Once you reach level 40 you'll notice the time it takes you to level is dramatically increased. Usually you will need to spend 18 hours or more of play time per level from here on out. It can become quite annoying and also frustrating to level up. I've re-modified the below section a bit to give you anywhere from 2 to 10 different locations you can hunt per level 40 - 50. If you get bored at one you can just switch to the other one.
Kurin, Rynoce and Tayga Level 40
Right outside of Red Mane Cavern you will find one of the best places to go from 40 to 41. If you enjoy Gathering while leveling, you'll find quite a few goodies here for you to gather like Orichalcum Ore, Asvata Wood, Anathe Fiber, Ruby Ore and also Vigen. Aside from those goodies, the mobs here are spread out just enough so you can easily kill them all 1 by 1. You'll rarely ever get an add.
Also this place is right near town so if Elyos arrive you can make a run for it or if you have to unload your goodies a vendor is nearby. This place is also great for any class it shouldn't give anyone much difficulty and if you're gathering in between kills then you'll have plenty of time to rest up/wait for Herb Treatment Cooldown.
Asmodian Leveling Guide Level 40 Golems
The Golems are a another good place for you to level from 40 to 41. There are about 20 Golems in the area and a few Frost Agrints. This area isn't densely populated with mobs to kill but they are spread out enough to where if you run into one another will not patrol into you. If you like to gather you can also find quite a few Pressa in the area.
This area isn't the best area for you to level up, but it is a good alternative if you get bored of other places. Other places that are nearby are the Ghosts which are a tad north and Anair Icelake which is northwest.
Asmodian Leveling Guide - Ghosts level 40
The Ghosts northeast of Anair Harbor are a pretty good place to grind at level 40. These ghosts are quite squishy and I'd recommend them to any class that doesn't have buffs. There is a Mage type of Ghost here that uses Dispell Blessing. This can get quite annoying as a Chanter since they take away all of my buffs.
I can see a Gladiator or Assassin type class eating this area alive. The ghosts here don't have much defense and low HP. You should be able to drop them pretty quickly without much downtime in between fights. Also if you have gathering at a decent level you will be able to gather the Moonstone here (280 skill) and Orichalcum (300 skill).
For the ghosts there is also a repeatable quest you are able to accept in Besfer Refugee Camp at level 40. This quest is called "[Coin] Ghosts of Anair Harbor". It requires you to kill 12 Spiritsoldiers, 8 Spiritmages and 11 Spiritarchers.
Fang Troll Encampment - 40
The Trolls are one of the best places for you to level from 40 to 41. The camp is pretty small and usually not trafficked too much. The small trolls here are very squishy, the bigger ones are a bit more tough but nothing you can't handle. The trolls also drop roughly 190-250 kinah each kill, which is a nice added bonus to their other loot.
Also if you've kept your gathering around your level you can gather Vigen here (335 skill), Ruby Ore (315 skill) and also Avasta Log (340 skill). Another upside is this place is right next to the Kurin, Tayga and Rynoce area. If you get bored you can always run across the road and grind here.
Asmodian Leveling Guide - Anair Icelake 40
Anair Icelake is just above Besfer Refugee Camp. This is one of the most common botting areas for players. This could possibly make this place hellish for you to level, so, depending on the population of your server and amount of bots will determine if this place is worth it. There are many more then 3 mobs here for you to kill, most of them also con "easy" to you, meaning they have 2 green dots.
The mobs here are a mixture of level 39 and 40. If you just started on my guide, then you'd like to know that the Ice Lake Crasaur's drop an Abandoned Ring that starts a quest. If you followed my leveling path up to now you'd of already done this quest. If you get bored of this area you can always head east to the Ghosts or Southeast to the Golems.
Mist Mane Village (Group Quests & Grind)
Mist Mane Village is a village filled with Elite Mau. You will need a group in order to level here, but it is pretty darn good XP and also there are quite a few quests for you to do here. You can get all of the quests from Silver Mane Village, it is just east of Mist Mane Village.
The quests for Mist Mane Village all require a group and quite a bit of grinding here. There is one quest you actually need to pick up inside, but it can be shared. That quest is Taisan's Request. Below are the quests you can do for Mist Mane Village.
Asmodian Leveling Guide (39) Mobs
The Daru and Crookhorn Gorgons are a great alternative for players that ar level 40. These mobs are "green dotted" mobs, this means they are much easier to kill then your regular mob. Also all of these mobs are Neutral, meaning they will not attack you unless you attack them first.
Two more good things about this area is it is very close to town so that you can easily unload your loot or if you die, you can easily get back here. Also, there are no Rifts that are nearby, or close enough to make it worth it for Elyos to come over here. Chances are when you're over here you will rarely be ganked.
Besfer Refugee Camp Quests - Level 40
When you hit level 40 there will be two quests for you in Besfer Refugee Camp. These two quests are "Crisis of Reyrinirerk" and "A Procession of the Dead". The first quest you will want to do is "Crisis of Reyrinirerk". Head north of Besfer Refugee Camp to Anair Icelake. Here you will want to kill Ice Ribbits, Ice Lake Spirits and Ice Lake Crasaurs for Ice Crystals.
Easiest creatures to grind for these are the Ice Lake Crasaurs and Ice Spirits. They can be found just north of Besfer Refugee Camp. Take a look at where I am on the map for the exact location. The Red is where the Ice Lake Spirits can be found and the Blue is where you can find the Crasaurs.
Asmodian Leveling Guide - Spriggs 40+
The Spriggs are a very unknown camping spot, what I mean is, not many people know about these guys. They are close to town and are pretty easy for you to kill. The only downside of this camp is that one of the Sprigg types will call for help when he gets low on health, as seen in the video. This can make this camp quite annoying but it is a nice alternative if everything else gets boring. Especially because you haven't killed Spriggs since Morheim!
Also if you're leveling Extraction, or at least keeping it your level you will find a ton of Anathe down in this valley. Anathe is the final stage of Fiber used in the Tailoring Profession, making this a pretty profitable area if you have Extract Vitality. Also the Spriggs in this area drop Kinah which is another plus.
Asmodian Leveling Guide - Mamut Graveyard
Mamut Graveyard is a good alternative spot for levels 41-42. Over here you will find Mammoth's as well as Spirit Mammoths, depending on what time of day it is. At night Spirit Mammoths will come out and during the day you will find living Mammoths, as seen above. This is a good spot for two reasons, 1 its not that crowded and 2 it changes from day to night making it less boring.
There is one downside to this place and that is the elite that roames around at night. If you get too close to this elite he will chase you down until you're dead and trust me, you will die. This elite is no joke, luckily if you stay at my blue circle on the map you won't run into him. The downside of this is there are a few quests to be done over here which means this area can become over crowded. Also people know this is a "safe" area.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
AION Macros Guide
This is a beginner's guide to Aion's Macro system. Be sure to read it in its
entirety until you feel comfortable with the commands.
Contents
* 1 How to create a Macro
* 2 Editing a Macro
* 3 Deleting a Macro
* 4 Commands
* 5 Parameters
* 6 Variables
* 7 Delay
* 8 Tips From NCSoft
* 9 Completed Macros
How to create a Macro
1) Open your 'Macro Window' ("U" Key by Default).
2) Click 'New Macro'
3) Name your Macro
4) Create a description of your Macro (optional)
5) Choose which Icon you want to use, this will be on shown on your Hot Bar(s).
6) Drag and drop the appropriate Skills, or manually add them and other commands.
7) 'Save' your new Macro.
Editing a Macro
Select the Macro you wish to edit in the 'Macro Window' and then click the
'Edit' option at the bottom of the window. Always 'Save' after each edit!
Deleting a Macro
Select the Macro you wish to delete in the 'Macro Window' and then click the
'Delete' option at the bottom of the window.
Commands
/Skill Enter '/Skill [skill name]' in the Enter Macro Command box of the Edit
Macro Window. You need to enter the exact name of the skill, including spaces,
to run the macro properly.
Ex) /Skill Ferocious Strike II
/Use Enter '/Use [item name]' accurately in the Enter Macro Command box of the
Edit Macro Window.
Ex) /Use Mercenary Canteen
/QuickBar x y z Enter '/Quickbar [quickbar type] [number of quickbar rows]
[quickbar number]' in the Enter Macro Command box of the Edit Macro Window. The
numbers for quickbar types are: Basic Quickbar (1), Alt Quickbar (2), Ctrl
Quickbar (3), and Right Quickbar (4).
/Delay Delay is measured in seconds.
EX) / Delay 3 - This will cause the Macro to wait 3 seconds before performing
the next item on the script.
/Chatcommand Chat Enter '/[chat mode] [text]' in the Enter Macro Command box
of the Edit Macro Window.
Ex) /Whisper Hi there!
You can enter [%Yourself], [%Pet], [%Group1~5], [%Pet1~5], [%Target],
[%PreviousTarget] and [%TargetofTarget] while in the middle of a chat.
Ex) /Group %Group1 is really the best!
/ChannelCommand A channel command can be registered to a macro.
Ex) : /1 Area Channel, /2 Trade Channel, /3 Seek
/Select %NPCName, %CharacterName Select %NPCName, %CharacterName
/Variable You can assign variables to frequently used names by entering
/Variable [0~9] [name] in the Enter Macro Command box of the Edit Macro Window.
Ex) /Variable 0 Minor Potion of Life
You can compose macros more easily by registering variables assigned to long
names. Assigned variables can be checked in the Variable tab of the Macro Window.
Ex) /Use #Variable 0 - uses a Minor Potion of Life.
Parameters
%Self Use when selecting yourself
%Pet Use when selecting your pet
%PartyN_Pet Use when selecting a pet that belongs to the party member N
%Support Select the target of the chosen target
%AutomaticSelect Auto Select (Shortcut : Tab)
Variables
You can Assign Variables by entering /variable [0-9] [name] in the Edit Macro
Window.
/Variable 0 Secret Remedy of Life
/Use [%Variable0]
Delay
This sets the duration of wait time between command executions. Make note that
the Global Cooldown is about 1 second long. Yet, with latency and other issues,
sometimes it can be a few millisecond more than a second. For this reason, when
using starter abilities (or any non chain ability) and the first chain ability
I suggest using a delay of 1.5 seconds.
Ex)
/Skill Weakening Severe Blow II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Ferocious Strike II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Robust Blow II
When using multiple types of chains (i.e. if we wanted to use Rage II first,
unless its on cooldown, then we want to use Roboust Blow II and Wrath Strike I
chain instead) you can then use a delay of 1 second. Since technically Rage is
our first chain ability activation it receives a delay of 1.5. We want Robust
Blow II and Wrath Strike I to be used IF Rage II is on Cooldown. Thus, those
are our 2nd and 3rd chain ability activations.
Ex)
/Skill Weakening Severe Blow II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Ferocious Strike II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Rage II
/Delay 1
/Skill Robust Blow II
/Delay 1
/Skill Wrath Strike I
After The final chain ability, if you are wanting to go back to a starter
ability (or any non-chain abillity) you revert back to a delay of 1.5. Again
this is to ensure latency issues are taken into account.
Ex)
/Skill Weakening Severe Blow II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Ferocious Strike II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Rage II
/Delay 1
/Skill Robust Blow II
/Delay 1.
/Skill Wrath Strike I
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Provoking Severe Blow I
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Shining Slash I
Tips From NCSoft
- Dragging a skill, function, emotion, Quickbar or item icons onto the Enter
Macro Command box of the Edit Macro Window enters the command automatically
- You cannot enter another macro within a macro.
- Some commands may require sufficient cooldown time between the execution of
commands.
- Macros are stopped when there is not enough MP or HP to execute a skill, or
when there is no target.
- You can use the Example tab to see how you can use commands.
- You cannot use macro commands in the Chat window.
- You can Cut & Paste from an external program such as Notepad. So, even though
you can only have 12 built macros, you can quickly and easily switch them out
if you store your Macros.
-Macros built on one character will NOT carry over to a new or different character.
Original source: ign.com
entirety until you feel comfortable with the commands.
Contents
* 1 How to create a Macro
* 2 Editing a Macro
* 3 Deleting a Macro
* 4 Commands
* 5 Parameters
* 6 Variables
* 7 Delay
* 8 Tips From NCSoft
* 9 Completed Macros
How to create a Macro
1) Open your 'Macro Window' ("U" Key by Default).
