Greetings.
The Crowd Control revamp has been released on the Test Live, I will skip the full notes and I will just report the changes that are related to our class:
Generic CC Changes: (as of 20/04/2011)* Most CC spells, abilities and combos have been tweaked in regards to duration, cast time, range, immunities or max targets. Also most combos are now one step in addition to the finisher.
* Knockbacks will now use a resistance based system to behave like other crowd control effects. Some feats and items have been changed in this regard. This means that the worn armor type of the target no longer matters.
* Some abilities and spells that purely gives resistances have been changed to be hostile so they are visible to enemies. These are: Stand your Ground, Running Shot, Excellent Balance and Ursine Bond.
* Most abilities (Abilities tab) should no longer be affected by silence. Spells will still be affected as they always have been.
* Priest and Mage classes will now also gain resistance to silence while under the effect of Recently Impaired.
* Targets affected by fear will now also have slow movement.
* The maximum Snare effect is now 60% Hinder Movement from a crowd control spell. Any additional effect will still stack on top of this.
* You can no longer be Staggered while affected by a Snare.
* All Root and Silence combos and spell will now grant the target a Recently Impaired buff.
* The stagger debuff now has a unique icon.
* Players that are feared while sprinting will no longer lose stamina as if sprinting under the fear effect.
Herald of Xotli
* Roots of Hell will now add 10/20/30% resistance against knockbacks while any polymorph is active
So far these are the changes applied by FunCom to CC environment, so I'm now going a bit in depth with what effectively changed for the Herald of Xotli.
Dread Visage (Fear): it was a 0.5 seconds it has been changed to a 1 second casting time skill, range and cooldown have not been changed. The HoX will perform an "hellfire-a-like" animation while casting it;
Words of Command (Root): it was an instant cast, it has been changed to a 1 second casting time skill as for the Fear range and CD have not been changed, the animation is like described for the fear.
Changes to the Possession Feat "Roots of Hell":
The whole system behind the Knockback has been changed, armor weight will now mean nothing, the whole calculation has been reworked to be based on resistances.
Roots of Hell now instead of increasing the HoX weight while under form will just modify the resistance to Knockback of 10% for each point invested, which basically means that a maxed feat will grant us a 30% to knockback.
I'm still unsure about this change and its effects, on the overall it does not seem so bad, but I need absolutely to understand one thing:
1) Now: We have a Full Plate weight with maxed RoH and we are harder to be knocked back by everyone due to this fact, I assume that a clothie or a light armor is simply unable to knock us back while we are plymorphed;
2) Future: We will be knockbackable, we will have just a 30% resistance, this means that EVEN while in form we will not be immune to knockbacks incoming from cloth,light and medium and we will just have a calculation of the resistance with a base value for us of 30%.
If the change is what I'm assuming then it's a nerf, we will susceptible of knockback even while under our demonic form and we will have to be extremely carefull. If it is really this than guys it will be a utter pain, resisting to Knockback while in form especially the one from barb and sin was absolutely our best reason to spend point on that feat.
Now we will just have roughly a 30% of resisting a Knockback while transformed, means basically that we will resist 1 KNOCKBACK EVERY 3 USED ON US.
And sorry it sounds like a nerf.
About WoC and DV, I'm totally disappointed, our fast CCs have been nerfed, we would not be able anymore to use especially the fear to escape dangerous situations. On the overall I do believe that those changes are the final blow to all our chances to fight properly in melee, we won't be dynamic and ready to run anymore and we will have to base everything on kiting, our melee survivability will be heavily affected by this and we will have to rely even more on a "hit and run" technique, true all the other classes will have their CC nerfed, but hey... a Barbaria now will debuff the DPS (i was reading and it seems to be -900 to DPS) with the feat "Paralisys" which had its root effect removed. In this case it was a nice tradeoff, and the necro now has an instant root, so why ours had to be nerfed? Just guessing.
I'm strongly convinced that the HoX will be seriously penalized from all those changes and it will be really really hard to figure out a proper way to survive now, on the other hand, the overall weight of the CC chain-locks will be lowered so we should have a better capability to move around.
I'm not that confident anyway, we saw our survival tools removed, and instead of being able to use a fast CC to stay alive we saw all our CCs brought more in line with the slow-as-hell Desecrating Essence.
