Hi, i'm willing to take a look at the class section of the AA system for the HoX, it has to be said that on the overall i consider the AA advancement for the HoX, especially for what regards the Archetype section, poor.
An explaination to this from my point of view it's quite simple, it does not boost significantly any aspect of the HoX, it does not fill the gap it is suffering compared to other classes, it does not offer a real solution to the Ethernal issue Possession > Avatar nor it does provide us of any serious tool to be effective.
Why?
Short analaysis:
General Tree on AA: It's General, common to everyone, our boost on resistances it's common to all the classes, so who is already strong and with high rates of immunity will be even stronger and even more immune, we will be more resilient and that's true, but hell we are meant to be DPS not tanks give us damage boosts!!!
Archetype: well, there's not that much to be said, only 2 perks are worth a mention here: Will of the Sublime to boost critical rating and base weapon and spell damange and Ethereal Escape, our only effective anti-cc, taking it to 5 points it's a pain though.
It looks like this tree is meant to be for pure casters only, and that's fully understandable, but it does not match at all HoX needs, even though they are classified as mages.
Class Tree: Here we finally find something nice, Passive boost to Hellfire Breath is a must a +5% at level 5 of boost to damage it's something nice even if not insane, i often wonder if it's worth spending so much time in both grinding or time leveling to get it to rank 5 for a +1% of difference between rank 4 and 5. I strongly reccomend also the boost to PoIF damage, to BtD Dot, the decrease on cd for Desecrating Essence and PoIF.
I would like to dedicate my attention also to some Minor and Major perk of this section:
Hunger for More: mainly a new rank of HellStrike, faster indeed and a 2 step combo (compared with the 3 step of our last rank of the regular Hell Strike), i don't find it particularly usefull, and absolutely not worth the sacrifice of a Major Perk to use it. It requires 1 slot.
Enslaving Fire: New rank of PoIF which adds a stun to the PoIF combo. A nice perk i have to say, it's to be considered that, being a Minor Perk and not a passive perk it requires to be slotted on the bar and it would not be possible to use it along with RSoX. Is ti worth the sacrifice?
Honestly I do not know.
From the Beyond: The concept behind this perk is amazing, mainly you charge toward your enemy and you get automatically transmuted in your Demon Form, my personal concern about this is that you will not get the Stun from the polymorph.
It's my personal belief that this will work fine in a mainly Avatar Spec, even if RSoX still remains the top.
Feeding the Pyre: It will increase the stack of the Burning Skull spell to 6, also adding a chance to trigger damage on attacks done. I find it quite pointless.
And now a special mention for the 2 core perks for the HoX:
Prince of Terror: It's an amazing perk, it switches the damage of your combo finisher from FIRE to UNHOLY, with a chance of applying a wrack which increase target susceptibility to Spiritual Attacks (nice to boos DT damage), increases fire resistance and fire damage done.
It is a good perk but it requires 2 slots on the bar, being it a Major Perk.
I'm wondering how it would work on an Avatar Spec, but also a possession spec could receive benefits from it.
Red Shadow of Xotli: Here's the most used perk, and let me be clear, it is not used for what it does but for what it PASSIVELY gives. The skill itself is mainly a pointless self-ress, true thing is that when self ressing with RSoX you will be restored to life in demon-form and with a short CC immunity, but this feature from my point of view is entirely USELESS in PvP contests.
The best feature of this perk is the passive boost to the stats.
Red Shadow of Xotli passively increase Intelligence and Strenght by 100 points if slotted on the bar (2 slots) and when transmuted in demon form it increases furthermore this stats by +325 Strenght and +450 Intelligence.
This means that on a mere numerical bases an Herald of Xotli fighting on demon form will ahve +425 on Strenght and +550 on Intelligence.
What immediately appears clear is that this Perk is perfect for an Avatar build, but a possession hox will have advantages from it given the boost to Intelligence (so to Magic Damage).
Unfortunately though Avatar tree is widely considered (and with some good arguments) gimped and way under par compared with Possession.
In the end i do believe that a Possession HoX has a bit more tricks to be effective, especially thanks to Chains of Anguish which is, from my point of view, an unrenounceable skill for an HoX.
True thing is that chosing an Avatar spec feating Mindless Brute and Damning Eloquence will allow an HoX to have approximatively +1k HP and an istant "Inferno Curse" which is absolutely a great debuff when istant (furthermore boosted by the perks: +20 to combat rating reduction for each rank) and in addiction an increased duration on Demon Form, plus Avatar of Xotli and Fire Lance a good melee combo that used to be greate before the Great Nerf of Avatar tree.
It is also true that preferring an Avatar spec over a Poss/General spec will make us lose some armor bonus and anti-root from general tree plus some boosts to elemental resistance and boost to magical damage.
At the end of the story it's a matter of personal liking, i still find a Possession/General spec way more suitable for an HoX, but I encourage everyone to give a try at an Avatar/Possesion or at a Possession/Avatar build and to test them out, same goes for the hot topic of "making a choice" for what perks must be taken or not.
It depends on your playstyle, it depends on what you are asking to your class.
The only thing I feel to assure is that, at least at the actual state of the art, any choice for Class Perks that goes outside the Perimeter of RSoX and PoT it's not a good choice.
I will try (hopefully) to play a bit with perks on TL environment and to provide you with some feedbacks on how the HoX fares with Avatar/Poss spec and chosing different perks setups.
Stay tuned for furthere updates!!
Arcalimon
Welcome to the Temple of Xotli a blog for the Herald of Xotli Class of Age of Conan.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Thursday, 20 January 2011
[Dreamworld Engine] Preview of the new engine directly from Test-Live server of AoC
Hello everyone.
I'm back to allow you to take a first look at the "Dreamworld Engine" that FunCom is developing and testing on the Test-Live server.
As soon as i logged in, I noticed a difference, a huge difference between our actual client and the new client, images were much more detailed, with deeper colours, on the overall even the loading screens appeared to be much more polished.
I took a ride around some significant zones in which i experienced some lag issues in the past to see how was the client reacting, so, before posting any information i would like to point out my PC build to set a "benchmark":
Core: Intel i5-750 overclocked @ 3.2GhZ
Mobo: Asus P7P55D-LE
RAM: 4 GhZ DDR3
Video Card: GeForce GTX 570 GDDR5 1GB
So, given those basic build information here's what i found out in the following zones:
1) Keshatta @Thoth-Amon's Strnghold square: Full DX10 without AA, 70fps without any big variation, never had big jumps, I didn't experience any kind of mini freeze due to monitor refreshing rate, or to background loading, impressive.
2) Chosain Province (Around Shaulun): Ok, that IS one of the worst zones ever, due to its rich textures it's actually a pain even for someone with a good machine, in Full DX10 without AA I had 30fps, what is surprising is that 30 is a stable value, there are no jumps and with the progressive re-rendering of the textures done by the graphic card, the FPS rate is going to increase. Maximum peak was at 40fps minimum at 27.
Never had a big drop with the fps, not even while fighting multiple mobs.
3) Tarantia: Ok, Tarantia is probably the less/worst optimized zone on TL, as soon as you spawn at the path location (near to the graveyard) I had a suddend drop of the fps below 15fps, then it went up again to fall down again a few moments later when i started to move around.
Tarantia in full DX10 with the new engine is simply astonishing, taking a ride around the roads, on the bridges and terraces of the city and looking around makes you really see what this engine is capable of.
Initially you will have some fps jumps and a bit of rubberbanding, but don't worry, after it will be stable, I had after some minutes fps in the range of 40-60 which is a good value given the size of that zone.
On the overall I found that engine really impressive, the game appears to be smooth, really smooth, movements are dynamic, light/shadow effects are seriously great and the detail of the texture is really amazing.
Beside the mere appearance of the new engine, what surprised me is that stability of the engine, mini freeze are not happening at all and if they do it's not a common thing, even during fights in heavy "texturized" zones does not make you play a screenshot-game, you are now capable of being dynamic and responsive for the whole lenght of the fights, and that's indeed a great news.
What I'm wondering is if this will be valuable for sieges as well when 48 characters will be on the same spot along side with environment, buildings, particle effects and so on.
Probably yes, it will (with all the needed attention like decreasing a bit the detail), but yet again, I have the feeling it's more a matter of server stability and reliability more than a graphic issue.
If the server crash everytime a siege occurs, the graphic is useless!
Phoenix Cloak: Particle Effect reworked
So that is, at least for what regards me, is the first change i see on the HoX, the first real change that is goin to affect even if not directly one of our skills and the impact it has on the gameplay.
I'm talking about Phoenix Cloak.
It is our "Bubble", calling it bubble could sound a bit improper though, for it does not provide us a total immunity, they provide us a +50 at damage deflection.
Even though, it sometimes may result usefull and i dare to say in 1vs1 encounters or when we manage to pick up an enemy that's not group and that's roaming around.
One of the biggest issue with PC beside the skill itself was with the rework of the animation that was done, this skill went through 2 phases in its history, and the third one is beginning:
1) Release: no animation or pretty unnoticeable, PC could have been a fake cast
2) First rework: We actually have a traffic light over our head the entire world knows we have PC up, the entire world knows that this is the best moment to CC us, wait for PC to disappear and to gank us.
