Back after a hard week of study for university exams and going to discuss about the new idea thrown in by Sil on forums about the new ruleset temporarily called "The Blood and Glory".
My reaction about this new went through 2 different phases, i switched from an excited feeling to a more critical overview of the thing.
Truth be said, I believe that the idea behind this proposal it's quite good and can represent a great mean to satisfy (partially) the PvP needs of the AoC community which have been lately frustrated and twisted, especially with the latest revamps and the introduction of the Shrines of Bori, Bori is a game mechanics that i personally don't like, but I'm doing that every now and then, and not on a regular basis because it represent the only way to obtain easily and fast what you won't obtain easily and fast with all the other PvP mechanics.
This is a truth.
Creating a reserved ruleset for a PvP only server without guards is a good idea, will prevent the chicken run to guards in the pvp zones and should at least on the paper give a boost to the "Group PvP", it will allow you to finally GROUP UP WITH YOUR FRIENDS feature, this one, that has been removed with the latest patch, choice that one that I consider honestly unbelievable.
Many sarcastic posts proposed to remove grouping from PvE as well, and even if it is obviously absurd, the sarcasm behind these posts clearly draws how much this choice has been unfamous.
Back on topic anyway, this idea could work, thinking about it I really believe it would be a serious challenge to live in a world where only your friends and your effective skill will be your shield against the deaths, even though there are some indents that are in need to be consdiered.
On a general point, the hardest concerns are related to the class balance, the class system as it is now is impronted to a great advantage of some classes against some other, developing a new pvp reserved enviroment without providing everybody with the same tools it's a foulish idea, classes gimped to oblivion will never have the upper hand against a zerg of godmodes classes.
I can foresee a server full of Guardian, Rangers and Assassins and Necros with pets.
Who's gonna roll an healer or a HoX or a Demo in a server where the vast majority of the classes can shot you with a simple 1 click combo?
This point should not be underestimated.
Another big issue is related with the AA system, this new ruleset is supposed to be PvP oriented, so Prowess and Expertise should be our bread, how can we manage to obtain enough points to be on pair with all the time spent, since one year till today, on the live server to boost our perks?
How many will be available to redo the grind from 0?
How are they going to address this issue?
These are all big questions.
The gear is another issue, on this server, I personally expect to not be forced to do PvE to get enough gear to do PvP, so how am I supposed to gather enough equipment to be competitive?
How will gear effect the Blood and Glory ruleset?
Simply if it stays as it is now, it will be a big no-no, AoC is actually too much gear dependent, you can be skilled as you want, if your enemy has a better equip than you do, you are dead. Period and full stop.
Bori chapter. FunCom did a great thing here, they opened a poll asking their players to expose their opinion on Bori, should it be available or not?
Bori has been declared as one of the better introduction of this game, it was surprising for me to see the partial results of the votes.
Last time I checked, on a basis of 300 voting guys 290 voted "No, it should not be present" only 10 voted "Yes it should be present".
What does it mean?
It means that the community dislikes Bori, and that the community is aiming at a REAL pvp content, which Bori clearly isn't.
This means of course from my point of view that the community is acting to prevent the creation of 1 big guild that will own the zone forever completely preventing all the others to go there.
Fury is an example of this, according with my information.
As Silirrion said, this will be a fresh start, you'll be able to have only one character there and no transfers will be allowed.
This is partially a good idea.
Partially why? Because rerolling from 0 means that you will lose all the progression you earned in one year of expansion, specifically all the perks, this is good on the other side because it will bring you back on pair with all the rest (who exploited the AA and who is far behind the others) of the players, but... how many will really consider an option to be forced to develop the AA from 0 again?
Many are honestly not willing, and Sil said that AA system won't be removed from the game, so this is almost a dead end road, but it should not be ignored.
Beside all these points I think the idea behind this proposal is good, what will make the difference for it being a huge success or the epic and ultimate fail for this game is the development that there will be behind it.
They should boost the actual content (read sieges and world objectives in general) before releasing this new content, they should work on balance and revamp all those classes that are now far beyond all the others (no i'm not exclusively referring at the HoX, we're not alone even if we are probably in the worst position), and address all the game related issues of lag, bugs, exploits.
Only after all those measures they will be ready to release this new content, hopefully they will seriously listen to the playerbase opinion on this matter.
We will see what will happen, for sure i will test it on TestLive servers if and when it will be released.
Stay tuned!
Arcalimon
Welcome to the Temple of Xotli a blog for the Herald of Xotli Class of Age of Conan.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
[Prince of Terror] How does it work?
Hi guys, I finally managed to obtain this perk and I was running around yesterday with it in minigame to test it.
