1 year review - 2010

Last year (meaning 2009) I did a scolding review of Age of Conan development (well deserved I might add), but it seems like 2010 brought a lot to the table:

Crafting - crafting is still almost meaningless because of the reasons stated here. I can honestly say its by far the worst crafting I have ever seen in a mmo. Huge room for improvement. Like HUMONGOUS. I had to bump up the previous rating of epic fail to solid 3 because crafting has such a big impact on guild progression in renown levels and rankings. So if you have your bank stuffed with mats you can now pump out items for an hour or two to help the guild and be done with it until your bank refills. Clearly not enough, but still small step forward.
Rating: 3/10

Itemization - The expansion brought great sets for every class and those can be achieved by doing both solo and group pve. The sets are beautiful, with great stats and distinctive looks. I am taking 1 point away because there is no way for solo players to get hard mode tokens and this denies them access to weapons and accessories in expansion. Hell, I am taking away 2 points because it pisses me off so much. Overall big leap forward and superb job.
Rating: 8/10

PVP minigames - a lot of great changes. New minigame, random vs random, pvp xp for capturing flags and winning. Coward's shame is also upgraded and its working. I am enjoying this content very much and its well rounded up part of aoc. I am taking away 1 point for no premade vs premade option, 1 point for no way to deal with afkers (aka leechers) and 1 point for allowing flag carrier onto the spawn point where your opponents can recapture it forever. That's a bit rough, but since its such an excellent part of aoc, I expect nothing but the best from minis.
Rating: 7/10

PVP XP and progression- I am not going to talk about pvp xp from Bori because "epic fail" rating would have stayed. If you don't do Bori then the game still offers variety of pvp xp gain improvements. You can get pvp xp for minigame quests, by capturing flags, killing opponents, trading tokens for pvp xp and even buying tomes of carnage that give great boosts to pvp xp gained. Great job with the addition of minigame quests and tomes. The recent changes to minigame gear also made it within the reach of almost any pvper.
Rating: 10/10

Class balance - the game feels MORE balanced. As and assassin I obviously cannot be objective, but it seems like no class is topping the charts regardless of player's skill. FC did sin, guard and ranger revamps and more are coming.I am taking away 1 point for how Bori gear affects players performance (tip: WAAAAAY too much) and 2 points for damn combo skipping. Solid improvement, but still a lot to do.
Rating: 4/10

Criminal/murderer system - not a single improvement. A dead feature.
Rating: 0/10 LEGENDARY FAIL

Open world PVP - We got Bori! Seems like FC must just drop the ball at some point in whole year. This is Bori in a nut shell, but your can easly find a lot of multipage threads on official forums. There are players with 200 kills and 100 deaths and pvp lvl 10 gear. Nuff said. I am bumping the rating up from "legendary fail" to "epic fail" because FC tried to make things better with pyre system (that's good, more like that please!) and the Game Director had the balls to, while staying within his professional boundaries and minding the company best interests, admit failure of Bori content. I can respect that.
Rating: 1/10 EPIC FAIL

Sieges - Still very unstable (aka they crash) and the performance is laggy at best. Furthermore some classes still dominate the sieges while others feel out of place for such a heavy duty action. This part of game needs a lot of work so I am giving it savage beating in rating.
Rating: 1/10 EPIC FAIL

Guild diplomacy tools - There are none. There is no support for guilds and server politics in AOC. Come on! Alliance system! Where is that?
Rating: 0/10 LEGENDARY FAIL

Guild city - I deem this the most improved part of Age of Conan in 2010. The guild renown, added buildings and NPC gave the cities new life.Furthermore FC rebalanced renown levels on RP related stuff so smaller RP guilds could have access to the RP stuff. I am taking 1 point away because cities in general (apart from some decoration and building placements) still look the same for every guild so: more guild cities customization and personalization please!
Rating: 9/10

RP support - FC added items, clothes, drinks, guild social events, tavern rooms for rent. Huge, huge improvements. The name infractions are dealt with and seems like RP community is finally noticed and acknowledged by FC. I am taking 1 point away because the promised "social tab" for displaying items for looks over items being worn for stats is still not there.
Rating: 9/10