3) New Rework: Finally the animation has been resized and polished, it's more dynamic and finally now like for all the other class you will have to pay a bit more of attention to notice us popping it, the pulsing effect has been made smaller and a bit more translucent.
Enough talk it's time to let the screenshots speak!
I hope you'll enjoy the images and the video!
Stay tuned!!
Arcalimon
Album with all the screenshots taken
I'm back to allow you to take a first look at the "Dreamworld Engine" that FunCom is developing and testing on the Test-Live server.
As soon as i logged in, I noticed a difference, a huge difference between our actual client and the new client, images were much more detailed, with deeper colours, on the overall even the loading screens appeared to be much more polished.
I took a ride around some significant zones in which i experienced some lag issues in the past to see how was the client reacting, so, before posting any information i would like to point out my PC build to set a "benchmark":
Core: Intel i5-750 overclocked @ 3.2GhZ
Mobo: Asus P7P55D-LE
RAM: 4 GhZ DDR3
Video Card: GeForce GTX 570 GDDR5 1GB
So, given those basic build information here's what i found out in the following zones:
1) Keshatta @Thoth-Amon's Strnghold square: Full DX10 without AA, 70fps without any big variation, never had big jumps, I didn't experience any kind of mini freeze due to monitor refreshing rate, or to background loading, impressive.
2) Chosain Province (Around Shaulun): Ok, that IS one of the worst zones ever, due to its rich textures it's actually a pain even for someone with a good machine, in Full DX10 without AA I had 30fps, what is surprising is that 30 is a stable value, there are no jumps and with the progressive re-rendering of the textures done by the graphic card, the FPS rate is going to increase. Maximum peak was at 40fps minimum at 27.
Never had a big drop with the fps, not even while fighting multiple mobs.
3) Tarantia: Ok, Tarantia is probably the less/worst optimized zone on TL, as soon as you spawn at the path location (near to the graveyard) I had a suddend drop of the fps below 15fps, then it went up again to fall down again a few moments later when i started to move around.
Tarantia in full DX10 with the new engine is simply astonishing, taking a ride around the roads, on the bridges and terraces of the city and looking around makes you really see what this engine is capable of.
Initially you will have some fps jumps and a bit of rubberbanding, but don't worry, after it will be stable, I had after some minutes fps in the range of 40-60 which is a good value given the size of that zone.
On the overall I found that engine really impressive, the game appears to be smooth, really smooth, movements are dynamic, light/shadow effects are seriously great and the detail of the texture is really amazing.
Beside the mere appearance of the new engine, what surprised me is that stability of the engine, mini freeze are not happening at all and if they do it's not a common thing, even during fights in heavy "texturized" zones does not make you play a screenshot-game, you are now capable of being dynamic and responsive for the whole lenght of the fights, and that's indeed a great news.
What I'm wondering is if this will be valuable for sieges as well when 48 characters will be on the same spot along side with environment, buildings, particle effects and so on.
Probably yes, it will (with all the needed attention like decreasing a bit the detail), but yet again, I have the feeling it's more a matter of server stability and reliability more than a graphic issue.
If the server crash everytime a siege occurs, the graphic is useless!
Phoenix Cloak: Particle Effect reworked
So that is, at least for what regards me, is the first change i see on the HoX, the first real change that is goin to affect even if not directly one of our skills and the impact it has on the gameplay.
I'm talking about Phoenix Cloak.
It is our "Bubble", calling it bubble could sound a bit improper though, for it does not provide us a total immunity, they provide us a +50 at damage deflection.
Even though, it sometimes may result usefull and i dare to say in 1vs1 encounters or when we manage to pick up an enemy that's not group and that's roaming around.
One of the biggest issue with PC beside the skill itself was with the rework of the animation that was done, this skill went through 2 phases in its history, and the third one is beginning:
1) Release: no animation or pretty unnoticeable, PC could have been a fake cast
2) First rework: We actually have a traffic light over our head the entire world knows we have PC up, the entire world knows that this is the best moment to CC us, wait for PC to disappear and to gank us.
3) New Rework: Finally the animation has been resized and polished, it's more dynamic and finally now like for all the other class you will have to pay a bit more of attention to notice us popping it, the pulsing effect has been made smaller and a bit more translucent.
Enough talk it's time to let the screenshots speak!
I hope you'll enjoy the images and the video!
Stay tuned!!
Arcalimon
Album with all the screenshots taken
Monday, 17 January 2011
The Debuffs! How to weaken our enemies (maybe)!
Back again from the mists of the week-end!
So today I would like to go throug a harsh point, I would like to discuss about what is commonly known as "Debuffing" using our skills to weaken our enemies and to maximize our effectiveness.
As I said elsewhere (discussion reported below in another post), and in many other posts here and there on forums, the Herald of Xotli still has its issues (also) on the "debuffing" side of life.
Let's begin:
Inferno Curse
5m radius up to 12 targets
-15% Fire/Cold/Electrical Invulnerability
-415 Combat Rating
Casting Time: 1.5 seconds
Recast: 45 seconds
This is the first skill I'm trying to analyze, it's an AoE debuff lowering the elemental resistances (not all though) and the combat rating of the enemies, the amount of combat rating penalty can be boosted by the perk "Expanded Inferno Curse" (+20 at the combar rating debuff for each rank).
This is a good debuff to be used against melee opponents, the debuff will produce a reduced damage on hit for melee fighters and an increased susceptibility to elemental damages based on fire cold and electricity.
This SHOULD make us more effective against melee fighters, but there's a little problem: Long casting time.
In the frenzy of a melee fight stopping and standing still for 1.5 seconds it's a problem, it's like if we are saying to our enemies "Hey Nabzor, i bet you don't noticed what i'm doing, i'm so HAWT!".
Too bad that on 90% of cases we will CCed (mostly Knocbacked) to death in the meanwhile, so we will lose both the CC and life.
Still if managed properly it can be a good skill.
Molten Steel Slash
!!Combo!!
Recast time: 20 seconds
Starter: +95 damage per second
-10% Cold/Fire/Electric Invulnerability
Finisher: +187 damage per second
This is our combo-debuff, to cast it you will go through a 1 step combo to apply the debuff.
This could have been our best debuff being it melee debuff, unfortunately the insane lenght of the animation makes it almost unused.
Only exception to this is when we are able to approach the enemy from a relatively safe spot, having the time to chose a good position e to start the cast before the enemy can turn and counter us.
Spitfire
Recast time: 45 seconds
Casting time: Instant
3m radius up to 12 targets
-25% Received Healing Modifier
-100 Stamina/Health/Mana natural regen
99-125 damage fire each 2 seconds (13 seconds lenght)
Probably our best debuffing skill, accessible through the possession tree (tier 2 - 5 points).
The debuff to regen and incoming healing makes it extremely annoying, also the ticking damage, even if not extremely high, it's really nice, most important thing, it's Instant, so unless you are really unlucky you won't miss it!
I use it whenever i can, but could be nice to save it sometimes to use it against healers even with the aid of some "heal-removers rogue" or against some enemies with high rates of health regen.
Conclusions:
Debuffing as a HoX could be difficult, the extreme slowness of the skills that are giving elemental weakness it's a bound, Spitfire remains actually the best debuffing skill also due to the DoT it unleash.
So, debuffing it's rarely a unrenounceable duty for us, if you are lucky enough you'll be grouped with a ToS and you won't be in need to debuff you target.
Take it as a general assumption, all the other classes can debuff better than we can do, so don't rely on your debuffs (excluding Spitfire), you will waste precious time, time that sometimes can draw the line between your life and death!
Stay tuned!
Arcalimon
So today I would like to go throug a harsh point, I would like to discuss about what is commonly known as "Debuffing" using our skills to weaken our enemies and to maximize our effectiveness.
As I said elsewhere (discussion reported below in another post), and in many other posts here and there on forums, the Herald of Xotli still has its issues (also) on the "debuffing" side of life.
Let's begin:
5m radius up to 12 targets
-15% Fire/Cold/Electrical Invulnerability
-415 Combat Rating
Casting Time: 1.5 seconds
Recast: 45 seconds
This is the first skill I'm trying to analyze, it's an AoE debuff lowering the elemental resistances (not all though) and the combat rating of the enemies, the amount of combat rating penalty can be boosted by the perk "Expanded Inferno Curse" (+20 at the combar rating debuff for each rank).
This is a good debuff to be used against melee opponents, the debuff will produce a reduced damage on hit for melee fighters and an increased susceptibility to elemental damages based on fire cold and electricity.
This SHOULD make us more effective against melee fighters, but there's a little problem: Long casting time.
In the frenzy of a melee fight stopping and standing still for 1.5 seconds it's a problem, it's like if we are saying to our enemies "Hey Nabzor, i bet you don't noticed what i'm doing, i'm so HAWT!".
Too bad that on 90% of cases we will CCed (mostly Knocbacked) to death in the meanwhile, so we will lose both the CC and life.
Still if managed properly it can be a good skill.
Molten Steel Slash!!Combo!!
