age of conan(aoc) Blog

July 9, 2008

Mad’s Reaver Guide

Filed under: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, Uncategorized — Tags: age of conan, age of conan gold, aoc, aoc gold, igxz — edav759 @ 5:30 am

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(+) Pro: Delayed Input

* Damage Over Time (DoT)

The finisher to the combo, especially with the higher tiers, is a very lengthy animated sequence of attacks. Even if you kill the target within the first couple strikes, and the target is at 0% health, you’re still vulerable to their attacks until the finisher animation is complete. This offers a dead mob a few seconds to get some extra hits in and if they manage to kill you within that timeframe you die and their HP is refunded in full. Which brings us to our last con…

II. Reavers

III. Anatomy of Cyclone of Steel

(-) CON(!): HP Refund

The finisher is the age of conan gold most damaging part of the combo. You have the option to bypass the starter dmg and cut straight to the big numbers if you play your cards right. On your way towards a mob you can start up CoS, pull off the initial combo commands, activate Excellent Balance, approach the mob and use the finisher once you’re within range. The KB threat has been eliminated with Excellent Balance, only thing you’ll have to worry about is getting stunned during the finisher animation.

I. Introduction

IV. Reaver Combos & Abilities: Combos, Abilities

Add crit dmg to the hardest hitting combo in our repertoire?

* Auto-Facing

Reaver Barbarians specialize in using two 1H weapons simultaneously; one in the main hand and one in the off-hand. The ability to equip two weapons grants a couple obvious benefits - you can take advantage of extra stat boosts from both weapons and have an off-hand chance-to-hit.

I. Introduction

CoS has a 10 second non-universal cooldown. Each tier is subject to an individual cooldown allowing you to pull of consecutive CoS combos and compose a combat rotation of destruction! Very counter-effective in regards to hate management in group endeavors though…

Note: My word is not law. This is a guide, a tool to help you achieve a better understanding of the class. Play the game the way you want, but if my experiences can benefit your gaming then more power to you.

As far as equipment goes, you’ll want to reserve your Main Hand (MH) for your best and hardest hitting weapon. Place your runner-up in your Off-Hand (OH). The reasoning behind this logic is your off-hand wpn is subject to your off-hand hit percentile. You’ll want to hit with your best wpn as much as possible, hence put it in your MH slot.

* Dual-Wielding

II. Reavers: Dual-Wielding, DoT, Auto-Facing

If for any reason you break away from the target during the combo finisher, or if you die during the long atk animation, all dmg dealt to the target is refunded in full.

‘Nuff said.

The combo finisher is always a frontal assault. Hence, CoS’ damage can be severely reduced if the target were to focus shields to the front. Good PvPers know to shift shields to the front if a DW Barbarian’s coming at them. Also, pulling off the entire combo can take a while and to pull off the finisher you must remain stationary. The combo is easily avoided if your target is conscious of your actions.

III. Anatomy of Cyclone of Steel

o If a common mob is at 10% health and you initiate CoSIX to finish it off… …you’re fired.

(+) Pro: CoS Consecutive Rotation

Along with burst damage we have a more subtle way of dishing out the pain. While seemingly insignificant at times, our DoTs contribute to our overall dmg output. We have a handful of skills and feat abilities which accrue bleeding damage to our targets and aid them in dying faster.

You have a 5 second delay between strikes - use this to your advantage. While you can enhance the starter dmg of the combo, the bulk of CoS’ damage comes from the last (frontal) input. Get a feel for how much damage each tier is capable of dealing so you can achieve optimal stamina reservation and waste less time.

Content

* Both trees have their pros and cons and players will argue, to no end, which is superior. The general consenus confides Reaver excels in dps output while Berzerker is considered best for PvP and survivability. Prior to the FB nerf zerker was widely considered, hands down, the best tree for Barbarians. Knockback and stuns drastically improved survivability and FB could rip a new one like none other. However, I’ve witnessed a steady trend involving Barbarians reaching their 50’s switching over to Reaver to maximize their damage output.

While also incredibly essential to tanks, Barbarians are able to strike multiple targets with their combos, depending upon positioning. Being able to position targets properly within your attack range/cone can significantly enhance a Barbarian’s killing efficiency and speed.

Occasionally the finisher will proc an instant fatality on a mob and an instant fatality puts a grin on Crom’s face.

o If a common mob is at 10% health and you initiate CoSIX to finish it off and your intention is to link a kill… good job!

Up into the higher tiers CoS can deal over 1k per swing (and hits several times). The probability of downing an equal level mob with a single CoS combo is very high. Add in our CoS specific feat tree abilities, atk enhancements and watch the numbers scale. It’s a very powerful combo, however, there are some significant flaws. Below I point out some obvious an’ some not-so obvious pros and cons regarding the bread and butter of our combo rotation.

(-) Con(?): Miss Miss Miss

Mad’s Reaver Guide

I strongly suggest turning this Interface > Targeting feature Off. While it’s convenient to be automatically glued to your target, there’re more benefits presented when you’re not forced to face a single target.

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(+) Pro: Mobility and Pre-emptive

Thanks to delayed input between combo commands we’re able to remain mobile until it comes time to pull off the finisher (which you definitely do not want to move while performing).

The Reaver tree will be the focus of this guide. I’ll attempt to point out the pros and cons of the DW spec and hopefully help some people to gain a better understanding of Reaver Barbarians.

* We love it, everyone else hates it! There’s a reason why you see a lot of QQ over this combo…

V. Epilogue

You can finish the 10% mob off with the primary CoS strikes, make use of the 5 second grace time and pull the combo finisher off on another mob for a chain kill. Positioning yourself on the battlefield and measuring the distance between mobs is crucial. You’ve got seconds to get to the other mob before the combo times out. The finisher of the combo is usually strong enough to destroy a mob, so you’ve just downed two mobs with a single combo. This conserves precious stamina and allows you to get through the grind a lot faster.

Now that stats actually aoc gold mean something there is a miss ratio involved and many Barbarians have been complaining they miss with CoS about 1/4 to a third of the time. After doing some calculating I found my chance of land CoS is well above 80%. While missing can be frustrating, stay reasonable - you can’t hit 100% of the time.

July 9, 2008

Mad’s Reaver Guide

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