This is as good as a free aion guide is going to get. Extremely extensive for a free aion leveling guide. It almost feels like a paid aion guide, while going through the guide, I felt like rating it like a paid guide but controlled myself . I think if we color code the instructions, put up maps and illustrations along the way and add a few tips and videos along the way and it will be almost as good as the KFguides Aion leveling guide 1-50. So far Akyros has completed upto level 25 for the Elyos faction. He is apparently busy with leveling his character which i am told is pretty high up in his server. Kudos , this one sure is amazing for a free elyos leveling guide.

You can visit the author at Akyros

The guide follows…

Poeta Grocer List

If you are not leveling your extracting and would still like to do the quests that require you to extract this is what you need to buy in order to complete the quests.

· 10 Aria for Collecting Aria. (1,310 EXP)

· 7 Iron Ore for Tula’s Music Box. (2,950 EXP)

AKARIOS PLAINS

Get Quest: Sleeping On The Job from Elpas(1204, 1053).

Along the way you should see a flower called Aria. You will need 10 for Quest: Collecting Aria. Loot: them along the way. I like to gather almost everything I can until I no longer get experience for gathering it. Leveling your Extracting is very slow, if you want to level fast do not level Extracting.

Go North.

Turn In: Sleeping on the Job to Mires(1141, 1032). (50 EXP)

Get Quest: Kerubar Hunt.

Kill: 3 Striped Kerubs running around West of here.

Turn In: Kerubar Hunt to Mires. (330 EXP)

Get Quest: Grain Thieves.

Loot: 4 Kerubar Grain Sacks from the Kerub village to the West.

Turn In: Grain Thieves to Mires. (380 EXP)

Get Quest: Report To Polina.

Follow road North to Kales(985, 1134).

Get Quest: The Snuffler Headache.

Go South across the road.

Kill: Grain Snufflers for 4 Long Snuffler Tails.

Turn In: The Snuffler Headache to Kales. (530 EXP)

Get Quest: Helping Kales.

Follow Road North to Akarios Village.

As you enter the village you will Get Quest: Kalio’s Call.

On your left you will see an Obelisk(854, 1207). Bind to this Obelisk so you can Return here.

Get Quest: Abandoned Goods from Minalinerk(851, 1253).

Turn In: Kales’s Request to Uno(847, 1257). (300 EXP)

Get Quest: Uno’s Ingredients.

Turn In: Report to Polina to Polinia(825, 1242). (210 EXP)

Get Quest: Collecting Aria.

Turn In: Collecting Aria. (1,310 EXP)

Turn In: Kalio’s Call to Kalio(821, 1241). (10 EXP)

Turn In: A New Skill to your Class Trainer. Then buy manuals for new skills. (250 EXP)

Exit to the Northwest.

Follow the road until you see Muranes(745, 1156).

Update Quest: The Kerub Threat.

Go East and Kill: 5 Smallhorn Kerub.

Update Quest: The Kerub Threat at Muranes.

Head to the West to Ager’s Farm.

Kill: Pinkbeak Airon for 6 meat.

Kill: Bigfoot Kerubs for 5 Kerubar Fangs.

Loot: 5 Wine Barrels.

Head North around Cliona Lake to Feira’s Dock.

Get Quest: To Fish in Peace.

Go West.

Kill: 5 Brown Bristle Brax and 5 Rake Claw Slink.

**The Brown Bristle Brax have a chance to drop Broken Axe Handle which Starts Quest: The Lost Axe. Farm the Brax here until it drops. It has never taken more than 10 kills for me.

Get Quest: The Lost Axe from Broken Axe Handle.

Return to Feira.

Turn In: To Fish In Peace. (1,250 EXP)
> ot; style=”text-align: left;”>Head back towards Akarios Village. **Kill: mobs in the area until you are within 2300xp of level 5. Go to Muranes. Update Quest: The Kerub Threat. Get Quest: A Book For Namus from Melampus(786, 1188). Turn In: The Kerub Threat to Kalio. (1,000 EXP) Turn In: Uno’s Ingredients to Uno.
pan style=”color: #00cccc;”>(610 EXP)

Turn In: Abandoned Goods to Minalinerk. (750 EXP)

Get Quest: Pernos’s Robe from Mune(868, 1249).

Exit Akarios to the Northwest.

Follow the road North to Pranoa(692, 1206).

Get Quest: Light Up The Night.

Follow the road Northeast to Daminu Forest.

Update Quest: Request Of The Elim at Ampeis(572, 1358).

Get Quest: Mushroom Thief.

Update Quest: Request Of The Elim at Forest Protector Noah(559, 1376).

Turn In: The Lost Axe at Namus(559, 1379). (420 EXP)

Turn In: A Book For Namus. (450 EXP)

Get Quest: Insomnia Medicine.

Get Quest: The Elim’s Message.

Go North and then East while doing the following:

Kill: Everglade Sylphen to get 5 Sylphen Wings.

Kill: Adult Sparkie to get 6 Sparkie’s Luciferin.

Kill: 8 Shortbristle Bellepig.

Kill: Grove Abex for 5 Abex Skin.

**Abex have a chance of dropping Namus’ Diary which Begins Quest: The Nymph’s Gown.

Kill: Abex until it drops.

Get Quest: The Nymph’s Gown from Namus’ Diary.

Wake Up: 2 Sleeping Elders(Around 528, 1541).

**Kill: Mobs until you are within 2700xp of lvl 6.

Use Return to Teleport back to Akarios Village.

Turn In: Pernos’s Robe to Mune. (2,740 EXP)

Update Quest: Insomnia Medicine at Uno, pick either Juice or Soup.

Get Quest: Ancient Cube from Baevrunerk(840, 1257). Also, expand your cube if you haven’t yet.

Get Quest: Polinia’s Ointment from Polinia.

Exit Northwest and head up the road to Pranoa.

Turn In: Light Up The Night. (2,250 EXP)

Return to Fiera’s Dock.

Update Quest: The Elim’s Message.

Follow the road into Daminu Forest.

Turn In: Mushroom Thief at Ampeis. (1,580 EXP)

Update Quest: Request of the Elim at Forest Protector Noah.

Turn In: Insomnia Medicine at Namus. (1,150 EXP)

Update Quest: The Nymph’s Gown.

Get Quest: A Taste of Namus’s Medicine.

**If it is after dark(after 7pm and before 7am) go to Nymph’s Pond(480, 1545). Grab the clothes and RUN AWAY or the Nymph will 1-shot you.

Go East to return to the road.

Follow the road East to Melponeh’s Campsite.

Update Quest: The Illegal Logging at Oz(433, 1753).

Get Quest: Oz’s Prayer Beads.

Update Quest: Neutralizing Odium at Tula(430, 1757).

Get Quest: Thinning out Worgs.

Turn In: Polinia’s Ointment at Melponeh(421, 1754). (1,970 EXP)

Turn In: A Taste of Namus’s Medicine at Lonia(423, 1749). (1,680 EXP)

Go South and then West.

Kill: Dukaki Woodcutters and Lumberjacks for 6 Kobold Axes.

Kill: 9 Gray Worgs.

**If you were not able to get the clothes for The Nymph’s Gown before check to see if it is after dark and do it if it is. Abandon it if you still can’t do it.

Go West to Forest Protector Noah.

Update Quest: Request of the Elim.

Turn In: The Nymph’s Gown to Namus if you were able to do it. (3.120 EXP)

Run back towards Melponeh’s Campsite.

Along the road you will see Daminu(599, 1540).

Update Quest: Request of the Elim.

Talk to Belpartan.

Update Quest: Request of the Elim.

Kill: mobs until you are within 5,000xp of level 7.

Use Return or Die if Return is still cooling down to go back to Akarios Village.

Turn In: Request Of The Elim at Kalio. (2,830 EXP)

Turn In: The Elim’s Message at Asteros(823,1268). (2,430 EXP)

Get Quest: Delivering Pernos’s Robe from Mune.

Visit Flight Transporter Kustanon(804, 1242) and Fly To Melponeh’s Campsite.

Turn In: Thinning out Worgs at Tula. (4,050 EXP)

Get Quest: Tula’s Music Box, your gathering needs to be level 15 for this.

Get Quest: Melponeh’s Mushroom Research from Melponeh.

Run West.

Kill: Grove Abex for 1 Abex Horn.

Head East to the road then North to Pernos(241, 1639).

Turn In: Delivering of Pernos’ Robe with Abex Horn. (4,950 EXP)

Get Quest: Where’s Tutty?.

Go Southeast around the hill and then turn North into Kabarah Strip Mine.

Loot: 7 Iron Ore.

Run up to Tutty who is roasting on the spit(241, 1639).

Loot: the Ancient Cube(232, 2005).

Loot: Fluid Sample from the Cauldron(291, 2079).

Kill: 12 Dukaki at the mine, Woodcutters do not count.

Use Return or Die to go to Akarios Village.

Turn In: Ancient Cube at Baevrunerk. (3,650 EXP)

Fly To Melponeh’s Campsite.

Update Quest: Illegal Logging at Oz.

Run Northwest back to Pernos.

Turn In: Where’s Tutty?. (4,150 EXP)

Get Quest: Avenging Tutty.

Update Quest: Neutralizing Odium.

Follow road Northwest.

Kill: Elder Sparkie and Pincer Head Sparkle for 3 Oz’s Prayer Beads.

Kill: Fearless Fungie for 5 Mushroom Hearts.

Kill: Spore Shade Fungen for 3 Mushroom Spores.

Return to Pernos.

Update Quest: Neutralizing Odium.

Go East into Kabarah Strip Mine.

Kill: Dukaki Brawlers and Smackers for 5 Kobold Spoons.

Kill: 3 Tursin Outlaws.

Put neutralizer into Cauldron.

Kill: all mobs as you head back to Melponeh’s Campsite until you are at least 27,035/52,435 EXP into level 8.

Return to Melponeh’s Campsite.