Recast time: 20 seconds
Starter: +95 damage per second
-10% Cold/Fire/Electric Invulnerability
Finisher: +187 damage per second
This is our combo-debuff, to cast it you will go through a 1 step combo to apply the debuff.
This could have been our best debuff being it melee debuff, unfortunately the insane lenght of the animation makes it almost unused.
Only exception to this is when we are able to approach the enemy from a relatively safe spot, having the time to chose a good position e to start the cast before the enemy can turn and counter us.
SpitfireRecast time: 45 seconds
Casting time: Instant
3m radius up to 12 targets
-25% Received Healing Modifier
-100 Stamina/Health/Mana natural regen
99-125 damage fire each 2 seconds (13 seconds lenght)
Probably our best debuffing skill, accessible through the possession tree (tier 2 - 5 points).
The debuff to regen and incoming healing makes it extremely annoying, also the ticking damage, even if not extremely high, it's really nice, most important thing, it's Instant, so unless you are really unlucky you won't miss it!
I use it whenever i can, but could be nice to save it sometimes to use it against healers even with the aid of some "heal-removers rogue" or against some enemies with high rates of health regen.
Conclusions:
Debuffing as a HoX could be difficult, the extreme slowness of the skills that are giving elemental weakness it's a bound, Spitfire remains actually the best debuffing skill also due to the DoT it unleash.
So, debuffing it's rarely a unrenounceable duty for us, if you are lucky enough you'll be grouped with a ToS and you won't be in need to debuff you target.
Take it as a general assumption, all the other classes can debuff better than we can do, so don't rely on your debuffs (excluding Spitfire), you will waste precious time, time that sometimes can draw the line between your life and death!
Stay tuned!
Arcalimon
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
I wanna be....
... like that old fart of Arbanus...
C'mon how can people believe us when we say we are underpowered if a guy like him is around????
Give us a Blood Draw and we will own the world!!!
C'mon how can people believe us when we say we are underpowered if a guy like him is around????
Give us a Blood Draw and we will own the world!!!
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Old Documents, actual issues.
So to start creating the "habitat" for this blog I would like to share what I've done and posted on EU forums for AoC.
It was my goal with this to create an analysis of the Herald of Xotli, giving a small description (i tried however to make it detailed) of the skills, of the feats, of the AA system and of all the issues that I could find listed all around the forums for Age of Conan.
Of course it is not to be meant as a professional analysis, it could be full of typos, of not entirely correct information, but it should be accurate enough to make you all understand which is my point of view on the HoX.
I would of course like to hear your comments and opinions about it.
That's the prelude to a future job i will make, when I'll post a more or less accurate analysis on the Ethernal Issue: What is better between Avatar and Possession?
In the meanwhile, enjoy the read!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Greetings everyone,
after lurking around on European and US forums picking up documentation, reading impressions and consideration about the HoX what i'm trying to achieve with this post is making a “detailed” sum of the concerns about our class.
This is mainly meant to be as a deep and long document to aid our Advocate and to give a good base to the Devs to let them know which is the situation of our Class, both for what regards feelings of the players and real incongruences we are finding making comparisons, sometimes not appropriate even, with all our classes.
General Considerations:
As far as I had the chance to see, the community is highly unsatisfied with the actual “wealth” of the class in-game, having the feeling that the HoX is actually under the level of other classes in game, all this has been documented during a large period of time with a huge but frammented quantity of posts full of suggestions and opinions.
I'm trying to summarize the main concerns in some strict points:
1.Old graphical bugs repopping constantly and that are affecting us for a long period.
2.Overall feeling of “squishiness”
3.Problems in dealing an appropriate burst damage both on pvp and pve
4.Problems in sustaining the dps
5.Lack of “Escape” skills
6.Lack of effective means to debuff the enemies
7.Lack of effective CC
8.Feeling that our Avatar Tree is historically broken
9.Unavailability to use different specs with effectiveness
10.Feeling that our mechanics are no more in line with the meta-game
11.Issues with the coherence of some of our skills compared with other classes
12.Last but not least, the spreaded convinction that we are not considered
Given all that points it has to be said that for sure the Herald of Xotli is not and probably never has been one of the easiest classes, being it a Melee fighter wearing cloth, coniugating the weakness of the casters with the reduced efficience as a melee not being able to survive enough to be usefull.
After this needed consideration i'm trying to go a bit deeper in the issues:
Skills related concerns:
This is one of the most discussed arguments.
Hell Strikes:
Quite a slow skill without a sensible massive damage being it slow often it's not the best choice, it finds its use in PvE but on the PvP side of life it's almost always used as a “filling” combo due it's low effectiveness especially for the last rank, which is a 3 step with a really slow animation. Downraking that combo it's actually one of the most common solution to give it a bit more of sense even with the sacrifice of some damage.
Burn to Death:
Amazing skill on the PvE side, it's damage it's considerable and the DoT it's helpfull, it seems to be affected by a slow-motion animation still in PvE it's the most used combo.
In PvP the situation drastically change, the last rank it's a 3 step combo, the damage is good, but in a dynamic contest the animation lenght makes it almost unviable to be used exception made for some rare occasions. Downranking it on the PvP side may give a bit more of benefits but the correlation of benefits/penalizations makes it often abandoned.
Body and Spirit Wrack:
Conceptually it's a nice skill, it should allow us to reduce mana of our target tapping it to ourselves, affected as well by the hex of a slow animation, it's one of the most discussed skills.
It's use in PvE it's almost near to 0, buffs, foods and regeneration are satisfying the request of mana for the HoX, which makes it quite useless, also the damage it's low, for this reason is often left behind.
On PvP side, the mix of low damage and slow execution relegates it to be often removed from the bar of a player, it's only use has been actually tested by me on Dark Templars, which is actually the only enemies that are receiving this combo from me, for its mana drain is enough to remove almost entirely DT's mana reserves.
Beside this its use in PvP it's 0.
Pillar of Infernal Flames:
This is actually our most effective combo, even though it is not immune to problems.
On the PvE side, thanks to debuffs it's really good to be used especially against multiple enemies, it's cooldown time sometimes may appear a bit long (1 minute), still it's definetely worth the time.
About the PvP the situation change, it's execution time it's quite long on the last step, it's a 2 step combo but at the end of the last rank the HoX is stuck for approximatively 1 seconds which is enough to make us take high damages.
The overall execution of the last rank it's quite slow and makes us vulnerable to CC in this context we have to add also that when CC'ed during the skill execution before we activate the damage (sword into the ground) we will get the full CD of the skill losing it.
Downranking it is actually the most common solution, because the 2nd rank it's faster than the last and the damage is not that different.
Still the high slowness of the skill for both the ranks makes the HoX use it only on certain situations (which is not entirely a problem imo)
Molten Steel Slash:
This is what is supposed to be our only debuff, it's a melee attack which adds to the enemy an elemental wrack reducing the resistances of the foes to Fire, Cold and Electricity.
It's a really slow skill with a medium damage.
In PvE it's use is highly undefined due to the best capability of debuffs of the other magical classes which have their debuff quicker and casted from distance, not talking about the specific case of the BS and its chain-castable Crush Armor which has Higher Damage, Lesser Cooldown and Higher Speed than our MSS.
In PvP it's better to put it aside, using that combo will give us less time to use our skills to deal damage, would be nice to be able to use it, but often chosing it means wasting time, and wasting time always results in death for us.
Inferno Curse:
Almost the same situation of MSS, with the difference that it's a Castable AoE debuff reducing enemies Combat Rating. Sounds usefull but the casting time makes it controverse in PvE, just because other classes can debuff better than us.
In PvP it can be used only if we have time to stand still and cast it, and if the enemy is in range.
Too many limitation to make it effective.
Phoenix Cloak:
For the HoX this is what goes closer to the definition of bubble.
Speaking of it in that terms, makes it good, but the reality it's different.
Phoenix Cloak is a 5minutes cooldown skill, it gives us a bonus of +50(the tooltip does not say 50%) to damage deflection applying on the HoX a mana drain and a hinder movement.
Being it often linked with the concept of bubble, we can assume from what I wrote above that if we have to use a bubble is to escape, actually with PC it's impossible to escape due to the hinder movement and due to the vulnerability to the CC.
It seriously needs to be reviewed imo.
Exultation of Xotli:
First of all, this can be improved through the feats, so i will talk about the feated skill.
This is our melee buffing skill, it adds +90% of weapon damage for a short amount of time.
Issues: This skills has a long cooldown and a average long casting time.
HoX concerns on this issues is that often we don't have enough time to cast it, just for the reason that standing still means death for us.
Also has been done some comparison with the Renewal skill of the Bear Shaman (archetype Priest), so many are wondering why a Priest, even if it's a melee priest) has a chain castable skill that boosts its melee damage of +100%.
It's true that to heal at max of its possibilites a BS must be in the melee fight but this appears to be a bit unbalanced.
Flame Lash:
Fire-damage long range attack for the HoX.
To be used effectively it needs to have the Flame Lash buff stack at 10x, to load this buff we must be on melee, once it's loaded we start the cast of the skill.
