General tips and hints for new bureaucrats.

[Kithraks]

What breed should I pick?

• Nanomage if you want to cast your nanoprograms sooner at a cost to your hitpoints. Their higher intelligence/psychic cap will come in very handy during the top end game. Lvls 200-220.
  
• Solitus or Opifex if you don't want to look freaky. Really, nanomage females' looks leave something to be desired. They have slightly more hitpoints and have more armor options available for the first half of the game. The cost is that during the top end game, they may have trouble with casting their nanoprograms as soon as the nanomage and equipping the int/psy crat profession armor.
  
• Atrox..... if you have Shadowlands atrox would not be recommend at this time due to the current equipment available. You'll get lots of hp.

What skills should I max?

Core Skills
Max without question for all breeds.

Intelligence, BioMet, PsyMod, MatterCreate, TimeSpace, Sense Imp.
Primary Skills
NanoPool, NanoCInit

The skill your weapon class uses(recommended that it is not dark blue, like pistol but other options are viable)

The 2 main stats the armor you're planning to stick with(this is partly determined by your breed, nanomages should stick with int/psy or sen/psy, solitus can pick any, etc.)

Secondary Skills
BodyDev - Raise it if you find yourself dying a bit too often, but otherwise note that it is a dark blue skill and is very expensive.

Treatment - for better rechargers/coils and implants.

Evades - Raise it if you are getting criticaled too often, but otherwise they're dark blue and well...expensive. Later on IP will be more plentiful but for now it isn't.

Support Skills - Raise these only if you have ips to spare.
Runspeed - with all the running in Shadowlands and Rubi-Ka this is not a bad investment. A runspeed of 100 is an ok tradeoff with improved speed versus ips to spend on other things.

Map Nav - This is useful in you plan on returning to Rubi-Ka and provides useful map upgrades.

CompLit - Discounts in stores and useing improved NCU Belts

Psychology - Only if you want to use charms extensively.

Weapon Speed - Most likely you will be useing a ranged weapon. Once again dark blue skills are extremely expensive. Raise if you have any to spare.

Nano Resist - ? Haven't had a chance to test this after the mob changes in patch 15.0.

First Aid - ? Some players have used first aid stims with great effectiveness. I have done ok without them. Up to you to decide.

What weapon should I use?
Pistol
Pro - Light on IP(light blue) and offers a wide variety of buffing options where you can use a pistol for the bonuses that it provides. You can dual wield with multiranged. We have a pistol perk, thats a sure hint.
Con - Relatively low on the damage scale compared to the other weapons, specials associated with pistols are dark blue anyway. Multiranged for dual wielding is also dark blue. Some implant conflicts.

Shotgun
Pro - They do alot of damage if you land a hit. The startup stores sell implants for it.
Con - They are mostly critical hit reliant. Most of the better new shotguns are trader only. The startup implants are misleading.

Sub-Machine Gun(SMG)
Not enough information.

Rifle
Pro - Long range, relatively fast and has a special with a fast recharge. Easy to buff and implant.
Con - The aimed shot attack will probablly be altered in the future to be less effective for non-agents. No perks.

[_____________Reiella]

Some other quick tips for New players in general, with some of the new options with Shadowlands.

For your early levels, you don't have much of 'good' choices for perks.

Instead of focusing on selecting perks you'll want in the future, select some that help you twink a bit, Cartographer for that boost to Map Nav and Adventuring to make it easier to get your new maps and/or map nanos.

NCU Extensions to get that initial boost in Max NCU (it can be very helpful if you can get external buffs) and Computer Literacy, just to get into better NCU/belts sooner. Although you'll probably want to max Comp Lit later on in your career anyway, it helps in the short term to save you some IP. [Urgh, Looking at NCU Extensions, it doesn't look like it would significantly help honestly, since the first is at level 40]

The First Aid perk can be helpful for getting yourself into better Implants sooner.

Just remember to surrender those perks when you don't need them anymore (3 day wait is teh scuk).

[Acardia]

SMG pro: easy on implant set up, solid dmg, a few choices(manex, MCS,(haven't tested din gun, sol chronis, defender of troy, jake, or that thingy the juggurnaugt drops) looks awesome with crat suit.

cons: dark ip can;t use till later ingame due to Ip, lower AR than pistol.

[-Zagadka-]

Some observations from my first 75 levels...

I'm fairly new to Crating, though I've been playing the game since launch. I selected to go with Nanomage, and since I've been playing since launch, I have the luxary of having enough money and mains to get the "uber" items early on... shades of lub, crat suit, etc. I chose nanomage mainly because I planned no mostly calming in teams and using pets and nukes soloing, so needing a larger nanopool.

