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Thread: Perks

  1. #1

    Perks

    Perks and what to choose. Ask 10 different agents and get 10 different answers, of course, tho there are some similarities. Common choices for the core of the perk set are Black Ops and Assassin, with some Infantry thrown in. Genius 2 is also popular for the regain nano perk action.

    For AI perks, the discussion seems to be between Made and Champion of Heavy Artillery. At various points in our careers, a lot of us have perked Enhance DNA or First Aid to equip stuff, usually not as a permanent perkline. Many agents (and other people) also end up training exp perklines Explorer and Training Seminar too, to make SKing somewhat less tedious.

    (And because I am afraid of being too much of a grump, I won't point out that this question is asked (and answered) over and over again: recently. . . the thread called "Perks" discusses AI perks, and the threads "Normal Perks" and "New Agent Needs Perk Help" discuss perks more generally. But i won't mention that. *hushes up*)

    A very handy tool for planning perks is AODB's perk configurator. It lets you allocate different numbers of perk points to different lines, and see what the net result would be. And of course it links to detailed descriptions of the different perk specials, too, so you can get a good idea of what to expect if you spend your perk points in a particular way.

    Some perklines to consider (links to fully perked):

    Assassin (10)
    Assassin adds 25 Rifle, 100 AS, some evades, and gives a 2% crit bonus. Lovely mods. Assassin's specials are great too: Tranquilizer is a nice snare with a small DD (1012 at perk level 10), Concussive Shot is a nice DD and stun. Toxic shock adds damage for a little while (200/hit for me), and Assassinate is a nice big DD (8-16k+) that requires timing but can make the end of the fight faster. Totally crucial perk line.

    Black Ops (10)
    Black Ops adds 55 Rifle, 65 AS (and 100 Fling!) and gives a 1% critical bonus. Soften Up is a nice AC debuff and snare, and (tho opinions vary on this next part) Death Strike is a nice big DD (8-16k+ like Assassinate, above) if you can time it right; it requires stun to work - so Concussive Shot or Tumulten are handy and it's not usable on bosses. Pin Point Strike can get to 4-7k as a DD if you have APS (infantry perk special) and Soften Up both running. Chaotic Modulation is theoretically useful for finding AC holes or against a target with armor vs. your damage type. Love this perk line.

    Made (10)
    Made adds 51 AS and some evades and Sharp Objects. It adds to nano pool and reduces nano cost 2%. I like the specials, but opinions differ. Recalibrate is a 30s boost to Ranged Init, useful for squeezing an extra shot into an AC/GW. Silent Plague is a DoT that scales with perk level. I have Made 9 now and it's 5 ticks at 1000 each for me. The Shot is the big DD payoff at Made 10; I don't have it yet, but on paper, it's 6.5-8k DD with 60s recharge. Lovely

    Champion of Heavy Artillery (10)
    Champion of Heavy Artillery adds 100 Rifle. Nice!! I don't know how the specials are in actual use, since i haven't trained this line yet, but they sound okay on paper: 2800-3840 damage at perk level 10 for Fuzz, and a small DD and moderate DoT from Fire Frenzy.

    Infantry (10)
    Not a lot of people i know have this trained all the way to 10. If you do, tho you get 120 rifle (*drool*), 20 fling and 400 Max Health. Called Shot (at Infantry 10) is a small DD and DoT. Armor Piercing Shot/Find the Flaw gives a lowish DD of 1500 or so. APS executes super slow for me. I'm working my way up to 10 in this now for the rifle bonus.

    Infantry (5)
    At infantry 5 you only get 40 rifle, 6 fling and 111 Max Health, but you still get APS and FtF so a lot of people stop here until they have perk points to spare.

    Genius (2)
    Genius 2 adds 20 to int/psych and a teensy 60 to nano pool, but the Regain Nano special is groovy. It gives 1000 nano (5 ticks at 200 each) every 2 minutes. I love this special. I am in perma-mimic tho; your mileage may vary. Training Genius 3 adds 20 *more* int/psych and 60 more nanopool. I had this trained for a while when i was starting mimics; i untrained it (the level 3 of the perk) a little while ago.

