Got Muddle!

Spinklecove's entrance can be seen
from the east bank.

Just a few days ago Babacratus was level 103 and had started timidly exploring the path to Ergo in Elysium only to be totally intimidated by the 105 to 110+ level mobs guarding the approach.  With just one dungeon run, a few Ely missions, and a couple of Rubi-Ka dailies and suddenly he is level 110.  The really sweet part is that with hitting 110 he can finally self cast Muddle Psyche, a great Area of Effect Calm.  AOE calms on one of the defining tricks of the Bureaucrat class. Baba is really looking forward to trying it out. 

He started his run to 110 with a nice run through the Sprinklecove static dungeon in north Central Ely.  Starting at zero, he dinged a level before he reached the final Boss level.  He really likes this dungeon.  It has a minimum number of those Crat pet traps sections where there are a series of staircases.  It also has quite a few really, really big rooms/areas which is always welcome.  (Baba can get claustrophobia.)  This dungeon can be hard to find so see our previous post on where it is.

But not from the west bank.

Next he ran a few quests in Ely.  The first one was the quest given by guard Elmo Fitz at the base of the ramp at Port Seven.  Kill 3 Devourers of Life and get practically a full level of experience based on your level in addition to the reward promised at the beginning by the NPC.  Baba's Nube Tip: Don't skip this quest if you are looking to level quickly.

The next quest he tried from the NPC "One Who Wins Over Mind" turned out to be quite simple, but he had read the online description is such a rush, that he went to the wrong location to look for the mushrooms he was tasked with collecting.  The quest requires mushrooms that can be found quite close by, just a short ways slightly north east of the quest giver.  Baba's Nube Tip: Just because there are no red mobs around, don't try doing it if you have just rezzed and are at less than full health.  He did and almost died.  Each mushroom is toxic and you get a pretty hefty poison hit as soon as you pick harvest them using the bag given to you.  So definitely have stims/kits or get a nice Heal Over Time buff if you are really squishy. 

The next quest from the same NPC sounds easy to, deliver a letter.  It is a two part delivery.  Take the letter to one NPC, then go talk to a third on the other side of Ely.  It has a 30 minute timer, so it is a really good idea to scout out the route to the two NPCs before starting.  Baba's Nube Tip:  Make sure you have your garden key and have saved in your Ely garden before starting. Getting to the first NPC involves crossing a bridge over some Hecklers which will from time to time, aggro you and climb out of the gorge and do you in.  Save at garden, start the quest, get to the first NPC quickly and complete giving them the letter, and pow, there is a good chance a 180+ Heckler will send you quickly your last save in the garden.  From there you can use a statue to quickly travel to a point close to the next quest NPC and finish it with tons of time to spare.

Now it was time to get back to Rubi-Ka and run some daily missions.  The first mission the alien Spaced Out mission, but unfortunately he got the cocoon version, which he could not complete since his cocoon terminator (a unique item) has vanished, but the game says he still has it so it won't give him a new one or let him buy another.  He uses AO ItemAssistant, so he is absolutely sure I does not have this item on his person or in his bank.  The only way out of the mission was to die, which was not a problem as he had remembered to save before the mission. Note: Funcom is aware of this issue and working on a resolution. In the meantime they recommend that players petition in game when it happens to have the items flag reset.

So with a little time wasted, he proceeded to pull a regular daily, and got the "Extraction" mission for the first time.  At first it was kind of a pain as it is in Omni territory and while he could fly there with ease, bringing along his top level 136 Droid (which he relies on Babaemphee and trader Tireen's buffs in order to cast), was problematic.  It might have gone better if he had scouted the mission entrance first.  As it was, in order to get low and close enough to make out the doors meant that his Droid would end up running around aggroing every Omni in sight, which meant if he stuck around his Droid would be toast and require a recast.  He high-tailed it out of there by flying north east to the nearest player city to take a Bar whompa back to civilization. 

