The All-Encompassing Adventurer Guide

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Contents

1)	Introduction
2)	Breeds
3)	Stats & Skills
4)	Weapons - Ranged
5)	Weapons - Melee
6)	Armor
7)	Implants
8)	Morphs & Our other Nanos
9)	Newbie Island - Levels 1-10
10)	Levels 11-25
11)	Levels 26-60
12)	Levels 61-100
13)	Levels 101-200
14)	PvP
15)	Credits

To search in this guide, use the number and paranthesis of the section you want 
to go to. I.E. to find the armor section press ctrl + F and type "6)" without 
the quotation marks. 

*All level ranges added - 08/07/08

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1) Introduction

Since this is my first guide for Anarchy Online I apologize if there is 
something you disagree with here. If that's so, you are more than welcome to e-
mail me at [email protected]. I appreciate any constructive criticism or any 
help you want to give me to make this guide better.

There are a few people I would like to thank for contributing to this guide 
even if they don't know that they helped. Jayde (The former adventurer 
professional on the official Anarchy Online forums.) Revelator, Atreyu, 
Kyrstina, Inocybe, Ditzie, Upana, Afelia, Prochyon, Beautyfarm, Next, Nyel, 
Chorwin, Vampi, Kard, Silirrion, Gunmetal, Leetwolf, PowerEdge, Nightwalker, 
MetaShadows, Yika, Nolikewar, everyone in the org AlphaStrike you guys helped 
and tolerated me like no one else, and last but not least Trader1980. I can't 
forget Funcom for making such a great and entertaining game (and for making it 
free)! Keep up the great work, FC!

I don't address Symbiants, Perks, or most Alien Invasion/Shadowlands/Lost Eden 
stuff because I play with a free account. I include the best expansion armor 
and weapons and I mention a few of the good SL leveling places, but that's 
about it. Sorry... (This may change in the near future though, keep a lookout 
for an SL/AI update to this guide.)

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2) Breeds

There are many different opinions on this choice but what seems to be the 
consensus is that Solitus are the most commonly chosen breed for Adventurers.

These are what make each breed special.


Solitus

Ability
Points/Level
Breed Cap
Max Level
Total IP
Cost

Strength
3
472
156
222282

Agility
3
480
158
229890

Stamina
3
480
158
229890

Intelligence
3
480
158
229890

Sense
3
480
158
229890

Psychic
3
480
158
229890

TOTALS
2872

1371732

Max Hit Points
4367
Max Nano Pool
2787


     Opifex

Ability
Points/Level
Breed Cap
Cap Level
Total IP
Cost

Strength
3
464
154
214826

Agility
3
544
177
147591

Stamina
3
480
158
344835

Intelligence
3
464
153
214802

Sense
3
512
168
130771

Psychic
3
448
149
200250

TOTALS
2912

1253075

Max Hit Points
4172
Max Nano Pool
2572


      Nano

Ability
Points/Level
Breed Cap
Cap Level
Total IP
Cost

Strength
3
464
154
322239

Agility
3
464
154
322239

Stamina
3
448
149
200250

Intelligence
3
512
166
130711

Sense
3
480
158
229890

Psychic
3
512
168
130711

TOTALS
2880

1336040

Max Hit Points
3432
Max Nano Pool
3010


      Atrox

Ability
Points/Level
Breed Cap
Cap Level
Total IP
Cost

Strength
3
512
166
130711

Agility
3
480
158
229890

Stamina
3
512
168
130711

Intelligence
3
400
133
239391

Sense
3
400
133
239391

Psychic
3
400
133
239391

TOTALS
2704

1209485

Max Hit Points
5133
Max Nano Pool
1692




The bottom line is that your choice of breed is all just personal preference. 
Yeah, you might have a harder time when picking Nano as your breed, but if you 
want better nano skills and such then go ahead choose that breed. Since we end 
up as tanks a lot of the time and you want to make a Melee Atrox for the extra 
hit points, strength, and stamina go ahead. Opifex have higher agility and 
sense so if you want to pick them for your dual pistol-wielding adventurer, go 
ahead. If you want an adventurer that is a good tank and healer then go ahead, 
choose Solitus. What I'm saying is, is that adventurers are the jack-of-all-
trades so whichever breed you pick, you will have a great time playing that 
toon. So, don't worry about it; go for whichever breed suits your style of 
play.

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3) Stats & Skills

Once again there are many conflicting opinions on where your IP should be 
placed. I will try to give you both sides of the story and then my personal 
opinion and how I have made my Adventurer. A summary of suggested skill 
spending is at the bottom of this section for those who'd like to skip ahead.

a)	Melee Adventurers have the advantage of doing more damage and having a 
wider array of special attacks than ranged adventurers. Though once you 
are rooted or snared as a melee adv., you won't be too happy. Now, when 
making a Melee adv. you will want to go for 1H Edged because we get a 
green skill bar (Which means it costs less to improve that skill) for 
that weapons class and, later on, we get a buff for that skill. 

When making a 1H edged advy, you should max 1H Edged, Brawl (Most melee 
weapons require this), Fast Attack (Like a Fling Shot for swords), and 
Multi Melee in the beginning and then gradually put fewer points into 
Multi-Melee because the requirements level off somewhat. Dimach and Sneak 
Attack are also used for some Melee weapons so consider putting some 
points into those. You should also max Melee Initiative so that you get a 
faster attack and recharge time on your weapons. Consider the parry 
skill:

"The Parry skill still works in addition to evades. When someone hits you 
with melee, it's checked vs. your parry skill either before or after the 
EvadeClC. Most people don't find enough IP to spend on Parry at low lvl, 
and the majority of both mobs and players use ranged attacks. At high 
levels, (A guildy got 850) you will see that you frequently parry mobs 
and other melee players.

The Adv parry shields give very good ac and have a nice recharge. Using 
these shields with correct timing can save the day. A lvl 200 Adv with 
max parry should be able to get between 9 and 10k AC for 30s each second 
minute (before AC buffs). The shield can be what makes you survive three 
hits from Ian Warr before the CH hits you. I feel that most people 
underestimate the value of the shields." (Taken from Afelia in Jayde's 
Adventurer Handbook on the Anarchy Online forums.)

As a Melee adv. max out Strength, Stamina, Intelligence, Body
Development, the above weapon skills, and your Nano Pool each level up. 



b)	When making a Ranged adventurer you will want to dual wield pistols for 
the same reason I told you to dual wield 1H Edged weapons. Max out Pistol 
and Multi Ranged every level up. Raise Fling Shot only as necessary for 
your weapons. In the beginning I put points into Ranged Energy but once I 
got about 110 points there I stopped since I was beginning to use BBI 
Faithful 22's. Once you start using energy pistols again, you will want 
to start putting points there once more. As far as Burst and Full Auto 
go, you really don't need Burst until level 41 when you can start using 
Customized IMI Desert Reets for Burst and Full Auto much, much later (if 
at all) with some types of Alien Kyr'Ozch Pistols. You should also max 
Ranged Initiative so that you get a faster attack and recharge time on 
your pistols. 

As a Ranged Adv. Max out Intelligence, Agility, Sense, Body Development, 
the above weapon skills, and your Nano Pool each level up, almost max 
stamina each level if possible.


c)	Now for the skills for all advy's, you might consider putting points into 
Psychic, which you should, up to 66 (which lets you use general Expertise 
Buffs to add +20 to whatever skill you purchase the Expertise nano for). 
This helps your nano skills some, but there are people who consider it 
not worth the IP to get a few extra points of trickle down in your nano 
skills. Once I got to 135 Stamina, I stopped putting a lot of points into 
it for a while because I barely had any points to raise my nano skills. 

As far as initiatives go you will want to almost max out NanoCombat 
Initiative, Dodge Ranged, and Evade Close Combat each time you level up. 
You will also need to max Computer Literacy every level with every 
character you ever make. The evades will lower the number of critical 
hits you take when attacked; with NanoC initiative, you cast your nanos 
faster in battle, which will save you and your team many times, Computer 
Literacy is used for equipping better belts and memory for more NCU for 
your buffs, shields, and morphs. 

I max Matter Metamorphosis, Bio Metamorphosis, and Sensory Improvement 
every level up because those are used for our heals and shape-shifts. 
Most of the time I try to raise Matter Creation but that is not as 
important to me as the others. Treatment needs to be maxed every level so 
you can equip the highest possible implants (Besides Doctors, Advies have 
the cheapest Treatment in the game, so you should be able to twink into 
much higher implants than your level). At level 25, my adv. could equip 
ql 50 implants. First Aid should be raised high in the beginning, then it 
shouldn't be raised really because our heals are better, and then raised 
up again in the later levels when IP is distributed more liberally. I 
heal 300+ HP with my best heal at lvl 45 and my first aid wouldn't do 
anywhere close to that well.

You should only really put points into Map Navigation so that you can use 
the map-reader upgrades. The shop, people, and maybe monster upgrades are 
good to pick which will mean you can stop raising it when you get it to 
130. When you go to get a Yalmaha around level 50 you will need 81 in 
Vehicle Air for the lowest Yalm. Those go for 4.5 million credits or 
higher. 



Summary 

Max these every level 
?	Pistol or 1H Edge 
?	Int, Agi, and Sen or Int, Str, and Sta
?	Body Dev and Nano Pool 
?	MM, BM, and SI
?	Treatment
?	Ranged or Melee Init. 

Max/Almost Max These

?	Computer Lit. 
?	Dodge Ranged and Evade Close Combat 
?	NanoC Init. 
?	Multi Ranged or Multi Melee

Raise as needed/desired 

?	Fling Shot, Burst, and Full Auto or Brawl, Dimach, Fast Attack, and Sneak 
Attack (Brawl and Fast Attack are the two most common)
?	Duck Exp
?	Nano Resist
?	First Aid
?	Runspeed
?	MC, TS, and PM
?	Stamina as a Ranged Advy or Agi as a Melee Advy for early lvl use of 
Carbonum Armor

Raise only to get desired item/effect 

?	Map Navigation (130)
?	Vehicle Air (81 for cheapest yalm) 


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4) Weapons - Ranged

   
As a Ranged Adv. there are not as many choices for weapons as there are for 
melee adv., but we still get plenty. (These weapon recommendations are taken 
from Jayde's Adventurer Handbook on the Anarchy Online Forums and added to by 
myself.) Weapons that are usable by those without AI, LE, or SL are marked 
(RK).

Staple Weapons:

?	BBI Faithful � (RK) All in all a great pistol that only advies can use.

?	River Seasons XP � (RK) Advy only pistol made from the combination of a 
"Sealed Weapon Receptacle" and an "Ultra Short Composite Barrel."

?	The Original Electronicum � (RK) Boss loot only, do not confuse with the 
Mini-Electronicum.

