I put a few hours into Age of Conan during my days off. Firjanon, my Bear Shaman, is now level 32! I’m starting to get comfortable with the character and have added a few new tricks up my sleeve. For the most part, Firj is still adventuring in Conall’s Valley aside from a few jaunts to other zones to complete quests. He’s spent the majority of his time solo, though the western section of Conall’s Valley is populated with a lot of Vanir warriors, including several Elite-status Ymirish Destroyers, making that part of the zone group content only. As luck would have it, the population on Wiccana appears to be healthy, so Firj joined a few brave adventurers against the vicious Vanir raiders.
I had grouped Firj once before but it was months ago, and it was doing some of the Tortage quests, so nothing too serious. His low-level Bear Shaman heals did the job, but that was mostly due to the group fighting normal mobs the whole time. Being the only healer against Elite mobs was something else entirely, and took me several attempts (and several deaths of our tanks while Firj ran for his life) to get a handle on the timing of Fierce Recovery, which is his current “big heal” spell, and honestly, I didn’t realize until I was writing this that it’s not even a directed heal. So even though I did eventually manage to get into a dps/heal routine that kept the group alive, it turns out I still wasted valuable time clicking on the tank then casting when I didn’t need to. I will keep that in mind next time. Indirect group healing for the win!
When I first joined the group, Firjanon was 29 and had 3 or 4 group quests in that area of Conall’s Valley. The first attempt was Firj and a level 29 Conqueror. I haven’t bothered to learn exactly what the other classes in AoC are, but from watching this guy (and a Conqueror who joined later) they seem to be melee DPS warriors, equivalent to the Champion class in LOTRO (with the addition of a buff-banner similar to a Captain) who is able to strap on a shield when necessary but not up to the task of long-term tanking. In short order, the Conqueror and Firj grew tired of having to run away, assuming we made it that far before the Ymirish giants crushed the life from us. So we recruited a level 32 Conquerer. Unfortunately we didn’t fare any better, mostly because I hadn’t yet figured out a workable routine for the Bear Shaman heals. I was hoping for an additional DPS class but a Dark Templar joined us. Again, I haven’t read up on any other class for AoC but the Dark Templar seemed more along the lines of the traditional tank. She managed to survive longer against the Elites than the Conquerors did but still died every single battle due to Fierce Recovery cooldowns. No, that “s” isn’t a typo. Not only is there the standard casting cooldown on Fierce Recovery (28 seconds if I recall?) but there’s also a cooldown (or perhaps an Anti-Fierce Recovery Debuff?) of one minute (I think? Maybe less.) when anyone previously healed from Fierce Recovery cannot be healed by it again until the cooldown/debuff expires. So that was rough, and while I’m normally a very good “standard” healer, I was feeling very inadequate.
Thankfully, Age of Conan is not World of Warcraft, and no one made a single snide comment about my lack of healing abilities, nor did anyone ragequit. Everyone was very cool about the whole thing, and just kept coming back for more. Eventually another Bear Shaman strolled by so we added him to our group. He was level 32 but seemed focused on just smacking things with his two-handed hammer. If he cast a single heal the entire time, I never saw it happen. He didn’t stay with the group long, but it was right then that something finally clicked and I figured out a rotation for my casting and visual scan of my UI that managed to keep everyone alive for the most part. Suddenly the four of us were a killing machine, and only a few times where respawns snuck up on us did our Dark Templar fall in battle. The Bear Shaman can revive fallen party members, but only out of combat. Conquerors have an in-combat revive, though it has a lengthy cooldown.
All in all, I had a blast in a group and it was very educational in terms of how the Bear Shaman actually plays versus how I’d been playing it previously. This was obviously questing in the world, but it did me worlds of good in coming to a new understanding of how the class works at Firj’s level. Not sure when the first dungeons come into play, but I’m really looking forward to that and working my way up to raids at the level cap. Additionally, just killing those Vanir and elite Ymirish raiders leveled Firjanon to 30, then turning in the associated quests took him within a few bubbles of 31! The next day he reached 32 turning in a few solo quests. I still think the XP is a bit crazy; I feel like I’m leveling faster than I’m able to get a feel for being any given level.
The only hitches are gear and Feats. With a few exceptions, Firj is still wearing the gear he got from a quest line from his early teen levels. Or perhaps early 20′s? It’s been awhile since he’s had any significant gear upgrade, let’s put it that way. If I’m not mistaken, at some point during the past 18 months since launch I could have swore I’d read Funcom did a total overhaul of the gear system and made the game somewhat more gear-reliant and the stats more understandable. I’m not having trouble with the stats part. Compare two items, and choose the one with the higher numbers. Trouble is, I’m rarely finding drops or quest rewards with higher numbers. Then there are the Feats. I’ve already stated that end-game raiding is a priority, so I want a build that’s is desirable in PvE raids but it has to be one that I enjoy playing on my own. Trouble is, all the sample builds I’ve seen are from 2008. The game has been patched, skills and Feats have been tweaked, and the Bear Shaman class received a complete revamp a few months ago, so I’m not inclined to think builds from 2008 are still valid today.
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I think AoC is an incredible game, and I really should start playing again. My first character was a Cimmerian Barbarian and I loved questing in Conall’s Valley. The highest level character I have when I last played I think was level 42, a Stygian HoX.