He called on Babaengy to team with him and fly out there first.  Once Babaengy was there and situated safely on top of the mission building, he beacon warped Babacratus and his Droid safely there.  Babaengy logged off to wait for Babacratus to run the mission as Babacratus was fairly confident he would not need any help.  After one failed try, he completed the mission. The first time he failed it was because he made the mistake of drawing the Omni aggro first, rather than letting the NPC do it.  Even though you can clear the place before getting the NPC to sign up, more Omni spawn, often with several in a room.  So the object is to keep the Omni from killing the side switching NPC long enough for it to reach the exit. 

Baba's Nube Tip: The Extraction mission varies in difficulty based on the profession of the spawned NPC that wants to switch sides.  If it is a soldier of engineer, they are quite strong and able to defend themselves, while the other NPC professions that spawn are comparably weaker, so if you get an NPC that is not a soldier or engineer, simply exit the mission and then re-enter.  This will spawn a new NPC as well as re-spawn all of the Omni personnel in the building. The Omni re-spawn can be a good thing, as they do give good experience.  After finding the exit and the NPC that is a soldier or engineer, kill all the Omni personnel, then talk to the target NPC. Follow the NPC and hang back slightly.  Let him acquire Omni aggro before sending your Droid in to help and casting any debuffs etc. yourself.  Make sure you talk to the NPC when they stop just before the exit.

Babacratus now mulling over what to do next.  There are more options to level rather quickly now than compared to how it was for Babaoroody as a froob years ago on Rubi-Ka.  You can now level so fast you out-level your gear and nanos quickly, meaning it becomes more important to budget time to work on bringing those up to par. Although Babacratus has stocked his player shop well, it has yet to make a dime, not a single sale, so perhaps he needs to drop prices as he needs income now, not top dollar later. The alternative, i.e. running dungeons or killing mobs in the wild for drops, is the ever inviting classic grind. 

With Shadowlands mid-levels have a ton of choices for leveling.  At 110 he realized he at max level to get into Crypt of Home which is one of Rubi-Ka's classic dungeons which also features a couple of nice Crat pistols.  After looking at the requirements, he realized they are something that will take serious twinking or many levels to be able to equip.  Should he continue to take the fast track leveling to get to the next Shadowlands area Scheol, or take some time to farm for better gear in Ely and Rubi-Ka?  After sleeping on it, he decided to stick with one simple plan, level, level, level.  He has always been under-geared and it looks like that is just going to be the way it is for him for a long time.

As the leader of Angels of the Night AO guild used to say "Get out there and level Nube."

Sprinklecove

Sprinklecove is a dungeon in northern central Elysium.  The mobs are remants (Cripplers, Kolaanae, Malahi, plus a few Mortiigs and Dryads) ranging in level from 95-105.  It is a fairly large dungeon with lots of mobs and chests.  Access is easy with only a couple of 95ish mobs guarding the entrance area. The exact location however is very easy to miss.  Babacratus first read about Sprinkelcove at Jexia's AO website which provides Shadowlands hunting maps and nano lists.  He also used AOVault's map as the basis for the map which he edited to show the dungeon entrance here. 

Here is the story of how Babacratus eventually found it.  Babacratus has spent a good portion of his leveling time in Elysium in the Stormshelter dungeon.  After hitting 100 however, the experience started to do down as the mobs there are 80-95 unredeemed.  Baba has been using Jexia's AO website as a hunting guide, but when he started looking for the next higher dungeon, Sprinklecove which according to Jexia's site would have level 95-105 mobs, he could not find it.  Jexia's map shows it to be just south of the big pyramid west of Ripwell.  He made several trips to the area and eventually decided it must have been eliminated or one of the places not included in Rimor 2. 

He tried hunting level 90-105 mobs in the wild at places like the area south of Barter, and while the Mortiigs there gave good experience as well as making good charms, they also have excellent eyesight and are very social, so it is not unusual for pulls to go bad and emergency crowd control panic measures to not always work.  While he as able to grab a level or two this way, it was slow as a bad pull could send him back to a garden and loose a good chunk of experience. 

