BABA BASHES FOR BOTS

New looks, Links Engergized and Solar Guard, click for better view.

Babaengy and Babaemphee dinged level 75 in the Biomare sewers while working in Tri-Plumbo’s area.  This section has the bloaters placed with much greater distance between them than in the sewer sections where it is common to get swarmed by 6 or more at a time.  There are six bloaters in this section that make a nice loop where the mobs respawn fairly quickly so there is no waiting.  They gave Tri-Plumbo a go and got sent back to reclaim rather quickly.  At this point they decided that it was time to go run team missions in order to roll some much needed new non-shop buyable nanos.

The went back to sitting around a mission terminal rolling missions while keeping an eyeball on Clicksaver.  At level 75 they were pulling missions at around 82-83 level.  They must have seen at least 5 go by with Beacon Warp.  They took one of those, but since Babaengy already has one equipped, it was just as an investment.  The most badly needed nano is the next best healing pet Calling of Restite.  Sanoo can not out heal the damage dealt by level 80+ mobs at this point.  A better mezz pet would help, and a better bot heal could make the difference in Boss fights.  Solar Guard would help immensely with Babaemphee’s survivability since it adds +100 to all defense.

They took break from RK2 and were doing some necro post reading in AOFROOBS in the professions sections.  One post in particular “Easy Froob MP formula” from Llie pointed out that the measure of a pet profession was the best pet they could command and stay out of OE self buffed, meaning the best pet that even with a outside buff to cast, that they could continue to keep under control with self buffs.  Pets operate under the same Over Equipped rules as many other AO items.  As long as the pet caster maintains their required skill at 80% or more of the requirement, they will remain in control. This meant that Tireen could help them  with wrangles to each cast a higher pet, with the limit being what they could keep out of OE.

Creation: Solar Guard gives 169 to ACs and +100 Add All Def

After some calculations it was clear that with a +40 wrangle from Tireen, Babaengy could cast a level 113 bot and Babaemphee could cast a level 111 attack pet and keep them out of OE with Babaemphee’s masteries.  This required a bit of log-in juggling at first.  With Babaemphee first buffing up herself and Babaengy.  She then logged off, and Tireen logged in to put a wrangle on Babaengy.  With this wrangle running he was able to cast his better bot.  With the shell in his inventory, he logged out, so Babaemphee could log in and get her wrangle from Tireen.  This done, Tireen logged off after giving Babaemphee her wrangle and seeing her cast her better pet.  (They later found that triple logging would make this much more convenient.)

With both higher pets cast, team pets then headed out to their missions.  These two new attack pets went through the level 82 mobs like a hot knife through butter.  Even the mission bosses were done away with quickly.  Too quickly, in fact as in one mission, Babaemphee’s pet finished killing the mission target before Babaengy could take the elevator into the Boss Room to ID the target, so they forfeited that mission.  Even thought they did not get the wanted nano, they did nab a few nice pieces of Miy’s and Nova Dillon armor.

As part of their break from Biomare to mission for much needed nanos, Babaengy and Babaemphee invited Tireen to tag along for several team missions.  Tireen is level 75 so she would get experience and she would always be there to help them cast the highest attack pets.  It put a bit of a load on the computer, but it was manageable.  If dual boxing two toons was a juggling challenge, triple logging is even more so.   The three missions they pulled went very well as Tireen’s massive shotgun crits helped put the mobs away that much faster.

The only problem was that Tireen is by far the most squishy of the three, and the team had to be careful to manage aggro by letting the attack bot build up aggro before the rest of the team launched into any particular mob.  There were two fatalities, both caused by the same issue.  Babaengy was running a new hostile AOE nano, and several times it attracted a number opf unwanted adds.  The first casualty was Tireen, and the second time it happened it was Babaemphee.  After that, Babaengy canceled that nano, and will not be running any hostile AOE nanos.  Probably the only time they might be used would be in PVP, which they do not plan to take part in for some time, if ever.

Full set of Links Energized armor (in social tab), click to view larger version.