?	Kaen-Archibald Kolt � (RK) Mostly good at low levels due to speed

?	Joint Clans Scout Pistol � (RK) Clan and Neutral shops, dyna boss loot - 
beats out the Kaen at lower levels. Not Rollable!

?	Flux Pistol - SL generic sided mob drop, staple SL weapon...not so hot on 
RK

?	Kyr'Ozch Pistol (Types 1 & 4) - Alien drop, Type 1 (Fling Shot) & Type 4 
(Burst) created by AI tradeskills or dropped off of Generals and Admirals 
in Alien Cities. 

Special Weapons:

?	Customized IMI Desert Reet 1000 � (RK) EXTREMELY good Burst/Fling Shot 
pistol for level 41-150 (or higher possibly). Special drop in 
Foreman's/Biomare dungeon off The Director. A must-have for that level 
range. The Reet has high min. damage and max damage that increases as you 
level up.

?	Reign/Pain of Patricia � (RK) Both drop off Patricia Johnson in EFP Mercs 
raid, Reign is better than Pain and Advy-specific. (Raid group of Level 
165+ necessary to defeat Mercs.) 

?	Jobe Explorer Personal Pistol - Full Auto pistol, great paired with a 
Flux/Argent/RoP... drops rarely from Dryad bosses in NW Adonis

?	Argent Blaster - SL dungeon drop, NoDrop, but good paired with a Flux or 
a JEPP


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5) Weapons - Melee

(Once again, these weapon recommendations are taken from Jayde's Adventurer
Handbook on the official Anarchy Online Forums and added to by me.)

Staple Weapons:

?	SOL Fire Executioner Type C (RK)

?	SOL Fire Executioner Type E (RK)

?	SOL Fire Executioner Type F (RK)

?	SOL Fire Executioner Type T (RK)

?	Meibutsu Daito's � (RK) Available only up to QL 135 from the Tsunayoshi 
Smith's Shop in Southern Artery Valley at the Largest Soul Fragment in the 
world at 2600 x 2900

?	Crispy Chiroptera � (RK) Crypt drop off Cenobite Shadow mobs in Crypt of 
Home located in Broken Shores.

?	Shank of Maze - Heckler drop, SL mob

?	Kyr'Ozch Axe (Type 240) - Alien drop, Type 240 created by AI tradeskills

?	Phase Blades � (RK) Drops off Exarchs in ToTW

Special Weapons:

?	Frozen Tear of Uklesh � (RK)(Temple of Three Winds drop off Uklesh the 
Frozen)

?	Mantis Scissors � (RK)(Level 146 requirement, special drop off Mantis 
Queen final boss in Mantis Den)

?	Gelid Blade of Inobak � (RK)(Inner Sanctum drop off Inobak the Gelid a 
level 237 boss on the third floor.)

?	Impious Dominator � (RK)(Inner Sanctum drop off mobs on IS third floor.)

?	Sword of Wonder - (Inferno dyna drop)

?	Scimitar of Spetses - (Inferno dyna drop)


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6) Armor

Anything marked (RK) means that those with free accounts can equip without any 
problems.
      
For your first 20 levels I'd stick with your sided beginner armor, then from 
20-75 I'd use Carbonum Armor (sided if you really want to), at 75 I'd pick up a 
set of Omni Steel Ribbed or Clan Apocalypse Leather armor. I'd probably use 
increasingly higher quality levels of those two until I could twink into 
OTAF/Sentinel or maybe Azure Reverie from EFP Mercs and then with AI CSS or CM 
and eventually with LE Penultimate Ofab Adventurer Armor. Froobs stick with 
Azure Reverie or OTAF/Sentinel. 

Beginner Armor

?	Carbonum Armor � (RK) AGI/STA requirements; can be upgraded to Storm 
(clan) or Omni Version. This armor gives you more NCU, NanoC Initiative, 
and Nano points as well as good protection in most categories. Very Low 
Energy AC though. 

?	Nano Armor - (RK) The requirements for this armor are Int/Pys. Low 
Chemical protection.

?	Flowers Tech - (RK) Well if you don't mind it being pink then it is good 
as a low level AGI/STR armor for cheaper prices than others. Low Disease 
protection, but higher radiation and chemical than others.

?	Obtru Steel/Steel Ribbed - (RK) A SEN/AGI armor for Ranged adv. Low 
radiation protection though. (Could be used for Intermediate also)

?	Barrow Strength - (RK) Good shoulderpad for lower level characters. +15 
to all damage types & on use casts Unhallowed Force: +50 dmg, 100% 
resistance to snares, roots and calms, locks Strength for 20min (Picked 
up in ToTW from Windcaller Yatila or Khalum)

?	Withered Flesh - (RK) Good shoulderpad for lower level characters that 
adds 100 HP. On use casts Skin of the Believer: 500pt absorb shield, 
locks Body Development for 20min (Picked up in ToTW from Windcaller 
Yatila or The Re-Animator.)  

?	Exarch Robe - (RK) A good robe for lower level characters (20-60 or so). 
(Picked up in ToTW off of Exarch mobs.)

?	Notum Ring of the Three - (RK) +6 NCU, +10 to all damage types, and 
either +2 to PM & SI or +2 to MC & TS, or +2 to MM & BM. (Picked up in 
ToTW)

?	Flurry of Blows - (RK) For 1HE users. Pick this up because it gives 
Agg/Def adjust + Crit increase.


Intermediate Armor 

?	Omni-Pol Elite - (RK) A good armor for Melee advys who have the STR/STA 
requirements met. Low Chemical protection.

?	Omni Steel Ribbed or Clan Apocalypse Leather � (RK) Get Steel Ribbed (or 
Obtru-Steel) or Leather and hack with Hacker Tool or Lockpick of Eight, 
then Omnify or Clanalize. Requires 550 Sense/Agility at QL 200 so best 
choice for ranged advies, it adds to inits, concealment, perception, and 
evades.

?	Shapeshifter's Vest � (RK) Adds nicely to inits and evades, dropped in 
Crypt of Home dungeon in Broken Shores.

?	Ring of the Nucleus Basalis � (RK) A leveling ring dropped off of 
Eumenides, Vergil Aenied, and Abmouth Supremus in the Condemned Subway. 
Adds +20 NCU at its max QL.


Endgame Armor 

?	Omni-Armed Forces/Superior Sentinel Armor (Clan) � (RK) 550 STR/STA and 
Lvl. 190 requirements make this difficult to equip for most, but the 
tradeoff is a ridiculously good set of armor with tons of bonuses to a 
large variety of skills and abilities. (Endgame for free accounts, 
intermediate for those with expansions.)

?	Azure Reverie Armor � (RK) Dropped by all the mercenary bosses in the 
mercenary camp in the Eastern Foul Plains (Aces in EFP Merc Camp for 
short). Requires Level 175 to wear, and has great AC and bonuses. 
Requires large raid party to defeat Ian Warr and other merc bosses. Quest 
needed to get them to spawn. (Endgame for free accounts, intermediate for 
those with expansions.)

?	CSS � Alien armor is at the top of the heap as of now in terms of PvP 
armor and many other tasks. CSS is Combined Sharpshooter and is made of 
Observant and Supple Alien Armors, it adds bonuses to inits, evades, 
spying abilities, ranged weapons and offense. Maxed at QL 300. 

?	CM � Combined Mercenary (CM) is the top melee armor that can be created 
at this time. Made from Alien Invasion Strong and Enduring armor types, 
this armor adds bonuses to melee weapons, MA, defense, damage, max health 
and body development. Maxed at QL 300. 

?	Penultimate Ofab Adventurer Armor � Requires LE and Victory Points to 
acquire it, but Penultimate Ofab profession armors are THE armors to have 
right now. Huge AC, and excellent bonuses across the board in many advy 
spec skills.


There are several other sets of armor out there that are good choices, but 
require other skills/requirements (like Living Dragonflesh Armor, which is an 
RK drop from Tarasque in Avalon Castle and adds nice bonuses and AC, but 
requires Martial Arts to equip it). No matter what, don't ever equip any 
variation of a Battle Suit or Tank Armor because they make all nanoprograms 
cost much more to cast. That is just not worth it to an Advy because our nanos 
are our lifeblood. 

==============================================================================

7) Implants 

At early levels, the basic profession implants are fine to use, although you 
may want to mix and match implants from different professions to benefit the 
exact skills that you want to boost. 

Once you can equip QL 100 Implants I suggest downloading IMatrix or Darkbane's 
Implant Helper to start designing your own implants. You can then have an 
Engineer or someone else with high Nanoprogramming skill construct your 
implants for you with the required basic implants and clusters. Below is an 
example of the implants that I designed for my ranged advy, adjust as you'd 
like. 

Eye => Shiny = Vehicle Air, Bright = Sensory Improvement, Faded = Pistol
Head => Shiny = Bio Metamorphosis, Bright = Nano Pool, Faded = Sense
Ear => Shiny = Perception, Bright = Vehicle Air, Faded = Intelligence
Right Arm => Shiny = Strength, Bright = Chemical AC, Faded = Radiation AC
Chest => Shiny = Max Health, Bright = Matter Meta, Faded = Nano Init. 
Left Arm => Shiny = Nothing, Bright = Strength, Faded = Matter Meta
Right Wrist => Shiny = Pistol, Bright = Nano Resist, Faded = Fling Shot
Waist => Shiny = Radiation AC, Bright = Max Health, Faded = Bio Meta
Left Wrist => Shiny = Multi Ranged, Bright = Run Speed, Faded = Nano Resist
Right Hand => Shiny = Nothing, Bright = Matter Creation, Faded = Range Init
Legs => Shiny = Dodge Range, Bright = Stamina, Faded = Max Health
Left Hand => Shiny = Nothing, Bright = Fire AC, Faded = Cold AC
Feet => Shiny = Evade ClsCbt, Bright = Agility, Faded = Duck Exp

See Muha's Implant Design and Construction Guide on the Anarchy Online official 
forums (I think it's in the Engineer profession forum) for more information on 
designing and constructing implants. 

==============================================================================

8) Morphs and our other Nanos

Adventurers get a really cool line of nanos called Poly-morphs. These allow us 
to take the shape of monsters found in the wilds of Rubi-Ka. Along with giving 
you the shape of the monster, they also buff some of your skills by a great 
amount. These are displayed in the relative order that you can use them. The 
Team/Other nanos are ignored in this list, but suffice to say that the Other 
polymorphs are higher QL than the self line and the Team line is higher QL than 
the Other. 