Baba decided to look once more for the Sprinklecove. Arriving at the spot pointed out in Jexia's map, there is no dungeon door insight.  The only thing nearby is a dam in a small river running south from the pyramid.  From the west side, Baba peered down into the chasm and could see nothing down there except water and the bottom of the dam.  He did notice there was two clues this time.  There were guard fences along the lip of the chasm on both sides and a little ways south a foot bridge.  He crossed the bridge and walked north.  He again peered into the chasm, but could see nothing interesting.  He next investigated a strange looking power house at the top of the hill which he hoped might be the entrance, but he found nothing there. 

He as about to start thinking about where to go next to hunt when he noticed that there was a spot on the east side of the chasm where there was no guard rail.  Curious he walked over to it and peered down.  No dungeon but he did spy a couple of 90ish mobs in the water.  He jumped down to the water, which was a foot or so deep, and looking north up the chasm, he then saw the dungeon door at the base of a tower like structure behind the dam. On his first night there he dinged 105 after approximately 8 days of playing time as reported by the 'played' command.

Babacratus joined Events By Jill, a clan org recently.  He is really glad he applied.  It seems to have mostly mature, easy going, and accomplished players.  They have been really helpful and appear to be well organized.  One of the first things he did was get some critique of his current Crat setup and general advice to work on getting symbiants.  Crat symbiants, the 'Control Unit' class, happen to run into the 10-30 million each if bought from player shops.  Baba is still researching which pocket bosses drop the symbiants.  Babacratus spent some time going through his AO Inventory Assistant to find potentially valuable items to put into a player shop in the Events By Jill city.

It took a few days to collect it all as the pieces were scattered over 5 alts and various bank toons.  Eventually he stocked his shop and opened it up as "Babacratus Boutique".  On opening day it featured an Instruction Disk Summon Grid Armor I, various buffing weapons, and a few dyna or mission only soldier or doctor nanos.

How to Fish in AO?

Baba was interviewed by a Clan org as a potential member recently.  One of the comments made by the interviewer was along the lines of "we don't want to give out fish, but would rather teach new players how to fish."  This is the crux of Baba's current situation.

Babacratus is starting to realize his gear is in bad need of upgrading.  The implants he put in back at level 60 and just not cutting it now.  The deal with the expansions is basically this.  You can get by up to level 100 with Rubi-Ka grade average gear and implants, but once you start in on 100+ SL mobs your old Rubi-Ka stuff just does not cut it.  You need full symbiants, and at the minimum full Jobe armor.  The path to the armor is pretty clear.  He probably has all the insignias he needs, but 15 million credits total is a long way off.  So far he has not made a profit at all, but has been draining down credits previously earned by his Froob predecessors that was farmed in Foremans or got by selling a few lucky mission drops like Grid Armor discs. etc.

He has no clue as to how to get symbiants other than to buy them somehow, by farming something (?). He has only found complete patterns for one boss at this point, and it is for one that drops stuff that a Crat can't use.  This is after killing hundreds of Ely mobs in the wild and dungeons.

Last night he applied to an active clan org and was accepted for the usual 'trail period'.  They were a friendly bunch of people and most welcoming. He got plenty of helpful advice, mostly regarding his need to get a full lvl 120 set of symbiants in order for him to be able to effectively use the crat tool-chest in Ely.  He got to inspect several other toons near his level and could see how they can meet the requirements for level 120+ crat nanos of 800 or more in nano-skills by having the right gear. 

So it was instructive, but also a bit depressing, since he has no idea at this point exactly what to farm or 'how to fish.'  Clearly what he has done in the past on Rubi-Ka as a froob is not sufficient. 

Some people, i.e. the ever shrinking core of end-gamers around, obviously never blinked on this issue and somehow solved the getting credits issue.  Baba is convinced this issue is precisely why AO's player base continues to shrink.  It has nothing to do with graphics, Look at on of the biggest hits around now, Minecraft.  It makes AO's graphics look like a Hollywood production.  Graphics is a non issue and at best will bring in a few curiosity seekers if it is ever released, but the grind to farm for gear essential to level and get teams remains and most likely will continue to discourage all but the few who somehow intuit or luck into a way to credit independence in AO.