Brawler Archive

There are only a couple of things you'll need to start out (but they are the hardest to keep)-

Determination
Patience
Time

When I started my journey to UA4 I was on Corellia with next to no money thanks to my harvs and my armor was worthless (thanks to my poor fighting ability) therefore, all of my examples will be based on Corellia.

I strongly suggest that you get your UA on one of the starter planets if you are low on bread. Yes, it is slower than dropping Quenkers on Dantooine but you spend less time running out of the cloning center and more time running missions if you stick to Corellia, Naboo, Tatooine or Talus. Dantooine hunting is for people with ARMOR and BUFFS and that costs CREDITS. If you are reading this I am gambling that you have neither of these things.


That said:
I did have a few things going for me as I am a master medic and I had pistols 4 under the marksman title- BUT you will not need these things to follow this guide.

Some things you might want to consider during this journey is taking up novice scout, novice medic, novice marksman, or a combonation of these because it will make your mission that much easier and give you an escape if things get hairy.

Now here are the basic rules to getting UA spending the least amount of cash...

1. I only kill for money!
This means you do not sit outside of the city killing the easy little grubbers and Corellian butterflies unless you are on your way to a destroy mission or on your way back from a destroy mission.

2. I will avoid trips to the cloning center at all costs.
Basicly this is knowing when to cut and burst run from a fight that is going bad. When you die in the field this causes you to lose things due to decay. Things you might have to replace (like HAM bar status) - but most importantly you lose TIME! and Time is money my friend. It's hard to earn UA xp while your sitting in a cantina/med center trying to heal.

3. I will learn to bargain shop the bazaar.
You would be amazed at some of the things you find on the bazaar at what price.

Let's get started...

If you DO have any money on you at all your first stop will be the bazaar. Go to one of the busier cities on the planet you are on and see what they have. I, of course, went to Coronet.

Here is a shopping list of things you need to look for throughout our journey to UA4 (again, if you cannot afford any of this stuff at the start it is OKAY. Eventually you will return to this list and purchase these items with the money you earn from your missions)...

VIBRO KNUCKLERS
Before you buy ANYTHING else you will need these first. If you don't have money- save up for a set of these.
Find some that have a speed in the 2.5-2.0 range- the faster the better. These may cost you all of 6k but if you are lucky you may find some considerably cheaper ( I got mine for 1200 with a speed of 2.2)
When you put them on you will get a message saying you are not certified to use them but that's okay- the amount you lose in damage is made up for by the increase in speed. There is a lot of documentation on this so I won't go into it. Just trust me, kid. These will make your trip a hell of a lot easier than going without.

A DROID-
That's right. A droid. Preferably a DZ version cause they can have combat no matter what modules they have in them. Sometimes you can find these babies on the bazaar for as little as 100-300 credits!
The main function of this Droid will be to have someone at your disposal to group with. Being in a group gives you better missions with more pay AND you get better xp when you kill something. It's a win/win situation.

If you can't find one on the bazaar I would recommend using the community search tool and find a Droid Engineer. It will give you a list of DEs that are near you at the moment. Send them a tell and explain your situation and maybe they will craft you up something at a low price- you never know.
Above all BE NICE!! I stumbled upon a Doctor just sitting around a player city yesterday and I kindly asked him if he was buffing that day. He wasn't- but since I asked so nicely and with such respect- he gave me a 2Hr 45min buff for free.

THE POOR MAN'S BUFF

Because you do not have 4-8k for the buffs that are selling like hotcakes outside of the starport- You will need what I call- the poor man's buff. This is an assembleage of food buffs and spices to help you get through or get away from some of your missions.
Check my list out or study what works best for you but DO have this stuff available to you so that you can avoid the cloning center.
If you cannot afford the poor man's buff it's OKAY. You will want to get some of this stuff as you work to UA4 though.

Now food and spice sell at 5-6k by the crate on the bazaar but if we had that kind of dough we would be standing in line in front of the starport waiting for buffs, no?

You can almost ALWAYS find food selling in single doses for a very affordable price. Example:

Vassarian Brandy:

A crate: (you won't find on the bazaar most likely) 40-70k.

A single: 1-1.5k on the bazaar.

Here are the things I like to have in my poor man's buff repitoire:

Muon Gold
Spice-
I pop one of these if my MIND is falling too fast in a fight and I need to hang on just a little longer or if I need to get the hell out. This has been a life-saver MANY times.
cost: about 300-500 credits a piece.

Neuron Pixie
Spice-
This is good if your health/action bars start to drop like a brick through S**t. Taking a pixie has kept me outta of the clone center a number of times too.

