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.

Do you know what clan is?

For Open for public clan, they accept anyone.. you can just become a member without any obligation to put a name tag in front of your mafia name. You can attack anyone even your own clan members.. The admin or GodFather of the clan only need high numbers of their mafia members, that’s it.

The transition to life after Moscow can be rough for some, I know, so I have put together a checklist of things you can do while waiting for Bangkok to come out:

1) Get the Lotto Collection – This is something everyone should do!

If you don’t have the lotto collection yet, get it. You can trade the highest quality Moscow loot pieces for lotto collection pieces on the official trading forums (called the “Gift Giving” forums for some reason).

Lotto pieces are currently going for 25-50 pieces of Moscow loot. I picked up the 6 of 8 pieces I needed for 188 total top-end Moscow loot pieces.

While this may sound like a lot, just remember Bangkok could be coming out within a week, at which point your Moscow loot will be worthless. If the developers do a rolling start like they did with Moscow, your Moscow loot pieces will still only be top dog for another month. Why not just dump them now while the stock is high, vault the lotto collection, and as a result make yourself able to collect Bangkok loot at a quicker rate?

I think the Lotto collection is grossly underrated, particularly for items that have a really low drop rate. The bonus, +10% item drop rate, is additive rather than multiplicative. Here is how it works:

Item A has a 5% drop rate (you will find it on 1/20 job times doing the job).

- By mastering the tier all three times, you get +10% drop rate. This brings Item A to a 15% drop rate (you will find it on 3/20 times doing the job).

- By vaulting the lotto collection, you get another +10% drop rate. This brings Item A to a 25% drop rate (you will find it on 5/20 times doing the job)

Just by having the lotto collection, you can get a huge increase in drop rates (in this example, 60%-300% drop rate increase), especially for rare items.

If you are playing multiple accounts, your highest level account with the largest energy pool should vault this collection.

2) Get the Money Laundering Collection – Something everyone should do, but only after vaulting the lotto collection.

While I understand the vault boost (-3% on banking fees) is only useful if you use the bank, odds are you are going to be using the bank a lot on Bangkok launch day, at least for the first two episodes. If money is anything like it is in Cuba (low totals), you might even use it a lot more.

You can get the money laundering collection pretty easily just by helping 5 friends launder money each day. You can then trade your excess collection pieces with friends or on the forums to complete your set.

If you’re really lazy or impatient, you can also trade high quality Moscow loot for money laundering collection pieces – usually 1-2 pieces of Moscow loot is enough to get money laundering collection items.

Extra Credit

If you already have the 2 collections listed above, here are three more things you can do prior to the release of Mafia Wars Bangkok:

1) For the most dedicated player: you can collect Faberge Hens and save them on a second account. You might have to trade for some of the eggs, though!

2) For those using Mafia Wars Blueprint: Get a collector account up to speed and save it for the release of Bangkok.

3) Call your mother. It’s the holidays after all!

Players who lack the ability to recruit new members will earn less money, lose more fights and have a limited amount of opportunities and bonuses to choose from as compared to successful recruiters.  It’s unfortunate because adding new members to your mafia is actually one of the easiest things to do!

Income Benefits

Mafia Mike’s provide players with the highest return on investment than any other property available in the game.  The catch is your ability to purchase this valuable property is dependent on the amount of people you have in your Mafia.  The more members you have the more Mafia Mike’s you can purchase.  And these properties cannot be robbed or attacked (a feature that is currently disabled by Zynga).

Also, the more members you have the more notifications you’ll receive for assists.  Assists are a type of alert you receive to help someone in your family with a job or a fight.  They can be quite profitable and help you level up faster because you receive bonus money and extra energy for each notification you receive.  Currently, players can participate in 25 assists per city per day.  In a nutshell, these are as close as you can get to receiving free money and free experience points!

