This was originally written by
Simtal pre shadowlands and i have added my own thoughts and comments along the way to include my experience of shadowlands as i have levelled my bureaucrat using that expansion. It was written and updated perhaps a year ago and while it echoes a lot of other guides i thought i'd shove it on here for other people to read thru. Those without the expansion packs will no doubt benefit from the majority of what is written below.
1. Breed. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, thus it comes down to a matter of personal preference. Our tier armor is linked to intelligence/psychic so you might want to think twice about rolling an atrox if you want to use tier armor. having said that the 1st bureaucrat to reach 220 was an Atrox. Maybe this is due to his extra pile of hp or maybe he just played a lot!
2. Implants. MC & TS for Droid, PM SI & BM for Charms, PM & SI for calms. Thus, you are stronger in one particular type of pet over the other.
I choose to concentrate on having a stronger Droid, but back in those times there was no %level factor in calms, team missions didn't exist in the format they are today and I solo'd a lot.
2b. Symbiants.These are obtained by killing pocketbosses a guide for which you will no doubt find on the Shadowlands section. A bureaucrat can only use Extermination and Control symbiants. It is my experience that Control are by far the better of the two although extremination are still ok. The huge advantage of Symbiants is that they buff many more skills than the old style rubi-ka ones. You can genrally start accumulating a decent amount of these from level 66 onwards. All symbiants are level locked (you must be a certain level before you can implant them).
Do not ignore rubi ka implants though as you may well need to use a few of these. For example a ql 200 intelligence implant will give you 105 intelligence. To get the same amount of intelligence from a brain symbiant will require you to be at least level 154 (and more likely level 202+ owing to the very high requirements of equipping one.
TIP *First aid perks can raise treatment by 10 for 1 perk and 30 if you spend 2 - very useful for those last few points*
3. Charms.
The biggest problem is the Psychic check, the following has been "lifted" from the crat boards. The data is from other crats experiences and a forumla to calc the levels.
Type: Stable charm has longer duration and lower NR than Unstable.
Max Mob Lvl canbe increased slightly if you use psychic debuff which can be bought in the store/briefcase.
ql : nano name : type : Pyschic : max mob lvl
20 : Temporary Glamor : stable : 68 : 37
27 : Lesser Pheromone Control :unstable : 82 : 44
33 : Bend Will :stable : 98 : 52
40 : Soft Siren Call : unstable : 110 : 58
47 : Dominate Psyche : stable : 124 : 65
53 : Personal Magnetism : unstable : 142 : 74
63 : Solicit Support : stable : 159 : 82
76 : Pheromone Control : unstable : 184 : 95
89 : Impose Will : stable : 200 : 103
96 : Lesser Charismatic Rapture : unstable : 222 : 114
109 : Captivated Thoughts : stable : 242 : 124
123 : Siren Call : unstable : 264 : 135
136 : Allure of Servitude : stable : 286 : 146
149 : Enrapturing Bondage : unstable : 306 : 156
152 : Insidious Beguilement : stable : 326 : 166
159 : Temporary Allegiance : unstable : 346 : 176
162 : Inveigle Support : stable : 374 : 189
169 : Charismatic Rapture : Unstable : 407 : 206
179 : Total Mental Domination : Stable : 454 : 209
189 : Displace Thought Patterns : Unstable : 454 :209
Also, choose your charm wisely, I found enforcer type (melee types) and soldier type mobs do most damage.
3b Shadowlands Charms.
These are obtainable from the shadowlands gardens/Sanctuaries. They enable you to charm higher level mobs than their rk counterparts owing to their increased psychic checks. There are also Team Empowered charms, the more teammates you have the higher level mob you can charm. This i believe has a small increase if you have the team lead too. I will endeavour to confirm this.
4. Roots Snares Calms Fears and Stuns.
Calm is the other skill we are renowned for and the only one I really used for most of my levelling, but then as stated earlier there was no %level. So, roots and snares come into play a lot more at lower level. Especially the area affects if out hunting.
Fears suffer from psychic checks, listing below, please note that the data is based on a formula and other crat experiences.
ql : nano name : Pyschic : max mob lvl
37 : Sudden Scare : 114 : 60
57 : Pray On Fear : 162 : 84
70 : Sneaking Terror : 139 : 72
90 : Terror Blast : 200 : 103
110 : Crush Bravery : 228 : 117
130 : Visions Of A Doomed Future : 312 : 159
159 : Primal Fear : 374 : 190
179 : Horror From The Darkest Pit : 449 : 209 ??
I use fears to scare away Mob's or in PvP the enemies pets.
Stuns are useful in many situations but are only short duration and long recharge. Ideal in tower PvP against a raging Enforcer, provided it lands the enfo will be a standing target for 5 seconds.
