Game Guides Archive

Recently a guildmate who had just picked up Novice BE asked on our boards for advice. I wrote this post as a response, and decided to post it here as well, in case it can help anyone else who's about to pick up this profession without being informed of the current situation. All of these points have been brought up in other places, but I figure that the Game Guides board should be a place where people can get the lowdown summary on a profession without having to dig through the profession's board.

"
The best tip I can give you is SPEND YOUR POINTS ELSEWHERE!

The sad fact is, BE is basically an unimplemented profession.

Around 1/3rd of the pets you'll be able to make are bugged and untameable.

Of the pets that actually work, if you use very good DNA and extremely hihg-quality meat and flora, you can make a pet that is about 10% better than the wild version, tops.

However, for every pet you can make, there is a similar and superior wild tameable version. For example, you can make a Rancor, but a Gnarled Rancor is much better. There are no BE pets on the list that are very efficient and powerful for their Challenge Level.

DNA sampling is awful. At low levels, it's somewhat useful for assassinating creatures at lairs for easy mission completion, but as your skill improves, it becomes a deadly endeavor, because the better you get at it, the more likely it is that the creature you sample will aggro on you as soon as you sample. Because /maskscent is now totally broken and useless, and because you have to sample high level aggressive monsters in order to get useful DNA, this means that if you aspire to actually make decent creatures, you should expect to die 5-10 times to gather enough decent DNA to make one good creature.

In addition, basically everything in the Tissue Engineering line is completely broken. None of it works at all, with the possible exception of a few of the Chef components. However, even if those work, the "bonuses" they give are not nearly good enough to justify their material cost.

Of course, Tissues also includes Pet Stims and Vitality Packs, in case you always dreamed of being a vet. Unfortunately, these require rare ingredients such as Endorian Flowers, Unknown Radioactives, and Fish, in such high qualities that they are extremely expensive to make and sell compared to regular stims. Oh, and like all BE Tissues, they are totally unable to be made in factories. Oh, and also using them gives you no experience of any kind, and crafting them gives you Medical Crafting Experience, which is useless to you.

Also, experimentation is all wonky, (which partially explains why our creatures tend to suck compared to wild versions).

I believe I've covered ALL 4 of the skill lines of Bio-Engineer now. All of which are hideously broken.

I'd also like to mention that every patch since release has made things worse and more difficult for BE's. There has not been a single fix for anything in the class, and a litany of nerfs, along with the changes to CH that have destroyed what small market we once had, and changes to Scout that make DNA sampling effectively impossible.

Now, the Devs have announced a very impressive list of upcoming fixes and changes, which will re-vamp the entire profession and totally change everything. That was 3 weeks ago. In the past couple of days they've made a few changes which I'm sure they thought would be helpful, but in fact, have been harmful and have made it painfully clear that the Devs do not understand the BE profession at all.

Conventional wisdom in the BE community is that the announced fixes and changes will not arrive for at least 1 or 2 more months, and if the track record of patches since release is any indication, when the "fixes" arrive they will be full of bugs and a whole host of new problems.

So my advice to a new Novice Bio-Engineer is surrender the class. Be a Doctor, be a Ranger, be a Commando, be a Creature Handler (not really, CH sucks now). If you remain on the path to BE, you will be investing a lot of effort and time and skill points for no rewards, no fun, and little hope for improvement in the near future. Check into BE again in 3-6 months, and in the meantime try to have some FUN instead.

I know I sound bitter and jaded, but I'm really being honest. I AM very disheartened, disappointed, and disillusioned be my experiences with this game, and I have to admit that right now I'm planning to cancel my account before my next billing date unless the Devs come through with something drastic.

Sherkaner Lumpen
Master BE, Master CH, Massively screwed.
Countdown to cancellation: 23 days

Most of this I agree with.

The only 2 things in BE that are of any worth is Tissue and Engineering Technique.

The pet stims are the only thing outside of the data pad that will regen a pets mind. Exp for making them does goto BE, there is no need to gain EXP for there use. Engineering technique makes the stims better, allot better with each level progression.

Critter engineering and DNA are only useful if you intent to master BE. If not don't bother with these 2 lines.

