PvP Conqueror Guide

I hope this helps anyone learning or struggling with the class.

1.- BRUTE.

Brute conq is the easiest class of the melees in terms of survivability. Not only do you have self-heal and two bubbles, but you also debuff (physical and magical torments) as you hit when you have a technique or banner running. Brute dps isn’t great, but add the debuffing, and you get a very good duel class and a great flag carrier.

You will want to use, 99% of the time, Will of Vivification and Fire Standard, using mostly the technique to heal yourself. I only plant the fire banner when I’m certain I won’t need the heal and I want to do a bit more dps to finish off someone. Alternatively you can use Restoring Standard. Its banner heals everyone in your group including you so you can keep heals running every 30 seconds instead of every 45 (you can rotate technique and banner without cooldown but if you use only technique or only banner the cd is 45 s), but note that if you move away from the banner you won’t get heals, and you also lose the permanent +5% critical chance from Fire Standard.

You can start a fight with either GoDS (Guard of Dancing Steel) 3 (GoDS procs are the biggest part of your damage) (I like rank 3 but feel free to try other ranks) or FA (Feint Attack) 8 (you will debuff your enemy with a physical wrack and get the +10% critical chance from the feat Furious Strikes). Then you nuke with FA9 (khitai rank) or HoFS (Hail of Furious Strikes) 5. Note that, when you use HoFS, your next three hits will heal you a bit, so it’s good to use it for that too. Then HoFS also has the use where you’re annoyed by an enemy, you miss your combos, so you just spam HOFS5 and you will hit him regardless of where he is standing as long as you are in melee range (ranks 4-6 are AoE). You’ll want to keep GoDS and Furious Strikes’ buffs running constantly.

Then, if you switch weapons, you can use Breach 4 to debuff with physical ruin, and BB (Bloodbath) 4. Rank 1 deals the highest dot dps of the 1-step ranks, and rank 4 is a tiny bit faster to perform than rank 5, dealing a bit less damage, and rank 7 is the hardest-hitting, good against tanks. The 1-step ranks are not AoE, so keep that in mind. This dot will be your highest source of dps other than GoDS.

Throat Slash is an “instacombo” CC (silence). It’s not bad when you want to do a fast combo or to finish someone off, but it’s better to save it to silence casters or interrupt melee’s combos (for instance it’s really useful to interrupt a DT using Dooming Presence). Casters will be silenced for 3 seconds, which gives you the time to throw one combo, but you can also silence a healer and then fight another target and the healer can’t heal or anything for 3 seconds. It will also destroy necro bombs without detonating them (thanks to Orranhi for reminding me). Note that Throat Slash is the only “instacombo” that can’t trigger fatality, unlike Slam, Decapitation or Death Whirlwind.

Use Burst of Aggression wisely. It’s a very good AoE knockback spell, similar to PoM’s Repulse, but the trick is that, when you hit someone with it, you get 5 seconds of the buff Fighting Spirit, which prevents you from using a bubble (and also knocking back with it again). I have used BoA and then died because I couldn’t use a bubble many times.

You should focus targets that are the most dangerous and squishier, like Hox, Demo, Necro, Sin, Tos, and, although Ranger is not squishy, it’s a dangerous class for your squishy teammates. It always depends on the situation. Know your enemies and learn to think fast. Fighting far away from the objective is generally a bad idea. Save your CC’s to help your teammates, especially your healer if you have one.

You should always use the AA Battlefield Commander. The trick about BfC with Will of Vivification is that, since the first heal when you activate the technique is 10 times bigger with this AA, you can wait until you are at 90% hp to use the technique, and then you are back to full hp (of course, you will not debuff during that time), and, in the process, luckily you will get Furious Inspiration stacks (techniques’ and banners’ effect depends on the amount of stacks consumed) (the difference between using self-heal at 0 stacks and 10 stacks is being healed every 2 seconds or every 1). The rest of AA’s that I use are Pressing Strikes + Decisive Strikes and Avoid Entanglements + Vindication.

My brute spec: https://goo.gl/KQcHH5 (credits to Amneru)

Beginner spec: https://goo.gl/1jx9Dy (less micromanaging, more simple)

Lumbering Hulk makes you a bit slower, but you cannot be snared, and you get +24% weapon damage, beating the setup without LH and with 5/5 Sustained Rage.

Burning Vigor doesn’t proc often or in every fight, but it certainly heals enough for just three points and being passive. In general, when I check parses, it can heal up to 8% of the total heals, where 30% is Technique: Will of Vivification and 30% Health Potion, give or take, assuming you don’t have a healer.

Legendary Heroic Call makes this special banner give you 5 FI stacks over time, so I always drop it at warmup in a mini when there’s 30 seconds left to start, and I start the mini with 5 stacks. It makes this banner more of a self-buff than a group-buff.

2.- CARNAGE.

