BARBARIC DIFFICULTY TIPS
Barbaric Difficulty in Conan Exiles basically means that NPCs will do twice as much damage to you while your damage to NPCs is halved. In addition, you will find yourself leveling at about half the speed as on a normal difficulty server.
If you are new to Barbaric Difficulty here are some random tips in no particular order…
DON’T RUSH AHEAD
On normal difficulty servers, many players skip the oasis area (Noob River) at the begining of the game and rush north to the highlands, west to Sepermeru or perhaps east to the jungle.
In Barbaric Difficulty, for most players, this is a mistake!
Hang around the Oasis until at least level 20-25. Then you can make your way to the central desert to the north.
In general you want to take a much slower paced approach to the game. Stop to smell the roses and actually enjoy all of the content.
IT GETS EASIER
The first few levels in Barbaric Difficulty are the roughest. It gets rapidly easier once you get yourself a few points in attributes and some decent weapons and armor.
Once you hit the low-20s, the game will actually be much more fun than on normal difficulty.
How soon you to tackle each biome is, of course, personal but I recommend the following:
- Oasis (Noob River): Maintain as primary base until at least 25-30
- Central Desert: 31-40
- Sepermaru: 40-50
- Jungle: 40-50
- Highlands: 50-60
- Snow Biome: 50-60
- Volcano: 60
ATTRIBUTE CONSIDERATIONS
Obvisouly the following is based on my experience and you may wish to do something totally different:
Put your first 10 points into Agility
Since the Riders of Hyboria update, it is important to invest some points in Agility. Agility has been updated to effect how quickly you recover from a dodge and how quicky you accelerate when trying to sprint.
When starting fresh in Barbaric Difficulty, you will die a lot without points in Agility due to a lack of maneuverability and sluggish character movement in general.
Put your second 10 points into Grit
To enage PvE enemies in a meaningful way in Barbaric Difficulty, Grit is very important. Ten points in Grit will allow you to do four heavy attacks and a dodge without running out of Stamina.
Put your third 10 points into Strength
Your damage is already low on Barbaric Difficulty so this is needed. However, the main reason to do this is for the first perk - which will double your damage when trying to knock out thralls.
GET THRALLS ASAP
As soon as you are able, get some thralls. Even crafting thralls are very important at the start of a Barbaric Difficulty game to make the most use of the resources you will purchase with blood and sweat.
Get a fighter thrall as soon as you can. Anyone will do; however, there are five one-skull elites scattered around the Oasis that make great starting companions. Craft them some heavy armor and give them one of the Day 1 Exclusive Conan’s Atlantean Swords found at the Conan’s Shrine near the Sentinels. They will serve you well.
INCREMENTAL BUFFS MATTER
As soon as you are able, add the simple weapon upgrade kits, simple tool upgrade kits and simple armor upgrade kits to your gear.
Craft the best food you can and carry some Aloe Extract poitions.
PREPARE FOR THE PURGE
The Purge will come for you!
Build your base to be Purge resistant. One idea is to build on a low escarpement or tall cliff. Ensure there is some part of your bases that decends to the ground so that the Purge attackers have something to attack. This allows your base to be mostly safe from Purge damage and gives you an easy area to concentrate your defensive resources into a kill zone.
Put a thrall on guard at the reachable/attackable part of your base. Thralls do 100% damage so they make great defenders. Ensure to equip them in heavy armor.
Use palisades! They do 100% damage, even in Barbaric Difficulty, and just annihilate Purge attackers.
Make sure you have good healing on hand for the Purge defence such as Aloe Extract or Ambrosia.
BE RESOURCEFUL!
Once you are able, farm the one-skull elites scattered around the Oasis. They always drop 1-2 pieces of flawless light or medium armor. You can repair it using resource kits - even the simple ones, until you get a named armorer.
Feeling adventurous? Make the run to Sepermaru and stumble around the city looting the chests that are scattered around almost everywhere. Not only do they give heavy leather and steel, but often drop great weapon kits and other resources that can give you a good boost.
Make the run up the river to the Pirate Ship. There are two chests you can climb to from underneath the ship that both drop great stuff - including legendary weapons that are much better than anything you will craft yourself at low level.
Good luck, whelps!