Level 134 and Ohtizz

Ohtizz, old friend of Baba, reacts to request for credit card, click for larger view.

Baba stared out across the lake next to Newland City, watching the holo-advertisements for the various flying vehicles spin, as his long time acquaintance Ohtizz filled him in on his arrival on Rubi-Ka.  Ohtizz had been on another planet when Baba sent him a ‘free pass’ to Rubi-Ka that was supposed to include access to Jobe and what mainly interested Baba, access to the Global Purchasing Terminals.  Baba never got his access via his pal to the terminals.  The sponsoring corporation, in return for the ‘free’  30 day trial of these services, required your credit card number and the right to start charging it once the 30 days were up.  Ohtizz explained to Baba, that even though he really would have liked to see how the Planet wide shop terminals work, it just was not worth handing over his credit chip number.  Ohtizzes world had a funny way of shaking things up in such a way that he sometimes forgets to cancel free trials before the 30 days is up, and ends up getting charged.

Addys are Easy! Ohtizz makes short work of a Boss, click for larger view.

Ohtizz explained to Baba that he still enjoyed the trip to Rubi-Ka and how he had chose the Adventurer class when required by the bureaucracy running the welcome/processing orbital station.  “It’s like 10 times easier than Enforcer, or NT or even Trader.  Practically all my skills are green and unlike these professions, the starter IP allotments are more then enough for keeping the basic abilities maxed.”  There is only a handful of important skills to raise, so the IP goes much further than they did for Baba’s Enforcer, or Babaente’s NT, or Tireen’s Trader, at least for title levels 1-2.

The Shuttleport Island has been quite easy for Ohtizz thanks to the advise Baba, Babaente, and Tireen had laid out for him. They had laid out for him the following:

The Froob’s Shuttleport Island to Mainland One Page Guide

1. Talk to Brandon Thorn, do as he asks, get a light bar,  a belt and a level.
2. Kill beach mobs in the immediate area to level up to around level 6, be sure to loot everything.
3. Give Thorn monster parts, he will give you first aid stims, health and nano kits. You will be outgrowing these soon, so only get a few.
4. Take the belt to Stacklund who will upgrade it. Aslo ask him about weapon upgrades.
5. Sign up with Clan or Omni, then trade your loot with your sides equipment vendor.
6. Talk to  Adri Afeli by the docks and get your weapon(s) upgraded.
7. With the cash you earned from all the mobs you killed leveling up. Buy you beginners nano package.
8. Do Travis Molen’s sided shoulder pad quest twice to get a pair.
9. Do Travis Molen’s 5 quests for the Newcomer’s Armor pieces, gloves, pants, body, sleeves and boots.  (There is no helmet). Use the best helmet you find looting mobs.)
10. Buy sided badges and upgrade each of you Newcomer’s armor pieces.
11. Don’t waste your time doing the backpack or other quests. You can buy a backpacks cheaply on the  main land.
12. Optional, kill all the Dyna-camps you can find on the Island.  You may get a decent buffing item or two, like a Ring of Power (extra damage), Ring of Offense (extra offense points) and a few others. These are nice to have, and only cost a few minutes it takes to kill the mobs.  Not worth camping for however. If you need experience in order to level up so you can equip something new, then do these quests, and repeat them if more experience is needed.
13. Go to the Mainland. Ignore the drunk.  Enter the subway, find the Vagabond that hangs out in the passage way between the 2nd and 3rd set of doors beyond the entrance.  Kill him and loot the Vagabond cloak.  If it drops, place it on your back slot. The +25 all defense is golden at these low levels.  If the cloak does not drop, take note of the time, proceed to the left wing off the large main hall.  Kill robots, muggers, looters and Vagabonds (the other Vagabonds may also drop the Vagabond cloak) for 20 minutes, then return to the first Vagabond and kill him again.  Repeat this process until you get a cloak. This cloak and the newcomer’s armor is all you need for the next 15-20 levels armor wise.
14. Get a Bio Communicator to turn monster parts into more valuable blood plasma.  For sale in shops for a few thousand credits, or get a free one by talking to the woman standing near where you first arrived. Agree to return her Bio Communicator to a guy over by the shops.  He will end up giving you one for your very own.