2) Click 'New Macro'
3) Name your Macro
4) Create a description of your Macro (optional)
5) Choose which Icon you want to use, this will be on shown on your Hot Bar(s).
6) Drag and drop the appropriate Skills, or manually add them and other commands.
7) 'Save' your new Macro.
Editing a Macro
Select the Macro you wish to edit in the 'Macro Window' and then click the
'Edit' option at the bottom of the window. Always 'Save' after each edit!
Deleting a Macro
Select the Macro you wish to delete in the 'Macro Window' and then click the
'Delete' option at the bottom of the window.
Commands
/Skill Enter '/Skill [skill name]' in the Enter Macro Command box of the Edit
Macro Window. You need to enter the exact name of the skill, including spaces,
to run the macro properly.
Ex) /Skill Ferocious Strike II
/Use Enter '/Use [item name]' accurately in the Enter Macro Command box of the
Edit Macro Window.
Ex) /Use Mercenary Canteen
/QuickBar x y z Enter '/Quickbar [quickbar type] [number of quickbar rows]
[quickbar number]' in the Enter Macro Command box of the Edit Macro Window. The
numbers for quickbar types are: Basic Quickbar (1), Alt Quickbar (2), Ctrl
Quickbar (3), and Right Quickbar (4).
/Delay Delay is measured in seconds.
EX) / Delay 3 - This will cause the Macro to wait 3 seconds before performing
the next item on the script.
/Chatcommand Chat Enter '/[chat mode] [text]' in the Enter Macro Command box
of the Edit Macro Window.
Ex) /Whisper Hi there!
You can enter [%Yourself], [%Pet], [%Group1~5], [%Pet1~5], [%Target],
[%PreviousTarget] and [%TargetofTarget] while in the middle of a chat.
Ex) /Group %Group1 is really the best!
/ChannelCommand A channel command can be registered to a macro.
Ex) : /1 Area Channel, /2 Trade Channel, /3 Seek
/Select %NPCName, %CharacterName Select %NPCName, %CharacterName
/Variable You can assign variables to frequently used names by entering
/Variable [0~9] [name] in the Enter Macro Command box of the Edit Macro Window.
Ex) /Variable 0 Minor Potion of Life
You can compose macros more easily by registering variables assigned to long
names. Assigned variables can be checked in the Variable tab of the Macro Window.
Ex) /Use #Variable 0 - uses a Minor Potion of Life.
Parameters
%Self Use when selecting yourself
%Pet Use when selecting your pet
%PartyN_Pet Use when selecting a pet that belongs to the party member N
%Support Select the target of the chosen target
%AutomaticSelect Auto Select (Shortcut : Tab)
Variables
You can Assign Variables by entering /variable [0-9] [name] in the Edit Macro
Window.
/Variable 0 Secret Remedy of Life
/Use [%Variable0]
Delay
This sets the duration of wait time between command executions. Make note that
the Global Cooldown is about 1 second long. Yet, with latency and other issues,
sometimes it can be a few millisecond more than a second. For this reason, when
using starter abilities (or any non chain ability) and the first chain ability
I suggest using a delay of 1.5 seconds.
Ex)
/Skill Weakening Severe Blow II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Ferocious Strike II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Robust Blow II
When using multiple types of chains (i.e. if we wanted to use Rage II first,
unless its on cooldown, then we want to use Roboust Blow II and Wrath Strike I
chain instead) you can then use a delay of 1 second. Since technically Rage is
our first chain ability activation it receives a delay of 1.5. We want Robust
Blow II and Wrath Strike I to be used IF Rage II is on Cooldown. Thus, those
are our 2nd and 3rd chain ability activations.
Ex)
/Skill Weakening Severe Blow II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Ferocious Strike II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Rage II
/Delay 1
/Skill Robust Blow II
/Delay 1
/Skill Wrath Strike I
After The final chain ability, if you are wanting to go back to a starter
ability (or any non-chain abillity) you revert back to a delay of 1.5. Again
this is to ensure latency issues are taken into account.
Ex)
/Skill Weakening Severe Blow II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Ferocious Strike II
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Rage II
/Delay 1
/Skill Robust Blow II
/Delay 1.
/Skill Wrath Strike I
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Provoking Severe Blow I
/Delay 1.5
/Skill Shining Slash I
Tips From NCSoft
- Dragging a skill, function, emotion, Quickbar or item icons onto the Enter
Macro Command box of the Edit Macro Window enters the command automatically
- You cannot enter another macro within a macro.
- Some commands may require sufficient cooldown time between the execution of
commands.
- Macros are stopped when there is not enough MP or HP to execute a skill, or
when there is no target.
- You can use the Example tab to see how you can use commands.
- You cannot use macro commands in the Chat window.
- You can Cut & Paste from an external program such as Notepad. So, even though
you can only have 12 built macros, you can quickly and easily switch them out
if you store your Macros.
-Macros built on one character will NOT carry over to a new or different character.
Original source: ign.com
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Aion Tailoring Guide, Tailoring Secret Tips Trick
Prologue
I’ve been playing NAion since closed beta. I never played CAion and therefore my knowledge on tailoring might not be as extensive as those who did. My main MMO experience background is 2 years playing SWG from launch up to the NGE nerf, and still playing EVE Online for 4 years now. I never played WoW, so I’m afraid direct comparisons won’t be made in the guide. Those who played EVE and its industrial side (mainly mining and manufacturing) might know me under the name Halada. I wrote a 90+ pages PDF guide on industry that evolved over the 3 last years. Writing material to help others is something I like to do, and while this won’t be as extensive as my EVE guide, I hope to make it as clear and concise as possible!
Introduction
Tailoring (also referred to as sewing) is a crafting profession that allows crafting of cloth and leather armor, as well as certain accessories such as belts and hats. Cloth armor is mainly used by Spiritmasters and Sorcerers, while leather is used mainly by Assassins and rangers. Since those classes are all very popular, there is money to be made in that profession. I will cover profits later in this guide.
Tailoring therefore is mostly suited for the aforementioned classes. It is not the most lucrative profession (although at this point it is hard to debate about the value of any profession so early in the game) but being able to craft your own set yourself is worth the investment alone. Later if you choose to become Expert in tailoring (you can master two professions in Aion, but learn them all if you wish. More on mastering later) there will be great profit in blue and orange items.
Aion Gear
Aion has an extensive collection of gear for all classes. You can acquire gear via the following means:
-Mob drops. They will drop white (common item), green (rare item) or blue (legend item) gear pieces. Elite mobs can also drop orange (Unique item) gear.
-NPC Vendor. There are NPC vendors across the entire Aion Universe. They sell common (white) items only (I’ve yet to find one selling green gear. Correct me if I’m wrong).
-Trade Broker (Auction House). This is where players sell gear they’ve either crafted or picked up from mobs.
-Quest Rewards. Many quests will reward you with a gear piece. You cannot however sell it on the AH. Your options is to either use it, sell it to a General NPC Vendor (not recommended) or de-enchant it using extraction tools to get an enchantment stone out of it.
-Abyss vendor. Referred to as divine items, these are sold either in your Capitol Building in your main city, or at the Abyss fortress. These is a green, blue and orange variety for each level range. The abyss is an amazing aspect of Aion. In the land of PvP, each mob or player (of the opposing faction) you kill grants you Abyss Points (AP) which you can then use to purchase special Abyss gear.
-Crafted items. This will be the scope of this guide.
Crafting armor and accessories
Tailoring allows you to craft white, green or blue items. It is possible for these items to “crit” or “proc” into its next color level (a white item “crits” to green, or green “crits” to blue, etc. Proc’ing will be covered later). Crafted items of any level will always be superior to its mob drop equivalent, sometimes very much so, and same color items with its comparable Abyss counterpart will either be on par or superior. A crafted blue gear set will last you for a good 10 levels and will be highly sought on the AH. Crafted items will not be superior to elite mobs drops and perhaps the best Abyss gear available (I have not yet done a full comparison), however the tl:dr version of this story is that crafted gear is high quality and superior gear that is worth the trouble of making.
Learning the profession
To learn Tailoring you must go to the crafting quarters of your capital city and talk to the Expert Tailor. Learn the profession by selecting the first option. Press “K” and head to the craft tab, Tailoring should appear there with a 1/99 bar. This is your skill level for that profession. The maximum level you can get to is 450P.
Leveling Tailoring
All you need to level professions is time and Kinahs. No character level prerequisite is needed, nor any questing (except the 2 expert quests you need to become an expert to reach 400P).
The best way to level your profession is via Work Orders, which are given from the Expert Tailor in the same room where the sewing machines are. For your first orders, when talking to the NPC, you`ll see work orders available formatted as such: “Work-Order-Name [___P]”. You’ll start with 1P work orders (which stand for 1 point (level) order).
The first ten levels (from 1P to 10P) are done by repeating the 1P work order for which all the materials (mats) are given to you by the NPC. To start crafting, head close to a sewing machine, double left click (or right-click) the machine, select your work order. At the bottom right corner you`ll be able to set the quantity of items you want to craft. Alternatively you can press the “craft all” button, which will craft as many items you can craft with the quantity of mats you have in your cube.
Simply do the works order, turn it in, and repeat until you reach 10P. As I said the first work order has all the mats already provided, so it`s a free way of leveling. Once you reach 10/99 (10P) a new work order will be available. You can either switch to this one (which allows you to level faster, more on this later) or repeat the free 1P work order until you reach 40P (so you level more slowly, but you do it for free, it`s a compromise to be made). At 40P the 1P work order will no longer be available so you`ll need to start buying work order supplies at that point.
Tip: Use a machine directly near the Expert tailor. Place yourself at the center point of the distance between the machine and the NPC. This allows you to craft, then once you`re done with the order simply right-click the NPC and turn it in without having to walk to her. It`ll speed things up and makes it less tedious.
Work orders… how many and how
Starting at 10P you’ll be supplied with SOME mats, a part of the required mats. The rest must be purchased from the supplies vendor (who is in the same room as the Expert Tailor). Leveling with work orders is the cheapest method – the only other way is to craft items from designs (recipes), which is way more expansive and not a recommended method. There is no supplies you will need to farm or buy from the AH – from 1P all the way to 399P, all is available at the supplies vendor.
Each time an item is crafted you will gain XP – as if you were grinding mobs. This is a rewarding factor of profession leveling – even though you might spend hours grinding work orders, you can still level your character as well. In fact, I leveled to 31 from the very beginning of 30 by leveling tailoring from 1P to 399P… that is several millions XP.
You do not get XP by successfully completing a work order. Instead, you are rewarded with a random item. This could be materials you can use later to craft items from designs, or it could be a design itself. Design rewards are what you’re looking for. You can be rewarded with white, green and even blue designs by turning in work orders. The level of the item the design will allow you to craft depends of the level of the work order. Example: work orders from level 200P to 250P will reward you with designs meant to craft items for level 33.
Now, as far as leveling the profession is concerned, there are two methods.
The fast way: to level as quickly as possible, you can repeat and grind the highest work order available. You get a new one every 10P. The Export Tailor will always only have four levels of work orders available (example: you’re at 49P. The Export Tailor will have 10P, 20P, 30P and 40P work orders available for you to choose. Once you reach 50P, the 10P work order will no longer be available, and you’ll only be able to pick 20P, 30P, 40P and 50P orders). You’ll get fewer designs this way, but you’ll level faster.
The slower way: This is the method I used, because even though it is more expansive and slower, it gets you more designs in the end. What I did was to craft the last three available work orders. If I was at 45P and wanted to work my way to 50P, I’d craft work orders 20P, 30P and 40P repeatedly until I reached 50P, then would craft work orders 30P, 40P and 50P until I got to 60P, so on and so on. This allows me to get the maximum number of designs and is also less tedious.
Word of advice: if you’d like to have all the juicy green designs for each level range (gear sets are available every 5 levels, 18, 23, 28, 33, 38, etc) remember that once you hit 300P, you’ll only have access to 260P, 270, 280P and 290P work orders. So if you are missing some of the Worthy Xilix designs for level 33 and you level too quickly before you can get all designs, you won’t be able to get them from the work orders ever again. A reminder: level 33 designs come from 200P to 250P work orders. Your alternative will be the AH. So if having all the designs for all level (38,33, 28, 23…) is important to you, keep repeating the same work order until you do, hoping you’ll get them all before you level to the point where you can’t get them anymore.