Pet stims need to be able to be factory produced, this is the only gripe I have about them.

***Factoid #1: You are able to use a pet stim imediately after using a regular stim as they are not tied to the same professions.

***Factoid #2: Pet stims are useable by any one. No skills required for there use.

"Pet stims need to be able to be factory produced, this is the only gripe I have about them."

I need to rephrase this.

I do need to be able to factory produce them. Right now I can not and it's a serious thorn in my side.

Recently a guildmate who had just picked up Novice BE asked on our boards for advice. I wrote this post as a response, and decided to post it here as well, in case it can help anyone else who's about to pick up this profession without being informed of the current situation. All of these points have been brought up in other places, but I figure that the Game Guides board should be a place where people can get the lowdown summary on a profession without having to dig through the profession's board.

"
The best tip I can give you is SPEND YOUR POINTS ELSEWHERE!

The sad fact is, BE is basically an unimplemented profession.

Around 1/3rd of the pets you'll be able to make are bugged and untameable.

Of the pets that actually work, if you use very good DNA and extremely hihg-quality meat and flora, you can make a pet that is about 10% better than the wild version, tops.

However, for every pet you can make, there is a similar and superior wild tameable version. For example, you can make a Rancor, but a Gnarled Rancor is much better. There are no BE pets on the list that are very efficient and powerful for their Challenge Level.

DNA sampling is awful. At low levels, it's somewhat useful for assassinating creatures at lairs for easy mission completion, but as your skill improves, it becomes a deadly endeavor, because the better you get at it, the more likely it is that the creature you sample will aggro on you as soon as you sample. Because /maskscent is now totally broken and useless, and because you have to sample high level aggressive monsters in order to get useful DNA, this means that if you aspire to actually make decent creatures, you should expect to die 5-10 times to gather enough decent DNA to make one good creature.

In addition, basically everything in the Tissue Engineering line is completely broken. None of it works at all, with the possible exception of a few of the Chef components. However, even if those work, the "bonuses" they give are not nearly good enough to justify their material cost.

Of course, Tissues also includes Pet Stims and Vitality Packs, in case you always dreamed of being a vet. Unfortunately, these require rare ingredients such as Endorian Flowers, Unknown Radioactives, and Fish, in such high qualities that they are extremely expensive to make and sell compared to regular stims. Oh, and like all BE Tissues, they are totally unable to be made in factories. Oh, and also using them gives you no experience of any kind, and crafting them gives you Medical Crafting Experience, which is useless to you.

Also, experimentation is all wonky, (which partially explains why our creatures tend to suck compared to wild versions).

I believe I've covered ALL 4 of the skill lines of Bio-Engineer now. All of which are hideously broken.

I'd also like to mention that every patch since release has made things worse and more difficult for BE's. There has not been a single fix for anything in the class, and a litany of nerfs, along with the changes to CH that have destroyed what small market we once had, and changes to Scout that make DNA sampling effectively impossible.

Now, the Devs have announced a very impressive list of upcoming fixes and changes, which will re-vamp the entire profession and totally change everything. That was 3 weeks ago. In the past couple of days they've made a few changes which I'm sure they thought would be helpful, but in fact, have been harmful and have made it painfully clear that the Devs do not understand the BE profession at all.

Conventional wisdom in the BE community is that the announced fixes and changes will not arrive for at least 1 or 2 more months, and if the track record of patches since release is any indication, when the "fixes" arrive they will be full of bugs and a whole host of new problems.

So my advice to a new Novice Bio-Engineer is surrender the class. Be a Doctor, be a Ranger, be a Commando, be a Creature Handler (not really, CH sucks now). If you remain on the path to BE, you will be investing a lot of effort and time and skill points for no rewards, no fun, and little hope for improvement in the near future. Check into BE again in 3-6 months, and in the meantime try to have some FUN instead.

I know I sound bitter and jaded, but I'm really being honest. I AM very disheartened, disappointed, and disillusioned be my experiences with this game, and I have to admit that right now I'm planning to cancel my account before my next billing date unless the Devs come through with something drastic.

Sherkaner Lumpen
Master BE, Master CH, Massively screwed.
Countdown to cancellation: 23 days