?	Pronouncement of Greatness - Turns you into a Leet and gives you +200 
concealment. QL 20, Cost = 6300 Credits

?	Sparrow Flight - Turns you into a Reet and gives you +15 Evades and +190 
run speed. Takes away 15 from your max health. * You cannot fight in this 
form or use it indoors. * QL 24, Cost = 8720 Credits

?	Leet Friend � Modifications Unknown. QL 30, Cost = 13K Credits

?	Playful Cub - Turns you into a 2-headed wolf and gives you +100 run speed 
and +10 to all damage types. * You can fight in this form; in fact, this 
form is designed for fighting. * QL 47, Cost = 37K Credits

?	Pack Hunter - Turns you into a Saber-toothed Tiger. (Modifications 
unknown.) QL 66, Cost = 92K Credits

?	Grinning Hunter - Turns you into a Saber-toothed Tiger. Found at Jobe 
Plaza. (Modifications unknown.) QL 83, Cost = 160K Credits

?	Flurry of Feathers - Modifications Unknown (Found at Jobe Plaza) QL 90, 
Cost = 210K Credits 

?	Relation to Cerberus - Modifications Unknown (Found at Jobe Plaza) QL 
119, Cost = 450K Credits

?	Pit Lizard - Turns you into a giant dragon. (Modifications unknown.)


LIST INCOMPLETE

We also get a line of self and team heals, An AC (armor class) buff, a 
reflection shield, a mesmerize/calm, Pistol and 1H Edge buffs, Multi-Weapon 
buffs, perception buffs, root/snare resists, and run speed buffs to compliment 
our Polymorphs.


"The Adventurer profession has the top perception buffs in the game followed by 
the Fixer. The Advy perception buffs have caster/target level requirements 
(with the exception of the two Eagle Eye buffs) while the Fixer's perception 
buffs do not. Since we have the best perception buffs in the game, there's 
little to no excuse for any Advy to not know about perception skill and 
perception skill buffs.

Here's a handy guide on the Perception Skill 
-----------------------

What is the Perception skill used for?

Here's the official definition:

Perception and Spotting
This is the core skill used to detect things, be it concealed people, hidden 
objects or traps. The skill depends 70% on sense, and 30% on intelligence.

Hidden traps are those hidden explosives planted on doors and chests that you 
encounter inside missions as well as proximity mines. You need sufficient 
Perception skill to detect the bombs and mines (followed by sufficient Disarm 
Trap skill to diffuse them if you so wish).

Perception is also a skill requirement for equipping HUD devices like the 
Yatamutchy (which increases weapon range) and Vision Enhancer (which gives a 
small boost to range and critical hit chance).

You will also need sufficient Perception skill to use Information Tools that 
determine level, health, and nano statistics of a mob. The success of detection 
is based on the quality level of the tool itself with its accompanying stats, 
and not the actual skill of the user. Even though more level 200+ mobs/bosses 
have been introduced over the past several patches, there are currently no 
QL200+ Informational Tools.

Where hidden persons are concerned, the Perception versus Concealment skills 
check will determine detection or non-detection on the mini-map. FYI, the 
player-to-player invisibility interaction feature was introduced in patch 14.2.

Bear in mind that NPC's and mobs also have Perception Skills, which check 
against your own Concealment skill. When you get a "You have been detected by 
Ace Rustler" for example when trying to sneak, it means that your attacking 
concealment skill has failed against the defensive perception skill check of 
that particular mob in the vicinity. It does not mean that you are in LoS 
(Line-of-Sight) of said mob. Just treat the "You have been detected by xyz mob" 
report as incorrect English usage for something that actually means, "You have 
failed the concealment-versus-perception skill check with xyz mob."

Note for PvE - There is also another factor at work and this has been explained 
by Funcom as a roll-of-dice - every 10 seconds, there is a roll of dice that 
determines the chance of the mob detecting your presence. This factor has 
nothing to do with the perception skill of the mob." 

(Taken from Inocybe on the official Anarchy Online forums.)

==============================================================================

9) Newbie Island - Levels 1-10 

Note: Although I list many things you should do on Noob island check out 
FixerSpy's Ultimate Newbie Island Guide (http://forums.anarchy-
online.com/showthread.php/?t=385143) for the most complete info. 

There are many things to do when you first start out on Newbie Island. I will 
list the main things that will greatly help you out. 

First, go and level up a little. Then, you will want to get your first NCU belt 
and memory. There is a guy on the beach where you first came ashore who will 
give you a few easy missions. When these are completed, you get Blackmane's 
belt.

Next, you will want to upgrade your start-up weapons. You need 2 Leet spines 
from a Leet to upgrade the swords and 2 power supplies from the cargo droids 
for the pistols. Next go to the shops and buy 2 Antonio's Adaptation Factories 
from Antonio. You will make the source the factory and the target either the 
Leet spines or the power supplies. Use the item you get from the adaptation on 
the pistols or swords by clicking the item and then Shift + Right-clicking the 
weapons. Next, you should go level some more.

If you have chosen to become Omni or Clan, and you get to level 6, go and buy 
the lowest quality full set of newcomer's armor you can get from Antonio. A 
full set of armor usually is made up of a helmet, chest plate, pants, 2X 
sleeves, gloves, and boots. Then go to the Omni or Clan shop right next to the 
recruiters and Whom-Pahs and buy seven Omni or Clan badges. Then by Shift + 
Right-clicking, equip the badges onto each piece of armor to make Omni or Clan 
Newcomer's Armor. This armor can be upgraded by right clicking the armor every 
time you level up until level 20, so that the armor can be upgraded to whatever 
your level is. This armor is the best around until you are about level 15-20. 
Now, go and fight the bosses on the island to get loot and then go sell it. 

Make sure you get Omni-Tek Technical Library. This is the most Expensive (and 
Uberest) item that you can buy on Noob Island. Every player should roll a low 
level omni toon just to get this item for all your alts!!!

Once you get enough money, go and buy the Adventurer Nano pack. There is also a 
mission to get a side (either Clan or Omni) shoulder pad. This quest should be 
done twice to get 2 of the shoulder pads. Once you get to about level 10 you 
are more than ready to leave the island.

==============================================================================

10) Levels 11-25

Now that you are on the mainland there are many things to do. For leveling up I 
suggest going to the Condemned Subway this is a dungeon for characters level 5-
24. Here you should try to pick up as many pieces of Living Cyber Armor as you 
can. These can be leveled up to ql 50. You should also try to get a lot of 
morphing memory, as these will come in handy later on because they can be 
leveled up to ql 200 (and they sell for about 50K apiece on the trade channel). 
There are 4 bosses in the Subway, the Foreman (a mini-boss), Euminedes, Vergil 
Aeneid, and Abmouth Supremus. The Striker Foreman (Lvl 19) is the easiest and 
can be fought with a group of level 12 characters. I soloed him at level 19. 
Eumenides (Lvl 20) can be fought with a team of level 15-17 characters and 
soloed with a level 21. Vergil (Lvl 29) can be fought with a group of mid 20's. 
Abmouth Supremus (Lvl 30) SHOULD NOT be fought without a full group of lvl 24's 
and at least 2 healers (two doctors are the preferred choice).

As a Ranged Adventurer try to pick up a pair of ql 40 or higher BBI Faithful 
22's by level 25 and twink into them. As a melee Advy, you will want to get a 
pair of ql 40 or higher SOL Fire Executioner Type F's. At level 25, my Ranged 
advy had a full set of ql 30/35 Carbonum Armor, which is probably good enough 
for that level depending on how much money you have. With a TI-300X Component 
Platform Belt and 3 11-26 memories combined with the Carbonum Armor & Ring of 
the Nucleus Basalis (which levels up to a QL that provides +20 NCU and is worth 
around 1M Credits) I had 62 NCU at level 25. I was able to get a set of ql 51 
BBI's and equip them at level 24 with a +132 wrangle that costs about 30 NCU. 
At level 25, you should also be able to use Sparrow Flight (QL 24) & 
Pronouncement of Greatness (QL 20), both store buyable. Enshroud with Barbs (QL 
24) and Lesser Wilderness Protection (QL 20) should be your standard Shield and 
AC Buff. As far as heals go Lesser Restore to Health (QL 21) should be your 
best self heal (Maybe Survival Technique if you can twink into it with the help 
of a Meta-Physicist) and since there are a lot fewer team heals you should 
probably be using Team Rough Stitching (QL 17).

==============================================================================

11) Levels 26-60

If you haven't found ways to get lots of cash, or you just don't want to waste 
money on our nanocrystals, you can use Clicksaver 
(http://www.marquentein.dk/clicksaver/) to run missions for them.

When going to a dungeon to level up in this level range, your best bet is to go 
to Temple of Three Winds (ToTW). This dungeon is for characters level 25-60 and 
grouping is the key to doing well in ToTW. When you get there, make sure you 
find a group; once again that is the key thing here. There are many Mini-Bosses 
here that are harder than the Cultists so watch whom you attack. The bosses 
here are Defender of the Three (DOT), the Curator, Lien the Memory Stalker, 
Nematet the Custodian of Time, Guardian of Tomorrow, Uklesh the Frozen, The Re-
Animator, Gartua the Doorkeeper, and Aztur the Immortal. DOT can be fought with 
a group of high 20-low 30's. The Curator can be fought with a group of high 30-
40's and a doctor. Lien the Memory Stalker (Lvl 66) should be fought with a 
group of low to high 50's and a doctor or two (you start to see how important 
these doctors are). Nematet the Custodian of Time should not be fought without 
a group of mid 50's and definitely at least 1 doctor, 2 healers total. The 
Guardian of Tomorrow can be fought with a group of high 50's and 2 doctors. 
Aztur deals anywhere from 100-500 damage per hit, WATCH OUT! Always look for 
Purifying Rods, they are 100K items valued on RK. 

While here, both melee and ranged advys should try to get an Exarch Robe 
(Exarch), Dark Memory (Lien the Memory Stalker), Notum Ring (Exarch), Platinum 
Ring of the Three (Nematet), 2 pieces of Shoulder Armor (Re-Animator), and a 
Guardian Circuit Board (Guardian of Tomorrow). Melee advys will probably want 
to pick up a pair of Phase Blades (Exarch) also. Skull of the Ancient is a nice 
implant dropped by Aztur, but good luck with that! If you can get a Re-Animator 
Robe (Re-Animator) it is even stronger than the Exarch Robe but very hard to 
get. FYI, Exarch Robes can be traded to Blind Cultists in major cities for 
sealed Inner Sanctum Passes, which are used to enter IS, or can be sold to 
higher level players for a nice profit. 

At level 33 I had a TI-400X Component Platform Belt at QL 55, four 16-31 memory 
at QL 66, a set of QL 39 Carbonum Armor, a pair of QL 51 BBI Faithful 22's, a 
Reverend Robe off a Reverend in ToTW, a Notum Ring of Three off an Exarch in 
ToTW, a Ring of the Nucleus Basilius off of Euminides in the Condemned Subway 
leveled to give me +11 NCU, and a set of 13 QL 50 implants. As a melee advy, 
you will either want a set of Phase Blades from ToTW, a Meibutsu Daito or a 
pair of high QL Sol F's.

