Post by Pylat on Dec 9, 2008 2:27:11 GMT -8
At level 41 you're in the last leg of the grind to 50, well done and stick to it, there's plenty more to do at lvl 50.
Quests: At level 41 you can do the Valkyrja missions in Pillsen (Though you could do them at lvl 40, at level 41 the lvl 36 gang members there won't attack you anymore). Take a look at the collector and decide what item you want (The Valshamr is great for men as it takes a shirt slot and there aren't many good shirts around your level, for women it takes a coat slot, which can make it a tough choice between it and a Dragonskin). For the lower level clothes you only have to farm Andvaranaut Fragments for the trades. Buy a Svanhilds request and start a mission with it, go talk to the person in the mission area and leave, find a nice quiet area nearby and stand around. Soon you'll get ambushed by 1-3 people (Assuming you are solo). If it's 1 person it's 3 Chevrons, 2 people have 2 chevrons each and 3 people are only 1 chevron each. In short it means the more people, the weaker they are individually. Murder them all (Note they can be pretty tough, their resistances are higher than normal so Sky High Sidekick is a great idea for MA's) and loot them, they drop the Frags you need. The 3 Chevron NPC's always drop a frag, 2 Chevrons drop them 50% of the time and 1 Chevron only drops 25% of the time. After that abort the mission and start again, if you finish it you have to buy another Svanhilds request and at 1.5 mil each it can eat into your savings.
Before level 45 you want to visit Datamine again, however this time you want to start killing Captain Dernick. He can be found on the roof of the building where you killed the security guards earlier, in the North East of datamine, there is a proxy very close to him marked on the map aswell (Coords X: 230 Y: 145 Z: 260, Thanks Donya). He's only level 45 so he isn't much of a challenge compared to the other Archive bosses. Kill him and the two goons flanking him (If you're lucky you won't aggro anyone else on the roof). As long as you're under level 45 he will drop an earpiece every time you kill him, it takes up a hat slot and gives you +8% IS regen. He always drops Male earpieces, but the Collector Doc Martin in Lemone will trade them for female ones. Keep a few earpieces if you want them for looks, but you really want to trade them in for an SSR helmet. You'll also need 40 pieces of SSR gum, you'll need to go to the building in the Southwest of Datamine now to find the right level guards to kill (You've outlevelled the ones in Dernicks Building). Trade them in for an SSR Helmet. +29 to Thrown and Ballistic Resistance, +2% to Thrown and Ballistic Defense and +8% IS regen. The hat might not be the best now, but at level 50 it is much more useful for PvP.
At level 45 you get to visit another Archive construct, Widows Moor. It is to Ashencourte what Sakura was to Yuki. There's 2 important items to farm here. Widows Moor Lenses and Widows Moor Caps. The caps are basically like Sakura Bandana's but grant Thrown and Viral resistance instead. The Deathfang Alpha's (Level 40) drop them, and with a 1/30 drop rate you should be able to collect a few quickly. Gargoyle (Level 50) in the center, drops Widows Moor Lenses. Hopefully you'll have a good idea on how to kill Archive bosses by now. Gargoyle uses Aikido and Rifle attacks, and occasionally lashes out with a very powerful Triple Throat Slash attack. As usual MA's and Gunmen should focus on state specials, gunmen now have Dual Pistol Point Blank (Requiring off balance so it's easy to get) and MA's can use Extreme Falling Kick. While EFK isn't a state special, if you use Sky High Sidekick before it and MA prowess you can deal impressive damage (Though don't rely entirely on this). Spies can still get away with alternating Punts and Suplexes, be careful of the NPC's nearby, they can ruin your attempts to disguise. By now hackers should be reasonable at this, with enough IS regen gear and a Tactic Booster you should be able to hold your own in interlock, be sure to debuff his viral defense with vector before you interlock him. The Widows Moor Glasses he drops are very useful, +15% IS and Health Regen, +3% Initiative, +3% Viral Area Radius, +4% Powerless Duration. For a long time nearly every level 50 wore the Lenses and a Sakura Bandana/Mask in PvP and you were considered a noob if you didn't.
With some Lenses and a Sakura Bandana/Mask you should have all the IS regen you need, combined with a Dragonskin and you'll probably have too much. After farming Widows Moor it's time for the final grind to level 50. There are two ways to do this, grinding missions (Archive or normal, take your pick), or farming robot parts in 01. You'll want to do this with Howitzer as you need to farm them en masse. You need to kill the lvl 46 Soldiers in there, occasionally there's a lvl 50 in the group who sometimes drops 2 robot parts. Each set of 20 parts can be traded in for a box of Robot parts with Binary boy in Creston Heights, the box of Robot parts can be traded in for xp. The only real challenge about the soldiers (Apart from the lvl 50's) is their guns stunning all the time, this can make it very frustrating to farm them. If you don't have the howitzer tree it would probably be better to grind normal mission, without area attacks you can't kill the Soldiers fast enough to make it worth your time.
