Merits

Merit Hunting

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I saw a post in the forums recently where someone had gone through a load of stats and found I was in the top 5 for merits earnt. Merits a possibly the most important thing in the game in determining the best strategy for your character. The more merits you have the more agile you can be, and the more agile you are the more merits you can earn. There are plenty of easy merits out there that some people just don’t bother getting, possibly because they don’t know they exist. Merits come at four main costs

* Energy merits
* Nerve merits
* Time merits
* Money merits

Energy Merits

Attacking, respect, bounties, revives, level up. These are the cheapest merits around, and the best place to start your merit hunting life. Revives often get a decent price in the trade chat, and even the weakest player can pick up 10m by doing the 100 bounties merit. If you are reading this blog you likely have a DP anyway, but if not that should be your first mission.

Nerve Merits

Busting and crimes. There are so many crime merits you likely won’t get them all in 15 years. If you are just starting out then they are a great way to build your nerve bar too, just keep going with whichever is the cheapest merit you can get. That doesn’t mean head straight for 10k searches for money, look at how many of which crimes you need, and work out how much the nerve cost is. The cheapest may not be the one for the lowest cost nerve crime. If you are poor you should still be able to afford BEER at $10 a pop, and always have your booster cooldown ticking.

Busting is much harder, you need dexterity, and you can only do 3-4 an hour. Go for these much later in the game.

Time merits

Travelling, commitment, jobs, education. These merits can also be earners. Flower/Drug/Plushie running whilst doing your 50 of each travel destination is a must. You can make 2m a day minimum. If you can join a cruise line job when you do these for the extra portage!

If you haven’t maxed out all the torn basic jobs and done all the merits for those.. quit your job now and do it. Also once done go for the Afronted merit (guides are in forums/wiki).

Education merits can wait, it’s much better to ensure you are going for educations that maximise your stat gains or ability to make money (depending on which you want more)

Money merits

Stocks, Networth, Item use, Point use, Gambling merits. Not always cheap, but as you get richer and more powerful the cost involved can seem small. You should be refilling energy every day regardless. If you aren’t in a war you should be using as many sfaks as possible and always have your med cooldown ticking – fill empty bags to reduce life if need be, you can sell them again.

Now there is clearly also the competition merits, and some odd-ball ones that don’t strictly in the above groups. The merits for being attacked for instance could come under the money tag, as a lot of people pay others to lose/run etc.

What to spend merits on

 

I spend most of my merits on nerve/crime exp at the moment. It’s only a little but it does help getting more nerve merits.

Initially I used all my merits on education – the benefits are huge. Then I used one of each category to pick up web of perks.

If you don’t have many merits your focus should only be on getting more. Don’t spend them if you don’t have a benefit in getting more merits. HP, stats, awareness, banking, should all be last ones you think of.

Attacking

Which stats should I train?

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Wowzers, what a fantastic question. I have seen at least 4 incarnations of the attack system on torn, and never have I ever had the stat ratio I think was most appropriate at that time.  I’ve also seen plenty of people weigh in on the subject and I always get utterly bored reading about it.

Why?

Well to be honest the reason is obvious – no one cares.

For those with huge stats there are only a small number of players you will beat or lose to based on your strategy.

For those with mid stats there are so many players you can still beat to mug, leave for exp or chain that you would be insane to think the number of players your ultimate strat is going to put you above means anything useful to you.

How do you win attacks?

The main advantage you will have against another right now is actually armour. Armour provides a huge differential in stats, and given the attacking player already has an advantage with increased damage you are a sure winning if you double that advantage with your defensive capability.

I use seratonin to gain extra HP and increase my defence ability. Expensive sure, if you can’t afford it go for pepper spray or flash bangs, they are equally effective against all players.

Pick your target well – if you don’t know there stats compare your stats, xanax and point refills, defends ratio, and you will get a good idea of whether or not you will win.

Don’t waste your E attacking someone you don’t know anything about. If they don’t have money to mug, weak stats for that level, or known stats.. don’t bother.

Stat caps and strategy

Stat gains increase as you increase your stats, up to when you reach ~50m of a stat. So make the most of it. Get each stat to 50m as soon as possible. And preferably do it in the order of your bonuses in training as gained from the sports science courses. If you are sure you want to be all about stats they are a must, as is using Xanax.

From there you again rely on your biggest bonuses for stat increases to guide you. More stats is better. If you can afford it you should also then be using Cans of Taurine or FHC (super rich only). Once you hit 1b in a stat you can look at using SEs as well.. but to be honest that is a lot of money to use on stats, you would want to be using all your energy on mugs or be backed by a huge amount of money in stocks or trading to be able to do that (I don’t even do that!) – or have a wicked gambling strategy 🙂