AOC - General Discussion II

[NativityInBlack]

Anyone surprised?

Conan Rules the NPD's Top 10
Age of Conan dethrones WoW and the Sims for the week of May 18-24.
by Jimmy Thang
June 3, 2008 - Courtesy of NPD:

1. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
2. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest
3. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Collector's Edition
4. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
5. The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff Expansion Pack
6. World of Warcraft
7. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
8. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
9. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack
10. Crysis

AoC may become a threat to WoW afterall.

Source: IGN: Conan Rules the NPD's Top 10

It's also outselling GTAIV in Europe. :>

IGN: Age of Conan Dethrones GTA in European Countries

fuck...

[Jabberwhacky]

The fact that a 4-year old game is still in the top 3 (and I assume it was 1 last week and most weeks prior) means that no, AoC is not a threat to WoW.

[Falmer]

Originally Posted by Man0warr

Do you PvP? Buffing up our combo skills is pretty worthless if you PvP alot, besides Crush Armor (Rupture feat). I have tested most the feats and for group PvE/PvP I pretty much just focus on survivability and keeping my group alive.

Might want to take spirit walker then, it's like 1% physical resistance per point for stone totem.

Edit: and no, I don't play on a PVP server. Are the battlegrounds in game atm? If they manage to make them half as good as WoW's were, I'll be in heaven.

@52

The Age of Conan Armory - Bear Shaman Feats

The 13 points in Wrath are pretty much necessity, if you PvE mainly you can put the 5 points in Animalistic Fury into Ursine Onslaught - but its cooldown is so long its a waste of points IMO. Animalistic Fury doesn't add damage to combos, just your white damage, but you won't be using those much in PvP anyways.

Spirit tree I pretty much took the feats that don't suck, Spirit of Venom, Rune of Slaughter, and Blood Champion are really bad. Pretty much have to get Ether Theft and its upgrade to keep going in the tree and avoid the bad feats.

Rune of slaughter is kinda bad, it's a filler talent. Blood champion is meh but at least it's not annoying to keep up. Ether theft is completely useless.

1 point in Balance of Nature for now for the added STA regen, maxing out Claws of Life right now (at Rank 5 @ 80 its amazing), then I will go back to Wrath to get Improved Grizzled Hide, Poisoned Hide, and Rupture.

@ 80

The Age of Conan Armory - Bear Shaman Feats

Might change later if they fix some of the end wrath feats, but right now Stone Hide feat is broken, and Nature's Revenge is lack luster.

Balance of nature is one of the best feats we have, one of the few that actually doesn't suck. Stone hide is broken - how?

Claws of Life sounds interesting - exact numbers on it, please?

[Falmer]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

The Age of Conan Armory - Bear Shaman Feats

This would be a good base to go from. A lot of the end feats are either broken or may as well be considering how weak they are.

After this, if you group a lot I would go down to Balance of Nature. It's great for your melee groupmates and allows you to turn off UR at times when soloing. If you just solo then you can find something else fun to play with.

This is about how my build will end up if I can ever stomach the grinding again: The Age of Conan Armory - Bear Shaman Feats

Can't imagine rabies being useful, how much damage does it tick for? Doubt it's gonna be meaningful when your combos are hitting for 4.5k non-crit.
Regrowth is probably just as bad compared to blood flow, but at least it's 30/60s up/downtime from what I've heard, and given how very few ways there are to increase your hps in this game, meh...

[Twobit Whore]

Rabies is decent damage, but the problem is there just isn't jackshit in the tree worth getting to open up deeper talents.

You could always swap it for RoS which sucks, or Blood Fever which is no better.

[Fratley]

So for the last hour...
Zero stamina regen in and out of combat, only pots and abilities that provide stamina replenish it
3 10x stacks of vengeance (yeah, that was awesome at least)
running 10 ft drains an entire bar of stamina
permanent frenzy stance

Patch please?

[Kodylan]

The impressive thing is that the CE is actually in the top 10. Then again, WoW: Battle Chest, WoW, and TBC are all in the top 10 as well.

[castarocks]

i got to 73 on my POM and lost the will to login. Can't put my finger on it - maybe it was due to the people i rolled up with going back to wow or the lackluster loot. Just can't find the draw just yet.