Carnage conq has higher dps than brute since you will be using BB and Whirlwind all the time. BB will damage over time, and Whirlwind is your burst, which also always applies Deep Wounds (another dot) if you have it. The damage increase per feat point in Deep Wounds is +1% of the total dps in a parse, so it’s not that bad. Apart from these two combos, you can use 2-step ranks of Bloody Hack for decent damage, or switch to 2h for FA9 (don’t forget to debuff tanks with ranks 1-8). BB7 is the best rank but it’s a 3-step combo, so you will probably want to preload it and not overdo it, since you already have to use WW, which is 3-step too. I usually use rank 4. Using Breach makes your next combo do more damage, so Whirlwind is usually the best option there.

The feat Crippling Bloody Hack means that every Bloody Hack rank you use will snare your enemy, and, when you just want to quickly snare, you want to use a 1-step rank (3 does the most damage while 1 and 2 are a little faster). Note that if you use Bloody Hacks just for dps you can be wasting snare on your enemy and giving them immunity when not needed.

Like in brute spec, you want to use Will of Vivification and Fire Standard. Note that, if you use the AA’s Assail + Breakthrough instead of Battlefield Commander (which you should if you want the “chargekb”), you won’t get the big first heal when you use the technique anymore, so play more carefully. The rest of the AA’s I use are the same ones: Pressing Strikes + Decisive Strikes and Avoid Entanglements + Vindication. Without BfC, Fire Standard gives +3% crit chance instead of +5%.

You also don’t have the two good bubbles, but instead you have an evasion bubble, which is good against melees and rangers.

The feat Fleet of Foot will let you use Charge again every time your team or you get a kill. When you mix this with the AA Breakthrough, you get chargekb spam.

Resolute Advance gives passive Root resistance and lets you break Root by using Charge, even if you don’t have line of sight to your target (think of it as Escape Artist from rogues’ general tree, except this one is only reactive).

Remember to use Bladeweave when you start a fight and keep it active. There is a trick for this: since the timer refreshes on a 25% chance with offhand attacks, and you will have around 80% chance for these, if Bladeweave cd is over and you still have the buff running, you can then use the ability again as many times as you want without it going on cd. I suppose this is a bug, but it makes keeping the buff running very easily as long as you fight for a while, and that high offhand chance makes for some nice extra dps.

Try not to start a fight with charge, but instead save it to help teammates or to catch an enemy running away low on hp.

My old carnage spec: https://goo.gl/eUz93e

My new carnage spec: https://goo.gl/kGiKCQ

3.- CARRYING THE FLAG.

When you carry the flag in BR, LT or HV, you move slower, so you can’t keep up with other players if they are sprinting, unless they are snared. You have to play much more carefully, forget about going for kills, but instead sticking to your team and play more defensively in general. I rarely switch to Frenzy stance while I carry the flag (only when it’s extremely safe, like zerging one enemy alone with your entire team).

You have to pay a lot more attention to the minimap than usual. Remember to look at the minimap, and the group list! Keep an eye out for teammates dying, because, if you are fighting the entire enemy team and one or two of your teammates die, it’s time for you to fall back to safety. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Try to only push when you are protected by your teammates. Don’t try to fight more than one enemy on your own; you move slower. Always stay close to your team.

When the enemy flag-carrier dies, a message pops up on the top of the screen, under your buffs, and another one appears afterwards saying “the flag will reset in 10 seconds”. Remember these messages and learn the timing, to know if you have to keep protecting the flag - 99% of the time, due to a bug, only CC’s will interrupt enemies picking up the flag, so use them wisely at this point - or you can start running back to your base to score.

A good and funny trick, when you arrive at your base and someone is picking up your flag, is to target them and charge. If you’re not too late, they will hate you for this.

4.- FINAL TIPS.

The most important part of conq, and all soldiers, is to know how to “stance dance”. If you stay in Defensive when you want to nuke, you won’t do as much damage as in Frenzy, and, if you get caught in Frenzy you die in seconds, especially if they CC you in Frenzy (note though that when you are knocked back you can still change stances).

As a general rule, when you fight casters, you don’t want to switch to Frenzy, unless they are CC’d. You will still do decent damage to casters in Defensive. When you fight melees, and you are confident with your footwork, you can use Frenzy more (of course not if you are outnumbered and focused).

Since conq doesn’t have a Stun CC, you can use doubletap forward to get Momentum buff, giving you a small chance to stun your target with every attack while this buff is running, so you can start FA9 and, before hitting the finisher, doubletap forward and then use the finisher, so you throw a lot of hits while having Momentum, making the stun easier to proc.

Carnage conq’s chargekb can be doubletapped, but it’s very hard to perform. It’s a lot easier with a fast gaming keyboard. The few times I’ve managed to stand still after a chargekb I just spammed S (WAD work too but somehow S is more comfortable).

