09.18.09
Posted in Aion at 10:15 am by Middea
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A journey of a thousand miles begins by taking the initial step. ~Lao-Tzu
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Pre-selection is upon us, yay! Sunday is right around the corner for those of us with pre-orders and Head Start. (Dates and meanings explained here)
By now, you have hopefully chosen whether you are going to be Asmodians vs Elyos and picked a server.
- Lumiel and Zikel are unofficial RP servers (drama explained here)
- Nezekan is the official server for Oceanic players
- Israphel is an unofficial hub for Brazilian legions
What else is there to do before Sunday arrives for Head Start? Or Tuesday for NA launch/Friday EU launch as the case may be…
Well, you will need to pick a class to start with, what do you want to be? Have you decided yet? Maybe you’re still flip flopping between a few options. I know I was, so many options and each with their own niche. Perhaps you weren’t sure if you should be Sorcerer vs. Spiritmaster or Cleric vs. Chanter or some other combination. How did you pick? If you haven’t picked yet, you better start weighing pro’s and con’s, break out some paper and write it down if needed. That character creation screen is quickly approaching!
Also, for everyone who has participated in the beta events, this is one final reminder that if you haven’t taken the time to do so already, you will need to change your Aion password before you will be able to log on to the Head Start or on the release date. The process is fairly simple, but it is easily something that can be overlooked with the excitement leading up to the game!
Once you make it into the game, hopefully a lag free experience is waiting for you, because your grand adventure in Atreia is about to begin. Now, some tips to make it a little less painful.
Changing Channels: Essential to avoid the overcrowding in the beginning zones. Channels are present in the two beginner towns and outlying areas and offer a way to experience the world in a different instance, up to ten of them. So rather than having everyone in channel 1 trying to get the same basket of fruit, you can hop over to channel 10 and have less competition. Once you get to areas that have rifting, past the two beginner areas, you no longer have the option of changing channels, you can’t hide from the enemy!
Walk through of how to change channels up on Aion’s Powerwiki: 
Power Shards: There are still quite a few not quite sure what they are or how they work. We posted up a little something on it, and it seemed to help a few people. You can check it out here.
Most of all, with the upcoming servers opening and excitement and rush and hullabaloo, do not forget to have fun. You only get one chance per side to level to max for the first time, so enjoy it in a way that suits you. There will be plenty of time to enjoy the max level game, and even if you are not in the first crop of level 50’s, you will get there. So stop and sniff the roses along the way!
Oh and one final thing I should probably mention in case anyone was curious, Fedoldinn and myself chose to go Lumiel with our legion, Asmodian side of course. Apparently it’s quite the popular choice amongst bloggers with Toque, K&G, and Naamah along with the AionRolePlayers (ARP) group all headed there. I personally voted for Lumiel on our legion vote due to the description of Lumiel and her personality, prior to the ARP server vote. She kicks ass heh 
P.S. These characters won’t be deleted! Unless you do it! *happy dance*
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08.12.09
Posted in Aion, Guide at 1:26 am by Fedoldinn
Alright, well, its time we had the logical follow up to Middea’s well written article on the healing classes. Although I was tempted to play a healer from my past experience in WoW, I decided that I wanted a bit of a change and to continue with my more recent DPS role. With that said, I’m going to initially try a mage out.
The logical question now is, sorcerer or spiritmaster? Which do I choose?
So far, I’ve played a sorcerer in the North American Aion betas and I’ve really enjoyed the class. Even with its wide range of crowd control abilities for slowing and rooting mobs, as well as hard hitting spells to destroy them before they reach you, I’ve still managed to get myself killed far too many times. Having extremely low health isn’t really a good thing for someone who plays as recklessly as I do at times. Despite this, I like the class design and play style.
From what I’ve read, the low HP of mages in Aion also makes them fairly weak and easy targets in PvP. I can’t really backup this statement yet since the only PvP I experienced in the beta was a couple of Elyos who were just outside one of the Asmodian towns ganking us while we were questing. At the time, I didn’t stand a chance and I wasn’t interested in focusing on the PvP elements of the game, so after a few quick attempts at getting revenge I decided to run and hide.
As far as which class to choose at level 10, I’ve currently decided to remain as a sorcerer.
Spiritmasters have their summoned elemental spirits for support. Having the pet out at all times is essentially a must if you want to kill mobs efficiently, and managing the pet’s attacks is also important for increasing your damage done. One potential drawback of the spirits is that they do not fly with you, they remain on the ground (with the exception of the Energy of Fire summons). I’m sure highly effective players will have their spirit on the ground hitting specific targets and manage their pet well while they are in the air focusing on either the same target or potentially others. I know for a fact that this is more than I can personally handle, especially in a fast-paced PvP environment. However, if you like to have a pet and managing it’s attacks, then this may be the class for you.
The other noteworthy aspects of the spiritmaster class are its ability to remove buffs, the debuffs it has and the dots and direct damage spells available. With a potential to reduce the strength, combat speed, lower resistances and decrease the flight time of targets, a spiritmaster will be very important to have around for group PvP as well as in a PvE environment. Although they do have many of the early spells that sorcerers do for damage, most of your time as a spiritmaster will most likely be spent applying debuffs, removing buffs and placing dots on targets while focusing on your pet instead of using damaging spells with a longer cast time.
The sorcerer, on the other hand, is pretty much the opposite end of the caster DPS spectrum. Without a pet, a sorcerer’s focus is on casting their damaging spells. These range from dots to direct damage nukes and AoE spells, and also vary from frost to fire. Basically, the focus here is to do as much damage as possible with the spells available to you. If you like casting and doing high amounts of damage, the sorcerer is probably a better choice for you. However, you will have to keep track of the cooldowns on your spells in order to optimize your casting rotation while playing keep away with the enemy. Slowing and rooting effects are available to both of the mage classes and are important to each.
A spiritmaster is very much a utility class, however, they do have an important role to play. If you like having a pet and multitasking watching buffs and debuffs while doing a little damage, then this is the class for you. If you prefer to focus more on damage, high single target DPS and the ability to AoE mobs, then you should consider a sorcerer instead.
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