The casting time it's long, the cooldown it's short, even though the damage it's considerable only if (optimistic view maybe?) the Flame Lash stack is above 5x, otherwise the damage may not be worth the immobility needed to cast it.
Feat Tree related issues:
[b]Possession:[b]
The most used tree of the HoX.
It gives us the chance of boosting oure magic damage (fire) and to get 2 nice skills at the end of the tree which are Chains of Anguish and Tongue of Xotli.
Feating this tree is largely considered the only viable option to make an HoX capable of competition.
This is our “Caster” tree, it's working right now, but the overall feeling is that we are bound to only one solution to play our class.
The critics that I may move to this tree are based on the assumption that even if we move slightly toward the caster role feating this tree, still we are not getting a considerable damage output.
We are not excellent on the single target dps and we are not excellent on the AoE dps, also being caster with only 3 medium-range skills, a medium range AoE dot not dealing a massive damage it's not the best situation for a class that is widely known to be “not performing on the resistances side”.
Avatar:
And finally here we are.
This is the most discussed Topic of the moment, Avatar has fallen behind any possible utility for those who are focused on the PvP side of the game, and it's still not the best choice for those who focus on PvE.
Mindless brute it's a feat that helps us increasing our HP but on the other hands reduces our magic damage, the only noticeable combo of this melee orientated tree is Fire Lance, which has been LARGELY nerfed on its damage.
Also the Hellstep skill has been “nerfed” but it was probably not a big deal, what the hox suffered the most in this context was the reduction of the pulse damage of our demonic form linked with a modify on the melee mechanics which highly reduced our efficience as melee skirmisher, the above mentioned nerf to Fire Lance, united with the Long Cooldown (2 minutes) and the slow execution has give to the HoX a bad hit.
The feat which improves Body and Spirit Wrack it's too poor on the performance/cost relation, butcher does not boost our melee damage that much to be a “must” for our class like it is on other DPS class (Barbarian or sin for example).
A vast majority of the feat under the Avatar Tree are considered useless or not convenient from the community, which leads an HoX to not be availabe to full the tree to get Avatar of Xotli which was used to be our representating skill, preferring to switch the points of Avatar on the General tree to get boost on resistance and armor and to get Purge (anti-root) and Tome of Erlik (+12% base spell damage).
Those that are loyal to Avatar are actually spending points just to get Fire Lance ad taking mindless brute, but on the scenario of a Possession/Avatar build, taking Mindless brute means hitting directly the capability of an HoX to unleash a serious magic damage exchanging it with around 1k more HP.
Some are considering this a good deal, others don't, still those are not focused only on the PvE side (and even some that are only PvE players) are finding Avatar useless.
Other highly criticized feat of that tree is Fiery Weapon, which adds a random proc to the weapon to add an additional portion of Fire Damage to the attacks, widely considered useless due to the low-proc and not considerable damage, has been largely discussed.
06-24-2010, 10:03 PM #2
Arcalimon
Archetype:
We are a mage class on the paper, this is not that true on the reality, for we are more a hybrid concept of mage.
Stated this, even agreeing on considering us full mages (beside the tree we choose) the effectiveness of the Archetype tree for the HoX is contestable.
The majority of the feats in there it's almost pointless, mana cost reduction on HFB may be nice but at low levels it's not noticeable.
Same goes for all the other perks on that tree, the use of them for a class like us it's not that usefull, a pure mage for sure will see it in another light, but for us that is.
What I personally found nice even if not without penalization is “Ethereal Escape”.
As said above if we exclude Purge, that requires 15 points in general to be feated and is an Anti-Root only, we don't have any kind of anti-cc skill, being hybrid this is converted in a high coefficient of problems when we have to enter the figth in melee range.
Ethereal Escape can be our only anti-CC skill cause it removes most kinds of Crowd Control from us, even though, at the first level it's 6 minutes of CD (like PC) and to get it you have either to spend a lot of time to gather all the points needed to max it, or to spend a lot of time to use the time-training.
It's usefull but given the cooldown i strongly believe it becomes usefull only when the CD is reduced at least at 3 minutes.
Class:
Also here there's a vast mixture of opinions, different “schools” and approaches.
My consideration is that most of the perks of that section are nearly pointless.
Feeding the Pyre can be maybe a nice support skill, Quickening Death it's a skill that has not that big use from my point of view, it's nice if you have it but you can leave without it.
The Polymorph associated with the charge is a nice feature, but, if the stun of the transmutation is removed (like it is actually) it loses its sense for half, ok the istant transformation is usefull, but why do we transform (excluding the stat boost) if not to stun the enemy and be allowed to cast Tongue of Xotli?
Enslaving Fire seemed to me a good idea at the beginning, the stun on PoIF seemed a nice feature, but rethinking on it (thanks Necrodius) i found a contraddiction, PoIF is actually one of our strongest skills, is it worth to link a CC to it?
Isn't better to CC before using our top notch skill?
Using that stun prevents me partially from make use of Desecrating Essence stun, is that worth?
My personal belief is that it's not worth.
Inferno boost may be nice as well, but to have it impact our gameplay seriously, we should feat it to reduce the casting time of Inferno at least at 1 second, every other timing may result to bee too much, given the other classes that can apply the same debuff faster than us.
Prince of Terror:
Separate discussion for this perk, the idea is pretty freaking nice, switching the damage to unholy may help us for sure BUT, it is linked with the melee combo Hellstrike, the melee combo is directly linked with the Avatar Tree, and the Avatar tree is not that famous for us today.
In a different contest i guess it would have been one of the best perks ever, in our contest, it has to been considered properly for the implications it has.
Red Shadow of Xotli:
This is the most common Perk people is considering, like PoT is a Major Perk, so using it prevents the HoX from using other perks.
What it does? It gives us the same effect of Undying Glory of Xotli, it makes us auto-ress, and it adds: we can auto ress in form with a short resistance to CC and damage, giving us +100 strenght and Intelligence passively while in normal status and +425 Strength and Intelligence when transmuted.
Actually it is worth pretty much ONLY for the passive buff.
The most common concern about it can be summed in this simple question:
“Why shall we use a perk and DIE to get what other classes already have by “default”?”
What we mean with this:
Why should we die to get a short kind of immunity that other classes have already available such as Serpent Transmutation, Overcoming the Crowds, Iron Hide/Rune of Grounding, Hand of Mitra, Soul of Mitra, Conflagration etc?
That's a fair question, why?
I still can't give myself an answer.
The Revamp of the CC mechanics and its effect on HoX:
Here follows another Hot-Topic.
Recently the CC system of AoC has been modified, dividing the CC in 2 groups:
Major Crowd Control – Stun, Fear, Charm, Knockback
Minor Crowd Control – Root, Snare, Silence
This on the overall was a good introduction, adding specific and general immunities when a major CC occurs it's a way to balance the system and avoid the CC-lock.
This of course partially helped the HoX and its lack of anti-cc skill but it also had a backside for us: Using the CC was our only way to keep an enemy under control giving us enough time to use our top damagin skills.
Now this is not possible anymore, for we have to decide how to use our stun or fear.
This is not necessairly a bad thing, still it modified and maybe penalized us a bit more, that revamp itself it's not bad, putting it into our context the situation may chance a bit.
DPS Issue and HoX Role:
Last chapter of the topic.
As stated elsewhere we are now suffering for all the new mechanics, and we find that our DPS it's not comparable to the dps of other classes, of course every HoX should keep in mind that the concept is to be an Hybrid class so we can't achieve to be the overall best in a role, but we should be able to give a significant contribute given our hybrid nature.
Unfortunately the overall feeling is that this is not true, the Herald of Xotli is struggling badly, in the situation of a Possession HoX the most common situation is that one:
“ok i will now make that guy cry”
Situation 1:
Begins the cast of Desecrating Essence 1.5 seconds we got interrupted, we get the CD see you boost to damages
Situation 2: I manage to use Desecrating essence
“ok i have now the time to use my Tongue of Xotli!!!!! YAY!!!”
Situation 1:
Begins the cast of Tongue of Xotli, 2.5 seconds casting time we suffer a CC we get the CD on the skill we lose it, no massive damage/the enemies free himself from the CC he goes out our conic area, we waste the skill/the enemy has loads of resistances our skill does not go over 1,5k of damages (really happened on a guard).
Situation 2:
I manage to cast it, i shoot an overall good damage (between 2,5k-3k each 2 minutes, up to 4k if crit and we don't crit that often), still it's not enough to kill enemies on most of cases.
Concerns and Analisys on the Perks:
The Perks is the latest introduction to AoC's gameplay, reaction to this introduction have been completely opposite, some are considering the perks a good addiction, other are finding them penalizing or not well developed to be of effective aid to the class.
Let's go a bit deeper on this consideration:
The most common critic about the Alternate Advancement for the HoX is linked to many factor, each one relative to each kind of zone:
General: well, it's general, these are common feature focused on a boost on magic/physical resistances for PvE and on CC resistances for the PvP side, with an addiction of some skills that are giving bonuses of different nature on the stats following different paths (i.e. Critical improvement based on sum of Strenght+intelligence). At a first view this ofc appears to be a great improvement for a class like the HoX who historicaly suffered for a low level of toughness, even though the backside of this not always comes in mind immediately.
