba returned to PW, he found it occupied again with a different NT and tag-along-team. With that avenue blocked he decided to go work on completing the first shoulder pad quest. He had started it more than a year ago, and had collected all the pieces except one, the scrap of notum. Baba spent two nights at the crash site dunes north west of Newland city bopping mechanical mobs looking for the drop, but despite felling over 200 mobs, he did not see a single scrap of notum. He did see several copies of pieces he already had, but over all the drop rate seemed to be one quest item for every 40 or so mobs.

Baba grabs a scrap of notum, completing the first of the Dodga pad quests, click for larger view.

The third night he was about to give up, when he decided to try the junk yard just east of Rome Blue in Galway. He had been avoiding it previously because it is often over crowded with other questers. It paid off because in about 20 minutes after about the 27th mob, the scrap of notum dropped. While he was there he observed another player and learned a nifty way to help out your alts. It was a fairly high level player, (140+) and they were clearly methodically killing the mech mobs and looking for quest pieces. However when they found one, they did not pick it up. They had an low level alt (that they were teamed with) in a yalm set to follow behind them at ground level. It smoothlyh followed them around and when he did find a quest piece, (he was obviously dual boxing), he would have the lowbie pick the item up. So

He then flew off to Wartorn Valley to restart the quest and then hand over the finished object made by combining all the pieces. He was rewarded with the first set of pads, but disappointed when they did not display when he equipped them. He tried taking off all his other armor, and even tried submitting a petition. After about an hour, with not reply, it was time for him to call it a night. Scratch one up again for Funcom’s lousy petition system.

So why you might ask is a level 140 enforcer even worrying about these pads? The do add a very healthy 75 max health and that’s always a good thing, especially if you are a froob like Baba, and are shut out of the really sweet buffing armor and pads that expansion players can choose from. He is is thinking of doing to do the second and third parts of the quest.

Baba has been working on designing his next set of implants. They should be around level 200 and he has most of the pieces narrowed down. He had found three slots to be a puzzle.

• Leg – Faded cluster: Max Health or Heal Delta?
• Waist – Bright cluster: Max Health or Body Development?
• Chest – Shiny cluster: Max Health or Body development?

For the leg, he had no idea which would be better. He did some number crunching and what he found was that taken individually, Max Health looked like a better deal in each slot, however a design that buffs heal delta in all three slots could be another story.

Baba was all set to make these his choices when he stumbled accrose this post which lead him to this thread “Heal Delta and Stamina Tickrate for froobs“. Baba is intrigued with the idea of a high heal delta Enforcer and may decide to give that a try. The arguments seem to be that the high delta set up would be good for RK mobs and missions, while the high health build would work better for raiding where the super mobs hit for insane amounts of damage.

The next evening Baba returned to Perpetual Wastelands and found it deserted of other players. He only had about a third of his experience bar to fill, so it did not take long to take down the required number of Borg and ding 141.

Borgs and Backpacks

Babaoroody headed out for Perpetual Wastelands from Newland City Sunday evening, determined to get back on the leveling train. His experience bar was sitting just past 50% towards a new level, so he was hoping to tick it over tonight.

He took his usual route there, which consisted of using the grid from Newland City to the Sentinels post in Mort. From there he flew due east in his Yalmaha, passing over sandworms, anuns and mantises.

He paused at the Mantise Dyna camp name Tranquility just inside Perpetual Wastelands, but although he is levels above the 105 Dyna, the enclosed nature of the ‘fort’ style camp and the fact it is packed with 70-100ish mantises, leaves him unwilling to try and find out if he can attack that Dyna without getting swarmed by the rest of the Mantises.

Bridge of Escape, the plateau is too small to out run a Dyna borg.

Baba did drop down at the next Dyna camp with two 105 and 110 type Borg Dynas.  The spot is called ‘Ruins’ on the map, and is in a small platueau surrounded by gorges, with two large suspension bridges for access.  He thought he had had approached so that he could just pull one of them, but when he got close enough to trigger aggro, they both came running.

Baba made the mistake of trying to stand toe to toe with these two, and before he knew it, he was down past 50% health.  As soon as Baba dropped one, Baba started running east and crossed the suspension bridge with the other Dyna in chase.  He needed to run long enough to use and cycle his First Aid stim at least twice.  Once he had done this to bring his health back up, Baba circled around and kite killed the remaining Dyna.  While the loot both dropped was nothing Baba could use, it was good shop food.

Borg Highway, levels 110-140 Borg, in North East Perpetual Wastelands.

Baba headed a little farther east and when the road turns from going due east to heading North East, he could see Borgs every few hundred meters, guarding the area.

Baba got buffed up and started kiting Borg singly and in groups of two to three.  These Borg were for the most part in the 110 to 140 level range, and a fitting warm up for Baba.  Eventually he planned on hopping over the Borg mine and main base and work on the level 175+ Borgs in the dunes north of the Helipad.

