I’ve been continuing to play Funcom’s Conan Exiles over the last few weeks, and I’m still enjoying it quite a bit. I recently started over with some friends on a PvP server, and in the process realized there are a few tips that might help others. Some of these I knew going in, but a few I’ve recently learned. Hopefully sharing helps a few of you readers as you brave the Exiled Lands.
10: Fontsize – It’s new for me, but while looking at the /help menu, I found /fontsize. The Conan Exiles chat is simplistic, but still maintains this small amount of customization that I found really helpful. You can change the size of the font just by typing ‘/fontsize #’ into chat. I changed mine to 9 which allowed me to see more chat at a time, and it’s persisted through sessions.
9: Easy Experience – This is an obvious one, but one I see folks missing all the time. One of the fastest ways to level up is just to explore. With all the exploration points on the map, you get experience for visiting each. Some also progress your journey, the in-game system that sort of guides you towards what you should be doing next, and another source of easy experience. There are plenty of lists online of the various journey achievements. Find them and do them. Exploring gives you a nice bit of XP, completing journey objectives gives you insane XP.
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Use old armor and that ton of scrap leather you created trying to get more tar to equip your thralls.
If you’re playing with a friend, also remember that you can often help each other with completing journey points. For instance, craft a well or a trebuchet, and both of you will get experience for using them. You can also put a single black lotus or the looted head of a boss monster in a crate for each person in your clan to pick up and get experience from. There are a lot of easy and sharable objectives, find them and take advantage of them.
8: Armor Bonuses – Each set of armor gives a type of bonus. That means you should have multiple sets for different things. I focused on archery in this last restart and I have the Shemite Light armor (+5 Accuracy, and +9 if it’s flawless) for hunting and the Exile Light armor (+5 or +9 Encumbrance) for harvesting and exploring. Different armors also have affinities for heat or cold, which will counter the debuffs due to extreme temperature.
7: Potions and Warpaints – Once you’ve progressed enough to pickup all the alchemy options, it’s worth doing. Alchemy replaces what was supposed to be the sorcery system in the game, but doesn’t have any of the drawbacks. There are potions to buff every stat, so use them. There are also aloe potions that can be combined with food for extra healing, and are very easy to make early.
Don’t forget that Derketo worshipers get early access to the stamina buff that’s well-worth someone taking. Potions also typically last for quite a while, making them really solid investments. Of course, there are also warpaints. Like potions, you lose them if you die, but they last until you do cast off the mortal coil. Still, they’re worth taking for the extra points into a given attribute.
6: Beyond the Max - Attributes can be pushed over the max, but there’s a bit of a trick. You have to let all potion effects wear off and ditch your armor before maxing out any attribute. If you have +5 points in Accuracy, you’ll only be able to invest up to 45. Take off your armor, max out, and you’ll have 55 points in that stat. With the right bow, armor (flawless can get you to +9 on armor alone), potion, and warpaint, you could get your Accuracy up to 70 in Accuracy, which means 70% increased damage.
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Nothing about the Shemite Armor told me I’d get a bonus, but it was enough to get me to the third rank skill while still maxing out my Encumbrance. I’d have been better taking the normal Exile Light armor for the +5 Encumbrance, though.
If you’d like to spread points out a bit more, potions and gear can help you pickup more Attribute bonuses. Getting from 45 to 50 costs 50 extra points, which could get a lower attribute up a little further. Points spend more efficiently at lower levels, but +3 from warpaint will get you from 17 to 20 as easily as 47 to 50. It can be a great way of getting just that little bit more towards the next bonus.
5: Event Log – You can hit escape and check the event log to see who killed you or who broke your stuff on a PvP server. There have been a few times I’ve come back from a hunt to find someone’s been burning though doors to get into my base. (BTW, even a level 1 Alchemist will give you access to the exploding potions you need in order to do it to someone else) A quick look at the event log will let you know who the culprit is. After that, they’ll find messing with your base a little harder if you jump them a few times and destroy all that brimstone they were carrying.
4: Using Thralls – Obviously, there are thralls you want to capture to run your smelter and hide-stretcher, and you probably also know you can capture fighters to defend your base, too. Different thralls have different bonuses, though. Fighters have better strength and archers have better accuracy, so use them as you probably expect they should be used.
Don’t rule out the lower level thralls, though. A level 1 archer shooting someone scaling your walls will knock them down as easily as a named archer. Additionally, when you’ve equipped your thralls well, the lower level ones will add their weapon procs along with the higher level ones, and that can keep an enemy bleeding and stun-locked. Besides, lower level thralls train super fast with a decent task master in your wheel of pain.
Most importantly, equip them correctly. I’ve found that Set arrows and fire arrows don’t seem to work for me, but regular bone, iron, steel, and such do. Equip your archers with the best you have by dropping one into the bow to load it. Load your archers with a single dragon bone arrow, and they’ll all have infinite ammo. You just have to load it first, and then you have to make sure you equip it by dropping the bow into their main hand slot, opposite the armor on their portrait.
Also, consider using two handed weapons on your melee thralls to take advantage of their strength bonus, and the extra reach (I’ve found spears work really well). Though, I do equip a few with shields and maces to get stun procs off and provide some anti-player crowd control.
3: Set Arrows – Worshipers of Set can make poison arrows very early, and you’ll use them way past when you think you should upgrade. The poison stacks 10 times and is reset on each hit. Poison arrows can turn the worst archer in your group into a powerhouse. The difference on legendary and boss mobs is dramatic, but the real win is in PvP. Poisoned players can’t heal. They also can’t climb walls or stop themselves from falling. …too bad you can’t use them on the NPC archers.
2: Get High – Still on the archery note, try getting high. When you engage a boss creature, look for a platform or high place to climb to before you engage. Even if you have to climb during the fight, it’s worth it. Being high lets you watch the fight for adds and keep an eye out for hostile players. More importantly, it gives you a MUCH better vantage from which to shoot at the mob. From anywhere else, you’ll be shooting past or towards friendly players all the time (and remember a poisoned player can’t heal). From on high, you can shoot down on the target with far less risk of hitting a friendly.
Combined with the advantage of being able to watch the situation, a well-placed archer makes a massive difference in a fight. Even if the melee folks wipe, you can plink away at the mob to prevent it from regenerating health. My group has found having someone on overwatch invaluable as it’s saved our bacon a few times, and it’s made soloing tougher mobs simple.
1: Yellow Lotus Potions - I know it’s a potion, but it deserves its own number, and number 1 at that. Yellow Lotus Potions are super easy to make, and they allow you to respec over and over. I use it to spec heavy encumbrance for long harvesting runs, and then respect to heavy accuracy for dungeon runs and PvP.
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Yellow Lotus is one of the most important, yet also easiest to make, potions in the game.
Yellow Lotus also just helps you play around with different builds to figure out what you like, which is a really smart addition to the game. I’ve also used it for buying up the decoration feats for decorating the base. Then I’ll reset and buy up weapons and armor I don’t use, but that I want to put on my thralls. The ability to reset attributes and feats with one simple potion adds insane flexibility. Take advantage of it.
Well, I hope you enjoyed those little tidbits of information. Hopefully, you found something useful out of them. Are there any tricks you’ve picked up since release? Post them below, I’d really like to know what else they’ve done with Conan Exiles that I’ve managed to miss.
