140 Rolls By

Baba at max detail settings, hunting bots in Omni Forrest

Baba was getting a little tired of PW Borgs and thought he would try some leveling off mobs in the wild.  He found a canyon in Southern Foul plains that looked like it had a mix of snakes, Drills, and big cats, at around level 120 which he thought would be tough enough to give some decent experience, yet not be risking reclaim all the time.  Well it turned out that yes he could handle them smoothly individually, but the layout of the canyon was too tight and it was impossible to keep from picking up more adds while kiting single mobs.  He picked up a train of 4 or 5 120 level mobs which he had to run across half the zone to lose.

He then spent some time hunting low level bots for the last piece in the first part of the Alvin/Dodga quest.  He had started this quest back when he was in his 60s, but gave up after collecting 6 of the seven pieces.  That seventh piece was just not to be found by him.  He killed about 90 in one trip which yielded two drops of quest items, but not the item he needed, the scrap of notum.  The next day he killed about 150 bots in a session which yielded 0 quest pieces.  Somebody noticed what he was doing, and could not resist mocking him for still doing this quest at his level.  I guess compared to expansion shoulder pieces, the ones from this quest are pretty wimpy.  Maybe so, Baba just hates too leave things like that unfinished, so every once and a while, he goes out looking for the last quest item.

Strange clump of mobs in river, click for larger view

While traveling around he came across one of those strange clumps of mobs, this time in Athens near a bend in the river.  It must be something in the virtual geometry that causes so many unlike mobs to congregate in one illogical spot.   AgentBaba our agent alt spotted a similar thing near one of the player cities just north of the Rhinoman valley in Newland Dessert.

Speaking of AgentBaba, she leveled up to around 25 out in Newland Dessert, and then returned to the Subway in Borealis to see how far she could level in there.  The  Gripo-Com AKR 1K21rifles recommended by Hahnsoo’s guide worked out extremely well for her.  She was doing damage close to what several true twinks were getting in the Subway.  The Gripo’s are fairly fast and have a very nice crit.

On her arrival to the entrance to the stairs to the deep subway she was challenged by Eumenides, who she was quite able to put away with little fuss or muss.  To her delight, he dropped the best bit of subway loot, the ring of Nucleus Basalis, so she then had no need to join suicide Abmouth teams.  She then spent a day or two leveling up.  With the great damage from the rifle and her evades, she had no trouble with any mob in the subway.  The only one that was a threat were Virgil Aneid and Abmouth, which she did her best to stay away from.

One of the more curious mobs in the subway is a small female is the deep subway named “Redundant Scan”.  During AgentBaba’s extended Subway experience, she must have fought this mob 20-30 times.  Very often “Redundant Scan” will break off from combat when her health gets to about 40% and start running away.   For a ranged toon like AgentBaba, this is no problem, as poor “Redundant Scan” is unable to outrun projectiles.

After she hit level 32, the number of mobs that would give her any experience was reduced to a very small handful.  The two giant spiders, the shades in the Vergil Aeneid section, and the two cyborgs in the room before Virgil were the only ones to give experience after hitting 32.  It was getting boring having to sit around waiting for them to respawn, so AgentBaba decided to quit while she was ahead and was in the process of leaving when she reached the stairs that go up to the rooms with the sand fleas.  At that point she got a join team pop up.  She had been posted on looking for a team the whole time, and gotten 0 invites so far, so she just as she clicked yes, the ugly form of Abmouth filled her view.  A trox doctor that had been teamed with a semi-twink looked to have lost his team-mate to Abmouth, and was now determined to avoid reclaim.

AgentBaba first impulse was to flat out run away, run away, Monte Python style, but decided to try and help out as best she could.  Not only was there Abmouth, but the doc/trox had also picked up a train of several infectors and cyborgs as well.   AgentBaba was surprised that even though she was pouring damage into Abby, neither Abby or any of the adds, paid her any attention.  The doc/trox seemed to be going into that slow motion, death spiral dance, so AgentBaba knew that it was now time for her to split, or she would be next.  She ran for the exits and was quite surprised that she managed to escape.   I have got to note at this point, after taking an Enforcer, Agent and Adventurer through the subway, that the Agent was by far the most effective.  The Enforcer’s non twink weapons were too weak, they lack self healing, and have no evades.

