There are two gathering skills in Aion. Players begin the game with just the general gathering skill ranked 1 of 99. Upon completion of the ascension quest, the player receives the aerial gathering skill. This allows the player to gather any node with a required skill rank of 1, while the maximum achievable rank before obtaining further training is 99. When a skill reaches maximum rank players may purchase additional training in the skill. This system applies to both gathering and crafting. So then lets answer that nagging question, how does a player rank-up skills?

The simplest answer is to level a skill by using it, though there is a little more to it. The most basic aspect to understand, is how general gathering from resource nodes works. Whenever a node is activated the player receives a pop-up box that displays the current skill rank, the item received upon success, and two bars representing success or failure.

As the gathering process begins, a series of successes and failures are represented via progression of the two bars. The extent to which a success or failure progresses either bar is determined by your skill rank in relation to the required rank for that node. If the player’s skill rank is the same as that required to gather a given node, then there is about a 33% chance to fail the entire process.

The greater the player’s skill rank becomes in relation to the required rank, the lower the chance of an overall failure. Once the player’s skill rank surpasses the required rank by more then 20, it becomes impossible to fail. Success provides experience to the character and skill until the player’s rank surpasses the required rank by 40. At this point the skill can no longer gain rank.

What to gather – 1-100 skill points

Having discussed the basics of skill ranks, I’ll move on to the types of nodes and methods of gathering materials within the world of Atreia. There are what I categorize as four basic types of nodes; plants, minerals, gems, and woods. Plants are by far the most abundant type of resource. They appear everywhere on the planet’s surface but do not appear within the Abyss.

Minerals and Gems are found both on the planet’s surface as well as in the Abyss. Minerals come in two forms. The first is minable with each new training level, while the other has node specific rank requirements and a different appearance. Gems are the rarest of the nodes found on the ground throughout Atreia and generally appear where several can be found in relative proximity.

Lastly are the woods which contain the least variety and are found scattered throughout Atreia. At this point, its fair to mention, that for most nodes there are two types of material that can be found. The regular version received 95% of the time and a rare version, often of the same material. The exception to this, from what I’ve seen, is woods.

That takes us to the aerial gathering skill and gathering from odes. Yes its odes, not nodes, in order to represent the difference between aerial and ground gathering. Odes differ from regular ground gathering in that there is only one available every 25 skill ranks. Additionally, they can only be found in zones where free flight is available.

The last manner of obtaining materials for crafting is the traditional method of killing mobs throughout the game. Mobs throughout the world drop several materials, although there are a couple key ones that will be found continually across all levels. The two important enough to mention are the leathers and the crystal balls. Leathers drop off of most mobs that you would expect them to, so anything with a hide. Crystal balls drop off everything and appear in three colors; red, blue, and white.

In closing it should be noted that most of the general materials also have different rarities. Two simple examples are gems and crystal balls. For gems, the node may produce a regular version of the material that is any quality. The rare version, when one is available, will always be of a quality a step above the regular version produced. The exception being that there are no unigue quality materials at this time. In the case of crystal balls each ball occurs in different rarities and any color crystal ball may drop in any rarity.

I hope this provides everyone a little insight into the way gathering in Aion works and gets you excited for the upcoming article on what to do with those newly gathered materials!

(via Aioninsider)

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Aion Gathering Guide

• Aion Crafting Guide
• How to Earn Kinah Guide
• Aion Enchanting Guide
• Group Grinding Guide
• Updated Aion Beta Review & Abyss

Since my last article covering some of the basics of Aion at low level, I have had a chance to invest a bit more time in the Chinese version of the game.  Having progressed far enough to see the Abyss finally, I wanted to take some time and give some updated impressions on my play experiences since I am a bit farther into the game.

The Grind

The first thing I want to touch on are my experiences with the grind in the game so far.  From levels 1-20, I can say that I was pretty much able to quest through most of my levels.  The campaign quests give a substantial amount of EXP over the standard quests, and there are some repeatable quests to help you through some of those areas where you do find yourself grinding to reach the next level after your quests are all completed.

Between the levels of 20-24, the grind starts to pick up more and more each level.  The percentage of your levels EXP you are able to get through quests starts to gradually go down in this range for a few reasons.  The first is that the amount of exp to reach the next levels ramps up pretty quickly, and secondly, some of the quest EXP rewards don’t seem to be enough.  The repeatable quests really don’t reward to well either, as one requiring you to kill X amount of mobs, rewards you at turn in with amount of exp equal to killing 2 of those mobs.  In the time it takes you to go turn them in, you could have kept killing and came out better off.  As a result, I spent a lot of my time grinding in the jungle and desert in Eltnen. Once reaching 25 however, things seem to pick up a lot (I’ll touch on this later).

Legions (Guilds)

During my time playing, I had a chance to delve into the Legion functionality with some of my guys on the NA and Chinese versions.  My first beef is that Aion only allows 3 different ranks for your legion members, and these rank titles can’t seem to be changed.  While you can set permissions for each of the 3 ranks, you can’t have 2 people be the highest rank.  In MMO guilds like mine where there are 2 leaders, this is somewhat disappointing and inconvenient.  The current version I played during the NA weekend and Chinese also only allow 10 characters for your legion name, which I find unnecessarily restrictive.  Since my guild’s name is 11 letters long, I can only fit “Inquisitio”.  This forces us to abbreviate ourselves to INQ, and I am sure other MMO guilds will have to do the same unless the newer version updates we haven’t played yet increase the character limit.

Aion legions also have levels like some other MMOs like EQ2 and WAR.  Unlike its predecessors, Aion only has three levels for legions.  Upgrading your legion to level 2 requires having 10 people on your roster, and a payment of around 120,000 gold.  Once you upgrade, you will have roster limit increased from 30 to 60 maximum members, although in my opinion the fact that there is one at all strikes me as silly.  Once you upgrade, you can also customize a guild emblem for your cloak.  There are only a dozen emblems, but you can pick any background color you can imagine.  You can also change your guild emblem at any time if you so chose for a small fee.

The one really good aspect of Aion’s legion system is if you are able to upgrade to level 3.  Level 3 requires a higher roster count and around 1.2 million gold, which is not as bad as it sounds on paper given how much money I was making.  Any decent size guild should have no trouble getting this cash together if everyone kicks in a bit of cash.  At level 3, the limitations of the emblem system redeem itself by letting you put your own design.  This means you can literally use any graphic or logo you want to represent your guild.  During my playing I managed to see some pretty interesting logos as seen in the above screenshot.  Overall I think there is room for improvement in the legion functionality, but specialized level 3 emblems make for an awesome feature.

Rifts

Once you reach level 20 and start to move into the third tier of zones, you will start to get your first taste of PvP.  It seems like every so often, there are rifts or portals that appear somewhat randomly that connect to the other faction’s area.  These rifts seem to have a chance to appear in one of many predetermined locations across the zones, which are quite large, and have a set number of uses before they become unusable.  From my own experiences, it seems that at almost any given time there is a rift up that either leads to the enemy area or has the enemy coming into yours.

There are no PvP restrictions in terms of where you can go and who you can attack.  Enemies can even go inside the perimeter of your main fortress if they are careful to avoid guards, which is not difficult.  While you are able to attack anyone of any level, you will not know what level the people on the other faction are.  This makes for some interesting encounters where people misjudge the strength of their opponent.  In one personal experience, a bunch of us ganged up on a single enemy only to have him obliterate all of us by dropping a meteor on us!  In addition to the PvP points awarded, there are special “infiltration” quests that require you to go to the enemy zone and complete tasks there.  In this regard the rift aspect of the game makes the PvP not consentual, which is fine by me but may turn off others.

The Abyss

Once your reach level 25 the game starts to open up and you are allowed to start delving into the Abyss, which is the games central area for RvR.

As soon as you hit level 25, you will receive a new campaign quest series to complete in order to be able to access the Abyss.  The campaign consists of 3 mini trials you have to go through in order to prove your worth, but also double as a minor tutorial.  The first test consists of proving your worth by completing 1 task from 3 available choices.  I chose a challenge to kill some monster under the arena in a certain time limit that was laughably easy.  The second trial tests your knowledge, and has you answering a series of multiple choice questions that serve to educate you a little about the Abyss and some of the game’s lore.  It’s impossible to fail it seems as picking the wrong answer prompts you to try again among the remaining choices.

The final trial is a test of flight in which you have to fly through a series of rings in a short time.  This serves to educate the player about the use of these rings which are present in the Abyss.  Flying through the rings replenishes a portion of your flight timer and gives a small speed boost during the trial.  Like the previous trials, it was not difficult at all and I was able to complete it on my first run through.  Once all trials are complete, you are shown to the Abyss portal (as seen above) and are free to go through whenever you want.

Once you arrive in the Abyss, you will find yourself in a fully functional fortress area with pretty much everything you will ever need.  The fortress was complete with various vendors, banks, auction house, bind point, and even teleporters to take you to many of the games PvE zones.  You will also notice that there are new standard quests for the Abyss that helps alleviate the strain from leveling, as well as campaign.  The first campaign mission presents the player with a simply amazing tutorial about RvR in the Abyss through the use of various cutscenes.

Abyss Tutorial

Here is a quick summary:

The first thing they explain is that the Abyss has a total of 9 keeps that you can fight over, and they are spread across 3 different layers: bottom, core, and top.  The Balaur are a monster faction that participates in the Abyss wars, and they often take over these keeps.

Each keep has some sort of damage shield that protects it from air assaults.  Trying to attack a keep from the air while the shield is up is supposed to be difficult and damaging.  Inside each of the keeps is some sort shield generator that powers the shield.  If this generator is destroyed, then the shield goes away and people are free to assault from the air without any kind of penalty or negatives.

Each of the keeps has doors to protect it from ground assaults that will need to be broken down in order to gain access.  The doors are also especially vulnerable to siege weapons that can be deployed by the attackers.  In addition, there are also portable bind points that can be dropped in the field so that people can respawn close to the fight.  These bindpoints are supposed to easily destroyed and only be able to be used a certain amount of times before being rendered useless.

Finally they explain about artifacts that can be used to sway the battles.  They are supposed to be activated to provide various effects from mass healing, mass damage, and other assorted abilities.  They also tell you to kill the boss to take the keep, and elaborate on the benefits of taking on for your legion. Benefits range from Abyss points, items (including Abyss medals), cash, and other bonuses in the newer versions of the game we haven’t received yet.  They also give you a final warning about some sort of Balaur flying battleship that can drop monsters into areas to mess with people.

The Abyss environment itself look very nice and seems to vary as you go from island to island.  The entire area is flight enabled, and the rings can be used to guide you over some of the longer stretches between islands.  There are teleports that take you from the bottom level to the top level, but if you look up at the sky on the bottom level you can see the upper level far above.

The core of the Abyss can be seen in the center and resembles a large sun-like ball of fire.  In case you were curious, flying into this ball of fire will result in being insta-gibbed.  PvE in the Abyss was getting me around 13 AP (Abyss Points) per kill at level 25.  The fact that you can gain points through PvE can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at things.  On one hand some people might not like the fact people can PvE grind their way up the ranks to abyss abilities and gear.  On the other hand, people opting to take this route do so in an area where they can be ganked at any moment, so it will help drive traffic to this area making people somewhat easier to find.

Rewards

Abyss rewards come in the form of abyss abilities for reaching certain ranks, and item rewards for cashing in your points.

