A newbie seeks guidance

Age of Conan General Discussion
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Hi there! As the title states, I’m a new player (mind you I’ve tried the game in the past with friends, but they didn’t enjoy themselves so I left with them despite having a lot of fun!) and I’d love to get some insight into some questions!

  1. What class would you suggest for me? (Fav MMO classes in the past are Chloromancer and Bard from Rift, Enchanter from EQ, Burglar from LOTRO, Red Mage from FFXIV etc) EDIT: I enjoy being a healer and DPS the most, but generally I can enjoy all roles.

  2. I don’t expect the playerbase to be in the millions, but I’m curious about my possibilities for when I get to endgame. Are people welcoming towards new people who are willing to learn?

  3. What is the MOST important thing you wish you knew when you started that I should keep in mind?

  4. Is there a good EU presence (thinking timezones) for me to find friends?

Thank you so much for reading and I’m sorry if you guys read posts like these every week (couldn’t find any recent unfortunately).

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About the class you want to choose, aoc has 2 big kind of gameplay: mele classes (dark templar, guard, conqueror, barbarian, assassin, bear shaman, herault of xolti) and ranged classes (ranger, necromencer, demologist, priest of mitra, tos…).
In my opinion mele class are way harder to master than ranged class but also way more fun (specially if you play pvp).
Then you have the 4 kinds of classes: soldiers (tanks), rogues (dps), healers and mages.
Depend of what role you like in dungeon.

Personnaly i would recommand Herault of xolti (so fun to play, and so badass), bear shaman (best class for dueling if you like pvp) and assassin (the sneaky sneaky ganker).

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I never played any of these games but since you said you like being a healer and DPS the most, you should go for a ToS, this class can be incredible in terms of DPS while still providing lots of healing. But keep in mind that the ToS does not use AoC’s melee system like many other classes, you should definitely check some classes out and see how you like it (Barbarian or Assassin for pure DPS melee classes for example).

You should join a guild if you want to learn things (especially for the end game stuff where AoC really begins), random people might teach you stuff as well but in a guild it’s probably easier because they do teaching runs for raids, group dungeons and so on. There are also lots of guides here in the forums for many things.

Try to learn the class you play - there are lots of people out there who got character with insane gear but they utilize their character so badly that even some new players outperform them. Learning a class isn’t hard but it might be difficult because many classes in AoC play very different from other MMOs. Healers for example are not heal bots, but at the same time you should not neglect your healing abilities, there are lots of experienced people and guides out there which you can look up to learn everything in this game.

The server Crom is the server with the biggest population, most of these players are from the EU side so you can expect most stuff happening during EU prime times, US prime times have stuff happening too but it’s not as much as during EU times.
That said, most stuff is happening on level 80, before that it’s not so active, you might find the occasional purist group for low level dungeon (it’s for an achievement to do low level dungeon in their level range) but most people nowdays skip the leveling pretty much and rush to level 80.

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About the playerbase, unforntunatly, it’s kite small. Specially fury, crom has more player and is probably more friendly, but no pvp :confused:
IN the endgame you’ll have plenty things to do and you can find very friendly guild (for pvp go to fury, but i guess you can wait lvl 80 since before this lvl you’ll find few player).

The most important thing is to have fun, to be respectfull and to ignore stupids people!

And finally, EU is the main time for both server so that’s wont be a probem.

Have fun in the game!

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  1. If you like healers, all 3 are fine and do dmg. In AoC is nothing like a heal only toon. So you just have to decide if you wanna be a caster or a melee healer.
  2. Playerbase is ok to do any content. Highend raids always need fresh blood.
  3. when you hit lvl 80, you can buy rings/necklace at the pvp vendor for 75 silver each. Its cheap and a lot of const on it.
  4. EU is the most populated timezone.
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Here is a link to a thread where many useful links are gathered:

The new forums can be quiet confusing and unorganized but that thread got many guides and other links that are important for new people.

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thank you all so much for the replies! highly appreciated!

