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.

Working on 138

Mr. Baba. Click for larger View

Baba spent some time recently studying his stats and the requirements to equip a Pained Panther. He has been thinking of pursuing going to the Crypt of Home, so he thought he should get familiar with who drops what there as well. He is within fairly easy range of equipping a Pained Panther without being over equipped now. To stay out of OE he would need to have Skill of Viking running. To equip it all he needs is 131 wrangle, his skill of Viking, and Rhinoman Leather jacket, the combination of which will bring his 2 hand Edged skill up to the required 1001.

It was time again to fence loot, so Baba met up with Babaente an NT to transfer the loot bags to Tireen, a trader. Tireen dutifully went to the Newland City traders shop and proceeded to feed the loot to the terminal. While there a passing player noticed and commented on her Solar Powered Backpack. Then Tireen split the proceedings with Baba and Babaente.

Once Baba had his bags back, it was time to head out to Perpetual Wastelands again. On the way across PW from Mort, he swerved North just past the two level 105 Cyborg dynas to scout out the area north of there which he had never really looked at. There were quite a few 140+ mantise type mobs with a few lower level ones at around 120-130. He did not find what he was looking for. He had heard some players refer to hunting scorpiods in PW, but so far he has not located any scorpiods in PW. From an area just east of the Mantis hive he proceeded east towards the Main Borg base. Before he got there he found a lone Cyborg Colonel way out in the middle of no where. Baba figured he must have been trained there, away from the small base that is north of the base with the Helipad.

Stranded Colonel in the middle of PW, Click for larger view.

When Baba arrived at the PW dunes site, he touched down and buffed up. He did a quick face palm when he realized he had not brought an experience boost stim. He still has some left over from the anniversary celebration, but they were in his bank. Without the extra experience, it was doubtful he will hit 138 tonight.

He went to work on the Borg on the main dune. Now that they are less of a threat, and give less experience, he does not have to try hard to avoid pulling several. He can handle two or three rather safely now. Tonight he was experimenting with some added alpha attacks. He moved the ring of eternal darkness and the weeping flesh ring to his social tab, so he could place hot buttons for them on his hot bars. The added damage from the weeping flesh was welcome and worth the effort. The Eternal darkness was somewhat flaky. The first few times it worked great, but then after a while it would lock up and not return when it should have. Baba had to go back and see if something else he was casting is conflicting with it.

Baba dings 137 by himself in Perpetual Wastelands, click for larger view.

By this time it was getting late and Baba was starting to think about logging off. By now he had cleared the main dune section and moved down to the ‘pinch’ section. The ‘pinch’ is where section of small dunes between the Helipad and the large dunes. Along with being a great place to level, like many popular leveling spots or dungeons, Perpetual Wastelands also attracts it’s share of undesirables. One of them showed up next and trained practically all the Borg in the North East sector of PW on to Baba.

Baba had been there for about a quarter of an hour taking Borg down in ones and twos when he notices something odd in the distance. Back on the main dune he could make out what looked like a bunch of Borg all standing still together in a clump. A few minutes later he noticed it was moving towards him. It turned out to be a level 126 NT using their yalm to aggro Borg on the ground and collect them into one huge kite. The NT trained the Borg on to Baba, so Baba had no choice but to make a run for it north. Once he had left the main dunes behind, the NT pulled the kite/train back to the dunes section. After Baba was sure he was safe he jumped into his yalm and flew back. Back at the Dunes he watched as the NT flew around the entire North east corner of PW collecting more and more Borg in his kite until he had collected just about every Borg there.

Once all the Borg were in the kite the NT dropped out of his yalm and started running circles on the Helipad while nuking them standard NT kite style.

It is a petition-able offense to deliberately train a group of monsters on you. This evening Baba was too tired and just did not feel like staying up another 45 to 90 minutes that it sometimes takes to get any action from a petition. If there is one consistent criticism we have of AO, it is that reporting harassment is a huge hassle in it self. One has to read the help file on the obscure petition command, then create the petition, and then respond to the auto followups and then wait 45 minutes to an hour for a ARK to show up. After that it could be a while the ARK can make a decision or find someone who can take whatever action it is that needs to be taken. It was late and Baba had been thinking of logging off just before this whole scene erupted. He had managed to fill several bags with loot that included a number of great Miy’s armor pieces and he had managed to bring his experience bar to about 70%. He decided to log off while looking forward to more closely inspecting the new Miy’s pieces soon.