At this point you are on your own.  You should know how to play your character, how to kill mobs to level and how to earn credits.

Ohtizz breezed through Newbie Island and hit level 13 on the Mainland without ever once visiting reclaim.  Poor Baba got to know reclaim at starter Island right away as did Babaente and Tireen. “It’s so easy” he told Baba, “I hardly take any damage, and the mobs are usually dead before I break out a sweat.”  With evades maxed, and dual wielding a pair of fairly powerful pistols, Ohtizz rarely has to use an many med kits and first aid charges as Baba did.

Baba listened patiently to his old friend.  He had know Ohtizz, long ago, on other planets in other solar systems, other times.  He was glad his friend had finally found something at which he could excel.  Not wanting to bring up some of Ohtizz’s previous less than glorious undertakings, Baba encouraged him to continue with the Addy thing.

Baba would never choose the Adventurer route, but he did feel a bit cheated.  Newbie island has been a somewhat difficult undertaking for him.  He was mostly envious of the Adventurer’s solo/self healing nanos.  You would think that a profession that is designed to take damage, would have nanos to replenish the health lost while tanking.  All Enforcers get are nanos that increase the overall health point base.  The problem being that once it’s used up, in battle, there is nothing except first aid stims, to keep his health for running out in a hard fight.

Baba shook Ohtizz’s hand, wished him luck, and hopped in his Yalm.  Baba had some leveling to do in Perpetual Wastelands with some Borg.  When Baba arrived over the dunes in north east PW he was happy to find no other hunters there to compete with.  There was evidence however, that someone had recently left there.  The main dunes section, that has a somewhat elevated altitude to the extent that one can see far in all directions, was itself only about half full of the usual complement of Cyborg soldiers and officers.

Baba quickly buffed up, and popped a anniversary experience boosting stim and went to work.  It did not take long for Baba to clear the rest of the main dune section, however he could swear that his experience bar was hardly moving.  The combat log clearly still showed massive experience being awarded with each Borg downed, so it must have been one of those time/reality dilations that occur sometimes due to stress or excitement.  Baba had to move further south to the section of undulating dunes that sit next to the acid lake and the Heli-pad.  He greatly reduced the distance by which he would kite his prey away from the main body. This helped speed up the process, but also caused him to catch unwanted aggro from Borg which re-spawned close to where he was recharging or looting resulting in multi Borg kites, and/or sustaining 50% or more damage before dispatching the Borg involved.

Baba hits level 134 at PW Dunes, click for larger view.

By the time Baba dinged 134, darkness was falling.  He hopped in his Yalm and few north just a bit to set down in his usual safe spot where he could sort his recent loot and heal up via his health and nano deltas rather than use of costly kits.  There were several Miy’s armor pieces in this take, but nothing he could equip any time soon.  While not in his loot bags, he did cogitate a bit over seeing not one, but several Experimental Cyborg token boards dropping during this outing.  It was a shame to have to let them rot, but since they are no drop, and he already had a clan board, they were of no use to him.

Double Flags of Righteousness at Dawn

Goodbye to Rhinoman Cockpit Oasis, click for larger version

As Babaente and Tireen, ascended in their shiny silver Yalmahas into the clear blue Rubi-Ka sky and the Rhinoman cockpit oasis recedes from view below, they shared a warm feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment.

They said their goodbyes to this mission location, a lonely desert setting on the fringe of the Newland Desert, just past a huge ridge wall and an acid river.  They probably would not be returning to this place again now that they both had completed their quests for their 250 token boards.

They had chosen to limit their token board missions to Newland Desert so as to limit travel time and take advantage of Newland City’s neutral status, although out in the desert Tireen has to keep a wide distance from any Watchers and other clan sided guards.

Babaente gets her Dawn token board, click for larger view

One really nice feature is that when one first gets the new token board, epaulets appear over the toon’s  shoulders showing the symbol for that particular board.  It would be awesome if the epaulets stayed visible for a few days so one could walk around Rubi-Ka cities to show off. Unfortunately, they vanish as soon as your toon zones.