Other Benefits

Simply put, “The more people you have the more powerful you are.”  Your top 501 players are used to determine your overall attack and overall defense ratings.  Therefore your chances to maximize these critical metrics are also a function of the number of people in your mafia.  If your numbers are high and someone attacks you, chances are they will not only lose the fight, but they will also lose money.  Their loss is your gain.  I’ve received $100,000 per attack when weaker opponents have tried to fight me and lost.

On the other hand, players with high attack ratings can also benefit from being the aggressor.  Winning not just experience points but a few hundred thousand dollars a pop sure can be fun!

So be sure to post your “Add Me” link to the various groups on Facebook.  Also, take advantage of the ability to send out “Invites” under the “My Mafia” section in your Mafia Wars control panel.

But, at some point (better earlier than later) you may want to get a lot more out of this game. Every time you move up a level, you unlock new jobs which requires additional loot items and other requirements. This means that in order to get the most out of your Mafia Wars experience, you’ll have to level up quickly to unlock as many items and bonuses as you can.

The Basics

But how do you do this? There are several things to keep in mind if you want to level up quickly in Mafia Wars. The most basic idea though is, if you’ve spent and used Godfather Points early on in the game on anything other than Energy, you’re not “Leveling Up” efficiently. Why?  Because when you increase your Energy you’re able to do jobs that give you more “Experience Points”.  And each “Level” is comprised of a certain number of Experience Points.  So, the more Experience Points you can gather the quicker you can “Level Up”.

Focus on Playing Smart

In turn, all your ‘Skill Points’ (five bonus points are awarded to players after each ‘Level’ is successfully completed) should go towards increasing your Energy.  Many novices use their skill points to build their Health or Stamina.  This is a mistake…if you’re trying to ‘Level Up” quickly, (NOTE: If you’re getting confused between the terms; GodFather Points, Experience Points and Skill Points; don’t worry!  We’ll elaborate on these terms later!).  So use your skill points to increase your Energy.  Period!

You should also let your GodFather points accumulate.  That is, do NOT use them early on in the game.  What does “early on” mean?  Well, let’s just set a somewhat arbitrary number and say that anything before Level 200 is too early.  Why?  It’s because it’s far easier to go from, say, Level 8 to Level 9 than it is to go from Level 200 to Level 201.  It’s far easier because the quantity of experience points needed to advance to each successive level grows as the game advances. Therefore, why use your GodFather points to max out your Energy early on in the game?  After all, you’re still getting the same amount of Energy after a certain amount of time elapses anyway.

Also, be careful WHEN you use your GodFather points and/or Energy Bonuses to replenish and max out your Energy.  For example, let’s say we have a scenario where you only need 2 more Experience Points to advance from one Level to the next AND you accept an Energy Bonus someone has sent you.  That would be a huge mistake because if you were to do that, you would have maxed out your Energy.  Remember, you only needed to acquire 2 more Experience Points to ‘reset’ and fill up your Energy.  So the best strategy, in this scenario, is to simply by do a job or initiate a fight.  Then…viola…you’ve replenished your health, energy and stamina!  So they are all full!  And, best of all, you still have your Energy Bonus and GodFather Points to use at a later time!!  So using Energy Packs or GodFather points too early is like robbing yourself of time and money!

Definitions:  SKILL POINTS can go towards increasing Health, Energy, Stamina, Attack or Defense.  EXPERIENCE POINTS are the points that make up a Level.  More and more Experience Points are needed to complete each successive Level.  A single GODFATHER POINT is acquired after successfully completing a Level.  Once ten GodFather points are earned, a player can ‘purchase’ an Energy Refill.

The Japanese Yakuza and Chinese Triads have battled for control of this city and country for years and you will be thrust into the middle of the conflict just as you were with the Vory and Mafiya in Moscow.

While the expansion is not live yet Zynga is giving you the ability to get your hands on the items that will be required to unlock the expansion.

Here is a quick reference for the items.