First of all a little description of what it does:
Prince of Terror:
+89 Magic Damage (Fire)
+375 Protection (Fire)
+66% Weapon Damage (Fire)
Duration: 15 Seconds
Casting Time: Instant
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Chance on Damage, Spiritual Wrack (-10% Holy and Unholy damage) 200 proc per minute
Switches the damage type of the combo from fire to Unholy and improves the BtD combo with an increased chance of critical damage for the DoT.
This is the description of the skill itself I would like (try at least) to go a bit more in detail about what a HoX may lose/gain from removing RSoX to use PoT.
This is very depending on the setup of perks and equip you have so I will give you my example so you can do your calculations on a solid numerical basis.
I'm running around with a most classical Possession/General, 56/23, using in PvP Chest, Legs and Helm from T1 PvP set, boots and belt from PvP minigame set, 2x Dreamer's Keepsake, pvp5 Cloak, pvp5 necklace, pvp5 sword, t2 wrist and t3 shoulders and gloves, PvP level 5 with T3 BK.
My original setup was: Chromatic Warding (3), Decisive Strike (4), Will of the Sublime (4), Ethereal Escape (4), Red Shadow of Xotli.
My stats: 340 strenght and 230 Intelligence without RSoX and 440 strenght and 330 Intelligence with the passive boost of RSoX.
Resistances; passive resistances from AA at 2, beside Electrical which is at 3.
With this set up my PvP magic damage was at 1055 Bonus spell damage fire, with resistances between a minimum value of 28% up to a max value of 31.5%.
It's quite clear that removing RSoX it's putting our magic damage down to Oblivion, in fact as soon as i removed RSoX I notice my pvp magic damage fell under 1000.
It's obvious that this gap will be increased while under Desecrating Essence, given that without RSoX we will lose our massive stat increase.
Now my actual setup with PoT:
Build: it's the same Poss/Gen I actually don't find doable a switch to an Avatar/Poss or Poss/Avatar, General tree still gives us more than Avatar does.
Perk setup: Field of War (pvp perk at 2 points, being trained at 3), Decisive Strike (4), Will of the Sublime (4), Ethereal Escape (4), Prince of Terror
Equip: the very same described before.
Stats: Strenght 340, Intelligence 230, PvP Bonus spell damage 1033, Resistances between a lowest value of 26.7% up to a highest value of 28%.
Little overview: I'm standing above 25% of magical resistances, admittedly the difference between 26% and 28% it's probably not that much, the magic damage it's only 22 points below the average I had in a normal form with RSoX so it's highly acceptable from my point of view (soon i'll have field of war at rank 3 so i will go on pair probably), yes of course while in form the gap will be present but on the overall this setup from my point of view fills the gap existing due to the absence of RSoX, and more than this, honestly a possession HoX does not rely that much on remaining under Desecrating Essence for a long time, that's more an Avatar feature.
Test during fights:
Ok then, now let's come to the real test.
Prince of Terror being an instant cast spell it's extremely dynamic, it can be used whenever you want, immediately giving you a good burst of damage.
I'm actually not suffering from the absence of RSoX, and the damage output it's pretty much the same, what is nice is that Pillar of Infernal Flames has a huge benefit from this perk, boost to magic damage, boost to melee damage, auto-debuffing, switch to unholy damage, it works great.
We should also consider that PoT and Exultation of Xotli can be applied together, this will then result in a nice situation:
90% + 66% = 146% melee damage istantly for a lenght of some seconds resulting in a good burst of damage, let's just consider that my melee dps goes up from 209 to 290 only with the +66% of melee boost!
For example, yesterday I managed to land a BtD for 800 melee damage for each hit plus a boosted dot at 700 on a soldier.
Conclusion:
Prince of Terror has impressed me, it's a perk that can be used in many situation and grants you a good boost, used properly and cycled with other skills like Demon Maw, Tome of Erlik, Desecrating Essence will allow you to have a boosted damage pretty much for the whole duration of the fight.
Anyhow the differences between PoT and RSoX are really not so deep to allow me to say that one is better than another, I'm strongly convinced that is more a matter of personal tastes and gameplay.
So even if I do believe I will hang on with PoT for a while, my suggestion for you is: Try it out, make tests, make experiments!
Hopefully my numbers posted above will help you a bit to understand what are we talking about
Catch you around!
Arcalimon
[Note: Thanks to Kayava, Igramul and Kelvar who helped me about this topic]
First of all a little description of what it does:
Prince of Terror:
+89 Magic Damage (Fire)
+375 Protection (Fire)
+66% Weapon Damage (Fire)
Duration: 15 Seconds
Casting Time: Instant
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Chance on Damage, Spiritual Wrack (-10% Holy and Unholy damage) 200 proc per minute
Switches the damage type of the combo from fire to Unholy and improves the BtD combo with an increased chance of critical damage for the DoT.