What i'm talking about? Simple, it's General.
These are buffs common to ALL the classes in the game, this means that after the dps reduction occurred in the past resistances gained a greater importance, improving the resistances for all the classes despite the kind and nature of it will create a double situation:
1)Classes with an already high resistances will have their position consolidated by these boost in the mitigation, resulting in a greater position of advantage (common example are Soldier Archetipes);
2)Classes with a low level of resistances may for sure benefit of the boost, but in the specific situation of the DPS class like HoX, Assassin and all the light armored guys (from cloth to Light) this will result in a reduction of the effective capability of being what they are made to: DPS both Burst or Sustained.
Why this assumption? Who tells me that the situation is really like this?
The absence of a re-scale of the DPS curve, directed to an increasing of the DPS value to support a boost in the resistances will affect the DPS classes, obviously the impact of this is different for each class, there are classes with an high dps that won't probably find that penalizing, but a classs like the HoX that is suffering for a sum of problems will find it quite penalizing.
The Assassin as well was in danger, but the recent revamp to its mechanics allowed him to bypass this issue, Assassin burst dps on a single target increased incredibly, and actually (speaking of a real situation) an Assassin is able to shot me in less than 5 seconds, and i'm a full T2 HoX with BK buff and 4th level of PvP.
When i got hit by the CC and i'm stuck i can see my bar become empty in a few seconds.
This is what most are facing commonly, of course using DE and ToX should be a decision taken in particular situations but they are actually our only instrument to deal an high damage and too many elements are preventing us from using them effectively.
Also there is a deficit of DPS stat compared with other classes, but to go deeper on this topic i will redirect you to this topic (thanks -Apocalisse- and Anselan):
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=153795 - enjoy the reading
All this factors are leading us to be doubtful, which is our role in a raid (PvE or PvP)
1)Dps: many other are doing that better than us both on single target and AoE, both on Burst and sustained damage
2)Debuff: ok nevermind, lack of debuffs and to slow to be effective
3)Minion Killing: 2 minutes CD on skill, other do it better
4)Nuke: Pass, we have competitors that are much more effective and that hasn't to wait 2 minutes to use the nuke skill
So we are asking ourselves, what are we? What we do here?
Here i'm going to close this thread, i'm not proposing any solution for actually many have been posted already and i will not repeat others ideas (some are really good), i'm just leaving this thread as a massive container of informations, some detailed some a bit less, to let everyone know which is (despite it can be correct or no) the feeling and the extended analysis many hox have about their class.
It took me time, it was an effort, hopefully it will help.
Regards to everyone.
Arcalimon
P.S.:
Forgive me if i may have wrote some bullshits somewhere, but trying to have a good overall vision of everything, and gathering stuff here and there it's not that easy.
It was my goal with this to create an analysis of the Herald of Xotli, giving a small description (i tried however to make it detailed) of the skills, of the feats, of the AA system and of all the issues that I could find listed all around the forums for Age of Conan.
Of course it is not to be meant as a professional analysis, it could be full of typos, of not entirely correct information, but it should be accurate enough to make you all understand which is my point of view on the HoX.
I would of course like to hear your comments and opinions about it.
That's the prelude to a future job i will make, when I'll post a more or less accurate analysis on the Ethernal Issue: What is better between Avatar and Possession?
In the meanwhile, enjoy the read!
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Greetings everyone,
after lurking around on European and US forums picking up documentation, reading impressions and consideration about the HoX what i'm trying to achieve with this post is making a “detailed” sum of the concerns about our class.
This is mainly meant to be as a deep and long document to aid our Advocate and to give a good base to the Devs to let them know which is the situation of our Class, both for what regards feelings of the players and real incongruences we are finding making comparisons, sometimes not appropriate even, with all our classes.
General Considerations:
As far as I had the chance to see, the community is highly unsatisfied with the actual “wealth” of the class in-game, having the feeling that the HoX is actually under the level of other classes in game, all this has been documented during a large period of time with a huge but frammented quantity of posts full of suggestions and opinions.
I'm trying to summarize the main concerns in some strict points:
1.Old graphical bugs repopping constantly and that are affecting us for a long period.
2.Overall feeling of “squishiness”
3.Problems in dealing an appropriate burst damage both on pvp and pve
4.Problems in sustaining the dps
5.Lack of “Escape” skills
6.Lack of effective means to debuff the enemies
7.Lack of effective CC
8.Feeling that our Avatar Tree is historically broken
9.Unavailability to use different specs with effectiveness
10.Feeling that our mechanics are no more in line with the meta-game
11.Issues with the coherence of some of our skills compared with other classes
12.Last but not least, the spreaded convinction that we are not considered
Given all that points it has to be said that for sure the Herald of Xotli is not and probably never has been one of the easiest classes, being it a Melee fighter wearing cloth, coniugating the weakness of the casters with the reduced efficience as a melee not being able to survive enough to be usefull.
After this needed consideration i'm trying to go a bit deeper in the issues:
Skills related concerns:
This is one of the most discussed arguments.
Hell Strikes:
Quite a slow skill without a sensible massive damage being it slow often it's not the best choice, it finds its use in PvE but on the PvP side of life it's almost always used as a “filling” combo due it's low effectiveness especially for the last rank, which is a 3 step with a really slow animation. Downraking that combo it's actually one of the most common solution to give it a bit more of sense even with the sacrifice of some damage.
Burn to Death:
Amazing skill on the PvE side, it's damage it's considerable and the DoT it's helpfull, it seems to be affected by a slow-motion animation still in PvE it's the most used combo.
In PvP the situation drastically change, the last rank it's a 3 step combo, the damage is good, but in a dynamic contest the animation lenght makes it almost unviable to be used exception made for some rare occasions. Downranking it on the PvP side may give a bit more of benefits but the correlation of benefits/penalizations makes it often abandoned.
Body and Spirit Wrack:
Conceptually it's a nice skill, it should allow us to reduce mana of our target tapping it to ourselves, affected as well by the hex of a slow animation, it's one of the most discussed skills.
It's use in PvE it's almost near to 0, buffs, foods and regeneration are satisfying the request of mana for the HoX, which makes it quite useless, also the damage it's low, for this reason is often left behind.
On PvP side, the mix of low damage and slow execution relegates it to be often removed from the bar of a player, it's only use has been actually tested by me on Dark Templars, which is actually the only enemies that are receiving this combo from me, for its mana drain is enough to remove almost entirely DT's mana reserves.
Beside this its use in PvP it's 0.
Pillar of Infernal Flames:
This is actually our most effective combo, even though it is not immune to problems.
On the PvE side, thanks to debuffs it's really good to be used especially against multiple enemies, it's cooldown time sometimes may appear a bit long (1 minute), still it's definetely worth the time.
About the PvP the situation change, it's execution time it's quite long on the last step, it's a 2 step combo but at the end of the last rank the HoX is stuck for approximatively 1 seconds which is enough to make us take high damages.
The overall execution of the last rank it's quite slow and makes us vulnerable to CC in this context we have to add also that when CC'ed during the skill execution before we activate the damage (sword into the ground) we will get the full CD of the skill losing it.
Downranking it is actually the most common solution, because the 2nd rank it's faster than the last and the damage is not that different.
Still the high slowness of the skill for both the ranks makes the HoX use it only on certain situations (which is not entirely a problem imo)
Molten Steel Slash:
This is what is supposed to be our only debuff, it's a melee attack which adds to the enemy an elemental wrack reducing the resistances of the foes to Fire, Cold and Electricity.
It's a really slow skill with a medium damage.
In PvE it's use is highly undefined due to the best capability of debuffs of the other magical classes which have their debuff quicker and casted from distance, not talking about the specific case of the BS and its chain-castable Crush Armor which has Higher Damage, Lesser Cooldown and Higher Speed than our MSS.
In PvP it's better to put it aside, using that combo will give us less time to use our skills to deal damage, would be nice to be able to use it, but often chosing it means wasting time, and wasting time always results in death for us.
Inferno Curse:
Almost the same situation of MSS, with the difference that it's a Castable AoE debuff reducing enemies Combat Rating. Sounds usefull but the casting time makes it controverse in PvE, just because other classes can debuff better than us.
In PvP it can be used only if we have time to stand still and cast it, and if the enemy is in range.
Too many limitation to make it effective.
Phoenix Cloak:
For the HoX this is what goes closer to the definition of bubble.
Speaking of it in that terms, makes it good, but the reality it's different.
Phoenix Cloak is a 5minutes cooldown skill, it gives us a bonus of +50(the tooltip does not say 50%) to damage deflection applying on the HoX a mana drain and a hinder movement.
Being it often linked with the concept of bubble, we can assume from what I wrote above that if we have to use a bubble is to escape, actually with PC it's impossible to escape due to the hinder movement and due to the vulnerability to the CC.
It seriously needs to be reviewed imo.
Exultation of Xotli:
First of all, this can be improved through the feats, so i will talk about the feated skill.
This is our melee buffing skill, it adds +90% of weapon damage for a short amount of time.
