The Aion Experience

I’m a bit late to posting this, but my Ranger is now level 20. Actually, she’s … *checks armory*… 22? Huh, cool.

Of course, the biggest bonus to reaching those awesome 20’s is the ability to socket your first Stigma. Upon dinging you get a new quest to see Munin, who forwards you onto Urd and it all begins to feel very familiar. By the time you reach Skuld you’re informed of an impending storm and told that your mortal enemy — whose destiny surrounds yours — grows more powerful with each passing day. Apparently, if you… er me… and Hellion continue on our present paths, destruction lies in my…er… your future as well as the future of Asmodae. To defeat him, we must break break out in a way he can’t match. You guessed it, via Stigma’s.

The Stigma Stone is a fragment of a soul — a former Daeva now largely returned to Aether’s flow. Enough remains that allows you to tap into a power that the Daeva knew. You’re given a practice Stigma stone to use while in the Space of Destiny, but of course one good Stigma is like any other and if you can use one, you can use them all.

Of course, that’s all the information Skuld gives you, which really, isn’t enough. Having not researched Stigma’s at all prior to reaching that point, I had no idea how to activate or use them and of course, spent most of the fight running in circles trying to click the actual stigma slot. Needless to say, it didn’t work to well. That said, I still managed to defeat Hellion without it so clearly, I’m just that good.

So… what didn’t Skuld tell me? Well first, how you equip the damn thing for one. Which really, it’s not that hard so perhaps it’s just a case of the programmer thinking “they should just, like, know it…” *looks @Moochewtoo knowingly* But what do you do after you’ve equipped it? THAT’s the info I needed to know before engaging Hellion.

Step 1: Click and drag the Stigma Stone of your choice over to an empty socket and release. This equips it for the practice stone only. Once you have completed the quest and are equipping normal Stigmas,you will need to talk to a Stigma Master, located in major cities.

Step 2: If it’s a passive ability. Pat yourself on the back and move on. If it’s an action, then you need to open your abilities tab (K) and scroll aaaaaaaalll the way to the bottom to find your new ability and then drag that onto your hotbard to make use of it.

The second step is the part I didn’t know going into the fight with Hellion. Oops.

I should also mention that not all Stigma Stones are the same. Some stones give the bearer a passive skill such as the ability to equip a weapon not normally available to their class, while other stones can allow the use of offensive or defensive abilities. A passive ability is nothing you really need to worry about. But for something you can actually use, there’s a little more too it.

After you’re done you head back to Pandaemonium and locate Aud to continue. When you hand in the quest you get your first Stigma stone given to you, which in the case of my Ranger was Arrow Deluge I, sweet. You are also given 300 Stigma Shards which are a form of currency to then equip your Stigma Stones. For example, to socket Arrow Deluge, it cost me 80 shards. Stigma Shard cost is four times the level of the stone and you obtain further Stigma Shards via PvP in the Abyss. You can find more info on where Aud is, the cost and such over on the PowerWiki page for Stigmas.

At level 20 you have two open Stigma slots available to you, with more opening up every 10 levels:  so two slots at 20, three slots at 30 and so on and so forth.

Levels 20 to 25 give the Ranger five stigma options:

Arrow Deluge I which are you given, or you can purchase Arrow Deluge II when you are 25.
You get rank 1 for free, so if you are short on Kinah and like the damage, then chuck it in. At level 20 it inflicts 200 ~ 235 damage on any target within 15 meters. This makes it an AE affect which most people right off as useless unless your fighting a group of mobs or are looking to go into PvP straight away. But for me, it’s extra damage on a single mob while I wait for other abilities to finish their cool downs. Just because it’s AE doesn’t mean it should be written off for single use.

Sleep Arrow I – Level 20
Fellow Rangers claim this one as “indispensable” and one of the Stigmas to be with you through your entire Ranger career. As a predominantly solo player, I don’t see the value as much as someone who likes to group lots, and I’m not yet in PvP. I can see it being handy for the “oh shit” moments when you get an extra add when soloing, but in most cases I’m very aware of my surroundings purely because I don’t like those oh shit moments in the first place.

When I do get to PvP, and I will, I’ve been told it’s very handy. It’s effectively an interrupt and a root all rolled into one.

Retreating Slash I – Level 22
Rangers are all about keeping distance from their target so this stone is also a great addition to any Ranger arsenal. It effectively pushes you away from the target 25m. Once Silence Arrow becomes available at level 25, this stone may fall to the wayside for most rangers. You must be aware of what’s around you, and more to the point behind you before using this ability. No point getting distance and landing in the lap of another mob.

Silence Arrow I – Level 25
Silence Arrow does just what it sounds like. It silences the enemy, stopping them from casting for 2-6 seconds. This should be used on an enemy mid-cast for the most effectiveness.

So what two are the best two? Well how long’s a piece of string? There is no “right” answer for it – most of it comes down to your personal preference at these early levels. For me? I’ll be keeping my Arrow Deluge for now and picking up with a Sleep Arrow or Silence Arrow. Probably more the Sleep Arrow I guess… it’s the best of a bad bunch in my opinion. Of course, I am eyeing off Bow of Blessing I which you get at level 28 as well…

Did you know…

• You can bank Stigma Shards! This means if there is one particular class you enjoy PvPing with, you can use them to collect the shards to pass onto alts.
• Shards consumed when equipping a Stigma stone will not be returned if you unequip the stone, so be very sure when you choose which Stigma stones to equip.

