This guide was first written in French for my orgmates, the source url is here.
Breed choice
Solitus :
The default choice. Maybe a bit hard at the beginning, since it has neither big advantages nor weaknesses. When reaching higher levels, some symbiants will be easier to put in..
Nanomage :
This breed will be the better nanocaster, which means it will be able to self heals and morphs sooner than others. However his low hp, and the fact that its abilities are centered on int/psy, wich are not used for our weaponry skills, make this choice a challenging option. In addition, with AI/LE and SL, the other breeds are able to fill the nanoskills gap. Furthermore, our last nanos are level capped, which annihilate this (only?) advantage.
Atrox :
This is the fat hp ball who can take hits. Same health bar as a full team of nanomages, green strength and stamina for a better trickle down on melee skills and heal-delta. For ranged attacks, it will mainly help on burst and full auto, our 2 main specials.
Nevertheless the nanoskills will be the problem with this breed, it is common to see 210ish trox unable to self our 205 heal.
Opifex :
This one is the evades master. The agi/sens bonus will help to trickle down our main attack skill, pistol, but specials like burst/FA will be a bit harder to cap. In addition, the artillery symbiants are based on agi/strength and a 3rd base attribute depending on the spot, so high end symbiants will be a bit easier for opifexes.
IP management
Basic Abilities
At the beginning it is wise to put IP only in necessary attributes for the armor you wear, and spend remaining points in intelligence to trickle down to your nanoskills. In the long run, all your base abilities will be maxed, so it might be wise to be ready for that by putting excessive IP when you are tittle capped into them.
Body
At low level, nothing to see here. Later you will find useful to raise adventuring to be able to cast Shadowland playfield maps. So as reference, 350 for scheol, 750 for inferno, and maybe 1250 for pandemonium, the XP map (which has no other uses, as pandemonium is a dungeon and so does not need any map running).
If it is possible, keep maxed nanopool and bodydev, since your survivability in fight is a savant mix between your evades, your heals and your abilities to heal yourself
weapon skills
Nothing to do in misc weapon, move on private.
ranged
Max, in this order, pistol, then fling and finally burst. At higher levels, if you choose the jobe pistol way, you will want to raise full auto too. for each level it is really important to raise your main weapon skill AND the skill needed for your specials. Raise multi-ranged needed, but try to reach the stats needed by your guns by special implants and buffing items (like
Blue Bracer of Balance or
Aluminum Armband of Ambidexterity), since this skill does not give any combat bonus, it's only a requirement for dualing pistols.
Melee
Don't listen to the dark side of the strenght, skip this section.
Speed
While low level, there is 3 important skills. Ranged init, usesfull to fire faster: each weapon has a delay for attacking and another one for reload, the more you have the less time will be spent between each shot. Nanoinit is used to cast faster your nanos, and it is usefull to raise it enough to almost insta cast your current heal. After that you can skip it before your next heal.
Finally, run speed allows you to run faster, and seeing the size of Rubi Ka and what you can meet it might be quite useful. When reaching higher levels, you will have to max your evades and nano resist, which will help you to dodge most of your enemies attacks. Please note that duck explosives is mainly used in PVP, so you might want to spare IP if you don't plan to pvp. Thus your add all def. will, in many cases, be enough to evade critical hits. At low level, IP can be very tight so it's better, pvm wise, to skip evades and focus on doing enough damage to the mobs to kill them before they send you to reclaim.
Nanoskills
Our heals are based on bio and mat meta, max it till you can reach the higher heals you can cast. Ours shields and morphs will need the addition of SI, so keep it high enough to launch your last morph. Time and space is not used for our nanoskills, but for nano kits, so raise it only when you feel you nanopool is too slow to refill. PM and MC will have to be maxed at the beginning, since it is used to cast our weapon buffs and shields, but as soon as you are able to cast the bigger of those 2 buffs stop putting IP into it.
Other skills
Other skills
You will have to max treatment, it's used for heal kits but mainly for equipping implants. In addition it is green so try to spare a few IP for each level.
Computer literacy: Mainly used to wear bigger NCU, or to sell or buy stuff cheaper for a shopping bonus.... put a few IP so you are able to equip ql 200 NCU and skip it before you can equip yuttos NCU/pande items.
Map navig: Quite usefull, but not vital. Try to reach 130 as soon as possible, if possible with buffs items/implants, since this skill will not be resetable later.
Ranged weapons
Generic things about weapon system in AO
Your favorite profession is available in 2 different flavors. When you land on noob island, you will see in your inventory 2 little swords and 2 pistols. After a quick test, you will understand that you won't be able to take a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. Before deleting the swords, I will sort a quick list of pro and cons of each
+when fighting a static mob (or one slower than you) it is possible to be out of it's range while firing, in some cases while facing really dangerous mobs it can even be the only way to survive.
+There is more buffing pistols than melee ones in-game
+Our more powerful special hit, the full auto, does not require us to be behind the mob, so it can be used while soloing/tanking.
+There is less stats to raise, but our specials are dark blue so not really cheap IP wise (pistol/burst/full auto, and flying shot with LE).
+It is really easy to do 10k FA, even with only 7 bullets, and this even when you equip your gun for the first time.
+melee advy's will hit harder than us, but they will never be able to hit at the max speed (1s attack/1s reload), as opposite to us
-since we don't dual the same gun, and most of time the 2 weapons do 2 types of damage, we have to wear a bracer of recondite flames to unify our dmg output (as opposite to 2 aruls for a melee)
-we cannot fire while running
-we cannot interrupt nano casting
-we cannot stun
-our perk actions are laughable, and are only 5 when you max pistol mastery and champion of light artillery ( 10 normal perks and 10 alien ones, and you will not max light artillery that soon). Our perk dmg does not scale as we train more perks in the same line.