Turn In: Illegal Logging at Oz. (4,160 EXP)

Turn In: Oz’s Prayer Beads. (3,350 EXP)

Turn In: Melponeh’s Mushroom Research at Melponeh. (4,950 EXP)

Update Quest: Neutralizing Odium at Tula.

Fly to Akarios Village.

Turn In: Neutralization at Kalio. (6,970 EXP)

Get Quest: Barring the Gate.

Fly to Melponeh’s Campsite.

Update Quest: Barring the Gate at Oz.

Exit North and head back to Pernos.

Turn In: Avenging Tutty. (6,050 EXP)

Update Quest: Barring the Gate.

You should be level 9 now. If you are not, kill mobs near Pernos until you get to level 9. As soon as you turn level 9 do the Ascension. It gives enough EXP to put you 1 EXP from level 10, and you can’t get to level 10 until you do the Ascension quest. So, it is pointless to turn in any quests or kill anything.

Update Quest: Ascension at Pernos.

Use Return or Die to get to Akarios Village.

Exit North.

Go to the Island in Cliona Lake.

Fill Pernos’ Potion Bottle.

Go to Daminu Forest and follow the road to Daminu.

Update Quest: Ascension.

Run North and return to Pernos.

Update Quest: Ascension.

Talk to Belpartan.

This time through the cutscene you will have to kill 5 mobs. Be ready for that.

Turn In: Ascension to Pernos and choose the Path you would like to follow. (73,200 EXP)

**Do Not get the next quest from Pernos yet. Tell him there are some things you need to finish up.

Run North.

Continue following the road to Pao(262, 1277).

Update Quest: Barring the Gate.

Turn In: Tula’s Music Box. (2,950 EXP)

Get Quest: Suspicious Ore.

Get Quest: Scouting Timolia Mine.

Go West and enter Timolia Mine and make your way to the end of it.

Kill: everything in your way for 5 Engine Parts.

Loot: Suspicious Box for 6 Suspicious Ore.

Update Quest: Barring the Gate at Ino(167, 1142).

Continue through the cave, when you enter the last room turn left.

Destroy: the Green Power Generator(253, 1066).

Go back across the room.

Destroy: the Blue Power Generator(227, 1012).

Go up the ramp.

Destroy: the Violet Power Generator(291, 1017).

Destroy: the Abyss Gate(296, 1016).

Exit the cave and return to Pao.

Turn In: Suspicious Ore. (5,540 EXP)

Turn In: Scouting the Timolia Mine. (6,550 EXP)

Use Return to go to Akarios Village.

Turn In: Barring the Gate to Kalio. (11,500 EXP)

Fly To: Melponeh’s Campsite.

Exit North and run to Pernos.

Update Quest: A Ceremony in Sanctum.

Congrats! You have finished Poeta!

Aion Farming Guide – In this section we’ll share some interesting and useful Aion Farming Guides. This post primarily focuses on Farming Guides for Asmodian race. We’ll soon update guides for Elyos as we get hands on them.

Asmodian Farming Guides

Sorcerer & Spiritmaster Stigma (Curse of Roots)

This is the first excellent farming area you will stumble upon as an asmodian is the Ettin’s right outside of Morheim. These Ettins have a chance to drop the Curse of Roots Stigma for the Sorcerer and Body Root Stigma for the Spiritmaster. The Stigma’s are very popular among the Sorcerer and Spiritmaster classes.

This Stigma has a relatively low drop rate but can sell upwards of 3 mill Kinah. So if you spend your time farming here and you actually get one, it will be well worth the effort. Below is a map of where you can find the Ettins for farming the Stigma. Where you see me on the map is where I usually farm them.

Ranger Sleep Arrow Stigma + Templar Holy Shield Stigma

The Ranger’s Sleep Arrow Stigma has a chance to drop off the Savvy Daru’s that spawn at the southern end of the Morheim Snow Field. The Savvy Daru’s are found around the Ruthless Worgs that also have a chance to drop the Templar’s Holy Shield Stigma. This makes this spot a double whammy of farming goodness.

The Savvy Daru’s here are neutral to you meaning they will not attack unless you attack them first. The Ruthless Worgs on the other hand will attack you if you get too close. If you’re in the area doing the repeatable quests I recommend sticking around here for a bit.

Advanced Dual Weild Gladiator Stigma & Curse of Roots Sorcerer Stigma

The Wailing Tayga is another great farming area. They can be found right over top of “Morheim” in Morheim Snow Fields. Their is an abundant amount of Tayga’s here for you to farm from. The Tayga’s drop the Gladiator Stigma for Advanced Dual Weild and the Sorcerer Stigma for Curse of Roots.

Both of these Stigma’s will net you quite a bit on the Auction House, the Sorcerer’s one will grab you even more. The Gladiator one will net you about 50-100k depending on your server and the Sorcerer one will net you up in the millions.

Healing Conduit for Chanters & Flurry for Assassins

The final place to farm Stigma’s at level 20 is the Poison Wing Vespine in Bursthonin. These mobs have a chance to drop both the Healing Conduit for Chanters as well as Flurry for Assassins. The Poison Wing Vespines are quite spread out over the whole area around the Polluted Waste.

This area is probably the worst place to farm for Stigma’s out of all the level 20 Stigma Farming areas. I’d actually only recommend you farm here if you need the Chanter or Assassin Stigma or if for some reason it is inflated on your server.

Source: almarguides.com

Sadly it’s not until hitting level 17 and exploring the Miraju Holy Ground south of Verteron Citadel. Speak to Anontrite at the shrine to gain the [Coin] Dampening Spirits quest which requires you to kill 14 Atmosphere Spirits and 8 Frost Wind Spirits. This should not be too much of a challenge at the level you are at so go off and tackle the beasts. After fulfilling the quest and getting your coin, initiate the quest again. Then, before flying down to tackle more spirits, sell the miscellaneous drops to the general store nearby and you will notice that most of these items sell for quite a lot and earn you a good amount of kinah.

Most returns would net me around 5-7000 Kinah and as an added bonus the mobs in this area seem to drop valuable items that can be sold at a good price to the Auction Brokers in town. The fact they also seem to offer a nice amount of experience makes this a great place to train up.

You can repeat this quest 100 times and earn coins which can be swapped for random pieces of armour it is well worth putting some time into as well as a quick way of earning some extra cash in Verteron.

Source:aion.blogs.gamerzines.com
Author:aionlauren

The Guide follows..

INTRODUCTION
Disclaimer: First of all, this is not an in detail mechanics or number crunching guide. It is merely an overview and summery of questions I get asked often in Private Messages and aimed at players who are new to the Chanter Class. Therefore I tried to refrain from complicated formulas and just generally write about the class and some debates going on about the Chanter.

Disclaimer2: I am horribly sorry this turned out so long but I pretty much wrote down anything I experienced while playing my Chanter in C-Aion and have been working on this for quite a long time now. Feel free to :tldr me as much as you like. Some pictures are going to be added later today to break the huge wall of text.

Chanters are one of the two Classes that evolve from the Priest Archetype. In contrast to the Cleric whose fighting style is mostly spell and ranged based, Chanters are the melee fighters with only few additional ranged skills strewn in, among them advanced stigma options later in game.

The Chanter is THE support class in Aion. Except early on and much later in game you might not feel like a force on your own and your main role is to enhance and backup your group and group members in whatever task they have to fulfill but there is no one who comes remotely close to bring the best out of our group members like a Chanter does. You will be all over the place, keeping an eye on the action and decide from situation to situation what will benefit your group the most. There is really no rule on how you need to play or what is expected from you but more on your options later on.

Both Priest Classes start off quite powerful and you will breeze through the levels until around 25. From then on you might find yourself struggling a bit more, depending on your gear. This change occurs because most skills you will get in the middle of your leveling curve, are buffs. You won’t get many more heals and their scaling is not as strong as the Clerics either. You also won’t get many more choices in terms of attacks, again, until after level 40.
You will basically go from a quite strong melee fighter to a full support class and eventually have to decide to further strengthen your support role or add more damage to your build with the advanced stigmas.

The unorthodox skill gain is a downside to the Chanter leveling process but it is, in my humble opinion, worth to push through to get to the brighter side of the class towards end game. And if you are aware of this fact there shouldn’t be much that would let you down while playing a Chanter.

The biggest difference in damage compared to other classes is the lack of burst of any kind (minus the Promise of Wind procc which adds a little bit of a burst factor but it’s, as most Chanter tools, dependent on luck and not really an active tool you can use whenever you like or even depend on). With that in mind, Chanters have very nice sustained damage, which benefits us in longer fights. With the changes to damage on PCs in PvP, this suits us not badly at all.

As mentioned, the Skill gain for Chanters and the scaling of both heals and damage is a bit weird during leveling. On the upside, all your buffs will help you while solo pveing and reduce your downtime to a minimum.

The funny part about the Chanter class is, that it is harder to understand on how to play a Chanter to its full potential then actually playing one. It’s not about swinging our staff and look cool and have a few buffs up here and there. It is about understanding that a Chanter needs to combine it’s given tools to achieve the best possible way of enhancing his/her group.

A quick word on knockdowns and stuns. If you crit on an attempted stun move and the crit results in a knockdown the knockdown will be applied while overwriting the stun component.

CHANTER SPECIFIC SKILLS

• Mantras
  Mantras are one of our class defining buff types. You can have any combination of three Mantras up indefinitely without any costs and you can switch them at any time. They are active on every group member as long as they stay in range (average 25m with skills throughout the leveling process) or until you die in which case you lose all your maintained buffs including any buffs you had active through consumables of any sort.

  Despite the fact that you might see a fourth mantra flash for a few seconds while switching, it is not of any kind of benefit to try to weave them. You won’t have time to keep yourself busy trying to do that constantly and there is also no use in trying to create a macro for it. You would have to permanently click it in order to gain any benefits and totally neglect anything else.

  If you click on a fourth Mantra while having three active it will overwrite the oldest one automatically.
  That means that in order to actively chose which you want to have active you need to select/click an already active one to cancel it first and free up a slot for your new one before you in turn activate the new one you want to add.

