AOC - General Discussion II

[Mkopec1]

Originally Posted by Loco

It's really not worth it right now, but I wanted to make my bare system last for about the next 5 years. The faster DDR3 will start outperforming DDR2 due to the massive bandwidth it has. I figured it would only go down in price over time and having a DDR3 motherboard would be worth it in the long run.

Good luck with the 5 yr plan. Anyways, I have found that upgrading with current is way more cost and performance effective than getting some new features which are off the wall expensive.

So I upgrade my shit with current stuff now, and 3 yrs down the line I upgrade again, and my shit is faster and more current, and cheaper than the stuff you bought today to last you 5 yrs.

[Dashal]

Most offensive tank = Conqueror?

I'm looking for a survivable offensive melee character. A character that can tank in groups but is more of an off tank/DPS hybrid. A toe to toe type fighter. Is Conq a good choice or are one of the other tanks (or a Barbarian) better suited for that role?

[Hasto]

Originally Posted by Dashal

Most offensive tank = Conqueror?

I'm looking for a survivable offensive melee character. A character that can tank in groups but is more of an off tank/DPS hybrid. A toe to toe type fighter. Is Conq a good choice or are one of the other tanks (or a Barbarian) better suited for that role?

Barb = Not a Tank

I have a 45 Conq right now. Decent DPS especially with the aura's and ability to switch back and forth between Defensive/Frenzy stances. In defensive stance, just keep you stamina up and you never die. In a group, you are still putting out decent DPS in defensive stance and should be able to hold aggro of all mobs. I am thoroughly enjoying it.

[whatsamattau]

The lack of quests available for players in the 50-80 level range has not been given enough attention. For those who are unaware, there are enough quests in that span of the game to get you through just a handful of levels. If you want to get your character to 80, you have to spend a lot of hours grinding mobs for that EXP.

I just don't see how this could happen. It doesn't fall into the "It's release, give it time" category. It's just plain unfinished. Other games have their quest "gaps", but this is atrocious and borders on neglect.

I say this with the feeling that, as far as quest systems go, AoC has the best of all the games on the market. I want to finish the leveling, I just can't and won't do it grinding mobs.

Has developement addressed this in writing? I'm just curious if there are any plans to add more in the near future. If not, then the free month that came with my game is going to go largely unplayed.

[Ailu]

Talked to a friend who works in a game store yesterday. She said there is an increasing amount of young kids coming in with their parents asking for 'the new cool warcraft game'. AoC is doomed!

[r.gun]

Oh trust me, if you heard the Tortage OOC chat you would have known this long ago!

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by whatsamattau

The lack of quests available for players in the 50-80 level range has not been given enough attention. For those who are unaware, there are enough quests in that span of the game to get you through just a handful of levels. If you want to get your character to 80, you have to spend a lot of hours grinding mobs for that EXP.

I just don't see how this could happen. It doesn't fall into the "It's release, give it time" category. It's just plain unfinished. Other games have their quest "gaps", but this is atrocious and borders on neglect.

I say this with the feeling that, as far as quest systems go, AoC has the best of all the games on the market. I want to finish the leveling, I just can't and won't do it grinding mobs.

Has developement addressed this in writing? I'm just curious if there are any plans to add more in the near future. If not, then the free month that came with my game is going to go largely unplayed.

While I'd usually agree, we found that grinding is fine if you do it in groups. You can mentor all your low levels, and do full groups or even raids and xp there. It's still grinding, but grinding in a group is way less boring. Also, on PvP servers, every now and then you get these cool events where some random guys will spawn with weird names and start killing your mobs. You then kill them and camp them for 10mins until they leave. Sure is a nice event, if they weren't so terrible you'd almost think they'd be players.

We took our lvl 29 into atzel fortress earlier, he gained 19levels in like 2hours. We had 8people there too, in a raid, and half was under lvl 60.


