Mammoths, Barbarians & Superheroes

Haven’t posted anything in few days and that is because I’ve been too busy running up the levels with my barbarian. Last time I posted four days ago I was level 35 and today I managed to hit 50 with 3 days and 14 hours /played time.

Hitting level 40 came with a couple of changes. First of all my Ring of Acheron, which I received with the collector’s edition, lost all of it’s effect. At first I thought my character was bugged cause suddenly my out of combat stamina regeneration dropped way low and I felt totally gimped for a while til I realized it was the ring. The ring gave around +30 out of combat stamina regeneration and I didn’t actually realize how huge that was til I lost it.

Another change at 40 was the ability to finally ride my preorder mammoth which can be seen..

..in the image above. I immediately went to get the mammoth from the bank when I hit 40, got on it and thought it was totally awesome. Until I rode to Conall’s Valley and tried fighting a level 20~ vanir that is. It was all going fine for a while, was really stomping the vanir until suddenly the mammoth threw me off of it’s back and sprinted away after one (!!!) single level 20ish mob. So yeah, for now the mammoth is useful for show off and nothing else. It is hardly faster than my character by foot and I have to mount and dismount it which takes a while so my character on foot is actually the faster way of travel. Also it is as hard to maneuver as an overloaded truck.

The mammoth looks awesome though and its always fun to pull a mammoth out of your pocket next to some newbies that either run away in fear or go “WOW!!”.

At around 40 I partied some in the Sanctum of the Burning Souls which was quite fun. Managed to get blue boots drop too which give 5% out of combat running speed and 1.5% invulnerabilities to all physical damage types. ^^ A picture from one of those parties below.

My Barbarian at 50

So far I haven’t regretted picking the barbarian class for a second. As I mentioned before I specced my barbie as a berserker which was also the right choice for me I feel. At the moment I can take on 4 – 5 levels higher mobs in singles and handle groups of a few level higher mobs with ease as long as I use all my CCs (Crowd Control – Stuns, Knockbacks etc.).

As you can see my character has the look that I can only describe as the Journeyman look. Like he just slayed a wolf and is wearing its hide or something. ^^ I am quite happy with the looks and I feel like I’ve achieved some level of uniqueness due to hiding my helmet and picking some items based on their looks and not the stats (the cape for example). I dislike the fact that characters turn completely bald when given a helmet to wear even if it would not cover the whole hair area. Therefore I have decided to hide my helmet until I find a helmet that does justice to the looks of my character.

There was a thread on the Europe AoC forum about giving barbarians the ability to hide the chest armor to give the characters a more barbaric look. I think its an absolutely great idea! It was only a suggestion by a player though and theres no way to tell if we’ll ever see that happen. When I think about a berserker I think of a person who just rushes forward in the heat of battle ignoring things like pain and danger so I feel being able to hide the chest armor would do justice to the ‘Berserker’ title. \o/ What I found amusing was when someone from a RP server replied saying he is already playing without wearing a chest armor to make his character more barbaric. Thats just plain hardcore. ^^

Skills and Feats

Since this is what people, that are either curious or just cant figure out by themselves in fear of messing the whole character up, are always asking for I figured I’d just give it up here. I encourage everyone to experiment around and find the builds that suit your own play style though. There is no way you’ll permanently doom your character by bad choices in this game as respeccing both skills and feats is possible and not too expensive.

My build is created purely PvP in mind.

• Bandaging – Regenerating hp and stamina faster is always nice thing to have. Didn’t feel it is too important as outregenerating damage is hardly possible and between fights I can just rest it up.
• Recovery – Faster rest equals to less downtime. Useful thing to invest in.
• Fast Recovery – Broken at the moment. One point makes the skill work just as well as 500 points.
• Endurance – I like to get from point A to point B as fast as possible and constantly find myself sprinting even though I should be saving stamina for possible ambushes. No mage class has been able to escape from me so far though.
• Run Speed – Not sure if it even works correctly. Feels like increasing it does nothing. Didn’t invest too much.
• Skulk – Not too useful early game as you wont be sneaking long distances. Becomes more important in group PvP situations as you have to sneak up to the enemy casters as fast as possible.
• Climbing – Hate to invest points in this.. It is mandatory for completing some quests though.
• Hiding – The most important skill the rogue classes have. I’ve always kept it maxed out.
• Perception – Handy for catching them hit’n’run rogues after they run and hide. Never use search with your weapon in your hand as it will take ages.
• Subtlety – Useless for PvP therefore completely ignored.

Then for the feats:

My Level 50 Berserker build (Click Here)

My Current Level 80 Berserker Plan (Click Here)

The feat build is focused around CC and augmenting the butcher combos. Early game the butcher combo didn’t really seem good at all but it has been gaining power over levels and is definitely going to be an important end game combo. Does nice initial damage and inflicts a 3 second DoT (Damage over time) that currently at level 50 with Butcher V does around 90~ DPS (Damage per second).

Currently I’ve got two stuns and one knockback. The earth shatter combo is definitely a must have. It stuns everything around you, a 360 degree stun. Finishing blow is a really nice skill to use with knockbacks as it makes it possible to peak damage to one particular target of the targets that you have just knocked back.

No escape is semi bugged at the moment and using it should be a last resort option. It has a chance to bug your character so that you cant swing your weapon even after it comes back to you. Relog should fix it and getting stunned also seemed to help when I tested it with a friend.

Few Words of Warning..

..about a few semi bugged quests.

First would be the Wounded Child in the Wildlands of Zelata. Which is NOT bugged. Semi-bugged at most. If you ask OOC they will tell you it is bugged as this is the common misbelief. However me and many others have completed it. Theres a theory that the child only spawns after server restart or when a new instance is created. My own experience supports this theory as I found the child by switching to the last instance on the list which logically is probably the newest. Its worth a shot since the nearest waypoint is under 20 second sprint away. Either its that or just an extremely long spawn time.

Pyramid of the ancients at khopshef is a mess of an instance. The map markers and radar are totally messed up there. That didn’t stop me from clearing the whole three floor instance to get to the final boss just to find out that the quest wont update after you have killed him. The harem chick’s quest to find her sister in there is doable though.

In defence of beauty quest in the tarantian noble district is also semi bugged. There is no logical pattern to how it works or does not work. The problem is that most people cant get the NPCs to enter combat mode to be killable. Some say switching instance helped. That didn’t work for me though. Eventually I went to epic mode but still couldn’t get them to enter combat mode. Luckily enough I met a dark templar that could get them to attack but lacked the strength to kill them in epic mode. So we created a symbiotic quest party in which he made the NPCs fight back and I killed them. Quest finished. ^^

Randomness for Great Justice

I FOUND MY HELMET!

Unfortunately this guy is wearing it and wont let me even try it on. Damn the NPC god mode. =( I must have one of those for my barbarian in the future though. Looking forward to the day I get one. ^^

Where are the Superheroes you ask? Behold! Odefi got genetically mutated due to surviving a lightning strike and..

..ELECTROMAN was born! Unfortunately just a graphical glitch due to an electric fatality, but for a while there I had an extremely unique look going on. ^^

– Odefi