  Additionally, you can create mantra macro sets if you want to. I have one for just running/training with speed and all set to defensive mantras or my solo mantra combo for example. Most of the time I prefer to switch them manually, however.

  An additional Chanter in your group will add a 4th Mantra slot but it is hard to really determine which Mantra will be up as they tend to switch in and out on the group if your second Chanter has three active as well. Generally speaking it is not advised to have more then one Chanter in the same group.
  Another advantage of Mantras is the fact that they can’t be removed by Spiritmasters’ disenchants.

• Healing
  Compared to our counter class the Clerics, we have nowhere as many tools as them. When it comes to healing they have no rivals and if you want to be mainly going for a healing class you should probably try the Cleric.
  That doesn’t mean we can’t stand our own in a group, though. We just have to be much smarter about healing and work with whatever avoidance and mitigation tools we have for the group.

  Our only single target heal Healing Light is the one you get during your priest years. It always stays at 2 second base cast time and doesn’t scale up as nicely as the Cleric version who also gets additional group heals and faster/instant heals. You have the option to get a single powerful self heal later on, depending on your stigma choices.

  We do get a few nice choices of Heal over Times (Light of Rejuvenation which gets replaced by Word of Revival) . Despite the fact that you might be tempted to think they are underwhelming, they really are not if used for what they are meant to be used for: Rather then trying to patch someone up after a hit our HoTs are meant for damage mitigation. Which means you will have to use them much more actively then re-actively. Knowing what you are fighting is a very big advantage for a Chanter.

  At lvl 34 you get Word of Life which does stack with Word of Revival and last but not least at lvl 45 you will want to get your hands on another Hot: Recovery Spell

  Knowing about incoming AE damage and if its 360, conical or frontal only, is an important factor of deciding if you need to keep the HoTs on your whole group and maybe even try to backup a bit with hp recovery mantra or if it is enough to just keep your melee fighters hotted or even only your MT if the attacks are only frontal and have another more important mantra running instead.
  HoTs also negate and mitigate any kind of poison damage or damage over time in general, quite nicely and are the most mana efficient way of using heals.
  Word of Spellstopping and Divine Curtain the two Elyos Racial skills have both a HoT component added to the Damage Reduction Shield.
  Careful with Group HoT casting: make sure all your group members are in range for the cast.

  In general if you combine your mitigation and defense buffs with your heals and hots you should be able to keep your group up through most situations, minus heavy AE boss fights or with a tank that is heavily under geared. Telling your squishies to stay out of AE range (be it overall range or out of frontal AEs) will make your job much easier.

  As an example, I did solo heal a group of 4 Sins and a Gladiator Tank against a lvl 47 Elite Quest boss with heavy AE attacks, and quite a few special skills including adds when I was lvl 42. The group however knew how to use Greater Healing Potions and in general helped with the overall outcome.

• Out of group buffs
  We share the Blessing of Rock and Blessing of Health Buffs with the Clerics. Those two buffs can be cast on any friendly player in or outside of your group and stay on the target for 1h. Blessing of Health eventually gets an upgrade from 10% HP to 15% HP at level 31 and gets stronger compared to the Clerics. Additionally with the new 1.5 Stigmas there is an upgrade to Blessing of Rock as well. Which gives us eventually the best out of group buffs in the game.

• Self only buffs
  The Promise Line is the line containing our self buffs that all last for 30 Minutes. Only one Promise Type Buff can be active at a time.
  • The one I prefer to use is Promise of Wind which adds a chance to proc additional damage on a successful attack.
  • Promis of Aether is unlocked with a stigma. I personally find it useless, because it takes up a stigma slot to enable it. I prefer having a damage proc chance over a chance to proc mana on attack. Mana pots are a better trade-off in my eyes.
  • Promise of Earth has a 10% chance to proc a slow on your opponent if you hit but it doesn’t stack with Hallowed Strike slow, which makes it kind of redundant for me.
  • Additionally we get Focused Parry which boosts our Parry by 300. The cool down matches the active time so as soon as you see the cool down met you can reactivate it again (and you should)
  • Blessing of Wind is a short term burst self only upgrade stigma additionally to the Skillbook Version. As of this moment I don’t know if it stacks with the baseline skill but I would sure hope so.

• Short Term Group Buffs
  Those are the most mana expensive buffs but also net the most gain in terms of pay-offs.
  All of them cost 300 mana to cast and stay up between 15 and 30 seconds.

  I love to have the two short cool-down buffs up as much as I can, if not constantly. But if you plan to do that, be prepared to have a huge amount of Greater/Major Mana Pots with you. Otherwise decide which of the buffs you need to cast at which moment to get the best out of it.

  • Word of Protection and Word of Inspiration can be kept up constantly, as mentioned. The Cooldown is 5 seconds shorter then the buff duration for both of those words.
  • Word of Quickness is slightly different with a long CD and active time of 30 Seconds for a hefty 50% cast time reduction on all spells with a casting time.
  • Swiftwinglasts for 30 seconds as well with a cool down of 3 mins and will boost your flight speed and that of your group for the time being.
    As always make sure non of your group members are out of range while using your group buffs. Specially in the case of using 300 Mana per cast.

BUFFS, ARE THEY REALLY WORTH IT?
This is a much discussed and debated question. My personal opinion is yes, specially end game wise. This discussion also comes up often because Chanters are not a straight forward class to play.
I am a strong believer that being a good Chanter heavily relies on you combining the tools you have at your disposal in the best way possible for a given situation opposed to just using one after the other. Most classes have straight forward tools which are clearly meant for a specific occurrence whereas a chanter has to combine several skills to really get the best benefit out of it. Aion is a stacking game and you should use that fact as much as you can.

To go with some numbers anyway here is some of the setup I’ll be looking at at lvl 50 with my chosen stigma build focused on Support:

This is with Invincibility Mantra, Protection Mantra and Shield Mantra up
Blessing of Rock and Blessing of Health on every member
Word of Inspiration and Word of Protection active
Word if Wind active

I believe that going the defensive route with Mantras in pvp is better then attack mantras. Most burst and damage classes will already focus on Damage anyway and are likely at the cap for most of the stats (minus raw attack). Thus the gain with diminishing returns in mind would most probably be less.

On an additional note, to be seeing the real benefit of the Chanters buffs you would also have to take into consideration that the same time we do apply buffs we also use our debuffs. In this case Physical Defense Debuffs which in turn adds indirectly to another increase on top of our buffs, in melee attack power.

With that being said, is the Chanter a class that has any skill that is a real must have in a given situation. No, it is not. But there are only a few classes who really do have such skills (Cleric, Templar and Sorcs).

The whole beauty of the Chanter doesn’t rest on one or a few specific skills like for other classes but in the combination and how you use them. Buffs, Debuffs coupled with mitigation from HoTs and direct Heals on top make a very powerful playfield if you know how to use it

STIGMAS
Even though you can be creative in your stigma choice, in the end it comes down to two builds to chose from, depending if you want a more Damage oriented or Support oriented build.
In the case of going for the one of the two highest Advanced End Game Stigmas you will have 5 Stigmas already picked out for you as prerequisites, only leaving you with 2 slots to freely chose from. However, since Recovery Spell is pretty much a MUST have stigma, essentially you are only left with one single slot to freely assign after your own likings.

• Offensive Stigma Build
  This will get you access to
  Aion Armory – Chanter Stigma Calculator – By Terhix
  Combined with an offensive, aggressive Manastone build, this will enable you to open a nice can of whoop-*** on your opponents.
• Defensive Stigma Build
  This will net you the Invincibility Mantra in the end
  Aion Armory – Chanter Stigma Calculator – By Terhix

I personally find the Healing Conduit (which regains HPs not MPs as noted on the tooltip) and Promise of Aether Stigma Lines a total waste and instead would chose any other stigma to fill my last spot.
You are however free to not go for the advanced stigmas and freely combine stigmas as you see fit.

The three additional slots to the right in your stigma field are where your Advanced Stigmas need to go. However you can fill those slots with any normal stigmas as well, instead.

GEAR OPTIONS

• Armor choices:
  Chanter, like Clerics can wear all types of armor with the exception of plate.
  Chain is generally the armor type mostly preferred due to the highest possible physical defense.
  You don’t really have to worry extremely about particular stats on your gear. Every piece of Chain has Concentration as one of the base stats which will help you not get interrupted during casting (in our case this is mostly important for heals).

  Generally chain armor tends to have HP, MP and Magic Boost on most pieces. Despite the fact that we don’t really benefit much from MB it’s not complete waste. Smite, Promise of Wind and Blessing of Wind damage proccs, Heaven’s Judgment’s skill damage, Godstone procs if you have a magic damage one will benefit from it. However it is in general advised that you are trying to get your hands on chain gear with stats that benefit our Class more, such as attack speed, phys attack. You won’t use Smite after a while because like Heaven’s Judgment it doesn’t scale more while leveling and most of our attacks are still physical damage.

  It is still under heavy debate and testing if any lighter type of armor such as Leather or Cloth would be more beneficial in terms of either resistance or avoidance. I personally think that Evasion gear slotted with additional evasion and crit could make for a very nice option. I did try some leather sets but didn’t have enough time to test it properly. Depending on if it’s possible to get Evasion high enough to not have to sacrifice too many manastone slots it might be a nice alternative.

  Additionally, evasion could be a good choice to have a safer way of meleeing on big boss fights such as Fortress Guardian fights or any fight with big 360 attacks. Our parry and HP is normally not enough to survive a big AE hit of one of those big uglies. An additional advantage to a mixed evasion/parry build is that evasion and parry both get checked after eachother thus creating a higher evasion/mitigation gain. Not being hit at all vs hit for less is always a winner. Specially considering that if you pass your Evasion check, no negative effects are applied either this might play a big role in pvp fights to evade CC of any kind.

• Weapon choices:
  Mace/Shield versus Staves
  Maces have a chance to crit with higher damage but lower sustained damage over a longer period of time whereas staffs have lower crit cap damage but higher consistent damage over time and the additional knockdown chance on crit (like all 2h weapons).