When I got to level 41, a Lvl 150 Meta-Physicist, took me to the Foreman's 
Office/Biomare Dungeon. There he took me down to one of the lowest levels where 
we camped The Director who drops Customized IMI Desert Reet 1000's. These are 
the best pistols for anyone lvl 41-150 easily. They are Burst & Fling Shot 
Pistols with a high minimum damage and no max damage, so they deal more damage 
as you level up. Try to get these as soon as possible.

Once I hit level 50, I was using Alleviate Pain (QL 50 Store Buyable) as my 
best single heal and Team Survival Technique (QL 33 Store Buyable) as my best 
team heal. I had been using Playful Cub (QL 47 Store Buyable) for 4 levels. I 
had a Customized IMI Desert Reet 1000 and a QL 70 BBI Faithful 22 equipped so I 
got both Burst and Fling Shot. I had a full set of QL 65 Carbonum Armor, an 
Exarch Robe, a Notum Ring of the Three, and another Notum Ring of Three that 
raised different nano skills. I also had a Guardian Circuit Board and 5 +30 NCU 
Memories and a special implant from ToTW called Touch of the Gripper that 
buffed my strength, stamina, and damage output greatly. I was also using a set 
of QL 90 implants that buffed my agility, intelligence, pistol, stamina, and 
nano skills.

At 50 you can start to go to The Foreman's Office/Biomare Dungeon. Biomare is 
located in The Longest Road area at the Omni Mining Facility. Omni can grid 
into West Athens, go out the Western Exit, and just follow the road to Athen 
Shire which will zone you into The Longest Road. The Dungeon is near the center 
of the zone just follow the road. Anyone 50-70 can level here very nicely (and 
get tons of cool loot!) and anyone 70-100 should defeat T.I.M. at least once 
with a group or two. 

Also at 50 and above, players can solo Steps of Madness in northern Omni 
Forest. Omni players can reach it by traveling north from the Omni-1 
Entertainment east gate and right clicking on the eyeball among the 
gravestones. 

You should download the Huge Map from http://creativestudent.com/ao/#downloads 
and start teaming to go fight Dynabosses. The Huge Map has the location and 
level of all dynabosses found in the RK wilderness. Dynabosses are the sole 
means of acquiring many of our (and other professions') nanocrystals, as well 
as other sweet loot. So, go crush your first Dynaboss at level 50 and continue 
in order to acquire your nanocrystals. 

==============================================================================

12) Levels 61-100

In this level range there is a large variety of places to level, I'll primarily 
focus on RK dungeons since I don't have the SL expansion� People 75+ with SL 
are best off trying Mortiig teams at Spade/Barter and around 90+ Cold Rocks/The 
Scoop spiders to level. 

For those of us confined to RK with our fr00b accounts, I'd advise finding 
Dynabosses on the Huge Map that are in your level range and teaming to take 
them on, either teaming or soloing The Foreman's Office/Biomare Dungeon, 
teaming at the Crypt of Home (CoH) in Broken Shores, or running missions in an 
attempt to get your 1K token board early (which gives huge bonuses). You could 
also team and level at the Smuggler's Den or Cyborgs Barracks.

If you're a ranged advy, in Biomare Dungeon make sure you get a pair of 
Customized IMI Desert Reet 1000's from the Lab Director (Lvl 80), a HUD 
Upgrade: Enhanced Target Acquisition and a HUD Upgrade: Personal S.T.M from the 
T.I.M. Slayerdroid (Lvl 100), and a ton of Personal Safes off of Bodyguards 
(Lvl 68), which have a small chance of holding Mk 1 Grid Armor, which goes for 
as much as 1 million credits or more. Everyone should try to pick up a Corroded 
Ring off Tri Plumbo, which adds nicely to your HP.

The Crypt of Home (CoH) contains mobs that are mostly in the 75-85 range, but 
there are a few mobs that are level 100, and the bosses are also higher. The 
dungeon's level cap is 110, but an Engineer can still beacon warp you inside at 
111+ for some reason... It is a good place to level; make sure you pick up a 
Shapeshifters Vest from boss Cerubin and if you're melee a pair of Crispy 
Chiroptera's from Cenobite Shadow. 

By 75 you should be using Makeshift Bandaging (QL 74 single heal), Greater Team 
Quick Heal (QL 57 Team Heal), Skin of the Toad (QL 73 Reflect Shield), Major 
Wilderness Protection (QL 70 AC Buff), Eagle Eye (QL 76 Perception Buff), Pack 
Hunter (QL 66 Polymorph), and Freedom of the Forester (QL 58 Runspeed buff). 

==============================================================================

13) Levels 101-200 

Once you start using nanos that are greater than QL 125, you will no longer be 
able to purchase them in shops. Dynabosses and missions are now the way to 
secure those nanocrystals. 

At Level 125+ the place to level up is the Inner Sanctum, which provides ample 
room to level and tons of cool loot to get off bosses and mobs. The bosses in 
the Inner Sanctum are level 235 and up, ending with Hezak the Immortal who is a 
pure beast at level 300. Groups are absolutely necessary to survive here since 
the mobs and bosses are at levels that dwarf you. 

Other than IS, there are several raids to do on RK in this level range. Camelot 
Castle is a 25% Suppression Zone AND a raid dungeon. The basement of the castle 
serves as a defensive zone for one faction while that side's team(s) defeat 
Tarasque. Make sure your team sticks together and no one strays while in the 
basement because other player teams can ambush you. Tarasque requires two level 
200 froob teams or one level 215+ team to defeat him. Tarasque is a giant 
dragon with a ton of health that drops several Advy only items (a great stat 
buffing ring and cloak) and parts required to craft Living Dragonflesh Armor.

Another raid that many love to do are the Mercenary bosses in the Eastern Foul 
Plains arena area. The bosses spawn after talking to three other NPC's and 
following the ICC quest line. Large raids of players 165+ are necessary to 
defeat all the mercs because they all hit for huge amounts of damage. The best 
way to pull only one of the bosses at a time is to send a pet in to aggro and 
then quickly call it back. The female mercs are weaker than the males, so raid 
parties that are trying this for the first time should go after them first. For 
a complete explanation of the quest, loot, and raid process visit AO-
Universe.com; they have guides for nearly all of the quests, items, armor, 
weapons, and dungeons/encounters in Classic AO, SL, AI, and now LE. 

The Biodomes outside of Avalon are also a great place to level up and acquire 
high level loot on Rubi-Ka. 

By about level 150, Ranged Advies will probably have gotten a Kyr'Ozch pistol 
(Type 1, 4, or I think 5 for Full Auto) off of a General or Admiral in an Alien 
City. The pistols are also dropped without types and created through AI 
tradeskills with typed Bio-Material, so find a friendly Engi and equip the 
highest possible pistol that you can twink into for your level range. The very 
high multi-ranged requirement for the pistols means that you will not get the 
same QL pistol equipped on both hands. Until your burst is around 1300 (when 
you cap the pistol's burst recharge) it is better to have a higher type 1 
pistol equipped. 

For those with LE, the Ofab Peregrine Mk 6 is currently the best pistol weapon 
ingame. You buy it in the tower shop for Victory Points, which you get by 
either killing aliens in the mothership or joining PvP in the battlestations. 
You then need to upgrade it five times with Kyr'Ozch Bio-Material - Type 812 
(any QL), found on the boss in the mothership. Can be dual wielded, even at QL 
300.

With a froob account I would advise keeping your IMI Reet in your offhand and 
equipping a Reign of Patricia or really high QL BBI/River Seasons XP in your 
main hand. 

Melee Adventurers will similarly want to acquire Alien weapons, specifically a 
Kyr'Ozch Axe (Type 240), although Inner Sanctum weapons like the Gelid Blade of 
Inobak (Drops off of Inobak the Gelid a level 237 boss on the 3rd floor of IS) 
and the Impious Dominator (Drops off a mob on IS 3rd floor) are also nice 
choices. 

When you reach your breed caps in your abilities IP starts to free up and you 
are able to put points into skills that you previously had to neglect. Duck 
Explosives and Nano Resist are the two biggest if you want to PvP, since Nano 
Resist helps you resist roots, snares, and other nasty nanos cast on you and a 
lot of people now purposely equip weapons with Aimed Shot that deal explosive 
damage (like the Ithaca Ki-8 Snakemaster, Enchanted Waterfall Eye Wind 
Onehander, and Kyr'Ozch Energy Carbine Type 3) because they know that many 
players neglect to raise their duck explosive skill because so few mobs use 
explosive weapons. 

I know that Combined Sharpshooter (CSS) and Combined Mercenary (CM) Alien Armor 
and Penultimate Ofab Armor (Lost Eden Victory Points needed) are all the rage 
for those that have the expansions and means to acquire them, so if you can, 
they really are the greatest. Those without any expansions will want to twink 
into Omni-Armed Forces/Superior Sentinel Armor or Azure Reverie Armor, which 
offer great protection and bonuses to many skills and abilities. You may have a 
tough time reaching the OAF/SS 550 STR/STA and Level 190 requirements, but IP 
should free up and with a combination of implants and buffs it should be more 
than doable for everyone. 

==============================================================================

14) Player versus Player (PvP)


I am not going to lie I don't really PvP much with my advy at my current level. 
I will occasionally go and PvP, but it isn't worth it to me because of the high 
risk of dying, the fact that you get no xp, and the low percentage chance of 
getting items off the person you defeat. So, I found a person to give me the 
rights to use his guide in mine and here it is.


Vampi's Guide to PvP
An Anarchy Online Player Guide
FINAL UPDATE 13-Sep-01

A big thank-you to the following contributors: Aufklarung, CaptFallout, Croak, 
DB (no in-game name given), Fadinaway (Funcom Events Team Lead), Kusimi, 
Moondragon, Vanven, Wrathstar, and Xaxon.

Warning: this is a loonnnnggg guide (16 pages, so far). There's a lot to say 
about PvP in Anarchy Online, and I go into a lot of detail. So if you're 
reading-challenged or have the attention span of a gnat, don't say I didn't 
warn you. =P

I will leave this guide up for some time, at least until I need the server 
space for things related to the next game I play. I give blanket license to 
anyone to take my weapon evaluation spreadsheet and carry it forward, and to 
take the information in this document and carry it forward. I, however, will no 
longer be updating either of these guides or my spreadsheet.