Once you reach 99P you’ll need to talk to the Expert Tailor and pay to get your upgrade to level 100. Then grind work orders until you reach 199P and you’ll need to visit her again for 200P, and the same for 300P. Once you reach 399P you’ll be offered an Expert Quest to get to 400P. More on that later.
Leveling… what does it cost?
You’ll need Kinahs for two things. The first is to buy supplies to complete work orders, and the second is to pay for each level upgrades.
The cost of supplies to complete each level is approximately the following:
1-99 65k
100-199 175k
200-299 500k
300-399 1mil
All-in-all, using the slow method described above and including the upgrade fees, you’ll be spending 2.5-3mil Kinahs to get from 1-399. Yes, it is expansive, and so early in the game, less than a month after launch, it is not recommended to sprint your way to 399 like I did, hoping to get Expert first and craft some REALLY juicy gear that can only be made from 400P+ designs. Why and when will be discussed shortly.
Craft all or not
The Expert Tailor will always supply more mats than you need to complete the quest… usually you’ll have enough for 2x extra items. This is in case some fail. If you failed too many times and are out of NPC supplied mats, you’ll need to abandon the quest and start over.
Whether you press craft all or manually set the quantity you need is up to you. Since you get XP each time you craft an item (and not from turning the quest in), you’ll level faster by crafting all you can each time. This will however cost you more Kinahs in the end, as you’ll end up using more supplies as well.
Designs
Designs are needed to craft all items. All white designs in existence are available at the supplies vendor in the tailoring room. They’re cheap, and some can proc into green items. Green and blue designs are either rewarded from work orders, or dropped from mobs. You’ll find some on the AH as well.
Proc’ing or crit’ing
Certain designs have the chance to proc (or crit) into a better item than the original item the design is meant to craft. Sometimes a green design can crit into a better green item with improved stats or it can even crit into a blue item. To know if your design can crit into another color or not, open the designs list (press K, then double click the Tailoring level bar, this will open the crafting window with all designs) then CTRL+right-click a design. This will place a yellow link in your chat bar: click on it one to open a new window. Hover the mouse over the design and two new windows will pop beside it, indicating the basic item it produces and what it can crit in.
CRIT’ING IS TOTALLY RANDOM! I wrote it in bold capital letters, because this question comes every day. To this day there is no known mechanics that help you increase your chances of crit’ing. Your tailoring level DOES NOT affect your chances of getting a proc: it only lowers the chance of failure in relation to the level of the design itself. There are many rumors about it, but nothing is confirmed. So far it is accepted that getting procs is random and there’s nothing you can do to improve your chances. I’ll dispense you of my opinion about this ridiculous aspect of crafting.
If you successfully get a proc, you’ll hear a buzz at the end of the crafting of the item, and rather than hear a bling and see the item appear in your cube, you’ll see a new crafting window appear with a new progress bar for the proc item. This one can fail just like the basic one can.
Again, there is nothing special to do to get a proc. It is totally chance based. All you can do is press that craft button and pray to the Gods of Kobol that they grant you a proc, or something similar in nature. Whatever divine beings you worship may or may not affect the proc rate at this time.
You should also know some items can proc twice…Xilix Textile for example, can proc into Fine Xilix Textile and then proc again into Superb Xilix Textile in the same session.
400P, also known as the WOW THAT’S AN EXPENSIVE EXPERT QUEST!
Once you reach 399P you’ll be able to get the first expert quest from the Expert Tailor. It’ll be listed under the work orders. The first quest isn’t too hard to do. You need to craft a Aion Item (green), which is obtained by proc’ing the Aion Item (white). This is a white design and is available at the supplies vendor. Since it is chance based, you could proc at your first try, or 10 tries later. For this reason, the quest can be expansive to do, but is doable already so early in the stage of the NAion if you have the money.
Once you turn it in, you’ll get another expert quest. This time, you need to craft a Aion Item (blue) by proc’ing the Aion Item design (green). This design is rewarded from the 390P work order, so you’ll need to grind and repeat it until you get it, or you find it on the AH. A simple look at the required mats will tell you the basic item is already extremely expansive to craft. The fluxes needed for it are dropped from mobs lvl40+ and will be hugely expensive to purchase on AH. Add the fact you need it to proc, and you’re looking at several millions kinahs to get it done.
Therefore, the path to 399P->400P is almost ridiculously too hard. However if you manage, you’ll get access to some insane designs that grants you the privilege of crafting sick gear. Upon the expert ceremony you will receive an Aion Item design, which can proc to orange, with superb stats. An example of an awesome 400P design would be this cloth jerkin: Aion Item. Look at those stats, and drool!
Farming or buying off AH
So early in NAion it is obvious the prices on the broker are totally unbalanced. Gear sells massively under auto-prices while mats sell massively over them. Because more than ¾ is under level 25 at the time of this writing on most servers, you’ll find high-end mats required for the better higher level gear are very expensive. Even the basic mats such as Xilix is sold for 2k a piece of my server!
Why is that? The grinding of vitality and aether extract is long and tedious. Many are prioritizing leveling their character rather than their profession of gathering skills, so the idea of having to grind vitality extract to 220 so you can farm that Xilix in the first place might not be attractive – especially since the better recipes require you make green or blue textiles, which means proc’ing the textile design once or twice. You’ll need several hundred pieces of Xilix to make enough textile so that you can get a dozen green Xilix textile mats.
Which begs the questions: is it worth it to grind and farm my stuff or can I make money buying it off AH? The answer is probably obvious, but in fact it is not. Short the fluxes, you can farm all your material easily. You simply need time and patience. That Xilix for example is easily found and you’ll have no problem farming a 1000 in a few hours. Green ore can also be farmed easily… sell the regular kind and keep the green, though the drop rate is ridiculously low, so for every 50 ore pieces you extracted, maybe 2 or 3 will be green, and 1 will be blue.
The problem involves the armor fluxes. Their drop rate is ridiculously low, and you need many. Even grinding mobs for many hours might fetch you only a couple fluxes. You’ll undoubtedly find the need to turn to the broker to get your fluxes. Even doing so, there is profit to be made with tailoring, especially with blue items (which you can sell for such a high price that it will recover any losses you might have encountered). Buying EVERYTHING off the AH is not advisable if you plan to make money with the profession: any profit margin you have to green items will be eaten away. If you’re leveling tailoring to craft your own blue set, then it might be worth doing so.
Morphing
The morphing skill is not well understood. There is no grinding to be done there. Morphing allows you to do two things: the first is to use aether and transform it into mats, such as ore, rawhide, etc. The second use is to make armor fluxes. Just like any other crafting professions, you’ll need designs to do this, and these designs are only available in the Abyss fortresses. This means your faction needs to control them to get inside them. If you’re playing Elyos I’m afraid you’ll need to rely on the AH
Each Abyss fortress has a Quartermaster inside. Each will sell unique designs for morphing materials, but all of them sell the same designs for morphing armor fluxes. So to get all mats morphing designs you’ll need to visit each fortress at least once. Once the design is learned, you simply need to open the skills window by pressing K, head to craft, then double click “Morph Substances”, and the recipes will appear there. Morphing can be done anywhere and does not require any instruments.
For mats, you need
1) Aether in different forms (powder, crystal, gem…)
Example: 1x Aion Item can be morphed into 2 pieces of Aion Item, and 1 Aion Item morphed into 2 pieces of strong rawhide.
To morph armor fluxes you need
1) One armor flux the level above the the fluxes you want to get
2) One catalyst, which is sold by NPC supplies vendors of all crafts. Catalysts go from 599 kinahs to 239 000 kinahs a piece depending of the level you need.
One flux and a catalyst will provide 3 fluxes of the level under it.
Example: to get 3x Aion Item (green), you need one Aion Item (blue) and one Aion Item. This recipe will grant you the 3x Worthy Major Accessory Fluxes. As it stands, morphing is a viable solution for certain fluxes type, and those with entrepreneurship will quickly find a way to use the system to their advantage.
Show me the money
I will keep this short since I haven’t played the market long enough to make a definite assessment. I’ve crafted about 30 green pieces so far. I can tell you blue items sell extremely quickly, even with a premium price on them. It’s easy to assume people are ready to pay a premium for the best gear they can find on AH. The profit margin on blue items is very high, so much that depending how many green items you had to make before getting a proc, you might end up more than enough money to keep going. Green crafted items are superior to mob drops and even Abyss gear of the same level in the first few tiers, therefore it can sell well, but with a much lower profit margin than blue gear. Whereas you can make an easy 300k profit selling blue gear, you’ll be lucky to make 50k with green items. The issue resolves around the fact than even though crafted green is better than mob drops, it is only marginally so, whereas the price difference can be huge. A green mob drop will sell for 50k whereas a green crafted item (of same level) will sell for twice as much, if not more. Most people are too broke at this stage of the game to afford paying double price for an only marginally better item. Over the next months, this should stabilize when money is easier to come by.
Once you hit expert though, it is said to be entirely worth it, as the crafted gears is so much superior than any available kind that they will not only sell well, but the chance of proc’ing gold gear is also something to look forward to!
Conclusion
I hope this short guide helped to answer some of your questions. I’ll make sure to keep it updated as much as possible as the game evolves over the next months! Do not hesitate to post in the thread and ask your questions, or point out mistakes that were made in the guide.
Sincerest regards,
Haladia
Written by Haladia (Sorcerer, Ariel-Asmodian)
Aion Ranger Completed Guide
This article aims to answer all questions a new Ranger might have. It will be updated frequently to reflect changes brought by patches and new revelations regarding class mechanics. Skill and translation inconsistencies due to the current status of the game, its localization and skill databases will be corrected post-launch. Questions, corrections and additions (especially from the to do list) welcome.
Table of Contents
1 Class Description
2 Class Overview
2.1 Attributes and Stats
2.2 Weapons
2.3 Armor
2.4 Role in PvE
2.5 Role in PvP
2.6 Range
2.7 Kiting
3 Abilites
3.1 Signature Skills
3.2 Stigma Skills
3.3 Traps
3.4 Self Buffs
3.5 Crowd Control
3.6 Transformations
4 Character Customization
4.1 Race
4.2 Gear
4.3 Manastones
4.4 Godstones
4.5 Titles
4.6 Professions
5 PvE
5.1 Builds
5.2 Rotations
5.3 Consumables
5.4 Leveling
6 PvP
6.1 Builds
6.2 Strategies
6.3 Consumables
7 Miscellaneous frequently discussed topics
7.1 Instant abilites
7.2 Autoshot
7.3 Jumpshot
7.4 Movement Modifiers
7.5 Melee
7.6 Retreating Slash
7.7 Early Levels
7.8 Cost Factor
7.9 WASD vs. Click-to-Move
8 Useful Macros
9 Links
10 Media
11 Ranger Specific Patch Notes
1 Class Description - taken from the offical PowerWiki:
A Ranger is a Daeva with exceptional archery skills. Not only can it expertly wield a bow, but also a sword and dagger for close combat. The Ranger is also a master with various traps, making it both a formidable opponent on its own and a valued member of any group. Being skilled in both long and short range attacks combined with the ability to manipulate traps makes the Ranger able to adapt easily to nearly any situation. However, arrows and trap ingredients can become costly which makes the Ranger one of the more expensive classes.
Being as faithful as any other class, the Ranger turns to the Empyrean Lords for inspiration. While an Elysean Ranger looks toward Vaizel, the Lord of the free spirit, Asmodian Rangers accept Triniel, the Lord who controls death, as their model.
2 Class Overview
2.1 Attributes and Stats
Rangers on creation have the following base attributes:
Power: 100 - affects physical damage
Health: 100 - affects hit points and recovery rate
Agility: 115 - affects evasion, parry and block rates
Accuracy: 115 - affects chance to hit and critically hit rate (the manastone that increases Accuracy does not affect this attribute, it affects the stat with the same name found under your offensive stats)
Knowledge: 90 - affects spell damage and hit rate
Will: 90 - affects mana pool and mana recovery rate
In addition there are the following statistics that can be modified by gear and manastone choices:
Attack: affects physical damage
Accuracy: used to calculate chance to hit with weapons or abilites (this is not the same as the atttribute above with the same name)
Crit Rate: used to calculate chance to score a critical hit. For every 10 critical rating, you gain roughly 1% critical strike chance. After you achieve a critical hit rating of 440, you need 20 critical rating per 1% increase (called the soft-cap). Also, your critical hits have a chance to knockback your opponent.