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I just wanted to add: Don’t be afraid to ask questions here, as you have seen there are not that much posts from new people because the population growth isn’t that high - so feel free to ask whatever you want, it’s just good for yourself to fully understand and enjoy the game and prevents that you become one of these players who just farm the raid finder non stop every day without experiencing anything else of the game.
There are many helpful people here who can explain everything into the smallest details since lots are “old veterans” who play since day 1.

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I will keep that in mind, thanks! Very nice to see such an open and welcoming community right out of the gates.

One question though; is access to the expansions included in subscription, or should I get these outside of the sub?

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you need to buy the extentions, but kithai is the only one which truly matters

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They are not included, you need to buy them via the item shop in game for Funcom-Points. They are not very expensive anymore and besides the Vanaheim expansion, very well worth it because they provide lots of content.
I wrote a post about the expansions, I tried to include everything so people can see what they get for their money:

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thanks again! now to decide between Demonologist, Necromancer and ToS haha! I feel like ToS is more sought after so it’s probably the better choice. There’s always alts though!

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In case you roll a ToS, I wrote a class guide about it too (sorry for that self-advertising lol), it’s more aimed towards level 80 but I included descriptions of almost every spell to explain what they do and what they are useful for (since that still matters for leveling as well):

The ToS is a really great class, since it provides great damage and healing you can always fill a DPS spot in case the group can’t find anyone else.

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Very much appreciated! It’s a hard choice to make!

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A good class to start with is the soldier conqueror, they make nice dps and have good defence. You can level it faster than a guard or a dt. Another good class is the rogue barb, they have good dps too and nice defence.

Mages classes in this game are fun to play but they require a better knowledge of the game.

The healers in this game are for the most mage/healers, but the bear shaman is a melee/healer, good to start with.

In later game however, classes such as sin or ranger, the dps classes, can get into 6 man instances or raids, meanwhile tanks and healers need good stats aka good items. A “not so good” dps can still make it, but a “not so good” tank or healer will wipe the whole group.

There are some guilds who are recruiting, but at EU time not many of them do raids that are not above the T4.

However you can get items and practice with the late game by doing the world boss, it will give you T1 and T2 items, and the RF, that gives you tokens in order to get T3 and T4 items.

Then you might actually join guild raids.

The late game in this game is a little complicated for new players because they must know what to do. Some guilds will explain, some will not.

However if you are starting to play this game and you want to get into later game with the same class, i suggest a rogue barb, who is melee dps, or a rogue ranger, who is ranger dps, they are easy and fast to level and for them is more easy to get into a raid or into an instance.

I advice you to read, in later game some walkthrough because if you go for rogue, but any kind of class, you will need the AA and you must know how to use them.

The AA are specific skills that you level after the level 80 and they are mostly required to take part in groups playing. Regards.

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Ranger sucks at lvling … everything seems to take forever with him. And he feels quite boring, most of the time. Ranger is nice at PvP and can do decent DPS in Groups and Raids. But i don’t think it’s a fun class to start with.

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lol ranger is a good class to start pvp :wink: , but that’s all, no point for pve really

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Ranger is a class that in PvE can do quite a nice DPS, if it is fun or not to play that’s up to the opinion of the players. I find them quite fun to play in PvP but yes boring in PvE.

However the question was about a class to start with and eventually to get in late game, and i find that the ranger class is quite easy to play and to level and they can actually get in late game.

If then the player wants to reroll over another class like most of the players have done it’s up to him.

Probably the rogue barb is the best to start with and get in late game, they have both this is common, but one is melee and the other one is ranged, so i think one of the 2 classes are better to start with according if you like more the melee or the ranged classes. Regards.

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Thanks for even more feedback! I ended up picking Demonologist, after trying ToS for a bit. I love the feel of the class, especially how the flames are. I usually hate flame mages but this one’s fun.
I’ll be making alts in the future, and ToS and Barbarian are high on that list now! Thanks guys!

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if you want to try a melee class, hox is quite nice, as it is a battlemage. easy to lvl because of aoe

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