Manastones are the little wonderful blessings that allow
for players to customize their character and manipulate their stats.  You really
don’t want to waste those slots though and it isn’t always clear which stones
will benefit your class the most.  At lower levels, having a nice arrangement of
manastones can make survivability easier and at higher levels, it can make or
break your PvP experience.

This guide will cover what manastones are, what they do, and which ones you
should be using for your class.  However, nothing beats out experience so
if you've found a great spec for your class, please share it with us!

The Basics

Manastones are nifty little socketed items that you can add
to your gear to boost your stats.  Which stats to boost are completely up to you
but you’ll find a guideline for each class at the end of this tutorial.

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 217px;"
border="1">


src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/70000"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 200px;">

Manastones make the class you play even better.

Using manastones is fairly simple.  Starting out you’ll
likely only be socketing one or two and you may not realize that failure is an
option until you are trying to add your prized manastone to a piece of gear and
you get the awful message that it failed and your stone has been destroyed.  If
you are socketing more than a couple of manastones, save the best ones for last
so you aren’t just wasting good stones to failures.

Manastones are not permanent and they can be removed. 
There is generally a manastone removal NPC in every major town.  Removing a
manastone will destroy it, but it leaves the gear intact and allows you to place
a new manastone in that slot.

Manastones come in varying potencies of specific types
which get better the higher level they are.  Most stones are related to combat
stats while there are some that add spell stats, resistances and even flight
time.  Here are the manastones that you will find in the world and what that
particular stat does:

  • Attack – The physical damage you do with weapons and skills
  • Accuracy - The ability to hit and chance of critical hit
  • Evasion – The ability to dodge melee attacks
  • Hit Point (HP) – Adds to your health (HP) bar
  • Magic Boost – Increases spell damage
  • Magical Accuracy – The ability to hit a target with a spell
  • Magical Resistance – The ability to resist spells cast upon you
  • Mana Point (MP) - Adds to your mana (MP) bar
  • Maximum Flight Time – How long you can fly before painfully
    hitting the ground
  • Parry – The ability to reduce damage per melee hit
  • Physical Critical Hit – The chance of making a critical hit
  • Shield Defense – The ability to block and reduce damage with your
    shield


You’ll find that
most pieces of armor and weapons can use manastones with the exception of
accessories.  The quality of your armor piece will dictate how many manastones
each piece can receive.  The following shows the amount of manastones you may
add to a type of armor:

 

  • White (Common) – 1, sometimes 2.
  • Green (Superior) –2, sometimes 3.
  • Blue (Heroic) – 3, sometimes, 4.
  • Orange (Fabled) – 4, sometimes 5.


Making Manastones Work for You

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: left; width: 218px;"
border="1">


src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/75384"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 200px;">

Getting rid of an unwanted manastone is as easy as clicking a button!

So now the
question is, when should you use manastones and which ones will benefit you?

First, manastones
are insanely common so there is never a reason to not use them.  Get into the
habit of imbuing your armor early on, and know where your manastone removal NPC
is for when you want to update your stones.  These NPCs sometimes offer quests
that allow you to trade in manastones that you can’t use for those that you can
use.  A mage, for example, can turn over combat manastones in exchange for magic
focused stones.

As for which to
use, here is a rundown of the classes and which manastones would best benefit
them.

Templar:
If you are tanking with a sword and board you’ll want to focus on avoiding hits
and taking as little damage as possible.  Evasion, HP, Parry, and Shield Defense
will all help keep you alive so that you can be a successful meat shield for
your group and your healer will be grateful for the extra help. 

If you are solo and not using a shield, use a combination of Evasion and Parry coupled with
Attack and Physical Critical Hit will add to your defense as well as beef up
your damage output.

Gladiator:
Gladiators should follow the same rule as Templars for tanking, but for solo or
duo play, take advantage of your damage potential and go all out Attack,
Physical Critical Hit, and Accuracy.  You can do great damage, don’t waste it by
missing!

Ranger: If
you are getting hit then you’re doing it wrong!  The goal is to get things dead
before they touch you so choose Accuracy and Attack.  I wouldn’t worry too much
about your defense in a group, and if you find yourself getting hit a lot when
you play solo, add to your Evasion and Parry then learn to kite.

Assassin:
Melee damage is your specialty and you want to do as much as you can as quickly
as you can.  Attack and Physical Critical Hit should be all you need.  Assassin
can do scary amounts of damage with crits, so load up on those and forget the
defense.

Cleric:
These super healers should rarely be worried about doing damage, so if you play
with a group, focus on survivability.  Use Evasion and Magical Resistance to
fortify your defense and toss in some Magic Boost so not only can you save
everyone’s rears, you can do a little damage too.  If you play solo and go with
a mace and shield, then you should include Shield Defense but also give some
attention to your damage spells with Magic Boost and Magic Accuracy.  You can
heal yourself so being able to do damage is a bit more important than avoiding
taking it.

Chanter:
If you choose to go with a mace and shield, then follow the advice that we have
given the cleric.  Many Chanters choose to use a staff which makes melee combat
and defense more of an issue.  If you play with a staff, focus on Attack and
Accuracy and add Evasion and Parry for your defenses.  With your mantras, you
should be able to create a nice solo or duo spec.

Spiritmaster:
Being able to survive is sometimes a real problem for the mages.  Adding MP will
help keep your bar fuller and should be added once you’ve fortified your Magic
Boost, and Magical Accuracy.  Because you have a pet and a full arsenal of
ranged spells, you don’t need to worry too much about defense or melee.

Sorcerer:
Just as with the Spiritmaster, you’ll want to fill your slots with Magic Boost
and Magical Accuracy but because you don’t have the benefit of a pet, you can
also add to your HP as slots permit.  Having a bit more health on your bar can
sometimes make the difference between your death and your opponent’s death when
it gives you enough time to get off just one more spell.

Manastones such as
Flight Time and Hit Points are fairly universal for any class.  If you have an
open slot and nothing to put in it, either of these make great filler and can
always be removed to make way for a better manastone later.  Do you have
your own manastone suggestions?  Share your specs with other players on our
forums.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Aion Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

Comments