Using Desecrating Essence is from my point of view only for offensive purposes so we have to be good at positioning and good at timing it, root and fear were our means to get out of trouble before someone could spank us, we don't have time to do a proper positioning and timing while running away, that's my biggest concern, our survivability has been penalized, and we are already an extremely-not-surviving class.
Many classes had a tradeoff (read barbarian going from root to DPS debuff) we didn't have any tradeoff. They just took something out of us, without giving us anything in exchange, and it's not fair at all.
The HoX already respected many times its part of the deal, having more and more penalties at every patch round, now it's their time to give us something in exchange.
Ending the rant on how it will affect the HoX i want to say that on the Overall this revamp will change the PvP and will do that for good, less CC frenzy it's a good thing for sure and I'm still supporting this change.
It's just that for once I would really like to see a balanced a well reasoned revamp, a revamp that for once is not throwing even more down classes that are already in desperate situations.
My testings will of course go on on TestLive especially when it comes down to duels, so I will be able to provide you all some more details.
Be aware anyway that those change is concerning me a lot and that my starting impression is negative, at least based on what they changed for us.
A real answer anyway will come only when we will be able to go on the battlefield and verify what will be the real CC output of all the other classes.
Stay tuned guys.
Arcalimon
Welcome to the Temple of Xotli a blog for the Herald of Xotli Class of Age of Conan.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Friday, 8 April 2011
Age of Conan - Age of Renewal
Refuge of the Apostate hitted Live Servers!
This week we saw the flash release of the new content announced a couple of weeks ago, after a quite speedy testing phase the instance has been released, and despite some usual bugs it is the first step toward a defined direction that has been drawed by the Game Director.
The reduction of the farming aspect of Age of Conan is being shaped day by day, first came the introduction of the exchange with veteran tokens, now the new instance, after will follow a rework of the faction reward, so the path is quite defined even if I'm eager to know what will change, and how much these changes will affect our experience.
Beside this aspect, there's also much more on the go, and it's my opinion that FunCom is willing to make use of the new Movie incoming this summer to shake the game from it's actual status both to prepare the ground to face the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic (rumors says it will be out in September) and to keep AoC alive till the release of their main project (at the moment at least) The Secret World.
Of all the upcoming changes we don't have many information, there will be 2 districts in Paikang, 2 new ACG instances (Active Generating Content [I'll check the spelling later:P]), but what is interesting me the most are the upcoming changes to the Crowd Control skills, to the Animation lenght and the introduction of the new ruleset.
Crowd Control Changes:
This change will affect the PvP side of the game, and I feel it is really much needed, the weight of the CC in the game mechanics at least for PvP it's just to heavy, most of your time while PvPing will be spent under the effect of CC being it a major one or a minor one, despite the new AA Anti-CC it still makes the experience not enjoyable.
Accordingly with the few information provided the major pace of this change will regard the "melee cc" due to the possible introduction of an attack before the execution of the skill, this will somehow affect the gameplay of the melee fighters, especially for a class like the Barbarian which is relying on the CC.
It will be interesting to see:
1) How will they work on the resistances to the CC especially for the Silence, which will be reviewed again;
2) How much melee will be affected by the change;
3) How much casters will have benefits/penalties from this changes.
Animation Rework:
When FC speaks about "The exploit we are not supposed to talk about" they are clearly referring to the comboskipping.
This change will aim directly to delete or at least reduce the occurrence of this exploit, by fastening the animation speed and by removing the root effect at the end of the combo (HoXes rejoice you won't be stuck anymore while using PoIF) they'll make the PvP much more dynamic and frenzied, faster combos will be harder to skip (if it'll be possible at all) and again this will affect badly all the classes that are "abusing" or take insane advantages from this "exploit" (Barbarian, Conqueror and Bear Shaman are the first coming to my mind).
Let me be clear anyway, FunCom classified the "Comboskipping" as an exploit, it is of course a practice which is on the very edge of the "Legal play" it is unfair by definition because male can skip better than female, because class X can skip better than class Y, but actually not Comboskipping will make your effectiveness in PvP far below the average.
This will be a really interesting change, and i'm absolutely looking forward to see what they'll do.