Both the Muon and the Pixie can be taken to prep for an upcoming mission but beware of how long the spice lasts. You do not want to be in the middle of a fight when a spice downer comes on. Also remember you can only use one spice at a time.
cost- between 300-1000 credits

Vasarian Brandy
Drink
A single will have 8-9 charges on it each one giving 200+ Hp to Mind and Focus. You are allowed to take two of the charges at a time giving you a 400+ bonus for about 30 minutes usually.
This stuff is great to use to prep for a fight- It last for a long time and you don't have to worry about "coming down" when the effect wears off.
cost: about 1500k. But you only need one.

Synth Steak
Food
This stuff reduces the amount of damage you take for the next 25 attacks. Ain't nothing wrong with that, eh? You can only eat these one at a time cause they do NOT stack but they are small enough that you can eat another benificial food thing with it and it doesn't get in the way of your two sips of Brandy.

Check out the foods for benifits you like and make your own list then check for singles on the bazaar. This is a cheap way to keep your HAM going just a little longer. If you can afford a buff then add these to your inventory anyway cause the more the merrier.

ARMOR
Oh yeah, you can find good armor on the Bazaar. One time I found CHintin Body armor with 20% kinetic protection for 1k! Tha's right! 1k!
The best armors of course are Ubese and Composite but if it's on the bazaar the condition is probably down to 0.
BE SURE TO CHECK THE CONDITION OF THE ARMOR YOU BUY ON THE BAZAAR- i cannot say that enough.
The type of armor you buy is not important to me. Just keep in mind these 3 things:

1 BE SURE TO CHECK THE CONDITION OF THE ARMOR YOU BUY ON THE BAZAAR

2 Find the armor with the most kinetic protection you can afford.

3 BE SURE TO CHECK THE CONDITION OF THE ARMOR YOU BUY ON THE BAZAAR

Most likely you will not be able to afford or find a full set of good armor on the bazaar. You might even have to mix up differnt types of armor to get the best protection- which looks like crap but we ain't here to look good. We are here to kick a$$ and get UA xp.

The most important pieces to have though are Body/Chest plates, Helms, and leggings as these are the parts that will get hit the most.

For my outings I had a 10% Kinetic Marabi chest and a set of Chintin Leggings with 20% Kinetic protection. And a set of 60% Ubese boots Total cost: $3k. I bought this a piece at a time after missions.

And speaking of missions- I will explain that next. Stay tuned...

Okay. So you got what you could get from the bazaar. Time to finally run a mission, right?

Well, almost-

What about our other proffessions?

I strongly suggest having scout because you are going to kill A LOT of animals and we don't want all that hide-meat-bone to go to waste! You can shoot right up TWO scouting trees as you earn points for UA4. Also whatever you collect you can sell on the bazaar on your next trip back.
Mask scent comes in damn handy too.

Having Medic is a big part of the poor man's buff too. Healing yourself in battle is a MUST, man! Even if you are only doing Stimpak A's It's all good.

Also being able to shoot is good too! Sometimes you only want one MOBs attention and a pistol is a good way to get it. Or a lil' beastie might run away from you when you've put a serious dent in his behind and you cannot give chase- I have never seen a MOB outrun laser fire.

NOW on to the mission terms.

Mission Terminals are your FRIEND. They protect you. How? Well, they keep you from taking missions that are going to land you in the cloning center, that's how.
When you access a terminal it registers how badass you are by the weapon(s) you and anyone in your group are carrying. On the starter planets it will NOT give you a mission you cannot handle.
Some might argue that this is a bad thing- I say, sitting in a med center waiting for heals when you've let your mouth write a check your ass can't cash is a bad thing. You will SAVE time doing missions you know you can do.

Now I prefer terminals in player cities because they are usually grouped together in a clear area of the city and there is less traffic around but you can do what you wish.

We of course are still in the busy city, Coronet in my case, and we will have to travel to a player city. My suggestion is that you avoid paying for a shuttle and ride to the city. Walk if you gotta but first find a mission terminal here and take two missions in the general direction of the destination you want to get to.

Remember that 300 credit droid you purchased? Take him out and group with him before you acces the terminal. Now when you go to get your list the payouts will be bigger and sometimes the critters will be a little more dangerous (which means more xp per hunt).

Now you can take the droid with you if you want to use him in battle. Or you can tell him to stay and leave him here. He's already served his main purpose at this point. Just make sure he is grouped with you at all times. Even if he gets incapped- as long as he is grouped everything is cool.

I have read that using a DZ droid to attack first and then coming up and attacking the creature from behind works really well cause the DZ can tank well and it only does 1 point of damage per attack (which means it's not taking too many xp points from you).

Go out and do the missions. On your way out of the city you will see some easy beasties to kill. This is good practice and good xp if you are trying to get UA1 or UA2. So feel free to do as much as you want. You won't make any money doing this which means you won't be able to buy anything from your shopping list for UA3 but really, UA1 and UA2 are so easy to get this way it is hard to resist.

