Decoding Aion videos

I just realized that the people who do not play Aion may not be familiar with what's going on in an Aion video. I know I definitely felt that way when I was looking at Korean Aion videos a few months ago. In this post, I'm going to try to provide some info to help non-Aion players decode Aion videos.

The pic on the left shows the class symbols/icons that appear beside a target's HP bar.

A1 - Spiritmaster, B1 - Sorcerer
A2 - Assassin, B2 - Ranger
A3 - Gladiator, B3 - Templar
A4 - Chanter, B4 - Cleric

Below is a labelled screenshot of my UI. In general, what I do in my videos is: strip my target's buffs, apply debuffs, CC (silence, disarm, root, fear, etc), and use pet commands. The only chain skill that I use is a "snare → short stun". Everytime I hit the "snare" ability, my "short stun" indicator pops up to the right of my character.

Bonus vid: another rift adventure in Heiron before dinner yesterday. This time, I popped out at location E on the map in my previous post. The action in the video happened as I was moving from E to F along the north edge of the map. Hopefully the videos make more sense now :)

Exploring Heiron, enemy territory

Yesterday, I hopped on some rifts to explore the enemy zone, Heiron. I decided I needed more PVP in my life, now that I was at max level. However, I was Rank 4 in terms of "PVP rank". At this rank, I would start to lose Abyss Points every time I was killed. Going into unfamiliar territory and not having PVP'ed in a while, I anticipated many deaths. So instead of potentially wasting my Abyss Points, I spent them purchasing the advanced stigma Infernal Pain. That deranked me to Rank 6. Sweet. The next thing I packed with me for my trip was a resurrection kisk. This allows me to set up a resurrection point anywhere in the zone. However, it is visible to the enemy and can be destroyed.

Then, it was time to find an open rift that allowed Lvl 50s to enter. Rifts appear every ~20 minutes at random locations, and have level restrictions for entry. There are only 2 "usable" rifts for me to enter into Heiron from Beluslan. My first rift was short-lived. I had trouble orienting myself and finding a safe spot to drop my Kisk. Consequently, I got zerged and my Kisk was destroyed. I spent some time after that restocking my "rifting picnic bag" and running around Beluslan to try to find the next open rift, since the first rift had closed. It was annoying that there was no way to "run" to Heiron, and the only way to enter enemy territory was via a rift.

Eventually, a rift opens. The rift spits me out at location F in the map above. Just like before, my first order of business was to orient myself, and find a safe spot to set down my Kisk. Since this was an unfamiliar enemy zone, initially everything seemed dangerous. For great success, I knew I had to sort the zone out. I needed to figure out where my safe zones are, where the danger zones are, what the enemy traffic patterns are, what level NPCs each area has, etc --- just like when I decided to roam around solo on my Zealot in WAR. I needed to figure out what was actually dangerous, and what was not. I would also benefit from figuring if anything in the zone was advantageous to me.

My plan of action was to first spiral out from F, and to lower-level areas to get my feet wet. Get some easy kills, work up some confidence, and maybe get some 1 vs many fights. I started out circling around locations F and C. Eventually I had a good idea where the low-level areas are and I'd try to up the challenge and move to locations B, D and E; to run myself into higher-level players. With this approach, I have a better feeling of where the "safer" areas are, I have more control over my surroundings and I could consciously put myself in less or more danger. Videos below.

Out-levelled players who bravely put up a fight:



Some noteworthy encounters, including me being a jerk and playing with the prey. I didn't notice that there was a level 50 sorceror in the mix, or I would have been a little more careful.



If you have been following my Spiritmaster-Chanter posts, you may notice the key moment in the fight where the 1st Chanter in the following video gave the fight away. He almost had me killed for goofing around too much. But, he gave me too much space to med up and when he finally closed the distance, he was too trigger happy with his ranged stun, Soul Strike. That allowed me to hit "stun → fear" unchallenged and take control of the fight.



And finally, moments of fail below. The first one was me trying to mess with a few groups that were getting ready for an instance. I bit off a little more than I could chew and got gangbanged. The second was me stumbling onto a bunch of Lvl 50s waiting outside a rift from Heiron to Beluslan! I saw a whole bunch of red dots pop up on my radar, and got curious so I took a closer look. Then I noticed a rift, and my first thought was that they were waiting for my friends to jump through it and ambush them. But then I hovered over the rift and discovered that I could click it --- they were getting ready to infiltrate Beluslan! While I was being distracted, they noticed me and I was hunted down.



My kisk had expired and I was sent back to Beluslan. Shortly after, there were reports that Elyos groups were rifting into Beluslan.