Babaengy used these occasions to demonstrate the worth of the Beacon Warp nano, by bringing the team mates back from reclaim much faster than them having to revive and then make their way by grid, whompa and flying.  Out of six or so missions they netted for Babaemphee the following nanos, Creation Solar Guard, and Creation Summon Absum.  For Babaengy they netted Rebuild Casing, while Tireen bought him an Overdrive Combat Array from a store.  At the end of the missions, Tireen had dinged 76, and Babaengy had dinged 77 to catch up with Babaemphee who had just hit 77 before Babaengy’s trip to reclaim.

They estimated that it would be 3-4 more levels before they can equip higher attack pets, and there was not much else they needed that they could roll so they were about to head back to Biomare, when Babaoroody showed up and offered to pull a few missions for their level 123 combat pets.  123 is at the lower range of what Baba can pull, and should be pretty easy, however he asked Babaemphee to come along to provide healing support.  Baba knows all too well that having to self heal after every fight with health kits is very tiresome.  They were a little concerned that Babaemphee would be too squishy around 120+ mobs.

Baba was successful in pulling missions for the desired items, however, Babaemphee was too low to team with him according to the team mission machine, so Baba had to pull regular solo missions.  He did duplicate the keys and gave the copies to Babaemphee so she could accompany him in the missions.  This went way much better than any one of them had thought.  Any time a mob even looked sideways at Babaemphee, Baba would mongo and keep Babaemphee safe.

While Babaemphee’s current heal pet may still be somewhat weak against 120+ mob damage, it did very well.  While several times it had a hard time keeping up with the healing, Baba’s health never dropped below 60% in each fight, and was usually back at 100% by the time the next mob was faced.  Babaoroody the Enforcer is fun when he does not have to worry about self healing.  It gives him the freedom to use things like rage and mongos more freely.  He can see that it may be worthwhile to start putting IP into Nano Init so he can cast his Rage and Mongos faster.

Baba Loves His Black Clan Tank Armor, (even if it is just social and Veil of the Revoked does the work)

It was also great to have the extra damage from Babaemphee’s attack pet, especially in those unavoidable times when two or mobs are found close together in a mission and have to be fought at the same time.  It might be different in a team mission, however Babaemphee does so little damage comparatively, that there is little trouble keeping the aggro on Babaoroody.    Baba still has the daily mission kill x smugglers in Smuggler’s Den running and he is seriously thinking of bringing Babaemphee with him.  Tireen would be useful, however she is on the same account as Baba, so they will never share a team.  Babaente might be useful if her calms and/or roots will land on the 120ish Mantis crowds that have to be waded through to get to the heart of the dungeon.

In addition to acquiring an Inferior Frenzy Embodiment level 123 for Babaemphee and a Semi Sentient Guardbot level 123 for Babaengy, the was an added bonus of finding a Creation Living Shield of Evernan in one mobs loot.  The shield provides around 140 ACs, some parry skill and 342 health.  It is odd that even though it is a higher quality level than the Solar Guard, it provides less protection and cannot compare to the +100 add all def provided by the Solar Guard, so we suspect Babaemphee will be using the Solar Guard for some time.  There also turned up a few pieces of Miy’s and Rhinoman armor, which Baba let Babaemphee loot as they were too low to do him any good.

Tireen is going to be busy shop fooding most of loot Team Pets and Baba netted recently.  Babaengy and Babaemphee are now planning on heading back to Biomare for some more levels.  They make take a shot as Tri-Plumbo after they level enough (80ish) to equip their QL123 pets, and may even ask Tireen to help out.  They are also starting to think about when they should make a run to Steps of Madness for Neleb’s robes and later COH for even better robes, and to Beacon Warp Baba in so he can farm some phats.  Baba smiled as he watched Team Pets discuss these things with enthusiasm.  He envied them. For FROOBS, level 70-100 is a very good time to be on Ruby-Ka, with several dungeons open at that level offering serious buffing items both for use and selling for profit.

Token Efforts For Froobs

Team Sparrow Flight - click for larger view.

Babaengy and Babaemphee reached level 36 recently from a series of team missions around Newland Dessert, and Varmint Woods.  Normally they would only accept Varmint Woods missions if they were close to the Whompa there due to the many ‘higher than them’ mobs scattered across the country side there.  Babaemphee was very close to being able to use a Hacked Boosted Graft  Sparrow Flight (Team), so they decided to accept several team missions located far out in the woods because the rewards were non-shop buyable professions specific items they both needed.  One was a Sympathetic Armor Boost, a nice Engineer nano that boosts by 101 all ACs of friendly toons close by. For Babaemphee, there was a Material Metamorphosis Masteries nano.  While Sparrow Flight is not flying like it is with a Yalmaha, it is faster than running and hence, somewhat safer way to pass through areas with dangerous mobs around.  After Babaemphee dinged level 35 she was able to cast it, so they flew sparrow style to their next Varmint Woods engagement, which happened to require passing through areas with reddish bar Rhinomen about.