Yesterday I blogged about the oh-so-awesome Mau form and it’s visually appealing goodness. Today, I’m going to look at the uglier side of transformation, the Karnif.

I’ve been running around as a Karnif for a bit now and have had a few people ask me how. Actually, with all the halloween candy thrown our way recently, I think most just assume it’s that at the moment as I’ve been asked nothing more than “which candy” a few times. With my sick and twisted sense of humour (and the dense-ness of some of the population), it’s made for some interesting conversations. Like the one just the other night…

Them: which candy?
Me: Witch candy!
Them: which?
Me: Witch!
Them: What?
Me: What Witch?
Them: Yeah which?
Me: Witch candy!
Them: Screw you!

Actually… they used something more adult than just a screw you, but you get the point. Of course, Karnif form isn’t due to the Halloweed candy, but it is the result of a consumable item.

As you can see, it’s available to the Scout class – so both Assassins and Rangers can use them. With the increase in run speed this makes the Ranger and Assassin the best class to scout out Rifts… get it… “scout” out rifts… coz they’re scouts? Har har har. Oi…

The image above is of the first level which you can start using at level 10 I believe. I’m not too sure as I kept forgetting to grab them so I was a few levels higher by the time I used it. The database sites out there say it’s level 20, but at 21 I was already using the Karnif’s Soul Level 2, so I think the levels have changed since Beta or whenever the DB sites were last updated.

Level 1 and 2 are purchaseable from most (but not all) General Goods Vendors. I try to pick mine up in Pandaemonium as they do stack and that way I’m never left high and dry. There is also Karnif’s Soul Level 3, however I’ve not yet seen that on the vendors so I’m not sure if it’s only available from higher up places, or if you have to obtain them some other way. I guess I’ll find out later.

The buff for Karnif form lasts 30 minutes and is only slightly restricting. The biggest one is you can’t pop your wings, so remember that when you jump off a cliff as you will see nothing but your four paws flailing as you plummet to your death. That said, you can still:

• Talk to NPC’s, which includes quest givers, vendors and the trade brokers.
• Learn your skills, if you’ve used this to run through the city to your trainers.
• Eat, drink and consume potions – handy if you’re running through mobs and being hurt. Doing so won’t drop travel form.
• Gather any ground items. Remember, you can’t fly.
• Melee for what ever your weapon’s white damage is. You can’t use any abilities, but can swing your claws about it absolutely needed.

Of course, it’s the run speed increase you’ll most likely be using these for. Running from spot to spot is it’s main benefit, I wouldn’t use them to fight. A 30 minute buff is good for when you have to run from point a > point b, then hand in lots of quests.

If you are scouting rifts, they can also come in extremely helpful in the event you need to outrun any Elyos!

Like all other buffs, you can remove it at any time by simply right-clicking it and selecting the “cancel buff” option. It should also be noted that while us Asmodians transform into Karnif’s, the Elyos become simple Worgs. Clearly not as cool.

Speaking of cool, there is a slight bug with the animation when you’re jumping, which of course I keep doing to pop my non-existant wings. Instead of leaping gracefully like the four legged creature you are, you appear to panic and simply flail your limbs about wildly until you are safely on the ground again. It’s really rather amusing if not a little pathetic. Don’t do this in front of the Elyos.

Now that I’m managing to kill things quite quickly, I’m raising my DP much faster and am actually getting to use my Mau form.

Being the first DP skill I ever received, I was extremely dissapointed in that it only lasted 2 minutes for what seemed like a lifetime to save up the 2000 DP needed to use it. Thankfully a typical night now allows me to use it at least once or twice depending on how much general running around I do compaired to actual killing. That said, the 2 minutes is over quicker than I’d like. All I can do is make sure I use it when I know I can continiously kill for the time it’s active – usually when I’m at an area with lots of quest mobs, or I’m happy to just grind in a densly populated section.

Of course, being a female Ranger, Mau form brings not only increased damage, but much cuteness as well. Not too sure about the ears though…

I did some searching yesterday for more information on Mau form when I decided it would be the topic for today’s blog. Apparently Mau form is pretty simple: Pop >> Kill. There’s no real information out there other than the common “where do I get it?” and um, “where do I get it?” questions. Cool I guess, although my “inform everyone” side struggles with the lack of information to share heh.

That said, I did find one interesting post. More on the side of funny than informative, but still shareworthy. It’s by Rapidity/LegatoTide and was posted on the AionSource forums and it’s called…

Mau Form and You: Converting DP to Win

Index:

I. What is Mau Form?
II. How should Mau Form be properly utilized?
III. When is Mau Form a bad idea?
IV. Advanced Mau Form tips and tricks

———————-

I. What is Mau Form?

This question is a pretty difficult one to answer in a short paragraph. In short, as a Ranger, you will acquire the Mau Form at level 10, and get higher ranks as you level. This move is the Ranger equivalent of a DP skill, which every class receives. However, no other class receives a DP skill which is so full of concentrated essence of win as Mau Form.