  Pros for mace/shields:

  • Higher actual crit number for damage
  • More overall manastone slots
  • Possible Block from shield usage (this however means you WILL have to slot for a lot of shield defense in order to get remotely close to the parry number we get naturally and due to one of our buffs).
  • Added physical defense through shield depending on the shields stats.

  Pros for Staffs:

  • Nice overall sustained damage
  • Knockdown chance on crit (very valuable in pvp and the reason most chanters slot crit)
  • Slightly higher parry base numbers which complements our high natural parry due to scaling and buffs available.

  My preferred choice of weapon is the staff but there is no reason you shouldn’t have a backup set of Shield/Mace to change to according to the situation. My choice would be to use the additional Manastone Slots you gain with the Shield and Mace Combo for Evasion stones.

  Extend-able weapons:
  These weapons have a sightly longer range and therefor give you a nice edge against your opponents.
  As of now it is hard to find more then one extend-able staff. As far as I know there is only one available right now and it drops from the end boss in the lvl 50 Theobomos Lab instance.

  There is, however, a nice amount of maces more or less easily available through instances or crafting (the first crafted lvl 35 Experts Gold Mace version for example).

• Mitigation and Avoidance in comparison with gear:
  The following order is being used for checking if an attack lands and if it does for how much:
  Evasion check -> Block check -> Parry check
  If you pass the Evasion Check you will not get the hit at all and no negative states are being applied to you.
• Enchanting
  Enchant your gear, I can’t stress this enough. Do it! The differences in stats are really big.
  I personally like to enchant my weapon to +10 first for easier grinding but make sure you don’t neglect your armor either.

  As a rule of thumb you need the following level of Enchantment Stones for:

  • White Item = Item’s Level +1-10 Levels
  • Green Item = Item’s Level +5-15 Levels
  • Blue Item = Item’s Level +15-30 Levels
  • Orange Item = Item’s Level +25-40 Levels
• Manastones
  Heh, had to be here, right? This would probably fill a whole book in its own so I try to keep it short:

  Slotting for Magic Boost or Magic Power is in our case a total waste. We don’t have enough Magic Skills to give up precious Slots which can be used in a much better and more beneficial way. Heals are NOT influenced by Magic Boost.

  Most picked Manastones for Chanters

  • Crit Manastones: Added Knockdowns and Offense as well as added Defense (due to the Knockdown effect)
  • Parry: Added Mitigation and reactive skill influence
  • Attack: Added Offense/Damage
  • Magic Resistance: Defense
  • HP Manastones: Added Survability/Defense

  Lesser used Manastones

  • Accuracy: Helps hit higher level players/monsters and might help with landing your physical ranged stun but I need to do some more testing here
  • Magic Accuracy: Helps land magic based stuns
  • Shield Defense: Add to Mitigation/block
  • Evasion: Add to Avoidance

  There are different schools of thoughts about Manastone builds but if you are a staff Chanter then you should focus on crit until the softcap at 440 to get your knockdown rate as high as possible. Later on you will probably be able to exchange some stones if you can get your hand on gear with high crit modifiers.

  Parry stones both add to your mitigation and complement the already high parry gain Chanters get while leveling and their self buff. Since Parry is not linked to diminishing returns per se but checked against your opponents accuracy from encounter to encounter there is no real number to look out for.

  Attack Stones add both to your Base Attacks and Skill Attacks and would be a nice addition to a offensive Chanter focusing on a crit/attack build.

  Slotting for pvp is not really different then your main choice for Manastones. It comes down to your decision of being more offensive (i.e crit, attack, accuracy), defensive (i.e evasion, parry, magic resists,) or a mix of both (i.e crit/parry).

• Godstones
  Eventually, if you are lucky enough you might get your hands on a Godstone drop (can be found on lvl 40 elites and up), which can be socketed into a Godstone enabled weapon in the main racial cities next to the skinning NPC. Those drops are VERY rare however, so good luck..
  The gold versions are quested through the PvP Questline.

  Even though I personally use a Fire Direct Damage Godstone on C-Aion I will most likely go for a Silence one for EU Release, if I have the chance. As nice as it is to see procs for up to 3k go off, it is just very unreliable at 1% and not really helping against my personal enemies the casters. I find myself struggling much more with any kind spell casters then against enemies with physical attacks.
  Since my overall build will most likely be nicely setup against melee classes in general, I like to add a nice counter for casters as well.

  There are however several choices and if you want to compliment a full damage build then some Direct Damage Proc would be the way to go. A little note on the edge is that the root Godstone doesn’t break on damage, but that is probably more important information for ranged classes.

  In the end it will come down to your own preference and how to best add to your existing setup as there is a nice range to chose from.

CHANTER AND FIGHTING
As a note at the beginning it is important to mention that every melee attack we apply adds a slight short time debuff to your target. This debuffs consist of Attack Speed Slow, Run and flight speed snare and physical defense debuffs (which do stack which eachother). You might to keep that in mind if you decide to just stand back and heal.

• Solo PvE
  Not much to say here: in the middle if the leveling curve we kill slower then most other classes but we do it without any big downtime if any at all. However, be prepared to bring a good amount of mana potions with you Keep your hot and parry buff up and you should be golden.

  You can and should weave your Auto Attacks in between skills (try to execute the Skills the same time as the AA would go off, which takes a bit of exercise but eventually you will get the rhythm down) until you have enough attacks to permanently spam your skills without any cooldowns.

  In lower levels you might even want to use smite to pull and hit twice before the mob gets to you but Smite doesn’t level up nicely and will eventually get quite useless (unless for tickle pulls if you are too lazy to run up to your target).

  There is hardly any target you won’t be able to take down (depending on your gear and in reasonable level range of course). In general though I prefer to not grind on Elites despite the fact that they give very good exp. The time vs. payoff is still less then grinding normal orange or red mobs faster.

  With Celerity Mantra and Hots it’s also really easy to get away from pretty much anything or train through areas easily. Unless you decide to sneak by that super duper uber high lvl raid boss, obviously. There should be no reason for you to die in PvE.

  Keep your gear up with our level, try to enchant it as much as possible and keep consumables and shards with you if you can afford it.

  The Abyss is a great place to grind after lvl 25 (if you can stand being ganked often). Abyss monsters net slightly higher EXP on top of AP and have lower Hitpoints then monsters in the normal quest areas. The drops consist mostly of stigma shards, money and some crafting and rarely include normal gear.

• Group PvE
  Well, this is where it gets interesting and where it’s pretty much up to you how busy or lazy you want to be. Unlike most other classes which have their role nicely cut out for them in terms of when to react how, Chanters have a lot of choices on what to do in any given situation. I love to jump between Hotting my group, meleeing, rebuffing, switching mantras around according to the targets, backup the cleric, try to time my stuns for interrupts on big incoming skills..you name it. If you can think if it then you should probably do it but make sure you chose the right moment.

  One thing to keep in mind is that in tough situations it’s all about stacking the right tools to get the best benefits. Just having crit mantra up because you are too lazy to check if all the crit slotter are already at the cap or not is not beneficial to the group.
  Check the gear of your group members if you are not familiar with it and switch your buffs accordingly. Check how well your tank is geared and decide if you need the added defense or rather go with another Mantra instead.

  Theoretically you could just sit back and throw a heal and a hot here and there. Not bother with changing from offensive to defensive target and no one would probably say anything but in order to contribute the most to your group you have to work your butt of as a chanter.

  You might pull aggro if you are solo healing or heavy backup healing, specially in combination with Word of Protection Spam and stun attempts. Don’t sweat it, you should be able to stand your own until the tank can pull the bugger off of you again.

  Even though our debuffs are a bit weak in direct comparison to other classes, I am of the mindset that every little bit helps and stacks up in the end. Unless I do whatever I can even if it is just a little thing, I won’t be satisfied in my role.

  As mentioned in the healing section, we can solo heal groups under certain circumstances. It is less efficient and much more work then for a cleric but it is often possible.

• Solo PvP
  • Introduction
    Sooo yeeeeah, Chanter solo pvp. There is much rage going on about this and while I agree that we have a harder stand then other classes, at least until after lvl 42, it’s by no means that you just have to fall over and die through the whole leveling process.

    Much like PvE Scaling you will have an easy time until around mid 20s, with a really tough time in between and once again getting stronger in your 40s.

    The trick to any kind of pvp with the Chanter is to be on the move and use your stuns and knockdowns smart. I like to compare myself with an annoying mosquito: Hard to catch, really annoying and coming in and out to get a zip here and a zip there until your opponent is too tired to focus. 90% of our skills can be cast while moving as long as you are in range, this is a great benefit to the hit and run fighting tactic.
    Run and kite melee classes, have celerity mantra up to gain a speed advantage and additional mantras as you see fit (against burst classes I like to have defensive focused Mantras active, against dotting classes I might use HP mantra, magic protection, you get the idea). The whole concept behind moving is not only to have a breather to land a stun and go back in to safely whack your opponent but it will also interrupt chains your enemy was about to execute on you. Keep a constant eye on your opponents status effects and react fast if you see a stun or a knockdown land.

    With the

    changes to spell range interrupts
    changes to spell range interrupts

    coming sometime in Autumn, it won’t be as easy to interrupt casters while just running out of range. Instead you have to focus much more on breaking their line of sight. Casters are harder to fight in my opinion because you do have to break through their shields first to do any kind of damage and just kiting them won’t do the trick for several obvious reasons. Or in other words, think more “rabbit/hide” then “cheetah/sprint in straight line’

    The biggest downside of Chanter solo pvp is coupled with the fact that we are a support class foremost, the lack of burst damage, burst heals, dispels and very few direct means of controlling our opponent (other then having to rely on procs, knockdowns and Heaven’s Judgment landing) until later in game, doesn’t help either. Another VERY important reason to have Greater Healing Potions on you at any given time.