Over on Aion Source, I spotted this thread that shows an example of some of the high ranking Abyss abilities.  One of the more notable abilities this high ranking person has is the ability to effectively turn themselves into a raid boss once every 2 hours for 10 minutes.  This is definitely an interesting dynamic that should be interesting to see in action.

Items are the other major reward you get from PvP.  There are stores in which you spend your Abyss points in order to purchase high end gear.  There are various degrees of gear for each level range that have varying prices.  Most of the green items can be bought purely with points, but some of the high level gold (epic) items also require medals which are earned during fortress sieges.

The Abyss gear actually looks to be itemized well, a problem that WAR had at launch with a lot of its PvP reward gear.  The above picture shows 2 Abyss bows that are both level 30.  The green one costs much less AP then the gold one, but the gold one features more damage, stats, and socketing slots for manastones.  It is up to the player to decide if they want to hold out for the higher end item, or hold out for higher level gear.  Since players lose AP for PvP loss, some may want to cash out sooner depending on their luck.  One final point, spending points you have earned subtracts them from your total, thus reduces your rank.  This means as people purchase items, there will be a constant moving up and down the RvR ranks, and high rank players will have to decide if they want to give up their rank abilities to cash out their points for weapons.

Conclusion

I really am looking forward to seeing how this all pans out when the game releases in North America.  The game has solid PvP rewards, risk, and keeps / artifacts for people to fight over.  For all the comparisons you hear about this game with WoW because of the playstyle, I’m starting to think it might be in many ways like an asian DAOC.  If everything works out, I think this game could offer a lot to people who were fans of DAOC and disgruntled Warhammer fans.  I look forward to continuing my journey on the Chinese version a while longer, and I am curious to see how the patches NA will have at release alleviate some of the issues with the game.  If they can reduce the grind as they claimed in a recent interview, then I think this will be a game a lot of people will probably be jumping into if the end game ends up being solid.

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Updated Aion Beta Review & Abyss

• Third Closed Beta Weekend Impressions
• Aion Enchanting Guide
• Aion Beta Weekend Review
• Aion Gathering Guide
• Flying FAQ

There’s plenty of info on various subjects, and while it may not be extremely useful for those who have been participating in the beta for months, those who are rather new to the game will surely find something for their taste. It might be especially useful if you preordered Aion and want to participate in the upcoming beta weekends. Here’s a short list of just some of the content:

• class and factions info
• divine power
• equipment (weapons & armor)
• leveling
• professions
• stigmas (stones, quests, shards, skills)
• quests and quest types
• selling items
• kinah strategies
• legions
• titles
• leveling guide 10-20 for both factions (will be updated soon!)
• Abyss
• user interface
• macros
• enhancements

This unofficial Aion guide is constantly updated, usually after each beta weekend. A few parts are still work in progress, but I’m sure it will be finished by the time Aion is released. It’s great to see such info gathered in one nicely written guide, but there is one downside: it comes at a price. If you ask me it’s worth it, but it’s your call.

The price of the guide is $29,99, which in my opinion is more than fair. Once you order here you’re also eligible for free updates so whether you get it now or in few months makes no difference. However, the guide has a discount price right now and you can get it for $19,99 — the offer lasts only for the next two days though so hurry up if you want your copy.

–

Oh, and I almost forgot: the first five people who post a comment on this post get a free copy of this Aion guide, courtesy of Killerguides. You get the real deal with all the goodies and free updates of course! Just be sure to use a working email and your name so I can forward it!

Giveaway over, thanks for participating!

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Killerguides Aion Guide Review

• Free 1-10 Leveling Guide – Asmodian & Elyos
• Abyss Guide
• Beginner’s Guide to Skills and Chains
• How to Earn Kinah Guide
• Closed Beta Event 6 Info

Flight basics

The quest for becoming a Daeva (taken at level 9) earns you your wings at level 10, this is for both Elyos and Asmodian characters. When you first obtain this ability you will only be able to use flight for a maximum one minute period with a two minute “recharge”. I’ll elaborate. Flight is powered by aether, and a players aether has to be replenished. As long as you have even just a little aether you can fly, but how long you fly depends on how much aether you have. As stated already it takes two minutes to fully “recharge”.

Aether is recharged by not using your wings to move around in any way, or if you’re in the Abyss you can fly through the numerous aether rings. There is also a cooldown on how often you can take flight/glide and it’s a mere 10 seconds. Your aether level is indicated by a segmented green bar over your head(when flying) and it is always in your hud’s lower right.

Limitations

Flight in Aion is limited to certain zones/areas, so to help with this there are also flight paths (which appear to be the same concept used in WoW, albeit far more stylish), depending on the area. Using a flight path to get to an area will not exhaust your aether as you are using some form of spiritual bird rather than your own wings. It is a much faster means of travel than standard flight.

Flight in the Abyss is virtually unlimited. You can go the abyss at level 25 and there’s stuff to do there until end game and beyond. Your aether still runs low in the Abyss, but there are aether rings you can fly through or hover in to recharge your aether as you go. It’s rumored that wings can be be personalized or upgraded through PvP, specifics are yet to be announced. It is true that some player skills act differently or are available only when you are flying which makes the flight system more of a strategic element than a transportation mechanic.

As your character progresses there will be items/abilities/situations that will result in higher flight times/speeds etc. I have heard from multiple sources, but not confirmed that endgame you can get up to 3-4 maybe up to 5-10 minutes of flight time.

Do note, if you fly too high and your aether runs out, you will suffer fall damage. When the arrow on your minimap is blue you can survive the fall, but when it turns purple your character will die!

Gliding

As stated previously, flight in Aion is limited to certain areas and zones to avoid players getting ahead of the game or making it too easy. Remember flight is supposed to be a strategic element, not a mount. If you find yourself in a zone in which you can not fly, you can still “glide”. This is true in all zones! To glide simply jump in the air and then jump again in mid-air and you will unfold your wings and ride the air currents. Holding W will help you push forward and holding S will help you catch air currents for longer air time.

The effectiveness of this is based on your environment, if you’re going down hill you can expect to ride longer, but once you hit ground your wings go away. Gliding does eat up your aether, but only half as fast as flying (so if you can find a big enough hill you get 2 minutes to glide). You do move faster while gliding then you do whilst running, so gliding is typically used to escape aggro.

You can also toggle in and out of gliding from flight by tapping your jump button. This might seem trivial, but remember gliding costs less aether and thus gives you more air time. If you hit the ground while gliding, but you had a flying start you will automatically go back into flight as opposed to landing.

If you want to see gliding in action, check out the following video:

Controls

Initially PageUp and PageDown will be used to fold/unfold your wings, you can also click the flight button on your hud or the macro that comes in your skill book. Once you are flying you can move any direction with the mouse buttons simultaneously pressed, WADS works for the horizontal plane, R makes you ascend and F makes you descend. Of course any of these keys can be remapped. If you want to show off your wings stand still and type /wings. This has no aether cost and no cooldown, but if you move at all your wings will fold in again.

There is a move called “dive”, it’s not a real skill per say, but it causes your character to travel faster, though only at a downward angle. While you’re flying, just point your character down either with the mouse buttons or both the W and F keys and you’re diving. Remember this when you’re high up and your aether is almost depleted.

Where to get your wings

Note: I have not confirmed the cost on the level 30 or 40 wings for the NA version of Aion. The image linked is from the NA beta.

• Your first set of wings come at level 9 through a campaign quest called: Ascension.
• Your level 30 wings are typically purchased from a vendor for roughly 775k kinah(game currency). The vendor can be found in Sanctum for the Elyos and Pandaemonium for the Asmodians.
• If you have bought the CE of Aion you get a better set of level 30 wings for free! It has not been stated whether you will get the wings for every character you’ve created or not. It has also not been stated where you get the CE wings from, be it mail or they come on your character in your cube.
• The level 40 wings are purchased from the SAME vendor as the level 30 ones for about 9.6M kinah.

The level 50 wings are a quest reward, see the following:

• Asmodian quest at level 50: Secret of the Pollution: grants access to dungeon in Brusthonin: Ardma fort. Also rewards level 50 wings.
• Elyos quest at level 50: Secret Experiment of Theobomos: grants access to dungeon in Theobomos: Secret Laboratory. Also rewards level 50 wings.

Both quests are campaign quests which leads me to believe they will be in your logbook already at level 50, but I can not confirm that.

This is an image of the level 30 and 40 wings at the vendor bought in Pandaemonium:

Wing stats

Note: I have not confirmed this information.

Please note these stats come with the wings and are the same for both Elyos and Asmodian.

• Level 10 – One minute of flight(60 seconds).
• Level 30 – +30 Seconds of flight time(90 seconds total).
• Level 30CE – +40 Seconds of flight time(100 seconds total).
• Level 40 – +60 Seconds of flight time(120 seconds total).
• Level 50 – +35Seconds +120HP(95 seconds total). – This tickles me as a PVP thing honestly, since flight time is much less limited in the Abyss due to the aether rings and HP is key for mitigation.

Other things modify your flight time and speed such a high level gear, potions, manastones, scrolls, titles, Abyss buffs, etc. Examples:

• http://www.aionarmory.com/item.aspx?id=110600759 – Flight Speed
• http://www.aionarmory.com/item.aspx?id=110600739 – Flight Time
• http://www.aionarmory.com/item.aspx?id=167000497 – Time
• http://www.aionarmory.com/recipe.aspx?id=155006244 – Speed

Titles

The following titles modify some of your flying skills, namely flight time and flight speed.

Elyos:

Krall Hunter
You defeated many Krall.
Physical Critical Hit +2 / Flight Time +1

Aerialist
You passed the high-level flight skill test
Flight Speed +1% / Flight Time +2

Lonely Bounty Hunter
You arrested the wanted Kelaino.
Magic Boosting Power +8 / Flight Speed +2% / Flight Time +2

Defeater of the Indratu Legion
You defeated Brigade General Indratu.
Physical Critical Hit +4 / Magic Boosting Power +11 / Flight Time +2

Handicrafting Expert
You reached the highest level in Handicrafting.
Flight Time +2

Sewing Expert
You reached the highest level in Sewing.
Maximum HP +52 / Flight Time +3 / Flight Speed +3% / Speed +6%

Krall Slaughterer
You annihilated Krall in Eltnen.
Maximum HP +44 / Maximum MP +44 / Flight Time +2

Gatekeeper Hunter
You defeated the gatekeeper of the Ereshuranta Upper Layer Fortress.
Flight Speed +3%

Gullible
You exchanged a valuable for a lemon.
Flight Speed +2% / Evasion +4 / Water Defense +4

Asmodians:

Kind
You helped Gerger to fulfill his lifetime dream.
Maximum MP +20 / Flight Time +1

Slayer of Mabangtah
You threw Elysea into chaos by defeating Mabangtah, a pro-Elyos Krall.
Physical Critical Hit +4 / Magical Critical Hit +4 / Flight Time +2

Tough
You defeated a novice Elyos warrior in the Abyss.
Flight Time +2

Heroic
You defeated Elyos in the Abyss and enhanced the reputation of the Asmodians.
Maximum HP +52 / Flight Time +3 / Flight Speed +3% / Speed +6%

Sewing Expert
You reached the highest level in Sewing.
Magic Boosting Power +8 / Flight Speed +2% / Flight Time +2

Gatekeeper Stabber
You defeated the gatekeeper of the Ereshuranta Upper Layer Fortress.
Flight Speed +3%

True Friend of Silver Mane
I defeated the enemy of the Silver Mane Tribe.
Maximum HP +44 / Maximum MP +44 / Flight Time +2

Born Merchant
You exchanged a lemon for a valuable.
Flight Speed +2% / Evasion +4 / Water Defense +4

Title stats are subject to change of course in future patches.

