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Breeds are like races in other Role Playing games. In the universe of Anarchy Online breeds, with the exception of the Solitus, are genetically engineered with specific purposes in mind. There are many breeds in the galaxy all (presumably) developed for specific planets by numerous corporations. The Opifex, Nano Mage and Atrox were all developed by Omni-Tek for Rubi-ka.

Solitus[]

Homo Solitus
Solitus

The Solitus is very well the breed most similar to an original human being having naturally evolved during the time of the Omega. They are the well rounded of Rubi-Ka, and their abilities allow them to perform well in most professions and skill sets. The drawback would be that they might not be as well suited for specialization as some of the other breeds.


Balanced abilities allow the Solitus access to armors and implants requiring any of the abilities with greater ease than more specialised breeds, the balanced abilities also leads to a more even spread in trickle down, with no skills being favoured, this makes them good choices for classes which have access to several different lines of symbiants, classes that change weapon/armor lines in the lifetime and useful for balancing between survivability, weapon skills, and nano skills.

Solitus also has access to some of the best defensive perk actions in Anarchy Online.

Opifex[]

Homo Opifex
Opifex

The Opifex is agile and cunning. What they lack in strength they compensate for with their smartness and evasive nature. A lot of people seem to not trust the Opifex although they are normally jovial and likeable people.

Nano Mage[]

Homo Nano
Nano Mage

The Nano Mage were constructed especially to control Nano-bots, and in that department they perform extremely well. They are more fragile than

the other breeds as they are more geared towards intelligence and mental abilities than raw strength and physical prowess. The Nano Mage relies so much on nano-bots that they can't live beyond the orbit around Rubi-ka.

Atrox[]

Homo Atrox
Atrox

The reason Omni-Tek ever colonized Rubi-Ka is the magnificent core of Notum on the planet. To extract the Notum, they obviously needed a workforce optimized for that sort of strenuous and excruciatingly demanding task. The Atrox was the perfect breed! Their enormous strength and stamina along with their dedicated and loyal nature, made them both extremely adept miners, and frighteningly effective fighters. The Atrox are androgynous.

Max Abilities[]

Max ability level 200:

Breed Strength Agility Stamina Intelligence Sense Psychic Max IP Spent. Abi.
Atrox 512 480 512 400 400 400 1.209.545
Nanomage 464 464 448 512 480 512 1.336.100
Opifex 464 544 480 464 512 448 1.253.075
Solitus 472 480 480 480 480 480 1.371.732

Max ability level 220:

Breed Strength Agility Stamina Intelligence Sense Psychic Max IP Spent. Abi.
Atrox 912 780 912 600 600 600 3.055.545
Nanomage 664 664 748 912 780 912 3.317.700
Opifex 764 944 680 764 912 748 3.277.475
Solitus 772 780 780 780 780 780 3.633.132


Nano cost modifier cap[]

Breed cap at %
Atrox 45%
Solitus 50%
Opifex 50%
Nanomage 55%


Multipliers[]

While the actual amount of a Body Development Skill and Nano Pool Skill a character may buy is dependent on their profession, their breed determines how many points of health or nano energy are added to their pools per point of skill. To find the base health of a character, take their body dev score and multiply it by their breed multipler in the table.


Breed Body Dev Nano Pool
Atrox 4 2
Solitus 3 3
Opifex 3 3
Nanomage 2 4

Ability Point Costs by Breed[]

The ability maximums per breed are inversely proportional to the IP cost for abilities. For example, Atrox, with the highest Stamina maximum, spends fewer Improvement Points (IP) to increase Stamina points than all other breeds, Opifex spends fewer IP on Agility, etc.


Breed Advantages and Disadvantages[]

From the descriptions and statistics above, you will see that the different breeds have different advantages and disadvantages. This becomes important when looking for a profession. These have their advantages and disadvantages as well, so it is a matter of mixing and matching breed and profession to best advantage, or to make the character that you want.

Solitus is the "neutral" character, from which all the others are based. The Solitus is a general character, having no special abilities, but there again no bad abilities. They are good all-rounders, but excel at nothing.

Opifex are very agile, which means that they have a green Agility skill, and can thus have a higher evade skill than other breeds. The payoff for having good agility is that they don't have such good stamina or strength and consequently have fewer hit points - but they tend not to get hit as often.

Nano Mages are very intelligent and bookwormy types, they are the ones that tended to pore over the books all night long and didn't join in the sports that much as kids. They look a bit pasty, aren't very quick on their feet and couldn't lift a Reet feather without help. This means they are lacking in the hit point and evasion departments. At higher levels the benefits of being a nanomage are vastly outstripped by the detriment of having poor HP. While the Nanomage can cast programs earlier, most high level nanoprograms have level requirements which nullify the benefit of high intelligence. Their nanodelta addition and nanocost cap is better than for any other breed, which adds a lot of questions into choosing Doctor and Nano-Technician breed

Atrox were designed big and strong, to carry out a long, hard days work in the mines - before they revolted. They have a big advantage in Strength and Stamina, which translates into higher hit points, but things like intelligence and agility are left by the wayside (hence the common expression "as thick as two short Atroxes"). The Atrox breed ends up being one of the most reasonable choices for all professions, as at high levels, items can be used to get high enough nanoskills to cast all nanoprograms that aren't out of the character's level range. The huge boost to HP becomes one of the few attributes of the breed that actually matters. They have the lowest nanocost cap and lowest nanodelta among other breeds, but their healdelta is very big

When choosing a breed, you need to consider your profession as well. Some professions just scream out for a certain breed as an obvious choice (MA's and Fixer's are often Opifex because they rely on being able to evade attacks, although it is perfectly acceptable to use the professions strength in avoiding being hit and combining it with the HP and damage bonus of an Atrox (higher strength = higher damage for an MA), he'll get hit more often, but will have more HP to compensate)). Nanomages usually choose to take a profession where they don't expect to get hit - Pet owners and doctors, NT's also, but they tend to take a lot of aggro...