-to finish, our most powerful special, the full auto, is a pain to land when the mob/player have good evades.
Regarding thoses facts, right clic/delete the 2 baby swords, grab your pistols and follow me;p
Let's start with a quick introduction regarding the weapons in anarchy online. Among the quantity of pistols you will find only a few ones are useful, some other will help buffing some characteristics, or will end up as shop food. Let's grab a random pistol...
the
BBI Faithful 100
The stats are the following ones:
Attack time 2s
Recharge time 2s
Range 16 m
Damage 15-220 (109) - Projectile AC
Attack rating cap 1000
Attack and Recharge time: this stats gives the delay the pistol will need to fire and reload
Range: give, the range of the gun, obviously
Damage and AR: basically, this gun will do 15 min dmg, 220 at max and 329 in case of a critical hit (max+crit bonus). Now, you need to know that for each 40 points in attack ratting you will do double dmg, regarding the stats of the gun. For 400AR, the gun will so do in 30, max 440 and crit 658. For 800 it will be 45 660 and 987 crit.... And for 1200, the next step, it will NOT do expected dmg. The line Attack rating cap say us that we won't do more damage with this one when we have over 1000 AR. so the gun will be capped at 53 min 770 max and 1152 crit. Now let's grab some ammo and try a few pistols.
Common Guns from rubika
MTI grey
BBI Faithful A really nice gun for RK, can be blitzed and is sold in trader shop. It exists in many QL.
River Seasons XP built from the sealed containers we can find in missions.
Kaen-Archibald Kolt can be nice at low level, mainly because of its speed.
Joint Clans Scout Pistol another interesting low level gun
Special Guns from rubika
Customized IMI Desert Reet 1000 more often named CDR, you will use this gun for a long long time. There is no MBS on it, so as stated earlier the more AR you will have the better it will perform. It is really fast on special hits, and with a few add dmg gear this gun can perform quite nicely, even at high levels.
Pain/Reign of PatriciaThose guns are a common drop form Patricia, a boss from the mercs raid in eastern foul plains. Before the Shadowlands it was the best way for an advy, since they have a good max dmg/crit bonus and burst/fling shot. But now, the laughable min dmg park them in Adonis.
Right hand of entropy This pistol drops from Hezak, the big boss of inner sanctum, and is said to be the rarest gun of Rubi Ka. The nanoskills bonus is fine and the dmg is interesting, but it is so rare that it will mainly be a piece of collection for a (really) lucky advy.
Sl, alien and lost eden regular weapons
Flux Pistol An awfully slow pistol which does massive damage. At low ql, and fighting at full agg, might have a use.
Kyr'Ozch Pistol (- Type 1 and 4) Those guns are fast and deal a good amount of damage. the fling shot on type 1 is easy to cap, but you will have to wait until the last shadow levels to cap the burst on the type 4.
[url=http://auno.org/ao/db.php?cmd=search&qlmin=300&name=Ofab+Peregrine+Mk]This is our actuals high end weapons. It as fling and burst, burst is easier to cap than on a kyr type 4 and does more damage, however the 1.2s attack/reload cycle will require a few twinking to hit at 1/1. The fact is that you need to farm victory points to buy the basic gun and biomaterials to upgrade it, so it might be wise to wait to be able to wear a QL300 before trying one.
Special guns
JEPP and
JSPP These 2 guns currently drop from the lurking dryad, on Adonis. Even if the MBS is really low, you will use them from the instant when your fingers pull their trigger for the first time to your 220/AI 30 ding, thanks to their powerful full auto. You will need 1475 full auto to cap the JEPP, and 1750 for the JSPP, so you will end up with a JEPP. Please note that it is viable to buy a jspp to help until the jepp comes.
Weapons and levels
Levels 1-41: As soon as you land on Rubi Ka, remove the noob islands pistols and try to roll a pair of
BBIs Faithful 22, or find a friendly trader to grab them from their special shop.
Levels 41-100: take a trip to Foreman's office, and go do a little /hug to the director. If you are persusasive he will drop the
Customized IMI Desert Reet 1000. In the past, seeing 220 toons camping it for their alts was really frustrating, but now the dungeon is level locked and things are more easy. Put the CDR in main hand, and keep the higher BBI Faithful you can wear in offhand.
Levels 100-125: It's time to move the CDR to offhand and look for a gun with good min damage. A flux pistol can be fine if you fight full agg, otherwise a big BBI can do the job too.
Levels 125-175: It's time to think about jobe pistols, a
JSPP should be affordable now (around 20 25M). You should have enough skill to cap burst and fling shot on your CDR, so you might keep it, unless you have enough mutli-ranged to use a
kyr'ozch pistol type 1 QL 150+. Another viable option is keeping a type 4 in main hand and the CDR in offhand, you will burst with the low recycle time from the CDR but the bullets will come out the type 4, far more powerful;p
Levels 175-200: the JSPP is nice, but by wearing the
JEPP you will shorten duration between 2 full autos by 10 seconds. Try to keep the JEPP as offhand weapon, and keep the highest kyr type 1 you can in your main hand.
Levels 200+: Your full auto delay should slowly be approaching the 11s delay, around 210/215 you should cap it, depending of your gear. The fling shot from the type 1 should be already capped, so max burst, and when reaching 1200 put the type 1 in the holster and twink a big
type 4. Your main concern for these last levels: trying to shorten burst delay. Finally, as soon as you can, put the QL300
mk 6