• Triad Coin – This item can be found in the New York Soldier Tier.
• Yakuza Sake – Find this item in the New York Hitman Tier.
• Thai Note – You can find this item in New York in the Enforcer Tier.
• Thai Passport – To get this item you will have to wait until the launch date.

I hope that they iron out all of the problems with the expansion before they roll it out. The Moscow expansion was released before it was ready and resulted in major changes involving earning R$ and the bribe penalties. Perhaps they have learned from their mistakes.

While the exact release date of Mafia Wars Bangkok is unknown it is probably best to get the items to unlock the expansion now and be ready. Good luck in Bangkok and look forward to up to date information as soon as it is available.

Both doing one job.
The differences are :

* One player has Step 1, but the other has Step 2 written there.
* The job description
* The Payout
* Energy requires
* Job Mastery
* The countdown timer. One player can do it every 8 hours and the other for 24 hours.
* The amount of UCPs, of course. First pic got 15 of UCPs, second player got 30 of UCPS.

Once you hit the mother load, you can then ask your friends to help you out. I am assuming that once 10 people help you out (like the other jobs), you will be able to collect the bonus pay (will confirm or deny soon).

See 3 items from these new collections :

MONEY LAUNDERING COLLECTIONS

Full collections :

It includes the following pieces: Money Iron, Dirty Laundry, Dryer Sheets, Money Line, Roll of Quarters, Death by Detergent, Dirty Bra.

The bonus for vaulting the collection is rumored to be +10% extra money from laundering, but that is still up in the air for now, as the collection was pulled shortly after it was put up.

Get the target off your back or you will be robbed in Mafia Wars!

The number one and easiest thing to help you stop being a target for robbing in Mafia Wars is to make sure you have enough family members. You definitely need at least as many family members as the level you are currently on. For example if you are on level 30 then you must have at least 30 family members. Robbers check the list for players on higher levels than their family count.

Don’t do unto others….Do not rob other Mafia Wars Players.

Simple – If you start robbing people, they will most likely rob you back!

Fight to win!

If a potential robber looks at your stats and sees that you have won many fights they will run and find a weaker player. One way to quickly build your fight win/loss status is of course to fight weaker mafias or a whipping boy. Check those stats and make sure they are weaker than your family then fight. Believe me you will be a lot less likely to be robbed if you have had tons of fights and only a few losses. The other way round and you become and easy target.

Hit list – do not be tempted to add someone!

If you put someone on the hit list your name goes on it too – Their family members will be itching to keep robbing you and higher level mafias will join in for the fun. Wait until your family is in the much higher levels and strong enough to risk putting someone on the hit list because they will be out for revenge.

Higher the level the less likely you will be robbed.

Players in the lower levels rob and are robbed more often than the higher levels. Mainly because in the higher levels it is just not worth the expense and time since jobs are much more rewarding. You therefore need to put your effort into moving up the levels and even think about not getting properties (except Mikes) until you are at least past level 70-80+ or can keep increasing your family to match your level.

Your family needs the best weapons, vehicles, and armor.

If your mafia family is weak on any of the above, you will become a target for robbing. Make sure you and your family has the best weapons, vehicles and armor that is available for your level. Do not skimp on these and take the time to do the jobs that earn you the cash to purchase them. A well defended and armed up family is everything and will surprise any robbers. Again, if you are not in a position to give your family the best then hold off buying the properties while you build up your bank.

Casinos are a robbers dream in Mafia Wars

Casinos are robbed more that any other building – make sure they are well protected at all times. Again, do not be tempted to buy them if you are not in a position to fully protect and insure them. Robbers love casinos owned by weak players.

If you follow the above information, you will greatly lower the risk of being repeatedly robbed in Mafia Wars. Work on getting that target off your back as soon as possible by making sure you have enough family members for your level and they are all well equipped.

