Priest Archetype
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The first nine levels as a Priest in
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serve not only as an introduction to the game’s core
mechanics, but offer a small sampling of the types of abilities the two
subclass selections will ultimately focus on further down the road. The
ascension quest itself will allow Priest characters to become either a
Chanter or a Cleric; two classes that might share a common theme of
aiding your allies
in battle, yet are otherwise distinctly separate classes in many key
areas. Before diving into what makes these two classes tick though,
let’s take a brief look at the early leveling experience as a
Priest.
Priests start their adventuring career with two core abilities; A
direct heal called Healing Light I and a ranged damage spell, Smite I.
Combat at this point is pretty straight forward, as two successive
casts of Smite tends to be enough to finish off most even-level
enemies, with a quick cast of Healing Light thrown in after every
couple of fights to refresh any lost hitpoints.
Mana doesn’t tend to be much of an issue early on, and thanks
to the Priest’s healing abilities it can be fairly easy to
chain-pull mobs with very little downtime between fights. When your
mana does start to run low however, opening up your skill book will
reveal an ‘Actions’ tab which includes the Rest
ability that can be added to your hotbar.
The first few levels should go by pretty quickly, and upon reaching
level three you’ll automatically be given a quest to seek out
your local Priest trainer. Once there you’ll find all the
skill books you can purchase up to level nine. If you have the Kinah to
do so, I’d suggest purchasing some of your skill books in
advance which can save you a trip back to town considering the next two
levels will no doubt go by nearly as quickly as the first few. If
inventory
space is a concern, the starting villages will also have a
local Cube Artisan who will expand your cube (which, incidentally,
starts out as a rectangle) by nine spaces for a small fee.
Your level three abilities include Blessing of Health I – a
buff that increases your target’s HP by 10% - and Hallowed
Strike I which is a melee attack the both debuffs the combat abilities
of your target, and will eventually serve as the opener for your first
combat chain. While your first two skills give you a taste of what core
Cleric mechanics are all about, these two skills are likewise a small
window into what life as a Chanter might be like should that be the
path you choose at level nine. This is something to keep in the back of
your mind as you make your way through your initial storyline quests
that I’ll expand upon a bit later in the guide.
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For now though, combat remains a fairly straight-forward affair
involving pulling mobs with Smite and then smacking them over the head
with your mace, keeping the debuff from Hallowed Strike active on your
target as often as the skill is refreshed. In between fights
you may also find yourself obsessively casting your new Blessing of
Health buff on other players in the area, or tossing them a quick heal
if it looks like they’re running low on HP. Not only is
checking the buffs and health bars of other players a good practice to
get into as a healing class, but it’s an excellent way to
meet people and potentially even get into your first groups.
Level five won’t necessarily alter combat mechanics as a
Priest, though you do gain two more extremely useful skills. Blessing of
Protection I increases the Physical Defense of your target by 10%,
while Light of Renewal adds another important healing spell to your
arsenal. Though weaker than Healing Light, Light of Renewal will be
your first HoT (heal-over-time) spell. Mobs around this level
will start hitting a bit harder, but I’ve found that
maintaining Light of Renewal throughout combat is typically enough to
keep your health bar close to full and as an instant cast spell you
won’t have to worry about it being interrupted in the
meantime.
At level seven you’ll gain your first of a series of chained
attack abilities. While you should already be pretty familiar with the
chain opener, Hallowed Strike, the finisher is a new spell called
Heaven’s Judgement I. Whenever you use Hallowed Strike, the
icon will instantly be replaced by the next attack in the chain, which
in this case is the direct damage spell Heaven’s Judgement
which also has a short duration stun effect on your target. As the
cooldown is 24 seconds on this new spell, I’ve found
it’s best to hold off using it until later in each fight, as
the stun affords you plenty of time to cast Healing Light if Light of
Renewal isn’t providing enough health regeneration on its own.
As the ultimate goal of your early leveling experience will be to reach
level nine and complete the ascension quest to earn your wings and
become a Daeva, let’s take a brief look at what makes the two
subclass selections for a Priest tick. This will hopefully give you
some good insight into which side of the subclass fence your first few
skills fall on so that as you advance through the initial storyline
quests on your path to level nine you’ll have a better
understanding of how they fit into the bigger picture.