Contents

?	What Can You Do About Exploiters in PvP?
?	Why Every Player Should Care about PvP
?	The Newbie's Reluctance to try PvP
?	PvP Overview - The Nuts and Bolts Mechanics
?	Level Restrictions
?	The Deal with 25% Political Zones and 75% Monster-Only Zones
?	The PvP Titles
?	Looting Your Kills
?	Neutrals Have It Rough
?	Res-Camping and Grid-Camping
?	The Dirty Facts About Line of Sight Attacks
?	Where to PvP and How to Get There
?	Getting to Stret West and the Holes-in-The-Wall Political Zone
?	Getting to Meetmedere
?	Getting to Stret East
?	Getting to 4-Holes
?	General PvP Tips and Tactics
?	Equipment Has a Huge Effect
?	Speed Kills
?	Spying Skills and Aimed Shot
?	Timing Your Big Damage Shots
?	Using General Nano Debuffs Offensively
?	Miscellaneous Tactics
?	Team Tactics



What Can You Do About Exploiters in PvP?

Note: Due to Funcom's more stringent policy about banning people who post 
exploits, and due the to fact that some game sites would not host/post this 
guide while it contained PvP exploits in it, I have elected to remove them from 
this guide.

Exploits will always be found. Some will always stoop to using them; it's human 
nature. If you encounter somebody in a PvP zone who you are *certain* is using 
an exploit, here are some things you can do about it:

?	Be sure to file a bug report to Funcom. If you don't report about it, 
they don't know it's a problem.

?	Don't fight back if your solo and at a disadvantage. Deny them any option 
of a fight, if possible, by running away if they attack you, and by being 
aware of their position and avoiding getting in range for them to attack 
you. Deny them their "fun."

?	/shout to the entire area that "So-And-So is using the Blah Blah 
exploit!" Don't spam the place, but make sure everyone in the area is 
warned. Trust me; it's like painting a big target circle on their back.


?	If you're fighting solo, consider teaming long enough to gank the 
exploiter repeatedly. Or just coordinate with other soloists in the area 
to be on the watch for the exploiter and to rush to each other's aid to 
gang up on the exploiter.

Remember, the best deterrence to exploiters is to deny them the benefits of 
their exploit, and if you can (by coordinating with others), to punish them 
severely for even existing. Be creative, and do what it takes to spank them 
mercilessly and repeatedly until they leave. Even if they swear up and down 
they'll stop using the exploit, keep ganking them. Over and over. Don't 
tolerate an exploiter in PvP. Don't buy their bullshit. Don't let them con you. 
Just kill them, efficiently and repeatedly until they leave. 


Why Every Player Should Care About PvP

Those of you who wish to avoid PvP can choose to do so, provided you avoid the 
25% "political" and 0% "mayhem" suppression gas areas. Which brings me to why 
everyone should care about PvP. Sooner or later, you simply cannot avoid the 
25% and 0% zones altogether. As you advance in levels, for instance, more and 
more missions end up being in political zones. I imagine that at levels 75+ a 
fair number of missions end up being the mayhem zones. Also, as the dimensions 
become more populated (the game's only a month old now, and many people are 
holding off until they see whether Funcom fixes the technical problems), you're 
going to have more competition for the good high-level spawn, and I betcha that 
some of the better spawn areas will end up being in political and mayhem zones.

Remember, this entire game and storyline is based around a war between Clan and 
Omni. If players themselves do not meet in conflict, there is no storyline. So 
I lay $100 on the table right now that says as the storyline progresses, we 
will see more 25% political zones cropping up, and Funcom making subtle tweaks 
to encourage players to come into conflict with each other. You will still be 
able to avoid PvP conflict if you really really want to, but by doing so you 
will be significantly limiting your options and the areas that you can visit. 

My advice? Get comfortable with PvP now, at your early levels. PvP can really 
be quite enjoyable and fun, and to address the main drawback of PvP in other 
games (namely, that risked losing valuable exp and some or all of your best 
equipment), Funcom has made it about as risk-free as possible to engage in PvP.


The Newbie's Reluctance to Try PvP

Unlike other MMORPGs to date, AO gives you the ability to PvP your ass off with 
NO RISK if you so choose, while you're a newbie. Until level 75, if you scan at 
an insurance terminal before entering a 25% suppression zone (the "Political" 
zones) or a 0% "mayhem" zone, you lose NOTHING if you die except the time it 
takes to wait out your resurrection effects and travel back to the PvP zone.

So those of you who are new to the concept of PvP on an MMORPG server, and are 
reluctant to try PvP, don't be! Try it; you'll like it! The only real risk (and 
it is a real one) is that as you go higher in levels your missions, and the 
choice leveling spots, end up often being in political zones or mayhem zones. 
So, you won't always have the luxury to scan at an insurance terminal before 
you enter a 25% or 0% suppression zone. Really, this is all the more reason to 
get comfortable with PvP early on in your character's life. And if you really 
find some incredible loot in a mission that you just can't bear to lose to PvP 
attack because your mission area is in a political zone, you always have the 
option to /terminate from within the mission area.


PvP Overview - The Nuts and Bolts Mechanics

Here are some basic facts about PvP mechanics.

Level Restrictions

?	If you are under level 75, you can attack or be attacked only by someone 
that is within a certain range of your own level, and who is from the 
enemy side. Unlike in Asheron's Call, for instance, you can walk right 
into the middle of Meetmedere and stand next to a bunch of solid red 
enemies, and be perfectly safe. (Well, more or less anyway--there is one 
fact about teams that modifies this statement a bit.)

?	Once you are level 75, you can attack and be attacked by anybody from the 
enemy side up to level 200.

?	Neutrals have it rough because both the Clan and Omni are "enemies." Both 
Clan and Omni can attack a Neutral, but a Neutral cannot attack a Clan or 
Omni. Once attacked, though, a Neutral can fight back.

?	Generally speaking, if an enemy is grey or solid red when you target 
him/her/it, you cannot fight them. By the same token, if an enemy is 
green to orange, you can fight.

?	Calculating the level range for solo fighters - For people under level 
75, there is some question still about exactly how solo ranges are 
calculated. All I have for now are some spot observations that indicate 
the range starts at +-5 levels and shifts upwards to probably +-15 levels 
as you near level 75:
o	At level 17 the solo range is within +-5 levels
o	At level 31, the solo range is within +-8 levels
o	At level 50, the solo range is within +-11 levels
o	Calculating the level range for team fighters - Teams composed of 
people under level 75 have two different level ranges:

?	The team's defensive range is some sort of combined average range based 
on the levels of the team members. This range used to be much wider 
before the 12.5 patch.

?	The team's attack range is some sort of combined average range based on 
the levels of the team members. This range used to be much wider before 
the 12.5 patch.

This fact about team ranges has an important ramification if you are fighting 
in areas with multiple enemies nearby: you cannot always presume that a deep 
red or grey enemy is unable to attack you---if they are teamed, they just might 
be able to. I'm reasonably certain that their teammate(s) don't even have to be 
in the vicinity, but I could be wrong. This fact also explains why sometimes 
you will get a message that you cannot attack a given enemy that is green or 
orange--they may be grouped with somebody who takes them out of your effective 
solo range, despite their "color."

?	If you engage in a fight with another player in your PvP range, the other 
players outside your PvP range cannot jump in and start attacking you too 
(unless they are teamed with the player you're fighting.) The best way to 
check whether that lone yellow is in a team or not is to send a Join Team 
request to them. If they're a member of a team, you'll get a message to 
that effect. If they're not a member of a team, who knows? You might 
confuse them long enough to get the drop on them, if you're the type that 
likes cheap tactics like that.

What other players around you can do, however, is to heal the player that 
you're fighting. This is just a fact of life in a more crowded PvP zone like 
Meetmedere. Usually if one side jumps in to heal the player you're fighting, 
your side will often notice and come heal you too. It all depends on the crowd 
and how well known you are.


The Deal with 25% "Political Zones" and 75% "Monster-Only Zones"

?	When fighting in 25% political zones, once you engage in a fight with 
somebody inside the 25% zone, you are NOT safe if you run to a 75% zone--
other players can no longer attack you, but the individual(s) or team(s) 
that were taking shots at you in the 25% zone can continue to do so even 
if you are both now outside the 25% zone. The only real safe bolthole is 
if you hit a physical zone border.

?	Once you engage in a fight, even if you go run around the 75% zone and 
the person you were fighting wanders off without either of you killing 
the other, your ability to use treatment or nano kits is nullified until 
you either find that person and kill them, or else you hit a physical 
zone border. Even though your attack bar is not active, and you're no 
longer being attacked by the other player, the game still thinks that 
you're under attack for purposes of using treatment/nano kits. I don't 
know if this is a bug or a feature. And once you hit a zone line to clear 
that state - you can no longer attack the other player in a 75% zone.

?	In some areas, the 25% zones are very small and narrow. When you look at 
the various zone maps available on fan sites, it looks like the entire 
zone of Stret West, Stret East, 4-Holes, etc. is a 25% political zone. 
Nope; at least not for Stret West. Most of the area inside Stret West is 
perfectly safe 75% suppression. Instead, what Funcom has done is create 
certain bottlenecks in the roads and across river bridges where you are 
forced to run through a 25% zone to get from one area to another.

However, I suspect this holds true only in Stret West, as it's the lowest-level 
political zone. In 4-Holes and in Stret East, every place I've gone is all 25% 
suppression gas. The only protection from enemy players is that afforded by the 
numerous NPC guards all around and inside the various outposts/towns. Some of 
the roadways are heavily guarded as well.


The PvP Titles

?	The PvP titles ("Freshman," "Rookie," etc.) are indicators of your 
overall prowess at PvP. You get titles only if you win a lot more fights 
than you lose.

?	You get your PvP titles only for making solo kills. If you are a member 
of a team, any kills you get will not count towards the body counts 
needed for your PvP titles. So, don't team up with others if you're 
looking to build up your PvP titles.

?	We used to think that a certain fixed win-loss spread would give you the 
Freshman, Rookie, and Apprentice titles. Now we know better. Your PvP 
title is not based on a simple win-loss spread, but instead on an 
underlying chess-style "rating points" system. If you're not familiar 
with how ELO/Chess type rating systems work, the basic idea is that every 
person starts out with a base rating value. When you kill somebody (you 
can't be in a team), your rating goes up. When somebody kills you, your 
rating goes down. How much your rating goes up and down seems to depend 
on both the underlying rating of your opponent and on the character level 
of your opponent. Your rating will go up much faster if you kill somebody 
that is quite a few levels above you. Or if you kill somebody the same 
level as you, but they have a higher PvP title than you.

?	Nobody knows the exact formula for this rating system, but the rule of 
thumb is this: the farther apart you are in both PvP rating and in 
character level, the more that the winner gains, and the more that the 
loser loses. If you get killed by somebody 10 levels below you, you could 
easily lose your title even if you've made a bunch of successful kills 
after gaining that title.

?	Your kill counts towards a title rank even if your victim loses no exp to 
their death.