Setting up your tool bar:

You should put macros for these moves on your tool bar at the top of the screen:

Intimidate

Warcry

Berserk

These are going to be your bread and butter for UA1 and UA2. Later as you go, you will add:

Unarmed Blind

Unarmed Stun

You can write up your own combo of any of these and put it on one button if you wish too. I like to have them seperate so I can vamp my style while I fight.

Beserk is going to be your best friend throughout all of this BUT when you are berserk you cannot do any other specials- So be sure to drop one, two or all of your other specials first and try to get them to stick. A critter never falls faster than one that has been properly Stunned, intimidated, and blinded before you go berserk on them.

Also on your tool bar drag a Muon gold from your inventory and the pixie too. put them there so you can hit them quick if you find yourself in trouble.

Your toolbar is a good place to drop any weapons you may need to help you get out of a tight spot.

When you get to the site of the mission you need to prepare to MILK the lair for xp. How do we do that?

MILKING A LAIR
Outside of the lair you will see 2-5 animals. Try to draw them one at a time if you can but how ever you do it, kill the animals outside the lair.

then hit the lair one or two times and peace out of your attack.

Step back. More of the MOB will come out. Kill them too.

Attack the lair again until more of the MOB come out.

When you kill them, finish the lair off.

This will get you the MAX amount of XP that you can get off that lair.

At UA3 I was doing gurreck lairs. 2-3 gurecks on the outside at 635 xp a pop. I would hit the lair- then 3 more would come out. I'd Kill them and hit the lair again and 3 more would come out. After I killed them I would demolish the lair and at the end of one mission I would earn between 5-7k in UA xp. Later I did Dire Cat missions the same way getting 850-1071+ xp per cat and about 10k+ per mission.

Needless to say this makes UA3 and UA4 go quick.
Remember ONLY animal lairs can be milked so stay away from missions against other humanoids.

Now I also did some Wrix lairs that I happened to run across while running back and forth to the terminal-missions and bazaar.

I was killing Wrixes and getting great xp but I got overwhelmed a couple of times and landed in the cloning center. A waste of time AND any buffs you might have worked very hard to earn. So trust your terminals and only take on critters you KNOW won't kill you or at least have the good common sense to run.

Follow this guide and there is no reason you shouldn't be able to make it through UA4 within 4-6 hrs total (It took me 2hrs to do UA4 alone- including trips to the bazaar- buffs and yeah, the cloning center.

Message Edited by HOTDOG on 04-30-2004 03:54 AM

There is one key thing your overlooking that will make any unarmed somewhat easier and that is Rakririan Burnout Sauce. The sauce give an additional +10-+25 Unarmed dmg bonus and lasts for about 30 minutes a i believe.

That's cool! I hadn't even tried the new burnout sauce OR the Bofa treats (And I can make those). There are a lot of treasures on the bazaar for CHEAP, though. Good to know if you find yourself in a tight spot.

One thing I didn't mention was that I had pistols 4 in the marksmans tree so at the terminals I was getting creatures like Giant Grubbars and Carrion Spats. Which give okay xp. But then I took up Novice Pisotleer and the terminal started giving me the Dire Cats and Gurrecks. Much better xp and their lairs Milk much better too.

So I would recommend picking up a Novice Elite if you qualify for it- even if you do so temporarily. Not to mention Health Shot 2 came in real handy the second time all those Wrix came barreling at me.

having learned my lesson from earlier, I shot my way back to my vehicle and rode out of aggro. Waited. Then came back and cleaned them up Unarmed. I didn't get as much xp as I would have with a pure unarmed attack but I didn't get dead either.

That's a very nice guide, it reminds me of my first days in SWG

Nice guide, reminds me of my brawler career a few days after release... **sigh**

A few things that might be useful though :

If you're broke, you must be a beginner and therefore have some Skill Points to spend... Get novice medic ! and get novice scout...

With novice medic, you'll be able to heal yourself (and avoid those trips to the clone center).

With scout you'll harvest hide/meat/bones from the prays you're hunting for xp. You can either sell the hides for money (choosing your targets wisely, you can get valuable material even if you're low on unarmed) or use them to craft your own stimpacks (they won't be great, but a little, cheap, heal often makes the difference esp. when you're hunting smaller things).

Don't underestimate the money you can make selling hides/meat (typ. avian meat, or herb meat to doctors, etc...) and don't forget that even a small heal may save your neck...

Nice post, works on either side of the spectrum to, 'cept for the foods (I suggest for people with more cash to use better brandy 400 per hit and that onefood that adds 1200 to H/A/M better because of no downer)but beyond that a very very nice guide.

Excellent guide. Too bad it will be wasted on all the multimillionaire hologrinders who want the quickest and most expensive way to get unarmed. They want to hear: "Go buy a suit 90% of kinetic compostie armor, and five 1.5 speed VK's so that you can get the best Master smuggler slice. Then get master doc buffs and go to dathomir and..."

Great guide though!