Building Items and the Chop Shop, Zoo, etc.

As a high-level, every day player I build items every day and cringe when people send me ammunition. Analysis shows that almost any item that you build is dwarfed by the skill points you get while building, so many items are more deceptive marketing than attractive for game playing. I'll cover the few exceptions here to this as well.

Analysis shows that every skill point you get is worth about 20 points of improvement in attack or defense. If I buy six skill points from Zynga it's like getting 120 points of improvement. By improvement, I mean that if my total attack skill is 100,000, a 120 point improvement brings it to 100,120.

The following picture looks like it offers great ideas to buy. However, these items offer really good stats but few skill points. Personally, these add about 4 points to my total fighting skill. Which one do I build? Neither. I build the +6 attack, +6 defense, +6 energy or +6 stamina cars - any are worth 120 points of improvement.

Who should build these? If you have a low-level chop shop build them. If you have very low-end items build them. But keep in mind, too, that skill points are always useful and items are worth less and less constantly.

A year ago Cuban items were very valuable and Russian items seemed priceless. Now items with a 42 attack seem like "junk", that no one would by, compared to the items that you can get from any mission.

People who collect items for the sake of collecting them also might build them - to collect every item in the game there are lots of items!

So are any of the new items worthwhile? I am about to build my first. The Giant Octopus!

Why the Giant Octopus? It offers +3 stamina. That is comparable to the shark and other +3 items.

The astute observer should ask "why don't you build the +10 health items if they are worth that much more?!?!?" The answer: I don't build "health". Health is useful for people that ride the hitlist intentionally (I don't) and for some boss fights. A high health, though, means you take that many more hits - and if you aren't careful lose that much more money - when people using tools like "brawler" attack you!

Happy hunting and building!