80lvl content for non Raiders - The expansion brought tons and tons of stuff for solo and small group players. Great, long lasting content (even if a little grindy) with superb story line. I am taking away 1 point for MoA grind (its very hard at the beginning) and 1 point for Chosain province zone (it sticks out like a sore thumb, there is nothing unique about it). FC is already talking about new solo instances, but that's for 2011 review.
Rating: 8/10

Updates - This one is a hard call. On one hand FC did 2.1 patch in batches (Craig M. be praised!) and the expansion is good, but they did drop the ball on several exploit fixes (you need to act fast!). Some exploits like combo skipping still remain after 2 years.
Rating: 4/10

Client improvements - the game still crashes on zoning, minigames etc. C'mon, after 2 years this is unacceptable! And DX10 is still in beta.. I am giving it 3 just because they did fix the Grasslands problems in expansion, but that's being generous.
Rating: 3/10

I know that there is a lot more to review, but these are the parts of the game that matter to me. What do you think? Drop me a line in the comments and have a great new year!

Janosik = Conan

This post has been on my mind for a while now. I live very close to the Tatry Mountains in Poland and I often visit those for summer hiking or skiing there in the winter.
During the winter time or when its raining those mountains resemble Cimmeria in every way:

It was a gloomy land that seemed to hold

All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,

With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,

And the dark woodlands brooding over all,

Not even lightened by the rare dim sun

(Cimmeria poem, REH)

In those mountains lived Jerzy Janosik (or Juro, Jurko). He was a chief of a band of robbers (not so merry ones). According to the legend Janosik was stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (just like Robin Hood, minus the bow) and generally protecting people from oppresion from the local establishment.

In reality he lived between 1668 and 1717 and probably wasn't even half as noble as the legend says.
During the 70' Polish television was producing and airng popular TV series with Janosik. Janosik was played by outstanding Marek Perepeczko - just look at that guy! He could have easily played Conan himself.

Keep in mind that the series were made in 1970 in communist Poland and that at that time bodybuilding was a niche sport even in America. Still he looked very impressive.
Janosik reminds me very much of Conan during his time in Ghulistan where he was a chieftain of Afghulis.
In TV series Janosik kidnapped the Duke's niece with the intention of ransoming her and saved his friends from execution. Conan did the very same thing: he kidnapped Yasmina the Devi so governor of Peshkhauri, Chunder Shan could not hang some of the captured Afghulis.
Also in that story "People Of The Black Circle" Conan was wearing a magical belt given to him by Khemsa. Janosik was also wearing a magical belt given to him by Maryna the witch.
Furthermore Janosik just like Conan was a tall, strongly build mountain man and a very able fighter. Now days he is often portrayed with a head full of long, black hairs. People living in the Podhale region of Poland (next to Tatry Montains) are called "Górale" and in the polish translation of Conan that world was used to describe mountain men of Cimmeria.
 I don't have to mention that both Janosik and Conan shared their lust for women and booze.
You can even buy a pretty good beer called "Harnaś" advertised with with an animated TV ads that are featuring Janosik-like character. The ad doesn't really say that the character is Janosik, but its very much implied.

I am going to leave you now with some Góralska music from Podhale region.
Mind you that it's dreadful to listen to while sober. However its my beer music of choice.

Night of the lost souls II: the return of the souls that got lost (during the night)

There is always a person in a movie theater that will say something funny during the movie preview/teasers. Like that time when while screening the highlander II preview one of the characters in the movie said “there can be only one” and that guy shouted “there should have been only one”. Exactly my feelings about the night of the lost souls. It was kinda fun the first time, the other time – eh, not so much.

Honestly I have forced myself to go through this content just to review it later which I don’t really want to do (hence this crappy review).

Its pretty much same stuff as last year: all quest point to the forest in Cimmeria and then to the special versions of Villas in Noble (nooble :D:D) District. You get same “fluff” items like blood to smear all over your character. I twittered that those items are for lol and then trashing and I stand by that.

If this was your first night of the lost souls then you might have enjoyed it like I did last year. I doubt that I will re-do it the third time around (most like it I will because I am a sucker for events)

There is however one change that I must praise: in one of the villas I had green recipe drop and blue recipe drop for guild city decorations. I don’t know how rare those items are, but since it was a drop I assume that it didn’t happen for everyone (at least the blue drop).

More like that please!

What would be the main problem with night of the lost souls event? I think I have covered that in previous posts about events in general, but in a nut shell:

The story is cheesy. Well its all about the Halloween vibe which is not very serious, but sometimes the great story can make up for obvious lack of content. Example? Pre ROGS event. Shitty content, JAW DROPING story.