Picture time!

I will not be posting pictures of the normal Elyos or Asmodian wings except for in the first image portraying wing progression. I am doing this to save space and time, and because level 10 wings are typical in design. Also I am short on the CE wings for Elyos and the CE wings for Asmodian, if you have any to submit, please feel free to do so.

More pics in the gallery below:

 

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Flying FAQ

• Aion Collectors Edition Selling Fast
• Aion FAQ
• Enchantments, Manastones & Godstones Guide
• Aion Basic Controls & Keyboard Shortcuts
• Closed Beta Event 5 Info

Grinding in groups is a great way to get away from the usual routine of solo playing and does offer a few advantages over soloing the content, primarily higher experience gains. I’m guessing you actually want to contribute while grouped with others so this guide will surely be a useful introduction.

1. Introduction
2. Know Your Role
3. Group Basics
4. What I Should Bring to the Party?
5. The Prey
6. Conclusion

1. Introduction

For those that don’t know me my poster name is Keeg and in game char is Saphira. I have lved chanter, cleric, temp, sm, and ranger. Please note none of them are what I would consider endgame, but I have been in several groups with each for exp grinding. If you’re tired of lving off of quest and missions, or just enjoy the company of others, I would recommend giving exp grinding a go.

2. Know Your Role

Groups in Aion consist of 6 members. The basic roles of Aion are tank, dps, cc, and heal. The warrior archetype of Aion consists of Templar (main tank) and Gladiator (off tank). Depending on the lv of difficulty of content you are about to attempt will determine which you will choose for a tank. For grinding purposes for exp however, both will work.

The dps classes of Aion consist of the Scout and the Mage archetype of Aion: Assassin, Ranger, Sorcerer, and Spiritmaster. All of them are different and provide different dps options to the group, which is to vast to cover in this guide, so you will have to research that on your own. For grinding exp purposes though all 4 will work.

The Classes that excel in cc (crowd control) in Aion are Sorcerer, Ranger, and Spiritmaster. Sorc have a root, tree, and sleep spell for links which will come in handy. Rangers have traps and status arrows to keep links under control. SM have there pets, snare, poly, and fear (caution should be used however, this can lead to more links).

Finally the priest archetype consists of Cleric (main healer) and Chanter (back up healer). Clerics have the most healing abilities: self resurrect, instant heal, group heal, just to name a few; making them the ideal main healer. While the chanter focuses more on a support role with stronger hots, auras, debuffs, and more efficient dps in terms in mana consumption.

3. Group Basics

Now that you know your role, its time to make a group. You ideally want to get at least one class from each role then focus on extra members. To restate again basic party roles are tank, dps, cc and heal. Ideally you want one tank, one cc, two dps, and two healers. The tanks in Aion are very strong and can usally handle themselves fine w/o the aid of another tank, in terms of exp grinding. The cc will help you with any links you get due to elite/groupmob areas have a tendency to have group of mobs near each other, so fighting one more mob at a time is not uncommon.

The two dps will help you kill things faster and increase your exp, while aiding all other roles relief in the form that fights will not be as long drawn out. The two healers will usually assign one as main healer while the other contributes support in the form of buffs/debuffs/dps or all of the above. In addition it is always nice to have another healer if the group gets in trouble and extra healing becomes necessary.

4. What Should I Bring To The Party?

Food, drinks, and silly hats of course! (Bad joke) But in all seriousness it is a good question that gets asked very often. For exp grinding parties you want to gain exp as fast as possible, but having fun at the same time. So I would suggest you bring a few basic things and don’t worry about oh no my gear isn’t +1. For starters mages should bring a few mana pots and Odella powders with them. Odella powders can be bought at the general merchant and can stack up to 1k, you can hold multiple stacks if you really plan to lv all day (looks innocent, what I’m not a lvacholic, are you accusing me of that!?). The Odella powders are used in the skill mana treatment, which each class has access to.

Mana pots are usually cheap in the auction house, but if you’re cheap like me or you like crafting you can make your own threw crafting. Mana pots are nice to off set what ever the Odella Powders fail to recover, or if you end up in a long fight (multiple links for example) and end up needing more mana, as mana pots are instant unlike mana treatment.

For melees you are going to want hp pots and odella powders as well, however this is not as important as mages bringing them. Although if you’re the main tank… you can save your healer a heart attack if your hp falls to low, or give an extra nudge your party needs to over come a link if it begins to go down hill. Also note odella powders are still used, just consumed in the ability hp treatment instead of mana treatment.

On a closing note if your exp camp is far away from town, you may want to consider a bringing a kisk along or a rez stone. Both of these lovely items can be bought at your merchant. The kisk is like an obelisk on the go. You place it on the ground and then bind your self to it. Keep in mind it only works on your group members and in addition if they want to gain the benefit of the kisk they must bind to it as well. Keep in mind the kisk has a limited duration and respawn on it. You can read the kisk and it will tell you how much time and respawn on the kisk is remaining.

The rez stone works in the same fashion as the healer rez. It will bring a member back to life in the soul sickness state. This is handy if all your healers die as it can stop a full wipe or save your healer(s) a trip back.

5. The Prey

Now I know what you’re thinking wth is elite, is this wow 2? The answer is no, no it’s not. It’s a common term used for a stronger version of the mob then your use to fighting.

Credit goes to Lyankyj and Korean PowerBook for the follow images and info:

Rankings:

Normal mob (solo):

Elite mob (party, 2-4players):

Hero mob (1-2 parties, 12 players):

Legendary mob (1 force, 24 players):

Passive creatures are shown as yellow:

Aggressive ones are red:

“The dots in their names representing their strength, variety of skills they’re using, how strong they are in their own rank.
More dots = stronger.

Average mobs have 3dots, above that you should reconsider engaging in battle with them.” – Lyankyj

Groups of 3-6 when grinding exp will normally go with elite camps for grinding. These areas are very easy to find as your group missions and quests while lving up will lead you to them. However, you should take caution as these monsters are harder then what you are use to. Elite mobs hit much harder than normal mobs with a greater hp pool. In addition they like to be in groups (as in hang out close together, I haven’t seen a mob use a benefical spell on another mob to suggest they are actually in the same group, yet) and patrol threw out the area.

However if your willing to risk the grind, you shall be rewarded. Elites are known for there better drop table, higher exp given upon defeat, in addition to knocking out some of your group quests and missions at the same time!

Now I know some of you are thinking. Can I still grind with a smaller group, with out being in a nearly full party? The short answer is yes you can grind elites with a smaller party, but it will take longer to do so. Due to this I would advise a group of 1-3 (3 is pushing it some times) to grind normal mobs. Now I know what your thinking, why why would I want to grind normal mobs when some one soloing quests can grind faster. This is true and not true to a certain extent. At the lower lvs yes solo questing will get you more exp per hr if you are familiar with the quests and don’t read the quest logs. However, at the higher lvs this rate becomes harder and harder to maintain as more factors come into play (enemy fraction ganking, less quests, more running around, etc) to a point where it becomes more likely that a small group will lv faster then a solo player.

That being said at the low lvs you gain a very huge advantage grouping b/c of this, why? Just to name a few: experience with how a group acts and practicing your role, green equip (most quest equip is not very good at the low lvs, with a few exceptions), and most importantly CRAFTING MATS. If you are seriously considering taking up a craft you would be well to take my advice and save your self a fortune. Starting at the low lv and grinding mobs out rather the questing will give you a ton of crafting mats if you’re in the right spot. This will save you the headache of buying them off the broker.

6. Conclusion

This is the end of the guide; I hope you have found it useful. Now go out and exp grind with friends, guildies, or meet someone new.

Be sure to check out some of our other guides as well!

Come feed your Aion addiction on AionFly.com

Group Grinding Guide

• Aion Beginners Guide to PvP
• Updated Aion Beta Review & Abyss
• Killerguides Aion Guide Review
• How to Earn Kinah Guide
• Aion Enchanting Guide

Enchantments

The most frustrating parts of learning how to enhance is learning that THEY CAN FAIL! Not only can they fail, but failing can have negative side-effects for your gear! This is why you must read the guide below so that you do not lose your time, your character’s money, or your cool!

Before you can use Enchantment stones, you must create them. In order to create them, visit a nearby General Goods Merchant and purchase Extraction Tools. One set of tools is used per extraction. In order to extract, you must Right-Click on the Extraction Tools and then Left-Click on the item you wish to extract from.

There are some important guidelines! First, you can only extract from items that can be enhanced. These are your chest slot, legs slot, shoulders slot, hands slot, feet slot, primary slot, and secondary slot. Second, when you extract from an item, that item is destroyed. Do not extract from items you wish to keep or use, obviously.

Once you have extracted an item, you will receive Enchantment stones. They come in the form: Level # Enchantment. The level corresponds to an item’s level, not your level.

Now that you know how to extract and create Enchantment stones, I will tell you how you apply them to an item. The first important part is figuring out the level of the item you wish to enhance. Quite simply, the item’s level is the required level to use that item (but there is more!). This can typically be found just by looking at the item’s statistics, as it will say what level is required. For some items, such as quest rewards, there is no given level on the item. In order to figure out the level of these items, you must know what level the quest was that resulted in that item. For instance, if a quest said “Level 10″ in front of it and completing it resulted in an item, that item’s level would be 10.

Once you know your item’s level, the next step is figuring out what level Enchantment stone to use. In order to do this, you must know whether the item is of White rarity, Green rarity, Blue rarity, or Orange rarity. You can simply do this by looking at the item and seeing what color the item’s name is written in. Once you know the item’s level and its color use the following to figure out what Enchantment stone to use:

White Item = Item’s Level +1-10 Levels
Green Item = Item’s Level +5-20 Levels
Blue Item = Item’s Level +15-40 Levels
Orange Item = Item’s Level +30-50 Levels

When using an Enchantment stone from the above guide, take note that using the lower extremity will cause you to have a lower chance of success. If you have a Level 10 White item, you will have a higher percent of success if you use a Level 13 Enchantment stone than if you used a Level 11 Enchantment stone. Also, if you use too high of an Enchantment stone, your chance of success will be diminished as well.

Now that you know how to create Enchantment stones and use them to enhance your gear, you must be wondering what the point of it all is! Each item can be enhanced up to 10 times. Although this seems fairly easy to obtain, you can take either two paths to reaching it. One involves spending lots of your character’s money on purchasing the best-to-use Enchantment stones; the other involves spending lots of risk on using lower level Enchantment stones that will sometimes fail. What happens when you fail? Your item loses one level of enhancement! This is why it is important to use the correct level Enchantment stones. The good news is that items cannot reach negative enhancement levels; it will stop at 0. The bad news, obviously, is that it can take quite a bit of time and money to reach 10.

The following shows what bonuses come with each enhancement level. Remember, each item can reach a maximum of 10, so multiple each bonus by 10 to figure out the maximum.