Issues: This skills has a long cooldown and a average long casting time.
HoX concerns on this issues is that often we don't have enough time to cast it, just for the reason that standing still means death for us.
Also has been done some comparison with the Renewal skill of the Bear Shaman (archetype Priest), so many are wondering why a Priest, even if it's a melee priest) has a chain castable skill that boosts its melee damage of +100%.
It's true that to heal at max of its possibilites a BS must be in the melee fight but this appears to be a bit unbalanced.
Flame Lash:
Fire-damage long range attack for the HoX.
To be used effectively it needs to have the Flame Lash buff stack at 10x, to load this buff we must be on melee, once it's loaded we start the cast of the skill.
The casting time it's long, the cooldown it's short, even though the damage it's considerable only if (optimistic view maybe?) the Flame Lash stack is above 5x, otherwise the damage may not be worth the immobility needed to cast it.
Feat Tree related issues:
[b]Possession:[b]
The most used tree of the HoX.
It gives us the chance of boosting oure magic damage (fire) and to get 2 nice skills at the end of the tree which are Chains of Anguish and Tongue of Xotli.
Feating this tree is largely considered the only viable option to make an HoX capable of competition.
This is our “Caster” tree, it's working right now, but the overall feeling is that we are bound to only one solution to play our class.
The critics that I may move to this tree are based on the assumption that even if we move slightly toward the caster role feating this tree, still we are not getting a considerable damage output.
We are not excellent on the single target dps and we are not excellent on the AoE dps, also being caster with only 3 medium-range skills, a medium range AoE dot not dealing a massive damage it's not the best situation for a class that is widely known to be “not performing on the resistances side”.
Avatar:
And finally here we are.
This is the most discussed Topic of the moment, Avatar has fallen behind any possible utility for those who are focused on the PvP side of the game, and it's still not the best choice for those who focus on PvE.
Mindless brute it's a feat that helps us increasing our HP but on the other hands reduces our magic damage, the only noticeable combo of this melee orientated tree is Fire Lance, which has been LARGELY nerfed on its damage.
Also the Hellstep skill has been “nerfed” but it was probably not a big deal, what the hox suffered the most in this context was the reduction of the pulse damage of our demonic form linked with a modify on the melee mechanics which highly reduced our efficience as melee skirmisher, the above mentioned nerf to Fire Lance, united with the Long Cooldown (2 minutes) and the slow execution has give to the HoX a bad hit.
The feat which improves Body and Spirit Wrack it's too poor on the performance/cost relation, butcher does not boost our melee damage that much to be a “must” for our class like it is on other DPS class (Barbarian or sin for example).
A vast majority of the feat under the Avatar Tree are considered useless or not convenient from the community, which leads an HoX to not be availabe to full the tree to get Avatar of Xotli which was used to be our representating skill, preferring to switch the points of Avatar on the General tree to get boost on resistance and armor and to get Purge (anti-root) and Tome of Erlik (+12% base spell damage).
Those that are loyal to Avatar are actually spending points just to get Fire Lance ad taking mindless brute, but on the scenario of a Possession/Avatar build, taking Mindless brute means hitting directly the capability of an HoX to unleash a serious magic damage exchanging it with around 1k more HP.
Some are considering this a good deal, others don't, still those are not focused only on the PvE side (and even some that are only PvE players) are finding Avatar useless.
Other highly criticized feat of that tree is Fiery Weapon, which adds a random proc to the weapon to add an additional portion of Fire Damage to the attacks, widely considered useless due to the low-proc and not considerable damage, has been largely discussed.
06-24-2010, 10:03 PM #2
Arcalimon
Archetype:
We are a mage class on the paper, this is not that true on the reality, for we are more a hybrid concept of mage.
Stated this, even agreeing on considering us full mages (beside the tree we choose) the effectiveness of the Archetype tree for the HoX is contestable.
The majority of the feats in there it's almost pointless, mana cost reduction on HFB may be nice but at low levels it's not noticeable.
Same goes for all the other perks on that tree, the use of them for a class like us it's not that usefull, a pure mage for sure will see it in another light, but for us that is.
What I personally found nice even if not without penalization is “Ethereal Escape”.
As said above if we exclude Purge, that requires 15 points in general to be feated and is an Anti-Root only, we don't have any kind of anti-cc skill, being hybrid this is converted in a high coefficient of problems when we have to enter the figth in melee range.
Ethereal Escape can be our only anti-CC skill cause it removes most kinds of Crowd Control from us, even though, at the first level it's 6 minutes of CD (like PC) and to get it you have either to spend a lot of time to gather all the points needed to max it, or to spend a lot of time to use the time-training.
It's usefull but given the cooldown i strongly believe it becomes usefull only when the CD is reduced at least at 3 minutes.
Class:
Also here there's a vast mixture of opinions, different “schools” and approaches.
My consideration is that most of the perks of that section are nearly pointless.
Feeding the Pyre can be maybe a nice support skill, Quickening Death it's a skill that has not that big use from my point of view, it's nice if you have it but you can leave without it.
The Polymorph associated with the charge is a nice feature, but, if the stun of the transmutation is removed (like it is actually) it loses its sense for half, ok the istant transformation is usefull, but why do we transform (excluding the stat boost) if not to stun the enemy and be allowed to cast Tongue of Xotli?
Enslaving Fire seemed to me a good idea at the beginning, the stun on PoIF seemed a nice feature, but rethinking on it (thanks Necrodius) i found a contraddiction, PoIF is actually one of our strongest skills, is it worth to link a CC to it?
Isn't better to CC before using our top notch skill?
Using that stun prevents me partially from make use of Desecrating Essence stun, is that worth?
My personal belief is that it's not worth.
Inferno boost may be nice as well, but to have it impact our gameplay seriously, we should feat it to reduce the casting time of Inferno at least at 1 second, every other timing may result to bee too much, given the other classes that can apply the same debuff faster than us.
Prince of Terror:
Separate discussion for this perk, the idea is pretty freaking nice, switching the damage to unholy may help us for sure BUT, it is linked with the melee combo Hellstrike, the melee combo is directly linked with the Avatar Tree, and the Avatar tree is not that famous for us today.
In a different contest i guess it would have been one of the best perks ever, in our contest, it has to been considered properly for the implications it has.
Red Shadow of Xotli:
This is the most common Perk people is considering, like PoT is a Major Perk, so using it prevents the HoX from using other perks.
What it does? It gives us the same effect of Undying Glory of Xotli, it makes us auto-ress, and it adds: we can auto ress in form with a short resistance to CC and damage, giving us +100 strenght and Intelligence passively while in normal status and +425 Strength and Intelligence when transmuted.
Actually it is worth pretty much ONLY for the passive buff.
The most common concern about it can be summed in this simple question:
“Why shall we use a perk and DIE to get what other classes already have by “default”?”
What we mean with this:
Why should we die to get a short kind of immunity that other classes have already available such as Serpent Transmutation, Overcoming the Crowds, Iron Hide/Rune of Grounding, Hand of Mitra, Soul of Mitra, Conflagration etc?
That's a fair question, why?
I still can't give myself an answer.
The Revamp of the CC mechanics and its effect on HoX:
Here follows another Hot-Topic.
Recently the CC system of AoC has been modified, dividing the CC in 2 groups:
Major Crowd Control – Stun, Fear, Charm, Knockback
Minor Crowd Control – Root, Snare, Silence
This on the overall was a good introduction, adding specific and general immunities when a major CC occurs it's a way to balance the system and avoid the CC-lock.
This of course partially helped the HoX and its lack of anti-cc skill but it also had a backside for us: Using the CC was our only way to keep an enemy under control giving us enough time to use our top damagin skills.
Now this is not possible anymore, for we have to decide how to use our stun or fear.
This is not necessairly a bad thing, still it modified and maybe penalized us a bit more, that revamp itself it's not bad, putting it into our context the situation may chance a bit.
DPS Issue and HoX Role:
Last chapter of the topic.
As stated elsewhere we are now suffering for all the new mechanics, and we find that our DPS it's not comparable to the dps of other classes, of course every HoX should keep in mind that the concept is to be an Hybrid class so we can't achieve to be the overall best in a role, but we should be able to give a significant contribute given our hybrid nature.
Unfortunately the overall feeling is that this is not true, the Herald of Xotli is struggling badly, in the situation of a Possession HoX the most common situation is that one:
“ok i will now make that guy cry”
Situation 1:
Begins the cast of Desecrating Essence 1.5 seconds we got interrupted, we get the CD see you boost to damages
Situation 2: I manage to use Desecrating essence
“ok i have now the time to use my Tongue of Xotli!!!!! YAY!!!”
Situation 1:
Begins the cast of Tongue of Xotli, 2.5 seconds casting time we suffer a CC we get the CD on the skill we lose it, no massive damage/the enemies free himself from the CC he goes out our conic area, we waste the skill/the enemy has loads of resistances our skill does not go over 1,5k of damages (really happened on a guard).
Situation 2:
I manage to cast it, i shoot an overall good damage (between 2,5k-3k each 2 minutes, up to 4k if crit and we don't crit that often), still it's not enough to kill enemies on most of cases.