The rewards are cheesy. Again the social head gear (nasty skull cap) is of superior quality. The problem is that not only everyone got it, but you can even buy it off trader. There goes any uniqueness to the items :[

The other stuff like brain juice and bandages *roll eyes* even if I wanted to put that into my bank I can’t, because its already full. I kept the skull for my social head wear collection (I might wear it with pvp armor once social tab hits AOC), but the rest got trashed. Seems like a waste.

On the bright side we have new seasonal event coming up. Its going to be winter themed and will revolve around Aesirs. Game Director wrote in this month’s community letter that there will be some changes to this event based on the previous feedback. I am curious and full of hope at the same time.

[Guide] Grinding MoAs in Khitai

I am not going to get into whether the grind is good or not (it’s not). If you have already decided that you want to get into Khitai content then this is a guide for you. I will take you step by step into getting 60 MoAs in 50m, every time, without fail.

I have heard that with some faction combination you can do 100 MoAs per hour. I don’t know about that. My guide focuses on doing quests for all factions so you will be progressing with all of them.

To get the best MoA per h you will need to be fairly advanced with each of the factions to get the best MoA worth out of the quest. How do you get to rank 3? That’s a whole different story and I won’t get into that in this guide (or at all). Just remember that the hardest part is rank 1 to 2, rank 3 takes some time, but you will start getting better MoA return and rank 3 to 4 is surprisingly easy since you will be getting 6000 faction points per 1 simple and fast quest.

The following are my factions choices and my reasoning behind picking them. You might get other factions, but then this guide won’t do you a lot of good.
I won’t be giving out the names of the quests, but I am sure you will figure them out from the descriptions.

What you will need:

1/ Last Legion (rank 3) (for cloak)
2/ Brittle Blade (rank 3) (for armor, pet, ring)
3/ Priests of Yun (rank 3) (for pet, ring)
4/ Hyrkanians (rank 2) (for dagger)
5/ Jang Shi (rank 3) (for spell, bag)
6/ Tamarin’s Tigers (rank 1) (for mount, baby!)

Swift Horse
Accelerated Feat
Pots and Food
Patch of Asura bound to village in Grass Lands
Veteran reward patch to Chosain

Why THOSE quests?
Picking the quests I went for:
1/ speed – those quests give best MoA per h
2/ accessibility – its easy to get them and to return them for reward
3/ synergy – sometimes you will be doing a couple of quests at once or very close to each other
4/ difficulty – those quests are easy, there is very small chance of failure. Its best to avoid quests where one mistake will result in death (like Basilisk quest which gives 5 MoAs but you can get popped out of hide by worshipers and die fast which will result in down time).

Lets go:

Chosain
1/ port to Chosain
2/ exit city and ride to the Paikang

Paikang
1/ go to the temple of Yun
2/ talk to Kang and get quest for lotus seeds
3/ exit the temple and take main road to the entrance of Paikang
4/ at the entrance take the main road to the village (near rice fields)
5/ talk to Last Legion Commander and get the quest to protect the well
6/ go to the well and wait for an attack
7/ run without fighting till the mobs stop chasing you
8/ come back and approach the fence behind the well. One mob will chase you
9/ Run away and the quest will fail. You have to find Yag kosha Npc with the cure
10/ run to the Yag Kosha NPC through rice fields
11/ take the cure from npc
12/ come back through rice fields
13/ on the rice fields gather 10 lotus seeds
14/ come back to village, add cure to the well and return the quest to the Commander (7 MoAs)
15/ take the main road to the entrance to Paikang
16/ go to the temple of Yun
17/ return the quest to Kang (7 MoAs)
18/ port to Grass Lands via Patch of Asura

Grass Lands
1/ run to the Hyrkanian village
2/ mount up
3/ take snake bites quest, capturing a horse quest and riding and shooting dummies (in that order!!!)
4/ ride and shoot dummies
5/ beat a horse with a whip (use atrophy and cats paw to avoid damage, use the whip and the active blocking until the whip goes off the cool down, CCs won’t work)
6/ run to the craters with demons – you will find plenty of snakes there
7/ attack the snake with one directional attack (no combos!) so all of his shields will go into direction of your attack (this is what you want). Use dull pain to lower the damage.
8/ watch your poison stack – when it goes to 10 then CC the snake and run to the Hyrkanian Village
9/ allow the horse to return to Feng NPC. Turn in snake quest, turn in horse quest, turn in dummies quest. If you turn in snake quest first the horse that has been following you will disappear (6 MoAs)
10/ mount up and ride to the Kara Korum