Plate
Chest = +6 Physical Defense per level
Legs = +5 Physical Defense per level
Pauldron = +4 Physical Defense per level
Gloves = +4 Physical Defense per level
Boots = +4 Physical Defense per level

Chain
Chest = +5 Physical Defense per level
Legs = +4 Physical Defense per level
Pauldron = +3 Physical Defense per level
Gloves = +3 Physical Defense per level
Boots = +3 Physical Defense per level

Leather
Chest = +4 Physical Defense per level
Legs = +3 Physical Defense per level
Pauldron = +2 Physical Defense per level
Gloves = +2 Physical Defense per level
Boots = +2 Physical Defense per level

Cloth
Chest = +3 Physical Defense per level
Legs = +2 Physical Defense per level
Pauldron = +1 Physical Defense per level
Gloves = +1 Physical Defense per level
Boots = +1 Physical Defense per level

Primary
Polearm = +4 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level
Greatsword = +4 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level
Bows = +4 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level
Staff = +3 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level, +10 Magic Boost per level
Sword = +2 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level
Dagger = +2 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level
Mace = +3 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level, +10 Magic Boost per level
Orb = +4 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level, +10 Magic Boost per level
Spellbook = +3 Minimum and Maximum Weapon Damage per level, +10 Magic Boost per level

Secondary
Shield = +2% Damage Reduction per level

After reading this, you should now be a pro when it comes to enhancing your items, extraction, and Enchantment stones. The next part of the guide will discuss the use of Manastones.

Manastones

Manastones contain a certain statistic and a certain value. For example, Manastone: Accuracy +12. In this case, this Manastone would add 12 to your Accuracy value if you placed it into a socket of one of your equipped items. Similar to the enhancing, only the following slots contain sockets: chest slot, legs slot, shoulders slot, hands slot, feet slot, primary slot, and secondary slot. Also, the higher the rarity of the item, the more sockets it contains:

White Item = 1-2 Socket
Green Item = 2-3 Sockets
Blue Item = 3-4 Sockets
Orange Item = 4-5 Sockets

Similar to enhancing, placing Manastones into sockets can fail. The penalty for this is that all Manastones already in sockets and the Manastone you just used for that item are destroyed, returning the item to all empty sockets. The positive is that this is quite rare, and usually only occurs when placing a high level Manastone into a low level item. However, at this time, there is no way to tell the exact level of a Manastone; just know that the higher the value, the higher the level. Also, green Manastones are harder to socket than white Manastones.

When the game is released, there will be level requirements on Manastones which will make it easier to tell the level of the Manastone.

A good strategy for placing Manastones into sockets (when an item has more than 1 socket) is to socket your least valued Manastone first and your most valued Manastone last. This way, the chance for failing and wasting your most valued Manastone is reduced to a minimum.

You can also remove Manastones from items by visiting a <Remove Manastone> NPC. These are usually found around major cities and towns. You pay a small fee and the NPC will remove your desired Manastone from your item. However, the Manastone will be destroyed in the process.

The following list shows all Manastones and their possible values:

Manastone: Attack (Adds to your Attack value)
Value Range: +1-5
White Manastones: (+1, +2, +4)
Green Manastones: (+3, +5)

Manastone: Accuracy (Adds to your Accuracy value)
Value Range: +12-25
White Manastones: Even #s (+12, +14, etc.)
Green Manastones: Odd #s (+21, +23, etc.)

Manastone: Parry (Adds to your Parry value)
Value Range: +12-25
White Manastones: Even #s (+12, +14, etc.)
Green Manastones: Odd #s (+21, +23, etc.)

Manastone: Magic Boosting Power (Adds to your Magic Boosting Power value)
Value Range: +12-25
White Manastones: Even #s (+12, +14, etc.)
Green Manastones: Odd #s (+21, +23, etc.)

Manastone: Shield Defense (Adds to your Block value)
Value Range: +12-25
White Manastones: Even #s (+12, +14, etc.)
Green Manastones: Odd #s (+21, +23, etc.)

Manastone: Evasion (Adds to your Evasion value)
Value Range: +4-15
White Manastones: Even #s (+4, +6, etc.)
Green Manastones: Odd #s (+11, +13, etc.)

Manastone: Physical Critical Hit (Adds to your Crit Rate value)
Value Range: +4-15
White Manastones: Even #s (+4, +6, etc.)
Green Manastones: Odd #s (+11, +13, etc.)

Manastone: HP (Adds to your HP value)
Value Range: +20-85
White Manastones: By Tens (+20, +30, etc.)
Green Manastones: In-between Tens (+65, +75, etc.)

Manastone: MP (Adds to your MP value)
Value Range: +20-85
White Manastones: By Tens (20, 30, etc.)
Green Manastones: In-between Tens (65, 75, etc.)

Manastone: Magical Accuracy (Adds to your Magic Accuracy value)
Value Range: +10, +12
Green Manastones: (+10, +12)

Manastone: Maximum Flight Time (Adds to your Flight Time value)
Value Range: +4
Green Manastones: (+4)

Manastone: Magical Resistance (Adds to your Magical Resistance value)
Value Range: +12
Green Manastones: +12

Godstones

The last part of this guide will discuss Godstones. These are used on all weapon items. The basic premise of a Godstone is to apply some sort of ability, which triggers at a certain percent, to inflict your target with.

Godstones can be found throughout the higher level content of the game. They can be found in similar ways that Manastones can be found, only with a significant less frequency. They can also be obtained as quest rewards. Once you obtain a Godstone, you can visit a Godstone Enchanter NPC, which are usually found in large cities only, and have them enable the Godstone to your weapon for a fee. You may also remove Godstones in a similar fashion as Manastones.

When a weapon becomes enabled by a Godstone, it will receive a partical effect. This means that your weapon will now have a specific type of glow depending on which Godstone you used. Each type of Godstone (Bleed, Blind, etc) has its own color and effect.

The following is a list of some of Aion’s Godstones and their benefit:
(A) = Asmodian Quest Reward
(E) = Elyos Quest Reward

Blue
Bleed
Bleeding Abnormal Condition Smash
65 damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
Bleeding Abnormal Condition Smash
40 damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
Mahisha’s Wrath
71 damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds at 8% trigger rate.

Blind
(A)Aegir’s Eye Beam
Blinds for 8 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
Rasberg’s Love
Blinds for 10 seconds at 10% trigger rate.
Rasberg’s Tragedy
Blinds for 8 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
(E)Telemachus’s Luster
Blinds for 8 seconds at 5% trigger rate.

Paralyze
(E)Spatalos’s Chastisement
Paralyzes for 5 seconds at 2% trigger rate.
(A)Sueron’s Threat
Paralyzes for 5 seconds at 2% trigger rate.
Vidar’s Dignity
Paralyzes for 5 seconds at 2% trigger rate.

Poison
Orissa’s Blood
38 damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds at 10% trigger rate.

Root
(E)Hectate’s Root
Binds for 10 seconds at 2% trigger rate.
Helkes’s Revenge
Binds for 10 seconds at 2% trigger rate.
(A)Sif’s Root
Binds for 10 seconds at 2% trigger rate.

Silence
(E)Jumentis’s Pacification
Silences for 8 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
(A)Sigyn’s Calmness
Silences for 8 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
Srudgelmir’s Silence
Silences for 10 seconds at 10% trigger rate.
Srudgelmir’s Tacitness
Silences for 8 seconds at 5% trigger rate.

Slow
Eio’s Tears
Reduces attack speed by 50% for 10 seconds at 10% trigger rate.
(A)Freyr’s Rest
Reduces attack speed by 50% for 10 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
Ieo’s Sadness
Reduces attack speed by 50% for 10 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
(E)Thrasymedes’s Peace
Reduces attack speed by 50% for 10 seconds at 5% trigger rate.

Snare
Deltras’s Loyalty
Reduces movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
(A)Nerthus’s Suppression
Reduces movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds at 5% trigger rate.
(E)Perento’s Standpoint
Reduces movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds at 5% trigger rate.

Stun
(E)Boreas’s Fury
Stuns for 1 second at 6% trigger rate.
Fasimedes’s Majesty
Stuns for 1 second at 6% trigger rate.
(A)Traufnir’s Roar
Stuns for 1 second at 6% trigger rate.

Damage
Earth
Freyr’s Wisdom
1880 earth damage at 1% trigger rate.
Thrasymedes’s Wit
188 earth damage at 10% trigger rate.
Fire
Boreas’s Encouragement
188 fire damage at 10% trigger rate.
Traufnir’s Bravery
1880 fire damage at 1% trigger rate.
Water
Hectate’s Cleverness
94 water damage at 20% trigger rate.
Sif’s Knowledge
940 water damage at 2% trigger rate.
Wind
Jumentis’s Agility
94 wind damage at 20% trigger rate.
Sigyn’s Intelligence
940 wind damage at 2% trigger rate.
Magical Fire
Magical Earth Smash
247 magical fire damage at 3% trigger rate.
Magical Earth Strike
124 magical fire damage at 6% trigger rate.
Magical Fire Smash
370 magical fire damage at 2% trigger rate.
Magical Fire Strike
185 magical fire damage at 4% trigger rate.

Orange
Damage
Earth
(A)Marchutan’s Balance
376 earth damage at 10% trigger rate.
(E)Yustiel’s Heart
376 earth damage at 10% trigger rate.
Fire
(E)Nezakan’s Valiance
3760 fire damage at 1% trigger rate.
(A)Zikel’s Pride
3760 fire damage at 1% trigger rate.
Water
(E)Kaisinel’s Terror
1880 water damage at 2% trigger rate.
(A)Lumiel’s Magical Power
1880 water damage at 2% trigger rate.
Wind
(E)Baizel’s Will
188 wind damage at 20% trigger rate.
(A)Triniel’s Coolness
188 wind damage at 20% trigger rate.

After reading this guide, I hope that you are now very knowledgeable with Enchantments, Manastones, Godstones, extracting, socket’ing, and enabling.

Source: aionsource.com

Come feed your Aion addiction on AionFly.com

Enchantments, Manastones & Godstones Guide

• Aion Enchanting Guide
• Flying FAQ
• How to Earn Kinah Guide
• Aion Beginners Guide to PvP
• Aion Crafting Guide

Note: I edited a few sentences, fixed some typos and applied some formatting so it’s easier to read.

–

1. Introduction
2. My gear can level too?
3. How Do I shot web?
4. Stick to the plan!
5. Picture book comparison
6. Rumor mill buster!
7. Reap the Rewards!
8. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Hey all for those that don’t know me my poster name is Keeg and my in game char is Saphira. I have c aion experience as well I am currently in the beta phase of na aion. I got bored and decided to level my gear and quickly found how complicated this system could be to a new player, so to help out I made this guide…. actually turns out a lot of my legion members suck at leveling there gear too, but shh they might hurt me.
That being said though for the time being this guide shall focus on leveling gear that is lv 10 to use. This is because I will only use info that I have myself encountered. I may add more about my experience at the higher levels that come later, if there is enough demand for it.

2. My gear can level too?

That’s right your gear can level as well! No your gear doesn’t have its’ own exp bar or take durability damage. However you can level your gear threw enchanting. The current cap on gear is level 10, which each level adding more pts to a base stat then previously before. Keep in mind though that this system works differently then manastones. In this system your gear starts at lv0 and can’t go below this point (unless your raving, his gear is -1 apparently). That being said for each success your gear will gain one level. However, if you fail the enchantment your gear will lose one level.

