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Questions by Cody "Micajah" Bye, Managing Editor
Answers by Jørgen Tharaldsen, Product Director for Funcom

The wait is over! The long weeks have finally passed by and your patience has been rewarded with another Age of Conan class interview! As I stated in the official Age of Conan forums, this class interview focuses on the last of the Soldier archetype classes, the Conqueror. With his ability to dual wield and call up Auras to buff himself and his allies, the Conqueror is a formidable opponent on the battle field. In the exclusive article, Funcom's Jørgen Tharaldsen talks about the lore of the class, the Auras, the differences between the Soldier archetypes, and much more!

Editor's Note: Due to the holiday weekend (many of the Funcom employee's are American), we currently don't have any exclusive Conqueror screenshots to go with the article. We'll try to get this remedied, but it may or may not occur. With or without the images, please enjoy the article!

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Ten Ton Hammer: When looking through the lore of Conan, he held many titles including being dubbed Conan the Conqueror. What sort of lore and story elements did you create to develop this class? How did you decide which skills they would use?

The Conqueror is a worthy adversary on the battlefield.

Jørgen Tharaldsen: Aye, I think that is one of the great things about King Conan, his diversity. He absolutely lived his life to the fullest and that diverse “bring it on” approach is definitively something we have tried to achieve with our classes too, including the Conqueror. I am not saying that you can become a conqueror, barbarian, thief, reaver, chieftain, corsair, mercenary, soldier and pirate through choosing just one class, though (unless you are a mighty fine roleplayer and pretending it up that is *winks*),  but rather that the Conqueror class in our game is also about diversity and choice.  

When it comes to the lore background of the Conqueror, there are many references to this class inside the Hyborian universe, both on Conan, and others. I found this quote from our lore master inside a document, which says a lot I think:


For those of you into Conan lore you know that Pallantides was famed throughout Aquilonia for his heroics on the battlefield (and as leader of Conan’s personal bodyguard), and I guess he is also the archetypal Conqueror, leading armies into battle and acting as the true battle leader of an army. His ability to augment his forces, control the battle around him and weaken enemy forces makes him a paragon of warfare.

When it comes to the concept behind the class I asked system designer Andrew Griffin on the reasoning he had when he first started to flesh out the class several years ago, and he said “The concept behind the Conqueror class was for a non-shield using offensive type tank. They were envisioned to be the warlord type of character, who led from the front by virtue of their martial might and inspiring leadership, a more rugged and raw fighter than the Guardian. Hence they focus on either dual-wielding or using two-handed weapons, forgoing the defense of a shield in favor of rending their opponents apart.”  

By the way, Andrew helps me immensely with these QA sessions. I simply don’t have time to play all the classes to level 80 so I need to get some help from the main man. *winks*

Ten Ton Hammer: Rather than being just a simple melee fighter, you’ve also bestowed some very powerful Auras to the Conqueror. How beneficial would it be for a group to always carry along a Conqueror? Are there any other Auras you can tell us about (healing, direct damage, increased movement rates etc.)?

Jørgen: But but Cody, you must surely be in love with the caster classes in MMOs. I mean, all this “simply” and “boring” remarks towards tanks and melee fighters. *smiles* (Editor’s Note: I’m not in love with being a caster – my AoC main is going to be a Conqueror. I like carrying a big stick.)

Remember that we have made a melee system which I think surpasses any MMO melee system I have seen before. I would of course say that anyway, working in Funcom and all, but I honestly believe that many will find our melee classes to be quite refreshing.   

To your question then, and seeing that the Conqueror is a soldier, and a tank, I think having one along is quite essential to succeed in many cases. He doesn’t have as much HP as the Guardian, for instance, but he deals more damage (the highest DPS output of the soldiers), and has a lot of unique strengths which makes him really strong in a group. As a part of this the auras of the Conquerors are very nice to have as a “weapon” in group combat.  The core auras are split into two main groups (you can have one from each group running at once). One group is augmenting offensive power, and the other is augmenting recovery/defensive power. None of the core auras are about health restoration though, but there are stamina and mana regeneration auras on the defensive side. The offensive type auras are therefore based around adding DPS to the entire team in various ways.

A player can also further enhance with additional auras through the feat system. One example is the “Carnage” feat tree. With this the Conqueror can actually pick up two additional innate auras if wanted, one that provides mana and stamina (War Cry), and one which provides an out-of-combat runspeed increase (War March). So, in theory, a Conqueror could have four team buffing effects going at once with certain feat specs. Both War Cry and War March are passive long-duration auras (some Conquerors auras run up towards four hours), and are not actual spells that you cast like some of the other auras.

Ten Ton Hammer: While the Auras that a Conqueror can use seem like magical spells, you’ve specifically stated in the class preview that they are not. How do you balance the abilities of the Conqueror against those character classes that can wield magic? For example, the Conqueror does not get any sort of “corruption” (the dark-taint that causes corrupt souls to be sent to Hell) from using his Auras, does he? This would seem like a big advantage to the Conqueror over the Dark Templar…

Using both two-handed and dual-wielding techniques, the Conqueror is an offensive force.