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Thanks for excellent guide :+1:

Very nice guide! Thanks for sharing and putting your time into it. Cheers

Patoson, great job!

Questions:
Deep wounds feat - what gives you additional points in that feat? (i usually use only 1 point in that feat)
Do you find useful Annihilate with 3m cooldown? Conq crit rate is imo enough high to enhance it for 3 points. 3 mins cd is so loooong in minis.
Flashing defense without combination with rend flesh, isnt’t a waste for only 8 s evade chance?

I’ve tested different points in Deep Wounds on a strawman and each point invested is a flat +1% total damage in the parse. Considering Whirlwind always applies it and it can trigger with other attacks too, and that I don’t like using Bloodbath much anymore, I say it’s worth it over Rend and Tear.

I like Annihilate for FA9 or a 2-step BH or BB. It’s a long CD, sure, but there’s just nothing better to get in that line. To use it properly, as soon as you finish a combo and before starting a new one, hit the ability, then start the combo you want to crit with.

Flashing Defense and Rend Flesh do not share anything as far as I know. The bubble is well worth it; it can save your life or let you focus a mage while evading the melees trying to help them. Rend Flesh makes for some good extra dps, but I’m lazy and, just like I don’t like Volcanic Rage in Brute, I play without it and can kill just as fine. I put all those points in Blessed Blade and Ruthelss Assault, letting me get a small heal with BH and giving me some extra crit chance.

10% parse? burning vigor is very situational but you can abuse its utility :stuck_out_tongue:
good fun when you’re clobbering tosses

oh and seeing that you promote flagging, throat slash lets you kill necro bombs without wiping your entire team

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Pato has vacation time? :smiley:

Kidding aside, very great work on this guide. Made me feel like to start playing Age of Conan again on conq!

A late reply regarding Deep Wounds, increasing the feats spent increases the Deep Wounds proc rate. At one point, it will only ever proc once during the duration of the bleed. At 5 points it procs often enough to get up to a three stack. It’s handy when you use an aoe attack in clustered opponents and in duels.

Simply put its more frequent passive bleeds.

I tested Annihilate for long and finally confirm why sometimes it doesn’t make a combo crits. If your combo dmg with Annihilate > target remaining hp, it won’t crit, idk if its a bug. So just use it with FA9 for a BIG opening attack, its always wasting when I save it to finish off low health targets with FA9.
P.S. it is also a signal that your combo wont finish off a target if it crit, so you can rdy your next combo. If it doesn’t crit then your target is dead.

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So, if i understood correctly, as Carnage Conq, i dont use BfC? And what is that chargekb i am a bit confused.

For PVE you use BFC. For pvp charge kb - which is the perk break through.

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It’s important in PvP to consider who you’re using the charge KB on and whether or not to use it at any given moment. If you don’t have other melee that get on your KB’d target, it can be disastrous as you’re giving multiple enemies knockback resistance. Try to communicate with your team who you’re targeting. It’s also an excellent finisher if you can get someone low who doesn’t have immunity.

Ok, so…
I bought an extra spec and used the above build. I checked the combos however, and BH has V rank with 2 step as well. Why not use that instead of IV?

Also when is the pvp fesitval starting on Crom? Next week like in the guide?

Try this Carnage spec instead. https://goo.gl/8WsZ1g
General tree will forever be your best friend in pvp as a carnage conq.

And Def use BH V instead of IV

Whats the difference between the two specs?

Defiance is a great mini burst heal. Has a huge impact on an initial push.

As a carnage conq, you don’t have the benefit of having two definite bubbles that you can rotate and rely on, you have some melee bubble (that works when it wants to). Most of your damage will come from being in frenzy stance. You’re going to want your frenzy stance to have as much DPS as possible and at the same time, want to mitigate as much damage as possible, therefore, guarded frenzy is a necessity.

You defiantly can tell which carnage conqs have/don’t have it. They drop like flies. Whispers in the wind.

You’re whole job as a carnage conq is to be the opener. Make your statement when you push, impose your will on the enemy team. It’s what separates the ballers from the bench. ‘Mic Drop’

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Is it reliant on. Chargekb? Or is it pure dps?

Pattoson’s recommended spec (to me) appears to be better in duels but worse in group PvP. His build sacrifices some really important stuff in general (improved frenzy, guarded frenzy) as well as some other survivability tools (5 points in defiance) in order to pick up some feats that look dueling focused, like annihilafe (3 min cooldown on crit) and cunning deflection.

In group PvP, the damage mitigation you get from guarded frenzy is a must have. And the teamwide heal on defiance is crazy good.

That’s said, I think both builds are good. I just think the build big baller brand posted is superior for group PvP.

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On conqueror, charge kB + assail is recommended for group PvP. For duels, go with battlefield commander.

Wait so the above spec and the one at the beginning of the thread, which one is for what?
Goddamit its getting confusing lol

Mahbe someone could make one single post with Duel and group spec? Lol