How do I shot web?

You put on your spider man custom, make the pew pew sound, then proceed to spray your opponent with a can of wipcream!

On a serious note using this system is actually very easy to do. First start off by gathering equipment you no longer need and proceed to the local general merchant. Most general merchants will carry an item that sells for 900ish Kinah which breaks down equipment for you. Just right click this item after you buy it, and choose the gear in the inventory you wish to disenchant. Please keep in mind once you disenchant a piece of gear it is gone forever, and the disenchant item is consumed upon use. once you succeed the disenchant process you will be given 1-3 enchantment items to use. Which one and how many you get depends on the quality of the item in my experience, also part of it appears to be random; as the yield of enchantment items are not consistent.

4. Stick to the plan!

Ok now you know how to enchant, time for some strategy! You poster, hiding in the corner, I want you to kill devil. The other guy with the funny hat, I want you to distract Knite with role play. And the other guy who wants to join in the fun, but I ran out of things for the plan to do, you can be our cheer leader; and lead us on to victory threw your words of encouragement!

Ok yes, yes I will get on with a serious plan…. I’m bored sorry. As you know all gear starts at level 0…. which means you have nothing to lose, except for your pride! That being said spam away all your crappy enchant items on all your items until they are lv 1 each. That way you don’t waste them or proceed to face palm b/c you worked all the way up to lv 9 and went back all the way to lv 0… almost had this happen to me once.

Once you get to about 4 or 5 using normal enchants, stop leveling it and save up your good enchants to finish the job! This way you can save your self a ton of money and time by not playing the level up and down game continuously proceeding to /facepalm. Remember, when enchanting your gear, patience goes a long way. If you feel you don’t have enough high level enchants, its best to stop and grind for more.

Now on to how to upgrade level 10 gear the most efficient way! First your target is lv 9 white or higher, with lv 7 green or higher. lv 7 white and lv 4 green or lower in my experience gave absolute crap. It is best just to vendor or auction these items to help pay for your enchanting. Also belts can’t be disenchanted either, so just vendor or auction those as well.

5. Picture book comparison

Here is a picture book of enchanting. Note I will add more pics later, but I just wanted to get a rough draft started of this section due to the beta is almost over.

Lv10 enchant blue quality. After spamming these on lv 7 and 9 green gear, I can confirm they are complete crap for this armor set, don’t waste your time or money on them unless your gear is level 0.

Lv8 enchant blue quality. Same as above don’t use these on level 7 or 9 green gear, unless your gear is still level 0.

White quality enchanting material. These had a much better success rate for lv 7 and lv 9 green gear. In particular I had the best rates with the level 14-16 ones. Keep in mind I had a ton of white grade enchanting supplies, these seem to be the most common from lv 9 white gear and lv 7 green gear.

Lv 22 gold grade quality seems to be quite rare, as I only got it once breaking down a green lv 14 shield. Keep in mind though I didn’t have much experience breaking down higher lv green items, as I only bought the cheap ones on the auction. That being said I had the best success rate with these which actually lead to my first +10 item :sparkles:. Note I forgot to take a picture of these, I will try to get these again some time today before the servers close. If some one wants to donate their own pic of these though feel free, I will give you credit for it in the guide.

6. Rumor mill buster!

So, I know what you’re thinking. There is a ton of rumors running around, what’s true and what’s not you say? Read on!

• Fact: You ARE NOT penalized for using too high level of an enchant on your gear. I had the best success rate with higher level enchants.
• Fact: Your gear level and level to use the item are different depending on the quality of your gear, and where it came from. This will affect which enchanting stones you should use for best results.
• Fact: You CAN NOT fail the disenchant phase of turning gear into enchant stones. However, your yield will be random.
• Rumor: some pieces are harder to enchant then others. I can’t confirm this due to I have not experimented enough, but I did run into a few questionable set backs that makes me wonder.
• Rumor: matching the exact level of the gear will give the best results. I can’t confirm or deny this due to not enough testing. However, I can confirm that the higher the level, the more then likely you will exceed to an extent.
• Rumor: Saphira has a full set of +10 gear and is made of win. I can’t confirm or deny this due to I never meet this person. However, I heard rumors he has a +10 shield, chest, and legs. While he currently working boots that he got to +5… but are now sitting at +3

7. Reap the Rewards!

Getting +10 gear is no easy task: it requires time, patience, money, and above all dedication (going all the way to +6then going back to +3 back and forth really…. really sucks haha). That being said you shall be rewarded for your efforts. +10 gear is much stronger then level 0 gear as you will notice a significant increase in stat compared to before. Here is some of mine.

Now I don’t know about you, but after all that hard work. I think its time to test the new +10s. My victim of choice just so happened to be gerbals. Turns out I grew quite bitter waitting for them for drop greens to finish off my boots… but first stretch!

Now to kill those gerbals…

…. ALL AT ONCE MAHAHAHAHAHHA

……….

Of course it didn’t take me long to get bored and move on to harder prey >.>

Apparantly I’m the new pack leader!

After which, I got caught in a fight with a bird, whom thought his wings where better then mine…. who is laughing now!?

And to finish the job I killed the undead to save us all from the zombie invasion that could of been… your welcome.

8. Conclusion

This is the end of the guide. I kept it short and sweet as new players where my current focus, as they need help the most. In the future I may expand this guide, or make another guide if there is enough demand for it. I do however, plan to add a few more things to this guide. That being said what is here right now is to benefit those that want to enchant there lv 10 gear who are currently in beta, or new players in the future in retail. I hope you have found this guide useful.

Come feed your Aion addiction on AionFly.com

Aion Enchanting Guide

• Enchantments, Manastones & Godstones Guide
• Aion Crafting Guide
• How to Earn Kinah Guide
• Group Grinding Guide
• Flying FAQ

Although it certainly won’t make you a PvP god, this guide covers most of the basics every new Aion player needs to know before trying their luck in Player versus Player combat. Now, on with the post!

1. Introduction
2. The build
3. I fly solo
4. Birds of a feather stick together
5. Solo tactics
6. Group tactics
7. Game options
8. Key bindings
9. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Hey all for those that don’t know me my poster name is Keeg and my in game char is Saphira. I have C Aion experience as well I am currently in the beta phase of NA Aion. This is a basic guide to pvp for those that are starting out. While there are many factors to consider while pvping, this guide will only cover the basics. If there is a demand for a more in depth pvp guide, I will add one later.

2. The Build

Now I know you want to get into all the juicy stuff such as strategy and what not, but before I discuss that you should first consider your character’s build. You can customize your characters strength and weakness threw the use of manastones, enchanting, food, drinks, scrolls, etc. However to keep it basic for beginners; I will stick to manastone and enchanting discussion.

Now that being said you could build your character to be in a basic categories’: Offensive, Defensive, and hybrid. Each one adds valuable options to the group. In addition, each comes with there own strength and weakness.

Offensive builds is where you want to take your opponent out before it takes you out. In that sense you most be able to react faster and out maneuver your opponent to use this build to its full potential. If you fail to do so, you leave your self vulnerable to a counter attack to your opponent. That being said these type of builds excel in spike damage in groups, so they have the time to prepare a proper assault on an enemy player, while have the time to retreat to the safety of the group to avoid being counter attack. These builds are generally more vulnerable (not always) to taking more incoming damage then say if you built hybrid or defensive.

Defensive builds are the opposite in the sense you try to out last your opponent threw your increased survivability. In order to bring this build to its full potential you most have the patience to deal with longer fights and not lose focus. Your objective as a defensive build is to interrupt your opponent’s combo flow as much as possible forcing them to make a critical mistake, wasting their opportunity to spike you down. If you can play the fight longer and stay focused, you can force your opponent to trip up. This build is especially common for healers in group fights. For their success largely depends on their ability to hamper their enemies attempts to spike damage them.

Hybrid builds are mix offensive and defense nature. For example crt has an offensive and defensive nature attached to it. When you land a crt hit, you will do more damage. In addition, you also stun your opponent. Thanks to this nature, crt makes a perfect example of a build that be used offensively or defensively. In groups hybrid builds are useful in that they play an offensive and defensive role at the same time. For example a sin or ranger could crt lock a dps attempting to spike a healer. In this situation not only did you kill the enemy, In addition you stunned your opponent which saved your healer.

Manastone by categories:

• Offensive manastones: Attack, Magic Boosting Power,
• Defensive manastones: Shield defense, parry, evasion, magic defense
• Hybrid: HP, MP, Critical, Max flight time, Acc, magic acc

Please note I would advise against using mp and max flight time normally, as both of these problems can be easily countered by a pot. In addition I would advise against using Acc or Magic acc, as the benefits normally do not counter the use of other manastones available.

Builds I would advise for classes as follows in no particular order of importance.

• Templar: Hybrid, Defensive
• Gladiator: Hybrid, Offensive
• Cleric: Hybrid, Defensive
• Chanter: Hybrid, Defensive
• Ranger: Hybrid, Offensive
• Sin: Hybrid, Offensive
• Sorcerer: Hybrid, Offensive
• Spirit Master: Hybrid, Offensive

For enchanting offensively you will want to focus on increasing your weapon first as you level. Defensive will want to focus on a shield first (if you have one and are going for a shield defense spec), and then proceed to upgrade armor. While in the future you may be able to afford both, doing so while lving will be difficult.

For example my chanter is currently defensive specked since I live to pvp in groups with my legion. I use shield defense manastones and put priority on my shield, and then the rest of my armor.

3. I fly Solo

For those of you like to solo, there is good news and bad news for you. While the abyss grants the opportunity to attack unsuspecting opponents in a 1v1 scenario; one most use caution. In the abyss it is common to find solo players or small groups to pick off, the problem you say? Well to put it simply they, lets just say that their friendly faction isn’t to far away normally when they call for back up.

When you pvp alone, you keep what you kill. In other words all the abyss pts you earn threw damaging the target, go straight to you upon your opponent’s death. This is a bonus if you are trying to level up your abyss rank quickly. This is due to that if you are in a group, the pts are split evenly. Although this comes at great risk as well, for traveling alone increases your chance of death. If you die to an opponent in pvp, you will lose abyss points (note there is no exp penalty for dying in pvp).

4. Birds of a Feather Stick Together

If soling isn’t your thing, give group pvp a go. Just like solo pvp there are advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of Group play is that you can rack up more kills quickly and not have to run as much if the enemy calls in for back up. Also it is always nice to have a team mate watch your back, in case some one tries to return you the favor. In the abyss, small groups pick normally off solo or other enemy small groups. While there are bigger groups in the abyss, they are fare less common and mostly seen at places such as fort sieges.

The disadvantage is that your pts will be split for kills you earn as a group. This will slow down your abyss pt gain. Although, if you are continuously killing with out dying, it may pay off then continuously getting killed solo in attempt to hog all the abyss pts to yourself. It really depends on your class and builds which style of play will fit your needs for abyss pts.

5. Solo tactics

As a solo player you want to catch your opponent off guard and finish him/her off before they have time to react. Due to this more offensive/hybrid builds are preferred here. While you could attempt a defensive build solo ganking spree, you give your opponent more time to react for a counter attack or escape.

