Steveos Semi-comprehensive Perk Guide

[Steveo]

Steveo’s Perk Guide

I’ve been toying with the idea of making a more in-depth perk guide for our profession. This is the product of many weeks of work so try not to flame me too hard. J

What I would like to do here is to go over the new AI perks and some different setups for different purposes and maybe some perk setups for different levels focusing on the needs for those levels.

SL Perks

I won’t be covering SL perks much as far as explanation because Jeremiah did a great job of it here… Rooted threads are your friend

AI Perks

Ok, obviously we need to give some credit here, not only to the NT forum itself and its limitless ability to make constructive Suggestions but also to Rahmorak and Fingers for their tireless work with the developers on the creation and refinements of these perks and to Blueoffset the developer who put many hours in with them working it all out.

Ancient Matrix

This perkline is so beautiful it should make you want to cry. In addition to 52 points to Matter Creation and Time and Space, you also get 3% damage add, 20 to nano delta and a whopping 200 points to Nano Init. You also get three specials, Flim Focus – This buffs your nano init by 10%. Program Overload – 20% buff to nano damage at the possible risk of shutting your casting skills down. Utilize – 2200-2500 attack at level 10 trained. All in all, an amazing perkline.

Unknown Factor

160 points to Nano Programming, Pharmaceuticals, Chemistry, and Psychology… more tradeskills are never a bad thing. Two specials with this perkline, Hostile Takeover – This will debuff nano init, melee init, physical init, or range init by 450 pts randomly, Chaotic Assumption – 4500-6000 pt attack.

Champion of Nano Combat

This is an important perkline for NT’s even though its one that all professions have access to. It gives 100 points to all nano skills. Two specials, Bot Confinement – 1900-2100 pt attack and a 20% reduction in the nano damage ability of the target. Nano Feast – 2800-3840 pt attack without Fuzz running (Champion of Heavy Artillery special running) and 3500-4800 pt attack with it running.

Perk Setup Ideas

As I said before these will mainly focus on 220/30 setups but if anyone has any suggestions for setups to add at lower levels or different setups let me know and I will add them in.

Its important to note that in any setup you are giving up one thing for another. For nano technicians this seems to balance between nanoskills, nano regeneration, and damage. Although different mixes can accomplish some mixture of these, you won’t get all three in any of them.

Ultimate Damage Setup

Shadowlands Perks

Enhance Nano Damage: Level 6
Starfall: Level 10
Theoretical Research: Level 9
Notum Source: Level 10

AI Perks

Ancient Matrix: Level 10
Unknown Factor: Level 8
Champion of Nano Combat: Level 10

A couple of notes on this one, this is available at lvl 215/28, this will leave you with 7 perk points to spare to use on other things, you would probably want to put those last points into something that buffs mc for sl like notum siphon or nano doctorate, nano doctorate will give you 10 more points into mc plus buff all your other nano skills as well, but depending on your regen you could go either way. Remember that the final starfall perk supernova scales to your mc skill.

Ultimate Skills Setup

Shadowlands Perks

Starfall: Level 10
Nano doctorate: Level 10
Notum Siphon: Level 10
Genius: Level 3

AI Perks

Ancient Matrix: Level 10
Champion of Nano Combat: Level 10
Nanomorph: Level 10

This will buff your mc by 371 points total. You may want to switch out your breeds AI perk for int/psy for the nanomorph perkline due to cost/benefit things. The trickledown from the int/psy probably won’t make that big of a difference but there may be better specials that way.

Ultimate Survivability Setup

Shadowlands Perks

Starfall: Level 10
Theorhetical Research: Level 3
Nano Doctorate: Level 10
Enhance Health: Level 7
Cartographer: Level 5

AI

Ancient Matrix: Level 10
Breed Perkline: Level 10
Champion of Nano Combat: Level 10

For SL since mobs tend to resist us a lot, skills = survivability, mc is good, but well rounded skills will help you to calm/root better until our toolset gets updated. All of the AI breed perks add to survivability through things like hots, armor buffs, mana shield etc. Also the debuffs that come along with ancient matrix and starfall really add to the survivability of a player. The TR root is invaluable for soloing and for when things get really bad you have your cartographer warps to take you to a happy place.

Conclusion

I hope this may help some people who might be wondering about what perk setup they might want to try. Hopfully other people can post their setups at different levels so we can see when you might need more nano or different setups to survive better.

