The Herald of Xotli (HoX) is all about damage and more damage. For many people, it is the most exciting class to play in Age of Conan. I’ve heard it referred to as a glass chainsaw and it is a very apt analogy. They dish out huge numbers, but the combination of cloth armor and a relatively small health pool for a melee fighter means a HoX is always at death’s door.
This leveling build is primarily focused around increasing the HoX’s core damage dealing abilities, which is essential for efficient leveling and PvP. At higher levels when quests start to run dry, you will spend much of your time grinding groups of mobs and this build also gives you the tools to AoE effectively.
This build recommends respec’ing at level 40 to get Horrible Visage of Xotli (HVoX) as soon as possible. The lack of crowd control abilities is one of HoX’s primary weaknesses. Getting HVoX, a point blank AoE stun, sooner makes a dramatic impact on the HoX’s viability, especially in PvP.
Summary
10-14 Hellfire
15-19 Fiery Weapons
20-23 Improved Fiery Weapons
24-25 Spreading Flames (2 points)
26-28 Rage of Xotli
29-30 Mindless Brute (2 points)
30-32 Flame of Xotli (3 points)
33 Fire Lance
34 Blood Pit
35 Mindless Brute
36-37 Reaching Flames
38-39 Spreading Flames
Respec at level 40
- 5/5 Fiery Weapons
- 1/5 Improved Fiery Weapons
- 5/5 Hellfire
- 5/5 Flame Tongue
- 5/5 Xotli’s Vengeance
- 2/2 Improved Word of Command
- 3/3 Demonic Link
- 3/3 Fury of Xotli
- 1/1 Thundering Flames or Undying Glory of Xotli
- 1/1 Renewed Exultation of Xotli
- 3/3 Horrible Visage of Xotli
41-45 Spreading Flames
46-48 Rage of Xotli
49 Improved Fiery Weapons (1 point)
50-51 Flame of Xotli
52-53 Mindless Brute (2 points)
54 Fire Lance
55 Blood Pit or Mindless Brute
56-58 Improved Fiery Weapons and/or Reaching Flames
59-60 Butcher (3 points)
61-62 Wrath of Xotli
63-67 Demon Within
68-71 Desecration
72 Avatar of Xotli
73-74 Molten Flesh
Build by Level (Conan Armory feat calculator)
Avatar Feats
- Fiery Weapons – Adds a chance to trigger additional fire damage to all melee attacks. It triggers fairly often for good damage. Significant DPS increase.
- Improved Fiery Weapons – Further increases the fire damage and gives team members a chance to trigger Fiery Weapons as well.
- Spreading Flames – The DoT effect from the Burn to Death combo spreads to nearby mobs, in essence making BtD into an AoE DoT. A great feat for grinding groups of mobs.
- Rage of Xotli – Hell Strikes is somewhat underwhelming when you first get this combo, but it soon becomes your standard bread and butter combo due to the short cooldown. This feat increases the damage.
- Demonic Leech – Increases the mana drain from the Body and Spirit Wrack combo. Helpful for longer PvE encounters.
- Mindless Brute – Increases the HoX’s health for a very small decrease in magic damage (-3%). Very helpful for the squishy HoX.
- Flame of Xotli – Increases the damage output of the Burn to Death combo. Especially at mid and higher levels, the damage is significant. Very good for larger groups in conjunction with the Spreading Flames feat.
- Reaching Flames – Increases the AoE radius of the Pillar of Internal Flames Combo. It’s more a PvP feat because in PvE, melee mobs tend to be bunched together.
- Fire Lance – Longish cooldown (3 minutes), but does exceptional damage.
- Blood Pit – Creates a ‘Blood Pit’ that provides a decent Heal over Time (HoT). Nice for AoE grinding and reducing downtime. Not really necessary because potions are cheap, but it’s only one point and a passive ability.
- Butcher – Each point reduces the cooldown by 1s for Hell Strikes, your primary PvE combo. Only need 3 or 4 points to have Hell Strikes available whenever you need it at higher levels.
- Wrath of Xotli – A decent DPS increase for the demon form’s DoT. Good for PvE and PvP.
- Demon Within – A must have ability. Increases the duration of your demon form to 37s.
- Desecration – A must have ability. Reduces the cooldown of your demon form to 1.5minutes.
- Avatar of Xotli - A must have ability. The primary reason you invested so many points in the Avatar tree.
Possession Feats
- Hellfire – Should be the first 5 points for every HoX, no matter what their build. Reduces the casting time to 0.5s, which makes it possible to cast Hellfire Breath while queuing up your next combo.
- Flame Tongue – Underwhelming feat, but it’s the requirement for Fury of Xotli.