?	If multiple solo individuals contribute to a kill (which can happen often 
in places like Meetmedere, where others often jump in on a fight you 
start), then it's the person who does the most damage that gets credit 
for the kill, kind of like looting rights on a mob when multiple non-
teamed people kill the mob.

?	You can lose your title to PvP deaths, so it appears that your PvP title 
is a dynamic indicator of your relative win-loss spread. You might gain 
the Freshman title, for instance, but then if you have a string of losses 
you're likely to lose that title until you win enough solo fights to gain 
back the title.

?	You can lose your title to using /terminate. Especially if you /terminate 
during a PvP fight--there seems to be a huge penalty associated with this 
exploit. But even if you use /terminate outside of PvP, as a kind of poor 
man's teleportation device, the reports are clear that it does affect 
your PvP title.

?	It is pretty clear, however, that you cannot lose your title to deaths 
from mobs while out leveling.


Looting Your Kills

?	As far as corpse looting goes, if multiple players who are not teamed 
participate in a kill, it seems that looting rights work like they do for 
mobs - the player who did the most damage gets the looting rights, if 
any. If you are in a team, then looting rights depend upon the team loot 
setting. 

?	If the player recently scanned at an insurance terminal, or if they did 
not lose any exp to their death, you will not be able to loot the body.

?	If your kill did lose exp, and they have new items in their inventory 
that were not saved at the last scan, you will be able to loot all of the 
newly acquired items since the last scan. You will also receive a "pinky" 
if your victim lost any exp to the kill.

?	If your kill loses exp to their death, you do NOT get the exp that they 
lost. No player will ever receive exp for making a PvP kill; Funcom has 
clearly stated this.

?	There have been rumors of a bug whereby if you lose a large amount of exp 
to a PvP death, the player who killed you could loot your entire 
inventory - even the things that you had saved at the last scan. I've 
seen several reports that this bug is no longer active in the game, but 
if there's anyone reading this, who can confirm or deny whether this bug 
still exists, please. Until you hear the final word on this, I say better 
safe then sorry - scan yourself before intentionally going to a PvP area.

?	Nobody knows what pinkys, pinky jars, and pinky cutters actually do yet, 
or whether they have any real value. I've tried combining my pinkies with 
pinky jars and nada, zip, nothing. There is one cute trick you can do 
with a pinky, though. Right-click the pinky and a blue "Heh" floats above 
your head. Stupid tricks to impress the newbs in a city crowd.


Neutrals Have It Rough

?	Neutrals cannot attack either Omni or Clan. Neutrals must wait to be 
attacked before they can fight anyone. For this reason I personally think 
it's bad form to run up and whack a Neutral, but then I leaned towards 
Anti-PK sentiments in Asheron's Call so don't mind me. From a roleplay 
perspective, however, it doesn't make a lot of sense to enrage and 
antagonize Neutrals by attacking them all the time - you're just 
encouraging them to aid and abet the enemy. I suggest that if you want to 
fight a neutral, just ask them if they want to duel.


Res-Camping and Grid-Camping

?	You cannot be auto-targeted with the Tab key when you pop out of the grid 
into a 25% zone, as happens when you drop into Meetmedere. A player 
trying to camp the grid drop point must put his/her mouse cursor on you 
and click to target you for attack, which is harder than it sounds 
because to the local players you still look like a very small upside-down 
pyramid for a short while when you drop out of the grid. The bottom line? 
You usually have plenty of time to run to the 75% border when you grid 
into Meetmedere. Most players that I've seen, however, have the class not 
to gank people dropping in from the grid. Still, you're better safe than 
sorry so be sure to buff up completely before you enter the grid, and be 
alert for attack the minute that you resolve into Meetmedere.

?	You can be ganked the instant that you resurrect at a reclaim terminal - 
this is called "res-camping." Again, most players I've seen have the 
class and honor to leave alone players that are stupid enough to scan in 
a 25% zone like Meetmedere. But you do get the occasional asshole that 
will camp the reclaim terminal and gleefully smack you down the instant 
that you resolve, when you're at less than half health and suffering from 
res effects. In my opinion, if you are dumb enough to scan in a 25% zone, 
you almost deserve it, but like I said before, I tend to roleplay a more 
honorable killer so like most people I'll at least give you a minute to 
reclaim your stuff and get the hell out of there. Stand around for too 
long after reclaiming your inventory, though, and I'll toast you with a 
smile on my face. The moral of this story? Don't be stupid and scan in 
the middle of Meetmedere. You can grid right into the place if your Comp 
Lit. is 100 or better, or quickly run there from Newland City if you're a 
real lowbie, so why bother anyway?

?	Every player should be aware that you get NO credit for killing somebody 
who is still under resurrection effects. Remember that res effects last 
for 6 minutes after death. Many players are capable of healing to full 
health before their res effects wear off completely, so it's possible 
that even if you attack and kill somebody who seems to be at full health, 
you might not get any credit for the kill because they are still under 
res effects. This is yet another reason that people are wasting their 
time by res-camping.

?	If you see somebody getting res-camped by idiot grief-players, you can do 
something about it even if the poor sap getting res-camped is from the 
"enemy" side. Just invite them to team with you. If they accept before 
the res-campers can kill them again, you can now open fire on the res-
campers, even if the res-campers are from your own side! You do not have 
to stand by yelling at idiots from your own side to quit res-camping; you 
can kill them for the griefer swine that they are.



The Dirty Facts About Line of Sight Attacks

?	Funcom says the 12.3.2 patch fixed LOS so that you can't shoot through 
obstacles anymore. While this has been observed to be somewhat true on a 
gross level versus mobs in a dungeon (with a LOT of exceptions), I've 
noticed that even as of the 12.3.3 patch I'm perfectly able to shoot mobs 
and players just fine through entire structures like shacks in the Mutant 
Camps or buildings and walls in Meetmedere. It seems that the actual 
edges of LOS barriers are smaller than what you see with your eye. So 
don't think that just because you ducked around the corner of a building 
you're immune to ranged attacks.

?	Us humans being slightly smarter than mobs, DB reported that the more 
savvy PvP players are starting to use a "camera exploit" to get around 
the few LOS barriers that do exist. In short, if you can see the target 
with your camera, you can shoot it, even if there's a huge wall in 
between you that you normally couldn't shoot through. For example, in MMD 
there is a wall that separates the inside of the outpost from the open 
area outside where people drop in from the grid. He discovered that an NT 
was hiding just inside the wall, in a spot very hard to see even from an 
overhead camera view. This NT had manipulated his camera angle to be able 
to see the players gridding into MMD, and would manually click on them 
with his mouse and start nuking them with NT nanos. This was an 
especially devastating tactic because your autoattack is NOT triggered by 
combat nanos attacking you. So, players were getting attacked immediately 
upon dropping in from the grid but unable to find or return fire on their 
attacker.

The player that reported this factoid says it can be invaluable to learn how to 
manipulate your camera with precision to target other players hiding behind 
obstacles.


Where To PvP And How To Get There

I wasted the better part of a Saturday afternoon figuring out how to get my 
level 17 fixer to the Stret West political zones for my first foray into PvP, 
AO-style - took me for-freaking-ever. Nobody I asked in-game knew what to tell 
me. None of the bulletin boards had any better directions other than "run up 
through 4-Holes" (I'm Omni). Blah. A level 17 dies too easily running up 
through 4-Holes. Add that to the fact that my map skill wasn't nearly high 
enough to load maps of Stret West, etc., and I ended up doing a lot of running 
around in Newland, Athen, Varmit Woods (yikes), and Aegean, not to mention 
looking all over Stret West for the tiny little 25% zones once I got there � 
all without maps.

Stupid me. Of course, now I know better, and I'm going to save you the trouble 
that I went through. Be aware that since I've only PvPed with my lowbie Fixer 
reroll, I can't tell you much about the PvP areas in 4-Holes or Upper Stret 
East. If any of you reading this can give me succinct directions (and 
preferably coordinates, too) to the PvP areas that I don't list here, please 
email me with that info and I'll add it here. Eventually I plan to show actual 
maps marking all the PvP zones. Getting to Stret West and the Holes-In-The-Wall 
Political Zone

1.	If you're Omni, use the grid to get to Tir. You need a buffed Computer 
Lit. of 75 to get into the grid and take the Tir drop.

2.	From Tir, take the whompah to Newland. (Note: even if you have a high 
enough comp lit to take the Newland drop, don't do it! You're dropped from 
midair into the middle of Newland desert, which is a long run away from Newland 
City itself. Presuming you even survive the drop. (A trick that actually worked 
for me is to jump just before you hit ground. I kid you not--I took only 28 
points of damage that way.)

3.	In Newland, take the whompah to Borealis, which is a neutral city *in* 
Stret West. Both Clan and Omni can shop and restock in Borealis.

4.	Take the only road out of Borealis, follow it down the mountain, and 
you'll zone into Holes-in-the-wall about 40 seconds down the road. Keep 
following the road straight for another half-minute and you'll see a Bronto 
Burger stand up ahead. Go there and scan at the insurance terminal there, for 
speedy return to the PvP zone nearby.

To get to the small PvP zone in Holes-in-the-Wall

Head down the road to your right if you're facing the Bronto Burger. (Can't 
remember the compass direction right now.) You'll see that the road you're 
following forks to either side of a small hill in front of you. Take either 
fork and go around to the other side of that small hill.

You'll be standing at a cross-roads where something like 4 different roads come 
together. Take the road South that goes up another embankment. On the other 
side is a river and a bridge. The road/bridge leads into 4-Holes. Almost as 
soon as you start down that road to the South, you'll cross into a 25% zone. 
There's a physical zone barrier to 4-holes in the middle of the bridge.

Explore and fight in this area. It's the main PvP zone in Stret West, at least 
for lowbies. Chickens will often run for the safety of the zone border on the 
bridge, so you'll have to devise tactics for killing runners before they can 
hit the zone wall.


To get to the large PvP zone in Stret West proper

There's a much larger 25% zone directly to the East of the Bronto Burger stand. 
Out there you may catch teams who are leveling up, and there are lots of 
mission areas. Just take a beeline East from the Bronto Burger. It's 25% all 
the way to the big river, with only a few very small 75% zones here and there.


Getting to Meetmedere

The best and quickest way is to take the Meetmedere drop on the 2nd tier of the 
grid. You'll need Comp Lit of 100 to use the MMD drop. (Note: you'll need Comp 
Lit of 110 to use the grid terminal in MMD itself. Also note that the Grid 
terminal in MMD is in a 25% zone in the middle of the outpost.)
 
1.	If you can't grid directly into MMD, then with a Comp Lit of 75 you can 
grid to Tir, then take the whompah from Tir to Newland.

