Aion After a Week

I actually have a new article going up on the various play styles of each class in Aion over at MMORPG.com in the next couple of weeks. It was already such a long article I couldn't put everything I wanted to into it. One thing that would have been fun is to compare the classes in Aion to other classes from other games, mainly WoW. I feel comfortable doing this since the game of Aion itself is so different from WoW, but many of the class abilities appear similar. I really did not have the room to write a bunch of clarifying information for my article, plus it would add extra length for no reason. So here goes:

Templar -> A Protection Paladin/DK

Gladiator -> Warrior

Chanter -> Bard

Cleric -> Generic Healer

Spiritmaster -> Warlock

Ranger -> Vanilla WoW Hunter minus pet

Assassin -> Rogue/AoC Assassin

Sorcerer -> Mage

If I had put that list in the article, I would have had to explain it all, but since it's here I don't have to worry about it! Those are how I see the various classes. Chanters are a little bit like WoW shamans as well, but not completely. Templars really could be Protection Paladins just lifted and put into Aion, they really only have one DK live ability, but it's a pretty sweet ability. Divine Grip: Grabs a target up to 25 meters away, and all enemy targets within 20 meters of that, and brings all of them straight in front of you. Mass DK death grip.

Aion is still enjoyable, I haven't made it past level 18 though : ( I probably played about 4 hours of WoW this weekend, and way too many hours of Aion, but Friday and Saturday sleep just wasn't happening so I was up and awake forever. I caught up a little yesterday, slept for about 3 hours during the day then I went to bed at 1am and got up at 7:30, so that was some nice extra hours. Still feeling tired. Probably why I'm writing about it instead of Aion.

In Aion you have to complete special quests, I forget what they're called but they're special, they have their own tab in the quest book, in order to level up every 10 levels or so. You work on the quest throughout the 10 levels, but then the storyline all culminates at the end. These end quests, sadly in my opinion, do in fact require a group effort. You will need a healer, so either a chanter or a cleric, and you will need a tank, so either a templar or a gladiator, and you will even need some good DPS. So far I have yet to see a group go through these quests with less than 5 people, and that was rare, almost everyone was going as a group of 6. This is because dying is such a painful experience I believe, that bringing less people just doesn't feel safe. The mobs are elite, so they hit harder, and have a lot more health. They don't hit ridiculously harder though, so it's really all about killing them down.

These quests, so far, are not instanced, though players can still switch game instances if they wish. But this means that the mobs are free for all, and while most of them are just kill so many of this type, there are some boss mobs that can be farmed for gear. I'm hoping that the later stages of Aion has instanced dungeons so players can farm them in peace, but we'll see, I really haven't heard one way or the other, so if anyone knows, feel free to leave a comment about it.

My Templar is level 18 and, while fun, just doesn't hit as hard as I wish it did. My ranger is now level 17, I'm slowly getting her up in the levels, I think it took almost twice as long to level her than it did my Templar. Partly because when I was leveling my Templar I was grouped up with a friend, but also just because even when solo I could level as my Templar with no issues in crowded areas because I could move up to the mob, and not have to worry about other mobs around. As a ranger though... constantly kiting mobs, you have to constantly be aware of your surroundings, and sometimes you really just have no choice but to run away because you are surrounded and there's no way to kite your mob without aggro'ing a bunch of others.

On that note, rangers seem OP to me so far. Animation cancelling will always be powerful, and rangers can definitely pull it off much easier than any other class. I haven't seen any mages manage to pull off animation cancelling yet, but perhaps I just haven't been looking close enough. I know that the mage style of mob killing doesn't require much kiting, and in order to animation cancel on the mage you need to be jump kiting, so we'll see, I'll probably level a Sorcerer later... but I don't want to start any new characters until finally hitting level 20 hopefully sometime this coming weekend.

That's all for now ^^