Dear Mythic,

Please remove the 5ft deadzone for shooting my arrows. Between that and the underpowered Squigs, it's like painting a big target on my Squig Herder's back "Easy Kill for Melee".

I'm trying not to overreact here or just do a "buff now plz", this is based on serious observations about the class I'd prefer to keep playing and that I've seen others give up on.

Where did all the Squig Herders go?

Squig Herders seemed great in tier 1 and 2, the Scenarios matched our abilities well and some of the other classes hadn't come into their own. But since hitting tier 3, I rarely see any other Squig Herders in Scenarios at all. And I can understand why. Without someone specifically watching my back, it's a frustrating experience.

We're super vulnerable to a basic tactic: anything melee.

As Gobbos, we're hella noticeable. I'm sure many Order players mistake us for Shaman. I get regularly swarmed. No doubt White Lions, Witch Hunters and Swordmasters are chuckling with glee every time they see a Goblin. Either they're hitting a valuable target or it's a squishy Squigy that barely slaps them once they close in.

I didn't roll a ranged class to melee

For melee attacks, I have a dot, then it's mash that small basic attack repeatedly, quickly draining my AP for very little effect. 30 AP for a 70 dmg attack at Rank 22. Add it up with the dot, that's a grand total of 680 dmg using a full bar of AP against opponents with 3500+ health.

I'd use "Git 'Em" more, but it's situational. It requires my pet to be on a target, within range and not busy during another attack. All of my pet-related abilities have this huge lag delay on them, so it's rare for me to get "Git 'Em" off on another player. When it does work, well then there's the cooldown.

The range on pet abilities and the lag on using them are hugely crippling factors. Having my pet on passive to have it close by in case I need its laggy defensive abilities isn't exactly the fun way to play a pet class. My Squig needs to bounce around a bit for me to feel joy, my fun factor is rather intertwined that way.

I can jump into Squig Armor, but that's not something to do on the fly with its 55 AP cost and once again is Squig dependant to be effective, yet astonishingly they take away our abilities to control our pets while in the armor. Squig Armor isn't nearly as cool as in the opening video, which is evident in the fact that I've never seen any other Squig Herder use it in Scenarios either.

Speaking of pets

A White Lion's pet will kill me at T3.

Oh it won't do it quickly, but it will stick to me like glue with no means whatsoever to get it out of my 5ft deadzone and my melee attacks completely ineffectual to kill it. What a slow, painful and embarassing death, to be made completely irrelevant by another's pet. I watch every other class brush these lions aside like they don't matter.

It's sad that I need to be rescued from a pet attack. And who exactly assists a Squig Herder anyway?

And if I do try to fight back at the damn thing? White Lions get to heal their pets. Oh what I wouldn't do for the ability to heal my Squigs. See, our pets are supposed to be throwaways right? We're supposed to explode them, call new ones. Except that stuff isn't working right, it's rare that my Squig will explode when asked to, probably because he's bounded out of range. Worse, half the time the explosion happens at my location and my Squig just dies where he is.

For disposable pets, why does it take 3 seconds uninterrupted to call a Squig? Why does the same Squig get a 30 second cooldown even if he's just mysteriously vanished, or I've mounted?

Which is another point that sticks in my craw: Why does my pet die when I mount? Ugh, everyone else can mount up, then dismount and jump into the fray right away, but I've got to get murdered while I'm calling my damned pet.

And finally, one last sore point: How am I herding when I can only have one pet at a time?

Mythic, please do something

Getting rid of the 5ft deadzone would completely balance our class versus melee. They'd still have the ability to interupt us, just like with any caster.

Don't buff up our melee, just let us use our ranged regardless of situation. I'd even take a slight power loss within that 5ft zone as a compromise.

There, that's my PvP balancing bitching for the day. =)

Simple question:

Which archetype do you prefer? Melee or Caster?

I suppose it could be taken deeper with the whole Tank, Heal, DPS, Crowd-Control paradigm, but that could get really specific with pet classes etc..

For me, it's usually been Melee, but I've warmed up to Casters lately.

Dear Funcom:

It's not the combos that make your melee combat so fun. It's easy to think that, but it's not.

It's the fact that I can swing a weapon and everything that it hits, it hits. It's running up to mobs and just going at it. That's visceral joy.

Don't nerf that. You'll be watering down the best part of your game.

Funcom's stealth changes have been decreasing the damage dealt on multiple mobs. I don't know all of the details, but it's a noticeable difference as I play. In the next patch, they're taking this even further:

So now we'll have to pay more attention to our targets.

Weeks ago I could handle 5 mobs my level with ease and even push it to 7 mobs (although my death rate would go up considerably). I'm playing a Polearm "Frenzy" Guardian, a class and spec that's specifically aimed toward holding and dealing with crowds of mobs.

Lately however, I cannot handle the same mobs in groups of 3 and even 2 can cut it awfully close. I could previously clear a Villa without any deaths as long as I paid attention, but now I'm dying repeatedly. I realize this is in part to leveling up higher, but even scaling back like that feels odd, shouldn't I be more powerful at Endgame?

I understand getting nerfed, I could accept that, but that's not what this is about.

The number one joy of this game has been the combat. I love not having to target, I love running in and grabbing mobs like some kind of berzerker warrior. I love that my polearm hits what it swings through, that it's NOT target-based combat. Or at least that it's less-emphasized on the target, there should only be a marginal difference. I should sweep my weapon through mobs again with the thrill of watching them all take noticeable damage.

Funcom, please, don't reduce the best parts of this game to appease players who are demanding what they're accustomed to in other games. I understand you want to balance, but don't water down your game in the process.

Let the balance-obsessed players decide to play the classed they perceive to be overpowered, they'll do that anyway. Don't nerf away the biggest thing this game has going for it. This is 100% about the fun factor.

This is why I love playing a Guardian, the polearm action consistently makes me smile. I can swipe through crowds of mobs like these.

Bello vs 10 Angry Shadows:

Any class could handle these mobs really. Note that while they're appropriate for my level they're all labelled "Minion", which is Funcom's indicator of easier mobs. I really like that mechanic, because it allows for the occasional swarm like this. Previously I would have found swarms annoying, but most every attack in Age of Conan would be considered AoE (area of effect) in other games.

Age of Conan's "damage what your weapon hits" melee combat is perfect for this stuff. Casters would probably manage with their splash damage cone-shaped casts too.

In hindsight watching this, I could have done it a lot better, repositioned myself for maximum polearm reach, etc. but I think the video demonstrates the craziness of the situation really well.

The two fatalities are nice too. =)

I've uploaded a video in an attempt to demonstrate just how visceral the melee combat is in Age of Conan, even before the combos come into play.

It's a very short video, just a quick fight with ordinary mobs at the beginning of the game (2nd quest), but you can get an idea of how nice the fluid animations are, plus the gorgeous environment.

The Flickr video shows it much better than most of the blurry YouTube vids out there.

If like me, you're waiting for the Age of Conan launch and you're coming from other games with typical MMORPG combat systems, you may want to watch Gamespy's excellent Combat Tutorial video which demonstrates very clearly the differences in combat from what you're probably used to.

Physical melee combat is quite a bit different, with directional attacks and combos. I would describe it but you're better off watching the video. Casting is mostly the same as you would expect from World of Warcraft, at least until they introduce spellweaving at a later date.