Fixer: A guide to being a fixer

[Jasper2002]

We all know that fixers are about the best solo character types in AO. They have a number of key nanos that help, HoT's, Run Speed and Get Out of Trouble quick grid jumps (used these a lot )

I thought that I would put a little guide here for those wanting to start a new fixer alt.

Skills.
Each and every time raise your basic skills, all of them until at least level 100. Then you can start trimming back on those that you don't need. This is also the time to decide what armour you are going to wear up to level 200.

Max these skills every time (up to level 100)
Run Speed
Close Combat and Ranged evades
Treatment (for heal packs and implants)
Comp Lit (For NCU)
MG/SMG
Time & Space (for nano restore packs, HoT's, NCU and Speed Buffs)
Matter Metamorphosis (For HoT’s, NCU and Grid Jumps)
Biological metamorphosis (For HoT’s)
Sensory Improvement (For damage buffs, roots/snares, Grid Jumps, NCU and Speed buffs)
Psychological modifications (For damage buffs and roots/snares & Grid Jumps)

Other useful skills if you have spare IP points
Ranged Init
First Aid
Break & Entry (needs to be 190+ for Fixer Grid Quest)
Map Navigation (For maps )
Burst (Needs to be 60% of MG/SMG. Can be buffed by Damage buffs)
Vehicle Air (For when you buy a Yalm!)
Trap Disarm (If you must. If you have full health a trap will never kill you)
Perception
Nano Init (Faster Nano Casting)
Nano Resist

Weapons

Level 1-40
Mausser Particle Streamer. (MPS)
- Good damage, a little slow
Mausser Chemical Streamer (MCS)
- Upgraded MPS. Better Damage and Faster Burst)

Level 40-80
Manex Catastrophe
- Very slow, burst every 1 minute. Burst damage is massive though
Illicit Laser Backup
- Dual Wieldable. Very good damage and fast burst. Requires Multi-Ranged and Pistol Skills to Equip. Get Intra models when you can equip.

Level 80+
Manex Catastrophe
- Very slow, burst every 1 minute. Burst damage is massive though
Illicit Laser Backup – Intra or Technolord
- Dual Wieldable. Very good damage and fast burst. Requires Multi-Ranged and Pistol Skills to Equip. Get Intra models when you can equip.
Perennium Beamer
- Fast firing, good minimum damage and fast burst. The gun of choice for Rubi-Ka and Shadowlands from level 80+.

Part 1 of 3

[Jasper2002]

Armour

Level 1-100
Carbonum
Good AC’s and boost to NCU, Nano Init and Max Nano
CAS
Good AC’s and some good benefits to skills

Level 100+
CAS
Good AC’s and some good benefits to lots of skills
Tier 1
Good AC’s. Grows as you level and is upgradeable to Tier 2 and Chosen Armour (Ooh I want )

Back Armour
Use Web Cloaks or Shadowweb Spinners until you can afford/equip Ancient Container or LNT/MNT/HNT
Other useful back armour is the Exarch Robe obtainable from Temple of the Three Winds (level >60)

Shoulder Pads
Dodga Quest gets some very nice shoulder pads for you. You can do the quest twice but can only wear one of each type of pad. So you can wear the Clan Shoulder Pads of the Veracious and Clan Shoulder Pads of the Learned, but not 2 of the Veracious.

Grid Armour (GA)
- Massive debate at the moment as to the validity of this as armour. However GA does provide certain bonuses that cannot be sniffed at. Yes, the AC’s are pitiful, but the Defence Modifier is the stat that counts. Since the inception of Perennium Beamers GA now rocks again.
History. GA used be worn by fixers wielding MCS or Manex. If you gimped heavily on your IP’s you then moved to ILB’s. However to make these weapons useful you had to run at full attack. GA works best if you run at full defence.
Today. If you are using a Perennium Beamer or SMG you can run at 12.5% defence and get a 1:1 ratio on attack/reload plus a 10 second burst. This means that the benefit of GA is seen again. If you add defence rings and defence implants to enhance this you can be nearly untouchable.
Shadowlands. You cannot use GA in the Shadowlands. Therefore it is advisable to raise your defensive stance perks as soon as you can as well as the acrobat line (I have full Acrobat perk line and 5 points in defensive stance. This gives me +1000 evades and +539 defence modifier and + 14 mob critical decrease
Alien Invasion. This is set on RK where GA rules the world (IMHO). I believe that GA will be the armour of choice for fixers come 1st September.
Have a look here http://aodb.info/socialarmor.asp for details of what can be worn with GA

