As you can see from the timestamp below, I stopped updating this in June 09. From my server logs, I see that many people are still coming to this page. You should know that since Zynga is constantly changing the game, many (most) of this information is out of date. Take that as you will – z.

Last updated on 13 June 2009.

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Hi all, I decided to throw together this quick chart for the players of the Facebook/Myspace/Phone/Toaster game Mafia Wars after getting sick of trying to divide by prime numbers in my head and not finding sufficiently updated lists on other sites. Below you will see the loot drops and the experience points per energy point for all the jobs of the first seven tiers. I’ll update as I progress in the game.

If you are simply trying to maximize experience points, do the “Manufacture Tokens”, “Get Cheating Deck” & “Run Illegal Poker Game” jobs. This trio requires 36 energy and yields 63 experience, the best ratio I’ve seen so far in the game for lower levels. If you have less than 36 energy, the “Bank Heist” job yields a similar, but slightly smaller ratio. Once you reach Level 80, you will be able to “Muscle In On a Triad Operation”, which has a juicy 72/42 yield.

But the best use of this table is for choosing between jobs when trying to fill up mastery meters. If all your good jobs are filled (Bank Heist, Run Illegal Poker Game, Protect Your City”, etc.) and you are trying to figure out which lesser job will yield more experience, then just look it up on the table below.

The orange bars are jobs which yield loot drops which are consumable by other jobs. You will find yourself doing these jobs not for experience or mastery, but to fulfill requirements for other jobs that require these consumables. I’ve highlighted them so that they can be easily found and remembered.

The one time that you shouldn’t care about EXP/ENG is when you are about to level up. Get as close to the leveling up total as you can (if you level up at 7000 EXP, then try to get to 6999) Then simply find the job which you have the energy to perform that yields the highest experience points. Since experience points carry over to the next level, but your energy refills instantly, you can get some “free” experience points this way. If you are good at fighting, the boss fights grow in experience as you level up and can be a great way to get an edge on your next level up.

UPDATE: A commenter has clued me in that the values I stated may be after the Wheelman and Mastermind bonuses. In that case, you would need to add 6% more energy and subtract 6% experience. I could go through the table and update everything to be sans bonus, but everything would still be wrong for anyone with either bonus. Since these bonuses apply equally to each job, it wouldn’t change the rank order of preference for each. The only useful thing the bonuses would change is the XP/EN value. Use this table as a guide and then verify with your own situation.