Loadout Use: MA's start getting real hard hitting Combo's now, Wooden Dummy Drill (Level 46) can be used with Dim Mak or Machine Gun Kick, same goes with Ki Charge Foot Sweep (Level 46), it can be used with Ki Charged Punch. Or Piston Kicks can be used in a pair with Ki Charged Punch. As mentioned earlier, EFK (Level 42) combined with Sky High Sidekick will deal a lot of damage. As a matter of fact, most mission NPC's will be lucky to survive more than 3 rounds with an MA (Unless they are 3 Chevrons), especially if they get stated. Gunmen are just as deadly as MA, even without double state specials, Full Auto Redux (Level 46) is the most powerful state special in the game, and can be used in or out of interlock. The timers on Duelist abilities allow Dual Pistol Point Blank and Dual Pistol Execution to be used one after the other, those 2 combined should be able to kill nearly any NPC in missions. Spies should have enough knife attacks in and out of interlock they never have to worrry about timers, you should still use Suplex and Punt as your main sneak attacks, the secondary effects of other sneak attacks (Stuns or Powerless etc) aren't that useful vs mission NPC's when raw damage is generally the way to go. Hackers should have plenty of regen clothes to pick from now, and enough memory to start making progess down the Vector tree. Eventually you'll have enough attacks to use in interlock you can put a never ending stream of hacks into people.
By now you should also have made your mind up on what sort of fighting style you enjoy, so a lot of what you load should be at your own discretion.
Clothes: Don't get caught up in the trap thinking your clothes have to be level 50. A lot of popular clothes in PvP and PvE can be as low as lvl 36 (Pecks shirt is still used for the IS regen). The Sakura Bandana/Mask and WM Lenses should do you well for any IS you need (And once you get Seraphim shoes you'll be set). By now you can start looking at items for the other bonuses they grant (Accuracy or defense are good things to look for), not just resistance. Don't just stick to one outfit either, build up a collection of clothes to use, to suit the situation so you can adapt to what you need (This applies for PvP and PvE). If you collected all the exile hideout items and Archive items on your way up you should already have a fair set of clothes to choose from, there's plenty more to farm at level 50, but the items you get at the lower levels are still just as good.
Missions and Other Stuff: As mentioned before, the last few levels of your grind can be made collecting robot parts or running missions, don't forget to tag the Downtown access nodes aswell, they can get you a lot of xp at the higher levels.
Quests: At level 41 you can do the Valkyrja missions in Pillsen (Though you could do them at lvl 40, at level 41 the lvl 36 gang members there won't attack you anymore). Take a look at the collector and decide what item you want (The Valshamr is great for men as it takes a shirt slot and there aren't many good shirts around your level, for women it takes a coat slot, which can make it a tough choice between it and a Dragonskin). For the lower level clothes you only have to farm Andvaranaut Fragments for the trades. Buy a Svanhilds request and start a mission with it, go talk to the person in the mission area and leave, find a nice quiet area nearby and stand around. Soon you'll get ambushed by 1-3 people (Assuming you are solo). If it's 1 person it's 3 Chevrons, 2 people have 2 chevrons each and 3 people are only 1 chevron each. In short it means the more people, the weaker they are individually. Murder them all (Note they can be pretty tough, their resistances are higher than normal so Sky High Sidekick is a great idea for MA's) and loot them, they drop the Frags you need. The 3 Chevron NPC's always drop a frag, 2 Chevrons drop them 50% of the time and 1 Chevron only drops 25% of the time. After that abort the mission and start again, if you finish it you have to buy another Svanhilds request and at 1.5 mil each it can eat into your savings.
Before level 45 you want to visit Datamine again, however this time you want to start killing Captain Dernick. He can be found on the roof of the building where you killed the security guards earlier, in the North East of datamine, there is a proxy very close to him marked on the map aswell (Coords X: 230 Y: 145 Z: 260, Thanks Donya). He's only level 45 so he isn't much of a challenge compared to the other Archive bosses. Kill him and the two goons flanking him (If you're lucky you won't aggro anyone else on the roof). As long as you're under level 45 he will drop an earpiece every time you kill him, it takes up a hat slot and gives you +8% IS regen. He always drops Male earpieces, but the Collector Doc Martin in Lemone will trade them for female ones. Keep a few earpieces if you want them for looks, but you really want to trade them in for an SSR helmet. You'll also need 40 pieces of SSR gum, you'll need to go to the building in the Southwest of Datamine now to find the right level guards to kill (You've outlevelled the ones in Dernicks Building). Trade them in for an SSR Helmet. +29 to Thrown and Ballistic Resistance, +2% to Thrown and Ballistic Defense and +8% IS regen. The hat might not be the best now, but at level 50 it is much more useful for PvP.