2.	Exit the West gate from Newland and head straight North across a small 
expanse of desert. If you have a Newland area map, or look on your big map, 
you'll see a set of twin lakes right next to each other with a narrow spit of 
land in between them. MMD is sitting at the North side of that spit of land 
between the two lakes. All the mobs you'll run into on the way are newbie mobs, 
so it's a safe run even for lowbies.

Take your time exploring MMD--there are three different 25% zones, some inside 
the walls of the outpost and some outside. There are also 75% zones that you 
can use to walk safely right into the middle of the outpost. Remember that once 
you step inside a 25% zone and somebody attacks you, they can continue 
attacking you even if you move back into a 75% zone. There are two different 
"back entrances" to the MMD outpost, and it can be very effective to sneak into 
the outpost using these, and also very effective to confuse teams by running 
them into and out of the outpost using the different entrances. 


Getting to Stret East

I've been to Stret East only for full-difficulty missions, so I haven't seen 
much of the area because it's pretty dangerous for my mid-20s character to run 
around out there. What I do know is that Omni can get there via whompah or grid 
into 2HO. The 2HO military base is heavily guarded by scads of NPC guards, so 
it would be certain death for a Clan to grid there. The roads near the 2HO base 
are heavily guarded by Omni NPC's as well. The only feasible way for Clan to 
hunt in Stret East would be to run there from somewhere else, avoiding the 
guards that are probably located near bridges and crossroads.

Despite the danger to Clan of gridding directly into 2HO, a lot of Clan, 
particularly the high-level ones, try to do it. So if you're over level 75, 
watch your back while in 2HO.


Getting to 4-Holes

Similar to Stret East, 4-Holes is easy for Omni to get to via either whompah or 
grid. I know that the whompah drop would be certain death for Clan, due to the 
high density of Omni Guard NPC's. I haven't taken the Grid drop yet so I don't 
know what the story is at the grid exit.

I have noticed a lot of higher-level clan running South from Stret West into 
the 4-Holes zone, but never followed them. There is a bridge leading to 4-Holes 
right near Borealis, in the Holes-In-The-Wall area that I describe up above in 
the Stret West section. So it seems fairly easy for Clan to get down into 4-
Holes via Borealis and Stret West.

One interesting thing about 4-Holes - there are a ton of Clan NPC mob/guards 
that spawn in the same area as the Omni NPC guards, so even if you're Omni you 
can die easily to a Clan NPC within sight of Omni guards. There are always 
firefights going on between the local Omni guards and these Clan NPC's. I tried 
sneaking past a Clan NPC once, thinking that it would ignore me since it was 
already fighting with an Omni guard. Wrong! I was dead in one hit.


General PvP Tips and Tactics

Here are some useful tips and tactics, in no particular order, that apply 
equally to solo and team fighting:

Equipment Has a Huge Effect

?	Equip the best weapon/armor that you possibly can for your level. 
Preferably, things that you have to buff attributes/skills to even be 
able to equip them. You want max killing power. I fought a level 17 fixer 
when I was level 17. He had a QL8 Mausser, while I had a QL24 Mausser 
that I had to use Expertise buffs and implants just to equip. He had 
mission loot armor; I had armor from a previous high-level character that 
I had to buff up just to equip some pieces. Can you guess who won? He was 
dinking me for 8 points of damage per hit, while I was whacking him for 
40 per hit. Yes, your AC really does make a difference.

?	Know your actual damage output per second, and yes, do keep upping your 
combat initiatives, at least to a certain point. There is a lot of 
misinformation floating around on what the "best" weapons are, whether or 
not ranged initiatives have any real effect, and so on. If you want to 
understand exactly how to determine which weapon puts out the most damage 
when you are wielding it, then read my guide to evaluating weapons.

?	A useful extrapolation of this tip is this: don't PvP all the time unless 
you really love being a PvP-nut. Instead, go level up in the non-PvP 
zones until you're ready to make your next set of major equipment/nano 
upgrades. Then, when you've barely squeezed into your new upgrades, take 
a few days off from leveling and go live in the PvP zones for a while. 
You'll perform well and rack up lots of kills to advance your PvP titles. 
When you get sick of PvP'ing, go back to leveling again until your next 
major equipment/nano upgrade.

A downside of this approach, however, is that opponents who like to use skill 
debuffs on you can make life difficult if you've just squeezed into a higher-
level first-aid, nano, or weapon (if you like to switch weapons in combat). By 
debuffing you appropriately, you may not be able use first-aid in combat, or 
get off that killer nano that you can barely cast, or swap out weapons mid-
combat.


Speed Kills

?	Root nanos and speed buffs are your best friend in PvP. A simple fact is 
that when a player is obviously losing, they will very often try to just 
run away before you can kill them. Yes there are some steadfast warriors 
who finish what they start no matter what, but many people can argue that 
it's just good tactics to run away until your first aid and specials 
recycle. I know that I've killed some of my toughest opponents this way, 
by letting them think they've got the kill if they can just get a few 
more shots in followed by their special - I'll run like the wind and wait 
until my aid and burst recharges (and my HOT nano is slowly recharging my 
health too), then turn around and lay into them again. So, you want to 
prevent players from bolting and running, if you can. If you've got root 
capability, learn to use it to keep the other guy trapped until you can 
deal your death blow.

?	Here's a new tip for those of you who don't have root nanos, and who keep 
getting killed by stinkers like me who use root-n-shoot tactics 
effectively. If your Nano Resist skill is kept fairly high, you will 
resist roots more often, and you will have a chance to break roots early. 
I can personally verify this after another fun weekend of fighting in 
MMD. I was battling an agent who was 5 levels above me. Normally, since 
my Mausser has longer range than a typical agent's rifle, I would use 
root-n-shoot to my advantage. However, the agent didn't seem at all 
affected by my first root. My second root held him well, like I would 
expect, but my third root broke after I'd hit him just one time. Okay, 
that was enough to make me wonder if he was using some /follow exploit to 
break my roots, until he tried rooting me! (This is the first time, 
surprisingly, that I have ever been rooted by another player.) Well what 
do you know? Even though I had the blue nano haze all around me, I could 
run just fine, and the blue haze disappeared almost instantly.

What this clearly shows is that Nano Resist does have a strong effect on how 
you are affected by combat nanos such as root. My nano resist is currently 
maxed for my level. That agent obviously had a high Nano Resist as well, 
because although he was much less affected by my roots, most other players I 
was rooting this weekend were severely hampered by my roots.

?	Root nanos can also be very useful to keep a shorter-ranged opponent at 
bay while you fire at him with a longer-ranged weapon. The coolest fight 
I've ever witnessed was an Adventurer in leet form fighting a Fixer. The 
Fixer had great tactics. The leet was using melee weapons and killing 
with either brawl or dimach, so the fixer would root the leet, run away 
and take a couple shots while the leet was out of melee range. The leet 
would cast a heal just as the root wore off, and practically scream 
across the gap to get in some melee swings, trailing red sparks from his 
healing nano as he ran. Hilarious to watch. BTW, the leet won. The point 
is that the leet would have won a LOT quicker if the fixer hadn't been 
using his root to keep the leet at bay.

?	Here's a tip from CroakAO that the speedy classes can use against NTs and 
shorter-ranged projectile opponents. Provided your opponent is the type 
who will doggedly chase you to try and toss big NT nukes at you or 
whatever, just run away from them until your targeting indicator for them 
turns grey, meaning they've dropped out of even your range. Then stop and 
fire, then start running again. If you get the timing down, you'll be 
able to keep getting shots off on them but they'll never get a shot on 
you.

This is similar to what I've experienced myself when chasing down fleeing 
opponents. If I'm out of nano for more roots, or I can't get within close 
enough range to fire off a root while they're still pelting away from me, I'll 
just close the gap enough, stop and fire one shot, then immediately start 
running after them again. Even with opponents I can barely keep up with, I've 
managed to whittle them down this way, although they can run you a looooonnnng 
ways before you finally kill them.

?	Especially if you don't have root nanos, a strong speed buff can help you 
chase down a runner and get in enough shots to finish them off. Many is 
the time I wished for a good speed buff at my lower levels when I 
couldn't run Limited Grid Jump yet. One trader who tried to gang me with 
two other players ran after I killed the first guy and his bud ran off. I 
decided to chase down the trader since he had jumped in with an 
opportunistic attack after the other two had first decided to jump me. 
That little bastard ran me half way across the Newland Desert before I 
had finally plinked him into Burst range and finished him. I had to burn 
two stim charges just to keep closing the gap enough to squeeze periodic 
shots in. Ever since I upgraded my NCU to make room for more buffs, and 
leveled up enough to run Limited Grid Jump as a standard buff, I've had a 
MUCH easier time fighting PvP, killing runners, and even fighting solo 
versus teams very effectively.

?	Slow-down debuffs are pretty much worthless in PvP. If a runner gets 
enough of a head-start on you, you still can't close the gap fast enough 
to finish off the kill easily, if at all. I'll take a root nano over a 
slow-down nano any day. However, as I've had opportunity now to fight 
solo against teams that where trying to gank me, I've found that the 
crowd-control snares (such as Passive Distributed Entanglement) can 
really frustrate the hell out of a team trying to pin you down.

Spying Skills and Aimed Shot

?	Stealth mode and cloaking devices are pretty much worthless. A real 
player can still see you just fine when you're cloaked. If you want to 
visually hide to lay an ambush, you'll be much more effective hiding in 
the local geometry. At the bridge in Holes-in-the-wall, for instance, you 
can hide under the bridge itself, merging into the concrete bottom of the 
bridge. Or you can merge with a big tree trunk near the path to the 
bridge. If you adjust your camera angle, you can still see out through 
the clip lines of the geometry you're hiding in. Unless players are 
constantly hitting their Tab key to spot hostiles, they may be lulled 
into a false sense of safety. Is this an exploit? Depends on your 
definition of exploit, I guess. The real lesson here is to keep hitting 
that tab key when you're in a PvP zone.

?	Aimed Shot, on the other hand, is apparently not at all worthless. DB 
reports that Aimed Shot always works versus human opponents--you'll never 
get a "the target is aware of you" message. I imagine this is to ensure 
that Agents get to use their one and only special attack, for balance 
reasons.

?	The jury is still out on concealment and perception skills and the role 
they play in PvP. One thing for certain, players are much more aware and 
astute than mobs, and players are constantly running around and panning 
their camera angle, so they will visually see you even if your 
concealment is so high that their Tab key doesn't find you. And yes, the 
LOS fix does work to a certain extent. I noticed last night while 
leveling at a clan spawn area that I could not target clan agent mobs 
that were on the other side of visual obstacles like tree trunks. My 
perception is currently pretty low. I could see them shooting at my 
teammate, and most of my teammates had no trouble shooting back, but I 
could not target them with my tab key until I moved my position so that I 
could also see the mob.

