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.