Overall, it's not that bad, unless you full solo, especially as a shitty grinding class(aka stuff that can't chain AE down packs of mobs, and even then it's shit compared to tos and pom soloing). It's still not THAT MUCH xp, we're far from shitty EQ(yeah I said it) where it took you 12hours to gain a level, and dieing once would set you back 6hours. On my HoX, which would solo 2-3mobs at once max, with a bit of bandaging every now and then, I could do levels in 1h30 each. Mix every levels with a few quests, and it's a decent grind.


Oh and I'm not defending funcom, it's a shitty move, they nerfed xp back in february during beta, and they didn't add JACKSHIT to compensate for the new lack of quests. Even before the xp nerf, there were lack of quests for certain level ranges, so with like, 1/2 more xp needed after 50, you see why they end up with so much grinding. In a way you can wonder if they don't promote it though, those big ass camps with 17mobs that aggro you when you pull on a 5mins respawn, that definitely doesn't look like solo questing content. But I found the grinding enjoyable when I do it with my guildmates. At least on a PvP server

[Big W Powah!]

God damn I still can't figure out what class to play.

I enjoy HoX, and Bear Shaman, but I'm frustrated as hell with the squishiness of both of 'em. I haven't played the Conq or DT much, but they interest me.

Which is the better utilitarian melee?

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Big W Powah!

God damn I still can't figure out what class to play.

I enjoy HoX, and Bear Shaman, but I'm frustrated as hell with the squishiness of both of 'em. I haven't played the Conq or DT much, but they interest me.

Which is the better utilitarian melee?

Conq by design, but for PvP it depends. Their autorez shit is pretty bugged and once it gets nerfed, DT ends up with some pretty awesome crap. AE stun AE fear and the group lifetaps/heals and aura, pretty nice. Conq still get all their stamina regen/run speed/invuln stuff, so yeah, might depend on what you feel like playing.

I'd say Conq is more squishy than DT though, since DT is board+shield and conq is 2h(or DW, which seems to suck anyway).

[Cybsled]

1) Weren't casters supposed to be different? I remember reading when they released information about classes that casters were going to be able to mix spells or something like that and the more they casted the more corrupted they would become. What ever happened to that?

2)Are they planning to implement the bar fights that they talked so much about during beta?

1) AFAIK they got rid of the insane-caster mechanic. As for mixing spells, there is spell weaving in game. You get it at 50. However, it's pretty useless in normal PVP since you are totally vulnerable while doing it....it's basically a raiding thing.

2) No clue!

[Big W Powah!]

Originally Posted by Pyros

Conq by design, but for PvP it depends. Their autorez shit is pretty bugged and once it gets nerfed, DT ends up with some pretty awesome crap. AE stun AE fear and the group lifetaps/heals and aura, pretty nice. Conq still get all their stamina regen/run speed/invuln stuff, so yeah, might depend on what you feel like playing.

I'd say Conq is more squishy than DT though, since DT is board+shield and conq is 2h(or DW, which seems to suck anyway).

Thanks. Let me ask you this, before i give up on the bear shaman though; Are they any good at pvp higher up? Cause I get focused and one shotted too damn much trying to level right now, heh.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Big W Powah!

Thanks. Let me ask you this, before i give up on the bear shaman though; Are they any good at pvp higher up? Cause I get focused and one shotted too damn much trying to level right now, heh.

I can't have an objective vision of classes in pvp, because currently I've only played a HoX at 60+(PoM to 60 too), and just hit 70 today. What I know however, is every bear shaman we've met, was only useful for their AE stun/knockback stuff. After that they drop dead in seconds at best, and their dps is, from what we've seen, way too low. They tend to get on me, with a guardian or conq, and they can't kill me. Only times I die is when the ToS and demonos and stuff all focus me at once from range, but I move around too much for melees to hit me, or should I say, for bad melees to hit me. I hit running people all the time though(well 50-60% of the time ^^)

I heard they're better at 75 or something, why, I'm not sure, but that's what I've read before.