  • Additional Items and general tricks for PvP
    • If you can, ALWAYS have Greater Running Scrolls, Greater Healing Potions and some instant healing potions of appropriate level on you, ALWAYS. Additionally Flight time Potions, Greater Raging Wind Scrolls, DP Food, Greater Courage Scrolls, Major Anti-Shock Scrolls, all of those are recommended in pvp. Try to get your hands on as many consumables as you can as they all stack with our buffs.
      HoT Potions are not necessary since they don’t stack with our own HoTs and thus are pretty much a waste.
    • First thing, you want to do before you get into your first encounter with the opposite site is to set a separate chat tab for pvp encounters:
      Unlock your chat tabs and either drag an existing one out of the main chat area or create a new one and do the same. If you used an existing one uncheck every chat that was set to that particular tab and go to combat – enemy combat and check all the enemy related chat messages (around 5 or 6 iirc). Once those are checked change the color of the text to something prominent (for me it’s dark red).
  • PvP From 10 to late 20s
    You won’t have much problems, as most of the burst classes didn’t get their powerful attack skills/chains yet and you can easily heal through their attacks (with one exception being casters).

    Protective Ward I
    Really nice way of limiting damage if you are not able to heal at all (like while being Stunned, Slept, Airlocked or in any other way incapable of doing anything. This of course means you need a good understanding of the class you are fighting to know when to use it. Sins in general like to unleash early in the fight so you might want to get the Ward up as soon as possible. It will give you also a bit of time to heal back up since the burst classes just used all their ammunition and need to wait on the CD. If you are able to, it is also a good idea to be in the air if you notice a hidden enemy close by. Ambush for example doesn’t work in flight. Any HoTs you might have active before using Protective Ward will tick while you are disabled but only for the limited amount listed. It doesn’t matter if you cast them before or after you used the Skill.

    Binding Word I
    Also very handy early on and a good use of a stigma slot in my opinion. It is not only a short time snare it will also disable your opponent from using any skill that is not categorized as a spell (you could compare it with a silence for non casters.)

    Rage Spell I
    I personally still see this as more of a pve skill then pvp despite the recent changes. The slightly added damage does not add enough to a fight that it would outweigh the need of healing off burst damage. It’s easier to use during the lower levels but I would never have it active during higher levels.

    Focused Parry I
    Have it up, always. It also helps against Casters Autoattack and ranged bow attacks.

  • PvP Between 30 and 42
    This is where it gets tough, specially if you are in the Abyss and getting jumped by one of the Ganking Classes or a group. There is really not much you can do but to try to get away with your wings still attached. Greater Healing Potions, Running Scrolls, Raging Wind Scrolls and Instant Healing Pots will be your best friends once more.

    During these levels most classes have their powerful chains and Crowd Control skills. You will get kited, locked and burst down like no tomorrow. Get used to it, the sooner you do, the better you can handle it eventually. If any of the classes get the jump on you it will be hard and in those situations I have no shame and try to make a run for it, or a last stand if it’s not an overwhelming force against me.

    A nifty trick to lose your opponents in the Abyss is to fold your wings and let yourself fall down a bit then get them out again. However, be careful you don’t fall too long or you will end up dead in the air.

    With that said, additionally to the Skills mentioned during earlier levels, you get a few new ones, as well as the third stigma slot at lvl 30.

    Word of Life I
    It has a long cool down but at lvl 30 it’s a nice buffer to tick alongside Spell of Recovery (those two HoTs do indeed stack)

    Word of Quickness I
    Don’t blow it too early but be a bit patient and use it when you are getting slightly into trouble. It takes a bit of experience to not use it too early but not too late either. It will help you with healing up fast once active and help get through burst damage.

    Word of Wind I
    A beauty of a DP skill. Not only for getting away but also for making a stand. The Speed attack will speed up all our fighting animations and turn you into a whirlwind of staff wielding goodness.
    Additional information: This buff will stay active on your friends even after you left the group but you need to be in range for the cast and in group by the time you activate it. The main reason I carry DP Food with me at all times.

    In this level range I always cancel Rage Spell if I actually have it active and slotted.

    Besides knowing your opponents skills which I won’t all list here for now, it is important to not waste your Greater Healing potions on a Cleric too early. You want to wait for Word of Destruction, nothing else. If you can’t cure that DP skill off it is game over within a few seconds.
    The things mentioned in the earlier section apply to the higher up sections as well.

  • PvP After lvl 42
    This is where it gets fun again! You get your first real ranged skill (which was unfortunately slightly nerfed from 10 seconds to 12 seconds Cool Down for whatever dumb reason..and in general your skill list will get a nice array of additional tools depending on your stigma choices.

    The fighting style in PvP doesn’t change, however it gets easier because with the standalone stun you will be even more flexible.

    Inescapable Judgment I
    Get it and love it. Not much to say about it. It doesn’t land constantly but together with Heaven’s Judgment and knockdowns it sure helps. I am still trying to figure out if Accuracy influences the chance of landing this phys attack stun and at this time I still believe it does. At least against Evasive targets a high accuracy helped me land the stun every single time on a ranger while doing some testing. Last but not least, finally a tool to stop those pesky runngers!

    Enhancement Mantra I
    Theoretically handy in PvP. However the exact numbers and how much it really helps hasn’t been tested in detail. If you have the stigma slot for it, there is really no reason to not have it up during PvP.

    Recovery Spell I
    One of the must have Stigmas. The real life saver to finally heal through some heavy incoming damage. Even though while under the influence of Protective Ward your healing gets cut down, Recovery Spell and any other HoT in combination with the Ward Line seems to be a very nice mitigation for burst damage while being disabled from healing normally.

    Word of Spellstopping I
    Nice emergency spell against heavy incoming damage on your whole group. I am as of yet not sure if this stacks with the Protective Ward line.

    Depending on your chosen End Stigma build you will have additional options but they are listed in the Stigma section, so I won’t repeat them here.

  • Class specific PvP tips
    Currently being worked on. Coming soon [tm]
• Group PvP
  This heavily depends on your group setup. Most of the time I am keeping an eye on the Clerics and squishies: Backup healing and protecting them with either fighting off the attackers or interrupting, annoying attackers.
  Mantra switching can be quite intense in PvP group fights if you chose so. If there is no caster around I will switch Protection Mantra out for a more suited one. In chasing fights you want to have Celerity Mantra up but in a toe to toe mass fight you probably should use it for something more beneficial. Don’t forget to keep your short term buffs fresh as well.

  Those fights tend to be similar to PvE Fights but much more dynamic and unpredictable. You will have to make decisions fast an there is really no general guide as how to play. As always though, it’s a good idea to stay moving and if possible also assist the MA on FF targets if there is nothing burning on any other end.
  Don’t count on the cleric to dispel or burst heal you but instead use your own potions if necessary.

• Chanters in raiding situations
  I would setup raid groups sorted by casters, melee/MA, healers and tanks then throw a chanter in each of those groups. Now you don’t even have to spread your mantras but can have three mantras up for the specific attack types and needs of those groups. Just imagine a group filled with sins, glads or rangers, that is 5x 35% increase in attack power.

  This is also only the buff side -whereas I will be most likely not be in melee range of a boss mob (depending on his attacks however) I will have my very powerful lvl 45 hot on 10 sec cool down and be ready for any type of adds to use my stuns and help with debuffing or backup healing if necessary.

  The danger which Chanters and raid or big boss fights in general is that we have a hard time with AE attacks. The Sins Evasion and the Tanks block and shield skills are much more suited to fend off those huge attacks then our parry. More often then not Chanters take a nose diff while being caught in a huge AE attack.

GENERAL GAMEPLAY

• Misc Tips
  • You can sort the order of your group members in the group window by manually dragging and dropping the bars on top of each other. This way you can always have the MT on first position or wherever you prefer him/her. I normally have the group members sorted by how high the chance of them is to grab aggro.
  • If you are at the broker, you can alt/click items in your inventory and it will copy the name into the search field for easy price checks.
  • Jumping after a gathering process is done will help not getting the follow up process cancelled/fail.
  • After hitting level 30 you can visit your Race’s main city and use the skin changing NPC to change the look of weapons and armors to your liking without using the stats on your main piece. Weapons who are extend-able cannot be skinned, likewise Draconic armor cannot be dyed and/or skinned
• Crafting
  Except for sewing (however debatable if you would want to focus on leather evasion gear and be able to create it yourself instead of rolling against your Ranger and Sin friends) I don’t think there is a craft that you won’t benefit from and in the end it comes down to what you like to focus on or what you won’t be able to get through friends. I’ll be working on Alchemy in order to have a supply of any items I need handy whenever I want. Most players won’t follow this profession I figure, so unless you are the first one to max the Crafting it won’t end up being very lucrative.

  It is important to note that crafter items are among the best in game and very thought after. Armorcrafting is the easiest to to Expert, since you only have to crit once on the Expert Quest to proc to gold. In all other Professions you will have to proc twice (from green to blue and blue to gold). As with 1.5 it is possible to Master/Expert two Crafting Professions.

  • Armorcrafting
    Pretty self explanatory. You will be able to create your own chain armor and shields.
  • Handicrafting
    Not only helpful to craft your own staves but also any kind of jewelery for all jewelery slots.
  • Alchemy
    To gear up for pvp with potions and scrools or create more powerful manastones
  • Cooking
    For Food and Drink buffs and DP Jelly
  • Weaponcrafting
    To craft your own Maces
• Titles
  I like to switch my titles according to needs. Speed titles to run around and stack with Celerity Mantra, other titles I see fit depending on my stats. Crit titles might be nice early on but become redundant once you hit the cap for a stat with diminishing returns. Parry is always a no brainer for me or phys attack increase. In general anything that you might benefit from directly.
• Food
  I am never leaving Sanctum without some Frillneck Aether Sausage, Perer Aether Jelly and Lumine nyerktails (not sure about the current EU/US name on the last item) in my bag

COMPARISON WITH CLERICS
As it stands now there is a discrepancy between Clerics and Chanters that is highly in favor of the Cleric. They are not only much more powerful in 1vs1 pvp throughout pretty much the whole leveling process but they also bring more direct tools which are considered must have, to both group pvp and pve content with about the same damage output and a much wider range of healing tools.