This is the description of the skill itself I would like (try at least) to go a bit more in detail about what a HoX may lose/gain from removing RSoX to use PoT.
This is very depending on the setup of perks and equip you have so I will give you my example so you can do your calculations on a solid numerical basis.
I'm running around with a most classical Possession/General, 56/23, using in PvP Chest, Legs and Helm from T1 PvP set, boots and belt from PvP minigame set, 2x Dreamer's Keepsake, pvp5 Cloak, pvp5 necklace, pvp5 sword, t2 wrist and t3 shoulders and gloves, PvP level 5 with T3 BK.
My original setup was: Chromatic Warding (3), Decisive Strike (4), Will of the Sublime (4), Ethereal Escape (4), Red Shadow of Xotli.
My stats: 340 strenght and 230 Intelligence without RSoX and 440 strenght and 330 Intelligence with the passive boost of RSoX.
Resistances; passive resistances from AA at 2, beside Electrical which is at 3.
With this set up my PvP magic damage was at 1055 Bonus spell damage fire, with resistances between a minimum value of 28% up to a max value of 31.5%.
It's quite clear that removing RSoX it's putting our magic damage down to Oblivion, in fact as soon as i removed RSoX I notice my pvp magic damage fell under 1000.
It's obvious that this gap will be increased while under Desecrating Essence, given that without RSoX we will lose our massive stat increase.
Now my actual setup with PoT:
Build: it's the same Poss/Gen I actually don't find doable a switch to an Avatar/Poss or Poss/Avatar, General tree still gives us more than Avatar does.
Perk setup: Field of War (pvp perk at 2 points, being trained at 3), Decisive Strike (4), Will of the Sublime (4), Ethereal Escape (4), Prince of Terror
Equip: the very same described before.
Stats: Strenght 340, Intelligence 230, PvP Bonus spell damage 1033, Resistances between a lowest value of 26.7% up to a highest value of 28%.
Little overview: I'm standing above 25% of magical resistances, admittedly the difference between 26% and 28% it's probably not that much, the magic damage it's only 22 points below the average I had in a normal form with RSoX so it's highly acceptable from my point of view (soon i'll have field of war at rank 3 so i will go on pair probably), yes of course while in form the gap will be present but on the overall this setup from my point of view fills the gap existing due to the absence of RSoX, and more than this, honestly a possession HoX does not rely that much on remaining under Desecrating Essence for a long time, that's more an Avatar feature.
Test during fights:
Ok then, now let's come to the real test.
Prince of Terror being an instant cast spell it's extremely dynamic, it can be used whenever you want, immediately giving you a good burst of damage.
I'm actually not suffering from the absence of RSoX, and the damage output it's pretty much the same, what is nice is that Pillar of Infernal Flames has a huge benefit from this perk, boost to magic damage, boost to melee damage, auto-debuffing, switch to unholy damage, it works great.
We should also consider that PoT and Exultation of Xotli can be applied together, this will then result in a nice situation:
90% + 66% = 146% melee damage istantly for a lenght of some seconds resulting in a good burst of damage, let's just consider that my melee dps goes up from 209 to 290 only with the +66% of melee boost!
For example, yesterday I managed to land a BtD for 800 melee damage for each hit plus a boosted dot at 700 on a soldier.
Conclusion:
Prince of Terror has impressed me, it's a perk that can be used in many situation and grants you a good boost, used properly and cycled with other skills like Demon Maw, Tome of Erlik, Desecrating Essence will allow you to have a boosted damage pretty much for the whole duration of the fight.
Anyhow the differences between PoT and RSoX are really not so deep to allow me to say that one is better than another, I'm strongly convinced that is more a matter of personal tastes and gameplay.
So even if I do believe I will hang on with PoT for a while, my suggestion for you is: Try it out, make tests, make experiments!
Hopefully my numbers posted above will help you a bit to understand what are we talking about
Catch you around!
Arcalimon
[Note: Thanks to Kayava, Igramul and Kelvar who helped me about this topic]
Monday, 7 February 2011
[Dreamworld Engine] Another look at the new engine
Out of interest i logged back on the TL server to verify how was the development going, especially to verify the performances of the engine after the deactivation of the AA feature.
I was still very impressed by the test I made a couple of weeks ago, the system was smooth and the detail level was very impressive, on the average the FPS were good.