Paikang Districts and the 2 new AGC instances:
More introduction on the PvE side, this is not a bad idea itself, and if it will help in lessening the farming factor of Age of Conan i'm all up for this change. There's a huge lack of information beside some new posted in the Monthly Development letter on official forums so I can't really formulate anything detailed on this, but I have just one question:
Wouldn't you appreciate more new bosses for the T4 instance and a related bug fixing for it?
As a PvPer I would do. T4 is actually what is frustrating the most the player base PvEside, from my point of view obviously.
Blood and Glory ruleset:
I've already spoke my mind about this, but the news about CC and Animation rework will change things a bit.
These changes WILL change the life of the PvPers, these changes WILL affect also the chances of either success or utter failure of this new server for Hardcore PvP.
I've heard whispers about a possible PoM revamp in the meanwhile, and yes I do believe that a fresh level 80 PoM is in need of some love, but so does ToS and HoX.
Will they revamp these 3 classes before the Blood and Glory will be released?
If I was a member of the Developing class, I would suggest them to focus on revamps and class balance before facing such a huge challenge like the B&G release.
Anyway only time will give us the answers we are seeking, I have to say that FunCom is working and apparently is working hard to shape a new form for this game, results are sometimes good and sometimes bad, but I see a positive will in all this.
Let's just wait and see what the future will bring.
Till the next blog entry and may the Wrath of Xotli be with you!
Arcalimon
This week we saw the flash release of the new content announced a couple of weeks ago, after a quite speedy testing phase the instance has been released, and despite some usual bugs it is the first step toward a defined direction that has been drawed by the Game Director.
The reduction of the farming aspect of Age of Conan is being shaped day by day, first came the introduction of the exchange with veteran tokens, now the new instance, after will follow a rework of the faction reward, so the path is quite defined even if I'm eager to know what will change, and how much these changes will affect our experience.
Beside this aspect, there's also much more on the go, and it's my opinion that FunCom is willing to make use of the new Movie incoming this summer to shake the game from it's actual status both to prepare the ground to face the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic (rumors says it will be out in September) and to keep AoC alive till the release of their main project (at the moment at least) The Secret World.
Of all the upcoming changes we don't have many information, there will be 2 districts in Paikang, 2 new ACG instances (Active Generating Content [I'll check the spelling later:P]), but what is interesting me the most are the upcoming changes to the Crowd Control skills, to the Animation lenght and the introduction of the new ruleset.
Crowd Control Changes:
This change will affect the PvP side of the game, and I feel it is really much needed, the weight of the CC in the game mechanics at least for PvP it's just to heavy, most of your time while PvPing will be spent under the effect of CC being it a major one or a minor one, despite the new AA Anti-CC it still makes the experience not enjoyable.
Accordingly with the few information provided the major pace of this change will regard the "melee cc" due to the possible introduction of an attack before the execution of the skill, this will somehow affect the gameplay of the melee fighters, especially for a class like the Barbarian which is relying on the CC.
It will be interesting to see:
1) How will they work on the resistances to the CC especially for the Silence, which will be reviewed again;
2) How much melee will be affected by the change;
3) How much casters will have benefits/penalties from this changes.
Animation Rework:
When FC speaks about "The exploit we are not supposed to talk about" they are clearly referring to the comboskipping.
This change will aim directly to delete or at least reduce the occurrence of this exploit, by fastening the animation speed and by removing the root effect at the end of the combo (HoXes rejoice you won't be stuck anymore while using PoIF) they'll make the PvP much more dynamic and frenzied, faster combos will be harder to skip (if it'll be possible at all) and again this will affect badly all the classes that are "abusing" or take insane advantages from this "exploit" (Barbarian, Conqueror and Bear Shaman are the first coming to my mind).
Let me be clear anyway, FunCom classified the "Comboskipping" as an exploit, it is of course a practice which is on the very edge of the "Legal play" it is unfair by definition because male can skip better than female, because class X can skip better than class Y, but actually not Comboskipping will make your effectiveness in PvP far below the average.
This will be a really interesting change, and i'm absolutely looking forward to see what they'll do.