Something that strengthens that image for other players is that the tools the Clerics have in their arsenal are much easier to understand and point out (Dispels, Strong burst heals, Root, Blind to only name a few), whereas the Chanter is mostly about numbers which a lot of players like to neglect and chances/procs.
Another reason is the disadvantage of the Chanter having to get into melee range until much later in game to do any kind of damage.

Going 1vs1 against our Mirror Class who knows how to play, can be utterly frustrating for a Chanter for several reasons:
You have a hard time even getting close to the Cleric due to their spammable root
You will get debuffed with 50% healing reduction
They will constantly dispel any slow and debuffs you might have landed
The will easily out-heal your damage

Unless the Cleric does a big mistake you will have a VERY hard time beating one until high end.

SUMMERY
Play a Chanter if you:

• Like to bring out the best in your group mates
• Like to be able to solo grind in pve very efficiently with little downtime
• Like to have good survivability and tools to get out of most tight situations
• Like meleeing and being busy in fights
• Be very versatile with a lot of choices to play with
• If you have a steady group of friends to play with

Don’t play a Chanter if you:

• Like to pewpew through all levels in solo pvp
• Like rolling your face on the keyboard and still think you can win any fight
• Throw temper tantrums after every Abyss Gank death
• Have bad class envy towards Clerics
• If healing is the main goal you want to do in Aion
• If you prefer spell casting and ranged combat
• Need to be a must have class

HELPFUL ADDITIONAL LINKS
Chanter related discussions

• [Translation] Know-How: Chanter PvP
• Community Chanter Compendium
• Parry and You: A Chanter’s Guide on Avoidance
• Staffs in 1.5
• The Official L2P:Chanters – SkyChanter
• Things to Keep in Mind About Chanters – SkyChanter
• Eikoi’s Sensational Thread (Or, Give the Chain to the Clerics)
• Chanter suggestion thread

Chanter Tools

• Chanter – Skills – Aion
• Aion Armory – Chanter Stigma Calculator – By Terhix

General Helpful Guides

• Guide on Enchantments, Manastones, and Godstones
• Google Translation of Extend-able weapon list
• Guide on Crafting

THANKS TO
The Chanter Community as a whole
Eikoi and Sirinia for doing a lot of mathematical in detail tests which I am normally too lazy to properly do myself to either confirm or debunk my own findings.

Author : Kandrah (aionsource) / Kandra (Aion EU/Telemachus)

Guide : Kandrah’s Chanters for Newbies

As usual, Paraguses article/review/guide is wonderful. This time he tackles legions, rifts and The abyss( may we add in great detail). If you want to know more about the abyss or if the abyss interests you a lot…you will enjoy this article/guide. Enjoy it

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.

Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com

After my last entry about some of the upcoming MMOs, luck would have it that I was able to get a chance to play Aion during one of their recent beta preview weekend type events.  Today I am going to try to give you my impressions from playing during the recent weekend event that had a level limit of 10, but did allow players to make characters from both of the game’s factions.  While I will be the first to admit that 10 levels is hardly enough to review much of anything, but I think I got a chance to sample the game and take a look at various aspects that were present.

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.

Paragus

Co-Leader of Inquisition

www.inqguild.com

Source:Paragus’s Article on mmorpg

Disclaimer:

This article aims to answer all questions a new Ranger might have. It will be updated frequently to reflect changes brought by patches and new revelations regarding class mechanics. Skill and translation inconsistencies due to the current status of the game, its localization and skill databases will be corrected post-launch. Questions, corrections and additions (especially from the to do list) welcome.

• Table of Contents

• 1 Class Description
• 2 Class Overview
  • 2.1 Attributes and Stats
  • 2.2 Weapons
  • 2.3 Armor
  • 2.4 Role in PvE
  • 2.5 Role in PvP
  • 2.6 Range
  • 2.7 Kiting
• 3 Abilites
  • 3.1 Signature Skills
  • 3.2 Stigma Skills
  • 3.3 Traps
  • 3.4 Self Buffs
  • 3.5 Crowd Control
  • 3.6 Transformations
• 4 Character Customization
  • 4.1 Race
  • 4.2 Gear
  • 4.3 Manastones
  • 4.4 Godstones
  • 4.5 Titles
  • 4.6 Professions
• 5 PvE
  • 5.1 Builds
  • 5.2 Rotations
  • 5.3 Consumables
  • 5.4 Leveling
• 6 PvP
  • 6.1 Builds
  • 6.2 Strategies
  • 6.3 Consumables
• 7 Miscellaneous frequently discussed topics
  • 7.1 Instant abilites
  • 7.2 Autoshot
  • 7.3 Jumpshot
  • 7.4 Movement Modifiers
  • 7.5 Melee
  • 7.6 Retreating Slash
  • 7.7 Early Levels
  • 7.8 Cost Factor
  • 7.9 WASD vs. Click-to-Move
• 8 Useful Macros
• 9 Links
• 10 Media
• 11 Ranger Specific Patch Notes

1 Class Description – taken from the offical PowerWiki:

A Ranger is a Daeva with exceptional archery skills. Not only can it expertly wield a bow, but also a sword and dagger for close combat. The Ranger is also a master with various traps, making it both a formidable opponent on its own and a valued member of any group. Being skilled in both long and short range attacks combined with the ability to manipulate traps makes the Ranger able to adapt easily to nearly any situation. However, arrows and trap ingredients can become costly which makes the Ranger one of the more expensive classes.

Being as faithful as any other class, the Ranger turns to the Empyrean Lords for inspiration. While an Elysean Ranger looks toward Vaizel, the Lord of the free spirit, Asmodian Rangers accept Triniel, the Lord who controls death, as their model.

2 Class Overview

2.1 Attributes and Stats

Rangers on creation have the following base attributes:

Power: 100 – affects physical damage

Health: 100 – affects hit points and recovery rate

Agility: 115 – affects evasion, parry and block rates

Accuracy: 115 – affects chance to hit and critically hit rate (the manastone that increases Accuracy does not affect this attribute, it affects the stat with the same name found under your offensive stats)

Knowledge: 90 – affects spell damage and hit rate

Will: 90 – affects mana pool and mana recovery rate

In addition there are the following statistics that can be modified by gear and manastone choices:

Attack: affects physical damage

Accuracy: used to calculate chance to hit with weapons or abilites (this is not the same as the atttribute above with the same name)

Crit Rate: used to calculate chance to score a critical hit. For every 10 critical rating, you gain roughly 1% critical strike chance. After you achieve a critical hit rating of 440, you need 20 critical rating per 1% increase (called the soft-cap). Also, your critical hits have a chance to knockback your opponent.

Attack Speed: delay between auto-attacks, also affects casting animation speed

Speed: movement speed

Magic Boost: affects magical damage

Magic Accuracy: used to calculate chance to hit with spells

Physical Defense: affects physical damage taken from melee and ranged attacks

Evasion: chance to dodge a physical attack

Block: chance to block

Parry: chance to parry

Magical Resistance: chance to resist damage or debuffs from spells

Fire/Wind/Water/Earth Resistance: affects damage taken from spells

2.2 Weapons

A Ranger can wield one-handed swords and daggers starting from level 1, dual-wield at level 5, and can learn to use bows at level 10.

2.3 Armor

A Ranger can wear cloth and leather armor, as well as all types of head armor pieces. You should prefer leather over cloth.

2.4 Role in PvE

Rangers are physical ranged damage dealers. We provide good DPS as well as several Crowd Control abilites. However currently the general assumption is that our DPS is lower than those of most other DPS classes. Due to the lack of combatlog parsing this is still up for debate and you should keep in mind that the majority of players currently complaining about Ranger damage output have only experienced low-level gameplay.

2.5 Role in PvP

Rangers excel at burst damage from range and their unique ability to decrease any healing done to an opponent makes them a vital addition to any PvP group. With our burst damage, CC abilites, stealth and snares, Rangers are also excellent at solo PvP, but rely heavily on kiting the opponent.

2.6 Range

Rangers have long-, medium-, and short-distance shots at 25m, 20m, and 15m respectively, with most abilites having a 25m range. Range is increased by a level 25 passive skill, and is increased by an additional 10% while in flight. There is no dead-zone or minimum range.

2.7 Kiting

A Ranger relies heavily on kiting in PvE as well as PvP, which means using your abilites like Entangling Shot, Spike Trap and various stuns to maintain enough range to your opponent to be able to deal damage while keeping him from reaching you. There are different ways to achieve this, but due to Aion’s movement modifiers (see 7.4) strafing and back-pedaling is not recommended. Jump-shots (7.3) and being able to abuse auto-shot/auto-facing play an important role in maximizing your effectiveness.

See Kirua’s Kiting Guide for details.

3 Abilites

3.1 Signature Skills

Traps: Unique to Rangers, traps grant access to an additional source of burst or DOT damage, snares and roots. They can be used effectively in PvE, but are not reliable in PvP because they can be avoided by a skilled opponent.

Self Buffs: Rangers get access to several, short-duration self buffs that increase his avoidance or damage output signifcantly while they last.

Stealth: The Scout’s base hide ability grants us limited stealth capacites, while not as good as those of the Assassin.

Entangling Shot: This early available ability is your main snare and can be used while moving (its animation doesn’t cause you to become immobilized like other skills).

Silence Arrow: Prevents the target from casting spells for a short period of time, making it an invaluable tool while fighting casters and especially healers.

Sleep Arrow: Puts the target to sleep for 12 seconds, effectively removing them from combat for the duration or until dispelled. Can also be used as a spell interrupt.

Awl Arrow: Unique to the Ranger class, this chain ability debuffs the target’s physical defense and the healing it receives for a short time, making it invaluable in PvP.

Retreating Slash: This ability pushes the Ranger 25m backwards, out of the target’s range. It can be used while equipped with a bow, but you have to be in melee range.

