More Leveling at PW Dunes

Tightly packed Borg at PW Dunes, click image for larger version

Baba rubbed the sleep out of his ancient eyes and rose from his sleeping couch to lurch into his ‘living room’.  He moved slowly, so as to not aggravate his sore muscles, out of practice and a still a bit out of shape, following his recent leveling PW Borg Hunt.  As his hands groped in his closet for his new Miy’s Scary Body armor, to start suiting up for another outing, a small portion of still active brain cells reminded him that there was another task which needed his attention before he faces the Borg again.

Grabbing some hot Java from his ‘kitchenette’ that folds out of one wall, and a toroidal sugar encrusted calorie delivery ring some crazy archaeologist claimed recently on ‘In the Ether Tonight‘ that ancient cultures called a donut, Baba sat down and activated his HUD display for allocating IP points.  As an Atrox Enforcer, the process was fairly simple, always max his basic skills and his combat skills (2 hand edged, Brawling, Fast Attack, Physical Init). Baba only gives a point or two to Dimach, as the weapons requirements for it are generally low and it has not been that useful to Baba.

Baba always reviews a section of his IP spreadsheet that lists in order of quality, all of the Enforcer nanos, along with their requirements and these are coded to change color to indicate when he has enough IP points to equip them.  He was delighted to find that he was within striking distance of equipping two nanos.  The first improvement was with the jump from Essence of Cyclops to Essence of Titan which heaps on 189 more health points (Essence of Titan total is +590 health points to the +401 of Cyclops.  It also adds +3 more to Stamina and Strength, plus another +1 to scale. In his Shields line, he would be able to move from Barbaric Blades to Lightening Shield which adds another +54 health, +5 more to all Shield ACs and +160 to Energy AC.  (Total health for Lightening is 310).  Together with the additional ACs and health he gained the previous visit to PW from his new Miy’s Scary Body armor, Baba should be somewhat less squishy when hitting +175 level Borg at the PW dunes.

Once his IP were doled out, Baba strolled over the the Advanced Shop in Newland City to pick up the Lighting Shield Nano (he already had a Essence of Titan he had found as loot.)  A furtive check of the Enforcer nano terminal told him the nano he wanted was not there, he needed to be shopping in a superior shop.  Superior shop usually means superior prices, Enforcer nanos jump from tens of thousands at the advanced shop to hundreds of thousands at the superior shop.  This was a job for his trader friend Tireen who could buy the same items for a considerable discount compared Baba.
He sent her a quick personal tell request and logged off.

Tireen, an omni trader not above dealing with toons from any side (credits are credits), took the ICC whompa from Newland City and then to Omni Trade.  She made a bee line from the Omni Trade whompa to one of the superior shops and made sure to cast her trading buffs before opening the Enforcer terminal.  She found the Lightning Shield nano listed there for 300,000 credits and she purchased one.  She then made her way back to Newland City where she passed the item to Babaente, who then met up with Baba.  Babaente gave him the new nano, and Baba gave her the 300,000 credits to cover the cost.  Baba was not going to freeload off those at lower levels than him.

Baba equipped his new nanos and added them to his hotkey bars.  He then headed out to Perpetual Wastelands determined to spend at least an hour hunting Borg.  When he arrived at the dunes, he found plenty of Borg and no competitors.  He touched down at his usual spot north of the dunes by the cliff wall and proceeded to buff up. It was his usual buffs including the hacked boosted graft Hasty Augmentation Cloud, and his two new nanos, Lightning Shield and Essence of Titan.  Popping another anniversary experience stim, he set off down to the southern end of the dune to say Hi to a Borg.

Close call, click image to for better view of what is left of Baba's health bar.

The random dispersion of Borg at the dunes always seems to vary.  Today they appeared to be somewhat more closely packed than they usually are.  Baba had to exercise more caution during the first half hour, trying to avoid pulling more than one Borg at a time.  They were all so close that at least on three separate pulls, he ended up with 4 to 3 Borg on his case.  The 4 Borg kite almost sent him back to reclaim.  Baba was down to 25% as he wore down the last Borg in that kite.  If he had not be able to use a first aid stim while on the run, he would not have made it.  The problem with kiting multiple high level Borgs, is that it only takes a few mistakes to use up Baba’s absorb layers, and after that all it takes is two solid hits and a crit, to obliterate most of Baba’s health.

The PW Dune Borgs seem to have 3 types of damage, melee, energy and projectile (depending on type of gun.)  During this outing Baba’s logs show Borg melee hits averaging 436 damage, their Energy shots averaging 449 damage, and their projectile shots doing around 490. He did wince when he saw a 936 melee critical from one of the Generals.  This of course will vary for others due to differences in player armor and protection buffs.

Ding 133 off Borg at PW Dunes, still over 3 mil in experience pool, click image for larger view

By the time 45 minutes had passed, he had chipped the Borg down to handful.  Baba started pulling his Borg a shorter distance from the rest, to avoid running out the clock. He wanted to level on a single charge of the experience stims.  He only has a handful of them and he wants to make them all count.  Near the end of the hour he could see two things converging.  His experience bar was edging toward being full and gaining a level,and his experience stim count down was down to 5 minutes.  Pausing only to  re-cast his damage buffs, and his major nanos, and he went to work the remaining Borg.  Things went well and he dinged 133 with 2 minutes left to go on his  experience stim.