I saw many posts full of concerns here and there and it's understandable, the fear to have another beta content released on live with the followup of bugs, instability, crashes and whatever, but I must admit that even without the AA feature activated the result is pretty awesome.
First of all as usual my rig:
Intel i5 - 750 overclocked @ 3.2 GhZ
GeForce GTX 570
4 GB Ram DDR3
OS Windows 7 - 64bit
I noticed a great difference in terms of mere fps numbers, in Chosain Province the amount of FPS increased from 30 to almost 60, the overall quality seems unmodified, the surrounding is astonishing, detailed and the light/shadow management is still great.
Being entirely honest I didn't noticed any big difference between my first test and my latest test, if not for a strong increase in FPS in full DX 10 settings, which is encouraging.
If in the graphical section I dare to say that there's nothing to report (and that's a good thing from my point of view) it's a different story for the Client side.
Loadings are extremely slow and tricky, especially when you are zoning from an "Old" zone to a Kithai zone, it will take quite a while to load the area and to let you play, also, even if apparently the loading is completed as soon as you spawn in a zone you will notice NPCS and surrounding being loaded while you move.
This of course creates some issues and some mini freezes on the screen as well as major lag spikes sometimes (but not often) resulting in a crash.
Of course this has been reported on TL forums, and community is waiting for an answer to this.
Beside those client issues I'm still convinced that the development of the Dreamworld Engine is going in the right direction, and i'm still convinced it will be really appreciated when it will hit the Live Server.
I do also agree with their choice of removing AA from the client as soon as they noticed it was not performing correctly with the client.
On the downside of this thread I have to mention the fact that multithreading is not being treated in this update series (2.1) and it's not considered a focus for the staff, things this that is making me quite disappointed, in 2011 a game like AoC should manage properly the multithreading to allow a better approach to its astonishing graphics.
Patch notes on TL forums are also including a large list of fixes and tweaks to some issues in game, rebalance of some elements on the PvP side (especially about the new minigame Jhebbal Sag), and on the overall appears to be a good "starting point".
I'm still hoping that in the future we will se some more balance between classes with some more revamp hitting the ground especially for our belove and forgotten class.
That's it for today!
Till the next blog entry then!
Arcalimon
P.S.: Some screenshots taken from Khemi, enjoy!
I was still very impressed by the test I made a couple of weeks ago, the system was smooth and the detail level was very impressive, on the average the FPS were good.
I saw many posts full of concerns here and there and it's understandable, the fear to have another beta content released on live with the followup of bugs, instability, crashes and whatever, but I must admit that even without the AA feature activated the result is pretty awesome.
First of all as usual my rig:
Intel i5 - 750 overclocked @ 3.2 GhZ
GeForce GTX 570
4 GB Ram DDR3
OS Windows 7 - 64bit
I noticed a great difference in terms of mere fps numbers, in Chosain Province the amount of FPS increased from 30 to almost 60, the overall quality seems unmodified, the surrounding is astonishing, detailed and the light/shadow management is still great.
Being entirely honest I didn't noticed any big difference between my first test and my latest test, if not for a strong increase in FPS in full DX 10 settings, which is encouraging.
If in the graphical section I dare to say that there's nothing to report (and that's a good thing from my point of view) it's a different story for the Client side.
Loadings are extremely slow and tricky, especially when you are zoning from an "Old" zone to a Kithai zone, it will take quite a while to load the area and to let you play, also, even if apparently the loading is completed as soon as you spawn in a zone you will notice NPCS and surrounding being loaded while you move.
This of course creates some issues and some mini freezes on the screen as well as major lag spikes sometimes (but not often) resulting in a crash.
Of course this has been reported on TL forums, and community is waiting for an answer to this.
Beside those client issues I'm still convinced that the development of the Dreamworld Engine is going in the right direction, and i'm still convinced it will be really appreciated when it will hit the Live Server.
I do also agree with their choice of removing AA from the client as soon as they noticed it was not performing correctly with the client.
On the downside of this thread I have to mention the fact that multithreading is not being treated in this update series (2.1) and it's not considered a focus for the staff, things this that is making me quite disappointed, in 2011 a game like AoC should manage properly the multithreading to allow a better approach to its astonishing graphics.
Patch notes on TL forums are also including a large list of fixes and tweaks to some issues in game, rebalance of some elements on the PvP side (especially about the new minigame Jhebbal Sag), and on the overall appears to be a good "starting point".
I'm still hoping that in the future we will se some more balance between classes with some more revamp hitting the ground especially for our belove and forgotten class.
That's it for today!
Till the next blog entry then!
Arcalimon
P.S.: Some screenshots taken from Khemi, enjoy!
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Herald of Xotli - Class Tree Alternate Advancement
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
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
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
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