Attack Speed: delay between auto-attacks, also affects casting animation speed
Speed: movement speed
Magic Boost: affects magical damage
Magic Accuracy: used to calculate chance to hit with spells
Physical Defense: affects physical damage taken from melee and ranged attacks
Evasion: chance to dodge a physical attack
Block: chance to block
Parry: chance to parry
Magical Resistance: chance to resist damage or debuffs from spells
Fire/Wind/Water/Earth Resistance: affects damage taken from spells
2.2 Weapons
A Ranger can wield one-handed swords and daggers starting from level 1, dual-wield at level 5, and can learn to use bows at level 10.
2.3 Armor
A Ranger can wear cloth and leather armor, as well as all types of head armor pieces. You should prefer leather over cloth.
2.4 Role in PvE
Rangers are physical ranged damage dealers. We provide good DPS as well as several Crowd Control abilites. However currently the general assumption is that our DPS is lower than those of most other DPS classes. Due to the lack of combatlog parsing this is still up for debate and you should keep in mind that the majority of players currently complaining about Ranger damage output have only experienced low-level gameplay.
2.5 Role in PvP
Rangers excel at burst damage from range and their unique ability to decrease any healing done to an opponent makes them a vital addition to any PvP group. With our burst damage, CC abilites, stealth and snares, Rangers are also excellent at solo PvP, but rely heavily on kiting the opponent.
2.6 Range
Rangers have long-, medium-, and short-distance shots at 25m, 20m, and 15m respectively, with most abilites having a 25m range. Range is increased by a level 25 passive skill, and is increased by an additional 10% while in flight. There is no dead-zone or minimum range.
2.7 Kiting
A Ranger relies heavily on kiting in PvE as well as PvP, which means using your abilites like Entangling Shot, Spike Trap and various stuns to maintain enough range to your opponent to be able to deal damage while keeping him from reaching you. There are different ways to achieve this, but due to Aion's movement modifiers (see 7.4) strafing and back-pedaling is not recommended. Jump-shots (7.3) and being able to abuse auto-shot/auto-facing play an important role in maximizing your effectiveness.
See Kirua's Kiting Guide for details.
3 Abilites
3.1 Signature Skills
Traps: Unique to Rangers, traps grant access to an additional source of burst or DOT damage, snares and roots. They can be used effectively in PvE, but are not reliable in PvP because they can be avoided by a skilled opponent.
Self Buffs: Rangers get access to several, short-duration self buffs that increase his avoidance or damage output signifcantly while they last.
Stealth: The Scout's base hide ability grants us limited stealth capacites, while not as good as those of the Assassin.
Entangling Shot: This early available ability is your main snare and can be used while moving (its animation doesn't cause you to become immobilized like other skills).
Silence Arrow: Prevents the target from casting spells for a short period of time, making it an invaluable tool while fighting casters and especially healers.
Sleep Arrow: Puts the target to sleep for 12 seconds, effectively removing them from combat for the duration or until dispelled. Can also be used as a spell interrupt.
Awl Arrow: Unique to the Ranger class, this chain ability debuffs the target's physical defense and the healing it receives for a short time, making it invaluable in PvP.
Retreating Slash: This ability pushes the Ranger 25m backwards, out of the target's range. It can be used while equipped with a bow, but you have to be in melee range.
3.2 Stigma Skills - displaying highest available rank
Basic Sigmas
Arrow Deluge
Breath of Nature
Focused Shots
Nature's Resolve
Retreating Slash
Silence Arrow
Sleep Arrow
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Sniper Stance
Trap of Clairvoyance - Trap of Clairvoyance
Trap of Slowing Elyos / Asmodian
Bow of Blessing
Bestial Fury
Holy Arrow (Elyos)
Deadly Arrow (Asmodian)
Advanced Stigmas
Explosion Arrow
Gale Arrow
Mistral Absorb Vitality
Resolution of Hunter
Arrow of Fury
Raging Wind Arrow
3.3 Traps
Trap: Spike - Trap: Spike
Poisoning Trap - Poisoning Trap
Trap: Explosion - Trap: Explosion
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Trap of Clairvoyance - Trap of Clairvoyance
Trap of Destruction - Trap of Destruction
Trap: Spike Bite - Trap: Spike Bite
Trap: Sandstorm - Trap: Sandstorm
3.4 Self Buffs
Aiming
Dodging
Strong Shots
Hunter's Eye
Focused Shots
Devotion
Focused Evasion
Tactical Retreat
All-Seeing Eye
Sniper Stance
3.5 Crowd Control
Sleep Arrow
Silence Arrow
Entangling Shot
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Trap: Spike - Trap: Spike
3.6 Transformations
There are two different kinds of transformations:
DP skill: Elyos - Asmodian
This is our 2000 DP skill and currently lasts 1 minute (buffed to 2 minutes in a future patch).
For the other transformation you need to buy a reagent that is sold by a job supplier (where you also buy seeds for your traps): Elyos - Asmodian
This is just a travel form, either as a Zaif or a Karnif depending on your faction, and since it consumes a reagent it can be expensive to use it frequently. There are two different levels per form, with level 1 increasing speed by 20% and level 2 by 30%.
4 Character Customization
4.1 Race
While some skills differ depending on your faction, the differences are mostly minor and will not make or break your gameplay.
Also keep in mind that apparently the way to aquire certain titles is different for the two factions, so a particular good title might be harder to get depending on your race.
4.2 Gear
4.3 Manastones
When it comes to manastones, socketing critical physical hit stones is widely regarded as being most effective up to around 440 critical strike (which is the soft cap, additional crit will be subject to diminishing returns). After you reach 440 crit, use attack or HP/resists (for PvP).
Rangers usually are not the first target in group fights and their survivability is good enough to enable you to socket offensively.
4.4 Godstones
Godstones can only be used on weapons and add a chance to proc an additional effect on each attack. You can find an incomplete list here: God Stones - Enhancement Items - Aion
4.5 Titles
The most beneficial titles for a Ranger are those that increase our speed or flight speed, as well as damage. Out of all currently known titles, the following are probably the most interesting ones:
Elyos
Bottled Lightning +3% Speed - from Lightningfoot Tuka - Quests - Aion
Honorary Black Cloud +5% Speed - from Jakurerk's Opportunity to Make it Big - Quests - Aion
Heroic +4 Physical Critical Hit, +1 Physical Att, +1% Atk Speed - from [Group] Confrontation with Asmodian Army General - Quests - Aion
Owner of the Dragon Sword +52 Maximum HP, +3 Flight Time, +3% Flight Speed, +6% Speed - from [Group] The True Owner of the Dragon Sword - Quests - Aion
Asmodian
Postal +4% Speed - from [Infiltration] Elim Of Elysea - Quests - Aion
Wheeler-Dealer +5% Speed - from Contract of Black Cloud Traders - Quests - Aion
Heroic +52 Maximum HP, +3 Flight Time, +3% Flight Speed, +6% Speed - from [Group] Confrontation with Elysean Army General - Quests - Aion
4.6 Professions
There is no single best profession for your character and you also need to keep in mind what professions you have access to through friends and guildmates. For both factions, Sewing provides you with the ability to craft leather armor, Handicrafting grants access to bow recipes as well as rings or necklaces. Cooking and Alchemy enable you to craft your own consumables.
5 PvE
5.1 Builds
5.2 Rotations
5.3 Consumables
5.4 Leveling
10-16: You start out with only two ranged attacks, Snipe being your main source of damage and Entangling Shot your snare. You want to open up with Snipe, Entangling Shot, then turn around and kite the mob. Use Snipe as soon as its cooldown finishes, keep Entangling Shot up as much as possible. If the mob is low on HP you can finish it off with melee. For hard (named) mobs, you can use a Spike Trap to root it, or your DP Mau Transformation for faster run and attack speed, as well as damage.
16-19: At 16 you get Arrow Strike, your first ranged chain skill. Open up with Snipe, turn around and start kiting, you can use Arrow Strike while running even if you're turned away from the mob. Again, keep Entangling Shot up all the time, finish low HP mobs off in melee.
19-25: At this point our killing speed starts to get better. You get Stunning Shot which can do a lot of damage, but the chance isn't very high. It also has lower range than your other shots, so start out with Snipe -> Arrow Strike and use Stunning Shot when the mob gets closer.
At 20 you should do your Stigma Quest so you can equip the Arrow Deluge Stigma Stone. While its range and damage is low on single targets, it fits nicely into your rotation when all other shots are on cooldown.
You could also get Sleep Arrow in case you get involved in PvP, or if you get adds.
25-28: This is where killing speed really picks up. Rupture Arrow is a chain ability to use after Stunning Shot and also has a chance to deal a lot of damage, knocking the target back as well. After you did some of the Abyss quests, you can try to find a quiet spot in the Lower Abyss and grind. Abyss mobs give increased XP and also reward AP. If you're grinding, get mana potions in addition to mana treatment so you never have to regen.
At 27 you can hit the Upper Abyss and grind on level 30 mobs for very good XP.
28-31: At 28, additional quests in Eltnen/Morheim open up that are worth doing. You can also keep grinding in the Upper Abyss. You should now have Spiral Arrow, which only has a 10% chance to become usable after Arrow Strike, but it hits for a decent amount of damage.
6 PvP
6.1 Builds
6.2 Strategies
6.3 Consumables
7 Miscellaneous frequently discussed topics
7.1 Instant Abilites
There is no global cooldown in Aion. To make up for this and to prevent spamming, most abilites that don't have a cast time (like Ranger shots) are limited by their animation, during which you are immobilized. This is not a bug, but a design decision. It can, however, be countered by abusing jumpshots.
7.2 Autoshot
Note: In the current version autoshot is bugged so it will turn itself off seemingly random after using an ability. This is supposed to be fixed in later versions.
Autoshot (aka the Attack button from your actions tab) is worth keeping on your hotbar and easily reachable for kiting purposes. While it turns itself off automatically when you are not facing your target, there is a kiting method that involves running in a forward direction away from your opponent, jumping and hitting autoshot in order to cause your character to briefly turn towards the target and fire a shot while maintaining direction away from the target.
7.3 Jumpshot
While seen as an exploit by some players, jumpshot has been declared working as intended by the developers. It is used to cancel the animation of certain skills that would otherwise leave you immobile for its duration. This is a huge boon to kiting, but requires a lot of practice.
To initiate a jumpshot, use an ability while jumping when you reached the peak of your jump or are already on the downward movement again. This can be practiced without moving, but is more effective to maintain a certain direction.
7.4 Movement Modifiers
According to the official PowerWiki, whenever you move into a direction you gain the following boni/mali:
Forward:
+10% Physical Damage
+10% Magic Damage
-20% Physical Defense
-20% Magic Damage (Note: probably typo, should be -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
However, these values are not commonly accepted, and it is unclear if they affect both melee and ranged damage, and both autoattacks and abilites. The ingame character profile does indicate the boni and mali, 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.
A quick experiment on a level 23 Ranger over 24 autoattacks, 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.
7.5 Melee
While Ranger continue to gain melee abilities throughout their career, engaging in melee combat becomes less attractive the higher level you get. Using melee abilites can increase effectiveness during the lower levels (10-16 or even 10-19) to finish a mob, due to the limited ranged abilites we get before level 19.
7.6 Retreating Slash
While the usefulness of this skill is up for debate (it does use up a Stigma slot afterall), it does work with a bow equipped as long as you get in melee range to use it. You don't need a melee weapon equipped to use it.
7.7 Early Levels
Rangers start out as the Scout archetype and do not gain the ability to use a bow before level 10. Up to level 16, or arguably level 19, we don't have a lot of ranged abilites which will negatively impact our kill speed while leveling, so that a lot of Rangers prefer to use a mix of ranged and melee abilities.
Also, Rangers are considered underpowered compared to other DPS classes in the low-levels, but will pick up at around level 25, they are also considered the slowest leveler.
7.8 Cost Factor
While it is true that we do have to pay for arrows and trap materials, the cost factor is not as bad as people make it sound. Arrows are extremely cheap and stack up high enough so they don't impact inventory management.