I am sure the first or second update will get me back in but as of now its not matured enough to keep me logged in.

[Man0warr]

Claws of Life sounds interesting - exact numbers on it, please?

Rank 5 @ 80 (it scales) it adds something like 120 to natural hp regen, plus it gives mob a debuff that heals attackers for 30 hp or something.

Ether Theft isn't that bad, the damage scales all the way to 80 and its a 2-hit combo with a fast animation.

Manifestation: Rabies is really good for popping stealthers.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Kodylan

The impressive thing is that the CE is actually in the top 10. Then again, WoW: Battle Chest, WoW, and TBC are all in the top 10 as well.

And lotro/eq2/vg/etc..etc...nowhere to be found. Hoho!

It'll be definitely interesting to see what happens to AoC subs whenn WOTLK comes out though. If it can weather that storm it may actually have the ability to keep growing in numbers instead of dwindeling off like all others.

[Goliath]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

And lotro/eq2/vg/etc..etc...nowhere to be found. Hoho!

It'll be definitely interesting to see what happens to AoC subs whenn WOTLK comes out though. If it can weather that storm it may actually have the ability to keep growing in numbers instead of dwindeling off like all others.

I have no doubt that WotLK will annihilate all subscription bases for all other games. It'll be worse than TBC because the frozen tundra is more home to WC3, unique and also with a new class. That and the fact that all dungeons will be 10 or 25 man. WotLK will be like the second coming. It'll be crazier than original WoW and worse than TBC (remember it sold out everywhere?)

After about six months the WotLK excitement will dwindle and an AoC expansion will come out. It will experience a burst of subscriptions and then level out over another six months finally settling at about ~800k-1m subscribers. Still impressive.

[spronk]

I hope they decide to focus on PVP instead of trying to mix PVE and PVP, its really made wow a bit shitty trying to balance all of it.

I was just watching Method's KilJaeden kill video, damn such an amazing looking fight with technical complexity and personal responsibility, and awesome "atmosphere". Great PVE stuff, you know WOTLK is gonna be even better. Ran Atzel 6 man earlier today (mentored up) and it was such a snooze fest. Aoc PVE just reminds me too much of molten core, stand around spamming abilities and you can watch TV at the same time while your screen basically turns into a big white light of spell effects. Either a pull is super easy or your group dies quickly, theres not much of an in-between challenge.

By contrast AOC PVP I find quite fun and far, far, far superior to WoW especially in group tactics/combat/world PVP, although WoW has nicer organized BGs/arenas. I really hope Funcom figures out a way to constantly update PVP without turning it into another loot min/max game like WoW. Sadly the fact that they are mentioning the addition of PVP loot makes me think its gonna turn out the same

I'm another one of those who has hit 50+ and is just not that thrilled about logging in anymore, I just hang out in vent while playing xbox/tf2/dota and if someone mentions they are setting up a grind/instance group I'll login for a bit. Oh Cannibal Caves, i can navigate you blindfolded now.

[Eida]

What class would duo best with a bear shaman on a pvp server? I'll be starting tomorrow and my buddy is BS.

I was leaning towards going Guardian or HoX but have no idea about any synergy between BS and them...

[Jabberwhacky]

Well BS is already squishy as hell so a HoX may not be ideal. You'd want another melee though, so Guard or Conq or maybe even Barbarian would be nice.

[Elerion]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

You could always swap it for RoS which sucks, or Blood Fever which is no better.

I missed the memo that said a 20% straight dps boost that can be turned on and off instantly and at will sucks. Yeah, that's blood fever. Just stance dance to untamed whenever your stamina or mana drops below 50%.

Blood Champion is also a straight 4,5% dps boost at no penalty, but it's a bit of a pita to click it all the time. Will probably pick up Autohotkey to emulate G15 capabilities soon for stuff like that. Still, it's a very decent talent.

Stone Hide isn't bugged, unless they bugged it in the June 2 patch.

This is what my current spec looks like. The only points that aren't "good" are the final 6 in Spirit. Iron Hide is ridiculously hard to use right (but is probably good if you do), and the effects of Blood Healing seem very underwhelming.
Age of Conan Feat Calculator | Bear Shaman Feats