Other items to use
NCU Hacker Interface
Upgradeable as you level. Adds to all nano skills. Ql 200 adds +60 to these dark blue skills
- Created by buying a Nano-Programming Interface and a lockpick. Combine the two to create this. Goes into HUD 2 slot

Token Board
- As bad as token farming is, you really should aim to get as many tokens as possible, as soon as possible. The top line board when you hit 1000 tokens (Double Sun) adds 950 to max health and nano, 7% experience, 210 to run speed, comp lit and nano programming plus offense and defence bonuses. * the number of tokens received per completed mission increases as your level increases.

Treatment Clinic
- Used for cleaning implants and adds +20 to treatment at ql 200. Now creatable again after 15.5.5 patch

Part 2 of 3

[Jasper2002]

The life of a fixer.

Being a fixer has many advantages over other professions. You have certain traits that allow you to be alone all the way to level 220 if you want. There are distinct benefits to being in a guild of which I am sure you are all aware.

Main advantages.
Heal over time (HoT)
Two levels, first one is a slower HoT, runs from 15-30 mins. Larger healing amount, slower time between hits. Beneficial for missions and quests. The second one is a shorter, faster HoT which is very useful when fighting a single mob. It lasts about 3 mins and gives you an additional boost. You can of course use heal stims at the same time. The main benefit is that you last longer in a fight without having to recast heals like Docs/Advs. Every 2 second heal by a Doc/Adv is one less shot on the mob 

Runbuffs.
These add to your evades skills. The best, GSF adds 79 to each of your evades. It also increases your runspeed, i.e. get away from mob after it has been rooted to heal 

Roots/Snares
When blitzing these come into their own. Tactic. If you have a train of mobs, run into a room and then cast an area snare over them. Run out and away. By the time the snare has worn off they have lost aggro and you have removed a number of threats from your environment making it easy to carry on blitzing.

Grid jumps
There are two types of grid jump. The slow grid jump. This does not diminish your health and nano down to 1. But at lower levels it can take up to 90 seconds to cast. It is available in single and team versions.
The second version is the one that will save your butt. It is a quick (6 second or less) get out nano, again in single or team. This will knock you down to 1 health and 1 nano. Two warnings with this. Be careful. Do not hit this while in a team mission and grid the whole team. They don’t like it too much. I know this for a fact. . Second warning. If you have a damage over time running on you, from PVP with a Doc for example, do not do it. You will die in the grid.

Fixer Grid.
This is your means of travel. You gain access to it by running a nano and using the temporary item on the grid terminal. The fixer grid has a lot more exits than the normal grid and has no computer literacy requirements to exit. Dovves map and other shows the grid exits on it. The team fixer grid will make you so popular that you will want to live in the Shadowlands. You can benefit financially from it as people will tip for it. The best use is in tower attack and defence where a lot of people need to get to the place very quickly.

Garden jumps
In the Shadowlands you have no access to the RK grid. You can get garden jump nanos which you can use if you are wearing the appropriate garden key. Unfortunately there is not a version for a team. Come on FC please fix this . The primary advantage of this is the gate fees for access to Ely and Nascence. Every time you use this you can save 50k on transit fees to Port 7 or Port 5 in Ely. These can be run from the Jobe platform. Why make creds when you don’t have to spend them. 

[Jasper2002]

More to follow on this topic.

Anyone wish to comment please feel free

[Selavi]

Here I was writing a comendium of my own, then I realised that Jasper already had it. Doh. But some comments from what you said here.

Skills before lvl100.
I wouldnt max runspeed as the runbuffs are good enough to keep you fast enough without spending IP on it. Comp lit is also a skill I would just touch every now and then, just to be able to enter different gates in the grid, or to equip a better belt/NCU. I would however max Burst and Range init all the time, as these are important skills for a fixer. High burst skill will let you fire off that specials faster, and high ranged init will let you fight at all def without being too slow on the trigger.