Now I know what your thinking, “should I kill my opponent if there currently attacking a mob?” This is a common ethics question asked in any pvp game. Basically you have to go with your beliefs on this one. If you feel it is wrong then don’t do it. However, don’t expect your enemy to return you the favor. As this strategy does give an advantage that some will defiantly consider taking in solo play.

When camping a particular area, it is always a good idea to bring a kisk with you. A kisk is a bind on the go item that remains stationary on the ground. Hiding it in weal covered area, or a hard to reach spot is advised. Once you have your kisk in a safe area nearby, you can quickly return the favor of the unsuspecting prey that just killed you going, “omg wth I just killed you haxor”:

In addition it is always good to be mobile. Once you begin to kill the enemy, it will not be long before they shout out your location. It is best to stay on the move so the zerg doesn’t find you and take back some of those abyss pts earned.

6. Group tactics

In a group you want all 3 builds to be present. This way you can cover a little bit of everything, making it easier to overwhelm opponent(s). In addition in group vs. group fights it is very important to stay in formation. If you thin out to much, you just make easy pickings for your opponent(s)

Now then the formation my legion has used in the past and has found to work, Is to bunch up and push as a group. I know this sounds very simple and stupid just asking to be aoed….but it works. There are several reasons why this is a valid tactic and essential for survival in group play.

The first reason is the limit on healing range. Unlike most games, Aion is not very forgiving in healing range. If you move out of heal range, the healing spell will interrupt, if it is not instant cast. In addition, the range of healing magic in this game is noticeably smaller compared to others. That being said if some one runs to far ahead of the group two things happen. They die to focus fire from the enemy team, or the healer has to run an expose themselves to hostile fire to heal them. Obviously that is suicidal in both situations.

The second reason is the limit of ranged damage in Aion. Just like healing, the range is quite limited. Meaning if your ranged dps move to far ahead of the group, they expose themselves to melee attackers. In addition the same can be said about your opponents range. If you move as a group, you force your opponent ranged dps to expose them self to counter attack if they try to spike some one important such as a healer.

The third reason is to for retreating. If you retreat in a scattered formation, you will be picked off one by one and make it all the easier for a complete wipe. However if you retreat as a group, some of your opponent may get cocky and charge ahead of their group (you have no idea how often this actually happens…). In addition, backing off from the enemy group forces them to advance toward your groups new position to reestablish range. If they are unorganized, they will spread out a bit advancing on your groups position, making it all the easier to pick them off. Even better is if you retreat around a corner….. as you break line of sight of rangers and healers, leaving any melee dumb enough to charge ahead after your group with out support…. Usually leading to a very painful death.

When moving as a group you ideally want your stronger melees up front, such as Templar and Gladiator. In the middle you want your healers(to prevent melee ambush, and in the back you want your ranged dps… and your sins.
Now the sin role is pretty important here as they have to pivot a lot in the flow of combat. If they notice some one trying to ambush there back lines, they can stealth and return the favor to them; all the while warning there team of the threat. If your back lines are clear of enemies, the sin should focus on hit and run tactics threw out enemy lines. Kill the squishest target you can find (cough sorcs) and proceed to run away your pansy mane away back to your group before you get focus fired.

The Templar and Gladiator job is to hold the front lines of your group, all the while pressing into the lines of your enemy group. They key is to not to press to far in, but enough to pressure your opponents group to spit up. If your front line succeeds in this, your enemy squishes and healers become easy targets for your dps to spike down. In addition though Templar should focus on cc any one trying to advance into there group, or pull away opponents trying to flee or hiding in the mass of another group. The Gladiator should spam his aoe is up to continue to put pressure on the other group’s healer.

The healer servers as a guide point for the group. Your group leader should make your own healers, so your group doesn’t get carried away and out run there heal distance. It is also a good way to keep tabs on what is happening on your healers. Not only that but they make great rally points for knowing when to stop the advance or retreating, since they are in the middle of the formation. The ranged dps know not to pass the healers, while the templar and gladiators know to stay in front of healers. Having healers knowing when to move and where to hold there ground is essential to moving as a group basics.

The ranged dps obviously wants to hold up the back of the line as far as possible to slow down the incoming of melee dps attempting to kill them. However if the lack of melee dps threat, it is safe to move a bit closer to the melee lines. However, staying at the front of the group for long periods of time should be avoided…. for obvious reasons.

Example video moving as group… will post a better when vepo learns how to fraps so you get a better prespective… and not have to /facepalm at that newb Arc.

7. Game Options

In order to aid you in pvp, I would advise messing with the game options tab until you feel comfortable. However, I know that is a lot of options to play with, so let me suggest a few to you.

• Camera: I would advise setting the camera to Max (this allows you to zoom out all the way with the camera, note you can still zoom in if you need to with this feature enabled.
• Show distance to target: Allows you to see how far away your current target is. This works on friendly and enemy targets.
• Fix Compass to North: This option helps keep a sense of direction. It is important to yell out incoming attacks; also this feature helps to call points to retreat or rally too.
• Disable click to move: Really depends on your class and preference here. Just note the click to move is defaulted off. If you prefer moving with keys I advise turning this feature on.
• View target’s target: Simple enough and very useful. If you click and enemy or ally you see who they currently have target. This helps with assisting if you picked an ally, or you can call out who is about to be attacked if your enemy is looking at an ally. Also pro tip here if a healer has them selves targeted it more then likely means they are about to or in the process of a heal/buff themselves (if non aoe). So if they change to them selves quickly, be ready to stun ASAP. This can interrupt instant heals if you get good at it (stunning them before they hit the instant heal).

8. Key Bindings

Key bindings help save a ton of time when it comes to pvp. Not only that but there is a bunch of features you can enable with key binding as well that would normally take much longer to do manually. However fear not clickers, as you can still be effective in pvp clicking. Although if you want my honest opinion as a healer in pvp; I find that using a combination of using clicking and key binding to be the most effective. Just play around with it until you feel comfortable, but keep in mind speed is very important in pvp. That being said here is a few key bindings you should consider.

Combat Key Bindings

• Select Nearest ally: This works like tab but instead of picking the nearest enemy, this feature will select the nearest friendly target. This is useful for healing or assisting those that are not in your group/force.
• Select Nearest Enemy: Used to cycle threw enemy targets. Useful for picking out hard to find enemies, or those hiding in a big group.
• Assist Target: This will change your target to the target’s target. Very useful for assisting for dps.
• Change Weapon: for those that change weapons this is extremely important. I find the starting change weapon feature to be a bit lagish (could just be me though). I personally prefer setting the key to a key bind for quick switches.
• Toggle Power shard: Good for physical dps users as this allow you to quickly turn off or on your power shards.

Group Key Bindings

• Select Yourself: Very important feature as a healer. Changing from a friend target to heal your self takes time, and you don’t have much of that to waste in pvp.
• Select Group Members: Very important for healers and melees. For healers this lets you heal your group members quickly by targeting them. For melees you can use this to target who ever your suppose to be assisting. Once you have selected the member, you can then hit the assist button to attack their target.

Sign Key Bindings

This is very important feature of Aion, as you can mark targets to make team work easier. The signs in Aion work on allies and opponents. What I would recommend is to mark your healers, your enemies’ healers, and your enemies’ glass cannons. You want to mark your healers as rally point as mentioned earlier in the guide, so your group stays in formation. You want to mark you opponents glass cannons (heavy dps, light defense) and kill them before they destroy your group. After the glass cannons are out of the way move on to enemy healers. In addition, you may want to assign some of your group members to cc/harass healers while you kill the glass cannons.

5. Conclusion

This is the end of the guide. Keep in mind this guide is made from my experience and what has worked. There are multiple ways to pvp, some of which that are not discussed in this guide simply b/c it would take to long to cover all of them. I hope you have found this guide useful and enjoy your pvp experience in Aion.

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Aion Beginners Guide to PvP

• Group Grinding Guide
• Aion Enchanting Guide
• Abyss Guide
• How to Earn Kinah Guide
• Updated Aion Beta Review & Abyss

The following table might help you choose a crafting profession depending on your class:

Icon	Name	Description
	Cooking	Make food or beverages that give buffs and purify contaminated materials. * Recommended Class: All
	Handicrafting	Make precious metals, wooden weapons and small parts. * Recommended Class: Ranger and Chanter
	Weapon Smith	Make matel weapons * Recommended Class: Warrior series and Scout series
	Armor Smith	Make metal armors, helmets and shields * Recommended Class: Warrior series and Priest series
	Sewing	Make cloth armor and leather armor * Recommended Class: Scout series, Mage series and Priest series
	Alchemy	Make potions, magical weapons and items can upgrade the equipments * Recommended Class: All

The following are the two gathering skills:

Icon	Name	Description
	Extract Vitality	Extracting various vitality on the earth – herb, meat, wood, ore and so on
	Extract Aether	Extract the Aether floating in the sky to get the Aether crystals

For Asmodians, go to the Temple of Artisans in Pandaemonium and find:

• Alchemy: Honir
• Armorsmithing: Kinterun
• Cooking: Lainita
• Handicrafting: Lanse
• Sewing: Zyakia
• Weaponsmithing: Rogi

For Elyos, go to the Artisans’ Hall in Sanctum and find:

• Alchemy: Diana
• Armorsmithing: Vulcanus
• Cooking: Hestia
• Handicrafting: Utsida
• Sewing: Daphnis
• Weaponsmithing: Anteros

Each character can learn every craft and reach a skill of 399; however each character can only become a master at two crafts.

The Basics

Now that you have learned a craft, there are a few important guidelines to follow. The first is accessing your craft window. To do this, open up your Skills window and select the Crafting tab, then Right-Click on your craft to bring up its window. At the top of the window, under the name of the craft, is your experience bar. If you just learned it, it will say ‘1/99′. As you get closer to 99, just like gaining regular experience, the bar will fill up. However, when you max out at 99, you will need to return to your craft’s expert (the names listed above) and pay to learn the next level.

The following are the prices to pay.

• Lesser = ~3,500 Kinah
• Regular = ~17,000 Kinah
• Greater = ~115,000 Kinah
• Expert = ~460,000 Kinah
• Master = ~1,500,000 Kinah?

When you pay the price above to learn the next level, you will gain 1 skill point. For example, if you are at 99 and pay ~17,000 Kinah to become a Regular crafter, your skill will become 100.The large area below the experience bar in the crafting window is the list of your recipes. They are organized by category and you can hide or show each category by clicking the box to the left of the category name. When you accept a Work Order, they will automatically be the first category.

The two boxes on the right side, called Product and Required Materials, are just that. When you click a specific recipe, the end result will appear in the Product box and the required materials to make that recipe will appear in the Required Materials box.On the bottom right of the window are two buttons and a box in-between them. The right button is to craft the number in the box of the currently selected recipe. The left button is craft all, which places the maximum number you can craft of the currently selected recipe into that box.

When you are actually crafting, the success or fail rate is dependent on your skill compared to the recipe and chance. If your skill is equal to that of the recipe’s level, your chance of failing is around 33%. If your skill is 3 points higher than that of the recipe’s level, your chance of failing is around 15%. If your skill is between 5 and 10 points higher, your chance of failing is minimal. Once you are above 10, your chance of failing is incredibly low. Once the recipe turns grey, your chance of failing is 0.

Lastly, as you level up, visit the same merchant as you do for supplies to purchase some of your craft’s recipes. The rest of the recipes can be obtained through quests or are dropped.