Kara Korum
1/ Take quests from Yun NPC: collecting souls, throwing corrupted into pyre
2/ Take quest from Brittle Blade NPC: collecting bones
3/ Take quest from the board: collecting dark water (keep taking and deleting the quests until you get this one) (it gives 5 tokens)
4/ Talk to the corrupted in front of the quest board and walk with him into the pyre (do not sprint or the quest will fail)
5/ from the pyre take left and talk to Jang Shi NPC
6/ take quests: collecting skulls and leading jang shi out of the town
7/ run to the jang shi with question mark on the bridge at the entrance to town
8/ lead jang shi outside. Sprint, count to 4 and stop so the NPC can catch up. Repeat.
9/ outside the town, after leading the jang shi through the bridge and finishing the quest, take quest from Last Legion NPC (collecting meat and armor)
10/ mount up
11/ run straight ahead and take the second right
12/ talk to alchemist NPC from Yun and take red rocks quest
13/ collect armor, red rocks and dark water while killing the hounds for meat. All of those can be found in one place. Figure out a patch that will lead you to Kang Zai skeletons. Before you reach them you should have those 3 quests done.
14/  keep killing Kang Zai until you kill 30 of them. This will complete 3 quests at once and give you whooping 19 MoAs
15/ Mount up and rush to the Last Legions camp to take quest involving killing spies. Its easiest quest in game for 5 MoAs. Just kill every NPC in the nearby bushes.
16/ return to the village and turn in your quests.

10 minute bonus time

If you want to score 70 MoAs per 60 minutes then during the chain do these extra quests:

1/ Chosain – 2 quests from Brittle Blade (easy ones, will give 2 x 2 MoAs)
2/ Grass Lands – 1 quest from Hyrkanians: riding around the camp (1 MoA, 1 minute)
3/ Kara Korum – killing the basilisk for Yuns (5 MoAs, do it when you are killing the spies for Last Legion).

I think that it’s very much possible to do more MoAs per hour, but the problem currently lies with the two factions: Last Legion has only 1 repetable quest in Paikang while Brittle Blade has NONE.
So Scarlet Circle and the Shadows of Jade might in fact be a better choice, at least MoAs wise.

Tips and Tricks:
-    use sprinting and accelerated whenever you can
-    dieing during questing is not an option
-    always look for ways to tweak and optimize your route and questing rotation
-    in Kara Korum look for special buried treasure (on my route I have found 5 such spots and I am digging them every time)

Good luck and don’t die from boredom ;p.I am listening to podcasts while doing my 50m route.I recommend my favorites: Stuff you should know (itunes) The Instance (itunes, I don’t play WoW but DAMN that’s professional podcast!!!)

[Guide] Atrophy

This is EASLY my most favorite feat of all. It has always been since day 1. With the 1.6 revamp atrophy became 2/2 feat that gives -30% melee and magic damage debuff. Its instant, fast, it can crit very well, does AOE dmg/debuff and has extremely low CD.
Best of all: it has its uses both in PVP and solo PVE and costs no shards.

Atrophy as an opener
This is the first and most common usage: atrophy is instant, does pretty decent damage and can debuff greatly so double tap forward to gain momentum and unload atrophy on the opponent.

It’s a win/win scenario because:

1.    if you get momentum stun: you have gained valuable seconds to proceed with another nasty trick and as your opponent comes out of the CC he is greatly debuffed. Note that you can upgrade momentum via AA perks so if it procs it will deal extra damage (so basically its an upgrade to Atrophy damage)
2.    if you don’t get the momentum stun: you still have dealt damage and debuffed your opponent. You can follow up with instant CC or take advantage of the remaining 9s of debuff and save CC for later


Atrophy during CC
The first thing your opponent will do after coming out of CC is most likely CC you back. When your enemy is CC there is only so much you can do: you can apply GC+SS or other miasma combination and the CC duration should be about over. However there is still time for that sweet, instant atrophy to drop. Whatever retaliation your opponent will inflict on you after the CC is over with atrophy it will be 30% less severe. For example that cuts 3000 damage from detonation to 2100 saving your ass from suffering 900 more HP loss.
One common mistake is applying atrophy as soon as CC starts which will lead to the loss of valuable debuff time 

Saving team mates
In minigame scenario I often employ atrophy against people who go after healers. 30% debuff usually is enough for healer to recover and out heal the damage while you keep the DPS up. This way you can keep the valuable CC’s for better moment while still making the difference.