I suppose the best way to answer the question “What is Mau Form?”, is to answer the much easier question “What ISN’T Mau Form?” Here is the complete list of answers to that question:

1. Mau Form is not for sissies.

2. Mau Form is not for the faint of heart.

3. Mau Form is not for people who watched, and enjoyed the Super Mario Bros. live action movie.

4. Mau Form is not for people who want to avoid killing others.

5. Mau Form is not for people who wish to fail at Aion.

That about sums up what Mau Form isn’t. Pretty much every other conceivable thing that didn’t appear on that list is something that Mau Form is. I’d rather not take up 50 pages worth of thread listing all of these things.

Perhaps you may be wondering, “LegatoTide, what the hell does Mau mean, anyway?” While untested, I believe Mau actually stands for:

Malicious
Asskickery
Utilization

Another theory is that Mau Form stands for “massively apricot überschnitzel”, but Mau Form is not intended for delicious german confections. It is intended for blood, tears, and arrows. LOTS of arrows.

Now, one thing that should be considered is that Mau Form is not the same for male and female Rangers. It’s a little known fact, since male Rangers rarely hang out with female Rangers, but your apperance in Mau Form changers based on your current gender. First, let’s take a look at the male Mau Form, which was created in the image of Hugh Jackman:

Note the simlarities. However, I do not believe Hugh Jackman is proficient in archery. Mau’s are all about bows and arrows though, so the male Mau Form is the best of both worlds. It’s all the intensity without the stubble.I cannot speak quite as highly for the female Mau Form, however. Let’s take a look:

It is obvious that whoever was responsible for the female Mau Form model used Taylor Swift as a basis:

This is not good, because resembling Taylor Swift means that female Rangers in Mau Form have a 90% chance to be interrupted by Kanye West for 2 minutes. Also, the picture does not show this, but the female Mau has some sort of bizarre stick coming out the back of her head. I suppose this is intended to resemble hair, but it looks like something naughty.

The technical stuff behind Mau Form is pretty straightforward:

1. Mau Form increases your attack speed. This is good, because shooting arrows faster deals more damage, and helps a Ranger to beat Aion Online.

2. Mau Form increases the damage of your attacks. This is also good, because dealing more damage also means more damage, helping the Ranger to kill things faster than somebody dealing less damage.

3. Mau Form increases your speed. This helps the Ranger to kite things easily. Once again, this is also good, because not getting hit results in not dying. Not dying is the secret to living.

————————————

II. How should Mau Form be properly utilized?

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I think the best way to begin this section is to just show you:

A good place to start with proper utilization would be to understand just how potent Mau Form is. If there is even a split second that you, the Ranger, are in Mau Form that isn’t spent shooting something, then you’re doing it very, VERY wrong. Every sweet millisecond should be spent bringing terror and destruction to all who dare oppose your pointy-stick-launching deity. Even if they don’t oppose you though, you should probably be shooting them. Mau’s don’t discriminate.

The trick to Mau Form is to hit them before they even see you coming. A hidden Mau is a freakin’ scary thing. Being hidden means you can pop up out of nowhere, and burst down the enemy before they even see you coming. If Mau Form were possible in real life, this is what the enemy should look like when the first arrow pierces their vulnerable flesh:

We can see here that the bird didn’t even have time to react to the Mau before a Stunning Shot one-shot him. This is the essence of a sneak Mau attack.

Finally, you should be in Mau Form 100% of the time. Why shouldn’t you be? You will kill things so quickly that two minutes should be enough time to generate another 2000 DP. If you didn’t generate 2000 DP while in Mau Form, then you did it wrong and should be ashamed of yourself. If you must, however, carry around the aether food that grants 2000 DP – it’s like converting Kinah to skill!

—————————

III. When is Mau Form a bad idea?

…

—————————-

IV. Advanced Mau Form tips and tricks

- Mau’s are known for their significant sexual drive. Use this to your advantage, but remember – 2 minutes!

- Despite popular belief, Chuck Norris does have weaknesses. Mau Form shoots arrows too fast for him to even read them:

Go for the throat!

- You should make sure the enemy knows when you are using Mau Form, as it adds a massive intimidation factor, giving you an even greater edge. I recommend adding one of the following to a macro that follows up with Mau Form:

(v0_0)>O It’s morphin’ time! (Mighty Morphin’ Mau Rangers!)
(v>_<) Hugh Jackman Mode!! (If male)
(v*_*) Imma let you finish, but Mau Form is one of the best DP skills OF ALL TIME. (If female)

Now get out there, Rangers, and MAU UP!

Source: Here

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. No idea how a picture speaks in the first place, but fair enough. Today, I share nothing but the awesomeness that is crits!

I realise they’re probably not as high as the crits your level xx what ever gets, but I just don’t care lol. For a level 19 / 20 (I dinged last night) they’re pretty good, and I like em. I LOVE opening with it to see the mobs health drop by nearly half, that’s just too awesome. Especially if I get some good follow-up crits with my other abilities, I can drop the mob before it can even smell my breakfast. Sweeeeet.

