ranger-revamp
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AoC 2.0.5 revamps rangers, Shrines of Bori
After several hours of downtime, Age of Conan's servers are back in action and sporting the new 2.0.5 game update. For many players, things will likely remain as they are, but if you play the ranger class or frequent the Shrines of Bori, get ready to relearn the game. The hefty patch upends a number of things, so many in fact that the patch notes are split into two posts on the official boards: one for the Shrines, and one for the rangers. For the former, the highlights include a relocation of shrines around the playfield (theoretically allowing small guilds to hold one), an increase in the Favor of Bori buff time, and a tweak that now gives sacrifice rewards to the group or raid making the sacrifice (allowing players to form extra-guild groups and still receive credit). Additionally, a new Pyre mechanic has been added, whereby player kills will now reward the victor with a body bag full of dismembered parts which can then be burned atop the appropriate pyre for for PvP XP as well as Glory and Prowess renown. For the ranger revamp, start wrapping your head around the following tweaks: fundamental changes to class combos, removal of stances in favor of a new mechanic called Advantages, extensive changes to traps, and the unification of bow and crossbow weapon types. Finally, Funcom has added a fair number of high-level quests to the Paikang and Kara Korum zones. You can check out a comprehensive list of patch changes on the official boards.
The Anvil of Crom: Changes aren't permanent, but change is
Yeah, so they're pulling the rug out from under my rangers, in the form of a hefty class revamp that is basically taking a good chunk of everything familiar about Age of Conan's rascally rogues and tossing it out the proverbial window. I shouldn't be shocked by this, after all; spend more than a week playing in this genre and it becomes clear that MMORPG developers are the game-industry equivalent of George Lucas: constantly tinkering with their creations (sometimes to the dismay of their fans) and rarely leaving well enough alone. While it's a truism that one of the appeals of an MMORPG is its malleable nature, that doesn't make it any easier to adapt and adapt again, particularly if you were happy with the status quo. All that said, I'm not dismissing Funcom's upcoming ranger revamp out of hand, as I haven't yet been privy to testing any of the changes. They may well turn out to be a blessing, but ten years of messing around with these games has left me a little leery of radical revisitations. Hopefully my reservations are unfounded this time around. Read on after the cut to see what's in store for Hyboria's bow-and-crossbow crowd.
