[Guide] Beating Dead Man's Hand

After the release of Savage Coast of Turan it quickly became evident that Dead man's hand doesn't scale to veteran players in terms of difficulty and rewards. Funcom since revamped the Dead Man's and now you can enter it in normal or hard (unchained) mode. If you are looking for a quick way to make tokens, get mastery and even make some coin then this place is for you. In fact hard version of Dead Man's Hand is currently the fastest solo content that grants token rewards. In this guide I want to show you the quickest way to beat this dungeon and reap the rewards. It can be done in 10 minutes or so.

You start at the boat. Before you mount up get your kappa out and switch to red buff (critical damage rating) which is best suited for avatar based assassins builds.

Ride to the right corner of the village.

Keep to the right until you see an opening with a torch next to in (there is also a snake there)

Keep riding through the pass until you run into two pirates

I recomend killing the pirates rather than avoiding them.

When the fight is over jump down, hide and stick to the wall

Either kill the few pirates that are there (I prefer to do that) or just keep stealthing next to wall

Keep stealthing..

Wait for a pirate on patrol and take him out. The rest won't be moving.

Approach the boss very carefully. If you agrro the mobs in the nearby camp you might be in big troubles as there are 2 archers there (they are hitting like a truck!) and the melee mobs can stun you.

Short chat with the boss and get ready to fight him.

Just spank the boss until he starts running. Keep landing the combos on him while on the run. The more you damage him early on the easier the fight will be. Use From The Darkness and Accelerated to quickly close in on the boss.

The last stage of the fight is also simple tank and spank

When the fight is over the boss will just turn green

Don't forget to loot the nearby chest

Mount up and run back to the village. Ignore all the mobs that will be in your way

Back to the pass. At this point you should have shaken off any aggro.

Back to the village

Back to the boat where you have started

Sprint along the beach until you reach the entrance to the forest

Don't stop and ignore any mobs

Keep runing straight ahead

Keep running

When you reach this point you should have shaken off any aggro you had

Dismount

Kill 3 crocs

Walk into the pirate's base

Deal with the pirates inside.

 Look out for a nasty stun.

Kill the fat warden.

Talk to the boss to start the fight

This is simple tank and spank.

When the boss will be at 25% she will stun you and almost kill you. The boss will flee and the fight will be over.

Loot the chest

Mount up and go back the way you came to the camp

Keep sprinting along the same patch

Go back to the village.

In the village keep to the left side until you reach the main bulding which is the tavern

Clean up the mobs there (boobies!)

Talk to the boss to start the fight

This is tank and spank fight (yet again)

Loot the chest nearby

Go inside and walk up the stairs killing the mobs that are there

Loot the secret chest that is on the balcony

Mount up

Keep to the right until you reach an opening

Keep sprinting until you see the ship

Enter the ship

There are 3 bosses in this instance and their apperance is random.Accalia is the hardest one. Drostan and the Vesp are pretty much tank and spank (no need to use the intended mechanics). When fighting Drostan save your avatar for when he will summon his rats, then activate avatar and use Death Whirlwind. You will leech absurd amounts of health this way.

Run away from the boss when she is using "abhor the weak"

When she got damaged enough she will run to the center to buff up. Use the balistas to stun her.

Spank her when she is stuned or unbuffed.

Here is your loot: 3 tokens and epic mastery pot. The pet drop can be sold on Trader for good coin.

This Week in Hyboria #4

Crafting changes (in the works)
The queue system (very much like over the time system in AA) got replaced with resource system. Think of it as stamina or mana pool: you can cast only so many spells before it runs out and when it does it needs to regenerate mana before you can get back to fighting. Same will be true for crafting: you will have set amount of this resource (let's call it "crafting juice" for the sake of this post) and each item will cost some crafting juice to make. If you want to craft, for example, two swords which cost 10 crafting juice each and you have pool of 30 crafting juice then you will be able to craft 3 of those swords daily. Want more? Then you will have to wait set amount of time until your crafting juice regenerates. I think this is as good of a system as a queue which in my opinion should server one, main purpose: to prevent players from just shitting out items for hours one end. This is the main issue with current system: if I wanted to craft gems in order to level up guild renown I could have (because I had tons of uncut gems) been crafting gems for 3 hours straight. If you want to have healthy economy then you have to provide basic structure for ground level laws of economics: supply and demand. Under current system we have very little demand (whatever you can craft is horribly outdated in post ROGS reality) and abundance of supply because crafting materials cost next to nothing.

Source:https://twitter.com/Silirrion/status/231015148968615936
https://twitter.com/Silirrion/status/231015781041844224

Skills system getting trashed

As you could have already noted the devs have removed some of the skills related to sprinting and self-healing.FC is planing to continue to do so in the future until the skill system is gone completely. I, for one, am welcoming that since I have always considered skills to be confusing and cumbersome.

Source:http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=572366&postcount=18
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?s=7bcf7a374cde20f524f42569a34f10db&p=1997536&postcount=2

New sprinting system
The new energy system is now live and I must say I am enjoying the hell out of it. To my surprise the feedback on forums is also overwhelmingly good just as it is inside the game itself. Seems like FC nailed it this time (sure, some tweaks will always be needed).

Source:http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?s=7bcf7a374cde20f524f42569a34f10db&p=1997536&postcount=2
http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2012/08/energy-changes-systems-revamp-goes-on.html

Assassin Useful Posts Thread
I have compiled a special thread on the official forum that contains links to all things assassin related. This thread contains stuff that you won't find on this blog since I am linking to the third party stuff. Make sure to be checking it from time to time since I will be updating it as new stuff will surface.

