I’ve played AO on and off since 2001 and am considering taking one character to endgame before the ship sails on this gem of a game. I have a few questions below: ** Will be fully paid account**
• Given how low the population is and having a max of 1 hour per day of play, what would be the most efficient route to level? Would it be more efficient to do your dailies considering all the travel time involved, or to run through shadowlands using something like Phyxr’s personal soloing method(I’m sure some of you remember this post in the old forums?). Doing dailies solo and efficiently will likely require a Crat, while Phyxr’s method may be done by many professions. Would be nice to play the SL’s quests and run through the lore, also may get lucky in some of the dungeons and find a Nano worth a fortune.
• Assuming I’ll be soloing for the most part and don’t want to constantly rely on OSB’s, which profession would you pick given I have zero resources, friends, etc?
• Assuming the game is dead and I can’t make cash how I typically would by selling morphing memories/Mariner Father books, concrete cushions, basic armor, etc. How would one go about acquiring gear as you level?
Given the above information, I’m guessing I’ll need to pick a certain profession that can solo reasonable mobs without OSB’s and doesn’t rely heavily on equipment. I’m guessing Crat is the obvious answers as I can get the long lasting MP love.
Do the stolen handbag when you leave Arete-- instant ding. Then go to the holodeck & see Ralph & go get mutant flesh from the rewards terminal next to him. Then grab the freelancer missions from the drone in the same room in the back. (the drone is up only every other week-- up now, gone this Sunday.)
Then go sign up with mission agency, grab the daily elite, regular daily, and AI daily.
After doing those I’ll go to SL & do both redeemed & un-redeemed first garden key quests. Takes about 2-3 hours to level 60 or so.
What are the prices for perennium weapons these days? Trying to decide if something other than a pet class will be viable given lack of resources and exorbitant GMI prices.
You can make a lot of money easily. Lots of demand, low supply for certain items that use to be very common back in the day.
Profession is all subjective in how good of a player you are and the play style you like. Personally, I would go for shade if you plan to play solo, lots of damage and lots of evades at end game, if you are skilled enough, there isn’t much you cant solo. Gear is a bit easy to get too, spirits drop like candy from…spirits! And you have a nano you can use on mobs to get spirits. You can wear tattoos that are pretty easy to come by and aren’t half bad and weapons are easy to get or cheap to buy. I believe they increased the drop rate of Nippy Johns so if you got a pair of those you would be set for a while. S7 weapons are really good too if you can get a group to do it and get a pair of rapiers.
The speed in which you level will be dependent on how much time you have available, how fast you want to level, what you can do and time of day.
Time available - if you seriously have 1 hour a day to play (7 days a week) then daily missions will be your bread and butter. The amount of dailies you can do a day may take you 20-40 minutes. Depends how fast and proficient you are and what missions you get.
How fast you want to level - if you want to get a lot of levels in the limited time you have you will need to group up. Depending on your level at the time, you can gain a lot of levels in that hour. But if the majority of that hour is finding people/a team then probably not. If you dont mind leveling slow, then this is a non issue.
What you can do - are you at the level where doing SL missions is possible given your gear? Are you too ill equipped for your level of content? Dailies alleviates that type of gear dependency, but with SL garden missions you should probably have some decent gear not the absolute best gear at your level, but at least get out of the medsuit. This is more for solo, in a group its a non issue.
Time of day - plays a big role in what you want to accomplish prior to logging in. As mentioned, if you want to level fast you need a group. AO is very much a ghost town USA early evening time during the week. Early morning to 1-2pm is when its more populated during the week. Weekend overall is better. But still keep in mind, ghost town.
Depending on the profession you pick and the gear you want/need you could just go out and farm it instead of buying it. I know you cant farm everything you want, but look into what you can and cant do first.
@Literary - Good advice on optimal leveling starting out, very quickly got to level 35 — Arete till level 8 leaving with Jathos mission, Thief mission, ICC Holodeck Arbiter missions, Elite daily to Subway, Regular daily, Garden Key, Doja.
@Machschau - I started with a Crat then switched to a Shade per your advice, very fun profession to play. I think there is going to be a weak period for a while from 35 until TL4 though. Currently trying to figure out a bridge weapon after Fear-forged Blades, someone mentioned Nippy’s, but they’re cost prohibitive. Is there a specific perk/nano/item that becomes available at a certain level that greatly increases soloablity, or is it a slow linear progression?
If you can get a hold of some Victory points then get yourself some Ofab armor, thats stuff is really good for shade. You could get ofab weapons but they require stuff to upgrade them, whereas the armor you can get away with not upgrading. If you can afford kyrozch rapiers (and if they are even on GMI) then get a pair, or you can get the Stabber in the NPC shops.
The perks you want a Piercing mastery, totemic rights, and spirit philactery and Acrobat. Those are the 4 main ones you should focus on. Spirit phil debuffs the mobs aao/aad, totemic heals you and piercing is obviously your damage, acrobat obviously evades. Careful in Battle is a great defensive one, spend perks in their when you can/more at endgame. For AI perks I get champ of light inf, Shadow and Champ of nano combat. I usually open up with debuffs and then PM, depending on what I am fighting I will just unload TR with my typical rotation or save it. While you level I would imagine you would want to save TR for when you need it. Expect to be hitting a lot of buttons as a shade. The more you play it the more fluid you will be.
Also, shade proc nanos are really nice and awesome. The -init is insanely helpful. I cant really recall which damage proc is better, the extra attack one or the DoT one, but both are comparable. Unless you are trying to push your damage then use them but if not I would run the -init proc nano (its 100% uptime compared to the others where the % of landing varies). You could probably cast the first one now if you have spec 1, they also last 4 hours. Also, at level 100 you can get shade’s caress which is basically a full heal (cast on mob, heals when you attack it).
Shade nanos are level locked but help out a lot and are really good. Most everything is linear in AO.
Ekhm… the population atm is at burst - I don’t know reason, but I’ve haven’t seen so much ppl online since YEARS. Seeing at EU time 60ppl on LFT, crowded Borealis, Old Athens and ICC is great!
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