Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Lotus 30-40 lvl

So you got snap kick and lotus heal and you build looks like this:
http://www.conanarmory.com/feat.aspx?id=1#::e2fe2f4cefef62:

time for the upgrade, and it will be a solid one:

2 points into Lotus Tainted Blood (giving total 3)->5 into antrophy->you are lvl 37 now, save 3 points till lvl 40-> Opportunistic strike->Lotus overload->save the rest for level 50

http://www.conanarmory.com/feat.aspx?id=1#::e2fe2fef2e2fefef2ef57:

Full anti-magic potential

With Lotus Tainted Blood and Lotus overload you have reached your fullest vs casters. Yes, you can expand on this further via Arcane Backlash (reported bugged for now) or Natural Protection from General tree (giving a total of 10% magic rest), but with the build I am presenting you are all you can be. Congratulations!

Survivality boost

Antrophy will give you an amazing survivality boost because it can debuff with -30% damage several mobs/players at the same time. If you are taking too much damage, drop antrophy and watch the damage drop. Antrophy is instant and does little damage, but sometimes it can crit and the results will warm your cold, assassin’s heart.

On a side note: there is nothing you can do that will make you smile more than killing someone in PVP with well timed Antrophy.

Damage boost

Opportunistic strike aka OP works a little like dark inspiration only its active...and lotus...and works with several combos...and its way better. You will use it with Grim Corruption and it will crit every time you use it. Nice short cool down and long buff duration.

Hang in there!

This (meaning lvl 40) isn’t *IT* for assassins, you will evolve into so much more. Hang in there, and keep reaching for that lvl 60 because things will get a lot more fun.

Monday, September 29, 2008

To save or not to save?

Sooner or later (sooner THAN later) you will run into problem that next feat worth any points is like 8 lvls away and there are only two things to do:

1. dump points in crappy feats and respecc later,
2. save your points and get a HUGE boots once you hit the level needed

I need you to focus now and remember this: threat your respecc costs with ....respect because it is not capped right now.

“Not capped? The hell you mean Slith, it’s like 2s per respecc for me and that is SHIT money”

Well first of all you are talking to the KING OF RESPECCERS because I am 8g per talent change, baby and cannot state clearly enough how important it is to make WISE decisions when it comes to feat points spending and how important it is to save them to get your specc right.

The first time you will need to save points will be lvl 32 because the next feat worth 5 points is Unholy armor and you need lvl 40 for that sucker (for corruption anyway)
Yes, you can dump points into dread weapon and dark inspiration, feel good about it and respecc on lvl 40....but it will bite you in the ass later on when you will have to bust your guts in order to farm gold for yet another respecc...

Just so we are clear on this: not capped respecc cost means the reset will get more pricey every time you do it...

...and that is cool.....not!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

The community just doesn't care anymore...

With this blog I was hoping to teach few new players "the assassin way", but mainly I wanted to spark up the conversations in our boards with topic raging from lvl 10 to 80. I wanted to do in-deepth feat analiss with my peers from forums, but they act like they ate too much of purple lotus...they just doesn't care.
I will be fair: it's not just the assassin community - the WHOLE Age of Conan crowd has gone to SHITTER. The game lies in ruins and it has lost it's charm way to early.
I am pissed off about it - not with community, but with Funcom because at the begining this game had the BEST forums (especialy US ones) in any game I have seen and now they are empty. Sad, sad day it is...

Friday, September 26, 2008

Up to level 30 with Corruption

Before we begin...

There is a MAJOR problem with soul shards management early on: once you hit the “Spirit of Nightfall” feat you will basically generate as much shards as you will at lvl 80 except you almost won’t have things to spend them on. This is one of the reasons why people go Lotus over Corruption for the early game.

Corruption build
http://www.conanarmory.com/feat.aspx?id=1#::f30efe2fefcfefef33:

this is how you spend your points:

Improved Unholy Stance -> Corruption Strikes -> 1 point in Spirit of Nightfall -> Unholy Strength -> 2 points in Dark Weapon -> 2 points in Spirit of Nightfall -> Necrotic Leech -> Vampiryc nature -> 1 point in Dark Weapon

Lets go over your feats:

Corruption strikes
Your main “shard eater” up to lvl 30. Gives whooping +20% offhand buff and has a low cool down. Buff yourself whenever you can.

Unholy strength
+10% damage boost for you swift strikes (SS) combos. Passive and great.