4b Again there are Team Empowered calms. These will enable you to calm higher level mobs while you are teamed in much the same way as team empowered charms. Again available from shadowlands gardens and sanctuaries.
5. Style:
It's up to you how you want to team, lead from the front and line up the mobs, go ahead of the team and calm everything, or stay back and protect the doctor and weaker elements of the team.
I prefered the keep with the team (speeches then buff them) and contol the adds.
6. Solo:
Arguably we are the best at this. But, at times it does become difficult when the next charm is only a few points away are you are stuck in the middle of a skill lock. But, my last four levels to 200 was achieved over 4 days (Easter Weekend) by doing 50% solo missions. I netted 50m credits, a few soul fragments, a 7% xp ring and some other useful items. But, when I solo I have a team that 99% of the team do exactly as I say
7. PVP - tower not duel
The secret to PVP is to understand your role in the battle. I know that I can't really kill anyone by myself or take a lot of hits so I try to keep out of the front line and hide as mush as I can.
The outside buffs I really really want:
Soldier, RRFE
Engi, Sloughing Field
Enf, Behemoth, CS
Fixer, GSF, HOT, NCU,
MP, PM SI and TS mochams (I use area root/snares/calms fear and stun, oh and a nuke),
NT, Nano range increaser, HE and CC
and if I got room after my self buffed concealment buffs
Agent, rifle AS buffs
Doctor, HP buffs
I have a hard core nano range increaser in deck 3 and my nano recomplier in deck 6 and I play on 99% defensive and run the Nano Resist speech.
Tactics:
Rename your pet after you and put on follow,
be creeative, name your pet after someone that will either confuse your enemy or scare them. (Someone good at pvp).
Keep the clan front line between you and the Omnis and try to target the front Omni and area root. If it sticks do area snare/calm too. It's also a good idea to retreat a bit at this point so when the Omnis want to target the little so n so that rooted them they will find your pet and attack that instead, pets are a bit slow when they follow
I generally only AS/nuke a target when the clanners go on the push and the leader calls out the target. So sometimes my AS and Nuke out damages the 10 other peoples specials
At the end of the battle switch of all speeches. When you enter a 75% area and a "PVP flagged" person receives your speech then you will also be "PVP flagged"
The best AS weapons for shotgun are: Ithaca, Onehander; the best rifles are: Alsaqri, Zastaba. The best Bow is Sapphistic.
8. Unknown:
No matter what level you are there are lots of people out there that do not know what a crat can do. So you can suprise them with two RM enforcers doing the ballet etc etc.
9. Perk Guide. (Thanks to Deamona for this as i ripped it directly from her excellent perk guide which you can find stickied complete with links here on the crat forum).
(changed nothing here).
10. Weaponry.
You may decide to neglect this area altogether relying on your nukes (damage nano's) although be warned that at high levels your nuke is likely to draw aggro away from your pets somewhat limiting your survival prospects.
Unlike most proffessions where it is obvious which line of weaponry you should choose a Bureaucrat can pretty much use what they like. The obvious choice would be to use pistols. This is because the only nano crystal which buffs a weapon skill specifically for a Bureaucrat is a +20 pistol buff we have. Also you can add perks into Pistol mastery and increase your skills that way too. Pistol is not as IP intensive as most of the other skills which are dark blue.
I have heard it said that using a weapon "out of prof" (that is to say going against the grain of your buffs/skills) is like committing suicide! While that is maybe true of the bulk of the proffesions it may not be quite so true of a bureaucrat. By using a different style of weapon you will only be sacrificing the +20 pistol and maybe any perks you choose to put into Pistol Mastery. I would therefore say that a bureaucrat is free to wield whatsoever they choose.
I would recommend to use pistols however as there are some great pistols you can use for buffing (o.e.t.co.jess adding psy/int nsr arms for stamina or even mti b-94 for additional xp). If you are looking for decent damage from your guns then you should try Flux pistols. These have decent high minimum damage which is great for shadowlands althought they can fire a bit slow if you allow your ranged init to be low. They drop at all ql's from shadowlands mobs and are freely available to buy.
That said i use an assault rifle! although i have a high pistol skill too for those great buffing pistols. I certainly wouldn't put anyone off trying any type of weaponry they so choose.
MrFlibbles added that regarding weapon choice : if you are using control symbs then you will only have pistol skill added. So you will need to keep some imps in to add to your prefered weapon skill if you don't go pistol. I have done exactly this with my choice of weaponry, assault rifle.
For those of you with a lot of cash or a lot of time, Massive Bolt Charger is a good pvm option, don't bother trying to pvp with it. The upgraded Sleek Cannon from Alien Play Fields also makes a nice pvm choice, and competes closely with the MBC for top damage.