Age of Conan: Tier 1 Raiding with Screenshots

I decided to write this after so long because I noticed quite a lot of people reading my Age of Conan: End Game post, which was nearly a year ago and no longer a fair representation of the game as it is now. I renamed it more aptly to Age of Conan: Level 60 to 80, and decided to write about end game raiding in this and subsequent new posts. Age of Conan end game raiding starts with four Tier 1 raid bosses in three dungeons. All of the Tier 1 raid dungeons are in Cimmeria.

KYLIKKI’S CRYPT
This is probably the first and easiest raid dungeon in the game Kylikki’s Crypt is in the level 40 to 50 zone Field of the Dead. As the name suggests, it is a crypt, so the environment is man-made. Kylikki is a Hyperborean witch, and she controls the Hyperboreans in Field of the Dead and through them orders the Vanir around. The trash groups in Kylikki’s crypt are perhaps the hardest trash groups in all of Age of Conan raiding, until you are fairly deep into Tier 2 raiding. They consist of groups of five mobs.

White Hand Guards - There are two White Hand Guards in each group who are minions and can be killed by minion instant kill spells that most of the DPS classes have.

White Hand Spellguard - Spellguards use cold damage spells, and is probably the most dangerous of the mobs. They do an AoE attack that can kill players in a few seconds, they usually do two of these AoE in succession, so you have to watch out for them and sprint out of range, stay out for 10-15 seconds before coming in to kill them.

White Hand Priests - These guys can hit pretty hard with their Smite attack, but they are pretty standard mobs that can be tanked and spanked. They also run and heal the other mobs when their health is low, but their heals are negligible.

Gurnakhi Honorguard - These are the warriors of the group. The biggest problem with them is that they constantly reset their aggro, so it is impossible to tank or kite them when other players are around. They also seem to rate healers very high on their hate list.

Early raiders had massive problems with these trash mobs. The players with minion instant kills are not taking down the Guards, the players are not paying attention and die in droves to the Spellguards, or the Honorguard is smashing all the healers to bits. There are a few ways to approach these groups, and they largely involve kiting either the Spellguard or the Honorguard around while killing off the other. We have a Guardian tank the Spellguard to one side while the raid attacks the Priest. The Honourguard will be smacking on players, but if the group is bunched up tight, his aggro will keep switching and he will not actually kill anyone. The Guardian tanking the Spellguard would call out when the Spellguard has finished his second AoE, and the whole raid will descend on the Spellguard, bringing the half dead Priest in with them. The Spellguard might AoE again, so the raid has to be alert, move out and back in. Drop the Spellguard, drop the Priest, and bunch up on the Honorguard and drop it. Clear about 6-7 groups of trash and you get to the first boss, the Champion of the Honorguard.

Champion of the Honorguard – This first boss is the easiest of the Tier 1 bosses. He is basically a tank and spank with a few exceptions. His most dangerous ability is Curse of Gwahlur, when he has that buff up, the whole raid must stop DPS, it is important not to use DoTs in this fight, and to kill off pets and idols and the like when the Curse is up. The buff lasts for 10 seconds, after which you can proceed to attacking him again. He also has a minor damage reflection  called Covenant of Pestilence, but this should not bother anyone who has a health pot running. At about 60% health, he starts to pulse an AoE attack every two seconds. This can hurt quite badly so everyone need to have pots running, and healers must be alert. Anyone dropping too fast should sprint out of range. He drops the Belts, Boots, Armbands and a Weapon. Another 6-7 groups of trash later, you get to Kylikki herself.

Kylikki – Kylikki herself is not hard to tank, however, she has some help during her fight. After the first 30 seconds or so, she spawns her two spectral wolves, called Kylikki’s Minions, but they are not minions in the techincal way and cannot be killed my minion instant kill spells. These wolves can be CCed and must be killed fast, they hit very hard. In another 10 seconds or so, she goes to one of the sides of her room and spawns 4 Spellguards who heals her. These are true minions and can be killed instantly. Necromancers always get a spot in a Kylikki raid if they have Shatter, the AoE minion kill spell. Kylikki will keep respawning wolves and Spellguards so the fight is all about tanking her, killing her minions and going back to DPSing her. It is not a hard fight but needs the group to be organised. Kylikki drops the Chestguards, Wristguards and Weapons.