An excellent resource for cheats and strategy in the Mafia Wars game is Mafia Wars Blueprint. Mafia Wars Blueprint guide is by far one of the best guides currently available and really stands up to the test. How do we know this? Because thousands of Mafia Wars players have purchased it, and unlike some of the other weaker guides available they are keeping it! Mafia Wars Blueprint has a 60-day money back guarantee and is available in pdf download format so you have it at your finger tips at all times.

Beginning the game

When I started this game, I had no idea what I was getting into. Or what an addiction Mafia Wars would become. You’re first given the choice of a name and character type. Don’t worry too much about your name. You could choose one to intimidate, or pick “Don something” like most others. Don’t bother trying to get “Godfather” – it’s taken. And if you do happen to choose wrong, you have the opportunity to change it later using reward points (visit the Godfather). For character type, the right one to set yourself up to level quickly is “Maniac.” Maniacs have energy that regenerates quicker, vs. Mogul which regenerates money quicker, and Fearless which regenerates health quicker. With the key to leveling quickly (and with less time/effort expense) being energy to do jobs, Maniac becomes the clear winner.

You are given some reward (Godfather) points starting out. Don’t spend these right away. As tempting as it is to spend them, get a good nest egg and reward yourself later. To level the quickest, only spend Godfather points each time you reach 10, and use them on an energy refill (after you are at zero energy and won’t waste the refill points, of course).

Building the base of your empire

Income. In the beginning your biggest concern should be making cash to build your empire. Start by doing some jobs.  At first concentrate on jobs that earn you money so that you can save up to buy some property. You’ll get some experience and will climb a few levels also, but the key here is to build a strong base so that you can level quickly and efficiently later on. Also do some robbing (in the “Fight” tab). But if you are not winning money from them do not continue to rob them. You’ll likely find this to be more effective than doing jobs (only at first) in making some quick dough. Once your nest egg is built, however, there will be no need to rob anyone as your hourly income from property that you will purchase will be more than sufficient to keep you going.

Properties. Once you buy a property (1 or 10) the cost of the next one(s) goes up. So to take advantage of the low cost of initial properties, only buy in quantities of 10. Be patient and save up; it will be worth the time. The only exception is Mafia Mike’s, which you can only buy in quantity of one since your ability to purchase it is dependent on Mafia size. Buy Mafia Mike’s as soon as you have 1)enough money to buy 10 abandoned lots and a Mafia Mike’s and 2)enough mafia to be eligible to buy them.

To get into the real nitty-gritty of buying properties, concentrate on saving up first for properties that give the shortest return on investment (ROI). To figure this out, add the cost of 10 lots required for your property to the cost of 10 properties and divide this total by the income this property will provide (don’t forget to multiply income by 10, as you will buy 10 of the property). The number you get is the number of hours it will take you to make back the total amount of money you invested in the lots & properties. You want this number to be as low as possible. I actually put together an Excel spreadsheet to prioritize which properties I needed to buy in which order, and I updated it each time property costs went up. I suggest you do the same. It’ll give you a moving queue of what to buy when you have the money to do so. (Note: Once I owned about 20 of everything, I found that the ROI was so long that I didn’t even want to bother. As long as you are making in the $15-20 million/hr. range, you are likely good to cover any ongoing upkeep charges you will ever have.)

Mafia. Starting out, DO NOT build a big mafia. To be effective in fighting you must be able to outfit all of your mafia with the best in weapon, protection, and vehicle. If your mafia is too big at first you will not be able to afford the inventory or upkeep associated with keeping them all outfitted. Instead, get yourself 6 mafia family quickly (for a total family of 7), as you can make them your top mafia and, if they put you in their top mafia then they can then supply you with energy packs (energy boosts they can send you every 24 hrs so that you can do more jobs). Your top mafia should be people who play often, and ideally that put you in their top mafia. And remember to buy all of the Mafia Mike’s properties that you can given your family size of 7. WARNING – be careful about buying your mafia family of 7 all of the biggest and best weapons, protection, and vehicles right away, as you may run yourself into debt. Note carefully the upkeep ($/hr) associated with each inventory purchase you make, and make sure you have plenty to cover that cost and still make a decent hourly income.

