Cuba: Ruby Level Review

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As I'm sure you know by now, Cuba has officially reopened. Players who didn't get a chance to finish (or start) it will now have a little under two weeks to get the job done. Players who fully mastered Cuba will find a Ruby Level was added to all the jobs in each tier. New powerful loot items were added so you will want to spend the next two weeks in Cuba.

There are 6 Tiers in Cuba and a total of 50 jobs. I will only focus on the Ruby Level as this is an old destination and all the information has been covered. To all the details of the Bronze-Gold Levels, visit the Mafia Wars Wiki Cuba Page.  Here are all the Ruby Level jobs and their payouts and requirements.
(click images to enlarge)

El Soldado

El Capitan

El Jefe

El Patron

El Padrino

El Cacique

There aren't any jobs with great experience/energy ratios. All of the jobs with a ratio of 2.0 or greater require consumables.

Tier	Number of Jobs	Experience/Energy Ranges
El Soldado	10	1.71-1.79
El Capitan	8	1.81-1.87
El Jefe	8	1.86-1.93
El Patron	8	1.89-2.05
El Padrino	8	1.87-2.06
El Cacique	8	1.91-2.12

To get started in Cuba, find where you left off and start doing jobs. It was really nice to find jobs with reasonable energy requirements and it felt like I was actually playing the game as my energy wasn't gone in 3 or 4 clicks. The Old City Bonus applies to all jobs. Each Ruby Level job yields 3% mastery per click so it will take 34 clicks in total to fully master each job.  2X Mastery Boosts do not work on the Ruby Level of Cuba.

The job mastery percentages are much higher in the Bronze-Gold Levels and Old City Bonuses apply. Players who are just starting will have a much easier time.

The currency payout isn't much as bribes apply to each job. The bribe is always less than the job payout so you won't need additional Pesos to do each job.

To learn more about bribes, click on the help mark. Your job bribe is proportional to the amount of equipment you own so if you need Pecos to buy job equipment, sell the items you aren't using to reduce it.

Every job in Cuba will drop different types of loot. To find out what drops from each job, hover your mouse over the loot icon and an extensive list will appear. The items in each list will drop randomly.

They did forget to update one of these. You can see in the job "Pass On Some Intel To The FRG", the only loot item listed is the ASC45.

When you do the job you will find that other items drop as well.

The loot items that drop in Cuba include the old crappy items as well as some awesome new additions. Here are all the new loot items that will randomly drop while doing jobs in Cuba.  There doesn't appear to be a limit on how many of these items you can own.

Smoker

Old Cannon

Barrier Coat

Kit Vest

CM Tango

Seaside Runner

Renaldo

Cuban Tody

Goliath Grouper

Brown Anole

Six days ago, I posted a list of all the new Cuba items (1). All are accounted for except the Shelled Torso. In addition to the 10 items listed above, the Cuban Mercenary is a consumable, the Cigar Box is the mastery item, the Trigger Happy dropped from fighting while doing the Mission and the Sleet was the Grand Prize for completing the Mission. Maybe they just forgot to add the Shelled Torso or it will eventually drop even though it's not listed for any of the jobs. It does have the same stats as the Trigger Happy.

Loot drops in Cuba follow the same pattern we saw in New York, Moscow and Bangkok. The higher the level, the better the loot drop rates. If you vaulted the Lotto Set, it should also help you.

The big consumable which has replaced Politico Corruptos is the Cuban Mercenary. You still have all of your old Politico Corruptos but they are totally useless. Even players who haven't mastered the Bronze, Silver and Gold Levels of Cuba are now required to use Cuban Mercenaries.

Before

After

Cuban Mercenaries are easy to get. Bust out your energy accounts and start farming them. There are three jobs in which Cuban Mercenaries will drop. The first one is in the El Soldado Tier (the seventh job down) and costs 34 energy. Do the job "Establish Contact With The FRG" and Cuban Mercenaries will randomly drop.

The second job is in the El Capitan Tier (second job down). "Meet With The FRG Leadership" also costs 34 energy and has a better experience/energy ratio so this is the one to farm them on.

The third job is in the El Jefe Tier (fifth job down). "Help The FRG Steal A Truckload Of Weapons" costs 45 energy on the Ruby level so it's best to farm these from the 2nd job.

They are giftable so throw them on your wishlist and send the ones you farmed on your energy account to yourself.

You can also send and receive Cuban Mercenaries from the Free Gift System.

There don't appear to be any limits on how many you can accept so in theory you should be able to get 200 a day using this method.

You can also get Cuban Mercenaries from robbing. Each time you successfully rob a Bribery Ring you get one Cuban Mercenary.

If your Bribery Ring is fully upgraded to Level 30, you will get 31 each time you collect. You can collect on your Bribery Ring every 8 hours.

Five of the Cuba jobs will require Cuban Mercenaries. Since each job gives 3% mastery, it will take a total of 34 clicks to master each one of these jobs. Multiply the number of Cuban Mercenaries required by 34 to get the total number needed.

El Jefe Tier

1 Cuban Mercenary

El Patron

3 Cuban Mercenaries

El Padrino Tier

5 Cuban Mercenaries

El Cacique Tier

8 Cuban Mercenaries

El Cacique

1 Cuban Mercenary

The grand total of Cuban Mercenaries needed to completely master the Ruby Level is 612.

Job	Tier	# Of Jobs Required For 100% Mastery	Cuban Mercenaries Needed per Job	Total
Bring The Local Teamsters Under Control	El Jefe	34	1	34
Establish A LoanSharking Business	El Patron	34	3	102
Set Up A High Volume Smuggling Operation	El Padrino	34	5	170
Help Get An Associate A No Bid Contract	El Cacique	34	8	272
Meet With “The Russian”	El Cacique	34	1	34
Grand Total				612

You can ask your mafia to help you but this doesn't seem to do anything on the Ruby Level. I requested help on the "Assassinate An Opposing Consigliere" job.

I waited until enough mafia members clicked on the request.  When I returned to the job, there was no increase in mastery. The 3% increase shown below was from me clicking on the job hoping that would boost the progress meter.  I wasn't able to test this out on the lower levels as I've already mastered them.

It's still not a bad idea to post these as your mafia will get experience point(s) for helping.

When you master each job, you get a skill point. 

You also get one when you master all jobs in the tier. This is an opportunity to pick up 56 more skill points.

When you master all the jobs in all tiers, you get a mastery item called a Cigar Box. It has stats of 76/165.

You will also get the Return To Cuba achievement and another Skill Point.

There is no need to stop doing jobs once you master everything. The loot is too good to ignore. The best jobs to do are those that don't require consumables. The El Patron job "Eliminate A Rival Family's Agent" has a experience/energy ratio of 1.9459 and costs 37 energy.

The El Cacique job "Arrange A New York Drug Shipment" has about the same ratio of 1.9454 but costs 55 energy.  Until I do some drop rate comparisons to see if loot in the higher tiers drops more frequently, it would be best to do the job above as the ratio is slightly better and the energy cost is lower. 

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Article written by Jennifer Patterson, Creator of the MW Loot Lady Blog, The Mafia Wars Loot Lady Facebook Fan Page and Co-Host of The Informant Podcast. All material is protected by copyright law