Zesty Gamer

One of the most useful things you can do in Aion PvP is to set up a separate chat window to detect the presence of an enemy player. If done correctly, this window will show you any actions the enemy takes nearby before you can even see them on your game screen or radar. Here’s a quick video to show you how:

Note that this won’t show you actions the enemy players take on you, only on others (players or mobs or targetless skills like Hide), so don’t get confused and think it’s not working when you are fighting. Despite that sounding not very useful, it actually is. The purpose of the radar is to detect enemy activity nearby before you engage so you can choose to run or chase. I’m sure everyone loves to engage the enemy when they are fighting a mob, for example. :P

Here’s how my characters look right now:

1. Zesty (Spiritmaster) – Level 31
2. Zesti (Ranger) – Level 31
3. Zestea (Templar) – Level 14
4. Zeste (Chanter) – Level 14
5. Zestey (Sorceror) – Level 5.. still Mage for now

You might be wondering what the heck is going on? Well, after getting my Ranger up to level 31, I got the itching to play my Spiritmaster again (who was 27 at the time). As I did more and more PvP in the Abyss, I came to really like the CC (Crowd Control) capabilities that the SM provides. Rather than doing damage, I can make the opponent more vulnerable so allies can kill them easier. Since I usually duo with a Gladiator buddy, this role helps immensely.

So in the end, I decided to resume my Spiritmaster as my main once again. I even transferred my level 30 Daevonian armor from my Ranger over, so now I have a 2-piece set, which gives great additional bonuses. I hear that the full 5-piece (which requires 5 level 30 characters) gives enough bonuses to last until level 50.

There were also a few fortress sieges and defenses this weekend, which were very fun overall. The only problem is that the game tends to crash every few minutes when you are in the thick of battle amongst hundreds of enemies and allies. I hope they can fix this issue sooner rather than later.

I’m continuing to enjoy the versatility and control abilities of my SM. I went into a rift and fought and killed 5 enemy players in consecutive 1v1 battles, including a 23 Chanter, 27 Sorcerer, 28 Gladiator, 31 Assassin, and 30 Sorcerer, in that order. Unfortunately the last Sorcerer resisted some of my spells and got my health low before I managed to finish him off. Immediately afterward, a Ranger and Gladiator got me while my cooldowns were up. There was also a Templar that kept trying to interfere when I was fighting someone else, yet ran away when it was 1v1.

The more abilities I get, the more I’m enjoying the Spiritmaster class. Both Ranger and Spiritmaster are the least played classes on my server (above level 30; I did a search on several occasions), which is always good. For now, the Ranger, who has no body armor now, will be for crafting (Handicrafting/Tailoring), brokering, and storage.

I can’t wait for pets to fly!

Ok, so my Ranger Zesti is only level 29 right now. I will be 30 soon, though, and so I wanted to jot down my experiences so far with this extremely unpredictable class. This will serve both as a log of past events as well as hopefully provide some useful tips for leveling the Ranger. Let’s get started!

Levels 1-9

In the beginning, the Ranger starts as a simple Scout. There are no bow skills, so I fought in close combat. This is arguably the most difficult part of the Ranger’s career, as the scout is one of, if not the, hardest classes to level in the beginning. You can go only a couple fights before having to rest or heal. I recommend getting the best affordable weapon (or weapons after dual-wielding at level 5) available to speed things up. As you will see, physical damage classes are very gear-dependent; if the gear sucks, so do they, but if the gear rocks, they rock even harder.

As for skills, there is only a limited choice. Generally, I like to open the fight with a Surprise Attack (if a neutral mob or if Hide is up) from the back and then use Swift Edge > Soul Slash (the latter once you reach level 7). If just running into battle head on, I would start with the Swift Edge > Soul Slash combo and then use Focused Evasion to get a dodge, which then lets me stun the enemy with Counterattack and move behind it to execute a Surprise Attack.

As with all classes, I do not recommend finishing the entire zone before ascending at level 9. Usually, you will reach level 9 by the time you get the final quests to venture deep into the end cave. It is highly recommended to stop whatever you are doing when you reach level 9 and ascend, since you will reach level 10 automatically and thus any experience gained during that level is effectively wasted. It also makes the cave fights much easier (though not much for a Ranger) with the new class skills. I followed my own advice, of course, so I ascended as soon as I hit level 9 to become a full fledged Ranger!