Actually Crafting

Handicrafting	Alchemy	Armorsmithing
Sewing	Cooking	Weapon Smith

If you just started a craft, go to your craft’s expert and accept the work order for ‘1P’ (stands for a skill level of 1 point) by clicking ‘Craft Request’. Now, find a workstation and Right-Click it to bring up your craft window. Select the recipe for the work order. Since the quest requires that you make 3 Gritty Clams, change the ‘1′ to a ‘3′ in the box and then hit the craft button. As you’re crafting, each time you fail, hit the > arrow to increase the amount you need to craft to fulfill the quest.

Once you are done, return to your craft’s expert and turn in the work order. Continue this process until you are at a skill of 10 and can receive your first real work order. When you accept the quest for the work order for ‘10P’, open your craft window and select the recipe for the work order you just accepted. Now look at the required materials.

As a general rule, multiple each material by however many finished products you need to complete the quest (if you have the work order for 10P, this number is 6), and then multiple that by a factor of 6 (that is around the least amount of attempts you can possibly do to raise your skill to the point where you can accept the next work order). Once you have calculated how many materials you will need, visit the merchant, who is also inside of the crafting room, and purchase those materials. As your skill becomes higher, it will require more than 6 work orders to raise your skill level by 10.

As a general rule, I usually purchase one extra the amount of work orders I think will raise my skill level by 10 since there are usually failures at the beginning. If you purchase exactly the right amount and fail just once, you won’t be able to finish your last work order and will have to buy more materials. However, purchasing one extra will give you the cushion to fail up to 6 times (more at higher skill levels).

If you need clarification on this, let’s take a look at an example. If you just learned Cooking, you would accept the work order for ‘Salted Pujery Supply 10P’. Open your craft window and select the recipe for ‘Salted Pujery’. The required materials are your given materials and 1 Salt. Now, the required amount of finished products for the quest is 6. Thus, multiple 1 Salt by 6, which is 6 Salts. Now, you need a skill of 20 to obtain the next work order, so multiple the 6 Salts by 7 (6 and 1 spare), which is 42 Salts. Now, visit the merchant and purchase 42 Salts.

The next part is a trick that you will love. Position yourself between your craft’s expert and the closest workstation. Then put yourself as far away from the workstation as possible, but still able to craft. You should be exactly in the middle between the workstation and your craft’s expert. As you finish each work order, simply Right-Click your craft’s expert, turn in the work order, accept the new one, chance the number from ‘1′ to ‘6′, then hit the craft button. You won’t even have to move! This can save massive amounts of time if you plan on crafting for a long time.

Now that you know the basics of crafting and how to craft work orders to raise your skill, the next part of the guide will go into detail of the benefits of each craft.

Detailed Overview of Crafts

This section is aimed at providing you what each craft can make, how difficult or expensive it is to craft, and who the craft itself is good for.

Alchemy

Alchemy is used for creating potions, scrolls, Manastones, orbs, and spellbooks. Other than orbs and spellbooks, all of the creations are considered commodities. Thus, they are not very difficult to craft and are not sold for a lot of Kinah. At all times, you can find lots of potions, scrolls, and Manastones through a Trade Broker. Furthermore, the materials required for crafting these items can be easily found as well. The main perks of Alchemy are having access to your own potions, scrolls, and Manastones (something we all use frequently and may not want to have to buy) and to create orbs and spellbooks if you are of the Mage class. I would not suggest picking Alchemy to simply craft orbs and spellbooks to sell, as there are better crafts for that.

I strongly suggest picking up Alchemy if you are of the Mage class, and simply suggest it for those who gather lots of herbs and want to use them for something. One negative for being an Alchemist is that it requires lots of inventory/bank space. There are lots of various materials (lots of herbs, basic materials, and Manastones) required to craft everything, which can fill up inventories fast.

Armorsmithing

Armorsmithing is used for creating shields, chain helmets, plate helmets, chain armor, and plate armor. Armorsmithing is very useful to have if you are of the Priest or Warrior classes, as you can fill 6 or 7 inventory slots with high quality crafted gear, making a big difference in your character’s statistics. Armorsmithing really only requires Aether, ore, and Kinah. If you are like me and want a full set of the best possible gear, you will spend 5 hours gathering hundreds of ore and Aether to craft 5 of one item in order to get a ‘proc’ out of it. This not only is a huge time sink, but it also becomes very expensive, as turning raw ore into usable ingots is very expensive. And if you do not ‘proc’, the failed item is barely worth as much as you spent on it.

However, it is very nice to be able to have a full set of great gear every 5 levels. Basically, if you are a Priest or Warrior, I’d suggest picking up Armorsmithing; even the basic recipes craft decent gear. If you get ‘proc’s, all the better. As far as using it to make money, it simply requires too much time to be of any real value, but occasionally you will have an extra ‘proc’d item that will sell for a lot.

Cooking

Cooking is only used for creating food. This, more or less, is used for temporarily boosting certain statistics. It is fairly inexpensive to cook and I would suggest it to anyone who uses food on a regular basis. However, there is little money to be made from it if you include the time it takes to gather and cook. Also, you can simply purchase food off of the Trade Broker or from a merchant with near the same benefits for a reasonably cheap price. If you plan on consuming lots of food, as in never being without a buff, then I’d suggest it. However, if you only plan on using food for groups or hard areas, I wouldn’t suggest spending the time raising it up.

Handicrafting

Handicrafting is used for creating rings, earrings, necklaces, glasses (head slot), bows, and staffs. Handicrafting is both expensive and time consuming to craft, but also the best craft for making money. For jewelry, gems are the primary material. It is fairly uncommon throughout areas and can only be gathered once per node, unlike everything else that can be gathered 3 times. This increases the amount of time required to gather lots of materials for attempts. Also, it is pretty much required to ‘proc’ on the initial recipe to make anything of value, both to you or to someone else. Once you do proc, you can then use that for an even better recipe, which also has a chance to ‘proc’. Even if the second recipe doesn’t ‘proc’, you will still have a very valuable item to use or sell. If it does ‘proc’, the value triples.

Overall, Handicrafting is the best craft for making money. You can spend 2 hours gathering and create a few valuable pieces of jewelry that will sell for lots of money, let alone, good rings, earrings, and necklaces are hard to find other than from Handicrafting. If you choose Handicrafting as your main or secondary craft, you will not be disappointed. I would highly suggest Handicrafting for Rangers and Chanters, but really for anyone who is willing to craft, period, as it is very rewarding.

Sewing

Sewing is used for creating belts, cloth helmets, leather helmets, cloth armor, and leather armor. As the same for Armorsmithing, this craft is mainly designed to be used by the other two classes: Scouts and Mages. There is not a big market for making money from this craft and it is just as time consuming and costly as Armorsmithing. If you are a Scout or Mage, I would highly suggest using this craft, even if you do not want to invest the time to create full sets of ‘proc’d gear; as the basics are still useful. And the occasional extra ‘proc’d piece will sell for a pretty penny.

Weaponsmithing

Weaponsmithing is used for creating daggers, swords, maces, greatswords, and polearms. Weaponsmithing is both costly and time consuming to create, but fairly rewarding. If you are a class that uses any of the above weapons, I definitely suggest picking up this craft. However, you can go without it and purchase similar items from the Trade Broker for similar prices. For instance, if a 100 damage sword can be crafted for roughly 100,000 Kinah in materials and failed attempts, then there’s probably a 90 damage sword for sale through the Trade Broker at 90,000 Kinah.

The real benefit from Weaponsmithing is gathering lots of materials and attempting to get as many ‘proc’s as possible and then selling the ones you don’t use. Weaponsmithing works similar to Handicrafting where you need to ‘proc’ the regular recipe in order to use in another recipe and then ‘proc’ that to get the best result. Even if the second fails, you still will have a valuable item. If it succeeds, you will have a very valuable item. The best results can fetch prices in the millions, which is attractive at any level.

Overall, Weaponsmithing is not a bad craft for any class that uses the weapons listed above, but I definitely suggest it for Templars, Gladiators, and Assassins.

After reading this guide, you should have a good idea of how Aion’s crafting system works and the basics of each specific craft. And don’t forget to check out our other guides as well!

If you’re willing to invest some real cash I suggest checking out this Aion strategy guide, it has a chapter about crafting.

Some parts of this article are contributed by kfguides.com.

Come feed your Aion addiction on AionFly.com

Aion Crafting Guide

• Aion Gathering Guide
• How to Earn Kinah Guide
• Group Grinding Guide
• Killerguides Aion Guide Review
• Flying FAQ

Just to recap quickly here before I get started, I went into this with a few preconceptions about the game in terms of graphics, polish, and whether or not the game would be bringing anything new to table.  I have seen some pretty remarkable screenshots of the game, so graphically I set the bar pretty high.  The game has also been out in a foreign market for a while, so I expected a fair amount of polish.  In terms of innovations I approached Aion with fairly low expectations.  As soon as the log-in screen popped up as seen above, I felt somewhat reaffirmed that graphically I would not be disappointed. So with all that being said, let’s get started!
Character Creation

Before we can do anything, we have to create a character.  The game is based around 2 main factions that are to be pitted against each other akin to what we have seen in Warhammer and World of Warcraft.  One of the main differences with Aion is that the game only features 2 races to chose from, the Elyos (Angels) and the Asmodian (Demons).  If your used to some of the other RvR MMOs out there where each team has several races to chose from, this might concern you as it did me.

As soon as I saw the actual character creator, my concerns about character customization for my appearance pretty much vanished.  I have to say in all honesty that Aion sports one of the most customizable character creators I have seen. Aion gives you infinitely more options than many of its competitors, and rivals and possibly exceeds Age of Conan.  For starters, the creator has a color palettes that enable you to make almost any part of your character into any color you can imagine.  This opens the door for some very creative and also very silly looking toons.  Hair, skin, and lip color can be anything from standard colors to wild shades of green and purple.

Sliders and more sliders.  This creator has sliders for everything you mind can think of, as well as stuff probably wouldn’t have considered.  When you make your character, the 2 main aspects are designing your face and your body.  The body creator has 12 sliders alone, one of which includes a height slider that can make your character as small as a child or a tall as an ogre.  As if that wasn’t quite enough, the face customizer has another 25 sliders!  It’s very easy to lose yourself at this point, and if it wasn’t a beta, I might have been there for quite some time trying to sculpt my guys face.  In conclusion here, there are enough options to make your character look unique despite the fact there are only 2 races to chose from.

The other decision you have to make is what archetype do you want your character to be, as well as the gender of your character (this is actually done before the customizing step).  This probably where my first beef comes into play.  I am the type of person who would rather pick a class right out of the gate, rather than an archetype.  My concern with this route is that you do not actually get to play the class you want until you have put in 9 levels into your guy.  While this is not really a large time investment by any means (took me 90 minutes my first time), I’d like to find out sooner rather than later if the class I am going to be is to my liking without having to invest the time to find out.  I don’t want to put in the time and finally get to my class only to find out it’s not a good fit for me, then have to reroll and repeat the early content again just to try again.

User Interface

The Aion User Interface is pretty much the cookie-cutter UI we have seen from most of the traditional style MMOs in recent memory.  If you spent any time at all playing WoW, EQ2, AoC, or WAR, you will pretty much feel right at home instantly.