Paikang Districts and the 2 new AGC instances:
More introduction on the PvE side, this is not a bad idea itself, and if it will help in lessening the farming factor of Age of Conan i'm all up for this change. There's a huge lack of information beside some new posted in the Monthly Development letter on official forums so I can't really formulate anything detailed on this, but I have just one question:
Wouldn't you appreciate more new bosses for the T4 instance and a related bug fixing for it?
As a PvPer I would do. T4 is actually what is frustrating the most the player base PvEside, from my point of view obviously.
Blood and Glory ruleset:
I've already spoke my mind about this, but the news about CC and Animation rework will change things a bit.
These changes WILL change the life of the PvPers, these changes WILL affect also the chances of either success or utter failure of this new server for Hardcore PvP.
I've heard whispers about a possible PoM revamp in the meanwhile, and yes I do believe that a fresh level 80 PoM is in need of some love, but so does ToS and HoX.
Will they revamp these 3 classes before the Blood and Glory will be released?
If I was a member of the Developing class, I would suggest them to focus on revamps and class balance before facing such a huge challenge like the B&G release.
Anyway only time will give us the answers we are seeking, I have to say that FunCom is working and apparently is working hard to shape a new form for this game, results are sometimes good and sometimes bad, but I see a positive will in all this.
Let's just wait and see what the future will bring.
Till the next blog entry and may the Wrath of Xotli be with you!
Arcalimon
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Refuge of the Apostate - The new upcoming solo instance
Finally back!
I've managed to test that new instance just yesterday and it was not that bad.
Our journey towards the Refuge of the Apostate begins in Kara Korum when we decide to move up to Ghost Hills (most probably when we will be chasing a Brittle Blade officer [Rank 2 quest]), while fighting our way through the village we will meet a girl near a resspad, she is willing to exchange words with us, warning us about the great peril toward which we are moving our footsteps. Obviously we decide to go in despite her advices so she will charge us with a task, because she has no desire to get back in the nightmare.
We will then climb the slope heading toward the first house on the right, and entering it we will bravely go throug the trapdoor that leads inside the refuge.
The instance is splitted into levels:
The first level consists in a mine, where we will find several mobs busy in attending to their jobs, but they won't hesitate to attack us on sight, the level of the instance is what i would define a simple "Run through" you'll go across the map from point A to point B finding a gate during your trip, gate that will be opened after you'll kill the HoX looking boss but with Necro skills. Note for the HoX: At least in the TL versione the mobs of the virst zone are very likely to resist the spells, so watch out.
The Second Level is called the "Staging Area" it looks like a mix of a Chessboard and it has clear references to the "Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor - Qin Shi Huang" [if you want to learn more http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/441] and his army of stone. You'll have to go through this area in which there's an interesting puzzle runnig throug the canyons while slowed preiodically by a specific spell and fighting the "Stone Warriors" that are impressively similar to the ones in this picture, you'll have to pay attention because sometimes walking on the wrong pad will activate some "Tomb Raider looking" (thanks slith for reminding me where I saw that traps first) traps based on arrows. Your first aim is to reach the exit of the room passing through the Canyons, to do so you'll have to reach the highest level of the room where a nice puzzle awaits (i won't spoil it).
The Third Level is a Library, there's a good number of mob in it, but as for the first level it's "Run Through" zone without anything really particular to be done in it.
Then comes the end of the instance when you'll reach a room with an hall in which you'll be able to see 5 bosses in front of you, they are just reflection of the real boss, but you won't be able to fight them immediately, just because they will underestimate you and send you within a nightmare (or soul trip) you will be chained like if you were fatalized by a necro.
While in this mode you will have to reach the platform where the "chained soul" is in order to free yourself, what has to be noticed is that there's a countdown in this mode, at the end of it you will be fatalized, while trying to reach the platform, reflection of the boss will appear and they will knock you back (repulse animation) also applying an hinder movement, that reflection can appear up to 3 times as far as I had the chance to see, and the Hinder movement stacks till reaching 100% condemning you to death.
If you'll manage tor each the platform to free the soul you'll fight the last boss, personally I haven't found anything special about that boss, it's a common fight only special feature is that he will periodically call his reflection starting a nasty attack which could one shot you, so you'll have to seriously nuke him down.
