Greetings fellow denizens of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.  Faustina, Herald of Xotli of much reknown (Wiccana Server, Exodus guild) has made a great article reviewing how the new +fire (magic) bonuses are working.  The is a great guide on the actual benefit of going with a heavy +fire (magic) gear set.  I'll not give away the results prematurey though, give the review below a read fr Faustina's insight into this matter.The text that follows was written fully by Faustina and reproduced here with Faustina's permission.  On with the review!

"Well after trying out every feat to see how the new +fire (magic) bonuses work, i can honestly tell you i'm not impressed. I'll break it down with every feat affected. I'm fully slotted with about +450 Fire (magic) in gear.

Fiery Weapons: When it procs it seems to do an extra 100 damage. Very rare proc too. Perhaps 1/20 swings. Utter trash from what i expected.

Imp Fiery weapons: Same deal. Rarely procs and when it does the damage is negligable again.

Spreading flames: It's so so. No real changes done to this but with the changes to BTD it's actually not half bad.

Fire Lance: Wasn't listed as being affected but i am hitting harder with it. Before was 600ish a hit now it's 800ish a hit.

Improved burning skull: Surprisingly not too bad. With my fire damage it procs for 200 damage pretty consistantly, and when its off the imp feat makes it proc for 200 still. The 450dmg proc on damage is also pretty consistent 1/5 i'd say. For a 1 point feat it's stead damage so not too shabby.

Burning Hex: I was extremely disapointed with this. It was the first thing i tried out as i thought, if it scales properly, we could seriously unload with the DoT's. Not the case. With +450 fire magic all this procs for is 90-100damage every 5 seconds. Even with aox and demon maw on it procs for about 112 every 5 seconds. I mean is this a joke? +1000 fire (magic) and it procs for barely over 100 every 5 seconds? This is balance? Who in there right mind would ever put points into this garbage? come on already.

Searing curses: Another i was extremely disapointed with. The DoT burns for 100 damage every few seconds. It's complete trash. Yet another feat i thought might add to us being DoT machines with all +fire slotted. It's sickening how in aox+demon maw+450 fire magic this would only proc for 130 every few seconds. Like what's the joke? Another trash update on feats.

Flame Cleave: More BS. It procs alright. And when it does it procs for some 60 odd damage. Where exactly is it scaling with our fire bonuses? It's not.

Searing Hatred: And the bandwagon of disapointing DoT's continues. Procs for 100ish damage every 5 seconds. Trash trash trash trash. Before this patch this feat mostly proc'd for 60-70. Now with +450 fire magic i added all of 20-30 damage? So thats a scale of what, 20/1? Come on.

Tongue of Xotli: Hits for roughly 2000 damage. Fire bonuses on it are negligable. In full aox+demon maw+ 450 fire magic, it would hit for around 2700 damage. So not bad, but concidering you have to invest 11 points to get this, and 10 of them are on skills that DO NOT WORK PROPERLY WITH FIRE, i would say pass on this.

Des essence/Aox: These are beastly. When in either form the proc that goes off is hitting for 500-600 every few seconds. I'm guesing the +fire bonuses to it scale on 2/1 ratio. Very beastly!

Burn to death: Pure pain on this one, but nowhere near what i expected it to be. With +450 fire magic it was proccing for 700 a tic. Concidering it use to be 550, it basically went up by 150 a tic for +450 fire magic. Very disapointing as this is where i expected the bulk of our update to be. Don't get me wrong, it's no joke when you aox+demonmaw+450fire magic and then BTD, the tics will proc in the 1000 range, but the problem is it could have scaled a lot more to compensate for nothing else of our DoT's scaling at all.

Pillars of infernal flame: Same, nothings changed for this. You'd figure this would get a fire magic bonus, but it doesn't.

Hellfirebreath: Pretty much the same. Hitting for 1200-1400 on level 80 mobs. Same as it was before the patch.

Flame tongue: No difference since pre-patch.

Xotli's vengeance: No difference since pre-patch.

Spitfire: Not bad scale to it. tics 5 times for 500 ish a tic. Pretty good if you don't mind the 5minute cooldown timer on it.

Spell Inferno: A lot better then what it was before. With 10 lash counters, it would proc for 100 damage before. Now, with 10 lash counters and +450 fire magic, it procs just over 200. Combined with burning skull they'd double proc for 200+200 for a nice 400. Not bad, but i expected a lot more then an extra +100 bonus. It needs to proc as much as our BTD. 500-700 a tic. And even with +1000 fire magic with all buffs, you wont get it over 250. So better then it was, but nowhere near where it should be.

Burning words: Actually pretty decent bonus. With basic +450 fire magic, it procs twice for 350ish each time. So over 700 damage total. From before where it was 200 proc x 2 for 400 damage. This actually scales very good, almost 1/1. This is how they should have scaled all of our feats and abilities.

Knowledge of the underworld/hatred of the living: Horrible scale. It's a flippin joke. 10/1 at best. Before i'd hit for 500-600 when it procs, now its 650-700 when it procs. Wee bloody wee for having +450 fire magic. An extra 50-100 every 10 swings.


And thats pretty much it folks. Before they removed +fire magic the scale was 1/1 on everything. Now it's 10/1. So for every 10 points you put in, you'll get 1 damage. 100 points give you 10 damage. 450 points give you an extra 45 damage. It's what 99% of the skills and feats we have do now. How is this proper balance? It's beyond an overnerf.

You can slot 2h edge and get insane % damage off of it. But fully slotting fire magic and burning hex procs for 90 damage every 5 seconds? MSS procs for 100 damage every 5 seconds? I mean what kind of joke is this? Who tested this crap and said "yep, sounds about right"? Do you even know how much hp a player or mobs have? 90-100damage DoT would be fine if the thing i'm fighting has 1000-2000hp. Not when the basic level 80 mobs have 5000+ hp.

This patch for +fire magic is a joke. You'll be using the same things you were pre-patch. Everything new i thought would scale amazingly by going all fire magic, which by the way is not easy to get and you sacrifice a lot slotting all that, doesnt scale well at all.

You'll still be spamming BTD, HFB, Pillars and HS. You might start using burning skull now but thats basically it. You won't be able to stack DoT's that actually put up damage. All of our DoT feats scale 10/1. 10/1 people. 5/1 would have been -maybe- ok, 2/1 would have been expected. But 10/1 scale is just sick. Why even bother putting +fire magic back in if nothings changing for what i'll be doing? A little more damage here and there but nothing new to play with or change.

Do me a favor, take +fire magic back out, put it in the dishwasher and clean it up before bringing it back. We went from a 100%, 1/1 scale, to 10/1. This isn't "fixing" this is nerfing. 1/1 was broken, just as much 10/1 is. At level 80 using feats on lvl 80 mobs who have over 5000hp, having a proc of 90 damage every 5 seconds is a bloody joke and you know it.

I'm not happy with this update. Demon form and BTD are beastly, but its what we all spammed before anyway. I'm very disapointed.

Making an all 2h edge set now to test that out. From what i hear its very powerfull. Seeing as having max +fire magic gives you nothing extra.

Faustina"