AOE and atrophy
Atrophy does cone AOE damage and debuffing. In PVE mobs will stack up and bunch up naturally so you will take full advantage of this. In PVP this is very situational, but the opportunity might rise when two teams clash in the very beginning when they are escorting their flag carriers (on Blood Ravine this will happen a lot).

Atrophy and PVE
In Paikang you will meet quite the number of bosses that you will have to handle solo. Prime examples will be gray apes (Priests of Yun quest) and the dreaded Dark Legion’s Commander. Atrophy makes those a breeze (almost). Also use atrophy as often as you can because the CD is only 45s and taking less damage will result in less down time and smoother progression. Atrophy really shines in Khitai because the mobs generally have more HP than their vanilla AOC counterparts and they are hitting A LOT HARDER. In vanilla AOC atrophy might have been perceived a bit like an overkill (especially since 1.6 assassin’s revamp giving us uber DPS): why debuff a mob if you can KILL it faster? Such is NOT the case with Rise of the Godslayer. I highly recommend this feat especially for those builds that don’t have Avatar feated in – for extra survivability boost.

Atrophy in PVP
Atrophy debuffs both magical and melee damage so its great against all classes. However as you know there are some hybrid classes that employ both magic and melee. Such class in a Hox. Antrophy is almost designed to kill hox.

FC's sub offers: why try harder?

So this will be a hot topic for some time (a lot of quitrage on the forums too): FC's new 12 months sub offer.
Before I will give you pice of my mind (not that you care) here are some stats (because I know that thats the only thing you do care about):

Tarib

Senior Community Manager

 

---

Here's the information about the White Tiger:

• Same speed as a swift horse
• Requires eastern riding (which is included in this offer too as a /claim item)
• 9% Sprinting Stamina Drain
• -30 Staggering Chance
• Charge ability
• + health when mounted

Now the offer:

And the quite chubby tiger itself:

credit goes to dawee

So its a faction mount with a paint job? Thats laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame & lazy. And a little desperate after FC's last, pretty sloppy Q report (time to digg deep).

I bet FC would have gotten more subs sold and made less people angry if they actually WORKED on their offer. You know, like did stuff and stuff.

I don't mind those kushy offers (hell, I bought 12m sub during last offer), but please put some effort into it *sight*. FC is cutting corners and refrying old content as much as they can. The tiger mount was iconic for the ROGS expansion and I can understand people raging that its ruined now. Kinda is? Well why anyone who have put time and effort into getting like rank 3 with Tamaris would go for instant white tiger plushie? Why anyone with tiger (after grinding it for months) would get this white abomination? Who gets to win here?
I guess...people without sub and a tiger mount?

I am crazy enough that I would have bough another 12m sub if the offer was good. But I just cannot reward a company for half-assed effort.

On the plus side it's a good living down the FC's marketing: you boys and gals have A LOT OF STUFF TO PAINT before you will be out of ideas for next 12m subs offers.

HELL YEAH!

Dagger and a bowl of rice ep.7: Solo PVE in Khitai

Ah the glorious Khitai, hands down the hardest solo content you will face in Age of Conan.
Contrary to what some people think assassin, if played the right way™, can handle Rise of the Godslayer easily. Personally, at the time of writing this, I have taken Brittle Blade to rank 4, Yun to rank 3 and Last Legion to rank 3 effectively completing all the quests for those factions from Grass Lands to the Paikang – solo all the way.
So how does one get started with the expansion’s content and live to tell the tale? This guide will take you from trader-trash wearing, noobie GC+Soul Strike to the expic set wearing assassin that can pull several +83 mobs  and still stand his ground.
Specc > Gear
I don’t know how vital the specc is to other classes nor do I care. For assassins the specc can make or break you in every aspect. The very foundation of your survival and progression in Khitai lies in Avatar’s healing. Healing and healing alone will let you live through the punishment some mobs will inflict on your. The ability to deal damage is secondary at best: no matter how high your dmg output will be it will never be enough to drop several mobs before they drop you. Where full Lotus build struggles to take on 3 mobs the hybrid can easily dismember 5 or more. True, you can carefully pull mobs and blow all of your cool downs, but the key to progression, and let face it: pleasure of gaming, is ripping the shit out of mobs in a fast and constant manner. This the hybrid can provide.