At level 45 you get to visit another Archive construct, Widows Moor. It is to Ashencourte what Sakura was to Yuki. There's 2 important items to farm here. Widows Moor Lenses and Widows Moor Caps. The caps are basically like Sakura Bandana's but grant Thrown and Viral resistance instead. The Deathfang Alpha's (Level 40) drop them, and with a 1/30 drop rate you should be able to collect a few quickly. Gargoyle (Level 50) in the center, drops Widows Moor Lenses. Hopefully you'll have a good idea on how to kill Archive bosses by now. Gargoyle uses Aikido and Rifle attacks, and occasionally lashes out with a very powerful Triple Throat Slash attack. As usual MA's and Gunmen should focus on state specials, gunmen now have Dual Pistol Point Blank (Requiring off balance so it's easy to get) and MA's can use Extreme Falling Kick. While EFK isn't a state special, if you use Sky High Sidekick before it and MA prowess you can deal impressive damage (Though don't rely entirely on this). Spies can still get away with alternating Punts and Suplexes, be careful of the NPC's nearby, they can ruin your attempts to disguise. By now hackers should be reasonable at this, with enough IS regen gear and a Tactic Booster you should be able to hold your own in interlock, be sure to debuff his viral defense with vector before you interlock him. The Widows Moor Glasses he drops are very useful, +15% IS and Health Regen, +3% Initiative, +3% Viral Area Radius, +4% Powerless Duration. For a long time nearly every level 50 wore the Lenses and a Sakura Bandana/Mask in PvP and you were considered a noob if you didn't.
With some Lenses and a Sakura Bandana/Mask you should have all the IS regen you need, combined with a Dragonskin and you'll probably have too much. After farming Widows Moor it's time for the final grind to level 50. There are two ways to do this, grinding missions (Archive or normal, take your pick), or farming robot parts in 01. You'll want to do this with Howitzer as you need to farm them en masse. You need to kill the lvl 46 Soldiers in there, occasionally there's a lvl 50 in the group who sometimes drops 2 robot parts. Each set of 20 parts can be traded in for a box of Robot parts with Binary boy in Creston Heights, the box of Robot parts can be traded in for xp. The only real challenge about the soldiers (Apart from the lvl 50's) is their guns stunning all the time, this can make it very frustrating to farm them. If you don't have the howitzer tree it would probably be better to grind normal mission, without area attacks you can't kill the Soldiers fast enough to make it worth your time.
Loadout Use: MA's start getting real hard hitting Combo's now, Wooden Dummy Drill (Level 46) can be used with Dim Mak or Machine Gun Kick, same goes with Ki Charge Foot Sweep (Level 46), it can be used with Ki Charged Punch. Or Piston Kicks can be used in a pair with Ki Charged Punch. As mentioned earlier, EFK (Level 42) combined with Sky High Sidekick will deal a lot of damage. As a matter of fact, most mission NPC's will be lucky to survive more than 3 rounds with an MA (Unless they are 3 Chevrons), especially if they get stated. Gunmen are just as deadly as MA, even without double state specials, Full Auto Redux (Level 46) is the most powerful state special in the game, and can be used in or out of interlock. The timers on Duelist abilities allow Dual Pistol Point Blank and Dual Pistol Execution to be used one after the other, those 2 combined should be able to kill nearly any NPC in missions. Spies should have enough knife attacks in and out of interlock they never have to worrry about timers, you should still use Suplex and Punt as your main sneak attacks, the secondary effects of other sneak attacks (Stuns or Powerless etc) aren't that useful vs mission NPC's when raw damage is generally the way to go. Hackers should have plenty of regen clothes to pick from now, and enough memory to start making progess down the Vector tree. Eventually you'll have enough attacks to use in interlock you can put a never ending stream of hacks into people.
By now you should also have made your mind up on what sort of fighting style you enjoy, so a lot of what you load should be at your own discretion.
Clothes: Don't get caught up in the trap thinking your clothes have to be level 50. A lot of popular clothes in PvP and PvE can be as low as lvl 36 (Pecks shirt is still used for the IS regen). The Sakura Bandana/Mask and WM Lenses should do you well for any IS you need (And once you get Seraphim shoes you'll be set). By now you can start looking at items for the other bonuses they grant (Accuracy or defense are good things to look for), not just resistance. Don't just stick to one outfit either, build up a collection of clothes to use, to suit the situation so you can adapt to what you need (This applies for PvP and PvE). If you collected all the exile hideout items and Archive items on your way up you should already have a fair set of clothes to choose from, there's plenty more to farm at level 50, but the items you get at the lower levels are still just as good.
Missions and Other Stuff: As mentioned before, the last few levels of your grind can be made collecting robot parts or running missions, don't forget to tag the Downtown access nodes aswell, they can get you a lot of xp at the higher levels.