YAHKMAR’S CAVE
Yahkmar is a giant slug in a incredibly huge ice cavern at the northern end of Eiglophian mountains. The raid dungeon is so large but has no trash mobs. The strategy to kill Yahkmar also does not require kiting it, so I have zero idea why it is given such large real estate. It is impressive nonetheless, and should have been easy to model and texture. Its a white and blue cave.

The fight has been buggy for at least the first 8 months of the game. It was either extremely easy to bug out the boss, and pretty much farm it 15 times an evening, or it was an impossible fight far exceeding the difficulty levels of a Tier 1 boss. I think FunCom has finally got the right balance of difficulty for this boss, and removed some of the exploitable issues. This is the fastest raid in Tier 1 because there are no trash, but no trash also mean no extra loot from the trash.

Yahkmar – Tanking Yahkmar itself is very easy, and a large part of fighting Yahkmar is to have the smallest possible tanking group on it, so that the rest of the raid can focus on the adds. I consider the adds the real boss split into small pieces and Yahkmar itself as the trash merged into one lump. We tank Yahkmar with a single decently geared Guardian and two healers, with a third occasionally dropping in to pop his big heal. You can have a Nightfall Necromancer and Assassins full time on the boss to speed up the fight. Another soldier supporting the tank group can be useful for bringing adds away from the tank group.

Another key to this fight is not to use fire damage on the boss. That usually relegates fire based classes like Conflagulation Demonologists and Heralds of Xotli to add duty. The boss stuns the whole raid if he receives any fire damage and that usually wipes the raid.

Wurmlings - Every 65 seconds, a group of 3 or 4 Wurmlings are spawned about 15m away from the boss. The Wurmlings hit really hard, and can overwelm a disorganised raid. Calling targets and grouping up to get the most benefits of buffs and heals help a lot. Good communication so that CCs can be rotated well will also ensure the raid lasts the distance. DPS classes that attract the Wurmling’s attention must resist the temptation of kiting them away from the group, as that prolongs the fight and can lead to a wipe. A decent raid should have 10-15 seconds of DPS time on the boss inbetween add spawns. Remember, no fire damage. A 10 min raid, in bang and out. Yahkmar drops Leggings, Gloves and Weapons. A quest from a hunter, Finelle for Yahkmar’s fur will yield an epic Bow or Crossbow.

THE DRAGON’S LAIR
The Dragon’s Lair is high on the mountains of Aztel’s Approach, you are led there by a series of quests from a Nemedian researcher Kurtz Mandros. He first gives you a quest called Trail to the Dragon’s Lair, where you have to find the entrance to the raid dungeon. He then gives you a quest called the Draconnus Hex, where you have to collect four inscriptions from within the raid dungeon. After which, he would give caster classes (all mages and priests), something called Vistrix’s Bane, more will be explained about this later. Kurtz then asks you to get Vistrix’s skull for a measly 15 silver.

There are two more quests involved with killing Vistrix. One is from King Conan himself, who would give you an epic Cape for killing Vistrix. Another is from Kalanthes and Cha in Kheshetta, for Vistrix’s tooth to make a charm for you to get into Black Ring Citadel, the Tier 2 raid dungeons. The dungeon is full of mixed groups of Chill Crawler trash. These monsters are snake like creatures with clawed arms.

Chill Crawler Mindrazers - These are the weakest of the mobs, and are in fact minions, so they can be killed by instant minion kills, and should be. They are able to stun and mind control players for a while, so get them down first. They can be CCed.

Chill Crawler Shadowbearers – These are not hard to kill and do not have any particular special attacks, usually just an annoyance. Just your average caster type raid mob. They are immuned to crowd control.

Chill Crawler Champions - The main problem with these guys is that they have am AoE fear, in fact two AoE fears, which they use back to back. Another problem with them is that they are rock hard, do tons of damage and take quite a bit of killing. A third problem is that they switch aggro very fast, similar to the Gurnahki Honorguard in Kylikki’s Crypt. Immuned to CCs as well.

Frozen Cadavers - These are frozen dead humans come back to life. They are easy to kill and can be CCed all the way.

Vistrix - Vistrix is an awesomely impressive dragon, with beautifully modelled, textured and quite good animation. Probably the most impressive boss in Age of Conan. There are a few mechanics to Vistrix, so getting them right makes all the difference. Every 45 seconds, Vistrix does a 25m radius stun. After which she would do a massive cone flame breath on a group of people who are stunned. When her health gets down to 75%, 50% and 25%, she would spawn a massive zerg of adds. Another thing that Vistrix does is to stack an armour debuff on the tanks called Vistrix Profanity. Tanks have to swap aggro so that their debuff can wear off.

