Robber Beta, Burners and Boosts

Share:

Robber Beta by Team Spockholm got a update.  There are now options to have it save your Secret Drop pop-ups and use your burners.

You stataticins out there will love the new additions to the data it collects. Here is a 4,380 stamina run performed on November 18th.  The new data includes a break down success and failure percentages of easy, medium and hard targets as well as the number of wins and loses for each board.

Here is a run performed on October 26th for comparison. Notice the new data includes a break down of the percentages of easy, medium and hard targets as well as each board stat.  By comparing these two runs you can also see that the experience/stamina ratio has greatly improved in Italy. When robbing first opened, it was low because no many players had built their properties.  I got a exp/ratio of 1.22 and the latest run was 2.01.

I decided to check out New York and turn on the Burner option.  My ratio exp/ratio was 2.44 and all 31 of my burners were used.  My Secret Drop pop-ups were also saved.

VCD Burn says he get the best ratios in Bangkok, so I did a run there as well.  I got 2.43 which is about the same as New York.  It's hard to compare robbing ratios and success between two players because of all the variables.  VCD is much stronger than I am and has gotten as high as a 2.69 ratio while robbing in Bangkok!

Since Team Spockholm incorporated Burners into their bookmarklets, now is a good time to review what they are and what they do.  Burners are like boosts because they will boost your attack skills during a robbery.  They are unlike boosts because you get to select when to use them.  You will find your Burners in the upper right hand corner of your robbing page or in the special loot section of your inventory.

Currently there is a problem with the rob page Burner and you can't see how may you have. If you want to know and you don't feel like going to your inventory page to find out, highlight the area under the Burner and the number you own will appear.

Click on the yellow question mark to get Zynga's definition of what a Burner is.

According to Zynga, there is a maximum number of Burners you can possess.  According to Bossy Don, that number is supposed to be equivalent to your level of Robbing Mastery.  A level 1 can possess one Burner and a level 10 can posses 10. This makes sense until you go into your inventory and see that you can actually have more.  As mentioned above, Robber Beta used 31 of my Burners.  This is because you can accept Burners from gifts such as Mystery Bags and they will exceed your mastery level.

Bossy Don who is at Mastery Level 10 of robbing accepts a lot of gifts everyday and here is an image of the Burners she currently has in her inventory.  76 is a lot more than 10!

In addition to acquiring Burners from gifts, you can request them from your mafia once a day.

When friends click on "Get Your Phone", you get a Burner and so do they. There is debate on the number you can get from your mafia each day.  It's supposed to be the same as your level of mastery (1-10) but many players who are above Mastery Level 5 have reported getting only 5.

And of course you can buy Burners for 1 Reward Point each once after you have made your request for the day.

The option to use Burners will appear once you have failed a robbery.

Click on "Call For Backup" and you will get to redo the robbery with the assistance of one of your Top Mafia members.  This will add to your attack and make you stronger.  In the example below, the extra attack skills my Top Mafia member provided is in green next to my attack skills.

Because I used a Burner and turned this failed robbery into a success, I got a 9-0 board clear.  If your using the Burner for the purpose of a board clear, make sure you leave one of your easy properties to rob last.  If you rob all 9 properties before successfully using your Burner, you won't get a 9-0 board clear.  Use your Burner to fix a failed robbery and then finish robbing the board.

You can call for backup on as many failed robberies as you have Burners for.  In the example below, I had a really bad board and failed 4 robberies. Normally I would just forget about it and move on as I wouldn't want to waste that many Burners.

Before Burners

After Burners  

One Burner won't guarantee success and you can still lose when using them.  In the example below, I had to use 2 of them.  According to the Mafia Wars Wiki Burner Page, there is a cumulative effect when using Burners meaning that the second one will provide more of an increase to your skills than the first one.

I tested this out using multiple Burners on my very weak energy account.  8 Burners were used on the same property from the same person and the cumulative seemed to go off course after on the 4th Burner.

All of your Attack Boosts will be used when Robbing.  One of my mafia members sent me some Hollow Points which provide +100 Attack and I robbed forgetting that I had them.  I would have prefered to use them for fighting. It's sad that they didn't even seem to help much as the robbing equation seems to be a crap shoot.

I checked out the equipment I used by clicking on "Boost Used" and the Hollow Points were listed for all 9 robberies.  I think fighting and robbing boosts should be separate from each other and we should get decide when we want to use our boosts.  The moral of this story is to know what boosts you have as your best ones will be selected first.  It's not good to waste your attack boosts on robbing.