Aion's aerial gameplay issues

At first glance, flight in Aion seems like a good idea. But the more I experience it, the more I start to see areas that don't seem to be as well thought out or nailed down. In general, they've designed combat and classes to work a certain way. However, these combat mechanics and classes have to work both on the ground and while flying. While they work for the most part on the ground, they do not completely translate to a similar visceral experience in the air. I thought about it for a little yesterday, and the following are what I believe some of the reasons are:

Flight speed is faster than running speed
While not instantly obvious, this has very significant implications for combat and mechanics. All abilities in the game are tuned for run speed and do not readily work in the air without mechanic adjustments. E.g., how a 3s ability works on the ground is not the same as 3s in the air. Even quick melee abilities suffer, since quick on the ground often translates to "target is out of range" in the air. To have combat feel as good in the air as it does on the ground, they should have done something like shorten cast times by the % difference of run speed vs flight speed. Then, reducing defense stats while flying should keep it balanced.

Animation root
Many abilities have an ending animation root. While it is annoying enough on the ground, it is exacerbated in the air because more distance can be covered over the time that someone spends being rooted by animations. E.g., get caught in an animation snare in the air and your opponent can be long gone. They should shorten or remove animation root when flying.

The factors above are reasons for aerial class disparities, and why some classes appear to have a significant advantage over other classes when in the air. The classes that benefit from fighting in the air are the classes that have low/instant cast times and short/no animation snares. 

Area effects are 2-dimensional
Many AE abilities (e.g., buffs, mantras, fear, heals) only work in 2-D. If a target is on a different z- coordinate, they will not be affected.

Flight as transportation
I believe that this is a bad idea. It implies that long flight times are necessary and goes against original intent that flight should not be overused. When players roam around in a typical 'grounded' or 'no-fly' zone, they can run around indefinitely. They can run up hills, down hills, glide across vallies, into caves, around rocks, sit, hide, etc. However, this is not the case in the Abyss. Once you're in the air, your flight timer starts to tick down.

The Abyss is mostly empty space
In fact, too much empty space. Each layer of the Abyss is a large zone, sparsely populated by islands that only have 1 or 2 levels of flat land (but typically only 1). While this is fine if flight combat was not clunky or if Aion was a space/flight simulator where you could actually have fun fights in open space, this is not the case in Aion and battles in open space are clunky. It's also easier to run away from a fight in the air than it is in the ground, and lame strategies such as running someone's 5-10 minute flight timer down are common. As vast as the Abyss is, there's a lot of wasted or practically unusable space. They should have scattered more platforms or large asteroids all over the place to make things more interesting. They could also have added more features to the Abyss islands' terrain. E.g., caves, tunnels (think Star Wars), and more levels.

Flight time
Everyone can easily consume flight time potions to stay in the air for a long time. Why not just allow everyone to fly for 5 minutes if that's the kind of combat they are trying to encourage? Right now, the zone layout and flight mechanics require that people chain-chug flight time potions like water in the Abyss.

No special flight abilities
This is especially disappointing for me. Flying in Aion is pretty much like running in 3-D. You don't get any acceleration from diving toward the ground or any variation in speed at any time. You are just an object that moves at a constant speed in 3-dimensional space and there are no special aerial attacks or maneuvers. There's also a lame limitation that prevents you from falling too far. If you tried to fold your wings and dive, the game won't let you go very far before crashing you into some invisible plane. Basically, being in flight dumbs down each class and renders many abilities virtually ineffective.

Despite these gripes I have, flight can still a good idea, provided that the developers make an effort to tune and clean up the mechanics, and rework the flying zones. Being able to fly is still great, along with being able to fight in 3-D. But the developers really need to get off their thumbs and put more thought into their flight system (combat, mechanics, zones) if they want a winning product. Just allowing people to move (like they were running) in 3-D and passing that as 'flying' does not cut it.

Currently, aerial combat is a dumbed-down, more restrictive, and more broken version of ground combat; with the exception that you can move in the vertical direction as well.

Spiritmaster-Chanter update (video)

The video starts with me having a Wind Spirit. The Wind Spirit does pretty decent melee-range damage, and can cast a short stun with a low cooldown. I was trying to win the fight without chaining Fears, but using control and dispel abilities instead. The next couple of fights are with a Water Spirit, which has very low HP and does ranged attacks but does not have a stun. We moved to a less laggy location for the last couple of fights, but the location that the Chanter picked was disadvantageous for him because it was surrounded by walls. Toward the end, I settled into the sequence of: dispelling buffs and HOTs, waiting for Soul Strike, and then leading Fears with stuns. I revealed what I was doing to him after our duels --- his gears started turning and he exclaimed that he had discovered the "Achilles heel" of Spiritmasters. I expect more interesting counters from him in the future!

Level 47 Spiritmaster experiences vs Chanters

  
I had a couple of interesting duels last weekend. This was long overdue, as I have not been learning as much about each class as I should. Unfortunately, this post will not contain any videos. The duels were often frantic since I am still learning, and FRAPS stutters had cost me a couple of fights. What I have instead are a bunch of notes or tips that may help other Spiritmasters against Chanters, or vice versa (by understanding what SMs can or cannot do).