The fight starts with the 2nd tank running in first to take the knockback that Vistrix does at the start of the fight. All through the fight, Vistrix will occasionally knockback a person every 30 seconds or so. This is usually not very disruptive, but the first knockback needs to be managed so the tanks have time to grab aggro, and the DPS can start earlier. Some raids like to only do white damage on the first DPS run so that the tanks build up maximum aggro.

As mentioned, Vistrix does a massive AoE stun every 45 seconds, so having someone call out the timer is essential. A Ranger can mark the 25m stun range. When the timer is called, the DPS group runs out behind the Ranger. The main tank group would then be stunned. At this point, a call is made for someone with the Vistrix’s Bane to sprint in and use it on the main tank group. The Vistrix’s Bane, the quest reward from Kurtz Mandros, acts to unstun players in a cone in front of the caster, and also removes a fire damage debuff. This allows the main tank group to survive the flame breath, and the DPS group can dash back into the fight until the next timer is called. At 75% health, everyone except the tanks should run out and await the zerg of Terrors of Tartaros, and Horrors of Tartaros, Chill Crawler type mobs.

Terrors of Tartaros - These are minions, they can be CCed and instant minion killed.

Horrors of Tartaros - These are regular raid mobs, I am not sure if they can be CCed.

It is good to have a list of Bane users and call out the next one. So the fight is a methodical one of the DPS group running in and out, and the Bane users running in, and everyone bar the tanks running out for the zerg. Not a hard fight, but it takes organisation and a raid that obeys instructions. Vistrix drops Helmets and Weapons.

So that is Tier 1 raiding. After getting Vistrix’s Tooth, the players get a few run around quests and are attuned for Black Ring Citadel (BRC), the Tier 2 raids.

Aion: Tower of Eternity Beta 5 with Screenshots

This Beta weekend saw a lot more people level to 25, so the PvP action went into full swing, both in the Abyss as well as in each other’s territory through the Rifts. While some legions (guilds) managed to get a lot of PvP done last beta, due to several members being quite busy, our legion only went into full swing this beta.

More about Rifting - An awesome way to waste time
Now that I  have done more Rifting, I can explain it a little better than last beta. Every so often, there would be an announcement that Rifts have opened in the worlds. The level 20-40 zones of Eltnen (Elysea) and Morheim (Asmodia) will be linked by an entrance rift and an exit rift. I assume that the corresponding level 30-50 zones also have such rifts. The rifts will appear in one of seven possible entrance and exit locations. Each entrance location corresponds to a specific exit location in the opponent’s zone. So rifting can be predictable, but still not easy to manage with seven possible locations.

When a rift opens, the sky will tear and have some sort of wormhole. This wormhole has a cone of aether that points to the ground. A rift entrance would appear at ground level. Rifts are not very visible from far, so knowing where to look for one helps a lot. You need to get up close to see them. Each entrance rift has a limited number of uses. I believe that they start at 50. You can mouse over the rift and it will tell you how many uses it has left.

Because of the wide range of levels in the zones, you very often ended up rifting to an area in the enemy zone with high level mobs that you need to avoid. These zones are empty now because the beta limits the level to 30. The point is to make it to the level 20ish areas and start killing the enemies trying to level there. A well organized rifting force can stay in the enemy zone for hours killing individuals. The lack of a global chat means that defenders have a harder time organizing a cohesive defence, even though they are likely to have a lot more people in the zone.

There is not a lot of Abyss Points to be had when rifting. The main reasons is to get some easy PvP done, and enjoy the suspense of being in the enemy zone surrounded and outnumbered, and seeing how far you can go, and how long you can survive. There is also the part about disrupting the leveling of the enemy players. This might be akin to why the US military wants to destroy Al Qaeda training camps, and why insurgents in Iraq bomb people queueing up to sign up for the security forces. Disrupting the enemy training means less trained enemies on the battlefield (The Abyss).

Bringing a portable resurrection point, a Kisk into the enemy zone helps the group stay in the zone for much longer. A Kisk can bought at the General Goods vendor and deployed where ever needed, 6 players can bind themselves to it. The Kisk cannot be moved after deployment, and can be destroyed. Players bounded to a kisk being attacked and destroyed will get an announcement.

