Age of Conan: Dinged 33 and the Importance of Destiny Quests

I played some more Conan last night (of course) and after a bit of time questing in The Maze (a spider infested area of the Wild Lands), I suddenly remember that I still had my level 30 Destiny Quest to do back in Khemi.

Sadly, like a tool I forgot to take screen shots as I was at once wrestling both an oncoming bio-break and the dark mistress that is time herself. It was nearing my boiling point for sleep-deprivation but I needed to finish this quest, the same way one needs to finish a whole bowl of pasta from Macaroni Grill. It simply HAD to be done.

So anyway, the quest involved finding the second piece of the Phoenix Medallion (which I received from my time spent in Tortage with the Strom quest-line). Apparently it was being guarded in some sacred caves by Slaves of Acheron for Thoth-Amon (the game's prinicple baddy). First I had to find my way into these caves, which was no easy task as there didn't seem to be a way up top to the mountain the entrance rested on. I spent about 15 minutes running around before I asked my guild if they knew anything about it.

Luckily, it appears the Destiny Quest from level 30 on is the same for all classes (or maybe unluckily?) so my good pal Sardu pointed me to the area where a very indistinguishable climbing point rested waiting for me to vault it.

Now this is very important: PUT POINTS INTO YOUR CLIMBING SKILL. Luckily, I had been. But you absolutely need climbing of (I think) 150 to get up to this summit. So bear that in mind as you level. You may not climb often, but you need it here. You can always change it back after the quest, just remember that you need it for this particular and very important part of the game's main quest line.

Anyway, I won't spoil anything but the quest inside the caves is rather fun and a very cool atmosphere if not altogether very original. As an extra boon, my squishy Tempest of Set got a Rare shield off the final boss called the "Blood Guard" which was a huge improvement over my previous shield and looks positively wicked to boot.

One little MINOR SPOILER here. Once you defeat the boss and get the piece of the medallion you were there for, the only way out was down and into a pool of water and then swimming out. Very fun to take a 100 foot leap into a pool of water... if only they'd programmed the characters to do a swan dive.

When I turned the quest in, I got to recover a bit more of my lost memory and in doing so I was able to choose one of two permanent stat buffs. For the priest class this means either a boost to your mana regeneration rate or a boost to your pool of mana.

As a Thunder spec'd ToS I really didn't need the mana regen. I get enough of that from Storm Crown and my Idol of Set (seriously, I'm NEVER out of mana), so I went with the boost to my actual mana reserves. I didn't check the exact numbers but I'm fairly confident it was a few hundred at least. I wish I would have paid more attentiont know the exact amount it gave though.

Apparently this trend of additional stats when completing the Destiny Quests continues at level 50 and again at 60 and 80 (I believe) which is when the other main Destiny Quests are doable. And why wouldn't you do them? They're fully voiced, they usually involve some pretty wicked enemies, and they have a genrally good story to follow. My only gripe is that they don't happen often enough. I hope Funcom goes the way of LotRO here and adds more and more to the DQ line with each update.

Good stuff, indeed. I'm actually a little sad at the fact that I'm going to the movies tonight and not going home to play. Now I know I've got Conan-itis.

Cheers!