Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

The first nine levels as a Priest in Aion 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.