First Gladiatorbot, click for better view.

Getting more confident, Babaengy upped the difficulty level slightly again, this time facing mobs 2 to 3 levels above them.  The experience comes faster at a cost of slightly more time for the pets to take down the prey.  With the lowest Attack Rating of the pair, Babaengy is starting to miss most of the time due to the higher level mobs they are facing.  It is easy to see why experience Engineers talk about sending their pet on hunt and then hiding.  The higher the mobs get in relation to the pet caster, the less effective his personal weapons are and the more likely he is to get critted multiple times by the mobs if he fights them directly.  For now it is not a problem, and he can continue to contribute, but he can see the time coming when “pet hunt” and “pet attack” will be combined with staying out of sight of the mobs.  Babaemphee’s AR is much higher so for now she contributes significantly to the taking down of the mobs.

Babaengy finally figured out how to use an bot trimmer over the last few missions. It turns out that they work somewhat like the flurry of blows item does for melee classes.  It temporarily increases the combat inits of the engineers bot while decreasing it’s ACs.   When the bot has started combat with a mob, the Engineer has to select the bot and then right click on the trimmer in an open bag.  A message then appears in the system chat HUD “The arms of your robot jerk briefly.”

With a QL 17 Trimmer, for the next 5 minutes the bot’s overall offense is increased by 6, and all damage types are increased by 6.  At the same time there is a reduction of -61 to all ACs of the bot.  This also locks the Engineer’s Mechanical Engineering skill for 5 minutes.

Rather than use it all the time and be captive to the vagaries of random chance and the possibility of being locked out when you really could use it, Babaengy has been learning to conserve her use of the Trimmer to Boss fights and other extreme situations.

Token Boards

First Token Boards All Around, click for larger view.

Our pet casting pair managed to acquire their first two token boards as an added benefit of the team missions they have been pulling ever since graduating from the Subway.  They have been collecting 2 tokens each mission, and recently collected their 30th tokens each.  The first token board gave them both a extra 30 health.  Token board number two (which required 30 tokens) gave 60 health and 40 nano.  Froobs should get their token boards as soon as they can, to get the most benefit from the buffs.  For non-froobs the buffs may not be as attractive, in light of the many other advantages non-froobs have.  There are not that many items that will buff 60 health and 40 nano available to froobs.  Board number 3 requires 60 tokens and is attainable at level 15, gives 200 Health, 150 Nano, and +1% Experience.  Froob Subway twinks (level 25 max) could certainly benefit from the 3rd Token Board.

Acquiring tokens at low levels is more time consuming than at higher levels, as at higher levels, the number of tokens rewarded increases per mission.   Another reason that farming tokens takes time is that the to get the token reward two things are required: 1) the mission objective is completed, 2) All of the mobs in the mission are killed.  Because of this, identify and/or kill person type missions are less than desirable due to situations where the placement of the mission objective person is such that killing or identifying them is unavoidable before all of the other mobs have been killed, resulting in no token reward.

Name Your Pets or Die

It pays for pet classes to give their pets unique names.  Not only does it make for a more personalized experience, but it provide better control of the pets in hectic combat situations.  MP’s with 3 pets can not give a generic /pet attack command and expect that the command will be heeded by the appropriate pet.  Taking the time to manually select each pet before giving a command, can be hard in combat.  A few hot bar macros can simplify things greatly.

• Pet Naming Macros.
  Select the intended pet and the hit a Pet Rename hot bar button with this macro:
  /pet rename PETNAME
  with PETNAME replaced with the name you want for the pet. Create a separate naming macro for each pet.
• Pet Specific Guard Macros.
  Pets, after zoning, do not always seem remember the last commands given to them.   In team missions, after every level elevator, Babaemphee and Babaengy have created a set of pet specific guard order macros.
  /pet PETNAME guard