Concerns and Analisys on the Perks:
The Perks is the latest introduction to AoC's gameplay, reaction to this introduction have been completely opposite, some are considering the perks a good addiction, other are finding them penalizing or not well developed to be of effective aid to the class.
Let's go a bit deeper on this consideration:
The most common critic about the Alternate Advancement for the HoX is linked to many factor, each one relative to each kind of zone:
General: well, it's general, these are common feature focused on a boost on magic/physical resistances for PvE and on CC resistances for the PvP side, with an addiction of some skills that are giving bonuses of different nature on the stats following different paths (i.e. Critical improvement based on sum of Strenght+intelligence). At a first view this ofc appears to be a great improvement for a class like the HoX who historicaly suffered for a low level of toughness, even though the backside of this not always comes in mind immediately.
What i'm talking about? Simple, it's General.
These are buffs common to ALL the classes in the game, this means that after the dps reduction occurred in the past resistances gained a greater importance, improving the resistances for all the classes despite the kind and nature of it will create a double situation:
1)Classes with an already high resistances will have their position consolidated by these boost in the mitigation, resulting in a greater position of advantage (common example are Soldier Archetipes);
2)Classes with a low level of resistances may for sure benefit of the boost, but in the specific situation of the DPS class like HoX, Assassin and all the light armored guys (from cloth to Light) this will result in a reduction of the effective capability of being what they are made to: DPS both Burst or Sustained.
Why this assumption? Who tells me that the situation is really like this?
The absence of a re-scale of the DPS curve, directed to an increasing of the DPS value to support a boost in the resistances will affect the DPS classes, obviously the impact of this is different for each class, there are classes with an high dps that won't probably find that penalizing, but a classs like the HoX that is suffering for a sum of problems will find it quite penalizing.
The Assassin as well was in danger, but the recent revamp to its mechanics allowed him to bypass this issue, Assassin burst dps on a single target increased incredibly, and actually (speaking of a real situation) an Assassin is able to shot me in less than 5 seconds, and i'm a full T2 HoX with BK buff and 4th level of PvP.
When i got hit by the CC and i'm stuck i can see my bar become empty in a few seconds.
This is what most are facing commonly, of course using DE and ToX should be a decision taken in particular situations but they are actually our only instrument to deal an high damage and too many elements are preventing us from using them effectively.
Also there is a deficit of DPS stat compared with other classes, but to go deeper on this topic i will redirect you to this topic (thanks -Apocalisse- and Anselan):
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=153795 - enjoy the reading
All this factors are leading us to be doubtful, which is our role in a raid (PvE or PvP)
1)Dps: many other are doing that better than us both on single target and AoE, both on Burst and sustained damage
2)Debuff: ok nevermind, lack of debuffs and to slow to be effective
3)Minion Killing: 2 minutes CD on skill, other do it better
4)Nuke: Pass, we have competitors that are much more effective and that hasn't to wait 2 minutes to use the nuke skill
So we are asking ourselves, what are we? What we do here?
Here i'm going to close this thread, i'm not proposing any solution for actually many have been posted already and i will not repeat others ideas (some are really good), i'm just leaving this thread as a massive container of informations, some detailed some a bit less, to let everyone know which is (despite it can be correct or no) the feeling and the extended analysis many hox have about their class.
It took me time, it was an effort, hopefully it will help.
Regards to everyone.
Arcalimon
P.S.:
Forgive me if i may have wrote some bullshits somewhere, but trying to have a good overall vision of everything, and gathering stuff here and there it's not that easy.
Craig "Sillirion" Morrison writing about "Community Relations"
So here we are, Sil is discussing on his blog about Community Relations, sounds nice for once to know the point of view of one that's on the other side of the barricade.
At least for me that is, what do they think? How do they react to critics? What's their feelings about the "aggressions" of the community?
Enjoy the read!!!
Talking to your community (from Sillirion's Blog)
At least for me that is, what do they think? How do they react to critics? What's their feelings about the "aggressions" of the community?
Enjoy the read!!!
Talking to your community (from Sillirion's Blog)
Update 2.1 - Dreamworld Engine is on the road
Apparently that is.
Update notese 2.1 Dreamworld Engine appeared on TL forums, there are no detailed information on the patch note regarding the new Graphic Engine, but there are some tweaks for Guardians and some information related to the new minigame map The Call of Jhebbal Sag that is going to have its PvP EXP reward increased (and thank God given the INSANE lenght of the minigame).
You'll find the patch notes Here - Update 2.1 Dreamworld Engine
And still.... No Revamp news for the HoX........................
Stay tuned!!
Monday, 10 January 2011
Overview: The Herald of Xotli and the Crowd Control (CC and anti-CC)
Hi all!
I'm here today to provide you with some general thoughts about the famous (or infamous depending on the points of view) CC skills.
AoC's CC system has seen a nice development with the introduction of the CC Immunities, and a categorization of the Crowd Control:
1) Major CC: Are belonging to this category all the CC that are making you unable to control you character such as Stun, Fear, Charm and Knockback
2) Minor CC: Are belongin to this category all the CC that will make you lose partially control over you character such as Root, Snare and Silence
This categorization along with the immunities has changed the way to use the CC, they can't now be spammed to keep people under permanent CC (theoretically) so it's needed to time them and rotate them, to sum it up in one sentence: To make a choice.
This, in my opinion, is a great obstacle on the life of the HoX, for this reason let's try to know our CC a bit better.
I'll introduce you to.....
Dread Visage
Recast: 60 seconds
Casting Time: 0.5 Seconds
90 Degrees Arc, 7m Radius, applies fear +50% Hinder Movement
This is our Fear, frontal cone area of effect, slows our enemy and makes them fear our presence.
This is a Major CC, it's commonly considered as a defensive CC for the HoX, when sorrounded by many enemies and things are going to be bad for us (e.g. we are being focused) then it's the time to cast it.
Enemies in front of us will start to run in fear and we will have enough time to attempt an escape.
Word of Command
Recast: 30 seconds
Casting Time: Instant
4m radius, up to 12 characters
This is our root, it's a minor CC and it will be applied to all the nearby enemies.
According with FunCom, given that Minor CC, are only partially preventing players from controlling their toons, they can be cross-stacked.
It would be a wise idea to keep it as a backup CC, immunities are a nasty enemy to face, so if you cast your major cc (i.e Dread Visage) only to discover that your enemy has its immunity up and running, then be ready to cast Word of Command and to root them.
This could give you a fair opportunity to save your life.
You may consider to use it also in offensive situations, but you must consider that it can be removed quite easily and it could result in a waste.
If you want to maximize its effectiveness in offensive situations, then try to use it when you are BEHIND your enemy, this will give you the chance to hit hard on his back, which is unshielded!
Desecrating Essence
Recast: 120 seconds (Recast could be decreased with the Perk "Improved Desecrating Essence")
Casting Time: 1.5 seconds
6m radius, 5 seconds stun
Please note that the Stun effect to the desecrating effect skill comes only with the feat "Horrible Visage of Xotli" maxed at 3/3 from the talent tree "Possession".
Desecrating Essence (alongside with Avatar of Xotli, ending skill of the Avatar Tree) it's mainly meant to be a self buff.
It heals the Herald for a certain amount of HP, and applies a boost to: HP, Magic Damage (Fire), Combat Rating (Fire), Fear Resistance, Strenght and Intelligence.
Those last two statistics are furthermore boosted by the Perk "Red Shadow of Xotli" which is the Gold perk of the Class Section of the Alternate Advancement system.
The use of this skill it's commonly considered offensive.
Given the huge boost to the stats and to the magic damange, alongside with the Stun and the long cooldown, the best way to use DE it's shoot it when we are "sure" that our enemies have already burned out their anti CC, 1.5 of casting time are surely not a short time, so timing and positioning are really important.
Once you are sure you are in a fair good position (behind your enemies possibly) start the cast and you will stun them, being able to unleash your purifying fire on the infidels.
Pros of DE: It makes you immune to fear, and resistant to Knockback like a medium wearing character if Roots of Hell trait is maxed, it boosts your damage, increase you HP, heals you whe the cast is complete and lands a tick of fire damage to every nearby enemy.
Cons of DE: Casting time is a factor that shouldn't be underestimated, DE can be interrupted.
Also the Cooldown should be considered as an issue, if you use it improperly (i.e. too early, so enemies will break your cc with their anti CC, or too late when you are in attempt to die) will cause you to get the CD of the skill (base 120 seconds, it can be reduced), and waiting 2 minutes without being able to unleash your fury is frustrating.
Other BIG ISSUE: When you are under your Demonic form BE SURE THAT NO POM IS AROUND, if a PoM is around, be quick to deactivate DE immediately.
Why? Here's the answer:
Mitra's Searing Eye
This is a devastating skill for all the classes that are drawing their strenght from demonic sources (HoX with DE active and Demo with Demonic Hearth active).
It deals holy damage in a column in front of the PoM and it will deal TRIPLE damage to all undead and Demons.
Unfortunately we are recognized as Demons under Desecrating Essence, and it can result often in a Oneshot.
Anti-CC aka how to save our backs:
We are of course not the only class able to use CC.