7.9 WASD vs. Click-to-Move
Wether you use WASD movement or Click-to-Move probably depends on personal preference or your previous MMO history. Although there are arguments going on which one is better, due to the nature of Aion's kiting with its movement modifiers, maintaining a forward movement at all times is actually encouraged as opposed to other popular games where you tend to strafe while kiting. Keep this in mind when choosing a movement style. Personally I think a mix of the two is probably good, but in the end you should use what works best for you.
Original: Takyn@Source
Table of Contents
1 Class Description
2 Class Overview
2.1 Attributes and Stats
2.2 Weapons
2.3 Armor
2.4 Role in PvE
2.5 Role in PvP
2.6 Range
2.7 Kiting
3 Abilites
3.1 Signature Skills
3.2 Stigma Skills
3.3 Traps
3.4 Self Buffs
3.5 Crowd Control
3.6 Transformations
4 Character Customization
4.1 Race
4.2 Gear
4.3 Manastones
4.4 Godstones
4.5 Titles
4.6 Professions
5 PvE
5.1 Builds
5.2 Rotations
5.3 Consumables
5.4 Leveling
6 PvP
6.1 Builds
6.2 Strategies
6.3 Consumables
7 Miscellaneous frequently discussed topics
7.1 Instant abilites
7.2 Autoshot
7.3 Jumpshot
7.4 Movement Modifiers
7.5 Melee
7.6 Retreating Slash
7.7 Early Levels
7.8 Cost Factor
7.9 WASD vs. Click-to-Move
8 Useful Macros
9 Links
10 Media
11 Ranger Specific Patch Notes
1 Class Description - taken from the offical PowerWiki:
A Ranger is a Daeva with exceptional archery skills. Not only can it expertly wield a bow, but also a sword and dagger for close combat. The Ranger is also a master with various traps, making it both a formidable opponent on its own and a valued member of any group. Being skilled in both long and short range attacks combined with the ability to manipulate traps makes the Ranger able to adapt easily to nearly any situation. However, arrows and trap ingredients can become costly which makes the Ranger one of the more expensive classes.
Being as faithful as any other class, the Ranger turns to the Empyrean Lords for inspiration. While an Elysean Ranger looks toward Vaizel, the Lord of the free spirit, Asmodian Rangers accept Triniel, the Lord who controls death, as their model.
2 Class Overview
2.1 Attributes and Stats
Rangers on creation have the following base attributes:
Power: 100 - affects physical damage
Health: 100 - affects hit points and recovery rate
Agility: 115 - affects evasion, parry and block rates
Accuracy: 115 - affects chance to hit and critically hit rate (the manastone that increases Accuracy does not affect this attribute, it affects the stat with the same name found under your offensive stats)
Knowledge: 90 - affects spell damage and hit rate
Will: 90 - affects mana pool and mana recovery rate
In addition there are the following statistics that can be modified by gear and manastone choices:
Attack: affects physical damage
Accuracy: used to calculate chance to hit with weapons or abilites (this is not the same as the atttribute above with the same name)
Crit Rate: used to calculate chance to score a critical hit. For every 10 critical rating, you gain roughly 1% critical strike chance. After you achieve a critical hit rating of 440, you need 20 critical rating per 1% increase (called the soft-cap). Also, your critical hits have a chance to knockback your opponent.
Attack Speed: delay between auto-attacks, also affects casting animation speed
Speed: movement speed
Magic Boost: affects magical damage
Magic Accuracy: used to calculate chance to hit with spells
Physical Defense: affects physical damage taken from melee and ranged attacks
Evasion: chance to dodge a physical attack
Block: chance to block
Parry: chance to parry
Magical Resistance: chance to resist damage or debuffs from spells
Fire/Wind/Water/Earth Resistance: affects damage taken from spells
2.2 Weapons
A Ranger can wield one-handed swords and daggers starting from level 1, dual-wield at level 5, and can learn to use bows at level 10.
2.3 Armor
A Ranger can wear cloth and leather armor, as well as all types of head armor pieces. You should prefer leather over cloth.
2.4 Role in PvE
Rangers are physical ranged damage dealers. We provide good DPS as well as several Crowd Control abilites. However currently the general assumption is that our DPS is lower than those of most other DPS classes. Due to the lack of combatlog parsing this is still up for debate and you should keep in mind that the majority of players currently complaining about Ranger damage output have only experienced low-level gameplay.
2.5 Role in PvP
Rangers excel at burst damage from range and their unique ability to decrease any healing done to an opponent makes them a vital addition to any PvP group. With our burst damage, CC abilites, stealth and snares, Rangers are also excellent at solo PvP, but rely heavily on kiting the opponent.
2.6 Range
Rangers have long-, medium-, and short-distance shots at 25m, 20m, and 15m respectively, with most abilites having a 25m range. Range is increased by a level 25 passive skill, and is increased by an additional 10% while in flight. There is no dead-zone or minimum range.
2.7 Kiting
A Ranger relies heavily on kiting in PvE as well as PvP, which means using your abilites like Entangling Shot, Spike Trap and various stuns to maintain enough range to your opponent to be able to deal damage while keeping him from reaching you. There are different ways to achieve this, but due to Aion's movement modifiers (see 7.4) strafing and back-pedaling is not recommended. Jump-shots (7.3) and being able to abuse auto-shot/auto-facing play an important role in maximizing your effectiveness.
See Kirua's Kiting Guide for details.
3 Abilites
3.1 Signature Skills
Traps: Unique to Rangers, traps grant access to an additional source of burst or DOT damage, snares and roots. They can be used effectively in PvE, but are not reliable in PvP because they can be avoided by a skilled opponent.
Self Buffs: Rangers get access to several, short-duration self buffs that increase his avoidance or damage output signifcantly while they last.
Stealth: The Scout's base hide ability grants us limited stealth capacites, while not as good as those of the Assassin.
Entangling Shot: This early available ability is your main snare and can be used while moving (its animation doesn't cause you to become immobilized like other skills).
Silence Arrow: Prevents the target from casting spells for a short period of time, making it an invaluable tool while fighting casters and especially healers.
Sleep Arrow: Puts the target to sleep for 12 seconds, effectively removing them from combat for the duration or until dispelled. Can also be used as a spell interrupt.
Awl Arrow: Unique to the Ranger class, this chain ability debuffs the target's physical defense and the healing it receives for a short time, making it invaluable in PvP.
Retreating Slash: This ability pushes the Ranger 25m backwards, out of the target's range. It can be used while equipped with a bow, but you have to be in melee range.
3.2 Stigma Skills - displaying highest available rank
Basic Sigmas
Arrow Deluge
Breath of Nature
Focused Shots
Nature's Resolve
Retreating Slash
Silence Arrow
Sleep Arrow
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Sniper Stance
Trap of Clairvoyance - Trap of Clairvoyance
Trap of Slowing Elyos / Asmodian
Bow of Blessing
Bestial Fury
Holy Arrow (Elyos)
Deadly Arrow (Asmodian)
Advanced Stigmas
Explosion Arrow
Gale Arrow
Mistral Absorb Vitality
Resolution of Hunter
Arrow of Fury
Raging Wind Arrow
3.3 Traps
Trap: Spike - Trap: Spike
Poisoning Trap - Poisoning Trap
Trap: Explosion - Trap: Explosion
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Trap of Clairvoyance - Trap of Clairvoyance
Trap of Destruction - Trap of Destruction
Trap: Spike Bite - Trap: Spike Bite
Trap: Sandstorm - Trap: Sandstorm
3.4 Self Buffs
Aiming
Dodging
Strong Shots
Hunter's Eye
Focused Shots
Devotion
Focused Evasion
Tactical Retreat
All-Seeing Eye
Sniper Stance
3.5 Crowd Control
Sleep Arrow
Silence Arrow
Entangling Shot
Snare Trap - Snare Trap
Trap: Spike - Trap: Spike
3.6 Transformations
There are two different kinds of transformations:
DP skill: Elyos - Asmodian
This is our 2000 DP skill and currently lasts 1 minute (buffed to 2 minutes in a future patch).
For the other transformation you need to buy a reagent that is sold by a job supplier (where you also buy seeds for your traps): Elyos - Asmodian
This is just a travel form, either as a Zaif or a Karnif depending on your faction, and since it consumes a reagent it can be expensive to use it frequently. There are two different levels per form, with level 1 increasing speed by 20% and level 2 by 30%.
4 Character Customization
4.1 Race
While some skills differ depending on your faction, the differences are mostly minor and will not make or break your gameplay.
Also keep in mind that apparently the way to aquire certain titles is different for the two factions, so a particular good title might be harder to get depending on your race.
4.2 Gear
4.3 Manastones
When it comes to manastones, socketing critical physical hit stones is widely regarded as being most effective up to around 440 critical strike (which is the soft cap, additional crit will be subject to diminishing returns). After you reach 440 crit, use attack or HP/resists (for PvP).
Rangers usually are not the first target in group fights and their survivability is good enough to enable you to socket offensively.
4.4 Godstones
Godstones can only be used on weapons and add a chance to proc an additional effect on each attack. You can find an incomplete list here: God Stones - Enhancement Items - Aion
4.5 Titles
The most beneficial titles for a Ranger are those that increase our speed or flight speed, as well as damage. Out of all currently known titles, the following are probably the most interesting ones:
Elyos
Bottled Lightning +3% Speed - from Lightningfoot Tuka - Quests - Aion
Honorary Black Cloud +5% Speed - from Jakurerk's Opportunity to Make it Big - Quests - Aion
Heroic +4 Physical Critical Hit, +1 Physical Att, +1% Atk Speed - from [Group] Confrontation with Asmodian Army General - Quests - Aion
Owner of the Dragon Sword +52 Maximum HP, +3 Flight Time, +3% Flight Speed, +6% Speed - from [Group] The True Owner of the Dragon Sword - Quests - Aion
Asmodian
Postal +4% Speed - from [Infiltration] Elim Of Elysea - Quests - Aion
Wheeler-Dealer +5% Speed - from Contract of Black Cloud Traders - Quests - Aion
Heroic +52 Maximum HP, +3 Flight Time, +3% Flight Speed, +6% Speed - from [Group] Confrontation with Elysean Army General - Quests - Aion
4.6 Professions
There is no single best profession for your character and you also need to keep in mind what professions you have access to through friends and guildmates. For both factions, Sewing provides you with the ability to craft leather armor, Handicrafting grants access to bow recipes as well as rings or necklaces. Cooking and Alchemy enable you to craft your own consumables.
5 PvE
5.1 Builds
5.2 Rotations
5.3 Consumables
5.4 Leveling
10-16: You start out with only two ranged attacks, Snipe being your main source of damage and Entangling Shot your snare. You want to open up with Snipe, Entangling Shot, then turn around and kite the mob. Use Snipe as soon as its cooldown finishes, keep Entangling Shot up as much as possible. If the mob is low on HP you can finish it off with melee. For hard (named) mobs, you can use a Spike Trap to root it, or your DP Mau Transformation for faster run and attack speed, as well as damage.
16-19: At 16 you get Arrow Strike, your first ranged chain skill. Open up with Snipe, turn around and start kiting, you can use Arrow Strike while running even if you're turned away from the mob. Again, keep Entangling Shot up all the time, finish low HP mobs off in melee.
19-25: At this point our killing speed starts to get better. You get Stunning Shot which can do a lot of damage, but the chance isn't very high. It also has lower range than your other shots, so start out with Snipe -> Arrow Strike and use Stunning Shot when the mob gets closer.
At 20 you should do your Stigma Quest so you can equip the Arrow Deluge Stigma Stone. While its range and damage is low on single targets, it fits nicely into your rotation when all other shots are on cooldown.
You could also get Sleep Arrow in case you get involved in PvP, or if you get adds.
25-28: This is where killing speed really picks up. Rupture Arrow is a chain ability to use after Stunning Shot and also has a chance to deal a lot of damage, knocking the target back as well. After you did some of the Abyss quests, you can try to find a quiet spot in the Lower Abyss and grind. Abyss mobs give increased XP and also reward AP. If you're grinding, get mana potions in addition to mana treatment so you never have to regen.
At 27 you can hit the Upper Abyss and grind on level 30 mobs for very good XP.
