href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/72002" target="_blank"> style="width: 200px; float: right;" src="/image/view/72002">

Whether you're an href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/71610" target="_blank">Elyos
Gladiator, an Asmodian href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/71532" target="_blank">Assassin,
or a living
version of Napoleon Dynamite, you can't get anywhere in href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/254"
target="_blank">Aion
without
any skills. Sure, you have an auto-attack at your disposal, but if
you’re relying on that to fulfill your destiny as an almighty
immortal you might want to just quit now. Skills are the source of all
your power, to both heal and destroy. Without them, not only will you
fail in your quest, but you'll also never discover the pure,
unadulterated joy in unleashing a chain skill upon your enemies.

I Don't Have Any Skills

This is essentially true in the beginning of your Aion adventures, no
matter which archetype/class you choose. You'll start out with a couple
of basic skills and be sent out into the world. This early in the game,
the skill system works the same way every hotbar-based game in
existence does without exception. Simply set the skill you want to use
in the hotbar of your choice, then either hit the corresponding key (1,
2, Alt+1, etc.) or click on the icon with your mouse and you'll be on
your way.



As you level, you don’t gain skills automatically. Skills
come in the form of books and can be obtained in one of three ways. You
can buy them for your class trainer, acquire them through drops
yourself (after level 10), or purchase them from other players. This
last option can be done from the player private stores scattered
throughout the land, or through the Auction House.



No matter which method you choose to gather the myriad of books that
will reveal the pathway of your destiny, the same technique to harness
their power applies to all of them. Once a book is in your inventory,
simply double-click it and voila! You have now learned the skill.
Pretty simple, eh?

Skills Basics 101

To see which skills you have at any time, click the up arrow beside
your hotbar for the game menu list, or hit the "k" key by default. Once
there, you'll see a number of different tabs. The three you should be
the most concerned with are the Active, Passive, and Actions tabs. The
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/71016" target="_blank">Crafting
and Emotes tabs are also available to you, but unless you have
a special interest in either one, there's little or no need to use
them.



The Crafting tab displays the amount of skill you have in a given craft
along with its current maximum rather than any actual abilities you
would need. The Emotes tab displays all the emotes available to you in
the game. Who would have guessed? For those that use a few of these on
a regular basis, being able to move them to a hotbar for easy access
actually is useful for them. These aren't the two tabs I wanted to go
over with you though.



The least used (but no less important) tab out of the three major
players I listed earlier is the Actions tab. At first glance, the
abilities on this page appear useless, but before you close the tab in
disgust, you may want to move the Rest skill to a free spot on one of
your hotbars. I've heard players complain for weeks about not being
able to regenerate
health and mana at a reasonable rate, even if
they're sitting down. It's important to understand that as far as the
game is concerned, there is a huge difference between sitting down and
actually resting. It may look the same as sitting to you, me, and every
other player in the world, but unless you actually use the Rest skill,
you're going to be there a very long time waiting for anything to
regenerate.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/72003" target="_blank"> style="width: 200px; float: left;" src="/image/view/72003">

The Passive tab may not be one you'll need to check on a regular basis,
but it is important to know you have it. When you use the opportunity
to gain some skills in the future, this is the tab all the ones skills
not in your Active tab go to restare found. Unlike the Active, Emotes,
and Actions tab, none of the skills here can be moved to a hotbar. Like
the name of the tab implies, all of the skills listed there are passive
so they're always active. You don't have to do anything with them
except be aware where they are.



The final tab, and the one that will occupy the majority of your time
in relation to the others, is the Active tab. This is where all of
those skills you use to heal your friends and crush your enemies
reside. Your available skills and chain skills can be found on this
tab. When you click on the Active tab, a second window will open beside
it with two more tabs of its own: Skill List and Chains. The Skill List
tab is just another way to view your skills, but the Chains tab is
another beast altogether.

Chain Skills 102

The Chains tab will display not only the chains you currently have, but
chains that your current skills will allow you access to in the near
future. The chain trees you'll see in the window are set up just like a
tree of skills, but flowing from left to right, rather than straight
down (or up, depending on the game). There are two possible arrow types
showing the path between the various skills/reactions in each tree:
solid and light grey. The solid arrow means that the next
skill/reaction in the chain will always come up. The light grey arrow
means the next step in the chain may or may not occur.



When it comes to both the number of chains and how deep down the rabbit
hole they go, all classes are not created equally, so if you're really
keen on having a large amount of possible chains, you'll need to
investigate this tab for each class. For example, when a Spiritmaster
is in their mid-teens, they have far fewer opportunities for chains
compared to a Cleric. A Spiritmaster has two possibilities that will
always occur since the arrows are solid. At that same level though, a
Cleric has a possibility of four chains. Not only do they have more
chains, but they're also deeper than those of the Spiritmaster. Deeper
chains tend to mean bigger rewards at the end, so keep this in mind
when choosing your class.



When a chain is triggered, players only have a few seconds to continue
them. They can either click
on the icon that will briefly appear on the screen, or click the same
button that triggered the chain in the first place. If a Sorcerer cast
Flame Arrow I, not only would an icon for Blaze appear on the screen,
but the Flame Arrow I icon on the hotbar also turns into the Blaze
icon. To the best of my knowledge, the only way to cast Flame Arrow I
after triggering Blaze I is to wait for the chain skill to fade away
and let the hotbar key revert back. As you progress through your
adventures, you'll find there actually are times when you don't want to
continue a chain. I haven't discovered a way to cancel them out yet.



Common among all the classes is the addition of certain effects or
requirements within their chains. Using the Spiritmaster and Cleric
example again, both have chains that end with an effect called Knock
Down. Knock Down does just what it implies, knocking the target to the
ground and freezing them in place for a few seconds like a Root spell.
Unlike Other skills/effects in a chain, Knock Down occurs
automatically. There's no need to hit any icon or key. Besides having a
chain that ends with it, the Cleric also has a chain that starts with
it as well. Classes with these types of abilities may appear to have
chains of extraordinary lengths, but they are technically just
combining two chains together. It doesn't make the "have nots" feel any
better about it, but that's the way it is.





Is there anything you feel I've left out, or a trick with skills and
chains I just don't know about? Post a message on our forums or href="mailto:[email protected]">send me an
email!