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!

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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.