Tips

AKA Age of Boobage - The Stabbening

Tips

Postby Monster on Thu May 22, 2008 11:45 am

http://www.atomicgamer.com/article.php?id=568

You might be green in the world of Hyboria, but some things will likely seem familiar to you - especially if you've recently been in another world called Azeroth. Age of Conan definitely breaks away from the stereotypical MMORPG, though, and we're here to show you a few early tricks to get you ready for the big bad world of lamentations of the women.

Melee is different


If you've been in the game, you'll quickly realize that melee combat is totally different in Conan. Early on it might not make sense to use the combos that you start picking up while you're on the beaches of Tortage, but get used to using them: the later in the game you go, the more powerful these combos get compared to your regular attacks. Get used to being able to pump out one combo after another in succession, and learn how to plan it so that you finish with a combo rather than do one big one and have the enemy left over with a sliver of life. Not only will combo finishes be more efficient, but they can also lead to seeing more of the game's incredible fatality moves.

Skills, stats, and feats

Much like WoW, feats are permanent abilities that you can put points from leveling into. You get your first Feat at 10, and then one there after until level 80. Stats work just like in Blizzard's game, too, in that you don't actually put points into them - they're there and you can increase them with gear, but otherwise you are not directly affecting them. Skills are unique, and these allow you to build secondary abilities, many of which all classes have, that will help you shape your character. Consider these carefully, but also know that you can Alt-click a skill and reset it. It'll cost you a bit of money, though. Still, think about these skills and don't be afraid to throw some points in. Skip the one that allows you to run faster, though. You can put hundreds of skill points into that and not be able to see a difference.

Using Stealth

Hide is an ability that, unlike most MMOs, is given to all classes in Conan. Only the rogue classes can move while hidden without losing stamina, but that doesn't make it useless for you - but it's especially useful on a PvP server when you see someone coming that will likely kill you. If you stealth before they see you, they'll have no reason to even know you're there, but if they did see you, they might try to use their Search ability to expose you. Still, hiding is a valuable skill that you should seriously consider on almost any character.

Sell Often

Money is very hard to come by in Age of Conan. By level 40, the level that you can use a mount, you will have nowhere remotely near enough gold to buy one. For this reason, you need to work at it and go and sell your stock of stuff often. You won't get a lot of money for pretty much anything you pick up in the whole first half of the game, but keep at it.

Multi-step combos

Before level 20, melee characters will get their taste of their first multi-step combo. These require you to hit more than one attack in a sequence. It's important that you learn how these work and figure out what breaks a combo - movement, a short delay, finishing the combo on a second opponent instead, that kind of thing. This will help you keep up your fighting efficiency when fighting a few enemies at once, and it really can mean the difference between killing them all or just dying outright before even one of them goes down. Experiment on weaker enemies and learn how to use multi-step combos well.

Spellcasting

Priests and Mages will be doing most of the spellcasting in Age of Conan, but you will find quickly that their styles are a little different. Heralds of Xotli are a mix of melee and caster, but Demonologists and Necromancers will spend much of their combat time buried in their cast bar. You'll need to figure out how to best maximize your time casting without getting hit - that may mean taking out the weaker melee enemy before taking on the more powerful caster, and if you're having trouble, it might mean doing that and then hitting Sprint and running away until the remaining guy resets - then go and take him on alone. As someone who can take out enemies quickly from range, this sort of "pick them off then run" strategy does work well on tougher foes. And since your Stamina bar isn't really used for anything but sprinting, always keep your sprint in mind when in a fight.

Learning to Heal

You will quickly find out that healing in Age of Conan is vastly different than in other games. Instead of big single-target heals and weak group-based ones, your most powerful heals are group-oriented and are sometimes limited to firing in a cone effect in front of you. Anyone who's new to the game needs to understand that healers have a totally different role in Conan than in other games, so they need to not run off and then expect a heal when they're 15 yards away. Your role will be to best maximize healing on your whole group, too, as this game often will have your whole group taking damage at once. "Tank and spank" is much less prevalent here than one might expect at first, so if you've ever done PvP, fighting against monsters in this game plays a lot more like that. Heal with it in mind, too.

AoE-oriented

Almost every ability in this game actually has some area effect or hits multiple targets. From your melee swings to a Demonologist's single target attacks, these abilities splash onto adjacent valid targets. But you've got to play it right: if you're fighting one guy and a second comes up behind you, rotate around the one you're fighting (do it during your swings so that you never stop attacking) so that they're both facing you. That way, at least some of your damage on the first foe will also hit the second. Again, that can make the difference between victory and a dirtnap.

Try the PvP

Conan has launched with almost half of its servers as free-for-all PvP. If you've never tried it before, you might like it - if someone screws with you, you can screw with them right back. The game has some issues with respawn camping and such, but you can use the little arrow near the time or day/night show near the top right of the screen to switch to a different instance of the zone if you like. If you decide you want to get serious about playing on an FFA server, though, it's important that you get a solid guild quickly. Then you can watch each other's backs and call in backup as you see fit. Overall, the combat of Age of Conan really lends itself well to brutal PvP fights.

Hopefully these tips have helped you gain a foothold in Funcom's new MMO world. If you've only played World of Warcraft or haven't played anything else in a while, then a new game and its differences in style and interface are probably going to be a little daunting at first, but if you stick with it, I think you'll find that this is a fantastic game with plenty of fun to be had.
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Re: 9 pages of tips

Postby Monster on Thu May 22, 2008 11:48 am

Interesting... they have full FFA PvP servers.
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Re: 9 pages of tips

Postby Shoruk3n on Thu May 22, 2008 12:21 pm

Monster wrote:Interesting... they have full FFA PvP servers.


Ya, and I've been hearing it's a nightmare to play on.
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