28-31: At 28, additional quests in Eltnen/Morheim open up that are worth doing. You can also keep grinding in the Upper Abyss. You should now have Spiral Arrow, which only has a 10% chance to become usable after Arrow Strike, but it hits for a decent amount of damage.
6 PvP
6.1 Builds
6.2 Strategies
6.3 Consumables
7 Miscellaneous frequently discussed topics
7.1 Instant Abilites
There is no global cooldown in Aion. To make up for this and to prevent spamming, most abilites that don't have a cast time (like Ranger shots) are limited by their animation, during which you are immobilized. This is not a bug, but a design decision. It can, however, be countered by abusing jumpshots.
7.2 Autoshot
Note: In the current version autoshot is bugged so it will turn itself off seemingly random after using an ability. This is supposed to be fixed in later versions.
Autoshot (aka the Attack button from your actions tab) is worth keeping on your hotbar and easily reachable for kiting purposes. While it turns itself off automatically when you are not facing your target, there is a kiting method that involves running in a forward direction away from your opponent, jumping and hitting autoshot in order to cause your character to briefly turn towards the target and fire a shot while maintaining direction away from the target.
7.3 Jumpshot
While seen as an exploit by some players, jumpshot has been declared working as intended by the developers. It is used to cancel the animation of certain skills that would otherwise leave you immobile for its duration. This is a huge boon to kiting, but requires a lot of practice.
To initiate a jumpshot, use an ability while jumping when you reached the peak of your jump or are already on the downward movement again. This can be practiced without moving, but is more effective to maintain a certain direction.
7.4 Movement Modifiers
According to the official PowerWiki, whenever you move into a direction you gain the following boni/mali:
Forward:
+10% Physical Damage
+10% Magic Damage
-20% Physical Defense
-20% Magic Damage (Note: probably typo, should be -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
However, these values are not commonly accepted, and it is unclear if they affect both melee and ranged damage, and both autoattacks and abilites. The ingame character profile does indicate the boni and mali, 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.
A quick experiment on a level 23 Ranger over 24 autoattacks, 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.
7.5 Melee
While Ranger continue to gain melee abilities throughout their career, engaging in melee combat becomes less attractive the higher level you get. Using melee abilites can increase effectiveness during the lower levels (10-16 or even 10-19) to finish a mob, due to the limited ranged abilites we get before level 19.
7.6 Retreating Slash
While the usefulness of this skill is up for debate (it does use up a Stigma slot afterall), it does work with a bow equipped as long as you get in melee range to use it. You don't need a melee weapon equipped to use it.
7.7 Early Levels
Rangers start out as the Scout archetype and do not gain the ability to use a bow before level 10. Up to level 16, or arguably level 19, we don't have a lot of ranged abilites which will negatively impact our kill speed while leveling, so that a lot of Rangers prefer to use a mix of ranged and melee abilities.
Also, Rangers are considered underpowered compared to other DPS classes in the low-levels, but will pick up at around level 25, they are also considered the slowest leveler.
7.8 Cost Factor
While it is true that we do have to pay for arrows and trap materials, the cost factor is not as bad as people make it sound. Arrows are extremely cheap and stack up high enough so they don't impact inventory management.
7.9 WASD vs. Click-to-Move
Wether you use WASD movement or Click-to-Move probably depends on personal preference or your previous MMO history. Although there are arguments going on which one is better, due to the nature of Aion's kiting with its movement modifiers, maintaining a forward movement at all times is actually encouraged as opposed to other popular games where you tend to strafe while kiting. Keep this in mind when choosing a movement style. Personally I think a mix of the two is probably good, but in the end you should use what works best for you.
Original: Takyn@Source
All About Aion Armorsmith
Everything You Wanted To Know About Armorsmithing in Aion
I've seen quite a few of the same types of questions on this board. Unfortunately, you often need to sift through lengthy threads to find the question asked and then read a few more posts to see the answer. I've tried to consolidate all of the Q&As I've seen as well as provide links to detailed or specific explanations for those questions where needed.
This FAQ is divided into six major sections and the outline is below.
NOTE: Updated/new sections have their titles listed in blue. I've done this to help folks who are reviewing the FAQ to know what's changed since their last visit.
A. General Armorsmithing Benefits, Title, Accessories, and Soulbinding
1. What classes can use/benefit most from Armorsmithing?
2. What title do you get for becoming a Expert Armorsmith?
3. I heard Armorsmithing crafts Accessories, but Handicraft does that. What's true?
4. Why should I take Armorsmithing?
5. Are the items you craft Bind on Pickup/Soulbound once you craft them?
6. How do I learn Armorsmithing?
B. Armorsmithing Skill Leveling and Work Orders
1. What's the best way to level Armorsmithing?
2. What are Work Orders and how do I obtain and complete them?
3. Where do I obtain the materials needed to craft my Work Order?
4. What happens if I fail too many times while crafting a Work Order?
C. General Recipe and Set Crafting Questions
1. How do I find recipes/specific designs?
2. How do I know when I have collected/learned them all?
3. Are there a maximum number of designs that you can learn?
4. What skill do I need to craft _____ set at level _____?
5. Why are there level 38 recipes that require 299 skill and level 33 "Expert" recipes that require 400 skill to craft?
6. How much does it cost to craft a set?
7. How much time does it take to craft a set? Is it easy to craft for your legion?
8. Is there any way to speed up the time it takes to craft an item?
9. How do I get the materials I need to craft a piece of armor?
10. What do the armors even look like?
11. How do I get "Worthy Noble" (was called "Craftsman's Shining") versions of my armor?
D. How to Make Money with Armorsmithing
E. Expense and Time Needed for Armorsmithing 1-399, 400-450
1. How expensive is it to level Armorsmithing to 399?
2. How long will it take me to reach 399 skill?
3. How do I get from 99-100, 199-200, and 299-300?
4. How do I complete the 399-400 quest?
5. How do I level my skill after I reach 400?
F. How Upcoming Patches Affect Armorsmithing
1. What exactly are the new recipes that can be crafted in Patch 1.5?
2. Will you be able to purchase green quality recipes from the armorsmith materials vendor?
3. Will craftable level 50 gear be better than endgame PVE pieces?
4. How will the new Daevanion Armor set (quest) affect interest in Armorsmithing?
Thanks to everyone who has participated in these threads and offered valuable feedback. Please post any addition Q&As in this thread and I can add them to the FAQ below, including suggestions on section breakdown, etc.
Also, thanks to those of you who have asked me if you could link this FAQ to your own websites (legion, personal, blogs, etc.). It's nice to see the effort I put into this is helping people outside of just the AionSource community.
A. General Armorsmithing Benefits, Title, Accessories, and Soulbinding
1. What classes can use/benefit most from Armorsmithing?
Armorsmithing crafts chain and plate armor as well as shields. This means Clerics, Chanters, Gladiators, and Templars can have their armor needs met through Armorsmithing.
2. What title do you get for becoming a Expert Armorsmith?
According to Aion Armory: Titles you gain +8 Magic Boost. We can only hope this is wrong and/or changing in Patch 1.5 as it's arguably the worst of all expert titles.
3. I heard Armorsmithing crafts Accessories, but Handicraft does that. What's true?
Helmets are considered "accessories", not armor. Any class can wear any accessory, so even the Scout and Mage subsclasses can wear chain or plate helmets which would increase their physical defense. Of course, they wouldn't take this tradeskill just for that.
4. Why should I take Armorsmithing?
By leveling a crafting skill from 1-399, you can make 95% of what that trade has to offer. Also, crafted gear is far better than green or blue mob drops of the same level (gold mob drops are better than crafted blues of the same level as they have more manastone slots).
Worthy Noble level 23 blues are about the equivalent of the Worthy level 28 greens, which means they are as good if not better than mob drop level 28-30 greens. In other words, they WILL last quite a while if you get your blue set at 23. At level 28, the green quality quest rewards from level 29-30 quests are not as good as the stats on the blue 23 armor or blue 25 shield. At least longevity is a decent reward (assuming you don't level too terribly quickly).
By taking Armorsmithing, you are guaranteed to be able to make a full green set (assuming you have the recipes) for yourself and have a good chance at being able to craft blue items. Compared to wishing for a quest that has a good gear reward or grinding mobs and crossing your fingers for the right drop, crafting has much more solid results.
Also, for gear crafting skills: white items = 1 manastone slot; green items = 2 manastone slots; blue items = 3 manastone slots; gold items = 4 manastone slots. Having better gear makes a BIG difference as you earn 7 more manastone slots when you upgrade all of your gear to the next quality level. (Abyss gear has up to 6 manastone slots per piece of gear for an endgame total of 42 slots.)
If that wasn't enough, Draconic and Expert armors as well as the new Patch 1.5 crafted gold items can only be completed by a Master Armorsmith (400+ skill).
Finally, everything you craft has your name on it! Every non-consumable in the game that's crafted (e.g. all armor and weapons) will have your name on it. This allows you to not only contact someone whose armor you purchased off the Auction House, but also allows you to develop a reputation on your server as folks far and wide will be wearing "your" armor.
5. Are the items you craft Bind on Pickup/Soulbound once you craft them?
No. All crafted items can be traded to other players or sold on the Auction House. Green and higher quality items do become soulbound once you have equipped them.
6. How do I learn Armorsmithing?
All crafting trainers are located in the same general areas. In Pandaemonium (for Asmodians), go to the Temple of Artisans - the green section on the right side of the map just north of the Brokers and warehouse/bank. For Sanctum (Elyos), go to the north side of the Divine Road to the Artisan's Hall. All of the crafting trainers are in that green area of the map and the Armorsmithing trainer is at the southeast corner of that area.
Simply talk with the crafting vendor of your choice. You will be given a quest to gather a material used by that craft in order to prove your interest in the craft. Once you complete that quest, talk with the NPC again and they will give you the option of training in that craft.
B. Armorsmithing Skill Leveling and Work Orders
1. What's the best way to level Armorsmithing?
The only real way to level your skill is by completing work orders. There are two speeds at which most people level this skill: slow/milking and fast.
To level your crafting skill slowly, simply choose the lowest or next to lowest work order available to craft. As you're crafting easier difficulty work orders, you'll get fewer skill increases and you will need to complete more work orders overall to increase your skill. By completing more work orders, you increase your chances of receiving recipes as rewards. By increasing the number of recipes you receive, you increase your chances at completing chain and plate sets of recipes along the way. This will cost 3-4x more kinah overall and take substantially longer to reach the cap.
To level your crafting skill quickly, simply choose the highest or next to highest work order available to craft. Leveling the skill quickly means you spend far less kinah, but you also have substantially fewer chances to earn your recipes.
Reaching 399 doesn't get you anything in and of itself as there are level restrictions for using all crafted gear and it doesn't help if you have few recipes to actually craft. That said, it does give rise to a valid argument: Is it cheaper to milk the work orders to maximize your recipes - OR - raise your crafting skill as quickly as possible and hope you can fill in the blanks via the Auction House or world drops?
Ultimately, there's no absolute "best" way to do it. Either way, you require luck to obtain the recipes you want most.
2. What are Work Orders and how do I obtain and complete them?
Work Orders are the primary crafting mechanic in Aion. These are quests. You receive the quests from the crafting NPC. Work orders use a "P" skill system: "P" is the points. 1P work order = 1 point of skill to start crafting that work order. Work orders can be completed for a max of 40 skill points above the work order's level (e.g. doing work order level 1 until you've reached skill level 40). You can have a maximum of three work orders accepted at a time.
You can earn your first 40 skill levels in any tradeskill for FREE by repeating the 1P work order until you've reached 40 skill. This also ensures you'll have a few of the mats needed for additional crafting through 100P and can save you a bit of kinah.
After the "free" 1P work order (no vendor mat costs), you have to pay for mats from the tradeskill merchant in order to craft each subsequent work order. Work orders require you craft an item successfully 3-12 times before the quest can be turned in and cost anywhere from 40 kinah to 8,000+ kinah per work order.
By 230P, you have to start buying three different mats for each of the work orders. That costs ~2,500 kinah per work order. You may need several dozen work orders in order to get the recipes and skill points needed to move up to the next work order. By 300P, you have to use two or three pieces of three different mats for each of the work orders and you need 12 successful crafts per work order which means a total of ~75 vendor mats used per work order.