Of course, every good has it’s matching bad, and for me, it’s listening to Mr Pouty McWhinge beside me comment how the best crit he ever sees is 500 (which I should mention, I was getting with my Assassin when she was still wet behind the ears). Being a Chanter and spells not having the ability to crit is apparently, a very disappointing existence. Of course, I don’t see him complaining any time he gets hurt with his on-demand heals there and waiting for him when ever he needs. Maybe every time I crit he should remember the deaths I took as a youngin due to no natural healing ability!

And, as I keep reminding him, if he’d just back of the leveling a bit (he’s 25) he too could benefit from my awesome damage as we could group. You watch him come scurrying back when it comes to PvP and he needs my arrows of doom to safe his butt!! Yeah Sjanda… I’ma lookin at you!

No, I’m not just excited and yelling out “Ding 19″ twice… I did in fact ding level 19 two times – once on my Assassin, and once, on my Ranger!! Yipee!!

Dinging 19 on Dewinter (Assassin) wasn’t really a big deal, it was just another level. Cool in that it was the highest level I’ve yet to reach, but so far she’s been pretty consistent with her enjoyment, so it wasn’t like I was hanging out for it. Not like Alexan. Oh my god was she a pain and a half to get to 19! But once I dinged, it was like playing a completely different character.

Doing more damage? Check!

Reduced the need to kite a football field to kill a mob? Check!

Killing the desired mob in under 30 seconds? Check!

Killing most mobs before they even reach you?! CHECK!

I can’t get over the difference. With an addition of really, only two abilities: Aiming I and Stunning Shot I (since Boost Accuracy II is a passive ability I don’t really include it, although I’m sure it helps), I was amazed at JUST how different it is to play. Poor Dewinter got kicked to the curb pretty quick this week as I continue to play Alexan (she’s 2 bubbles from level 20 already) and have no desire to stop just yet.

At the risk of my enjoyment being sapped like last time, I put together some videos of my ‘fun’ last night…

Probably not the leetest Ranger skills out there, but I’m having fun and that’s all that matters! I can kill non-stop, most times without even taking damage which is awesome. Getting jumped by surprise is no longer a death sentence, neither which is taking on two at once should I have to. I can’t get over how different it is and have to ask what NCSoft is thinking making levels 10 through to 18 so painfully, character quittingly difficult? I understand having some hard yards to cover, and those that can push through really deserve to be a Ranger, but the past 8 levels have been so bad it’s made my quit my Ranger twice lol.

Of course now I’m there I don’t really care as much, and I’ve heard it only gets better which is even better for me – because if I’m having fun now, imagine how much more I will have soon! Now it’s time to sit down and work out what Stigma’s I want (Arrow Deluge I then Flurry I I believe?) and really settle in for some pew pew enjoyment!

… boring? Skill shy? Empty? Hrm… can’t quite think of the right word, but after coming off the Assassin who reminds me a lot like playing the piano with all the skills and constant ability pressing, the Ranger feels very different. I keep searching for the next ability to hit and have to remember, there isn’t one. It’s a rather wierd and annoying feeling.

I’ve been getting the Ranger itch the past few days and have been wanting to play Alexan again. I hear a lot of good things about level 19 and it’s been taunting me to try and make it for myself. Of course, I heard all these wonderful things about level 16 as well and I’m still not that impressed just yet. That said, my enjoyment was zapped pretty quickly after sharing my post 16 fun and being told that  I’m a horrible, terrible Ranger for opting to stand still and take a bit of damage instead of kiting. Because of this, I stopped playing her not long after that. (Not because people said I sucked, I’m not that sensative, but because I don’t particularly like kiting…)

Since Alexan started my tradeskills (Tailoring, Alchemy, Cooking), there was NO WAY I was going to restart them on Dewinter when I switched classes. The awesome part to Aion’s tradeskilling system is of course the experience you receive with each combine, be it work order or craft. This proved very fruitful for poor little Alexan who managed to tradeskill her way through the rest of 16 and nearly all of 17! Last night, at only 4 bubbles away from level 18, I took her out for a spin to push her over.

Naturally it took me a few goes to get back into the swing of a different class, and I am happy to report back that I did in fact kite, even if backwards. I made it to 18 fairly easily if you can ignore the few grunts, groans and a strong urge to thump my desk on my 2nd death.

However… I’m only 4 bubbles into 18 but am already struggling to continue without waiting for (Chanter) hubby to get home and bribe him to follow me around with heals. My gear is… less than ideal which probably isn’t helping much, and my Bow is still white quality. I’m hoping that’s most of the reasoning behind my lackluster damage and frustration more than the class, because I so do enjoy the pew pew pew.

At the moment I’m standing just out from Basfelt Village raising my gathering skill as it’s too low to collect the Blicoras for the Impetusium quests, and wondering just how long it might take to finish my 3/4 of a level with 2238 experience multiplied by 3 gatherings a try… lol!

It was less than 24 hours ago that I shared my “Post Level 16 on a Ranger” experiences and already I am back to the “maybe this class isn’t for me” internal debate.