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When I first saw this class name it instantly brought to mind the
classic role of a character that helps manage crowd control and
otherwise aids in buffing their party’s offensive or
defensive abilities. What I discovered is that this is only half right,
as the Chanter is an interesting hybrid of classes you may be familiar
with from other MMOs, yet stands on its own as a fairly unique class.
If I were going to pin any specific names on the Chanter’s
lapel as a point of reference, they might include some of the stronger
elements of
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Bard and Enchanter classes rolled into one neat package. What got left
on the cutting room floor are the Enchanter’s lack of
offensive abilities or decent armor and the Bard’s incessant
need to whip out a drum and run in circles like a preschool kid hopped
up on a gallon of Kool Aid.
Core
Combat Mechanics
The Chanter is a rugged, in-your-face melee combatant in its own right,
with many direct attacks that inflict a series of debuffs and stuns on
your enemies. While Priests are only able to wear leather
armor through the first nine levels, the Chanter will gain the ability
to wear chain armor at level 10 which greatly ups the survivability
factor when solo, or can even help the Chanter serve as a viable
off-tank in group situations when needed.
While you’ll still retain the ability to heal, the main focus
for the Chanter shifts to a series of buffs that can either increase
your group's
attack power or defense. Many of these buffs, called
Mantras, will be a self-targeted AoE (Area of Effect) spell and provide
group-wide benefits for a limited radius, making Chanters a very
desirable class for group situations. For example, Victory Mantra I
(available at level 10) increases the Attack of group members within a
20m radius, or Shield Mantra I (available at level 13) Increases the
Physical Defense, Block, Parry and Evasion of group members. To
increase the effectiveness of Mantras while in flight, a passive
Chanter ability doubles their radius.
While most of the available content during the preview weekends was
easily soloable, I really wanted to push the Chanter to the limit to
see just how tough the class truly is. In that spirit, I had the local
Transporter send my level 10 Chanter off to Trader’s Berth,
eventually making my way to an area called Gribade Crater Lake. Still
wearing my level 7 leather armor, I managed to hold my own against
first some level 16 Green Ribbits, and even a few level 17 Black
Petragolems before opting to explore the area further.
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Cleric
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Clerics in Aion
are another blending of traditional class roles with
some interesting new elements thrown into the mix. While the
Chanter’s primarily focus is on debuffing enemies and buffing
party members in the thick of melee combat, Clerics in
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are much
more inclined to hang with their
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friends in the back lines doing
what they do best; keeping everyone alive or, failing that,
resurrecting them so they can jump back into battle. Rounding the class
out is a series of ranged damage spells and attack chains, making
Clerics much more than a simple
heal-bot.
Core
Combat Mechanics
Though Clerics are also able to wear chain armor, they’re
very much a ranged class through and through. In combat, think of
Clerics as being somewhat the polar opposite of Chanters, able to
unleash a series of powerful damaging spells along with their
impressive healing capabilities. Interestingly, at level 10 a short
duration root spell called Restraint I is also thrown into the mix,
allowing Clerics to keep their distance from their enemies. This can
really save your bacon while solo, but also serves to get you out of
tricky spots in groups should your healing draw too much agro away from
the tanks.
The early leveling experience leading up to level nine does tend to
fall a
bit more in line with how Chanters function in combat, so be prepared
to mix things up quite a bit should you choose to walk the path of the
Cleric. While you can still stand toe to toe with your enemies, the
most effective method for soloing comes down to rooting your enemy to
gain distance or stunning them through attack combos which allows you
to get some of your longer-casting nukes and heals off uninterrupted.
Some of the other abilities to look forward to as a Cleric include
Summon Holy Servant I (available at level 16) which is a rooted pet
that dishes out ranged damage at the cost of its own hitpoints, or
Refresh Mind I (available at level 19) which slowly regenerates your
mana at the cost of health for 30 seconds. In the meantime, Clerics
also get a special passive ability at level 10 which increases the
effectiveness of healing spells by 5%, giving them a slight edge in the
healing department over their melee counterparts.
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