Profile points. Profile points are the points you get when you level up or master jobs. I would suggest dumping all of these into energy at first and ongoing. Here’s why:

• So to continue to get the most experience out of each profile point, concentrate on using them to do more jobs (energy) vs. becoming better at fighting (stamina, attack, and defense).
• Don’t bother to ever put profile points into health. Health only prolongs how long you can fight without visiting the doctor, but ongoing you’ll be making so much money that you’ll be able to afford the doctor as much as you’d like without issue.

• Profile points put into energy come directly back to you in experience points, in anywhere from a 1:1 to 2:1 ratio (experience per energy expenditure), depending on the job.
• Profile points put into stamina come back to you in an average of about 2:1 (experience per stamina expenditure), which is better than what you get for energy expenditure, but it costs TWO profile points to raise stamina by 1 (so the experience to profile ratio is only 1:1 ongoing if you put points towards stamina, vs. a continued 1:1 to 2:1 ongoing if you put points towards experience). In addition, to win fights you’ll need to throw profile points not just into stamina, but also into attack and defense. (Confusing, I know, but continue to reason this out and it’ll make sense.)

Daily gameplay strategy. Don’t ever let energy and/or stamina max out (ideally). If you do this you are never letting a point go to waste. But realistically you won’t be able to do this perfectly. So, each time you check into Mafia Wars, make sure you spend every energy and stamina point you have. The only exception is for energy. If you know that you’ll be able to check in again before your energy maxes out, and that if by saving points you’ll be able to do a better job (more experience for the energy point) or a job you still need to master, then by all means save some energy points. (My energy is now above 800, and never maxes out overnight, so I can usually even save a few at the end of the night to do better jobs in the morning.)

An advanced strategy for when you are close to leveling up is to use up most, but not all of your energy, saving enough to do a job you need to master (or just another good experience:energy job). Then, inch your way up to the next level by robbing, but stop when you are within 6 experience points of leveling up. Lastly, use up the last bit of energy you have to jump to the next level, and you will already have a jump on gathering points for your next level.

Energy pack usage. When you use an energy pack, it refills all of your energy PLUS another 25%. Therefore, to get the most out of every energy pack and never let an energy pack go to waste, only use energy packs when you are at Energy=zero, and ideally right after you level up and use up your energy that was refilled from the level-up. The only time I don’t wait to level up before using an energy pack is when I know that I can use up the entire energy pack without leveling up in the middle of that energy (and let energy points go to waste).

The hitlist. I’ve seen many folks claim that the hitlist can bring in some quick dough, but I never had any luck with it. You only need to be the last shot that brings one of these big guys down to pull in the bounty cash, but usually when there’s one on the list worth going after (say over $100,000 or so) you are one of many trying to bring him down and the odds aren’t with you. But, if you do decide to give it a go, my advice is to set a lower limit on the bounty dollar amount and only go after the ones where you can make that much or more, and only start attacking them after they’ve been on the list for at least a little bit (so that others have a chance to beat them down a bit – remember, you just need to deliver the last hit that brings them down in order to collect the bounty cash).

Now you’re rolling…

Once you get to the point in the game where you are making $15-20 million/hr you can really start leveling up in the game quickly.

How often to play. From what I’ve seen, you’re doing well if you can level up twice in one day (assuming you have not mastered all NY jobs and are not getting the 2 energy pts per regen period – once you get those you should be able to level up at least 3x per day and sometimes 4x). I typically need to check into the game just once/day and receive 1 energy pack/day to make this happen. I follow the strategies outlined above in “Daily gameplay strategy“ and “Energy pack usage” in my daily play.