3.2 Stigma Skills – displaying highest available rank

Basic Sigmas

Arrow Deluge

Breath of Nature

Focused Shots

Nature’s Resolve

Retreating Slash

Silence Arrow

Sleep Arrow

Snare Trap – Snare Trap

Sniper Stance

Trap of Clairvoyance – Trap of Clairvoyance

Trap of Slowing Elyos / Asmodian

Bow of Blessing

Bestial Fury

Holy Arrow (Elyos)

Deadly Arrow (Asmodian)

Advanced Stigmas

Explosion Arrow

Gale Arrow

Mistral Absorb Vitality

Resolution of Hunter

Arrow of Fury

Raging Wind Arrow

3.3 Traps

Trap: Spike – Trap: Spike

Poisoning Trap – Poisoning Trap

Trap: Explosion – Trap: Explosion

Snare Trap – Snare Trap

Trap of Clairvoyance – Trap of Clairvoyance

Trap of Destruction – Trap of Destruction

Trap: Spike Bite – Trap: Spike Bite

Trap: Sandstorm – Trap: Sandstorm

3.4 Self Buffs

Aiming

Dodging

Strong Shots

Hunter’s Eye

Focused Shots

Devotion

Focused Evasion

Tactical Retreat

All-Seeing Eye

Sniper Stance

3.5 Crowd Control

Sleep Arrow

Silence Arrow

Entangling Shot

Snare Trap – Snare Trap

Trap: Spike – Trap: Spike

3.6 Transformations

There are two different kinds of transformations:

DP skill: Elyos – Asmodian

This is our 2000 DP skill and currently lasts 1 minute (buffed to 2 minutes in a future patch).

For the other transformation you need to buy a reagent that is sold by a job supplier (where you also buy seeds for your traps): Elyos – Asmodian

This is just a travel form, either as a Zaif or a Karnif depending on your faction, and since it consumes a reagent it can be expensive to use it frequently. There are two different levels per form, with level 1 increasing speed by 20% and level 2 by 30%.

4 Character Customization

4.1 Race

While some skills differ depending on your faction, the differences are mostly minor and will not make or break your gameplay.

Also keep in mind that apparently the way to aquire certain titles is different for the two factions, so a particular good title might be harder to get depending on your race.

4.2 Gear
4.3 Manastones

When it comes to manastones, socketing critical physical hit stones is widely regarded as being most effective up to around 440 critical strike (which is the soft cap, additional crit will be subject to diminishing returns). After you reach 440 crit, use attack or HP/resists (for PvP).

Rangers usually are not the first target in group fights and their survivability is good enough to enable you to socket offensively.

4.4 Godstones

Godstones can only be used on weapons and add a chance to proc an additional effect on each attack. You can find an incomplete list here: God Stones – Enhancement Items – Aion

4.5 Titles

The most beneficial titles for a Ranger are those that increase our speed or flight speed, as well as damage. Out of all currently known titles, the following are probably the most interesting ones:

Elyos

Bottled Lightning +3% Speed – from Lightningfoot Tuka – Quests – Aion

Honorary Black Cloud +5% Speed – from Jakurerk’s Opportunity to Make it Big – Quests – Aion

Heroic +4 Physical Critical Hit, +1 Physical Att, +1% Atk Speed – from [Group] Confrontation with Asmodian Army General – Quests – Aion

Owner of the Dragon Sword +52 Maximum HP, +3 Flight Time, +3% Flight Speed, +6% Speed – from [Group] The True Owner of the Dragon Sword – Quests – Aion

Asmodian

Postal +4% Speed – from [Infiltration] Elim Of Elysea – Quests – Aion

Wheeler-Dealer +5% Speed – from Contract of Black Cloud Traders – Quests – Aion

Heroic +52 Maximum HP, +3 Flight Time, +3% Flight Speed, +6% Speed – from [Group] Confrontation with Elysean Army General – Quests – Aion

4.6 Professions

There is no single best profession for your character and you also need to keep in mind what professions you have access to through friends and guildmates. For both factions, Sewing provides you with the ability to craft leather armor, Handicrafting grants access to bow recipes as well as rings or necklaces. Cooking and Alchemy enable you to craft your own consumables.

5 PvE

5.1 Builds

5.2 Rotations

5.3 Consumables

5.4 Leveling

10-16: You start out with only two ranged attacks, Snipe being your main source of damage and Entangling Shot your snare. You want to open up with Snipe, Entangling Shot, then turn around and kite the mob. Use Snipe as soon as its cooldown finishes, keep Entangling Shot up as much as possible. If the mob is low on HP you can finish it off with melee. For hard (named) mobs, you can use a Spike Trap to root it, or your DP Mau Transformation for faster run and attack speed, as well as damage.

16-19: At 16 you get Arrow Strike, your first ranged chain skill. Open up with Snipe, turn around and start kiting, you can use Arrow Strike while running even if you’re turned away from the mob. Again, keep Entangling Shot up all the time, finish low HP mobs off in melee.

19-25: At this point our killing speed starts to get better. You get Stunning Shot which can do a lot of damage, but the chance isn’t very high. It also has lower range than your other shots, so start out with Snipe -> Arrow Strike and use Stunning Shot when the mob gets closer.

At 20 you should do your Stigma Quest so you can equip the Arrow Deluge Stigma Stone. While its range and damage is low on single targets, it fits nicely into your rotation when all other shots are on cooldown.

You could also get Sleep Arrow in case you get involved in PvP, or if you get adds.

25-28: This is where killing speed really picks up. Rupture Arrow is a chain ability to use after Stunning Shot and also has a chance to deal a lot of damage, knocking the target back as well. After you did some of the Abyss quests, you can try to find a quiet spot in the Lower Abyss and grind. Abyss mobs give increased XP and also reward AP. If you’re grinding, get mana potions in addition to mana treatment so you never have to regen.

At 27 you can hit the Upper Abyss and grind on level 30 mobs for very good XP.

28-31: At 28, additional quests in Eltnen/Morheim open up that are worth doing. You can also keep grinding in the Upper Abyss. You should now have Spiral Arrow, which only has a 10% chance to become usable after Arrow Strike, but it hits for a decent amount of damage.
6 PvP

6.1 Builds

6.2 Strategies

6.3 Consumables

7 Miscellaneous frequently discussed topics

7.1 Instant Abilites

There is no global cooldown in Aion. To make up for this and to prevent spamming, most abilites that don’t have a cast time (like Ranger shots) are limited by their animation, during which you are immobilized. This is not a bug, but a design decision. It can, however, be countered by abusing jumpshots.

7.2 Autoshot

Note: In the current version autoshot is bugged so it will turn itself off seemingly random after using an ability. This is supposed to be fixed in later versions.

Autoshot (aka the Attack button from your actions tab) is worth keeping on your hotbar and easily reachable for kiting purposes. While it turns itself off automatically when you are not facing your target, there is a kiting method that involves running in a forward direction away from your opponent, jumping and hitting autoshot in order to cause your character to briefly turn towards the target and fire a shot while maintaining direction away from the target.

7.3 Jumpshot

While seen as an exploit by some players, jumpshot has been declared working as intended by the developers. It is used to cancel the animation of certain skills that would otherwise leave you immobile for its duration. This is a huge boon to kiting, but requires a lot of practice.

To initiate a jumpshot, use an ability while jumping when you reached the peak of your jump or are already on the downward movement again. This can be practiced without moving, but is more effective to maintain a certain direction.

7.4 Movement Modifiers

According to the official PowerWiki, whenever you move into a direction you gain the following boni/mali:

Forward:

+10% Physical Damage

+10% Magic Damage

-20% Physical Defense

-20% Magic Damage (Note: probably typo, should be -20% Magic Defense)

Backward:

+500% to Parry

+500% to Block

-70% Physical Damage

-40% Movement Speed

Left/Right Strafe:

+300% to Evasion

-70% Physical Damage

-20% Movement Speed

However, these values are not commonly accepted, and it is unclear if they affect both melee and ranged damage, and both autoattacks and abilites. The ingame character profile does indicate the boni and mali, but not their respective values. With the limited confirmed knowledge we have about this matter, maintaining a forward movement while kiting is recommended in order to maximize damage.

A quick experiment on a level 23 Ranger over 24 autoattacks, no abilities, same mob level & type for each attempt gave:

average 78.20 damage while standing still

average 54.20 damage while running backwards

average 90.54 damage while running forwards

Of course the sample size is too low, but it should give a rough idea of the damage increase forward movement while kiting provides.

7.5 Melee

While Ranger continue to gain melee abilities throughout their career, engaging in melee combat becomes less attractive the higher level you get. Using melee abilites can increase effectiveness during the lower levels (10-16 or even 10-19) to finish a mob, due to the limited ranged abilites we get before level 19.

7.6 Retreating Slash

While the usefulness of this skill is up for debate (it does use up a Stigma slot afterall), it does work with a bow equipped as long as you get in melee range to use it. You don’t need a melee weapon equipped to use it.

7.7 Early Levels

Rangers start out as the Scout archetype and do not gain the ability to use a bow before level 10. Up to level 16, or arguably level 19, we don’t have a lot of ranged abilites which will negatively impact our kill speed while leveling, so that a lot of Rangers prefer to use a mix of ranged and melee abilities.

Also, Rangers are considered underpowered compared to other DPS classes in the low-levels, but will pick up at around level 25, they are also considered the slowest leveler.

7.8 Cost Factor

While it is true that we do have to pay for arrows and trap materials, the cost factor is not as bad as people make it sound. Arrows are extremely cheap and stack up high enough so they don’t impact inventory management.

7.9 WASD vs. Click-to-Move

Wether you use WASD movement or Click-to-Move probably depends on personal preference or your previous MMO history. Although there are arguments going on which one is better, due to the nature of Aion’s kiting with its movement modifiers, maintaining a forward movement at all times is actually encouraged as opposed to other popular games where you tend to strafe while kiting. Keep this in mind when choosing a movement style. Personally I think a mix of the two is probably good, but in the end you should use what works best for you.