Unfortunately (for me), since sharing the video of my fights, I received an unexpected amount of response. The blog post got some comments – some helpful and worth my attention such as the ones from David. Others, in particular the one from xWolFik who couldn’t take the time to read the post properly before opening the empty hole in the front of his face.

I also spent quite some time chatting to fellow Rangers and general Aion players on Twitter which was both beneficial and insightful.

The consensus: Standing still = Bad. Kiting = Good. Me = Sucky.

While it was great that some of the comments made me go searching for more info, like everything in life, there are two ways to approach things and berating a blog post or poster with “learn to play I am so much better” style attitudes is not exactly the best way to get people to warm up and listen to you. I will especially ignore you if you can’t even use correct English – It’s YOU, not U! Gah…

Some players also need to remember that not all of us have been playing since stage 1 beta for the pure reason of analysing every minuscule element of the game. I joined with the early start program (so two days before servers went live) and didn’t spend much time researching anything prior to playing. So yes, I might be a bit slow in learning this, but everyone has to start somewhere and I have only been playing the game for a couple of weeks now.

That said, I’ve spent the better part of today reading, researching and testing. And I’m once again saddened by the Ranger and the possibility they just may not be for me, regardless of how much I want them to be.

Movement Modifiers

Yes, this probably falls back on me for not spending the time pouring through the PowerWiki reading up everything I could on the game prior to playing. As I said though, games are a relaxing escape for me, must like TV is for others. I’m here to kick back at the end of the day. So no, I didn’t read up everything before I logged in. I’m happy to learn as I go, and today I got to learn something new.

Apparently, the way you move your character while in combat will affect your damage output as well as your defense. While moving forward, your character will receive a bonus to damage inflicted, however you will also be more vulnerable to attacks. Moving backwards will increase your parry and block defense, but lower the power of your attacks. Strafing, or moving side to side, around your opponent will increase your ability to evade attacks.

You can tell which modifier is active by the light yellow arrows near your characters feet. I’m glad I now know what they are as I thought they were indicators of quest mobs or NPC’s at first. Oops.

According to the official PowerWiki, whenever you move into a direction you gain the following effects:

Forward:
+10% Physical Damage
+10% Magic Damage
-20% Physical Defense
-20% Magic Defense

Backward:
+500% to Parry
+500% to Block
-70% Physical Damage
-40% Movement Speed

Left/Right Strafe:
+300% to Evasion
-70% Physical Damage
-20% Movement Speed

According to the Ranger FAQ over at AionSource.com, these values are not commonly accepted, and it is unclear if they affect both melee and ranged damage, as well as both auto-attacks and abilities. The in-game character profile does indicate modifiers, but not their respective values. With the limited confirmed knowledge we have about this matter, maintaining a forward movement while kiting is recommended in order to maximize damage.

kirua writes…

A quick experiment on a level 23 Ranger over 24 auto-attacks, no abilities, same mob level & type for each attempt gave:
average 78.20 damage while standing still
average 54.20 damage while running backwards
average 90.54 damage while running forwards

Of course the sample size is too low, but it should give a rough idea of the damage increase forward movement while kiting provides.

Ok, so it’s good to know what those arrows are, and that you do get damage bonuses by moving forward. Um, can someone please tell me how I’m meant to kite moving towards the mob?

I spent some more time watching YouTube videos and noticing that nearly everyone was running backwards. Those that weren’t, were doing circles. Either way – they were only doing 70% damage, but, they weren’t getting hurt. And since that’s one of the problems for me (minor, but still noticeable), I decided to give it a go.

…

…

Kiting SUCKS!

I walk straight lines backwards, do 70% of my potential damage and take forever to kill the mob. I switch to circles, again only doing 70% damage and my circles aren’t big enough to avoid receiving damage from the mobs anyway. So why would I take damage and do less damage? If I enlarge my circles, I aggro other mobs.

I return to my research and learn that apparently, any ranger who kites backwards = sucky. Great. Further reading reveals you are meant to run forward with your camera turned backwards while jumping and firing off your shots. Ok… they do realise I’m not an octopus right? Circles are said to be the best choice for this method.

I get back to where the mobs are and attempt this overly complicated kiting method. Some of my shots go over the back of my head which is handy, the rest I have to stop running to fire them off which flips my character back to facing the mob in order to fire and then I end up running the wrong way. Half the time when I am running my circles, my auto shot isn’t going off, and no matter how hard I mash my ability keys, they don’t go off either. It’s a pointless game of tag where I am never it. And if I strafe more than I run forward, I lose 30% of my damage.

If I can manage to get everything right and obtain my extremely temporary 10% damage boost, it still takes me longer to kill due to the above frustrations – namely my shots not going off. So what exactly is the point of doing 10% extra damage if it takes me longer to kill?

Yes, I will admit standing still and taking a few hits is not the most conventional Ranger tactic, but, if I’m killing the mobs quicker and without dying, then what’s so bad about it? Apparently 90% of Rangers out there kite backwards, and thus only do 70% damage… so how does me standing still and doing 100% damage make me worse than them? Because I use a few Odella Powders to heal up after every 3rd or so mob?

Of course, I am one of the only Druids who grouped their entire way up in EQ and didn’t solo or kite once… maybe I just like doing things differently lol. But either way, the kiting aspect so far has brought nothing but frustration and time to killing mobs. Last night prior to being informed I’m doing everything wrong I was having fun, now I want to shove my Ranger off a cliff.