- Xotli’s Vengeance – There is some debate over the effectiveness of this skill. Some testing had found that it augmented the damage of Hell Strikes. At this time, +fire damage is being re-evaluated by Funcom, so the effectiveness is still in question.
- Improved Word of Command – Increases the effected area of the root and some people have found it seems to reduce the chance the root breaks on damage.
- Demonic Link – Increases the fire damage bonus (melee and magic) from the demon form. More DPS is always great to have.
- Fury of Xotli – Triggers often, which helps quite a lot with mana management. You should be casting Hellfire Breath as much as possible, so this is a must have ability.
- Renewed Exultation of Xotli – EoX is a great way to increase your overall damage and for 1 point, this feat reduces the downside of using EoX.
- Undying Glory of Xotli – A self-rez is always nice to have and reduces the lost time from dying. The boost to damage and health regeneration makes it even better.
- Horrible Visage of Xotli – A must have skill. Adds a 5s point blank AoE stun to Desecrating Essence. Essential in PvP and great in PvE too.
- Molten Flesh – A situational ability (great when used against enemies with fire damage), but the primary use is for AoE grinding at higher levels.
- Thundering Flames – Kind of working as of the 7/10 patch. It doesn’t interrupt casts in progress. It adds a passive effect to HfB that silences for about 1s, with a 10s immunity. It doesn’t seem to make any difference in PvE. For one feat point, it’s a nice added bonus to Hellfire Breath, which you are going to using as often as possible anyways.
NOTE: For more information about feats not included in this leveling build, do a title search for ‘feat’ in the official HoX subforum. There are several feat reviews by helpful members of the HoX community.
Alternative Feat Choices
By level 74, you have all the feats you need for leveling and PvP. How you spend the remaining points is up to you. By now, you should have a great sense of your own playstyle, so use the remaining points to invest in feats that support your gameplay.
- Phoenix Wing – Makes a useful defensive ability better and more useful by significantly reducing the movement and damage penalties.
- Tough of Hell + Lingering Hell – 1% invulnerability debuff for each point invested. It isn’t worth using when solo or non-epic groups. But for longer encounters (epic monsters, raids), it can make a difference.
- Flaming Hatred + Searing Hatred – Reduces the cooldown of the Pillar combo to 45s. Searing adds a DoT that is very weak by itself, but it’s another fire DoT for when you want to stack as many DoT’s as possible.
- Insanity of Xotli – A PvP feat that drains a significant amount of mana/stamina from stunned victims.
- Burning Word – Adds a moderate DoT to the area root.
- Mage Blood – A passive ability that reduces downtime and helps for longer PvE and PvP encounters. A potion is usually enough to make it unnecessary to get this feat.
- Demonic Leech + Ether Thirst + Demonic Fortitude – Mana and Stamina management feats.
- Roots of Hell (Does not currently work) – If the feat worked as described, this could be a very useful ability.
General Advice
- Get used to constantly drinking and buying potions. They are cheap and make a huge impact on your survivability. Always carry around a big stack of potions (potions stack to 50).
- Because the HoX has such a high damage output, they are always at risk of getting aggro in group elite instances. The HoX does not have any tanking ability, so pulling aggro away from the tank is a quick way to die. Learning how to manage aggro in groups is an important group skill. If you do get aggro, learn to double-tap back for evade bonuses. Try to refrain from running around randomly, which makes it harder for the tank or healer to help you.
- In PvP, a slow HoX is a dead HoX. HoX’s don’t have the luxury of a huge health pool, self heals or great defensive abilities. HoX’s have to react quickly and think fast.
- In group PvP, being overly aggressive can easily mean death for a HoX. Healers are usually the primary targets in group PvP, but if a HoX charges into the fray and rampages in demon form, they are painting a huge target on their head. Think ‘assassin’, instead of a bulldozer. It’s usually a smart idea to let the tougher members of your group absorb the initial attack.
Looking forward to testing this out. I made a hox when the TOS nerfs started flying in just as a backup, also have a barb but Im thinking the HOX is a better way to go overall, so I’ll be picking him up secondary. I still need to finish my toss up though, I’m looking forward to trying out this leveling build guide, as your TOS one has worked perfectly thus far.
Thanks for putting in the manhours ferv0r. You’re a saint.
Note: I dont mind not being OP as shit as a tos, I just dont want to be reduced to a healbot which is the fear I have with the TOS eventually. I like to do damage and enjoy hybrids.
Hi
I hope you are not taking a break from AoC after all, and if you do, you come back soon !
Your guides are awesome, I love priest/healers, always make them when I play mmorpgs, I already have a tos and a pom on Conan and been only playing for a week, think I like the PoM better tho ehehe.
Anyway, just wanted to thank you again for your answer on the forum and the guides.
