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

Moving on Up!

At around level 5, things start getting mildly tougher.  You may be playing against enemies that have that frustrating feature known as social aggro.  While the scout can usually hold his own against a single mob, two are three enemy friends jumping in to help whatever you are killing tends to be bit much so learning the art of pulling a single mob is important!  You don't have anything you can distance pull a mob with, so using the tactic of spanking the mob and stepping back to a safer area is the best way to go.  This is also one of those times when you'll really want to have health potions on hand as you can generally manage to take on two mobs if you have them available.

At level 5 you will get one of your main utilities, your hide skill.  While it's fun to play with at this point, it won't be until around level 6+ when you will see why you really need it!  This is when you will start dealing with enemy aggro and while stealthing through a group of angry creatures is a nice skill to have, it is not its most useful application.  As mentioned before, you will want to use your positional attacks to open your battle which impossible to do when the enemy can clearly see you coming and wants to beat you senseless if you get too close.  Having a hide skill allows you to stealth yourself, and then sneak in behind the mob to unleash your flanking attack.  Yes, it takes a little extra time to set up, but the extra care in using the positional attacks will benefit you greatly in damage and survivability.

Around this time you will gain the dual wield passive skill.  Passive skills still need to be purchased from the trainer, so never forget to check back often for these very important features. 

Being able to dual wield brings up all sorts of questions regarding what a scout should carry for a weapon.  A scout may choose to carry a single sword or a single dagger when they first start out.  Which you choose to equip in the first few levels doesn't make any real difference, but it will soon and it's a good thing to start thinking about at this level range.  With dual wield you may equip two daggers, two swords, or even one of each! 

Which is better?  I read up on it while I was trying to decide for myself and found many different schools of thought but there were a few things that made a difference when I actually tried various weapon combos in game.

It seems that only the primary weapon slot triggers critical damage.  In theory then, having a dagger that hits more frequently thus giving more chances of a crit would make sense and would overall allow for more damage.  This reasoning is why I chose to carry a dagger rather than a sword through my first several levels and it does seem to ring true. 

This left me with attempting to see which weapon type I needed to use for my secondary slot.  I didn't see a tangible difference when equipping a sword versus a dagger of equal quality in my secondary slot.  This may, of course, change in later gameplay but at least in early levels you can pretty much put whatever you'd like in your secondary slot without taking a big DPS penalty.

Another Aion feature you will want to start paying attention to are the manastones.  These nifty little stones that you will likely pick up everywhere add attributes to your items.  Things like accuracy, health, parry, attack, and evasion bonuses are particularly useful for the scout and you can add one or two stones to each of your major armor pieces.  All you need to do is put the item in your inventory, right click on the stone and then click on the applicable item.  Adding a second stone gives the possibility of destroying your item, but I haven’t had that happen yet.

Closing in on Level Nine

The scout continues to play along the same lines as it has in the previous levels.  You'll gain some better damage skills, including one with a small stun effect and by now you will be feeling more comfortable and will be able to take more risks.  You will now have a couple of chain attacks in your arsenal.  Don't ignore these!  Being a light armor wearing class means you have to focus on optimizing your damage output and chain attacks are a great source of damage.

At this point, I had a whole skills groove going that seemed to work well.  Open with the stealth and flank attack.  Cast your evasion buff and the following chain damage skill.  Follow that up with the slash and its chained skill.  Continue using your slash chain throughout the battle and watch your health!

As you near level 10 and continue to make your way through the dangerous world, the most important thing you can do for yourself is to keep your armor updated.  You may wear leather or cloth, but obviously you will want to focus on gaining leather pieces.  You can find basic armor pieces on the armor vendors but always check out the player stores because often better armor comes from mob drops.  If you are the questing sort, Aion's storyline quests give some nice rewards that include armor pieces.  Keeping your defense as strong as possible will greatly aid in survivability, and make your life as a scout a lot less painful.

Once you've finally reached level nine, you can complete your early adventure an ascend, thus earning your wings.  It is at this time when you will start your class career as a  Ranger or an  Assassin.  Be sure to check back here at Ten Ton Hammer for future info on those two classes (I'll be checking out both for sure) and for more Aion coverage!