Infiltrating Eltnen through Rifts

Finally! I've found the rifts. Rifts appear at regular times in the PVE zone, but at random locations. To find a rift, you could check one of their possible spawn locations yourself, or check general chat in case someone has already reported one. One of the incentives for rifting is to complete "rift quests" that give you good rewards, proportional to the challenge of completing quests in enemy territory. The first video is of me entering the rift solo and as a small group. We popped up deep inside enemy territory --- sometimes inside a questing area right next to enemies. We then had to navigate our way out of danger and stay mobile so as not to have enemies converge on us, as our locations get broadcasted in their general chat.



After going on a killing spree, we get a debuff that makes our location visible to all enemies in the area, in addition to being banned from rifting for a while. This was probably from all the low-PVP-ranked farming bots we plowed through. The debuff is called Ariel's Curse: "You are under Ariel's Curse for killing too many lower level targets in Elysea. The curse prevents you from using the Rifts. Return to Asmodae and wait until the curse is lifted." Shortly after receiving the debuff, we were zerged down.



The next video is of us practicing rifting as a guild for the first time. This was a little more difficult than small-man rifting for a couple of reasons. Communication and coordination were difficult, since we had to maneuver a big blob while the fringes of the blog would keep getting focus-fired and CC'd. Everytime we engaged, we had trouble disengaging and extending because part of our blob would get stuck behind. The other difficulty is that a blob attracts more attention. Attracting lots of attention and lacking mobility meant that we would eventually get zerged by increasing numbers. We even have a "300"-style standoff at one point :)



Bonus vid: Water Spirit: Spirit disturbance - "Crash". This is a situational spell that drops flying players out of the sky. The spell requires the Water Spirit pet to be out and the target to be close enough to the ground to be in the Water Spirit's range.



And here's some silly back and forth fighting in the Abyss, by the "layer teleporters". The teleporters of both factions that transport players to the different levels of the Abyss are placed right next to each other.

How I manage a gazillion keybindings

    Playing a Spiritmaster places a lot of demand on keyboard/mouse resources. This is exasperated by the introduction of flight in Aion, and having pet-related abilities. If key mappings are not ergonomic, they can lead to poor reaction times. Worse yet, bad key mappings and repeated contorting can result in painful hand injuries.

From my gaming experience, the following are my general rules for keymapping:

1. In-combat abilities should be bound to convenient locations near the movement keys (WSAD)
   I use the Function keys F1 through F4, number keys 1 through 4 (5 is a little too far), and all the alphabet keys around WSAD, up til R, F and V. I consider anything to the right of F4, 4, R, F, V too far away and I do not use them for in-combat actions.
2. Abilities that can be activated on the run should be placed where they can be hit while using the movement keys
   I find that I can comfortably hit C with my thumb while maneuvering on WSAD. I used to put the V key under this category, but I now feel that it's too far away to stretch the thumb while using WSAD.
   The other keys I have under this category are: Q, E, 2 and `. At first glance, these keys don't seem like they can be hit while using WSAD, but I've developed a habit to strafe one way or other if I have to hit them while strafing. And, I can hit any of them with my middle finger on W. The ` key is a stretch, so I reserve that for less frequent abilities or instant abilities with a long cooldown.
3. Abilities that have a cast/build time can be a placed within easy reach of the WSAD fingers
   Abilities with a cast/build time require that you stop moving. Hence, your WSAD fingers will be free. I like to put a frequently used spell with a cast time on 3. So to cast it, I stop and slide my middle finger from W to 3, and back to W.
4. Infrequently-used abilities that are important and require a quick reaction time can be placed a little farther away. But, they should still be relatively close and accessible without any modifiers
   I use R and V for these abilities. R is currently my "Silence" ability (and MouseWheelUp -> R is my "Disarm"). V used to be my "Blink" ability when I played a mage, and my "absorb damage" shield as a healer. It is now used to activate my long-cooldown "resist 1 magical attack" shield.
5. Actions that are less timing-critical can reside farther away
   The keys I have under this category are F1 through F4, and F. The reason the F key is here even though it appears to be near is because It's hard to stretch for it with the middle finger on W, or with a finger on the A or D key.
   Right now, my Function keys perform tasks like consume potions or select a pet to summon. When I played a healer, I would use the Function keys to select group members, in conjunction with clicking friendly targets on the screen.
   