Also wondering if you could tell me more about the RP servers, I like to RP but don’t know how serious people take it on AoC.
Have a nice week.
@Reku In a way, the barbarian and HoX are very similar, but have some core differences. Both are high damage and melee classes who can’t tank. The barbarian has more crowd control and stealth abilities. The HoX has more AoE abilities. Both classes are good at PvP and PvE right now, so you can’t go wrong with either.
Have no fear that any of the healers will ever be reduced to a healbot. Funcom has made it very clear that a core design direction for their healers is a hybrid, not a boring healbot. Anyways, they would have to do an incredible amount of nerfing to ruin ToS’s offense. It’s still a nice DPS class, even after all the nerfs so far.
@Kaladriel I’m finding that I’m thoroughly addicted, so I can’t seem to stay away for too long. I am cutting back on gametime though.
As for the RP servers, you get the full range of people. Some are hardcore, always in character. Some people should have rolled on a normal PvP server. If you take the time to look, it isn’t that hard to find RP opportunities. Another nice thing is that you can try to RP with anyone and no one will make fun of you for not being ‘cool’. On a normal PvP server, you sometimes find people who think RP’ers are idiots and deserve to be killed repeatedly.
In general, I would say the overall maturity level is better on a RP-PvP server too, compared to the typical PvP server. Far less random ganking as well, although it does still happen.
@Ferv0r After the experience last night I had, i’ve regained some confidence with TOS as a whole. I came away with it thinking to myself “Man, maybe we really are Overpowered” whereas before I just felt we were just a well developed properly working class.
I was 62nd in thunder river, grinding some Mercenaries. A group of 4 people rolled through, and instead of fighting over the area I decided to see if I could join. I walked up and asked if I could join, to which they responded by killing me.
I came back, thinking maybe I just freaked them out by walking up so quickly, and again asked to join, and was responded to in the same manner.
I’ve been gaming for probably 13-14 years now, and am an avid pvp’er. I’ve been trying to tone it down as of late because without a major guild to play with, its not a good thing to become a major nuisance to everyone early on. But I’m also not going to sit and take abuse and not come back to tear shit up. I dont care about odds stacked against me, or dying, I just wanted to show them what I was made of.
I returned to their camp, and jumped in and in the first fight, I dropped 3 of them uber quickly, the fourth was a soldier and the fight went on and on, and eventually 2 of the originals killed made it back while we were still fighting. I eventaully finished them all off, even the soldier and had myself one hell of a feeling. Exactly what I wanted out of a class and a game experience, The fact that better playstyle and ability (possibly class, even though they had a TOS with them as well and were all equal or one-two level less than I) They all came back and we had another epic battle, that I again destroyed ALL of them this time (including the soldier) extremely quickly. Feeling like I may have angered them, I sent them all tells saying Good fight, with no response. I’ve been rejuvenated in my TOS experience and want to finish him up now, through all the nerfs, its still my favorite class.
I’ll have to debate with myself which I would rather have, barb or HOX but I worry that the barb has some serious nerfs coming its way, whereas HOX has been getting buffs as of late, so I feel it may be a better route to take to avoid constant dissapointment. Either way Ferv0r, you’re my hero and I honestly wished you played on Tyranny so I could app to your guild.
I am hardly trying to find the more mature pvp server, cause one thing is to pvp and a very different one is getting killed by someone like 10 levels (or more) higher than you while you are killing monsters and your life is already almost gone -.-
I should try that RP server
And yes, games are so addictive… have fun and keep the good work you are doing here, is highly appreciated
Thank you for the kind words. I enjoy thinking about the strategy/tactics behind games like this just as much as I like playing them. The fact that I can help some people out makes it all the more enjoyable.
@Reku That’s sounds like it was great fun! I’m actually having a similar experience with my newest alt, the necro. Level 53? I think and she can take on 3-4 people at a time, depending on the classes. Some classes are definitely way overpowered in PvP at lower levels. Unfortunately, by the upper levels, more classes gain the ability to kill squishies very quickly. At 80, ToS and necro can be good at PvP, but there are also plenty of times when they get killed within seconds.
Heh, I’m not the best guildmate around because I keep rolling new characters instead of really investing in my primary ones. Since I’m on a roleplaying server, I also have different personalities for my various characters. Some of them aren’t very nice.
@Kaladriel There are only two options for RP-PvP and unfortunately, neither is really ideal. When Cimmeria launched, it was not labeled as RP-PvP, so a lot of non-RP’ers rolled there. It also has a much bigger population, so that can be a pain at times.
For Hyperborea, the primary issue is the fact that the server population seems fairly low. During primetime, there are plenty of people around. If you like playing during off hours, it can be nice and quiet. Much easier to quest in peace. But lower population servers are usually the first to die when a game starts really going downhill.