Defending yourself. Even if you are not one to instigate fights or rob anyone in Mafia Wars, you will be attacked and robbed. But, there are many ways to defend yourself without putting profile points into defense. Here are some of those ways:

• Build a big mafia, if you can afford to outfit them all. Most players going out to pick fights or rob others are going to pick on the little guys. Big mafias are intimidating; if you have a big mafia, chances are you’ll get picked on less.
• Don’t put people on the hitlist or sucker punch them just because they attacked you, robbed you, snuffed you, or put you on the hitlist. Be the bigger person. Everyone needs to attack or rob others to make the most of their stamina points, so let them rob or attack you and be done. You’ve likely robbed or attacked them before anyways. Better yet, send them a friend request and add them to your mafia =)

• Always make sure your entire family is outfitted with the best weapon, protection, and vehicle. This will ensure you the best chance of winning a fight once someone picks it. The game will automatically choose from your inventory the best items first and will pick one weapon, protective item, and vehicle for each member to use in a fight. Don’t worry about selling items that aren’t good enough unless the clutter really gets to you or the upkeep charges are too steep. Note that many of the special items offered on the “Home” page are much better than the items in the “Inventory” page. Buy these when you can (when you have enough mafia), as they are a great deal, but don’t build your mafia family just to buy them.

Property upkeep. I’m not a big fan of this feature added February 2009, but just don’t forget to keep dumping money into your property so that they continue to generate the income that you need. You can even choose to “protect” your property by dumping a little extra into them. (It’s ok though, I needed something to spend my $10 billion + on…)

Mastering jobs. I do like this new feature added February 2009. It adds another way to get profile points (to dump into energy) and adds some variety to the jobs you do (I had only been doing the Hitman job “Exterminate a Rival Family” because it had an awesome payout of 70 experience for just 40 energy.) I’m only assuming that mastering these jobs and thus getting more experience points helps level quicker in the long run, but unbelievably enough I haven’t done the math.

There are all kinds of avenues to explore as you move through the levels in Mafia Wars.  Leveling up quickly gives you quite a few advantages, and it also allows you to go on and expand your mafia empire to other parts of the world.

Enjoy the game! How is your game doing?

If you are looking for the Ultimate Mafia Wars Level guide with specifics to get through the various Mafia wars levels, then you should check out the Dominate Mafia Wars guide– definitely gave me the edge after cluelessly messing around for weeks.

As you progress you gain experience that will build until you move up through the mafia wars levels which also allows access to new parts of the game. Your ultimate aim is level 600.

Experience points are gained by carrying out jobs, fighting and then honing these skills in Boss fights.

A brief over view of the first 100 Mafia wars levels that you will be faced with throughout the game with relevant experience needed to progress is as follows:

Top Mafia Wars Leveling Tips

There are only 3 ways to gaining experience:

1. Doing Jobs-When a job is completed, you will receive payment in the form cash, experience points, a bonus payment that is dependent on the the size of your mafia, a looted item/collection item, and a job mastery percentage.
2. Fighting-By engaging someone in a fight, you can earn between 1 and 3 experience points for each win and a cash reward if your opponent had money.   The good news is that if you loose, you will only loose money and not experience points.
3. Helping Friends-This is one of the easiest ways to gain experience because you will be compensated with both experience points and cash all at ZERO cost to you!

When you get close to leveling up,  find the job that gives you the most experience you can afford since all of the experience points that are not used to level up will be carried over to the next level.

Always think like a businessman and use up energy with the highest rate of return.  Let’s assume that you are only 79 points from leveling up and all you have is 48 energy points and you have 15 stamina points.  You need a job that gives you the highest return for that 48 energy points.   Now you found a job that gives you 39 experience points for 24 energy points. After you use this, you’ll only have 1 point left.   Use the 15 remaining stamina points.  Now it’s time to be a bully and pick on a weaker Mafia and fight until you win enough fights to get you to level up!  Combine your resources!  Fighting occasionally can be good for your health.