Player City south of PW notum mines, click for full view

Baba did go back to Perpetual Wastelands and resumed hunting Borgs there.  He used to be able to expect to grab a level in about an hour there by himself, but ever since he hit around level 135, the experience each Borg gives has taken a nose dive, and it now takes him 2 to 3 hours to get a level at the same spot.  It has become less dangerous.  He can flub a pull and survive pulling 3-4 Borg at a time.  Baba still has his eye on moving up to a Pained Panther from his Panther.  While trying to compare the two, he ran them both through the Auno damage simulator. The simulator asks for the input of your initiatives and your add/def setting.  This nudged Baba to to check his Agg/Def setting at the Unity of the Rose site.  The Agg/Def calculator told Baba that he could set his all the way back to 25% and maintain the same attack speed.  He tried this on his last Borg hunting trip and it did seem to help with fewer Borg crits landing.  This is an easily overlooked benefit of the Panther weapons, and most likely other fast melee weapons.  Once they are in the less than 1.5 seconds range, they enable enforcers to adjust thier Agg/Def settings quite a bit at no loss in damage.

The Miy’s Man

The well dressed Borg Hunter in Perpetual Wastelands, click for larger view.

Earlier in the week Baba had made a trip out to Perpetual Wastelands Borg Dunes, only to find it occupied by several higher level toons.  There was a title 5 fixer kiting the Borg in mass out on the main dune.  Baba is not sure why high levels hunt Borg here, as it must not be very good experience.  The best guess is they are farming Miy’s armor for alts, however often these toons don’t bother to loot the corpses.

Baba went south west a little to the town area and started hunting the slightly lower level Borg in that region.  He netted quite a few nice Miy’s pieces which he will be saving for his alts.  He had not trouble with these Borg and could easily kite several at a time with not difficulty.  The trouble he ran into was in the area near where the main road bends westward to go to the bridge.

Target rich Perpetual Wastelands dunes, click for larger view

There is a cliff to the south and Baba had spotted a single Borg down at the base.  He hopped down there to take out the Borg only to find that there were about 5 Borg there and a couple of high level mantises.  He managed to run out of the ravine and up the hill towards the road.  In the process he lost the mantises and the Borg by themselves was manageable.

The next evening when he returned to the dunes area, there was another title 5 Fixer out on the main dune area.  Baba went to the area next to the Helipad, but after he had killed a few Borg, the Fixer rolled in and kitted away all the Borg.

Since about half of Baba’s bags were full from the night before, he choose to go back to Newland city to sort out his loot and sell it.  After he competed this (including meeting up with Tireen who fenced the items at the trader shop) he returned to the dunes to find the Fixer gone.

There was still a problem.  The fixer had left a tigntly packed group of Borg on the main dune.  Baba had never seen so many Borg in such a small area.  Baba tried to slowly approach to just aggro one, but he had to high tail it when the whole pack turned on him.  They stopped chasing him by the time he was just a few hundred yards from the canyon to the north.

At this this dispersed the Borg knot, and when he returned he was able to start kiting them in ones and twos.  He did this for about an hour and decided to log off after his anniversary experience boost wore off.

Ohtizz leveling near central outpost in Newland Dessert, click for larger view

Ohtizz our adventurer put in a few hours this week.  He leveled up to 24 in the wilderness around the outpost in the center of Newland Dessert.  He experimented with several different sets of pistols and in the end decided to stick with the upgraded starter weapons for now.  The Electrocutiums did slightly better damage, but were painfully slow.

It is just psychologically unacceptable to get killed while waiting for you weapon to shoot.  Also the lack of any special, makes combat with them a single button push of boredom.  At least with the Surge pistols, if he pays attention, it pays off with additional damage from every Fling Shot.  After hitting 24 he headed back to the subway.

OHtizz almost outhealed Euenides's damage, but not quite, click for larger view

We found him at 24 to be somewhat less powerfull than our NT had been, but better than Baba as a baby enforcer had been.  His damage is about the same as Baba’s then, but his self healing gives him an edge over the enforcer at that level.  The NT definitely out damages both of them.  Our NT could easily solo Eumedies,  Virgil Aneid and Infectors.  Ohtizz had a run in with Eumenides  at the entrance to the stairwell to the deep subway.

It turned out to be a fairly long battle.  As long has his nano lasted, Ohtizz was able to out heal the damage of the mob.  Ohtizz’s damage was too weak, and was not enough to beat the mob before Ohtizz’s nano ran out.  Once his nano ran out, he could no longer use his first aid stims, and since his damage was slower than the the mobs, the mob beat him.  At the end both had just a sliver of health left.