6. Swap Caps Lock with Ctrl
   I feel that it's awkward to hit Ctrl in the bottom left of the keyboard. Which is a waste since Ctrl is such a great modifier key. And look at Caps Lock there. A big fat key between Tab and Shift. How often do you use Caps Lock? I always swap Caps Lock and Ctrl for work and play. With Ctrl in the place of Caps Lock, I can now hit Ctrl with my pinky without moving my hand.
7. Use modifiers whenever it makes sense
   Modifiers are keys like Alt, Ctrl and Shift. These allow you to effectively double/triple the key functions right under your fingers. E.g., for a key in a prime real estate such as E, you have plain ol' E, Ctrl-E, Shift-E and Alt-E at your disposal. My general rule of thumb is to avoid modifiers for timing-critical or frequently-used functions. For less critical functions, consider using modifiers to overload a nearby key, instead of using a key farther away. However, be careful with the modifiers as they can sometimes cause you to scrunch or tense up your hand unnecessarily. This can lead to untimely fatigue or worse, injuries. I tend to avoid Shift and Alt for this reason, and only use Ctrl since I have it bound to the Caps Lock position.
8. Overload the scroll wheel
   It's a waste to use the scroll wheel for the simple task of zooming in and out. Move the function of zooming to the keyboard, or a secondary mouse. However, not all games support mapping the scroll wheel. Fortunately, I have a mouse that lets me reprogram the scroll wheel to simulate hitting keyboard keys. I currently use the scroll wheel for tasks such as:
   Scroll Down: Hotbar 1 (primary; frequently-used actions)
   Scroll Up: Hotbar 2 (secondary; long-cooldown actions)
   Ctrl + Scroll Up: Hotbar 3 (infrequently-used actions)
   Shift + Scroll Up: Hotbar 4 (other infrequently used actions like marking targets or emotes)
   Ctrl + Scroll Down: Assist target
   Shift + Scroll Down: Cycle through friendlies
9. More buttons on the mouse helps
   The mouse hand is often neglected, with the keyboard hand doing most of the work. Getting a mouse with more buttons means you get more keys to bind. I use the extra buttons on my mouse for flight-related actions and to control my pet. One benefit of using mouse buttons is that it's often faster/easier to hit a mouse button and a keyboard key sequentially; compared to hitting 2 mouse buttons sequentially or 2 keys sequentially. This is why I prefer switching hotbars with my mouse, instead of the keyboard. However, I don't place frequently used abilities on the mouse --- the only mouse buttons I want to press often are left-click and right-click.
10. The spacebar is a button too (and so are W, S, A and D)
    Typically, the spacebar is used for Jump. In Aion, it is also used to toggle gliding. But, with modifier keys, we can overload the spacebar with additional actions. I use Ctrl+Spacebar to cancel flight in Aion (fold my wings). I figured that if Spacebar toggled gliding and I won't be jumping when I'm flying, Ctrl+Spacebar made sense. The same idea can be applied to the W key. W is already used for moving forward, so it's not a stretch to have Ctrl+W toggle Autorun (instead of wasting some other key). Having Ctrl remapped to the CapsLock position helps for things like this.

Level 28-31: key skills and the consequence of reaching terminal velocity

Level 28 is when the Spiritmaster begins to feel more like a Spiritmaster. The CC ability I have been looking forward to is Fear (level 28). Fear is a CC that puts the target in a feared state and doesn't break on damage. The downsides to Fear are its long cast time, high mana consumption and long cooldown. Another neat ability, Summoning Alacrity, came at Level 31. Summoning Alacrity makes summons instacast for 10s. Apart from the pet summons, this ability also affects the DOT servant summons.

Now to the videos. For reasons outside my present sphere of knowledge, zergs happen in the Abyss occasionally. I was exploring around the lower Abyss when I find myself caught in the middle of a clash between an Elyos force and an Asmodian force:



Here's a video of something unexpected happening in an aerial fight. A high-level priest was trying to get away from a few of us lowbies by flying really high. He just bolted and shot up vertically for minutes as we followed him. As he kept ascending, I saw that my flight timer was depleting and I popped a flight time potion. This bought me some extra time but the priest kept ascending. But we weren't making any progress on his HP bar, so I started to wonder how I was going to get down, now that my flight timer was nearly empty, my flight time potion was on cooldown and I was so far up that the ground was clipped by my draw distance. Then I thought, "okay, I'll save a few seconds of flight time, cut my wings, allow myself to freefall til just a few seconds from the ground, then reopen my wings." This didn't work quite as expected and I mysteriously died in mid-air. Apparently in Aion, you die if you reach terminal velocity:



And finally here are 2 fights from me stumbling into some Elyos. The first one was against a warrior, who retreated back to his guard tower. I underestimated the range/power of the guard tower and died a foolish death from being zapped by it:



What's sucky about the Spiritmasters right now is that the pets have trouble following, especially when flying. That's why my pet is rarely with me in the videos, except when duelling. It's not that bad of a problem at these lower levels, since the pet is mainly a DOT with a HP bar. It makes more of a difference at higher levels, when pets enable more interesting abilities. Flying pets are already on the Korean test servers, so hopefully pets will be able to fly by the time it matters to me :)

Level 26 thoughts on the Abyss and Rifts

One thing great about the Abyss is that it merges PVE and PVP into a single zone. However, that's not all. It also puts everyone on the server (of all levels) in the same place. Here's an encounter I had with a lvl 37 Templar (10 levels above me) and his friends while I was trying to complete a quest in the Abyss. I was on my way to meet an NPC as part of a quest, and apparently the farther I travel from the starting Fortress, the more likely I am to run into enemies (and PVP). The video shows how much effect level differences have. A few of us lowbies tried our best to scratch at their HP bars, but they bullied us with their level gap and I was forced to retreat.



The next video captures some Rift action. We were completing some quests in Morheim when random rifts opened near us, spilling Elyos into our PVE zone. Similar to the Abyss, the rifts open at the higher level areas in the Zone. I.e., you will be less likely to encounter PVP when you start PVEing in the zone initially, but as you start progressing to higher level quests in the zone, you could find rifts opening next to you and be forced to PVP. The last part of the video shows a swirly vortex thing in the sky and a column of light that some say indicate where rifts open. But nothing happened and I failed to find a rift yet again.