Sorry for the lack of updates, but there was a lot of good comments going on the last post and I wanted to keep the discussion open as long as possible.

But now, back to the content. In this article, I will be discussing the jobs, loot, and strategies associated with Mafia Wars Las Vegas District 3: The Lower Strip

Jobs

This job tier actually has 3 different paths: fighting, energy, and social. The fighting and energy paths work just like they did in previous chapters. The stamina cost is intense; on the fourth level of mastery, one of the fighting jobs costs 96 stamina and only offers 3% mastery for a win.

You’ll need to spend over 3,000 stamina to master the job (and that is assuming you win every fight).

Loot

Pump Shotgun (weapon; 32 attack, 22 defense)

Classic Convertible (armor; 30 attack, 35 defense)

Motorcycle Helmet (armor; 22 attack, 32 defense)

El Escorpion (weapon; 40 attack, 30 defense)

These items drop randomly from any job.

Also, the “Buy some Black-Market Info” job drops the Alarm Code. The Alarm Code is a consumable required to complete the “Do Some Late Night Shopping” job.

“Convince a Restaurateur To Leave Town” job drops a Chef. The Chef is used to upgrade the Restaurant in your Casino.

Boss: Juliana ‘Black Widow’ Trieste

Wow, killing this boss is an absolute pain! At the Ruby level of mastery, she has 25,000 health and kills most players in 1 hit.

Here is the strategy I used to defeat her on Gold mastery:

- Engaged her in a fight.
- Asked for help.
- Spent all my consumables fighting her.
- Lost and healed up in Las Vegas (spending $V and not leaving the chapter)
- Repeated jobs in the same tier in order to get a few more Stun Guns

When I re-engaged the boss shortly afterwards, I got around 5,000 damage done to her by my Mafia and was able to just finish her off by re-spending my consumables.

It seems there are two key strategies here:

1) The “get help” function is buggy and seems to have potential to do a lot of damage. One of my Mafia members dealt Trieste 4,200 damage!

2) If you do not leave the chapter (as was suggested by an anon poster) and heal in Las Vegas, her HP seems to regenerate much slower.

As a result, you can fight her, use all your consumables, heal in Las Vegas, re-engage her and she will not have regenerated any health.

If you are really desperate to beat her, it seems that the “Get Help” function can be leveraged to deal a lot of damage. What you want to do is find a lot of your Mafia Members who are strong, have them online (will require some coordination), and have them help you out.

If you are having trouble doing this, ask random mafia members using Facebook’s built-in chat system.

Now, the key is to make sure all 10 people click it. If they all do it right away and they are all pretty strong players, it’s possible to deal 10,000+ damage to her outright. This way, you will have a much easier time beating her.

Additionally, if you save up a lot of $V, you can heal repeatedly in Vegas and fight her over and over again until she dies.

It’s a bit tedious, but that is the way it seems to have to work. Here are the rewards:

Trieste’s Pistol

Bronze – 85 attack, 58 defense
Silver – 101 attack, 75 defense
Gold – 113 attack, 85 defense
Ruby – 129 attack, 104 defense

—

oh, and a new fighting feature:

For some players (this is in beta and not live for most, yet anyway):

“Martial Law” has been declared and now fights are capped to 50 people. Here are the practical consequences:

1. Maybe one day you will not need to have 500 people in your Mafia to play this game (there is still all the social jobs, robbing, gifting, and other mafia-dependent events)

2. Random job loot is de-vauled, job mastery loot is more valuable. You probably won’t use random job drops at all with only 50 people, given all the job mastery loot, specialty items, and rewards from things like spinning the slots.

3. Another nerf to energy accounts who tend to have good items and bad stats.

My impression is that this is something that should have been implemented at release. It makes things more balanced, but it doesn’t necessarily make the game feel more meaningful and I am not sure what exactly it accomplishes.

It makes fighting accounts better at fighting (they won anyway), but I feel that there is still not a legitimate progression for fighting. The tournaments are a step in the right direction but need to be fleshed out more and be a lot less random and I think we will be making some good changes.

Since I have been getting a lot of e-mails on Episode 5 (and one topic in particular), I decided to skip over Episode 4 for now and cut right to the chase.

People want to know: how do I beat ‘Red’ Jackson on Ruby level?

A reader named Al shared his strategy with me for beating her:

Make sure your Top Mafia are good fighting characters. Do not use weak top mafia members (i.e. energy accounts). Test this out by attacking the boss once and seeing if you survive. If you are able to survive one round, you are good to go. If not, find some tougher top mafia members!

1. Load up with Shivs, Stun Guns, and Grenades (10 of each).

2. Attack the boss, and attack her one round.

3. If you survive (your top mafia members should be almost dead but not quite), proceed to step 4. If not, heal up and try again.

4. Use all of your Grenades.

5. Use all of your Stun guns.

6. Use all of your Shivs.

7. Attack until you die.

8. Re-arm with shivs, grenades, and stun guns. You need pretty much all 10 grenades and all 10 stun guns to make a re-attack worthwhile.

9. Repeat this process a few times (could take up to 5 rounds). The boss will heal some but if you are quick and do not leave Las Vegas it is doable. You may need energy packs and even have to spend reward points on energy in order to collect more items.

–

The Shivs really do go a long way towards defeating this particular boss. Each Shiv will hit the boss for about 40 damage, so you can knock off 400 of her 6,000 HP by using your Shivs. After you use all the Grenades, it will still take 5-8 stun guns to kill off all her helpers, depending on your strength. This only leaves you to get a few hits on her.

You really need some good attack strength in order to dent her HP. It can be really tough with an energy account and take you a lot of rounds to win. With a fighting account, it is just as tough if not harder because it is really hard to collect all the items you will need to take her down with a small energy pool!

With that said, for killing ‘Red’ Jackson you get her Motorcycle. Here are the stats:

Bronze: 107 attack, 73 defense
Silver: 120 attack, 92 defense
Gold: 138 attack, 105 defense
Ruby: 162 attack, 140 defense

Other Mojave Desert loot:

Bark Scorpion (animal; 50 attack, 30 defense)

Dune Buggy (vehicle; 41 attack, 35 defense)

Set of Biker Leathers (armor; 30 attack, 48 defense)

Bighorn Ram (animal; 37 attack, 42 defense)

Precision SMG (weapon; 42 attack, 30 defense)

Range Finder Rifle (weapon; 37 attack, 54 defense)

Mojave Mike (vehicle; 40 attack, 53 defense)

..and the “Rescue a Hotelier” job drops the Bellhop, which can be used to upgrade your casino.