There is no "perfect" breed for a profession, the player needs to make what he can out of the combination of advantages and disadvantages. Nanomages don't have many hit points, but they have higher nano-skills, so if you aren't expecting to get hit very often, but will be using a lot of nanos to attack/defend yourself, then you would choose nanomage.

Typical Profession Combinations[]

Adventurer:

  • Solitus - Adventurers are generalists and the solitus is the ultimate generalist breed.
  • Atrox - Good add melee damage and extra HP, but problems casting the bigger nanos as soon as some other breeds and an embarrassingly small nano pool to boot.
  • Opifex - Adventurers tend to get a lot of aggro, so countering the attacks is an advantage, small nano pool can be a problem.
  • Nanomage - Not a good choice, plenty of nano skills, but low evades and low HP aren't very good when everybody is trying to hit you...

Agent:

  • Opifex - The classic choice, good at evading some of the aggro coming their way after getting off that 10k Aimed Shot
  • Solitus - Again a generalist, and while the agent can change themselves into any profession, being a master at nothing, but ok at everything can have its benefits.
  • Nanomage and Atrox - Tend to be very rare as Agents.

Doctor:

  • Solitus - Reasonable nano skills with reasonable HP.
  • Nanomage - A popular choice, can cast the heals early, but a lack of HP means they quickly eat reclaim if their tanks can't hold the aggro at low levels.
  • Opifex - Less nano pool than a Nanomage and less HP than a Solitus, but easy to put on high level Symbiants.
  • Atrox - If they can work out what a heal is, they might be Ok, but very low nano skills and a nearly non-existent nano pool can lead to big problems when a team has a lot of trouble and expects the doc to keep everyone alive, best saved for IP masochists. Another problem is a low Nanodelta cap which makes Atrox very tough in casting high level poison nanos as well as heals.

Enforcer:

  • Atrox - Their massive strength and stamina mean more damage and more HP. As they are pretty big and clumsy, they tend to get hit a lot, which in this case is not a bad thing.
  • Solitus - Not as powerful and a little behind on HP, but better on the nano front and at least they have the nano pool to keep casting their combat nanos without running dry.
  • Opifex - An unusual choice, doesn't get hit as much, but doesn't have anywhere near as many HP for the same set-up as an Atrox.
  • Nanomages - A very strange choice. Though they are great tanks at very high levels due to nanodelta, nanopool and higher nanocost cap (HP is not a problem when you are 214+ and mainly gotten by perks and nanos), the way to this high level is very hard due to low HP amount at startup. Besides in Player versus Player combat nanomages are very weak by definition.

Engineer/Beaurocrat/Meta-Physicist:

  • Nanomage - MC/TS skills are king in these professions and nobody can skill them higher naturally than a nanomage, the problem comes when the opponents get bored of bashing the pets and pick on the master...
  • Solitus - Probably second best MC/TS skills, but a few more HP and Evades thrown into the mix for when the pet doesn't cut the mustard.
  • Opifex and Atrox - With the Alien Invasion expansion now available, all casting professions can raise their nanoskills dramatically making these breeds also good options.

Fixer/Martial Artist/Shade:

  • Opifex - These are professions who make their reputation from speed and sidestepping attacks, so a breed which maximises this trait is an obvious choice - which also means that every second one you bump into is Opifex.
  • Solitus - As a good allrounder, but doesn't really bring much to the mix. There tend to be more Solitus Martial Artists than Fixers or Shades.
  • Atrox - When they stop bumping into walls, they don't do too badly, a good choice for PvP as well.
  • Nanomage - There are a few Nanomage fixers around, but these are a relatively poor choice, they aren't good at playing dodgeball (or dodge-200lb-iron-beams come to that) and go splat very easily.

Keeper

  • Atrox - While it's very hard to live at low level, once the Atrox gets more nano, they tend to be as competent as a Solitus keeper. Their large health pool is their main asset.
  • Solitus - The second most common choice, again due to their good allround capabilities.
  • Opifex - Becoming more popular due to high evades and ability to get into implants earlier.
  • Nanomage - A rare sight.

Trader

  • Atrox - Good for lower-level PvP and tower wars due to their larger HP pool and the boost to Strength and Stamina.
  • Nanomage - Good at higher levels due to the large variety of Nanoskills.
  • Solitus - Similar to the Nanomage, but more of an allrounder.
  • Opifex - Uncommon, but not completely unheard of at higher levels, usually for PvP.

Soldier

  • Atrox - Good for their high health and strength, although they suffer with their nanopool. A relatively even match with the Solitus breed.
  • Solitus - Good due to their larger nanopool and easier nanoprogram casting. A relatively even match with the Atrox breed.
  • Opifex - Uncommon, but with dedication can still be a pretty good soldier.
  • Nanomage - Uncommon, but with dedication can still be a pretty good soldier.

That isn't a comprehensive list, but as can be seen, certain breeds and professions go together well, others not. There is no right or wrong choice, just what is right/wrong for the player. Some choices are more obvious (and more successful) than others, whilst others bring a lot more challenge. Run your Atrox Enforcer up to 220 in a couple of weeks? Why not try again with a Nanomage for a real challenge?

See Also[]

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