Spirit of Nightfall and Dark weapon feat dancing
As you could tell I did quite a bit of feat dancing with those. There reason before adding one point in SoN early on is to generate more shards while not generating too much of them. Dark weapon gives nice damage boost so you will benefit more from having just one point in SoN early on and with added damage from Dark weapon than having fully upgraded SoN, lots of shards sitting in your UI and no damage.

Leeches
Both, vampiryc and necrotic are considered “leeches” meaning they will give you nice health return for the damage being done to your enemy. For best results use them both at the same time on bigger group of mobs.

Flaws
Your survivality suffers when you go corruption early on. You have NO defensive feats and all you can do is “SPRAY AND PRAY” the crowd hoping for the best – Lotus is clearly superior in that sense.

No points in Life Leech?
Life Leech doesn’t scale so sooner or later you will find it doesn’t give enough back for 5 points invested. Word in the assassin community is – Life Leech sucks.

Variation builds?

There are none. Corruption is pretty straight forward.

Shards burning aka Consume souls


If you cannot use the shard because of cool downs on your shard using feats – burn them with consume souls for that sweet stamina boost. More stamina means less down time.

Up to lvl 30 with Lotus

Lotus tree
http://www.conanarmory.com/feat.aspx?id=1#::e2fe2f4cefef62:

Here is what I would take early on by adding points the following way:

Improved Poison Stance -> Flesh rot -> Deft blades -> Cat’s paw -> Golden Lotus -> Snap kick

Let’s go over the most common questions:

Flesh rot vs Vile poisons

Which is better? This is a valid question since vile poison get a whooping +25% dmg boost while Flesh rot’s damage is noticeable at best. Well Flesh rot is passive which means every combo that you can dish out will add some flesh rot – a big plus. Second thing is that most mobs might in fact die before you could even finish your poison combo, and sure as hell they will die before the +25% extra damage kicks in. Another thing is that far down the lotus tree you will get swift ending feat that will boost flesh rot’s damage.

Deft blades first or cat’s paw?

Deft blade will give you +10% passive offhand while cat’s paw gives defensive evade boost with long cool down. When choosing survivality over damage, go for damage because it will let you level faster.

Variation of the build
http://www.conanarmory.com/feat.aspx?id=1#::e2fcdfdf3efef62:

This build gives you access to the Antrophy combo – amazing feat that will debuff your enemy for -30% damage and -30% magical damage (when fully upgraded)

Comparison of the builds

Please notice that with second build you don’t excel at any of your feats, which is bad since both deft blades and cat’s paw lose a lot of their offhand/evade when not fully upgraded with points (deft blade loses 3% for example). Another thing is lack of magic resistance Lotus blood and casters are quite common in Hyboria.

There is hope at level 30!

If you, during your 28 lvls, felt like crap in both PVE and PVP wait until you are lvl 30 and have access to Golden Lotus and Snap Kick – they will get you from zero to hero and those are most beloved feats from Lotus tree. Hang in there!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

excellent balance

5/5 general tree feat

This is a common mistake for a lot of new players: they pick feats from general trees waaaay to early and thus gimping themselfs. General tree is considered supplemental and there is no way to be successful by focusing on the feats from it, especially early on when we assassins need all the help we can get. If fact I would say that there is ALMOST no need to pick feats from general tree at all except for one – you NEED one point in the excellent balance or EB to avoid being knocked back and ripped apart in both PVE and PVP.

As a rule add ONE point to the EB or FIVE. That means not 2, not 4, and sure as hell – not 3.

One point

One point early on will allow you to do a little bit of PVP so do it after you have hit lvl 20.

Do not: put more than one point early on – it’s a TOTAL waste

Five point

If you have 5 points in EB that means you have picked one of the trees, be it Corruption or Lotus and combined it with general tree. Those are the “main builds” corruption/general and lotus/general. Five points in EB will open your way further down the general tree where you will pick other feats based on your “main” tree (corruption needs natural protection ft. and lotus – toughness).

Do not:
go deep into the general tree before you reached the very bottom of your main tree. Add five points if you have another five free to add to another feat otherwise those points could be better spend and help you level up faster.

Salutations fellow assassins!

I have created this blog to help new players in the Age of Conan who picked assassins to find their way in the game. I remember how helpful I was fining other “assassins blogs” that, sadly, are not updated anymore. So I have decided to pick up the slack and give you a little bit of wisdom I have gathered during my quest to get to the damn lvl 80.

Subscribe and stay tuned because updates will be coming.