You will find most of the standard UI elements here along with the ability to customize it a bit.  Aion gives you 3 rows of hotbars to be stacked on top of one another, but they remain completely invisible if there are no abilities dropped into them.  Aion also uses the same exact keyboard buttons assigned to some of the basic functions from previous MMOs as well.  Again if you have played a recent traditional MMO, you will find yourself open your inventory, character window, map, etc. without even having to look up the predefined assigned key.

The character window itself is broken into several different tabs of information.  The main screen features the standard equipment paperdoll which is accompanied by all of your characters primary stats, defensive skills, and resistances.  Below that you will find your backpack contents and gold totals.  One confusing things for me was the fact that instead of using the term backpack, Aion calls it the “Cube”.  The cube initially only has a limited number of slots, but there is an NPC who will expand your cube for a fee.

Another interesting aspect is that much like Warhammer Online, Aion also features an unlockable title system. It seems that by completing certain quest or quest chains you can unlock new titles to be displayed next to your name.  What makes this system a bit different than WAR’s title system is that the Aion titles actually have different bonuses associated to them.  I was able to unlock Tree-Hugger by completing one of the early quest chains that gave me an accuracy boost.  The list seems to have 50 hidden titles in total, so most likely there will be certain titles that end up being favored by certain classes in the game because of the bonuses they give.
Combat

Aion’s combat style follows the traditional MMO style combat from games like WoW, EQ2, and WAR.  The game features the standard tab targeting system, and activated abilities that are on various different cooldowns.  The game’s mini-map color codes aggressive monsters as red, and when you target them you even see their aggro radius as if it were a tiny radar.

The combat sounds and animations struck me as being pretty well done. While the combat seems to be in many ways the same recycled form of combat we have seen in the last few MMOs, it does feel responsive and look well.  The game’s combat does feature positional attacks and a combo type system for chaining weapon attacks together.

They really seem to go out of their way to make the skill chains easy to learn compared to some other MMOs.  As an example, the character I picked was under scout archetype.  One of my stun attacks can only be performed directly after my character evades an incoming enemy attack.  In some previous games, it would be up to the player to watch the combat very closely for the evade message or animation. In Aion, when my character evades I get a visual flashing effect on the ability that pretty much screams “press me!”, that get accompanied by another visual in plain view near the center of my screen.  This makes it fairly user-friendly for even new and inexperienced players to know when to seize the opportunity to use a situational skill.

One final quick note here.  This game also seems to feature items that can be socketed with other stat boosting items to give very specific effects much like the Warhammer talisman system.  The stones can be popped into both weapons and armor and seem to drop fairly regularly off of mobs I fought.  They effects I saw ranged from adding HP and MP, all the way to boosting crit chances and evade percentages.  This gives a little bit of room for the player to mess around with various set ups, and the stones can be removed from a special NPC in case you want to try a different stone.

Quests

Questing in Aion is pretty lame to be honest, there just isn’t really any other way to say it.  You can tell as soon as you talk to your first NPC that your questing career in Aion will pretty much consist of the same drab recycled kill and collection quests that we have seen in WoW, EQ2, AoC, WAR etc. Quest NPCs can be spotted by the usual floating icons over their heads to indicate quest offerings or turn-ins.

This is yet another game where the work of a hero is to collect flowers, kill animals, collect dingleberries, and do some part time work for Fed-Ex.  I won’t harp on this too long as I have already ranted on this countless times in the past, but there really isn’t much anyone can write at this point in a quest box to make collecting sacks of grain into something heroic.  I didn’t really care for it in Warhammer, but at least Warhammer mixed things up with their public quest system, there just isn’t anything along those lines here to help break up what will be a long chain of tedium.

The one thing Aion seems to do a little different in the quest department is their campaign quest system.  The quest journal is divided into normal quests and the campaign quests.  Each of Aion’s major zones seems to feature a campaign series of quests.  These are pretty much a long series of quests that chain together that help walk you through the area and give you a little story at the same time.  The initial level 1-10 noobie area campaign seems to revolve around the fact that you have lost your memory and need to try to recall it.  The bad news is these quests pretty much are the same exact kill and collection quests you will find in the other part of your journal.  When the campaign starts, you will see all of the quests listed with the recommended character level for it, although at the start you can’t see the specifics of the quests.  As you start to progress through the campaign, you will unlock the ability to see quests further down the list as well as their reward.

The one saving grace about the campaign system is that they do seem to go a little out of their way to help drive home the story element that comes along with some of them.  A lot of these quests will reward you with cutscenes at various stages to help give you an idea of what is going on.  Not all cutscenes seem to be created equally though.  In the quest to recover your lost memory, the final stages have some pretty impressive and entertaining ones (as seen above), but at the same time there are some that tell you a farm has been pillaged that seem unnecessary.  I’ll take anything that helps break up the tedium though I guess.

The World

I wanted to devote a section here about some observations I made about the world and some features it has.

The first thing I want to touch on are the graphics and the games performance.  This game probably has the best graphics of all the traditional MMOs on the market with the exception of Age of Conan which I think has a completely different art style.  Performance wise, the game runs great on a wide variety of systems.  I also have to say the sound and music seemed pretty well done as well.  A lot of the musical scores I heard in some of the various areas seemed to be professionally composed and helped add to the immersion factor.

There are a lot of familiar features to Aion that seems to have been copied from other games.  I noticed right out of the gate that they have flight masters for flying you across a zone the same as found in WoW, EQ2, and Warhammer.  The only difference here is that instead of riding a flying animal, your character uses a special pair if wings to fly himself over to wherever he is going.  Aion also seems to have a working mail system and auction house system in place much like its competition.  One good feature that I think is new to this game is a fast way of selling vendor trash type loot at the merchants with a single button.  One thing that I did find somewhat annoying was the fact that binding to a new location costs money.

One of my biggest concerns regarding the world is the layout of it.  The world is divided into 3 parts, one of the Elyos, one for the Asmodians, and the Abyss PvP area in the center.  Each of the race’s section of the world map seem to be divided into 5 main zones and a city.  After leveling from 1-10, I had completely exhausted the first zone, leaving 4 more to be explored.  Given the amount of areas remaining, and the number of levels I have yet to climb, I suspect that the game is extremely linear in terms of how you progress through the content and the map.  In a lot of other games, you are given choices on which zone you want to spend your time adventuring in at any given level.  Since other games have multiple races and multiple areas to go with them, in WoW for example if you tire of the human areas, you can head over to the elves for a change of scenery and content.  I fear that Aion will send you down a very narrow set of rails in order to reach the max level with little room for deviation.  This can be worse if you decide to level up an alt because you will be forced to do all of the exact same content you did the firs time around in all of the same places, including the campaign quests.

This leads to me another concern regarding how someone will experience PvP during the leveling process.  In Warhammer Online, each area you level up is connected to an area controlled by the enemy.  This means that if someone really wants to experience the games PvP at any stage, they only need to wander over towards the local hotspot.  While I haven’t seen this during the preview weekend, I have heard there are portals that can open up randomly that send you to the enemy area for PvP.  Depending on how rare these occur, your exposure to the PvP side of the game could be very limited initially.  I like to have an opportunity to test my character in PvP even at the early stages so I can see how well the class I picked handles itself in a variety of situations.

Flight

No doubt one of the main selling points and innovations of Aion is the flight mechanic.  Initially you can’t fly right out of the gate when you start, but once you reach level 9 and complete the campaign to get your class you will be able to glide and fly after a ceremony.

The flight system seems to work very well and I found the controls very easy to get a handle on.  In the bottom right part of user interface, there is a little flight indicator that tells you if you can fly in a certain area, and how much flight time you have left.  If you are in a flight-enabled area, you simply press the “Page Up” button for your character to sprout their wings and take off.  Once you are in the air, you can press “R” and “F” to fly up and down respectively, or you can hold your right mouse button down to tilt your altitude.  The meter will start to tick down and when its out your wings will vanish sending you plummeting.  You can manually land or turn off your wings by pressing the “Page Down” button. Sometimes I found the fastest way to get back to the ground safely from high up was do turn off my wings to fall, then turn them back on right before I hit the ground (use this method at your own risk).

Having a third dimension to the game is definitely a very interesting feature, and flying was genuinely a fun experience. Having that third dimension made finding some quest locations tougher though, as on several occasions I reach the quest waypoint only to realize my real destination was actually high above me on some floating island.  My only beef is that the PvE areas I explored have certain parts you can fly, and others you can’t, so you will find yourself hitting invisible walls that force you to land when transitioning to a no-fly area.  I would love to see more areas be flight enabled.

PvP

Unfortunately the limitations of the weekend didn’t give me a chance to really be able to check out the PvP.  This is what will inevitably make or break the long term playability of this game.  While I was unable to participate in any PvP, I did notice a few features related to it.

For starters there seems to be a tab on your main character window dedicated to your PvP stats from the Abyss.  The window seems to keep track of your PvP rank, as well as your kills and points earned broken down into various time frames so you can monitor your progress.  Everyone seems to start out as a rank 9 Soldier, and by earning points you can advance through the ranks.  There is also a rank window that breaks down the point totals needed to reach certain ranks, as well as which players on each side are at the top of their game.  Points are earned by killing players in the Abyss, and unlike other MMOs, they are lost when you are killed.  This is one aspect that makes Aion stick out from its competition.  Warhammer and WoW were both notorious for treating people with kid gloves by rewarding them with points even for a loss, while Aion seems to have some sort of consequence for a loss.  This will undoubted stop competitive players from just rushing into fights without any fear of death, which is a good thing in my opinion.

The abyss seems to be the focal point of the Aion endgame and its PvP.  By looking at the map, we can see that it has 3 different layers, and assorted keeps to fight over in it.  I am not really sure how this endgame will stack up against what we saw in WAR, but this is going to be what makes or breaks this game.  The area looks to be a decent size by looking at the maps, and I hope that is the case. If all of the endgame PvP is going to be in this area, it will need to be very large to stop it from getting old.  Despite its flaws, Warhammer had a variety of areas and fronts for people to fight on to add a little variety to the PvP endgame, hopefully this area will offer enough to keep people entertained for a long time.

Conclusion

Aion is a graphically stunning game and has tons of polish.  The game has been out overseas for a little while now, and I think that ultimately that fact will be a large benefit to the North American fans.  Since the game has been out and patched for a while in other markets, NA players will be getting a game that is polished and feels complete.  There are not that many MMOs that have come out in the last few years that players have been able to say that about.  The game has a real focus on endgame PvP, and the patching the game has gone through already has no doubt made class balance less of an issue.  I am glad to see that there is a loss for death in PvP, as bind and zerg rushing seems to plague a lot of other traditional style MMOs that have tried for the same goal.

On the flip side, Aion strikes me as very linear game.  The way the overworld is layed out has me worried that in addition to being constricted, players will be forced to stomach through the same content over and over again every time they level up another character.  Aion also is not a game that is oozing with innovation.  Outside of the flight mechanic, I think a lot of people will legitimately be able to criticize this game for being somewhat of a clone in some aspects of some of the more recent traditional games.  The endgame PvP is going to be the real test of whether or not this game breaks through to people and distinguishes itself from the rest, or if it gets written off as another MMO using an already exhausted formula.  I think despite that, this game will appeal to a lot of people who might be current WoW and WAR subscribers.  The game already has a huge following overseas, so it should be interesting to see how it fairs in a completely different market.

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Source: Paragus on mmorpg.com

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