It should be noted that you DO gain experience for each successful craft while doing a work order. By 350P work orders, you're gaining nearly 30,000 xp per work order. That said, it's anywhere from 5-10 times slower xp gain than if you're in an xp farming party but at least it's something.
In Patch 1.2, work orders cannot be picked up after you complete your 399-400 quest and have 400 skill. After that, your skill raises through crafting actual gear to the 450 cap. I do not know if this changes in Patch 1.5.
3. Where do I obtain the materials needed to craft my Work Order?
To attempt to craft the pieces needed for work order completion, you need two components.
1. First, you need the mats the NPC work order quest giver provides you. These range from broken shields and leggings to helmets that need repairing. The NPC always gives you a few extra in case you fail.
2. Second, you need mats purchased from the materials vendor for that crafting skill. These will include things like lubricants and water. As those vendor mats are used over and over again for various work orders through 399P, be sure to keep those in your bank until you're ready to craft as you'll probably need them during that crafting session.
4. What happens if I fail too many times while crafting a Work Order?
If you have used up all of the NPC provided work order mats, you will probably need to abandon that quest and pick it back up. There's no penalty to doing this other than the kinah spent the mats used up for that work order's attempts. However, there is the possibility of a workaround. If you're able to accept a different work order that uses the same NPC provided material(s), you will then have "extra" mats to be able to craft your "failed" work order.
C. General Recipe and Set Crafting Questions
1. How do I find recipes/specific designs?
The primary way to learn recipes is by completing work orders. However, you can receive green recipe drops off mobs (elites drop more often than non-elites), but there's no guarantee the dropped recipe will be for Armorsmithing. Other than that, possibly trading with other Armorsmithers if they have duplicates works well (if you can find the right person to trade with) and, of course, finding recipes on the Auction House.
You can only receive specific recipes from specific work order ranges. For instance, Craft: Worthy Titanium Chain Boots - Recipes - Aion are a 110P recipe. As you cannot receive recipe rewards below the work order level you're currently crafting, and only as much as +10P above the work order you're crafting, you can only receive this recipe as a reward from 100P and 110P work orders.
Starting at 100 skill, you can receive two different green recipes each 10 points with an occasional green recipe at an xx5 point (e.g. 155P skill) for a non-Worthy set piece green item. All Worthy recipes can High Quality (HQ) proc to blue Noble versions.
a. All non-shield armor is crafted in five level increments starting at level 23, then 28, 33, 38, 43, and 48. I believe with patch 1.5 there are level 50 craftables armor pieces.
b. Shields are available in five level increments starting at 25, then 30, 35, 40, and 45. I believe with patch 1.5, there are level 50 craftable shields.
c. Whites, greens, blues, and golds share the same level requirement per armor slot.
Of the Level 23/28, 33/38, and 43/48 Worthy recipes, even going as slowly as possible, many people will simply not find several of the recipes. Overall, it seems that people miss anywhere from 15-30% of all the recipes possible.
Confirmed: Patch 1.2 did integrate a welcomed recipe mouse-over tooltip change. Now, when you mouse-over a recipe, it shows you not only what the recipes crafts (as it was doing in Patch 1.0), but also shows you what the Shining or HQ proc would be for that item.
2. How do I know when I have collected/learned them all?
A. Following is the armor slot breakdown through 399. This can be handy to see when you should give up trying to find a recipe through work orders. For example, if you're at 150 skill and still don't have the 110P boots, it's time to give up and move on. Worthy sets:
a. Boots are at 110 and every 50 points after (110/160/210, etc.).
b. Gloves are at 120 and every 50 points after (120/170/220, etc.).
c. Shoulders are at 130 and every 50 points after (130/180/230, etc.).
d. Legs are at 140 and every 50 points after (140/190/240, etc.).
e. Heads are at 140 and every 50 points after (140/190/240, etc.).
f. Chests are at 150 and every ~50 points after (150/199/250/299, etc.).
g. Shields are at 150 and every ~100 points after (150/250), though I do have a blue shield recipe at 299.
That totals 26 Worthy recipes for each 100 skill bracket after 100P (so 100-199, 200-299, and 300-399).
Level 23 and 28 gear have Titanium in their name. Level 33 and 38 gear have Adamantium in their name. Level 43 and 48 gear have Orichalcum in their name. Those names correlate to the ore they require for crafting.
Most folks are only concerned with the Worthy recipes as those can produce full, matching sets. You can get some green recipes that require monster parts (e.g. Craft: Basilisk's Shell Bone Plate Greaves - Recipes - Aion), but most folks don't craft those as they ruin the look of your set and don't sell well on the Auction House.
You can go here Armor Smithing - Recipes - Aion to look at the recipes for Armorsmithing.
3. Are there a maximum number of designs that you can learn?
AionArmory shows there are 790 recipes, though that includes both Elyos and Asmodian recipes (so roughly half can be learned by your faction). This does not include the new 1.5 patch recipes, but does include all of the individual mats you need to craft to forge armor. Of all of those, the armor recipes you're most concerned about are the Worthy recipes as those make full sets and are most valued on the Auction House.
You can go here Armor Smithing - Recipes - Aion to look at the recipes for Armorsmithing.
4. What skill do I need to craft X set at level Y?
Level 23 = 150 skill to craft entire set (pieces start at 110 skill)
Level 28 = 199 skill to craft entire set (pieces start at 160 skill)
Level 33 = 250 skill to craft entire set (pieces start at 210 skill)
Level 38 = 299 skill to craft entire set (pieces start at 260 skill)
Level 43 = 350 skill to craft entire set (pieces start at 310 skill)
Level 48 = 399 skill to craft entire set (pieces start at 360 skill)
It should be noted that you can fail to craft an item. However, the higher your skill is compared to the skill required for that recipe, the better your chances of completing a successful attempt. Skill level does not impact your ability to HQ proc an item.
5. Why are there level 38 recipes that require 299 skill and level 33 "Expert" recipes that require 400 skill to craft?
AionArmory show recipes such as Worthy Noble Durable Adamantium Breastplate - Items - Aion are 299 skill. However, to be clear, there are "Expert" armor recipes that require 400+ skill to craft.
Here's an example of the "Expert" armor: Craft: Expert Adamantium Breastplate - Recipes - Aion. This requires level 33 to equip.
Here's an example of the regular 250 skill HQ blue proc: Worthy Noble Adamantium Breastplate - Items - Aion and it requires level 33 to equip.
Notice that Expert pieces have slightly better base stats compared with the HQ blue procs off a green recipe. Also, the Expert recipes themselves are actually blue and take more "skill" to craft as you're not having to get lucky on your HQ proc from a green recipe to obtain a blue. The HQ proc on Expert recipes will give you gold items.
Also, Expert items give one additional stat bonus. In the examples above, the Expert item has 3 bonus stats while the HQ blue proc item has 2 bonus stats.
6. How much does it cost to craft a set?
To craft a piece of gear, you need ore, refining stones, ores of high purity, and aether. You also need a charcoal per ore to create an ingot and then a dissolving agent of some sort to mold that ingot into a mat (e.g. plates) used to craft the actual piece of gear. You cannot farm charcoal or ingots, so they must be purchased from the vendor (though you do receive a handful of these as work order rewards).
As total costs completely depend on how lucky you are to get your blue HQ procs (assuming you're after those and not content with just greens), it's impossible to say how much it will cost. However, each level 23 suit is ~150,000 kinah for vendor mats alone. Each level 33 suit costs around 450,000 kinah in vendor mats alone. Those assume 5 attempts each piece.
7. How much time does it take to craft a set? Is it easy to craft for your legion?
Assuming 5 attempts per armor piece (most people have 15-30% HQ proc rates) and you're crafting five pieces in a set (assuming no shield), it may take up to two hours of just crafting ingots needed and another hour to create the wires, chains, and plates needed to craft each piece of gear. At the quickest, it's 3 seconds needed to craft an ingot, chain, wire, or plate, then anywhere from 3-12 seconds per piece of gear actually being crafted.
I personally prefer to craft all ingots first as I've found having five attempts at that same piece of gear in a row gives me a better overall chance of getting the HQ proc than just crafting enough mats for one attempt, then having to craft enough mats for a second attempt, etc. Plus, you can then AFK, Alt+Tab, focus on chit-chat, read forums, etc. while that's crafting when you craft in bulk.
That said, having one crafter per legion makes sense from a kinah and mats perspective as well as gearing up that person with all the recipes needed, BUT it is a gigantic time sink as the time to craft is so extensive. If you're crafting for your legion, you need an abundance of patience.
8. Is there any way to speed up the time it takes to craft an item?
As was discussed here Faster to craft while transformed?, using transformation foods will allow you to "skip" the "successful craft animation". While this may not save hours and hours while leveling up through work orders, this WILL save significant time while actually crafting gear given you need to first craft upwards of thousands of ingots, hundreds of plates and chains and wires, and each of those have a success animation.
9. How do I get the materials I need to craft a piece of armor?
In Armorsmithing, there are two types of materials: those you gather and those you craft.
Gathered materials can generally be obtained solo, can usually be farmed, and include:
a. Ore (e.g. Iron Ore, Titanium Ore, etc.)
b. Ore of High Purity (e.g. Titanium Ore of High Purity) are rare gathers from the regular ore nodes
c. Aether (e.g. Aether High Purity Crystal) which can be regular or rare gathers from aether nodes
d. Armor Fluxes (was Refining Stones) (e.g. Worthy Greater Armor Flux) that drop randomly from mobs
Crafted materials are created by using ores + charcoals (obtained by purchasing from the materials vendor) of various qualities in order to create ingots. Ingots are then either combined with themselves or with dissolving agents (also obtained by purchasing from the materials vendor) to form:
a. Small, Medium, and/or Large Plates
b. Chains
c. Wires
Just look under your Craft Tool (press K for skill > click the Crafting tab > right-click on your Armorsmithing icon) and scroll to the very bottom of your recipe list for "Other". There you will find the list of all mats you can create yourself including things like Siege Weapon Protectors used in fortress raiding.
Once you have all of the mats collected or crafted as needed by the recipe you're going to attempt to create, just select the recipe in your list and click the Craft button. You always want to craft just one piece of armor at a time in case you HQ proc. No need to attempt it more often than necessary.
10. What do armors even look like?
Go here Show off your work! to see quite a few of the armors (chain, plate, male, and female) posted.
11. How do I get "Worthy Noble" (was called "Craftsman's Shining") versions of my armor?
Armor, weapons, and accessories have the word "Noble" in their names when they've undergone a High Quality proc. While crafting an item, you have a 10%-30% chance to "proc" which allows you to attempt to craft the next highest quality level using the current mats with the current recipe attempt. While crafting a white, you can get a chance to craft green. Greens can HQ proc to blue and blues can proc to golds. There is no guarantee of receiving a HQ proc, though the HQ crafted item will have better overall stats and one additional manastone slot than the item from the recipe you were actually crafting.
There is currently a theory that assumes having higher Daeva Points (DP) while crafting can help increase your HQ proc chances, though it's not yet confirmed and the same sizes are simply too small to provide proof at this time. There are apparently other theories as well with people claiming they have virtually guaranteed HQ procs. I do not know how they're supposedly causing this, but would certainly love to know!
It should be noted that just because the item you're crafting starts the HQ proc animation, it can still fail (though rarely).
NOTE: AionArmory.com did replace all of the "Craftsman's" and "Shining" quality armor with "Worthy" and "Noble" respectively to accurately reflect the naming convention for Patch 1.5.
D. How to Make Money with Armorsmithing
You *can* make money, even by Armorsmithing, but you need to be a bit lucky by getting HQ procs on your greens to blues and then being willing to not wear that blue and sell it on the Auction House. Blues last a long time, so those with money will definitely buy them off the Auction House.
Overall, the general feeling is that you just about break even crafting your own gear with Armorsmithing and, on average, it's a bit cheaper (depending on your server and how expensive crafters put gear up for sale on the AH) to craft yourself than to buy on the AH.
That said, any of the duplicate green or blue recipes you receive as rewards can be sold back on the AH. In C-Aion on North China's Azariel server, most Level 23 Craftsman's recipes sell for 100,000 kinah; level 33 recipes sell for 200,000 kinah; level 43 recipes sell for 500,000 kinah or more. Blue recipes can be sold successfully for 800,000 to 1.5 million kinah each.