Babaente was awarded her “Dawn” token board, in the middle, not the end of a mission.  How?  She got her 250th token as a Clan Bravery Award when looting a mission mob.  View the larger version of the picture to see that the mini-map shows an uncompleted level.  This is something to keep in mind when running team missions for token boards.  Looting of mobs needs to be rotated or some agreement needs to be made about how the bravery awards are taken.  If an omni player loots the mob, it will be an Omni award and if a clan player loots, then it appears as a Clan award.

Tireen nets her Double Flags of Righteousness token board, click for larger view.

Since Babaente and Tireen have been teaming as a result of ‘dual-boxing’, it was too much trouble to try and switch back and forth on looting, and normally we have Babaente do all the looting.  As a result she got her 250th token about 2 missions before Tireen.

When Tireen finally collected token number 250, she got a much more impressive token board title “Double Flags of Righteousness.“  Besides the mind-numbing grind that missions can become, this stint has been somewhat profitable for them. Since they had been pulling missions in the 55-60 range, they had come across 2 Grid Armor Mark I instruction disks, fairly valuable finds for title 3 toons.

The 250 token board is the highest level board title 3 froobs can hold.  It gives substantial buffs to the holder.  Here is the breakdown:

Max Health      +500
Max Nano        +500
Add all Off.    25
Add all Def.    35
% Add Exp.      6
Add Damage      10 (Proj., Melee, Energy, Chem., Rad., Cold, Fire, Poison)

It’s hard to think of any loot items that title 3 toons have a reasonable chance of acquiring that offer comparable  or better benefits.

Here is a quick cheat sheet outlining title levels, and token boards:

Title        Levels          Token Boards
1            1-14            10 tokens
2            15-49           30 and 60 tokens
3            50-99           120 and 250 tokens
4            100-149         400 and 1000 tokens
5            150-189
6            190-200
7            205-220

One minor gotcha, is that token boards are for sided players only. Neutrals have no token boards other than Cyborg token boards that are dropped by mid level Cyborgs.  For title 5 and above, there are additional token boards, but the requirements for each are very specific and different quests.

Our pair are now itching to get out in the open, and for Babaente to get back into practice kiting.  Because the levels can fly by pretty fast while NT kiting, our pair need to make sure they stop some time in this short run to title 5 (level 100) that they again run a like number of team missions AGAIN in order to pick up the next token board, which requires 400 tokens. They also will need to make sure they get through Biomare/Foreman’s dungeon as it is level locked to 100 and below.

Mort Crater, the circle track of DOOM, click for larger view

Babaoroody was prodded by Babaente, out of his title 4 rut, to make 3 passes through the Sentinels base small building with Babaente tagging along.  They are looking for a Ring of Haste to drop from an level 115-ish Entwined soldier, but this week end they cleaned out the static dungeon 3 times, but came up dry in regards to a Ring of Haste.  The ring is a no drop item, but it adds +100 run speed, so it definitely would be a bonus for Babaente when kiting.

It was fun lumbering around and popping Challenger and Mongo nanos when any of the Sentinels mobs put up a decent fight.  Pumped up with the increased size of a Challenger nano, adjusting the camera became a bit of a problem in the tight quarters of a mission setting.  In third person view, the only way to see a fallen mob is to have Baba sit.

It brings us to Baba and why aren’t we leveling him?  After getting past the midway point of title 5, the options seem to have narrowed significantly.  It’s either team missions or PW Borg pickup teams.  While solo kiting PW Borgs is still an option, the experience is slow glowing when you have to kite and kill them one at a time.

We have nothing but admiration and wonder for froobs who have made it all the way to 200, and a ton more if they are ‘pure’ froobs.

Babaente and Tireen are really excited about getting out in the wild again for some fast kite leveling, but first, they will be sorting through and marketing thier loot from this last run of token missions.  Once that is done, they will be out scouting for a nice kiting area suitable for a 71 level NT.