I have a funny feeling with my constant lag ranging between 700ms at best, 3000ms at worst, the Ranger isn’t going to be a class I will be able to play, let alone play well regardless of my ability to master making crop circles or not. /Sad Panda…

I labeled this post with the ‘Part 1′ title because I’m hoping there will be a part 2, 3, possibly 4 and even maybe 5 where I can go, “oh WoW, 16 was good, but at level xx I got THIS ability which is totally awesome”. Worst case scenario is I come back with a part 2, tail between my legs admitting defeat once again. Either way, I can’t imagine there being only one post on the subject.

Of course, as my title gives away, I dinged level 16 on my Ranger last night. Yipee! It was a very exciting moment and all thanks goes to my pity party for carrying my sorry pathetic ass all the way. My “I can’t believe you’re already level 18″ Chanter husband slummed it back in the lowby areas to help me and, honestly, I would not have made it without him. I just don’t have enough patience to continue dying, or almost dying in order to level to the supposed fun times. My Ranger would have sat abandoned at level 15, only reaching that level due to 4 levels of the same pity party that mercilessly shoved me over the finishing line. But shove they did and last night I got to head back to my Scout trainer to find out just what was so great about that magical 1-6 level.

Boost Parry I A new ability that increases your parry rate. Good to know. Handy for all the times I can’t keep the mob at a distance…

Counterattack II An upgrade to Counterattack I that inflicts 160~187 physical damage upon  success Evasionion and comes with the odd chance to temporarily stun. Not really useful for me since I very rarely swap to melee weapons even at close range combat because it takes me longer to swap weapons than it does to just kill them with arrows. Can only assume that’s due to lag.

Soul Slash II An upgrade to version one, rank two inflicts 167~194 physical damage on the target and is step 2 in a chain after executing Swift Edge. Again, not really useful for me as it requires melee weapons. IF Aion would automatically switch to melee once the mob is close enough to kiss me, then I might be excited. Until then, no sorry.

Arrow Strike I A new ability that fires an arrow at a target within zero meters to inflict 229~256 physical damage. Finally, something to make me sit up and pay attention. Arrow Strike is step 2 in a chain after Swift Shot which I use in every fight. So basically this gives me a second lot of damage to deal with my arrows of doom! I can’t see one new ability being the ground breaking change that makes soloing super easy, but it’s a start.

Poisoning Trap I Last, but by no means least is a new trap that lasts for 60 sec, during which time it will explode and poison any enemy that comes within five meters of said trap. Nice. Of course it uses 1 Tripeed like my first trap that I rarely used – again, lag. By the time I laid the damn thing I could have just killed the mob. With one that assists damage however, I might lay it at my feet each time and it can help finish the mob off once it’s close and whacking away at me.

Of course, that means Arrows + Tripeed + Odella = an expensive class. How exactly am I meant to cover my trade skills as well?

Still, nothing huge there I could see that would be the difference everyone is telling me to hang out for. The only other difference was a new bow, which granted can make a big difference, but I got the impression from everyone I chatted to that it was something skill based that occurred, not just an upgraded weapon.

Nokir's Bow

And technically this is not related to level 16 at all, the bow is received at the end of the Fear This quest line. I just happened to obtain it at the same time as I dinged (just after), so factor it into any improved game play. That said, there were definitely improvements – noticeably so. I was able to take mobs down without nearly dying, and without waiting half an hour to finish it off. My auto attack is still @#$% up and aggravating me nearly every fight, but there’s nothing I can do about that until NCSoft get off their rear ends and fix it. But the additional arrow shot is certainly a noticeable difference in my damage.

Unfortunately I only got half an hour to test this afternoon, but I only died once in that time (green ribbet with their super poison zomg!) and all in all thoroughly enjoyed myself – the first time since dinging level 10 on Alexan… sweet. The biggest change I noticed was that I could solo!

I took some video footage to share that shows how much better I am doing after only just entering level 16…

Now, there are a few things to note.

1. ALL of those fights are without the Poison Trap. I didn’t have any Tripeed on my when I started, and some bright spark over in programming decided to have multiple tabs on NPC vendors and I didn’t even know I could buy some in Basfelt until I saw the tabs along the top. So all fights are without that added damage…
2. In the 3rd fight you might notice my auto-attack didn’t come on. That was not due to me not trying, I was mashing the crap out of my ‘c’ button to the point I thought I was going to break it. There is something really stuffed up with auto-attack for all classes, yet for some bizarre reason, Rangers cop it the worst apparently. Really @#$%ing frustrating – see, I don’t normally swear, that’s how annoying it is!
3. I have my Dodging I skill incorrectly in my rotation. Because it goes for 1 minute duration, I should be activating it before I even engage. For some sadistic reason, my brain got it in it’s head that I should use it during a fight, and of course no auto-attacks happen when you’re casting it, so that takes away my damage. Every fight as I watch that first arrow leave my bow, I mentally kick myself when I realise I haven’t clicked it. I will learn…While I’m on the topic of moving skills around, I also can’t decide if I should be moving Devotion I to the front of the line too. 5 seconds really isn’t long enough to be much use and so far I have been saving it to help boost my pathetic auto-attack damage. But I’m starting to wonder if I should move it to the front to increase the special abilites. That might help the mobs drop quicker before they actually get to me. Can any Rangers out there shed some light on that for me?
4. And lastly, you’ll notice I never switch to melee weapons. I can’t. The lag we have is bad enough that it makes it a pointless act. It takes at least 10 to 15 seconds to switch, and then again to switch back to bow. If I just stick with my bow and arrow I can kill the mob in the same time. This will of course affect my damage slightly and thus, other Rangers who have a better connection will do better.