For the most part I followed the advice I gave in my original blog – I dumped most of my profile points into energy. When I first started playing, however, I didn’t follow this strategy because I didn’t know any better. This is why you’ll see I have a fairly well built-up attack, defense, and stamina.

MY REVISED STRATEGY since level 120-ish

The problem I’m running into now is that I have SO much energy that I am letting many points go to waste. For example, I’ll level up, use up all of my energy points, use an energy pack, but then part way through my energy pack I will level up again, having not even touched my stamina. Therefore, for now I have stopped putting all of my profile points into energy and have really started to build up, in this order:

1. defense

2. attack/stamina

3. health.

Build up defense first because high defense points help repel attacks, or help you not die and lose 6 experience points each time you die. Probably not the biggest bang for your buck (you’re likiely not losing a TON to getting knocked off), but don’t you hate being in the middle of fighting only to get iced and have to wait to heal at the doctor? Ugh…

Attack/stamina, which to me go hand in hand, come next in priority. If you’re going to use stamina to fight, you want to be good at fighting so you need high attack points. Also, if you followed my original strategy your stamina is likely always max’d out because you just don’t have much of it. So, you need to get your max stamina higher to allow points to continue to build up here while you’re away/asleep. (My energy NEVER maxes out except when I level up.)

Lastly, put some points into health. I HATE waiting for that timer that says I can heal again after getting health<20 while fighting, don’t you? So build up your health just a bit to increase the amount of time between heals. You should care less about paying to heal, as again money is a-plenty in this game in the higher levels if you’ve played your cards right.

In an ideal scenario, you’ll obtain enough energy and effective stamina (by effective, I mean you’ve also built your attack enough to gain on average 2 experience points per stamina point) to constantly level yourself over and over, possibly without even using an energy pack. I’m not sure if this is possible or not, but it’s something to shoot for, right?

I hope these tips have helped you out and I am sure if you follow them then you will have a Mafia to envy very shortly!

Use the charts below to see when you no longer need a particular item.

Required Weapons for Jobs

• (m) = Mafia Only
• (v) = Vory Only

Required Armor for Jobs

• (m) = Mafia Only
• (v) = Vory Only

Required Vehicles for Jobs

• (m) = Mafia Only
• (v) = Vory Only

I hope that this helps you find all of the best equipment for your Mafia Wars career.

The Mafia Wars Halloween loot weekend started as expected this morning. These are 8 limited edition items that drop randomly from any job in game. The easiest way to collect these is to do the “Mugging” job in the “Street Thug” tier. These have a chance to drop every time you do a job. You also have a chance to collect these during fighting.

In other happenings for Halloween we have been given a special Limited Time Job

Rob A Candy Truck

Completion of the job awards the following:

Treat Bag -  18 Attack / 15 Defense

All in all not too bad of an item, believe me there are worse items that come out of crates that you have to pay Godfather points for. The only catch to this job is that it can only be done once per day but each completion award 75% job mastery

Of course you can also get your hands on some pretty decent items just by doing jobs during the Halloween event. Here is a list.

Weapons:

Frankenstein Poker Chips: 22 attack, 10 defense

Fake Vampire Teeth: 34 attack, 15 defense

Laser Squirrel: 43 attack , 12 defense

Bloody Poker Chips:22 attack, 10 defense

Armor:

Monkey Brain Stew – 2 Attack / 27 Defense

YoZombie – 21 Attack / 18 Defense

Vehicles

Loney Plague Cow – 25 Attack / 15 Defense

Kraken – 24 Attack / 41 Defense

Dead End – 32 Attack / 20 Defense

I always look forward to holiday game events. Online Massively Multiplayer Games have always had some pretty interesting things from the events back in Everquest (which usually got me killed repeatedly) to the events that Blizzard holds in World of Warcraft. I am glad that Zynga has added holiday fun to Social Network Games as well.

The laser squirrel is the best item, tying the Ubijca Assault Rifle which is the best offensive weapon in Moscow. There appears to be no bonus for completing the set.