So here we will briefly speak of our anti-cc, be ready, this is a sad chapter.
To be able to get some Anti-CC skill the HoX shall rely on the "General Tree" and on the AA (Alternate Advancement), in fact our main trees (Possesion and Avatar) are not providing us any form of protection against the CC.
Through the general tree we will obtain Purge, which is an anti root, we will have to spend 15 points (!!!) on the General tree to obtain it, but given that actuall the Avatar tree is widely considered an almost useless tree (I'll go deeper on this chapter later on the week) many are following that path.
Purge
Casting Time: Instant
Recast Time: 45 seconds
Removes most root and snare effects
This is another defensive skill, a good anti-cc if used properly, use it when you are trying to run and you are slowed down or rooted, it will immediately affect you, letting you run toward your safety.
Nothing else to be reported here.
The other Anti-CC, probably the only valuable perk of our Archetype tree of the AA (beside Will of the Sublime), responds to the name of Ethereal Escape:
Ethereal Escape (no image available atm)
Casting Time: Instant
Recast Time: It starts with 6 minutes cooldown, training it to higher levels (up to 5) will reduce the cooldown by 1 minute for each rank down to a minimum of 2 minutes when maxed.
It removes most crowd control effects from the mage and also boosts up the mana regen.
Note: as for many anti-cc skills, removing the CC removes also the immunity, so timing properly every anti-CC is a must, do not underestimante this feature!
Conlcusion:
Playing the Herald of Xotli it's surely a though business, but with a bit of attention we can be a pain for our enemies.
Mastering the CC and anti CC, knowing when to use them and what to expect from our enemies, it's a relevant aspect of our life, we have 3 CC, 2 major and 1 minor, and 2 anti-cc, we must manage them properly.
I hope this will be of help for you all!
Please feel free to add comment and suggestion!
Constructive criticism is always welcome!
More info on the revamped CC system:
Crowd Control system Revamp
Silence: it's now in line with the other CC effects (it has been upgraded to be a Major CC effect, with increased immunity duration. Translating it: Goodbye chain-cast-throat-slash!)
'Till the next time!
Arcalimon
I'm here today to provide you with some general thoughts about the famous (or infamous depending on the points of view) CC skills.
AoC's CC system has seen a nice development with the introduction of the CC Immunities, and a categorization of the Crowd Control:
1) Major CC: Are belonging to this category all the CC that are making you unable to control you character such as Stun, Fear, Charm and Knockback
2) Minor CC: Are belongin to this category all the CC that will make you lose partially control over you character such as Root, Snare and Silence
This categorization along with the immunities has changed the way to use the CC, they can't now be spammed to keep people under permanent CC (theoretically) so it's needed to time them and rotate them, to sum it up in one sentence: To make a choice.
This, in my opinion, is a great obstacle on the life of the HoX, for this reason let's try to know our CC a bit better.
I'll introduce you to.....
Recast: 60 seconds
Casting Time: 0.5 Seconds
90 Degrees Arc, 7m Radius, applies fear +50% Hinder Movement
This is our Fear, frontal cone area of effect, slows our enemy and makes them fear our presence.
This is a Major CC, it's commonly considered as a defensive CC for the HoX, when sorrounded by many enemies and things are going to be bad for us (e.g. we are being focused) then it's the time to cast it.
Enemies in front of us will start to run in fear and we will have enough time to attempt an escape.
Word of CommandRecast: 30 seconds
Casting Time: Instant
4m radius, up to 12 characters
This is our root, it's a minor CC and it will be applied to all the nearby enemies.
According with FunCom, given that Minor CC, are only partially preventing players from controlling their toons, they can be cross-stacked.
It would be a wise idea to keep it as a backup CC, immunities are a nasty enemy to face, so if you cast your major cc (i.e Dread Visage) only to discover that your enemy has its immunity up and running, then be ready to cast Word of Command and to root them.
This could give you a fair opportunity to save your life.
You may consider to use it also in offensive situations, but you must consider that it can be removed quite easily and it could result in a waste.
If you want to maximize its effectiveness in offensive situations, then try to use it when you are BEHIND your enemy, this will give you the chance to hit hard on his back, which is unshielded!
Desecrating EssenceRecast: 120 seconds (Recast could be decreased with the Perk "Improved Desecrating Essence")
Casting Time: 1.5 seconds
6m radius, 5 seconds stun
Please note that the Stun effect to the desecrating effect skill comes only with the feat "Horrible Visage of Xotli" maxed at 3/3 from the talent tree "Possession".
Desecrating Essence (alongside with Avatar of Xotli, ending skill of the Avatar Tree) it's mainly meant to be a self buff.
It heals the Herald for a certain amount of HP, and applies a boost to: HP, Magic Damage (Fire), Combat Rating (Fire), Fear Resistance, Strenght and Intelligence.
Those last two statistics are furthermore boosted by the Perk "Red Shadow of Xotli" which is the Gold perk of the Class Section of the Alternate Advancement system.
The use of this skill it's commonly considered offensive.
Given the huge boost to the stats and to the magic damange, alongside with the Stun and the long cooldown, the best way to use DE it's shoot it when we are "sure" that our enemies have already burned out their anti CC, 1.5 of casting time are surely not a short time, so timing and positioning are really important.
Once you are sure you are in a fair good position (behind your enemies possibly) start the cast and you will stun them, being able to unleash your purifying fire on the infidels.
Pros of DE: It makes you immune to fear, and resistant to Knockback like a medium wearing character if Roots of Hell trait is maxed, it boosts your damage, increase you HP, heals you whe the cast is complete and lands a tick of fire damage to every nearby enemy.
Cons of DE: Casting time is a factor that shouldn't be underestimated, DE can be interrupted.
Also the Cooldown should be considered as an issue, if you use it improperly (i.e. too early, so enemies will break your cc with their anti CC, or too late when you are in attempt to die) will cause you to get the CD of the skill (base 120 seconds, it can be reduced), and waiting 2 minutes without being able to unleash your fury is frustrating.
Other BIG ISSUE: When you are under your Demonic form BE SURE THAT NO POM IS AROUND, if a PoM is around, be quick to deactivate DE immediately.
Why? Here's the answer:
Mitra's Searing EyeThis is a devastating skill for all the classes that are drawing their strenght from demonic sources (HoX with DE active and Demo with Demonic Hearth active).
It deals holy damage in a column in front of the PoM and it will deal TRIPLE damage to all undead and Demons.
Unfortunately we are recognized as Demons under Desecrating Essence, and it can result often in a Oneshot.
Anti-CC aka how to save our backs:
We are of course not the only class able to use CC.
So here we will briefly speak of our anti-cc, be ready, this is a sad chapter.
To be able to get some Anti-CC skill the HoX shall rely on the "General Tree" and on the AA (Alternate Advancement), in fact our main trees (Possesion and Avatar) are not providing us any form of protection against the CC.
Through the general tree we will obtain Purge, which is an anti root, we will have to spend 15 points (!!!) on the General tree to obtain it, but given that actuall the Avatar tree is widely considered an almost useless tree (I'll go deeper on this chapter later on the week) many are following that path.
PurgeCasting Time: Instant
Recast Time: 45 seconds
Removes most root and snare effects
This is another defensive skill, a good anti-cc if used properly, use it when you are trying to run and you are slowed down or rooted, it will immediately affect you, letting you run toward your safety.
Nothing else to be reported here.
The other Anti-CC, probably the only valuable perk of our Archetype tree of the AA (beside Will of the Sublime), responds to the name of Ethereal Escape:
Ethereal Escape (no image available atm)
Casting Time: Instant
Recast Time: It starts with 6 minutes cooldown, training it to higher levels (up to 5) will reduce the cooldown by 1 minute for each rank down to a minimum of 2 minutes when maxed.
It removes most crowd control effects from the mage and also boosts up the mana regen.
Note: as for many anti-cc skills, removing the CC removes also the immunity, so timing properly every anti-CC is a must, do not underestimante this feature!
Conlcusion:
Playing the Herald of Xotli it's surely a though business, but with a bit of attention we can be a pain for our enemies.
Mastering the CC and anti CC, knowing when to use them and what to expect from our enemies, it's a relevant aspect of our life, we have 3 CC, 2 major and 1 minor, and 2 anti-cc, we must manage them properly.
I hope this will be of help for you all!
Please feel free to add comment and suggestion!
Constructive criticism is always welcome!
More info on the revamped CC system:
Crowd Control system Revamp
Silence: it's now in line with the other CC effects (it has been upgraded to be a Major CC effect, with increased immunity duration. Translating it: Goodbye chain-cast-throat-slash!)
'Till the next time!
Arcalimon
Sunday, 9 January 2011
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
The time has come.
After thinking about it for quite a long while, I finally decided to open this blog to try and provide a beacon of light in the darkness for all the fellows HoX spread across the server.
My intention is to provide you with the little knowledge I possess, and to discuss and share with you all the secrets of our God.
Please stay tuned, as i will provide as much information as I can!
Special thanks to Slith, who supported this initiative and to Kelvar, another HoX brother!
I really hope you will enjoy your stay!
Arcalimon
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