More about the Abyss - Good grind spots attract PvP
As mentioned previous, a player gets to go into the Abyss after level 25. There are a handful of repeatable quests available at level 25 that are near the base camp of either side. These repeatable quests givers are of the same faction as the player, and will fight any enemy players that come near. Hence, these are reasonably safe grinding areas.

As you level up, the quest givers are further from the base camps, and some neutral quest givers will become available. As a result, the good grind spots start to get contested. This is a weird mix of PvP disrupting mindless grinding of repeatable quests, usually with a basic quest objective of killing X number of a mob, or picking up Y number of quest drops.

The number of quests available to level 25-50 players are getting revamped in the latest patch 1.5, which would supposedly add another 100 quests. This is most welcomed as grinding on the same mob can get boring. While mobs tend to be quite similar, they do have slight different skills.

The fun part about the Abyss PvP is that it is a flying zone. That means terrain in the Z axis makes a difference. There are a few areas where there are overhanging terrain features. These allow the enemies to group up above their enemies and strike hard at groups on the ground. Enemies can also fly up from the ledge of an “island” and attack unexpectedly. They purposefully made a short draw distance so that it is easier to catch people unawares, and also to reduce lag. A few seconds of flying and someone would be out of sight. So far, these features keep PvP fresh.

Instanced Dungeon – Will try it next beta
This beta weekend unlocked a level 28+ 6-man instanced dungeon, but my legion did not have enough people that got to level 28 for us to give it a shot, maybe next beta.

What I like about AION? - It is competent
AION works. The way it has designed its crafting, its economy, its gear, its classes, its factions, and its PvP look like they would all work, and work smoothly. That is much more to be said of many other MMORPG one year into launch.IT is a competent game, and it gives the right incentive to do every part of the game. You will find yourself quite out of pocket if you focused solely on PvP and neglected to grind and do your gathering and crafting.  It rewards people to PvP quite well, although it has no penalty for killing lower leveled enemies, but based on the storyline, it should not have one. It is up to powerful legions to take care of their own factions. With broken and imbalanced systems a major cause of complaints for most MMORPG, AION might buck the trend by actually delivering a solid system at launch.

Fears about AION – It could get boring real fast
One of the biggest fear for me about AION is that it could get boring real fast. It is not just the result of me playing quite full on over the past few beta weekends. The mobs are quite standard, the quests are extremely boring, and the elite zones are quite normal. Most boss fights are nothing but tank and spank. Age of Conan had this problem at launch but they eventually revamped a lot of the dungeons to be quite fun and exciting. Guild Wars and Age of Conan also make a point to write quests that are different and interesting. World of Warcraft’s newer raid boss fights are also very fun and  different from your usual tank and spank. There are no signs that NCSoft sees this as a problem.

You can say that the PvE elements are monotonous because this game is designed for PvP. But I also suspect that the PvP would get boring fast too. I suspect that the vast majority of the PvP would be whose zerg is bigger or zerg versus zerg PvP. Combat is nowhere near as engaging as melee combat in Age of Conan, and PvP is nowhere near as tactical and skill-based as in Guild Wars.

Another major issue is lag. On the beta servers, lag is quite a problem. Skills feel very spongy to activate, and none more stark as the heals. Someone described it to be like “healing underwater”. I hope the lag gets resolved in the live servers or it might be nigh unplayable. If you cannot rely on your healer, what else can you do?

The third fear is probably botting, hacking, farming and gold sellers. I seriously doubt Game Guard will keep any these out. The fact that the game is live in Korea and China means that the organisations have more understanding of the game, and have got a lot of practise cracking it. It is unfortunate that in this day and age, games are still using the Client-Server model. NCSoft distributes Guild Wars that saw and solved this problem 4 years ago.

A wormhole in the sky, with its aetheric cone pointing to the ground.

I always forget to take a screenshot of a rift. I had to steal this from someone else. This guy is an Asmodian Assassin by the looks of things.

I also stole this screenshot of an Elyos Templar and his legion deep inside Morheim, encountering a sea of red names.

A level 40 boss that wanders around the level 28 questing area. He looks like a meanie.

I quite like some of the monster designs, and many of their animations. The player and monster animations are top notch in this game.