Source:http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=178424

Podcast with Craig Morrison
mmorpg.com interviewed Craig Morrison. The interview is mostly about things we already know (one server tech, crafting etc.), but one thing caught my attention:

 „there is a one feature that I can’t talk about just yet and is coming to the item system that will make another difference there and it is another form of horizontal progression”

So new horizontal progression through items (check podcast at 28:40)? I can think of only 1 thing: leveling your WEAPONS Lord of the Rings style (check http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Legendary_Items_Guide). This kind of progression would have solved the issues with PvP weapons being inferior to raiding weapons: good and dedicated pvpers would have leveled their weapons enough to match those brought into the fight by well geared raiders. Of course Game Director could have had something different in mind when he was talking about "another form of horizontal progression". Only time will tell.

Source:http://www.mmorpg.com/gameon.cfm/cast/all

Lags, lags, lags...

Sadly the last patch totally messed up the servers and resulted in absurdly high pings. Seriously it was never this bad. Funcom promised to address it soon and to give subscribers free game time for their troubles. F2P crowd, you guessed it, can suck it.
As I am typing this the servers are going down for fix so I have my fingers crossed.

Source:http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=1999491&postcount=3

Energy changes: the systems revamp goes on

I gotta say it: when the Age of Conan came out in 2008 it was, system wise, in a very poor state. Whoever made those design choices was either extremely lazy or shortsighted. Most likely both.

Since 1.5 Age of Conan's team had to struggle to get the systems in checks: item stats, tokens, veteran rewards - the works. It really saddens me to think how many development cycles were dedicated to rebuilding systems rather that providing raw content. However I have to admit that focusing on systems is a necessary evil. Sure, whenever I hear about next idea for system changes there is always my initial response: "nnnnooooooooooo, its fine the way it is!". Prime example? Resurrection system in minigames: used to hate the very idea of a change, now I am wondering how 

we were ever playing without it. The stamina problem was evident since day one and it was one of my biggest annoyances in PvP. Hell, even my recently rolled "alt" Comgall (the barbarian) had huge stamina issues while cutting the vanirs to pieces in Conarch Valley. The change was needed and needed badly. Enter the energy revamp! You can read the official explanation of this system so I won't go over it again, all I want to say is that it just works.

Sprinting
When it comes to sprinting  assassin players (I don't know about other classes) will notice they can sprint longer. Not only the system makes you feel so, but also I could very much compare the changes during my solo questing. I know exactly in which parts of solo instance I would run out of stamina and with energy changes not only that I was able to run longer but when it was time to stop I was battle ready with full stamina for my combos. In PvP I haven't noticed any changes other than not having to worry about those annoying drains which before the patch could left me unable to sprint or even defend myself (not enough stamina to do combos). The casters still can be on the move and kite you, but if you die it will be due to GOOD KITING rather than you being out of stamina and unable to do anything. You can sprint even longer by managing rest and dash properly.

Fun fact: Dash used be called "Retreat" but it got changed due to MY suggestion on TL. That's right: BIG EPEEN!!

 

 Flag carring 

Obviously the energy change has it's impact on the flag carrying: quite simply it is no longer a chore. Sure, you will still be slow with the flag, but you can be very mobile (especially with accelerated) and fully engaged with the combat at the same time. Non tank flag carrier is no longer a sitting duck.

More changes
Funcom removed some skills from the skill tab (like endurance and bandaging) and plans to remove this "skill" system completely in the near future. Honestly I have always found it very confusing: no one knows exactly how some of the skills work and it feels very dated overall. I will be happy to see it gone completely.

The new rest ability is now what it should have been since day 1: super fast, super responsive and the healing/energy regeneration is rapid. Yes, the rest ability can return to your bar. But wait, there is more!! Developers decided to reduce the amount of time people are flagged as "in combat". In other words: you will go out of combat muuuuuuuuuch faster than before and it doesn't matter that your team is still actively fighting. What does that mean? Well, I got two words for you: rest and hide.

The new rest ability will come very handy in minigames without healer since it does it's job very well. I remember hating running away from the fights with like 700 HP left when the team did not have a healer because it would have taken forever to restore myself to full HP again. Those days are gone. As for hide then I don't think I need to explain much: use it and use it often! Remember that assassins have a special ability when attacking out of stealth which is 1 x face stab damage. Not only that face stab benefits from all of the upgrades (like +damage or +crit) but also doesn't make face stab ability go on cool down. Here is how you attack out of stealth:

attack
1 x face stab
1 x face stab
remove shield
remove heal
....................and all that in mere 2 seconds.

That is massive damage and you can further increase it by using Lotus Overdose/Avatar/Liberation because none of those will break stealth upon usage. Today I have actually got out-of-stealth fatality in PvP which is just wicked cool (assassin cuts throat from behind with both daggers at same time).

To sum it up: great changes and the game will benefit from it for the years to come.

Update Notes 3.8 [Assassin]

Assassin 

• Impede Essence will now allow the Impede Life combo to prevent an enemy from regenerating Energy
• Bewilder will now allow the Blindside combo to prevent an enemy from regenerating Energy

all update notes are here.

Assassin's hideout podcast ep.30

show notes:

- crafting revamp
- player economy in AOC

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/516323/podcast/Assassins_hideout30.mp3