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Ok, so I’m really bad about making up my mind. Last time, I said my Ranger would be on hiatus as I focused on my Spiritmaster. Well, that lasted until I got up to about level 25, at which point I started playing both of them interchangeably. Finally, the Ranger has stuck out to regain my interest as my top-level toon.

Why did this happen? Partially, it has to do with my lucky crafting of a Worthy Noble Koa Bow, which boosted my damage considerably from the underwhelming Wind Breeze Longbow I had been using. Seeing those (very occasionally) 2k crits is really satisfying. The Spiritmaster is the exact opposite, with no burst potential but with steady damage and control. I like both styles, so that may be why I’ve played both. For now, the Ranger leads the pack, but we’ll see what happens by the next update. At the end of this past weekend:

1. Zesti (Ranger) – Level 29
2. Zesty (Spiritmaster) – Level 27
3. Zestea (Templar) – Level 14
4. Zeste (Chanter) – Level 11
5. Zestey (Sorceror) – Level 5.. still Mage for now

I did level my Templar a little to see the playstyle and it is refreshingly different from both Ranger and SM. I think this game makes the classes unique, which is a very good thing.

Throughout playing both Ranger and SM, I did manage to get 4 crafting skills (Alchemy, Cooking, Handicrafting, and Tailoring) up to at least 199 each. This, of course, cost me a lot of kinah and so I was pretty poor for a while afterward. Crafting for 3 chars (my friend as well) is expensive, though if I enlargen the level lead with my Ranger, there should be more income as I get to higher levels.

I’m going to write up an impression of the first 30 levels of the Ranger with tips regarding skills, leveling, etc. Look for it soon!

Good news to everyone whose been having issues logging into their overly populated servers, Executive Producer Lance Sites just announced in a State of Aion address (copying me? ;) ) that free one-time server transfers will be made available for a limited time to select destinations. Here’s the exact text:

So the next question may be “What about my character I’ve already spent time on?” Another good question. I’m excited to confirm that we are currently working on implementing a server transfer service beginning next month. Specifically, we will offer every player a free one-time server transfer for a limited time to select servers. You can rest assured that addressing the demand for Aion is our biggest priority.

So rest assured that NCSoft is addressing and will continue to address the high demand while balancing populations so that everyone has a great play experience. Perhaps the most surprising statistics is that “we’re seeing timeframes where 60 percent or more of our players are playing at any given time. This is a significant event by any MMO standard. Another surprising development is how long players are staying in game—I think that’s a testament to the enjoyable nature of the product.”

I know I’ve been playing Aion a bit too much lately (though enjoying it). How about you?

Aion servers were brought down this morning at 8am PDT for 2 hours of maintenance for the first time ever. I wonder if it will happen on a predictably re-occurring schedule or just when necessary. On Twitter, @aion_xaen announced:

And when NA servers are brought up whispers will be limited to level 5 and above. This is a short term fix. EU servers to follow.

This is great news for anyone who has been getting spammed with whisper after whisper of level 1 gold sellers (aka everybody). Hopefully this means less spamming overall, though it might cause an increase of general and other channel chat spam. Still, those channels are already spammed enough to not matter as much.

This policy is only effective, though, if spammers are actively banned, forcing them to level up new characters to level 5 each time. Otherwise, they only need to spend 20-30 minutes before they are up and running at full blast. I hope to see far less whispers when I login tonight!

Aion updated to patch 1.5.0.8 yesterday with the most important fix being the one to the trade broker. As I mentioned in the previous State of Aion address, a critical bug caused certain crafted items to not sell correctly in the broker. The item could be listed and bought but no money was being sent to the seller. Finally, that problem is fixed and you can unload the 21 Devious Spears you’ve been saving up.

The new patch also has an unannounced change: you can now right click on a player’s name to quickly block (or whisper) them. I would like to see a report for spam option in there as well, but this will do for now.

See the full patch notes here.