The specc: Hybrid with Avatar

Of course there are many variations to this build, but nevertheless avatar should and must stay as the cornerstone.
Lets go over the details:

How to deal with pulling 1 mob
As with every pull the CCs are your friend. If you are facing really resistant mob with large HP pull then use the CC chaining.
GC->SDS->Soul Strike (this will apply both stun and explosion)->CC->Swift Strikes

How to deal with pulling 2 mobs
Atrophy is your friend. This will effectively reduce the damage output of 2 mobs into…1.2 mob. It really makes the difference.

How to deal with pulling more than 3-4 mobs or Bosses
This is where the hybrid build really shines and where all other fail miserably. First open with SDS and use lotus dart while activating avatar of death. This mob with the dart will feed you the much needed HP so DO NOT KILL HIM, turn to the next mob and apply GC+Soul Strike. The explosion will deal AOE damage providing much needed spike and HP leech. At the last second of avatar use Death Whirlwind to get the last spike of HP and damage. If there are any mobs left use snap kick and finish them up. There is a good chance that some mobs standing near the ones affected with Soul Strike and Lotus Dart will get splashed with GC or SDS – use Face Stab to take advantage of this and consume those effects for large damage.
With relish in death specced in (+15% fatality chance) there is also a good chance you will fatality at least one mob which can only help you to deal with the rest faster and with less damage taken.
The following procedure allowed me to take down the Dark Legion’s Commander in Paikang, loot his head and still run away to safety. I have to yet face more worthy foe than him.
There is more than meets the eye in that build so check my other guides for more details on some of the feats:

Gear
Once you have your build all sorted out you can prepare your gear. Needless to say Khitai faction’s gear works best for Khitai. If you do not have T1/T2 epics then get yourself Assassin’s cultural gear (Bossonian set) along with some pieces from City Crafted Gear.

Check more detailed guide to gear here: http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2010/02/guide-assassindom-part1-gear.html

Contrary to the pvp set up the Khitai requires two things from your gear: a lot of Hit Points and Hit Rating. Without HP you will die fast and without hit rating stats you will miss a lot and as a result: die a lot.
I myself have started my journey through Khitai with cultural gear made for pvp (see the guide above) but I have used collector’s edition rings (epic one and blue one with LOADS of HP and hit rating) and also the necklace reward for killing Grim Gray God. Those have made OCEAN of difference.
You can get pretty decent ring by doing “simple”, but rare quest given by the Emissary of King of Zamora. This quest will spawn at random when you chose to defend the caravan during your journey to Khitai. Just keep taking the road to khitai quest and dieing until you meet the Emissary.
This quest involves killing 500 demons (you can kill those in Grass Lands) which might sound really tedious (and it is!), but its not THAT much  of a grind (like hell its not..) and the ring has nice stats on it.
Upgrade your gear pieces as soon as you can get a replacement from your faction of choice: I went with Brittle Blade.
Do NOT worry about MOAs! As you progress through content the tokens will be more and more easy to acquire. Right now I am getting exactly 55 MOAs in 46 minutes  (solo PVE!) and I have heard its very  much possible to reach 100 MOAS per hour mark. Time will tell.

Perks
Funcom did a great job at making perks progress your character horizontally. Trust me: after upgrading a couple of perks you WILL feel more powerful.
My perks are PVP focused, but that didn’t really hinder my progression – there is hardly a need to be switching perks from PVP to PVE mode.
I recommend getting choking powder, liberation (there are very few CCs, but this perk gives great damage) Tainted Weapons and Finely Honed (very few mobs will use shields, but it will come handy both in PVP and Group PVE)
See the guides here: http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=114374

Once you get to lvl 4 with Brittle Blade and Yun you can start buying REALLY awesome pets that will take your damage and survivability to the next level.

And that is it!  May your blades never dull!

EDIT:

new links to builds:
Hybrid with Atrophy
Hybrid with Grave Blossom