    Shadowsneak (10)
    Shadowsneak adds 10 AS (yes, 10), 55 sense, and 100 conceal. Night Killer is a DD special that requires an Advy special (Shadow Killer) to run. bleh. I didn't perk this line, so I don't know how the Fade Armor->Shadow Bullet combination works out in practice. On paper, Fade Armor is an AC debuff and Shadow Bullet is a lowish DD. Not a lot to recommend this line.

    Sharpshooter (6)
    Sharpshooter adds 30 AS and gives a 3% crit increase. Snipe Shot 1 is a lowish (1200-2300) DD, Snipe Shot 2 is a larger DD but requires a soldier perk (Triangulate Target) to be running for you to use it. People who perk this usually do it for the critical increase.

    Training Seminar (4)
    Training all 4 of these is a +7% exp bonus. That's it. Makes the number of hecklers to kill pre-220 somewhat smaller.

    Explorer (4)
    Training all 4 of these gives 5% exp bonus. You also get two nice self-teleports that you can use even in SL.

    Apparently, we can also train Power Up to 5, and Nano Doctorate to 7. But i don't know enough about these to comment. (And sorry about the order of these; it seemed to make sense at the time.)

    So overall, as an "average" agent, you can't go too far wrong with Assassin/Black Ops. Throw in a little Infantry, and Genius when you start to mimic. If you want the 3% crit bonus and have the extra points, you can train Sharpshooter, too. AI-wise, I like Made, but the 100 Rifle from Champ of Heavy Artillery is really nice too. Some people have mentioned the Genome lines for AI perks too. Steer clear of Shadowsneak. Enhance DNA and First Aid are handy temporary perk lines for equipping stuff. And if you love hecklers, then don't perk Training Seminar or Explorer, or you will see fewer of them en route to enlightenment.
    xiaoJian, advisor of First Light.
    jianxue, calmer of things.

  2. #2
    ewwwwwwwww a sticky......nicely done Jian!!
    Senor "Beefstreet" Bum Member of Mjolnir Setup
    Atrox Enforcer 216/17 RK1
    Bum "Beefburst" Jr.Veteran of Mjolnir Setup
    Atrox Soldier 190/8 RK1

  3. #3
    Great info for even a fledgling agent like myself. I can see where I need to go. I'm quite fond of the infantry line based on what I see here, and advice I've been given. And yeah, APS is incredibly slow. You gotta hit that at the beginning of the fight, or you won't have time for it to land before your target is dead. My agent is lvl 70 AI 2 atm. I have trained 3 infantry, 2 assassin, 2 blackops, and 2 made. A TL7 org mate has all of those maxed, and it seems reasonable for me to do the same atm.
    Necosileo, Pimpin Kingpin of Rimor
    Retired President of Alpha Omega


    Buff Begging 101
    All your thread are belong to me

  4. #4
    I love you ^________^
    Dromm- 219/15 Soldier

  5. #5
    Thank you Xiaojian.
    This information is, as always, very valuable.

    About Nano Doctorate:
    i used to have this perkline trained when i was TL5, to be able to cast the best RK nanos, and i started to untrain it as my nanoskills raised.
    Level 7 adds 56 to all nanoskills and gives Shutdown Removal 1 (at level 7), which removes Nano Shutdown and gives 10sec immunity to NSD.
    In my opinion, only the first 4 levels are handy to us: 4th level is 160 (for a +26 nanoskills bonus), 5th level is 200. Since we can cast most useful nanos at 190, this line is probably useless after TL5.
    Finalizer Telperion 220/22
    Manager Laurellyn 125/5

    Member of First Light

    [Account Cancelled]

  6. #6

    Thumbs up

    Very Nice Thread,Except I disagree with one thing.

    As agents we need concealment to pull off aimed shots (our biggest damage),so therefore any line which gives concealment is important to us.

    So my point....Made Perk Line gives 140 to concealment,and you say stay away from this ?

    Made is very important therefore for the concealment,only thing you got wrong tho mate..

    Very nice thead.