Over all though, not too bad. The biggest factor for me was enjoyment – and enjoy myself I did. My little Ranger candle of love flickered and then came back to full strength. And, like a golfer that records his swing to analyse, the frustrations and now, mini triumph have allowed me to really analyse what was or wasn’t causing the problems and learn more about the class.

The next spell level is 19 (arg 3 level gaps) where I receive Devotion I to Accuracy by 200 for 1 minute and Stunning Shot I which I am really excited about. Stunning shot fires an arrow at a target within 20m of you to inflict random physical damage between 253 and 257. And as the name implys, the target becomes temporarily stunned. Sweet!

Coming from a Hunter background in World of Warcraft, it constantly felt like something was missing when I was fighting mobs in Aion. Oh I know what it was – the bouncy red arrow above the mobs head indicating “he belongs to me”. The good news is you can mark mobs in Aion as well – it won’t give you any benefit like the Hunter’s Mark of WoW, but it’s still a handy way to show your group members which mob you are attacking, especially if your group resembles a peep of chickens (yes, that’s what a group of chickens is called apparently)…

Ok, so marking in Aion is part of the Branding System. Frustratingly, the branding functionality is usable only by group leaders, Alliance captains, or Alliance vice captain. As a Hunter, you can be designated puller for a co-ordinated group and as such, can be made leader to utilise the function for this ability. I’d really like to see Aion open the ability up to all group members as the ability for a sorcerer to mark a mob they’ve put to sleep (there’s a Zzz mark) would be handy for all the “Gotta touch them all” group members. Sadly, at this point, we’ll have to resort to screaming “DON’T TOUCH” macros. I so do still love the “You touch it, you f**k it” slogan I witnessed in a WoW group years ago. “You spank it, you tank it” another all time favourite.

The biggest reason to use branding however, for now, is that it allows for one-key-press assisting. See, branding works two ways:

1. Branding the target
2. Targeting the brand

Confused? Ok, in simple terms, say you and me are in a group along with 4 other players. I pull 3 mobs, one of which is put to sleep by the sorcerer leaving two beating on me. I know that mob xxx has more hit points and hits harder than mob yyy so I brand that one with an arrow as the first to be killed. Instead of you having to target me then assist, or having to write up a macro to do it for you, you can simply press the /selectbrand 9 which is the arrow  hotkey (or assign any hotkey you like for the select arrow option) and blam, you’ve now targeted the correct mob and can start wailing away.

Of course in smaller groups while you are leveling up this won’t be as big a problem, but when you come to the higher end instances, raids or even PvP, it can come in very handy. Especially if you’re with a group you run with constantly.

How to set a Mark/Brand

There are two ways you can do it. I chose to do it via Options >> Key Mapping. Hit your escape button, choose options, then Key Mapping. Scroll about half way down until you see the marks and assign a key beside the one you want to use.

The other way, is by using the in-built functions by using the Show Brand functions and Select Brand functions in the [Actions] tab in the Skill Window.

Note: The Select Brand function is usable only when a group leader or an Alliance captain assigns the brand to a target.

Of course, using the built in buttons will clutter up your hotbar but can come in handy if you are needing to use multiple brands – such as a kill marker and a sleep marker. That only clutters up the group leaders hot bar of course, for the remaining group members that simply need to make sure they are targeting the correct mob, if several brands are in use, then Ctrl+Tab (default) tabs through only the targets with brands.

If you, as the group leader/marker don’t want to clutter up your hot bars, you can take a few extra seconds to right click the mobs target frame (the info bar that appears at the top) and select the branding icon from there. Of course you then have to do that for every mob which is annoying when there are quick pulls but may come in handy when moving through an area slowly. If you are doing it this way, note that the three most recently used brand are displayed at the bottom of the target’s drop down brands list.

When a branded target is dead, the brand will be removed automatically.

As an ex-WoW Hunter, I naturally use the blue arrow to mark all my pulls. It may not be a bouncy red one, and it may not improve my damage any, but it certainly makes me feel special. =p

Last night was the first proper chance I got to play for any length as a Ranger. And I have to say, I’m already questioning my choice. Having played a Hunter in WoW as my final character before I quit, it seemed a natural choice for me to chose the Ranger – especially as I found the Hunters one of my favourite classes to play over all. Unfortunately though, the Ranger is no Hunter!

One of the first annoyances I had was that the ranged damage was slooooow, painfully slow. I would fire off my two special attacks and then just stand there like a deer in headlights while the mob ran an me. It took a few minutes for me to realise there was no auto-attack damage coming and that’s why I was barely making a scratch with my arrows. I watched a few more mobs and couldn’t figure out why there was no white damage.