One thing to consider is my vision of PvP might be very skewed. We all come from pvp backgrounds, so we're pretty much all very good at playing(at least much better than the idiots we fight 90% of the time), we're all speced decently, and my usual group is DT, HoX(me) and 4-6 ToS. DT AE CC and call the assists in frenzy stance, the ToS one shot people left and right by using the charged big lighting stuff and I usually go and pick up the smart people that don't run into the ToS pulsing AE range(demonos rangers necros and sometimes the healers). We beat pretty much any team, because of the insane burst and the decent CC, and the fact coming into range of one of our healers put you into range of all the other storm crown/whatever it is that pulse AE. People in melee range constantly take 400dmg/s or something stupid like that. The only way people have found to kick us out of the leveling spots we take from them is bring their allies(aka 2 full groups), even though they're usually all 70+ and we only have me at 70 and one Tos at 70+, rest being 50-60 mentored players.

We'll keep laughing until the ToS nerf I guess ^^.

[UnchainedAcolyte]

So is anyone playing/have an alt on the RP/PvP server?

Just curious for an impression of the immersive of the single player and MMO levels of lore and RPG elements within the game.

My rig would be on the lower end of the spectrum, but if the lore and immersion are good them I'd be willing to give it a try.

Feedback on depth of quests, world/lore info, interesting NPCs/dungeons/regions and so forth would be great.

[Surlok TP]

Originally Posted by Pyros

I'd say Conq is more squishy than DT though, since DT is board+shield and conq is 2h(or DW, which seems to suck anyway).

DW sucked for all of a week before people started to figure out how offhand works and +to hit and what not.


With equivalent quality weapons DW blows 2 hand out of the water in DPS and is far less Stamina intensive. It lacks burst and CC, so in PvP 2h is nicer for the knock backs and such, but for PVE 2h doesn't even come close. Once you start into the Carnage feats improving your offhand attacks and bleeds your DPS skyrockets.

What I have been doing on my Conq is hitting mobs with the 3 bleed combos,then if I want I can just sit back and randomly mash the directional attacks till the mobs are dead as my Bleeds do a ridiculous amount of damage .If I have 4 or 5 even con mobs I'll hit them with the bleeds and then swap in 2 hand and knock them down,switch to frenzy and hit guard/fient to boost Defense and start the counter attacks from guard then swap back to DW and use the damage combos. I have mostly the defensive abilities from the gen tree and the rest Carnage I am able to solo Boss type mobs 4 levels above me now without needing potions.

2 hand is to stamina intensive, it's good for a quick couple ocmbos but it'll eat half your stamina bar, I find gearing defensively allows me to sit back and control the fight alot better via dot's . I take little damage and I have long term combo ability due to less stamina required allowing me to DPS for more,longer.


The few times I PVPed I still used this route, though If charge was up I'd charge in with frenzy up and batter whoever I was attacking then hit feint/Guard on them while they are knockdown then swap to defensive/DW and start bleeding them out. my best so far doing this was a pair of Barbs at the same time and they didn't even get me down to 75%. I get all these Dots going plus I have two Damage shields and the various counter attack feats. So it works out well.

[Jabberwhacky]

Originally Posted by Pyros

I'd say Conq is more squishy than DT though, since DT is board+shield and conq is 2h(or DW, which seems to suck anyway).

This might not necessarily be true. I'm not extremely experienced but I have a 21 DT and 25 Conq. At 20, the Conq got Guard of Dancing Steel, which adds +5 shielding. Level 20 wolves (entrance of Connal's Valley) hit for 36 without this buff and 29 with it up, every single time, no variance. I perused the broker for shields and while I don't remember the exact value, I remember a level 80 shield still having single digit +Shielding value. I know that 10-19 shields have 2 shielding and 20+ have +3 shielding, so at least in that range, Conqs are better off.

This is neglecting the defense rating, but until there's some real numbers showing the effectiveness of DR, I find it to be totally useless. Shielding, on the other hand, is really, REALLY noticeable in the mitigation department. I know Conqs get higher levels of Guard of Dancing Steel but I don't know how high the value of +Shielding goes, so that's something to consider too.

The buff is very easy to keep up; if memory serves, the CD on the combo is just 10 seconds and the buff lasts for 20 seconds. I'm not saying Conqs are the best tanks, just pointing out the huge increase in mitigation Shielding adds. Course, DT's avoid this altogether because who needs mitigation when you're sucking out the other guy's life.