  7. #7
    +140 conceal isnt going to matter as much as some of the other benifits you can get from other perks. with only 1760Conceal I can sneak by anything in Inferno I've encountered so far (basically Spirits, Chimeras and some Dryad thingys )

    I think I'll untrain Champion of nano combat to put into Made tho so I can get Perk#10 of it tho ;o
    Quote Originally Posted by Chrys View Post
    Halp halp a prof i used too kill with 12345 just pwned me halp

    You hit Bbyron for 1337 points of poison damage.Critical hit!
    Ninjamancer: 215/17 Neutral Opi Agent. (the ubermain) Equip
    Lightwielder: 190/9 Neutral Soli Keeper. (the uberalt)
    Kitsunekid: 60/6 Omni Soli Soldier. (the wtfuberalt) Equip
    Faefighter:Testserver Omni Opi MA. (Crit, Crit, Evade, Splat! )

  8. #8
    thanks for the feedback, you guys
    Quote Originally Posted by thegsxrkid
    So my point....Made Perk Line gives 140 to concealment,and you say stay away from this ?
    i think that maybe you misunderstood what i wrote, thegsxrkid, (or i didn't write it clearly).

    Quote Originally Posted by xiaojian
    AI-wise, I like Made, but the 100 Rifle from Champ of Heavy Artillery is really nice too. Some people have mentioned the Genome lines for AI perks too. Steer clear of Shadowsneak.
    I definitely like the Made line. I have it fully perked now, and i love the specials, as well as the mods - especially +AS/evades. +140 conceal is nice too, as you point out, and might be crucial to someone who can't otherwise hide. It's a drop in the conceal bucket for me, now - but every little bit helps

    Maybe read back? - i thought i gave a pretty solid endorsement of Made, actually.

    I did say "Steer clear of Shadowsneak." - which adds 100 conceal - is this what you meant?
    xiaoJian, advisor of First Light.
    jianxue, calmer of things.

  9. #9
    nice perk-walkthrough. I think however that The Unknown factor line is also not a bad option. It takes 8 (AI) perkpoints and gives a good DD in the end. It can be leraned from early on, downside obviously is the mods are kinda useless....

  10. #10
    yeah, it took me about 3 hours. Just wondering, why get 2 instead of just one?

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Lynxer
    yeah, it took me about 3 hours. Just wondering, why get 2 instead of just one?
    perhaps Im just missing something here, but what was this about? ^^;
    Quote Originally Posted by Chrys View Post
    Halp halp a prof i used too kill with 12345 just pwned me halp

    You hit Bbyron for 1337 points of poison damage.Critical hit!
    Ninjamancer: 215/17 Neutral Opi Agent. (the ubermain) Equip
    Lightwielder: 190/9 Neutral Soli Keeper. (the uberalt)
    Kitsunekid: 60/6 Omni Soli Soldier. (the wtfuberalt) Equip
    Faefighter:Testserver Omni Opi MA. (Crit, Crit, Evade, Splat! )

  12. #12
    avoid using chaotic modulation unless you are trying to spot a hole in a mob's armor.

    If you are like me, you have a tonne of damage add items, that all add to one type, When you modulate, your damage add items are not counted (unless you have them of the same damage type as you are presently doing).


    ANi.
    PLEASE, give use a simple YES or no answer as to whether or not the CoH chests can be opened

  13. #13
    Well what do you know, i log in to get some good advice on how make the best of my new agent, which i'm loving by the way, and who's top of the agony aunt league but our very own lil one, Jian.
    I'll be making good use of your advice hun, but be prepared for the occiasonal tell for advice here and there
    Nice to know a theres good advice out there to be had, that it's from a friend is a bonus.
    Thanks for taking the time to post your well recieved advice.

    Dreamy
    Dreamworld 217/18 Assault Rifle Soldier
    Advisor for First Light

    "Imagination is more valuable than knowledge!"
    - Albert Einstein
    "All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream."
    - Edgar Allan Poe

  14. #14
    I don't know if it's the crazy uncle no one talks about at thanksgiving, but I've found Champion of Nano Combat to be super helpful in making the nanoskill penalties in mimic less painfull. (And at reducing my CI addiction). I hope to untrain it eventually but it's been a great help so far.

    Blackmesa
    220/30/68 Clan Agent

    ja

  15. #15
    Great guide here.
    I find the perklines wich have perk actions dependant on other profs perk actions to be active to be, at the very least, depressing.
    Ive stayed away from them so far atleast.
    Proud agent of the Disciples of Omni-Tek

    Commissioner of the RKDC

    "One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end."
    William Butler Yeats

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