8 Useful Macros

- to be added

9 Links

Aion: PowerWiki

Ranger – Skills – Aion

Ranger – AionSource.com

Ranger – HellBound – Aion Gaming Guild and Community

Terhix’ Stigma Calculator – Ranger
10 Media

YouTube – AION – Ranger new class intro – Ranger class intro

YouTube – Aion 25 Ranger PvE – Ranger 25 pve jumpshots (beta, HD)

YouTube – Aion Asmodian Ranger 40 – 42 PvP Movie Vol.1 – Ranger 40-42 group and solo pvp by xMinDeathx (korean, HD)

YouTube – Aion Ranger Movie – Ranger 30 pve, duels and group pvp (korean)

Aion CB5 Ranger Ganking – a few clips of ganking people in the Abyss, mostly solo, lvl 25-30

YouTube – Aion PvP Closed Beta #5 – Ranger (Part 1) – mostly rifiting, ganking slightly lower level opponents but always outnumbered

11 Ranger Specific Patch Notes

Open Beta Patch (1.5) – 04.09.2009

Quote:

to do:

- implement sections 5 and 6 (probably post-launch)

- expand section 4

Change Log

04.09.2009 – added patch notes for rangers (1.5)

02.09.2009 – updated skills and stigmas for 1.5

Source: Aionsource

Author:Takyn

How to Fix Your Latency Lag

If you’re one of many who’ve lagged horrifically since Closed Beta 5, chances are the problem will not be solved anytime soon. The problem is that certain ISPs have routing issues when attempting to reach NCSoft’s servers. This causes for massive packet loss on certain hops and terrible lag almost 100% of the time. As one of these people, once CB6 appeared to be no better, I searched for a solution! It seemed simple enough, if the issue is my connection’s path, I needed a new path.

For an example of the type of lag this will fix, refer to this video.

So, upon some Googling, I found Gamepath. As soon as I got it working, the lag went 100% away and I have not lagged a single second since. The only issue is that every once in awhile I will randomly crash. The reason for the crash is that WideCap will occassionaly cause an error with the Aion Client, causing it to close. This can be fixed by using Proxifier instead of WideCap, however Proxifier is an expensive paid service. Gamepath is currently creating their own program, which they expect to be ready by early October. Even using WideCap, having to log in every few hours after a crash greatly outweighs lagging terribly non-stop.

I’ll go through the step-by-step process of getting Gamepath to work since they aren’t very detailed with their instructions.

Their service is free, but you will have to reconnect every hour. You can pay $6 for 30-days of unlimited use, but I highly suggest testing it using their free service first and if it works, you can decide if the $6 is worth it. For me, it was.

FREE VERSION

Step 1

Go to http://www.gamepath.net/dni.html. Select either the 32bit system or 64bit system depending on which you use. You can see which system you use by opening ‘My Computer‘, Right-Click, and then hit ‘Properties‘. In the window that comes up, look for something that shows your ‘System Type‘. It will either say “32-bit Operating System” or “64-bit Operating System“.

Step 2

Once you’ve clicked on either 32bit or 64bit, you’ll be brought to a new page. They do not have information for Aion yet, but the WoW ones work. Underneath the ‘Support Softwares‘, click ‘WideCap‘.

Ignore the fact that it’s for WoW, it still works perfectly fine for any game.

Step 3

You should now be on a new page. The first thing to do is click the ‘Server List‘ link and download the .zip file. You can save the file anywhere. Once it’s downloaded, unzip it and run the server list.reg file. You’ll be prompted with a Registery Editor window. Click ‘Yes‘. Another window will pop up, click ‘Okay‘.

Next, click the link for ‘Putty‘. Whichever browser you use, you need to run the putty.exe file. Once you run it, this window should pop up. For now, just minimize it.

After you have done both parts, click the ‘Next Step‘ at the bottom right.

Step 4

You should now be on a new page. The first thing you need to do is download and install WideCap. Click the link provided to go to their page.

Once on their page, click the “Download full version you can from here.” It’s small text, so don’t overlook it. Before you install it, you must close any running applications (I had to close Aion, NC Soft Launcher, Ventrilo, and FRAPS). I’m not sure why, but it wouldn’t work for me with programs running. Go through the installation steps and just install it into your Program Files folder (or wherever you put your programs).

Once you have WideCap installed, return to the Gamepath website. Now click the link to download the ‘WideCap Settings file‘. Similar to the Server List you downloaded earlier, save the .zip anywhere on your computer. Unzip the file and then run the widecap.reg file. As before, click ‘Yes‘ and ‘Okay‘.

Step 5

Once WideCap is installed, run widecap.exe if the program isn’t already opened. Now go into your Aion folder (make sure it’s not your Chinese Aion or other Aion clients, it has to be the NA client). Once you’ve opened the Aion folder, go into the bin32 folder. Once inside the bin folder, Right-Click on the AION.bin file. Select ‘Create Shortcut‘. Now bring up your WideCap Control Panel program. Left-Click, hold, and drag the AION.bin – Shortcut file and drop it into the WideCap Control Panel. If done correctly, AionClient should now appear in the WideCap Control Panel.

Right-Click on the AionClient inside the WideCap Control Panel and select, ‘Modify application‘. A new window will come up. Under the Rule Name dropdown box, select ‘Gamepath‘. Then hit ‘Okay‘. Then hit ‘Apply‘ on the WideCap Control Panel.

Step 6

Now go back to your Putty program that you minimized earlier. Double click on one of the Gamepath Gates.

For a list of where the gates are located, refer to http://www.gamepath.net/Registration/serversUSA.php. Pick a gate that is located as close to your location as possible (Either US West, US East, Singapore, Malaysia, etc.). If you’re in Europe, use this link: http://www.gamepath.net/Registration/serversEU.php. You can also ping all of the servers by clicking the option at the bottom of the gate select screen. If you do this, pick a gate that has the lowest MS.

Once you’ve double clicked on your Gamepath Gate, a new window will open that looks like this.

Type in, “gamepathtest” and hit your ‘Enter‘ key. A new window should appear.

Now type in, “imjusttesting” and hit your ‘Enter‘ key. NOTE: What you type will not appear. So make sure you type exactly what’s in quotes or it will not work. If it worked correctly, you should see this:

You are now up and running and can launch the Aion client like normal and be lag free. Since you’re using the free version, you will have to follow Step 6 every hour, as your connection will disconnect.

PAID VERSION

I highly suggest trying the free version first to make sure that this fixes your lag issue. If you skipped the free version, then you have to at least follow Steps 1-5.

Step 1

The first step is to create your account. Go to http://www.gamepath.net/Registration/ and register your account. Once you’ve registered, go to http://www.gamepath.net/Registration/login.html and log in using your information.

Step 2

You should now see your Member Page. You now have to Activate your account. Click either the ‘Activate/Renew now by Credit Card/PayPal‘. Go through the payment process and pay the $6 for 30-days of unlimited use. Once you’ve paid, return to your Member Page.

Step 3

Now the ‘Select a gate server‘ link should be active. Click this and select your gamepath gate. Choose which region you’re in and then select a server which is close to your actual location. Ignore the fact that it’s for WoW, it still works perfectly fine for any game. Click ‘Play Here‘ to select your Gate. NOTE: Pay attention to the Server’s name, (ie: gate101.gamepath.net) you will have to know which one you pick.

Once you’ve selected your server, return to the Member Page and click ‘Unblock your account‘. This will allow your account access to the server you chose.

Step 4

Now run putty.exe and select the Gamepath Gate that you chose earlier (if you picked gate101.gamepath.net, Choose Gamepath Gate 101.

A new window will pop up. Type in your username exactly how it is (case sensitive). A new window will come up. Now enter your password exactly how it is (case sensitive). NOTE: If it worked correctly, you should see this:

You are now up and running and can launch the Aion client like normal and be lag free. Since you’re using the paid version, you will not have to do anything unless you restart your internet connection or your computer. If you do, just run putty.exe, select your gate, and enter your account information.

If at anytime you wish to change gates, go to your Member Page and click “De-select gate server”. Then simply follow the steps to select your new gate server.

Go here to see the original:
The Templar Code – A Guide to Templar’ing

Hey everyone, I love wings, so I decided to compile information and pictures of the wonderful wings within Aion. Please post if I’ve missed anything or I am mistaken with any information. I will update any errors and correct them. Also if you have any screenshots you want to add feel free to do so. Most of this information I found spread throughout the Aionsource community, so thanks to all of our informers and posters. Enjoy.

It would seem one of our AS member’s: Janon – created an Italian translation of this guide. I have added a link for it: here. Thanks very much for this great addition!

Flight:

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. Seen below: Picture courtesy of AS member Janon. Thank you.

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.

Glide:

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.

Control:

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. I recently came across a thread where numerous people have vouched that free falling is faster than anything else. I can not confirm this right now, but I will try to in the next beta.

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:

Equipping Wings:

Your first set of wings are always on your character by default, they’re not a removable item. However ALL other wings in the game have to be equipped in order to work. When you get your first level 30 wings you will drag and drop them into the middle slot on your character profile screen, the same way as you would a piece of gear. When you do this you override your default wings, but you don’t ever get rid of them. As you get more wing sets you can always swap one set out for another. They’re completely interchangeable, and if you wanted to go back to your original pair just unequip all wings. Since the level 40 wings have more flight time and the level 50 wings have HP on them, but less flight time(see the stats section below) it might be good to swap those out depending on whether you are PVEing or PVPing.

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 that adjust your flying! Courtesy of Aionsource member: Moonlight Shadow

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.

Progression Image!“

CE Comparison Shot“

Elyos Wings

Level 30″

Level 30 CE”

Level 40″

Level 50″

Asmodian Wings

Level 30″

Level 30 CE”

Level 40″

Level 50″Look closely at the “eye” and you may see a dragons head!

That’s all I got. Once again if anyone finds a mistake let me know! And feel free to add your own screenshots of wings! Thanks!!”

The author is OberonXIX
Source: http://www.aionsource.com/forum/general-guides/19268-all-you-need-know-about-wings.html