Tips on how to spend IP (improvement points)

[WAusJackBauer]

If you’re new to this game, then chances are spending IP (improvement points) is a little bit overwhelming and confusing.

Eventually you will be able to max all the skills your profession needs, but between the levels of 1 - 130 points are quite precious, so you want to spend them wisely. Here are my suggestions for levels 1 - 130.

**Skills to max out every level:**

All base abilities (intel, sense, agility, psychic ect)

Body Dev. Increases your max health so quite important.

Your weapon skill. If you’re unsure of what weapon skill your profession uses, check the colour the the skill. Dark blue means your profession should not be using that skill. Colours closer to green or greenish suggest that they are something your profession should use.

The closer the colour is to green the less IP it costs. For example for a Doctor most weapon skills are dark blue, however Pistol and Martial Arts are not, so this suggests that this is what a Doctor should use. Most professions have buffs that will increase 1 or 2 weapon skills, this is also an indication of what weapon skill you should use. For example Doctors can use Pistol Mastery which adds 40 points to Pistol

Some skills require more points even if they are the same colour (At lvl 1 for a Doctor, Shotgun requires 12 points to improve, however Assault Rifle requires 20, even though they are both dark blue)

If you’re a pet class, healer or nano technician, make this your last priority and make nano skills your first priority. I would suggest only increasing your weapon skill if you have spare IP that you’re willing to use.

Runspeed. Always nice to move faster in the game as this literally saves you real life time.

Treatment. Keep around 50% maxed and then increase as needed.

**Skill to increase temporarily:**

Nano pool. Increase this until you have have enough nano to comfortably cast your nanos (spells/buffs). If you’re a Nano Technician or a healer, you should increase this a little bit more, but don’t increase it more than you have to.

Computer Literacy. Temporarily stop increasing once you reach 180 because at this point you can equip Dark Memories and travel to most places in the grid and then you can use implants to increase this further when equipping new NCUs and belts. Increase as required later on.

First Aid. This is especially important for professions that don't have nanos to heal themselves (Nano technician, Bureaucrat, Engineer, Soldier, Agent)

Nano skills. Increase only the nano skills your profession requires. If you’re a Nano Technician or a pet profession, you will want to keep your nano skills maxed or at least close to maxed as this is your primary source of damage. Traders and healers will also want these skills quite high.

Weapon special attack. (Fling Shot, Fast Attack, Burst, Full Auto ect) Increase when required for new weapons.

Nano init. This is mainly for healers and Nano Technicians. If you increase this to around 200 it will make a decent difference on how fast you cast nanos. You can increase it further if you wish.

Multi Ranged/Multi Melee. Increase only when required for new weapons and be sure to use implants and equipment to increase this skill first, and then IP afterwards.

At this point you will have free points, my suggestion would be to some points (not all) in First Aid so that you’re able to use first aid kits in battle to help keep you alive. After this I would suggest putting some points into your nano skills, then Computer Literacy. I recommend not spending all of your IP, it’s always good to have spare just in case. Of course you can spend your free points anywhere you wish.

[Mongoose135]

Good guide, except that you should never need to increase nano pool on a lot of professions (e.g. soldier). Even some heavily nano based profs don't need to max it (as it is a waste of IP unless you are literally running out of nano each fight).

[5T0NK5]

Just incase anyone stumbles across this, a few things to add to the OP:

1) Treatment controls how high a QL of implant you can get in, until you can equip ql200 implants using the available buffs, etc. this should be 100% maxed - only exception is if you play a shade.

2) For docs, pet profs (classes) and nanotechnicians - your nanoskills are infinitely more important than weaponskills. If IP'ing a weaponskill stops you from casting a better pet/heal/nuke, you shouldn't IP it at that time.

3) As a froob (free player), IP'ing all abilities isn't necessary early on. Agility/Intel/Stamina are usually your staple 3, the rest depend on your armour choice / what you need for implants / your prof.

4) Nano init allows you to cast nanos faster, which is crucial as your move the aggdef slider towards def and everything slows down. If you cast in-combat nanos / heals (doc, mp, crat, trader, advy, nt, fixer and even enfs cast layers) then you will want to be putting some IP in this. How much is something that'll depend on your playstyle.

5) Anarchy online is a game where, especially as a free player, a lot of different builds / setups are perfectly viable. If you think something could work and you want to do it, go for it or ask for someone's opinion in game if you're worried it'll mess your character up - worst thing you'll get in response is "lol no, wtf". IP resets are there for a reason and it's about having fun.

Rule of thumb - if you don't know why you're raising something, don't raise it. If you're thinking about ignoring your body dev or treatment skill at any stage, make sure there's a valid reason to.

[WAusJackBauer]

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[WAusJackBauer]

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[WAusJackBauer]

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[WAusJackBauer]

Bump cus of edits

[WAusJackBauer]

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[VenjenZ]

Two additional skills to always keep in mind are Evade ClsC and Duck Exp. Probably 80% of the mobs in the game will do attacks that check against one of those two defense skills. Rubi Ka melee mobs will typically check against Evade ClsC, and Shadowlands mobs will check against both Evade ClsC and Duck Exp.

The other evades, likes Dodge Rng and Nano Resist are nice, but if IP are tight, Evade ClsC for RK, Duck Exp for SL...every little bit of survivability helps.

[Dezzyx]

Special Attack is not just for new weapons, they should be maxed to do the most damage with that attack. If Brawl is your go to, keep it maxed, etc.

And the Init skills are important regardless if you're a nano user or not. Meele / Physical / Ranged, depending on your prof. It allows for the most attack speed (ideally 1/1, 1 second attack 1 second recharge) while keeping your Agg/Def slider as low as possible for more defense.