Key Chanter factors:

1. HOTs (especially Recovery Spell) and shields (especially Word of Spellstopping and Divine Curtain)
   These help to keep HP up through fears. The SM cannot out-DPS even the HOTs enough and must dispel them.
2. Soul Strike ranged stun (also, Parrying Strike and Binding Word)
   These are for kiting the SM. Stun to enter into melee/stunlock range, or stun to get out of fear range. The spell's damage also eats away at the SM's HP. However, drawing out the fight too much will lead to a draw as it allows the SM to refresh stoneskin and pot. One interesting thing to note is that when a SM does Stone Shock (stun) into Fear Shriek, there will be a small window between the stun and Fear Shriek where the Chanter regains control of his character. I.e., the stun duration is shorter than 1.5s. This is a good opportunity for the Chanter to reply with a stun of his own. If the stun lands, the SM will be disabled while the Chanter is feared away scott-free. A smarter SM may try a Body Root (to disable the stuns) into Earth Shock into Fear Shriek. But, remember that Body Root can be potted out of. Save stuns for stopping a Fear.
3. Celerity Mantra
   Mantras cannot be removed by the SM. With Celerity on, a snared Chanter will run at the same speed as the SM. This means that if the Chanter is feared, stopping to cast anything will put the SM farther behind the Chanter. If the SM lets himself fall too far behind, he will not be in range to chain other fears. The SM only has 1 or 2 "DOTs" that can be cast on the run (in addition to having pet damage). Having the Celerity Mantra greatly reduces the SM's damage, in addition to making it harder for the SM to chain fear. If the Chanter has a run speed scroll, the SM must slap on his speed scroll too. Note that speed scroll buffs can be dispelled by the SM.
4. High HP / magic resist
   This is the greatest counter against the SM at end game. The SM can only chain 3-4 fears (the fears are on a 30s, 1 min and 5 min cooldown). If a Chanter stacks enough HP to live through 3-4 fears, there is nothing the SM can do to kill the Chanter. Once the fear chain is up, the Chanter is free to kite and heal and the SM will be a sitting duck with his fears on cooldown.
5. Greater Healing Potion (to remove Silence/Root)
   When the Chanter is rooted, the SM has time to set up debuffs, DOTs and CC. Since Chanters cannot dispel roots, having Greater Healing Pots is a must. Some SMs rely on Silence or Body Root to stretch the fear chain. Pot out of Silence/Bind and the chain is broken.
6. Stay away from confined areas (see SM below)

Key SM factors :

1. Dispel (especially Ignite Aether and Magic Implosion)
   A Chanter has various self-buffs, and some buffs mentioned above that give him the edge. These must be removed to level the playing field. The core Dispel ability has a cast time, a cooldown and only removes 1 buff at a time. There is no time to remove all the buffs of the Chanter one at a time, especially when trying to CC or follow him after a fear. Having instacast dispels that take off 3 buffs each is helpful. Note that Ignite Aether and Magic Implosion do not share cooldowns.
2. Curse of Water instant fear
   For high-HP Chanters, Curse of Water is a must, unfortunately. Against a high-HP Chanter, the only way to win is to try to get the Chanter's HP low enough to be able to finish with chained fears. If the Chanter is smart/conservative and keeps himself topped up... disadvantage SM.
3. Shackle of Vulnerability
   This is nice for the casting speed debuff and the elemental resist debuff (damage increase). However, it does not last very long and has a cast time, so choosing when to cast it is important.
4. Silence, Body Root
   Silence stops heals and Body Root stops the ranged stun. Body Root also reduces melee damage.
5. Running speed scroll
   The only way to get a speed advantage over a Chanter is to dispell the Chanter's speed scroll buff and for the SM to use one.
6. Having a pet already out
   Time is a scarce resource against a Chanter. Taking the time to pop the instant summon buff, followed by a brief stop and jump-cast to summon the pet means you either lose CC or damage time. The wind pet can be helpful sometimes for the additional stun. Note that all pet auto-attacks and Orb damage are physical damage (they can enable the Chanter's parry-based abilities).
7. Keep track of the Soul Strike (ranged stun) cooldown
   Soul Strike's stun lasts 4s, and its cooldown is 12s. If the Chanter is unable to chain stun for the ~6s after the Soul Strike stun wears off, the Chanter is vulnerable to the Stone Shock into Fear combo. However, stay out of melee range after Stone Shock to avoid the melee stuns.
8. Save Chain of Earth and Stone Shock
   They are useful for leading Fears. I think it is a waste to cast Chain of Earth on a Feared target, or when snared with the Chanter's Binding Word. Pot out of Binding Word instead.
9. Being in a confined area
   It is a massive advantage for the SM to be able to pin the Chanter against a wall. If the Chanter is pinned, the SM can plant his feet and go "PVE raid boss" on the Chanter while chain fearing: Spirit Wrath Position, Spirit Erosion, Shackle of Vulnerability, 2 Spirit Claws, Spirit Disturbance, Summon Orbs/Energies, Erosion, Sandblaster.

I'm very impressed with how balanced the classes are, and how the combat system allows for complex encounters. I cannot enter each fight with a fixed strategy, and I have to constantly act/react to my opponents actions. The fight could go either way at any point in the fight. I've been having alot of fun playing 'mental chess' --- going over scenarios in my head and having duels/discussions with guildies.

Update: I found more 1v1 matchup info here.