After some googling, I discovered that there is currently a bug with the auto-attack and the special abilities and seems to be most obviously experienced by the Ranger class. What’s worse is that this bug appears to have been around for quite some time now – since the early beta stages! There’s one thread I found dedicated to the frustrations this bug brings and the fact that there is still no fix for it.

Once I figured out I had to mash my ‘c’ button to get it going, things started to lose a bit more health before they reached me. Which brings me to my second and so far, biggest frustration. I’m a ranged class and yet I do 50% to 75% of my damage with melee weapons! What the?! Of course a mob is going to run at me when I shoot it, but if the slow portion of my Entangling Shot doesn’t land, I’m screwed!

Now remember, I’ve come from the Hunter class where I had a pet to distract my prey while I shot arrow after arrow into it. In Aion… no such assistance. This means that a Ranger needs to kite if he doesn’t want to get hit. Unfortunately there are no readily accessible football fields for me to make use of to kite around!

Unless I’m just doing the whole kiting thing completely wrong, which is more than a possibility given the last time I kited was as a Druid in Everquest, you need a lot of room do it it. I tried the “just walking backwards” method and nearly fell off the world. I switched to the “move in a circular motion” method and pissed off 10 other mobs trying to enjoy their day who instead, turned their attention to me. Kiting? Not easy.

One thing I did discover last night was you can use your “ranged” damage while the mob is trying to chew your face off. Yes, a bow and arrow and point blank range, nice. Since my bow can actually do some nice damage – anywhere from low 100’s to high 200’s for normal and crits, I decided to give that a go for a while. I’d pull the mob and then just continue to arrow it down while it was at my feet. Annoyingly, it took forever to die that way. Perhaps there’s some sort of damage bonus the further away you are?

After that didn’t work, and after getting really frustrated at the kiting bit, I decided to shoot as many arrows into the mob as I could before switching to my sword and dagger when it got close. Hey guess what – this brings up yet another frustration!! Having to constantly switch weapons is doing my head in. I go to pull a mob, but oh wait, I don’t have my bow equipped. I swap and pull the mob, it gets close and I spend 30 seconds smashing the shit out of my weapons swap button because lag hasn’t caught up with my request and I can not do a single melee attack until it does.

WoW at least had that right – a Hunter would automatically swap from bow to weapons when a mob was too close to archer. And even if my weapons were the last thing used, if I selected a ranged shot ability, she would simply whip out her bow. Easy!! Aion, you should take note please.

After a mob is close, and once I do manage to swap my weapons out, I’ve usually lost a good chunk of my hitpoints and are frantically mashing as many melee abilities as possible in the hopes of simply retaining my life. Unfortunately my melee damage is still only so-so as it’s the left overs from my levels one through to ten. I don’t have the throat slitting abilities of the assassin, I’ve just got the scraps to make use of. Which, when you’re trying to kill a mob who is not level six or seven and in fact has a lot more hitpoints… takes forever!

I’m not giving up though! I did have a momentary thought of restarting and going Assassin instead, but I see them everywhere and so far have only run past two Rangers. No no, I’m going to keep pushing through as I’ve heard over and over that they get better, especially at 16 and beyond. I’ve also been told that they are far more enjoyable in a group situation where you can stay at ranged, which is also where all their damage is. Thankfully hubby didn’t take long to convert to Aion (about 3.2 seconds) and I’m driving a good friend of mine up the wall with all the info and screenshots I’m sharing so he will cave soon and join us. Which means – a walking group!

I did also get a lot better as the night progressed. I have to remember that I’m new to the Ranger class and although it bears resemblance to my beloved Hunter, they are not the same, and I can’t expect to be brilliant as soon as I start playing. After an hour or so of play, I did manage to kill a few mobs by kiting and managed to take out quite a few more before they even touched me (they were slow movers lol). I kind of feel like Aion’s Ranger is almost WoW’s Warlock (in the beginning at least) – they take skill to play and until they get changed, will be reserved for the ones willing to put in the time. And we all know how skilled I am… =p

I’ve also heard that later on, the PvP is all about ranged distance, so I’m hoping that will play in my favour, especially as PvP tends to scare the crap out of me most times lol.

So far, the things I want fixed/improved are:

• Auto Attack!! This HAS to be fixed and now! I shouldn’t have to spend the majority of every fight mashing my ‘c’ button to either enable, or r
  eenable it. Fix it now please.

• Weapons swapping. If my dagger and sword were the last things used and I hit a ranged ability, just pull out the bow. I know it’s there, I shouldn’t have to remind my character that the arrow goes in the bow and not the dagger. Same goes for close range combat – stop whacking the mob with the bow and pull out something sharp! Automatically!

• And lastly, which is a minor thing yes, but still annoying, when the mob is dead, put your weapons away please. With your weapons still drawn, not only do you look like an idiot when you run, it keeps you in combat and stops you using other functions. Just put them away once the fight is over.

So far, that’s it. I’m sure I’ll find more things out as I progress along. I am only level 11 (almost 12!) so far…