Weapons. unless you got around 800+ ranged init, then forget about manex. Its just to slow to use unless you can go full agg. I am currently at 1.1k burst and 1.2k ranged init, the manex will fire off a burst every 1 min 8 sec. I still cant go full def without the gun being to slow. Recomend the perenium, ILB or MCS. Even the OT Kerans might prove to be good pre lvl100.

Armour. I just would like to add that if your Opifex, then the Cyborg death squad armor is a very good one, since it requieres Agility and Sense to wear. A ql200 Cyborg armor is prolly better than a ql140 tier1.

Garden jump. Until you got more creds than you need, then stick with just one of them nanos. If you use one, then you enter a garden, from there you got access to all the other gardens you have keys for via the Statue.

Just some stuff to add, or simply because I experienced things a little differently. Otherwise a very good guide for fixers Jasper

[Indefatigable]

Couple of things, the jobe backyard SMG that can be made apparently rocks. Also making an NCU hacker interface helps a lot with nano skills. Combine a lock pick with a nano programming device and right click to upgrade. (sorry jasper did mention it already)

[Selavi]

Yeah, the chimera gun is good. But at lvl20-25 it might be a good idea to start looking for a new gun, perhaps even earlier.

[Jasper2002]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I started an new fixer toon with the aim of having him in GA1 or 2 using a Peren Beamer at a low but usable level.

I built a lvl 30 MCS for him and the difference in speed and damage from the MPS is incredible.

I agree with the Comp Lit thing as you can always build specific implants with high Comp Lit for equipping Belts and NCU's.

I did mention the NCU Hacker Interface, but perhaps did not put enough priority to it. It can only be built from about level 8 as it needs 60 b&e to create. But as soon as you can, DO IT.

I didn't mention that B&E is also required for access to the Fixer Shop in Borealis. So raise it at soon as possible. It is a green skill so shouldn't hurt too much.

Runspeed buffs stack with speed boosts from Yalms so raise vehicle air a little from time to time and keep you eyes open for a cheap Yalm. The cheaper it is, the slower it goes, but also the lower the vehicle air requirements are to equip.

I totally agree with the weapons info that Sel posted except that I would say that the OT Kerans becomes obsolete when you can equip a Peren Beamer at about level 30. The main difference is, getting a low level Peren is tough or expensive if this is your first toon and you do not have a higher level main. If you have a level 130+ main toon you can farm the muzzles yourself. The OT Kerans or a MCS will be easy to get (The MCS can be entirely shop built) and are equippable with lower skill requirements.

[furydemon]

Nice info here:)

Before parking my fixer she was pretty good RK wise - GA, CDS & guns - but I've not touched her since SL, so this info here re: new SL nanos & guns will help when I do dust her off.

Thanks

[Jasper2002]

New Backyard Fixer's

With the introduction of the ICC BY a few new things have become available for all professions, but as this is Fixer domain, I'll focus there.

The starter weapon for Fixer's is now good, but can be made significantly better, and dual-wieldable

When you have enough credits, at least 2k, go to see the weapons seller on the top part of the island. He is by the Nano shop, standing next to a guy who look suspiciously like Chef .

The first item in the shop is a tool for converting some of the mob drops to weapon upgrades. If you chat with him he can tell you what you need for each weapon.

For the upgraded gun, you need to buy another gun Yes you can use 2. Then buy 2 of the converting tools and if you don't have them, go and kill some Malle's for the bone plates that they drop.

Now you can use the new building interface or shift/right-click to do this.

Combine the convertor tool with the bone plate to create a bone stock. Combine this with your starter SMG and you will get a new SMG.

Do this twice, once with the gun you had, once with the gun you bought. Because you have spare IP raise your Multi-Ranged skill to 15 and you can now dual-wield these puppys

The real benefit of these is that each gives you a +20 HP boost, and when you are level 5 this can equate to a +30% health increase. Boss mobs no longer pose a threat

I was also getting burst fire of up to 75 points damage. Previously unheard of in the BY unless you were twinked and using an MCS.

I wil post a full ICC BY guide as soon as I get time, but in the mean time, Fixer's go kick some Alien Butt

[HealerKat]

anyone have a perk plan regarding the fixer proffession?

[Jasper2002]

Not yet but I can put one together. I can update to AI weapons and armor too while I am doing it. Will be this weekend I think

[buzzed]

very good info jasp. we need to have one of these for every prof. it wood save me asking dumb questions in gc. lol
can't wait to implament some of these things on jefiner