His experience bar was gradually moving towards the top the farther up the road he progressed.  Just before he reached the area labeled ‘town’ on the map, he stopped to rebuff and then recharge his nano.

Taking a break from kiting, to watch an Alien raiding a player city nearby.

As he was sitting there, he spotted an Alien ship raiding a player city off to the south east.   By the time Baba had worked his way to the ‘town’, he was very close to getting a level.  There is now a Tower field just west of the town, which eliminates pulling Borg to that area for kiting.

Baba first proceeded around the outer perimeter of the base and pick off the Borg he found there.  He started making careful forays into the town, to pull single Borg out.  When he approached the center portion, he spotted a high level 200 Dyna, General Chira Sulanol, unmistakable in her shiny greenish aura.  Baba took note of her position, and retreated to the back side of the base, where he picked off the remaining Borg that were outside of the Base.

General Sulanol where she made short work of Baba in PW

He was getting so close to leveling that he was starting to think about his return trip from this expedition, when things took a wrong turn.  He tried to stay around the North side of the base because General Sulanol had been spotted on the South central portion.

After pulling several Borg from the North West corner of the Base, he squeezed through an alley between two buildings to try and taunt a few Borg he could see in the North central part of the base.  They came running soon, but they were trailed by General Sulanol.  He guesses that the General had a habit of waking around the base more than the typical high ranking officers.  Baba did a 180 and ran a fast as he could, but her level 200 skills enabled her to up the distance quickly and she sent him back to reclaim in a few seconds.  Baba is not sure if this is a new Dyna, or if it had been trained from a spot located due east of the town on the other side of some hills. Several maps show a 200 level mob located there.

After rezzing to at the Newland City reclaim, (the one on the hill overlooking the city), he was a bit discouraged, but he also knew that when he returns to kite the Borgs his experience pool will speed up the leveling.  He was feeling good about his Borg Kiting skills, had he not gotten too close to Sulanol, he took hardly any damage while kiting this evening.

His many backpacks were mostly full, so he took some time to sort them out.  He had gained almost a half bag of various Miy’s armor, which he is sure Babaente and Tireen will thank him for eventually. After sorting out the Miy’s, the monster parts, 125+ implants and clusters, and interesting items, he handed off 8 bags to Babaente, our Nanotechnician, who in turn transferred the bags to Tireen, Baba’s trader alt.

Tireen took the bags to the Trader terminal in Newland City and was turning in the shop food there, when a fellow Trader, Sypherdias (level 93 male Omni Trader, member Good Old Days) took note of Tireen’s Solar Powered Backpack.  The trader offered Tireen a bag of 60 of the experience stims, which Tireen might sell for many credits.  Tireen had no idea what the going market rate was for these, and had no idea as to just how liquid such a resource might be.

The Solar Powered Backpack was a promotional gift handed out by NPCs during the 7th AO Anniversary weekend celebration.  It looks nifty, and works like a standard backpack in both capacity and function (it gives no buffs).  In the year or so since she acquired it from an NPC at the ICC Whompa center, she has perhaps seen one or two other players wearing one.  So while in a typical stroll down the streets of Borealis you will spot many copies of supposedly rare or hard to get back items, Tireen very rarely sees another Solar Powered Backpack.  Since traders as a profession seem to lack a trader specific back item, she feels her nifty backpack sets her apart.

It is the most unique possession Tireen has at the moment on Rubi-Ka.  She may not sport the best implants, armor or weapon, but she is proud to display her unusual backpack.   She ended up turning down the offer.  She knew how much she got out of wearing the unique backpack and she did not really want to use the experience stims to speed up leveling.  Beyond that, she did not savor trying to sell them.  Even though she is a trader, trying to hawk stuff on shopping chat channel is not her preferred way to pass the time.

So after she declined, and finished feeding shop food to the terminal, she traveled back to meet up with Babaente, to return Baba’s empty backpacks and his new credits (Baba’s 8 backpacks of mostly Borg loot, netted around 800,000 credits).

Solar Powered Backpack and the Refitted Backpack

When she met up with Babaente, they posed for a picture framing both of their special backpacks.   Babaente’s backpack is the second type handed out by NPC’s during the 7^th Anniversary celebration.  It is named a Refitted Backpack and it looks exactly like the Empowered Robust Backpack, which is one of the harder to get rare items since it must be made by combining two items which drop in Camelot Castle in Avalon.  The items are dropped by a mob called Administrator DeValos who spawns following the death of Tarasque. The two items are the Robust Backpack and an Infusion Device.  Combining the two items makes the Empowered Robust Backpack which provides 1000 in all ACs and +80 in all damage to the wearer.