So what does this mean about concealment and perception? I extrapolate the 
following points. These are unproven hypotheses at this point so take this with 
a grain of salt for now.

?	If your opponent's concealment is significantly higher than your 
perception, you may have trouble seeing their blip on your map screen (if 
you have the people upgrade), and you may have trouble targeting them 
with your Tab key if you can't also visually see them.

?	If you are using the information tool that tells you a target's Hit 
Points and Nano Points, your relative perception-concealment skills could 
affect how easily you can read your opponent's exact HP/NP. If you don't 
know why this would be useful, just think about it. =)

?	If you have extremely high concealment (buffed even higher with nano and 
cloaking devices), it might be a viable strategy to hide in geometry 
(like a tree trunk, under a bridge, or in a wall/building) for a 
relatively nasty sniping position.


Timing Your Big Damage Shots

?	There are two schools of thought on when you should unload your special 
attacks on your hapless victim. The first school says to save your kill 
shot for last. Don't open with your nastiest nuke - you'll just make them 
run. Sucker them into thinking they have a chance to get off their nuke 
first and win. Save your Burst, Dimach, or whatever specials for your 
killing blow. This was my general strategy for pretty much all of my 
first 30 fights and it stood me very well. The few times that I 
accidentally bursted my opponent early on, they ALWAYS ran.

?	The 2nd school says that against professions that typically have low HP, 
a large opening Burst or other kill shot can sometimes kill them outright 
or at least seriously freak them out, putting you at the advantage for 
the fight. Soldiers have long taken advantage of this and often open with 
a Burst and FA attack. Another strong reason to use your specials right 
at the start of a fight is that if the fight lasts long enough, you may 
get a chance to use them again after they recycle, allowing you to do 
more overall damage during the same time period, versus an opponent who 
saves their specials for a "kill shot."

?	Now for the fun part, because there's always a flip side to every flip 
side. Knowing that some fighters, particularly soldiers, love to open 
with a huge kill shot attempt, Vanven claims very good success against 
soldiers using this tactic: when facing a soldier, start the fight with 
your aggro bar set all the way left to Full Defense, until after they 
unload their opening Burst and FA on you. He claims you'll take much less 
damage that way. Then, flip your aggro bar to full aggressive and tear 
into the soldier. I can verify that Vanven's tactic works very well 
against soldiers. I fought several soldiers again this weekend, including 
one who was on a team that I was soloing against. None of those soldiers 
were able to do squat to me, and some of them were 4 levels above me and 
I took them down easily using Vanven's technique and root-n-shoot 
tactics. Soldiers are strong, but definitely not uber. I have not been 
killed by a soldier yet, and overall, soldiers don't even fall in the 
category of my toughest matches.

?	Personally I think that all this makes for some interesting tactics in a 
fight. Is your opponent gonna open with a kill shot, or will they hold it 
to the end? Or will they try to sneak it in on you somewhere in the 
middle? Should you monkey around with your aggro bar in a fight to 
attempt mitigating their big damage, or just leave it at full aggro for 
the whole fight? Interesting choices. 


Using General Nano Debuffs Offensively

?	CaptFallout (a soldier, btw) reports that a good way to deal with 
soldier's mirror shields is to debuff them early in the fight with the 
general nano SpaceTime Incompetence. Since most soldiers equip their 
highest Mirrorshield nano on their shortcut bar, and often buff Time and 
Space to be able to cast the best mirrorshield they can, you can really 
screw them up by knocking 20 points off their Time and Space skill. They 
may have to fumble with their nano window to find the next-lower version 
of their mirrorshield, giving you valuable time.

?	Croak reports that MatCrea Incompetence can be a useful debuff against 
NanoTechs who are barely squeezing into their biggest nukes.

?	Croak also reports good success using BioMet Incompetence against Martial 
Artists and Adventurers to bork their self-healing nanos.

?	Croak also reports good success using Lethargy against an opponent who 
stops attacking to heal, or who may be getting ready to retreat and make 
a run for it. Lethargy decreases their Dodge skill by 10 points, which 
gives you a better chance to hit them and get a crit on them, especially 
if you're trying to finish them off with potshots while they're running 
for a zone line

?	Finally, remember that *any* offensive combat nano eats up your 
opponent's available NCU. Croak once accidentally put Contact Poison on a 
soldier opponent, which didn't do much damage by itself, but it did eat 
up 10 of the soldier's NCU. This prevented the Soldier from being able to 
cast his Mirrorshield. Remember, you cannot cancel a hostile nano.


Miscellaneous Tactics

?	Everyone phears the soldier's mirror shield nanos, right? Pay attention 
when you're fighting a soldier, and the minute you see that shield go up, 
stop attacking them. Heal, run around them, root them, whatever, and just 
don't try to inflict any damage that will just be spat right back at you 
for 75%. Wait 20-31 seconds (depending on the level of your opponent and 
the level of the Mirrorshield they're likely to be using) and then lay 
into them again. This has always worked well for me, at least against the 
very few soldiers I've seen in PvP. 

?	CaptFallout also reports that soldiers get a "you already have a higher- 
quality nano running" message when they try to cast mirrorshield but 
already have the 13% reflect shield running. This may be a bug or 
intentional anti-stack by Funcom, but either way the net result is that 
it's currently much harder for soldiers to whip out their much-dreaded 
mirror shields in PvP than you might guess.

?	Finally, don't just stand in one spot and duke it out, especially if 
you're losing the damage race. Use evasive tactics to give your first aid 
time to recycle, and for your nuke to recycle, if you wasted it early or 
your opponent came back from near-death with some trick up his/her sleeve 
or some heals from his cohorts.

?	If you're fighting a pet class, it can often pay to ignore the pet and 
attack the controller, if you're a ranged class. I've beaten bureaucrats 
5 levels above me by doing this. Watch your aggressive bar, though--if 
it's set to full aggressive, the pet will trigger your autoattack and 
you'll waste valuable time trying to stop attacking the pet and switch 
your attack to the controller.

?	Here's a useful trick for defending a base or outpost in a political 
zone. 2HO, for example, has some "safe" space near the grid drop where 
the local guards cannot see or aggro enemy Clan that grid into 2HO. But 
all any Omni has to do is go attack a nearby guard and make it chase you 
over near the Clan. Then duck into a store before the guard kills you. 
The guard will now see the clan and attack. This is a trick that even 
lowbies under 75 can do to help repel incursions by high-level enemies 
that you cannot directly attack.


Team Tactics

I don't have much to say here because I've focused only on solo fighting to get 
my Rookie title. As I do more team PvP I'll add stuff later. Here are some 
things that I have managed to learn from fighting solo against entire teams, 
and from team tips that others have sent in:

?	If you are a solo fighter, you will run into teams fairly often. Don't 
expect a "fair" fight when you're soloing. The good news is that at least 
if you have good speed buffs on you, you really don't need to fear teams. 
(Although if they have good speed buffs too, it could get dicey.) CroakAO 
has reported good success with a "divide and conquer" tactic, and I had 
similar success with it this weekend at MMD.

In a nutshell, if you have a speed advantage against the team that is attacking 
you, just run like crazy and jink and double back on them and just keep being 
unpredictable. What happens is the team gets split up trying to stay on your 
tail, because each player is making different choices about what direction they 
think you're heading in and they're trying to cut you off. Eventually, you can 
make it so that only one person is still chasing you and visible on your map 
screen. Keep pulling them along, then stop and nip at them until their 
teammates finally find you both. Then rinse and repeat.

This tactic is a BLAST. I had the most PvP fun so far this Saturday, when a 
team of three that were exactly my level simply could not kill me. For the 
first few attempts, I couldn't get a full kill on any of them, but I kept 
recharging, running back into town, and attacking one of them randomly to get 
them on my tail again. It took about 4 "guerilla raids" like this to finally 
get to a point where they had lost one team member to another fight with 
somebody else, and it was now me against two of them. The remaining two had 
gotten split up in MMD, and I had one in my sights but was /telling the other 
one who wanted to duel me solo. So I was just waiting for the other one to come 
duel me, when the one that was in my sights noticed me and started attacking 
me. So I used root-n-shoot tactics on him, and by the time his teammate had 
found us I had the first guy down to half health and was clearly winning. The 
second teammate, a solider, must have used up his burst because he wasn't 
hitting me for much. So I focused on my rooted target, staying out of his range 
most of the time, and just let the soldier shoot at me all he wanted while I 
worked on his teammate. By the time I'd killed the teammate, I was at half 
health so ran from the soldier to give my aid and burst time to recycle.

The point of all this is that you can fight effectively against multiple 
opponents if you're not completely outclassed by any one of them. You just 
gotta use tactics.

?	If you're on a team, you benefit strongly from having the People upgrade 
to your map. Your team members show up as a different color, so it makes 
it easier to find your teammates in a crowded area like MMD.

?	CaptFallout describes a "dirty" team tactic that revolves around the way 
that the attack limit and defense limit work in teams. A high-level team 
will recruit one very low-level member. That low level member cannot 
attack anyone else their own level, due to the team's attack limit being 
that of the highest member in the team. But, if that low-level member can 
taunt somebody into attacking them, which is possible because of the 
team's ultra-low defense limit, then the whole team can open fire on the 
person who got taunted into attacking the lowbie member.

?	Here's another "dirty" team tactic that CaptFallout reports seeing used. 
This one revolves around using the borders between the 25% and 75% zones. 
Be especially wary of this tactic when you're in MMD. Most of the team 
will stand in the 75% zone. Only one person will go into the 25% zone and 
will find a target they can attack. As soon as they start attacking 
someone, they try to lure their victim out into the 75% zone quickly. 
What happens, if the victim follows, is that nobody else in the vicinity 
can jump in any longer, because the two combatants are now in a 75% zone. 
However, the teammates can still jump in just fine. Something to be 
afraid of? That's your decision. Exploit? Maybe. Bottom line is if you 
get sucker-ganked this way, just don't ever return fire on members of 
that team again, and you should be okay. But it might force you to leave 
the area or find a team yourself, because you can't just stand there and 
get shot at by one person for too long without eventually being forced to 
return fire. And then their team can hit you anywhere. Bleh.

(This guide was copied and revised from the original at 
http://martin.brenner.de/ao/vampiguide/pvpguide.html)

=============================================================================
 
15) Credits

� Nicholas Sehres/Eberhart 2008

This guide is not to be reproduced in any way. You can NOT post this guide on 
your website or compilation without my, the author's, permission. Now, that 
isn't to say that you can't go and print this out or copy it to your hard drive 
so you have a copy to read while playing or offline. I just don't want anyone 
making money off of my work. If you would like this guide on your website just 
email me at [email protected], I'll most likely let you post it there because I 
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www.mogelgott.de/index.php have my permission to post this. If you see it 
somewhere else please e-mail me immediately.