Hey Fervor, thanks for this.
I’m going to be rolling a HoX myself soon since the solo-leveling wall is closing in on me and my ToS (I’m not a fan of grinding).
Got a question for you though, would you mind e-mailing me at Ten Ton Hammer?
JoBildo at tentonhammer dot com
Thanks, mate.
Give fervor a job at TTH!
Hi,
You help me a lot for find my way as HoX…
But can you tell me plz..
Where you put your “skill” point…
i m on a PvE server and i m a bit lost…
Dont know if i need to put point into renew mana… or max bandages… you know what i mean ?
Thx again for all
and i hope you ll help me for that too 
@Mad Both renew mana and bandaging (and recovery as well) only work when you are using the resting ability. So it’s used for reducing downtime. Bandaging and recovery are the most important ones and you probably want to keep them as high as possible. Renew mana is important, but you don’t need to max it. If you don’t mind using potions, that helps a lot too.
Some people recommend subtlety for reducing hate in groups. HoX tend to get a lot of aggro, so every bit helps.
Even if you play on a PvE server, you should put 50 points in hide anyways. It’s only 50 points and that’s enough to let you stealth anywhere (as long as there are no mobs nearby).
Run speed is a personal choice. It’s not as important now because Funcom just recently made traveling to various zones much faster. 1% run speed increase for every 100 points spent.
Thx for answer me so fast
Is Improved Word of command necessary for a pure pve build? Is there an alternate to take at the level 40 respec?
@Jason R It’s not necessary, I suppose. But I do feel it’s the best choice. Hmm…Alternatives. Spitfire, Touch of Hell, Undying Glory of Xotli. Spitfire spreads another DoT, but the damage is unimpressive and 10m cooldown with 1 point reduced to 5m cooldown with 5 points. Touch of Hell places a fire and slashing invul debuff on target (-1% per point), which is somewhat nice on epic/group mobs, but not for solo leveling.
I just wanted to add my appreciation for efforts ferv0r.
You do more good than you can know!!
Will be interesting to follow my HoX through this, we’ll see how it goes.
Thanks in advance!
This guide inspired me to roll a Hox and i can say for a guy that was bored out his mind with the game and his chars (Guard, Pom) the game is once again amazing.
HoX is definitely a fun class and one that is rather unique. What I really like is that my HoX constantly surprises me with what she can do. If I play a PvP fight or a PvE encounter against a big crowd of mobs just right, I can win even though I was sure that I would be killed in seconds.
Yeah my Hox is only 30 so far but i can see what your saying fervor. Got to ask you about how you have experienced the whole female attackspeed thing, since people on the european forum seems to make a big fuss about it. Personally i feel the animation are very slow but damn theres some burstdmg once you hit.
well lads. Ive been using this guide when I started my HoX. I must say I love the class. Unbeatable damage. Really looking forward to higher levels.
36 Now
Oh and yeah. This feat thing has really helped. Considering Ive beaten a hell of a lot of other HoX’s when it comes down to 1v1’s I dont really think any other HoX my level has taken me down.
Is there a reason why you advice to spec out of Avatar at 40? is this just to lvl up as quick as possible and that spec is better suited for doing so?
@Kali Horrible Visage of Xotli. I can’t stress enough just how helpful it is to gain a stun for leveling and for PvP.
It’s impossible to get Rage of Xotli without investing 10 points into the avatar tree
@James Oops. Thanks for pointing out my mistake. Have to get the 2 points in Spreading Flames first. It’s correct in the feat calculator builds.
Hi
I didnt quite understan how to spec this build it would be nice if somone would show me how my skill tree would look in lvl 30 on this feat calculator:
http://feats.goonheim.com/heraldofxotli#::
it would be nice if somone could recomend somegood leveling builds for me som mightr i would change?
@Likse Here is this leveling guide’s build at level 30 using the goonheim feat calculator:
http://feats.goonheim.com/heraldofxotli#:a:abc2fg2h1
This leveling build is fairly standard. Builds recommended by other people aren’t going to be too different.
Some people like demonic leech + ether thirst + demonic fortitude. Some people pick up more PvP specific feats, like roots of hell and clarity of the mad. There is also some personal preferences in which combos to improve.
I found Burn to Death and Hellstrikes to be the most useful while I leveled, so I recommend improving those combos.
Hi! thanks for your guide, I have a question: why respec at 40? I am at 16 and can choose the feat according to your respec, but before doing something wrong I ask :p
The respec is to get Horrible Visage of Xotli as soon as possible. HoX’s lack good crowd control skills and getting this stun makes a big difference in both PvP and PvE.
It’s also a good time to respec because it gives you a taste of what the other tree is like.
Only a dumbass noob would respec at 40.