New player information - someone completely ignorant of AOC

[Cheddar]

I pretty much ignored everything about this game and know nothing.  Nothing!

So with some research I figure I will roll either a healer or one of those fancy Necromancer guys.  Can anyone give me a breakdown of the benefits of both? 


I read through many of the links - I am consolidating them below so I can just load the game up and jump in this evening (I am working until later tonight)

Schilds Bat Country Breakdown
Main Bat Country Roster with Infos

[Kirth]

Necros are gimped and frustrating to play at the moment (or so I'm to understand)
All the healers are OP And targets for future nerfs.

[Numtini]

Healingwise, all three healers are mostly the same and very weak in comparison to other games. You get two hots and a long recharge heal. Heals reportedly stack two deep no matter what type and randomly overwrite without regards to strength. There is no classic "stand in the back and heal" type at all.

The Tempest of Set is insanely overpowered and if I remember has already had one nerf. They're meant to be the squishy nuker healer with electric nukes. They are AOE Gods. If any class is going to be nerfed into the stone age, it will be TOSes.

The Priestess of Mitra is another nuker/healer, but only moderately overpowered. They have energy/fire nukes. People are guessing they were supposed to lean more towards CC and healing than the TOS. In practice they're another AOE damage class.

The Bear Shaman is meant to be the tough melee healer and can wear medium armor--except the way armor and shields scale, BS'es end up with less defense than the "squishy" healers because shields > armor and we don't have shields, we use two hand blunts. BSes aren't particularly overpowered and the first 15 or so levels are absolute hell. We have potentially the best healing, but its harder to use because you need to hit to trigger one hot and one is a cone aoe, which can be hard to use if you're up front in the action.

I found the TOS and POM to be insanely boring to play. Nuke nuke nuke nuke nuke yawn. The BS is a lot more fun and I think requires a lot more thought and skill to play. I'm told that's even more the case on the PVP servers where ranged attack is a huge plus, but I wouldn't know.

Healing aggro is hopelessly strong. Guardian hate generation is hopelessly weak. It makes for a fun combination in groups.

[shiznitz]

The Guardian is the closest to a pure tank class but they can fuck shit up just fine thank you. Conqueror is the "soft tank." If you just want to cut things to ribbons, then Barbarian.

[Cheddar]

Reduncy check is failing on install- seems to only be on in game movies.  Hopefully it will work after patching.  If not I did find a link for "Early play" customers and may be able to download that way.


Fuck Gamestop.  This is the third time I have gotten a game from them and it happened.  Probably coincidence, but still annoying.






edit.  Patching now.  25M connection is saving my sanity.  This is not the HARDEST I have worked to play an MMO- but for modern day ones it is unacceptable.  Extremely poor start (many of you know the games I have played, and this is a pretty scathing comment coming from me).

[Miasma]

Here is a link of what to do if the movies are bugging you out Cheddar.

[Tale]

I pretty much ignored everything about this game and know nothing.  Nothing!

That also describes me, except that I have a level 37 AoC character.

I paid the game no attention before release. Noticed people saying it was good. Started reading a page of info, got distracted. Bought the game, didn't read the manual. The only class name I remembered from the page of info was Conqueror, so I rolled that. Things I've found out:

* It's like a single-player RPG and MMO in one. It can be WoW-ish and it can be Baldur's Gate-ish. It's not afraid to try and be the best RPG, while also being an MMO, which is great fun.

* It's all about the awesome melee combat system. Fucking great. Learn about holding down the right mouse button and aiming your blows across multiple opponents. It's actually not lame.

* The other thing it's about is running. You will spend INSANE amounts of time running between NPCs. It's annoying, but the game is so sexy you'll put up with it.

* The preorder/collector's edition people actually got good stuff that people like us miss having. For once.

* Zone connections are really weird. Some zones you enter through gates like a sane person. Some zones you enter through "wagoneer" NPCs who teleport you there. Lots of places have gates that are all blocked by NPCs (presume they're unfinished zones). Zone connection map is your friend for those "where the fuck do I go now?" moments.

* There are zones that are just for building guild-owned cities, chopping down trees, mining stuff, and being attacked by random unexplained token spawns when you least expect it. There are also zones that are simply quest hubs (towns). But most zones are for questing/levelling.

* An NPC called a trader is a bank and auction house in one. Why did people separate those before?

[Xanthippe]

My tip:  the food/drink is quite different, even the same level shit.  So find the stuff with the best regen rates and buy 5 of them.

You'll be able to almost perma sprint when you're pre-15 on the best level 10 stamina regen stuff.

Sprint by holding down the shift key when you run.

Food/drink is also cheap.  10T per item.

[Rasix]

Turn autofacing off, especially if you're playing a melee character.  First thing.

[photek]

-Remove the directional attacks from the 1-2-3 hotkeys if you are a caster and use them for spells.
-Kill every mob in the beginner zone. Once you start, turn left and you will see Kalanthess sitting down, proceed past him and kill crocodiles for additional XP.
-Once you have retrieved the key for Casilda, there is two camps right behind where she was, to the left and to the right. They have chests and nice loots, and the left camp gives you a great twohander that allows you to proceed with 1-2 shotting all the mobs forward.
-All melee attacks are AoE attacks, learn to use them effectively and learn to line up mobs.
-Again once you begin, turn your character 180 degrees and swim underwater, there is a FR ring in a chest alongside with potions.
-Use potions every time needed in combat, they are all HoT's with a small preheal.
-As someone mentioned, get the best foods for your class. Foods are buffs that give you stamina, mana or health benefits and out of combat regeneration.
-If you have the Collectors Edition do /claim instantly at start.
-Several caster spells are AoE, find out which and how to line up mobs in same order as melee.
-If you play a Priest archetype, apply heals before entering combat, most heals are HoT's with the exception of the biggies with 1 min cooldown. This way you will preserve mana and have heals running at beginning of combat.
-Have fun!

[palmer_eldritch]

Photek said this, but I am going to repeat it for emphasis.

Potions, potions. They are worth your hard-earned cash.

[Cheddar]

Thanks for the awesome information - I just got to the first town.

Unfortunetely my FPS ranges from 10-20 currently - I did all the tweaks people mentioned.  I am going to try installing Windows XP SP3 and upgrading my drivers to the 8.6 Catalyst Beta drivers.

Its unreal having this shitty a performance. 

[Sparky]

* The preorder/collector's edition people actually got good stuff that people like us miss having. For once.

I just bought my box last week from game.co.uk and they sent me a preorder bonus copy.  Had the mammoth and the 8 slot bag.  Haven't leveled far enough to try the mammoth yet but I'm really loving the bag (inventory space is quite limited).  Anyway, if you're planning to play on the European servers it might be worth emailing Game and asking them if they've still got bonus copies left.