Jørgen: The Conqueror uses the magic system to cast the auras, so technically they are considered magic (and personally I would therefore call it magic).  However, the Conqueror does not have any in-combat spells unlike all the other magic-using classes, “only” these long-duration buffs (so I guess what you call it is a bit in the eye of the beholder here). Oh, any dabbling with magic in Hyboria has certain consequences, as you might know from Conan lore, and both the Conqueror and Dark Templar have advantages and disadvantages in that regards. That is the beauty of our class design I think, nothing is black and white.  

Ten Ton Hammer: In the preview, it seems like there are several comparisons that are made between the Conqueror and the Barbarian. Both use the same weapon sets and both seem to be fearsome melee combatants, but how different do the two classes play from one another? Will Conqueror’s be more concerned with managing their Auras than dealing damage? Or will Aura management be secondary to damage output?

Jørgen: Yes, they do have some common themes running, especially on the weapon side as only the Barbarian and the Conqueror are able to dual wield like that (with the small exception of the Assassin who dual wields daggers, and the ranger too with his offhand dagger, if I am not all mistaken). This means that the weapon choices of the Barbarian and the Conqueror are more or less the same. In terms of an action/combat point-of-view, they therefore have somewhat similar approaches, but at the same time they are very different. Remember that a Barbarian is a Rogue archetype, and as such can’t take much damage in comparison (like all other Rogue types). Seen from the
Conqueror side of things, you are definitely able to take a great deal of damage, so your strategic approach to combat would therefore differ quite significantly.  

To expand a bit on the dual wield aspects of the Conqueror I think we have some cool approaches. For example, one of the feat spec options allows you to get guaranteed offhand attacks with each swing and have both your mainhand and offhand attacks do a proc each time they hit. So when timed right, they can generate a pretty significant burst of damage that is impressive to see (numbers flying everywhere).

When it comes to the Aura managements of the Conqueror, I would say that the class doesn’t have that much Aura management, at all. Yes, you need to initiate them, of course, but they are mostly all long duration buffs that can't easily be changed in combat due to the long casting time. This means that you basically select which aura you want to run with before combat starts, and go with that. Trying to change it in the middle of combat won't be too effective. The choice of which auras to use will of course be important, but DPS will also be important. Again, with the diversity and “hybridness” of our classes, it is a bit up to the player and the challenge at hand, and I think our approach on how YOU choose what to focus on is something which in many cases sets us apart.

To give an example on one of the cooler Aura buffs I can talk a bit about “Furious Inspiration”. For the Conqueror, as this buff increases, he starts to get a proc that triggers a team heal, which in turn increases in power the higher his Furious Inspiration is. If let go to its highest level, his Furious Inspiration not only has a chance of proccing team heals with each attack, but also has a small chance to proc a team rezz each attack. This means that if you ignore a Conqueror they start to become REALLY troublesome. *smiles*

Furthermore the Conqueror also has access to the Frenzy and defensive stances I have talked about in previous updates, which through the push of a button can drastically alter, for instance, your DPS output.

Ten Ton Hammer: Will Conqueror’s ever be able to live up to their title and actually conquer some land to call their own? I’ve heard of players being able to do those sort of things in the PvP realms, but aren’t those classes separate from the PvE areas?

Jørgen: I would assume that a good Conqueror would really like to live up to the potential of the class, and go out to conquer both land and riches. Doing so alone will not be possible though, and only through a guild can you hope to, for instance, build a player-made city or PvP battlekeep.  As I see it no Conqueror would therefore, ever, be able to conquer it all by him or herself. Rather, they have the inner drive, spirit and skills to rouse others to their cause, and be the leader to which other turns for advice, strength and combat skillfulness.

The cities and PvP battlekeeps can be built both on Pve and PvP servers by the way. Remember that we have PvP on the PvE servers as well, but that it’s not free for all.   

Ten Ton Hammer: Is there anything else you’d like to tell the Ten Ton Hammer readers about the Conqueror?

Aura help the Conqueror with DPS and defensive situations.

Jørgen: Personally I think the Conqueror is one of the coolest classes in the game as they have so much variety, and great dual wield capabilities. Furthermore it is a class which brings along, if you care about RPing to a certain degree, a certain sense of responsibility and might.  I therefore anticipate that there will be a couple of guild leaders out there who proudly live the Hyborian life as a Conqueror.

To end this lengthy article I dug a bit in the design documents again, and I wanted to give you a small selection of some of the stuff you can expect to encounter as a Conqueror.


Whoa, four pages in Word again. Let me know on the official or Ten Ton Hammer forums if you think this stuff is too lengthy, please. I will read it and adapt accordingly. Have fun!

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