Mafia Wars New York Guide - Part 1

New York is the most important city to master as soon as possible. Unlike Cuba and Moscow, the rewards for tier masteries give all around bonuses to your character, and the earlier these bonuses start rolling for your character, the stronger will your character be in the long run. The loot found in New York jobs is pretty bad compared to Cuba and Moscow, however.

New York has one special job, a boss fight, for each of the first four tiers. Boss fights will award exp depending on your max energy. They will give MaxEnergy / 2 amount of exp when killed for the first time, and (MaxEnergy / 5)*1.4 for consecutive kills so a smart move would be to save the boss fights for later levels when the exp really counts.

All numbers assume 11% mastermind, -11% wheelman, 15% bagman and private island (5% exp).

Street Thug (Fully unlocked by level 4)
Total energy to master first time: 197
Total energy to master second time: 225
Total energy to master third time: 260
Total energy to master fully: 682
Best exp payout job: ‘Auto Theft’, 1.333 exp/energy
Best money payout job: ‘Collect on a Loan’, $1140/Energy
Special item reward for full mastery: Pistol Bayonet, +4% damage dealt in fights
Collections: Diamond Flush, +1 Energy

The total energy cost for mastering Street Thug is so low that the minimal effort is worth it for the 21 skill points alone. The special item reward is also essential for people who want to collect bounties on the hitlist. Most jobs in this tier pay 1 exp per 1 energy spent, which is fine for the very early levels but will hurt you at later levels if neglected.

Money payouts are nothing to write home about but the money gained doing jobs is more than enough to buy the required items to do all the jobs.

Associate (Opened at level 5, fully unlocked by level 8 )
Total energy to master first time: 340
Total energy to master second time: 371
Total energy to master third time: 437
Total energy to master fully: 1148
Best exp payout job: ‘Bank Heist’, 1.875 exp/energy
Best money payout job: ‘Rough Up Dealers’, $639/Energy
Special item reward for full mastery: Roadster, -7% damage taken in fights
Collections: Heart Flush, +5 health

Like street thug, associate tier is a low energy cost tier and that means more effortless skill points. Associate tier also offers a very good exp/energy ratio job ‘Bank Heist’ which can be used in the early levels for fast level ups. The money payouts are interestingly a lot lower than in Street Thug, the best paying job in Street Thug is almost twice as much money per energy than the best paying job in Associate.

The reward for associate is much better than most people think, less damage taken means much better hitlist rides and more fights done with a full health bar. Like Street Thug, try to get this tier mastered as soon as possible.

Soldier (Opened at level 9, fully unlocked by level 12 )
Total energy to master first time: 494
Total energy to master second time: 549
Total energy to master third time: 642
Total energy to master fully: 1685
Best exp payout job: ‘Clip the Irish Mob's Local Enforcer’, 1.625 exp/energy
Best money payout job: ‘Museum Break-in’, $3420/Energy
Special item reward for full mastery: Golden Skull, -30 seconds health regeneration timer
Collections: Boxing Gear, +3 attack skill; Club Flush, +3 attack skill; Sculptures , +3 defense skill ;Poker Chips, +2 attack skill

Soldier tier has the most amount of different collections available. You will not get all these collections just from mastering the tier and they might take a lot of farming even after mastering the tier, I would suggest trading for the missing collection pieces.

The tier mastery reward is completely worthless as health is refilled fully in hospital and hospital can be used every 60 seconds. However, soldier tier still awards 21 skill points for a very low amount of energy spent mastering it, so for that reason it should be mastered as early as possible. Many of the jobs are still 1:1 exp/energy ratio and the earlier tiers have higher priority so when you start mastering soldier these ratios will sting a bit.