Base Abilities: As above, raise 'em all. I skimped on Str for a while, but SI needs it for some bizarre reason.

Weapons: As I said above, I'm going pistol. Why? Well, like I said, I plan on hanging back and taking care of calms and pet management, and when I'm not doing that i'll be chain nuking, so damage isn't a huge issue. Reason #2: There are tons of pistols that buff skills and abilities, mainly Int/Psy, that are easily retrieved from calming a mission. A list of them is http://www.aodb.info/search.asp?Item...=1&Search=True Reason #3: At very low levels, getting a Chimera Pistol is fairly easy, and a ql9 pistol that you can get around level 5 will rock everything's world until you get to 20.

Nanos: I've been maxing everything except for MM, which I haven't found a need for yet.

Tradeskills: It is up to you if you want to use trimmers on your bot. Personally, I'm waiting until I get to the spare IP zone between 82 and 100. I am maxing CL and Psychology, however.

Initiatives: You want NanoC Init to be maxed whenver possible. In SL, you only really need Evade, but keep Dodge up to a level where you won't get critted on 4 times in a row, because you'll be a dead crat. Runspeed you can raise to your liking. I generally leave it until I hit a new TL then max it :-)

Armor: Carbonum, as always, is good. People frequently sell or, if you're in a guild, loan, their sets they've levelled out of. You can also try to camp the Temples for Exterminator or Support Unit armor drops, but that generally takes either a full team (meaning you share loot) or a level 90+ main to farm it for you.

Perks: At low levels, if you go the Pistol-for-buffs route, you might want to take Pistol Mastery. Definitely get Explorer or Cartographer, and I went ahead and grabbed Directorship for the XP buff. Most nano-based classes don't get very decent perks until past level 50, and remember that they are easy to reset. After 50, I'm probably going to reset Explorer/Cart for Careful In Battle, and stick with Directorship.

Implants: Up until level 50, I've stuck with the basic pre-built implants. They work well enough that you don't need to take extra time making new ones. To save money, I've been only getting Eye, Head, Ear, Chest, Right Hand, and Right Wrist.

Leveling: At low levels, you can easily build a Chimera Pistol that will literally own everything in the backyard. Easy enough to powerlevel that way until 10, then head out to Nasc Frontier, working your way up from Stalkers near the white wall, to Hiathlins outside of it, then as you work your way north and west, Stalkers, then Hiathlins again. You can move on to Cripplers, where I suggest teaming with someone. They'll want you because Cripplers are social and you can calm. Work your way up to the Steppes of Dispair and do spiders, then down south along the Steppes unti lyou get to the Unredeemed Temple. Croakers of the Night are beyond the temple, if you care about your Unredeemed faction, or you can slaughter the naughty Unred before moving on to Croakers. Again, teamign up with someone else hunting there is a good idea. Keep heading south, until you get to the Embryo, then go east underneath the n00b bridge, then south once you go beneath it to more Stalkers. This should get you to level 45ish pretty easily, and if you plan right, you won't have to make a trip back to town :-) From 45-50, I suggest doing team missions, since there is a little gap in mobs levels in SL. If you get to this point, you should know what you're doing enough to survive in Elysium. Don't bother trying to do the ring quest from Ergo - the Nasc Horror will probably chew you to pieces. It is easier to just do 2 team missions and pass 50.

[Champagne]

I couldnt find this information at first, so I'll state it:

If you have 2 charmed pets, 1 long lasting, and 1 short, unstable one, and you only want to free one of them, here is how:

Target the pet you want to free and type
/pet "%t" free

The quotation marks are necessairy to make it work.

[______Freka/Skingirl]

To charm 2 pets you gotta use the stable charm first and then the unstable charm.

You can also have 2 unstable charmed pets at the same time, but not 2 stable charmed pets.

If you free the stable one, while the unstable one is still charmed, you won´t be able to recharm it using a stable charm.

[Istrikeit]

As a side note, if you use /pet "%t" terminate and both charms have the same name, they will BOTH release. =\

So, use free instead of terminate. Learned that last night.

[Yabeyabe]

Originally posted by Kithrak
What breed should I pick?

• Atrox..... if you have Shadowlands atrox would not be recommend at this time due to the current equipment available. You'll get lots of hp.

kinda ironic that the first 220 crat is a trox don't you think

[___________Ahasverus]

Ive heard: raise evades till 2 x mob lvl, then it wont crit you often.

How do I know the differeance between an unstable and an unstable charm?

[Raveleet]

Actually the terms stable and unstable is abit misleading and I think it derives from other MMOs.

Better terms would be Long term and Short term, and the difference between them is how long they last.
You can tell them apart from their duration and how many other mind controlled pets you can have.
Long term charms have max 0 other and short term ones have max 1 other pet.
I might be wrong, been awhile since i played my crat.