Baba strolled back to his ’safe’ spot north of the dunes, and proceeded to sort through tonight’s loot.  While in the field, he usually just sorts out the Miy’s armor to a separate bag so he can inspect it in detail and equip then and there of possible.  He was quite happy to find the Miy’s Tank Body armor piece was both a higher quality level than his current body armor, and had requirements he can meet.  He took a minute to bring up his equipment HUD panel and go through the technical part of equipping it. With that done, he took the actual previous Miy’s piece off and the put on the new QL 168 Tank Body armor. The Miy’s Tank piece offers some nice improvements over his previous 151 Miy’s Scary Body part. The new Tank gives +12 health, +102 all AC’s +13 Stamina, +10 Strength, +21 max nano and a really helpful -3 nano cost reduction.

Baba Beats Babyface

Babaoroody came out this past Saturday afternoon to roll a few single missions from Newland City. His objective was simply to get back into the swing of things as we have been spending more time with our Nanotechnitian and Trader lately.  Before rolling the missions at the terminals across from the Bronto Burger stand in Newland City, he took some time to sort through all the loot/party favors he received recently from the 8th Anniversary AO celebrations.  He filed away most of the novelty and social items into his bank, and just kept the experience boosting items with him in a backpack so he can have them ready for use anytime he hooks up with a good team.

Mission spot at Milky Way Omni Base, click for full view

He rolled two missions, one in the very southernmost part of Stret East Bank, and the other in the middle of an Omni base in Milky Way.  The first mission involved a mix of snakes and cyborgs and went by in a flash.  Having gotten used to team missions, single person missions now seem like just a warm up exercise.  The second mission involved more cyborgs, humans, and several Babyface type mobs.  The incongruity of the foreboding look of this mob with the humorous baby talk type audio coming from this mob had Baba chuckling all through the mission.  Baba had been wiped a few times by very high level Babyfaces, so at first it was taken very cautiously, but after about the second one, it was clear these were lower levels and quite easy to knock over.

Flying from Harry’s at Lush Fields, over the inner waterway, Baba enjoyed turning on the AO music which always is a big enhancement to the experience of viewing Rubi-Ka’s lush landscapes.  The outdoors, open spaces music that plays when transversing long distances in AO is very soothing and really adds to the enjoyment of the moment.

Baba beats up on Babyface, click for better view

Once Baba completed both missions he headed back to Newland to sort through his loot, starting a couple of bags for monster parts.  He had one interesting drop from the missions, a personal grid beacon which Baba plans on sending over to Tireen, or trader.  It will be a while before she levels up high enough to equip it, but it will be waiting for her. He’s glad he found it as it prompted him to look it up at Auno.org and there he spotted ‘Walk the Grid’ which is better and which Tireen should be able to equip fairly soon.

His loot included several different cool sounding projectile type weapons, which unfortunately did not turn up on his handy loot only weapons list, so they most likely will be shopfood.

While sorting loot, he made a quick side trip to a backyard in order to buy 4 more backpacks, mainly to serve as bank storage items.

Baba also took some time to think about what his short term goals should be.  He reviewed his current equipment, including armor an implants, back item and weapon.  He definitely wants to step up from his Panther to a Pained Panther, and hopes to snag a team going to Crypt of Home for this.  Although it seems he is over the 110 level entrance cap, he can still get in with an Engineer warp.  Either that, or pony up a several million credits.

Armor wise, he seems to be doing ok, with Miy’s drops of Borgs.  In another 10-15 levels he may be in the range for a higher quality Alby back item.  Eventually, after maybe 20-30 more levels, he may in range to equip a Black Clan Tank Armor, a friend donated.  At this point, implants are his biggest question mark.  Getting implants over Ql 125 is much more involved than getting implants under QL 125 was.  Previously one can shop for store bought implant components when looking for under QL 125 implants.  Over 125 is another story. The highest basic implants stores carry are 125.  To get basic implants over 125 requires finding finished implants in missions and as drops from mobs and then having a tradeskiller strip them and then combine them with the appropriate clusters which are available in stores in Qualities over 125.  For Baba, the process of designing the desired implant set is a formidable undertaking.  Add to this the great effort required to collect the needed parts, and QL 125+ implants become a very daunting expedition.

There does not seem to be a good rule of thumb out there for determining of often one should upgrade implants.  It seems to be more of ‘do it as often as you can stand’ type thing, as the benefits have to be weighed against the costs in time and credits.  Baba does not have the credits to buy a set quite a few levels above his current level.  His best bet we think is to make do with his current ones and in another 10 or so levels start thinking about putting together a set from what he can find and getting it bumped up some.

Baba then decided to update his equipment configuration at Auno.org.  He swapped back in a Notum Ring of Three, that he had replaced for a while with a Ring of Haste.  The Ring of Haste is useful when kiting Borgs in Perpetual Wastelands as it gives 100 run speed, but for missions the Notum Ring is better for the added damage and extra ACs.  After making an up to date equipment configuration, he decided to look back through some of his equipment setups all the way back to day one.  We decided to dedicate a separate permanent page to Baba’s equipment configurations as they display a rather complete time-line of his progress.