Mafia Wars Defense Rackets

Defense rackets are one of the 4 tiers in the new rackets system. At the time of this posting, there are 3 rackets available.

Each racket rewards 3 boosts (4 boosts if the tier is mastered) unlike the job rackets which only provide 2-3 boosts. With that said, here are the defense rackets:


Garbage Dump (master this to unlock Scrapyard):


Cost: 17 Influence
Time until completion: 44 hours
Reward: Boxer x3 (4 if racket is mastered): +38 fight defense
1 Experience Point
7% Racket Mastery (only shows 2% in picture because it was the last 2%)


Scrapyard (master this to unlock Toxic Waste Dump):


Cost: 38 Influence (I think - influence does not show in above screenshot since I was way over the cap)
Time until completion: 44 hours
Reward: Boxer x3 (4 if racket is mastered): +65 fight defense
1 Experience Point
4% Racket Mastery



Toxic Waste Dump


Cost: 128 Influence
Time until completion: 44 hours
Reward: Mr. Hot Sauce x3 (4 if racket is mastered): +100 fight defense
1 Experience Point
2% Racket Mastery



My Take

The defense rackets are a bit disappointing to say the least. Mr. Hot Sauce is actually a boost that could make a difference (+100 fight defense is significant), but at the cost (128 influence!) and the time investment (44 hours) for simply 3 boosts, this simply does not strike me as being worth it. The 128 influence requirement is the deal-breaker for me; you would actually have to point a significant number of stat points into influence to reach this requirement (even if you were going beyond your normal total by collecting influence rewards to push you past your cap, mentioned in the main rackets section).

Personally, I would rather not put 100 points into influence and instead put 100 stat points into defense - that way I would have + defense for every time I am attacked rather than just a few times every couple days.

I think to remedy the situation, influence should be a forced stat (i.e. unlocked by doing something in the game) rather than a stat you can freely put points into. For example:

- Give us +1 influence every 5 or 10 levels (if it was 1 influence every level, it would just reward power-levelers and energy accounts)
- Give us +1 or 2 influence for doing achievements. This would make getting these more worthwhile!
- Give us +1 influence every time we win 1,000 fights
- Give us +1 influence every time we help 100 friends

Additionally, offer +10 to max influence for 10 godfather points.

Just my 2 cents!