[Deamona]

Shadowland Calm Nanos:

As we all know the nanos are used to 'stack' Mobs in order to stop their Hp regeneration and kill them in one try with Xp perk up.
The problem is that SL calms have a random chance to wipe the hate list and let the mob regain hit points. The chance of wiping the hate list goes up with the QL of the nano. Some people re-calm the mob till they notice its aggressive again or use lower QL nanos that have a low chance of wiping the hate list.

There is a simple work around for this problem:

In order to benefit from the higher and longer duration nanos you can simply use a debuff on the mob after its been successfully calmed. It stops the Hp regeneration and dosent break the SL calm.

Deamona

[nagaraja]

High level charms

Some of the higher level charms make it really dangerous for a crat to get the max effective pet. they either have long cast times or really short ranges. A trick to this is to SL calm a mob then get close enough and start casting your charm. since you can't charm a calmed mob you need to burst/brawl/fling the mob to break it right before the charm lands.
it takes some practice, but works really well.

[Amberlicious]

It was a great thread, only if I had known this a little sooner, I have a Level 144 Crat, and had a some troubles with casting pets and what not. But, since the crat is almost more desired than Docs for teaming now days, I have not had problems (always need an MP). I do however have problems finding Nano Crystals, have had some help from some friends. If anyone has extras let me know I would be happy to buy them..the latest pet I have is the Faithful or Supervisor-Grade Bodyguard (can't remeber) and I have no new Mezzing Nanos Please if you have any get ahold of me in game RK2.

[________________codo]

Originally posted by nagaraja
High level charms

Some of the higher level charms make it really dangerous for a crat to get the max effective pet. they either have long cast times or really short ranges. A trick to this is to SL calm a mob then get close enough and start casting your charm. since you can't charm a calmed mob you need to burst/brawl/fling the mob to break it right before the charm lands.
it takes some practice, but works really well.

Good info. Really good info. I noticed charming never seemed to work on calmed mobs. Fling them first now... Thanks.

[Berkut]

Could some wise Crat answer a few questions for me:

1. Is calming the same thing as mezzing?
2. Why are Crats so desireable in teams? A 3% xp buff seems pretty minor.
3. How do the charms work, and how do they interact with your summonable pet?

Thanks!

[Yabeyabe]

Could some wise Crat answer a few questions for me:

1. Is calming the same thing as mezzing?
2. Why are Crats so desireable in teams? A 3% xp buff seems pretty minor.
3. How do the charms work, and how do they interact with your summonable pet?

Thanks!

1. I believe the actual definition of mezzing is a lil different from calming... mezzing is more like an extended stun. (Like the MP "Mezz" pets do) While calming is completely taking the target out of action until the calm runs out or it recieves damage. However, the SL calms effectively only "stun" the mob for an extended amount of time without wiping the hate list. (It keeps agroing while calmed) so the difference between mezzing and calming is slim to nothing.

2. The last xp buff does 9% + you can have another 10% from a perk aura for a combined total of 19% running at all times. You also get three perks which add 50% 75% and 100% more xp per kill for a short duration of time. Add all of that together and it speeds up the process of xping/sking considerably.

However, I would like to stress that in a perfect world crats are wanted for their superior ability to crowd control and not their ability to press xp perks (This has turned into somewhat of a heated debate lately )

3. Every crat is able to use 3 pets at one time.
- The first pet is the bodyguard which you can summon.
- The second pet is a charm which you get by using the "long charm" nano line.
- The third pet is a charm which you get by using the "short charm" nano line.

Once charmed, all of the pets function in the same way except the buffs for charms and the buffs for your bodyguard differ a bit.

(The difference between short and long charms is what it sounds like, for one line the charm lasts a long time (up to 17 mins) and for short charms the duration is much shorter (something around 2:30 tops) you can't quote me on those numbers, but that's about what they work out to. So when you look at all the crat nanos it's fairly easy to tell which are long and which are short.

PS: All SL charms (team and solo) function as long duration charms

[Berkut]

Great response Avon, much appreciated.

Could you briefly explain the difference between the SL charms and the RK charms? WHat is the deal with the "team" charms?

[Kharon]

Team empowered charms work so that the more team members you have in your team, the higher the psychic on the target can be.

For example. with Team Empowered VoT:

2 members: 505
3 members: 511
4 members: 517
5 members: 523
6 members: 541

Another nice thing with the Team Emp charms is that right now, after the nano wears off..the mob stays charmed
It's a bug, but enjoy it while it lasts, hehe.

[Kithraks]

I use mez and calm interchangeably.

[Berkut]

How can I tell wht the psychic of a mob is???