Keeper's Breed Choice (TL1 - 4)
The Keeper's Breed Choice
This guide was originally created for contribution to my org, Keepers of the Source, but I thought I would post it here too to get experienced feedback and to help more Keepers.
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Keeper's Breed Choice (TL1 - 4)
In Anarchy Online, there are four breeds available to each profession. As a Keeper, you have the option to be a Solitus, an Opifex, a Nanomage, or an Atrox. The four breeds of AO will be explained and presented with relevance to the Keeper profession in this guide.
Breed affects many things as a Keeper. As a young Keeper, breed will determine your ability starting values, ability costs, ability caps, AI genome perks available, and certain equipment available to equip.
The 6 abilities of Anarchy Online are:
- Stamina
- Strength
- Agility
- Intelligence
- Sense
- Psychic
Note: Breed does not affect the amount you can raise abilities per level. All breeds can raise all abilities to a maximum of 3 points per level until they hit thier breed caps.
With breed influencing changes in your abilities, there will be minor advantages or disadvantages in certain skills (called trickledown). In my own opinion, I consider the breed trickledown differences of the levels covered in this guide (1 to 149) to be too minor to fuss too much about. Only under extreme twinking cirumstances (If you are in such a position, then you shouldn't have to be reading this guide), does the ability differences matter. Otherwise, the +2/+3 differences in skills one breed would get compared to other breeds are irrelevant.
Also due to ability differences, certain breeds will have an advantage with certain armours requiring the breed's strong abilities. However, the most popular armour choices of Keepers require Strength & Stamina - both being the Atrox's strongest abilities. However, as mentioned previously, this "advantage" only means the difference of 1 or 2 levels (in the early stages), so it's not too drastic.
Your breed also effects your Hitpoints (HP) and Nanopool (NP). Your HP and NP are based on two skills. These skills act just like any other skills, and are raised each level using IP, and are dependant on base abilities and trickledown from them.
Hit Points
Your HP is dependant on the Body Development (BD) skill under the Body section in your skills window. The Body Develpoment skill of a Keeper is aqua*, meaning relatively low IP cost. The Keeper can raise BD 5 points per level. BD is 100% dependant on stamina. The base IP cost of BD for a Keeper is 6.
*A common error made by players is that BD is dependant on the breed. It's not. A nanomage of a certain profession will have identical restrictions from raising BD as an Atrox of the same profession as the NM with equal abilities. NOTE: This does not mean they will have the same HP.
Code:
Breed Skill Multiplier Points per Level Beginning Value
Solitus 3 6 34
Opifex 3 5 38
Atrox 4 6 59
Nanomage 2 5 25
This table shows that for each point a solitus puts into BD, he or she will gain +3 to his total HP. When a solitus levels from level 1 to level 2, he will receive +6 total HP onto his base of 34 (If he hadn't put any IP into BD beforehand).
Nano pool
Your NP is coincidently increased by your Nano Pool skill increasing. The Nano Pool skill is found under the Body section of the IP window. The NP skill of a Keeper is dark blue, meaning very high IP cost. The Keeper can raise the NP skill by 4 points per level. The NP skill is 70% Psychic, 10% Sense, 10% Intelligence and 10% Stamina.
Code:
Breed Skill Multiplier Points per Level Beginning Value
Solitus 3 4 32
Opifex 3 3 31
Atrox 2 4 20
Nanomage 4 5 48
Solitus
The Solitus is the middle ground of all the breeds. They are the humans of Anarchy Online. All 6 abilities of the solitus consume average IP, average breed cap and average starting values. Compared to other breeds that excel in certain abilities and fall back on others, the Solitus are equal on all.
The Solitus has an advantage to adapting to any certain setup of a Keeper, not immediately grant you, but given work, the Solitus may adapt from a tanker of near efficiency of an Atrox to an evader of near efficiency of an Opifex.
If you have Alien Invasion, here are the advantages Solituses can get from thier specific perks:
Solitus Genome Perks
From an Escort to a young Vigilante, being solitus will primarily mean four things:
- You will have relative ease with getting enough NP to cast nanos.
- You will have relative ease with getting enough HP to act as a secondary tank.
- You will be adaptable to any setup you feel like, given work.
- You will have average IP consumption.
Code:
Ability Level 1 Value Level 200 Max Level 220 Max
Strength 6 472 772
Agility 6 480 780
Stamina 6 480 780
Intelligence 6 480 780
Sense 6 480 780
Psychic 6 480 780
Opifex
The agile breed of AO. Opifex have an advantage in Agility and Sense, but losing in one of the Keeper's main abilities, Stamina. However the Strength, Psychic and Intelligence of an Opifex are average. With similiar traits HP and NP wise to a Solitus, the difference between the 2 breeds is hardly noticeable until breed caps.
Strong Agility and Sense of an Opifex will mean they have an advantage (50%+) with trickledown to these relative skills of a Keeper:
- Evade-ClsC (80%)
- Dodge-Rng (80%)
- Duck-Exp (80%)
- Melee Init (70%)
- Fast Attack (100%)
- Dimach (80%)
- Risposte (80%)
- First Aid (70%)
Also, high Agility and Sense means less trouble with Implants and Symbiants ability-wise in the early levels. Some people consider the advantage Opifex has with abilities and treatment trickledown to make up for the trickledown lost to other primary Keeper skills.
However, I will point out that any breed won't have any ability troubles with Symbiants if they use heaps of IP on them, but that's the defining factor with symbiants in the early levels. The opifex's advantage is that they have to spend the lowest amount of IP on abilities to be able to equip high QL symbiants.
Playing an Opifex Keeper myself, I can honestly say the Stamina an opifex loses hardly makes a difference when twinking into Stamina armour and implants. Stamina has a lot more support (buffing) than Agility or Sense. Having a high Agi and Sen naturally will be advantageous ability-wise.
If you have Alien invasion, here are the advantages Opifexes can get from thier specific perks:
Opifex Genome Perks
Being an Opifex Keeper will primarily mean four things in the early to mid levels:
- You will have relative ease with getting enough NP to cast your nanos when your nanoskills meet the requirements.
- You will have a harder time than an atrox with getting enough HP to act as a secondary tank.
- You will have more support with abilities when it is required.
- You will have average IP consumption.
Code:
Ability Level 1 Value Level 200 Max Level 220 Max
Strength 3 464 764
Agility 15 544 944
Stamina 6 480 680
Intelligence 6 464 764
Sense 10 512 912
Psychic 3 448 748