Conclusion:
The instance looks nice, it's not so hard and easy enough if you pay attention to what you are doing, I do believe that it should be a bit better enriched for what regards the story behind it and also inserted in a "chain" of quests that will lead you there, without getting there because others told you that it's there.
I found pretty interesting the 2nd level and its references to the "Stone Army" it would be awesome to have some more details on why that statues are there, and on who the hell is that apostate, that cultural reminder was really appreciated by me honestly.
As for the reward, they should adjust the loot table, it's a one-man instance, the loot should not be random imo, but it should be something usefull for the class keeping in mind that for a regular raider all the items will be useless but for a fresh 80 a blue item dropped there would be a great loot and great step forward on the long road called "Equipping my toon".
Screenshots will come asap!
Take care!
Arcalimon
I've managed to test that new instance just yesterday and it was not that bad.
Our journey towards the Refuge of the Apostate begins in Kara Korum when we decide to move up to Ghost Hills (most probably when we will be chasing a Brittle Blade officer [Rank 2 quest]), while fighting our way through the village we will meet a girl near a resspad, she is willing to exchange words with us, warning us about the great peril toward which we are moving our footsteps. Obviously we decide to go in despite her advices so she will charge us with a task, because she has no desire to get back in the nightmare.
We will then climb the slope heading toward the first house on the right, and entering it we will bravely go throug the trapdoor that leads inside the refuge.
The instance is splitted into levels:
The first level consists in a mine, where we will find several mobs busy in attending to their jobs, but they won't hesitate to attack us on sight, the level of the instance is what i would define a simple "Run through" you'll go across the map from point A to point B finding a gate during your trip, gate that will be opened after you'll kill the HoX looking boss but with Necro skills. Note for the HoX: At least in the TL versione the mobs of the virst zone are very likely to resist the spells, so watch out.
The Second Level is called the "Staging Area" it looks like a mix of a Chessboard and it has clear references to the "Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor - Qin Shi Huang" [if you want to learn more http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/441] and his army of stone. You'll have to go through this area in which there's an interesting puzzle runnig throug the canyons while slowed preiodically by a specific spell and fighting the "Stone Warriors" that are impressively similar to the ones in this picture, you'll have to pay attention because sometimes walking on the wrong pad will activate some "Tomb Raider looking" (thanks slith for reminding me where I saw that traps first) traps based on arrows. Your first aim is to reach the exit of the room passing through the Canyons, to do so you'll have to reach the highest level of the room where a nice puzzle awaits (i won't spoil it).
The Third Level is a Library, there's a good number of mob in it, but as for the first level it's "Run Through" zone without anything really particular to be done in it.
Then comes the end of the instance when you'll reach a room with an hall in which you'll be able to see 5 bosses in front of you, they are just reflection of the real boss, but you won't be able to fight them immediately, just because they will underestimate you and send you within a nightmare (or soul trip) you will be chained like if you were fatalized by a necro.
While in this mode you will have to reach the platform where the "chained soul" is in order to free yourself, what has to be noticed is that there's a countdown in this mode, at the end of it you will be fatalized, while trying to reach the platform, reflection of the boss will appear and they will knock you back (repulse animation) also applying an hinder movement, that reflection can appear up to 3 times as far as I had the chance to see, and the Hinder movement stacks till reaching 100% condemning you to death.
If you'll manage tor each the platform to free the soul you'll fight the last boss, personally I haven't found anything special about that boss, it's a common fight only special feature is that he will periodically call his reflection starting a nasty attack which could one shot you, so you'll have to seriously nuke him down.
Conclusion:
The instance looks nice, it's not so hard and easy enough if you pay attention to what you are doing, I do believe that it should be a bit better enriched for what regards the story behind it and also inserted in a "chain" of quests that will lead you there, without getting there because others told you that it's there.
I found pretty interesting the 2nd level and its references to the "Stone Army" it would be awesome to have some more details on why that statues are there, and on who the hell is that apostate, that cultural reminder was really appreciated by me honestly.
As for the reward, they should adjust the loot table, it's a one-man instance, the loot should not be random imo, but it should be something usefull for the class keeping in mind that for a regular raider all the items will be useless but for a fresh 80 a blue item dropped there would be a great loot and great step forward on the long road called "Equipping my toon".
Screenshots will come asap!
Take care!
Arcalimon
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