[Steveo]

Level 49 – Alien Level 5 (Newcomer)

I would guess that nano regen is still going to be a major concern at this level. Depending on weapon setup you may want to go into a different alien perkline to boost those skills.

SL Perks
Notum Siphon: Level 1
Notum Source: Level 1
Starfall: Level 1
Cartographer: Level 1

AI Perks
Champion of Nano Combat: Level 4
Ancient Matrix: Level 1

Fixers shouldn’t be the only ones who can meep. This is what I think might be a decent PVP setup at that level, however if I was going PVM…nah this is ok for PVM too, having cartographer would bug me for PVM since I never use it, but I wouldn’t put anything into channeling of notum either cause the aura cancels casting. This will also add 27 to your mc and 22-24 to your other nanoskills.

Level 99 – Alien Level 11 (Able)

SL Perks
Notum Siphon: Level 3
Nano Doctorate: Level 2
Starfall: Level 3
Cartographer: Level 1

AI Perks
Ancient Matrix: Level 2
Champion of Nano Combat: Level 8
Nanomorph: Level 1


The nanopoint drain from nanomorph might be an interesting idea at this level, Starfall will give you two good specials including combust which might actually be useful at that level and Dazzle with Lights, to finish it off we have good ol’ cartographer in case things go wrong. You also get a 736-1360 alpha attack from nano feast.

Level 149 – Alien Level 19 (Supporter)

SL Perks
Notum Siphon: Level 5
Starfall: Level 4
Theoretical Research: Level 3


AI Perks
Ancient Matrix: Level 8
Champion of Nano Combat: Level 8
Nanomorph: Level 3

Although I think “tick” will start to outgrow its usefulness at this point the options for AI perks are kinda thin around here and nt’s may not shine as much with them. This will give you a 1700-1900 pt attack and a 736-1360 alpha attack.

[Jaesic]

Steve, you may want to break down the AI perk lines a bit more. They have limitations a couple ways... AI rank requirements and also actual level requirements (since higher AI ranks are not available at lower actual levels). In addition, the skill breakdown is set up on a scaling system where a majority of the points from a given perk are not available until the Shadowlevels. It would be handy to have a breakdown that shows what's available in each of your set-ups at certain stages of player progression. For sake of discussion, the level or two before each title level would be good as these are typically stopping points for PvP. I'd suggest the following: 49, 99, 149, 195, 205, 215, 220 (first three are PvP points, the rest are waypoints in the high end NT profession evolution).

[Steveo]

Are the AI Levels broken down on some thread or guide somewhere, as to what level you can get each rank?

As far as pvp goes, I'm not really experienced because I don't care about it too much. I was hoping someone with some pvp knowledge could share if they felt there was a specific perk setup that was better for pvp.

[Jaesic]

Are the AI Levels broken down on some thread or guide somewhere, as to what level you can get each rank?

As far as pvp goes, I'm not really experienced because I don't care about it too much. I was hoping someone with some pvp knowledge could share if they felt there was a specific perk setup that was better for pvp.

Not sure about the defender rank vs. level comparison... but the perk level requirements and the pt. breakdown by setup can be worked out at AODB. I 'think' you'll find that the lower level (pre-TL5) setups are pretty easy to work out... so many of our perk lines don't start/progress until high levels that even having a perk points available, there aren't many places to put them.

[Steveo]

I'd suggest the following: 49, 99, 149, 195, 205, 215, 220 (first three are PvP points, the rest are waypoints in the high end NT profession evolution).

Would be interesting to note the needs of those different levels, the only thing I really remember about earlier levels was that I was constantly out of nano. I can (or maybe someone else who has time) can set up some suggestions here but if anyone has any suggestions to offset them.

Maybe we could make an ideal ingot alt kiting setup? I think it would involve training notum repulsor all the way and maybe throwing in the aura HE perk...

All Joking aside, I really need some ideas on if there would be a different setup for pvp or if pvp would be the same setup as pvm. I'm not sure that we really have any perks that are specifically useful against other players at this point with the exception of the alien perks but lets see what I can work out around those levels. Maybe we can make stronger twinks now than we could before.

[Steveo]

ok, edited and added some level stuff, kinda like that?

[Jaesic]

Yep

[Steveo]

Boo... you're making me work too hard here