I stumbled upon this Kinah earning guide earlier today. It offers other suggestions on how to make kinah: How to Earn Kinah in Aion.
E. Expense and Time Needed for Armorsmithing 1-399, 400-450
1. How expensive is it to level Armorsmithing to 399?
In general, expect to spend over 1 million kinah to reach level 199 in a tradeskill.
In general, expect to spend 3 million to 5 million kinah to reach level 399 in a tradeskill.
If you level Armorsmithing slowly, expect to spend upwards of 8 million to 9 million kinah to reach 399.
Rockeh provided some great, general numbers for costs per tradeskill here: Leveling Crafting by Work Orders.
Crafting 300-399 took me 336 work orders and cost over 2.4 million kinah, so well over 7,300 kinah per work order.
For a detailed examination of skill 300-399 leveling, go here: 300-399 Armorsmithing: Details on XP, Kinah, Time, Rewards, Etc..
2. How long will it take me to reach 399 skill?
Overall, from 1-399, I spent ~65 hours of focused crafting going slowly. Most people I've heard from who go as quickly as possible can go 1-399 "in a day" (12+ hours), but that depends on how many of the work orders you fail along the way and how lucky you are with always obtaining a skill point increase while crafting each work order.
3. How do I get from 99-100, 199-200, and 299-300?
In order to receive the first point in the new range, you need to pay for the skill increase. You must be at 99, 199, or 299 in order to buy the increase. Talk with the work order vendor when you've reached that skill and click on the button to increase the skill. The 299-300 point costs 400,000 kinah, so expect to spend about 650,000 kinah for all of the skill increases until 399.
4. How do I complete the 399-400 quest?
This thread 399-400 Armorcrafting should explain most of that process. In particular, I tried to outline the quest progression in this post here: 399-400 Armorcrafting though.
Per Cerafina, here's additional information about the 399-400 quest process from the Asmodian perspectve:
Firstly, after you hand in the Craftsman's Shining Strengthened Orichalcum Shield, you'll get a follow-up quest to speak to Vidar and be dubbed an "Expert Armorsmith" (cut scene blah blah). You then receive the Experts Hat and Design: Expert's Adamantium Shield pattern (also I believe this will be the point you get the title as well, although I haven't got it, not sure if it'll be something that happens in a later version of the game, or if I'm just a nub and haven't found it yet). You'll also get access to a new quest to speak to one of the bankers and get a free warehouse upgrade.
After this I was somewhat puzzled, as it still said I was 399/399 Armorsmithing. I went back to Kinturan and asked to learn Armorsmithing, this gave me the next rank of the skill and it's free (not really if you count the beans needed for at least the 3rd quest).
After learning 399-400 skill, the Shugo in the Temple of Artisans, will now allow you to buy the recipes needed for the raw material conversion of the Baluar pieces and the new vendor materials to do so. There is also an island in the upper Abyss (due west of Asteria Fort - very long flight) populated by Shugo (this is the same for Asmos and Elyos), they sell all the Draconic recipes (all professions) although the higher level designs are only available when you hand in set's of Balaur Hearts (both types).
From an Elyos perspective, once you complete your Worthy Noble Durable Orichalcum Shield crafting, talk with Vulcanus. He gives you 200,000 xp (you do get a whole 2,052 xp for each "successful" failure at the shield) for the quest completion and Vulcanus' Recommendation.
Accept the New Quest: [Expert] Armorsmithing Expert - Quests - Aion and then click "I'll go at once". Take the elevator pad upstairs and talk with Fasimedes. He'll progress you through a cutscene. Click OK and you'll be given Expert Hat - Items - Aion and Design: Expert Adamantium Shield - Items - Aion as well as 25,000 xp.
While you're there, be sure to pick up the Sanctum Quest. You can talk with Bustant in the Hall of Prosperity to unlock a row (8 slots) in your personal warehouse and earn 15,000 xp!
Go back to Vulcanus and talk with him. Click "Learn Armorsmithing". You'll see: "The Armorsmithing skill has been upgraded to 400 points. Maximum skill level of Armorsmithing has been upgraded to Level 5." This is a free upgrade. Congrats on completing your Expert quest!
In Patch 1.2, there is no title awarded for Expert Armorsmithing, even though it says there should be and the cutscene apparently gives it to you. However, in looking through all of the titles I've earned, it's not there.
Also as of Patch 1.2, the Worthy Premium Armor Flux drop rate increased considerably. As such, those stones, which used to cost millions PER stone for the 399-400 quest, are now purchasable for between 125,000 and 300,000 kinah each. This is a SUBSTANTIAL change and allows a much easier completion when before it was virtually impossible due to the prohibitive materials costs and low drop rates.
5. How do I level my skill after I reach 400?
After reaching 400 skill, you are no longer able to pick up new work orders. As such, the only way to increase your skill is to actually craft usable items. For crafting professions such as Cooking, you can use DP tricks to craft jellies and quickly reach the 450 cap (DP food - infinite production). However, I'm unaware of any such tricks for Armorsmithing.
F. How Upcoming Patches Affect Armorsmithing
1. What exactly are the new recipes that can be crafted in Patch 1.5?
Go here Recipes - Aion for the list of all Armorsmithing recipes in Patch 1.5.
2. Will you be able to purchase green quality recipes from the Armorsmith materials vendor?
Confirmed: Patch 1.2 does not provide an option of purchasing the Worthy and other green level recipes from the materials vendor.
Confirmed: Open Beta version 1.5.0.5 for NA/EU does not allow green or higher quality recipes to be purchased from the materials vendor.
3. Will craftable level 50 gear be better than endgame PVE pieces?
You can go here Recipes - Aion for the 1.5 armorsmithing recipes and here Items - Aion for all of the new chain and plate gear added in 1.5. You'll have to decide for yourself.
4. How will the new Daevanion Armor set (quest) affect interest in Armorsmithing?
As of Patch 1.5, there is a new quest chain set of armor. To complete the set, it involves having five level 30 characters on the same server on the same account. Each character completes the quest for one piece of the armor set. You can then transfer the armor pieces (and weapon once you've completed the armor set) between your characters and complete a mini-quest to change them from cloth, leather, chain, or plate into whatever you need (e.g. change it from cloth to plate).
There is a ton more info here for the level 30 set Daevanion Set Items - Elyos for Elyos, including a step-by-step walkthrough of the quest. Look here Elyos lv50 Daevonian set quest outline and here LV50 Daevonian Armor Confirmed Requirements for more information about the level 50 set.
The question now is: How viable are Tailoring and Armorsmithing (and Weaponsmithing for that matter) now that you can quest a set that's worth keeping from level 30-50? The answer is: How many alts are you leveling to 30? For people who have "alt-itis" and roll a ton of alts, it's an amazing way for them to complete a full set of armor and one weapon that can be shared across all five characters. The suit really starts to be worth having once you've collected three pieces and continues to get better through the fourth and fifth pieces. The quest chain can also be repeated at level 50 for the same type of results.
I don't honestly expect the Daevanion Armor set to dampen people's need for armor and weapons in the game. For a select few, it will be an amazing bonus that compliments their already expansive character leveling interests. For everyone else, it's a nice-to-have someday, but won't really impact their mains at all.
Original: Organic@Source
Aion Crafting Guide Secret Recipe
The Basics
Now that you have learned a craft, there are a few important guidelines to follow. The first is accessing your craft window. To do this, open up your Skills window and select the Crafting tab, then Right-Click on your craft to bring up its window. At the top of the window, under the name of the craft, is your experience bar. If you just learned it, it will say ‘1/99′. As you get closer to 99, just like gaining regular experience, the bar will fill up. However, when you max out at 99, you will need to return to your craft’s expert (the names listed above) and pay to learn the next level.
The following are the prices to pay.
Lesser = ~3,500 Kinah
Regular = ~17,000 Kinah
Greater = ~115,000 Kinah
Expert = ~460,000 Kinah
Master = ~1,500,000 Kinah?
When you pay the price above to learn the next level, you will gain 1 skill point. For example, if you are at 99 and pay ~17,000 Kinah to become a Regular crafter, your skill will become 100.The large area below the experience bar in the crafting window is the list of your recipes. They are organized by category and you can hide or show each category by clicking the box to the left of the category name. When you accept a Work Order, they will automatically be the first category.
The two boxes on the right side, called Product and Required Materials, are just that. When you click a specific recipe, the end result will appear in the Product box and the required materials to make that recipe will appear in the Required Materials box.On the bottom right of the window are two buttons and a box in-between them. The right button is to craft the number in the box of the currently selected recipe. The left button is craft all, which places the maximum number you can craft of the currently selected recipe into that box.
When you are actually crafting, the success or fail rate is dependent on your skill compared to the recipe and chance. If your skill is equal to that of the recipe’s level, your chance of failing is around 33%. If your skill is 3 points higher than that of the recipe’s level, your chance of failing is around 15%. If your skill is between 5 and 10 points higher, your chance of failing is minimal. Once you are above 10, your chance of failing is incredibly low. Once the recipe turns grey, your chance of failing is 0.
Lastly, as you level up, visit the same merchant as you do for supplies to purchase some of your craft’s recipes. The rest of the recipes can be obtained through quests or are dropped.
Actually Crafting
If you just started a craft, go to your craft’s expert and accept the work order for ‘1P’ (stands for a skill level of 1 point) by clicking ‘Craft Request’. Now, find a workstation and Right-Click it to bring up your craft window. Select the recipe for the work order. Since the quest requires that you make 3 Gritty Clams, change the ‘1′ to a ‘3′ in the box and then hit the craft button. As you’re crafting, each time you fail, hit the > arrow to increase the amount you need to craft to fulfill the quest.
Once you are done, return to your craft’s expert and turn in the work order. Continue this process until you are at a skill of 10 and can receive your first real work order. When you accept the quest for the work order for ‘10P’, open your craft window and select the recipe for the work order you just accepted. Now look at the required materials.
As a general rule, multiple each material by however many finished products you need to complete the quest (if you have the work order for 10P, this number is 6), and then multiple that by a factor of 6 (that is around the least amount of attempts you can possibly do to raise your skill to the point where you can accept the next work order). Once you have calculated how many materials you will need, visit the merchant, who is also inside of the crafting room, and purchase those materials. As your skill becomes higher, it will require more than 6 work orders to raise your skill level by 10.
As a general rule, I usually purchase one extra the amount of work orders I think will raise my skill level by 10 since there are usually failures at the beginning. If you purchase exactly the right amount and fail just once, you won’t be able to finish your last work order and will have to buy more materials. However, purchasing one extra will give you the cushion to fail up to 6 times (more at higher skill levels).
If you need clarification on this, let’s take a look at an example. If you just learned Cooking, you would accept the work order for ‘Salted Pujery Supply 10P’. Open your craft window and select the recipe for ‘Salted Pujery’. The required materials are your given materials and 1 Salt. Now, the required amount of finished products for the quest is 6. Thus, multiple 1 Salt by 6, which is 6 Salts. Now, you need a skill of 20 to obtain the next work order, so multiple the 6 Salts by 7 (6 and 1 spare), which is 42 Salts. Now, visit the merchant and purchase 42 Salts.
The next part is a trick that you will love. Position yourself between your craft’s expert and the closest workstation. Then put yourself as far away from the workstation as possible, but still able to craft. You should be exactly in the middle between the workstation and your craft’s expert. As you finish each work order, simply Right-Click your craft’s expert, turn in the work order, accept the new one, chance the number from ‘1′ to ‘6′, then hit the craft button. You won’t even have to move! This can save massive amounts of time if you plan on crafting for a long time.
Now that you know the basics of crafting and how to craft work orders to raise your skill, the next part of the guide will go into detail of the benefits of each craft.
Detailed Overview of Crafts
This section is aimed at providing you what each craft can make, how difficult or expensive it is to craft, and who the craft itself is good for.
Alchemy
Alchemy is used for creating potions, scrolls, Manastones, orbs, and spellbooks. Other than orbs and spellbooks, all of the creations are considered commodities. Thus, they are not very difficult to craft and are not sold for a lot of Kinah. At all times, you can find lots of potions, scrolls, and Manastones through a Trade Broker. Furthermore, the materials required for crafting these items can be easily found as well. The main perks of Alchemy are having access to your own potions, scrolls, and Manastones (something we all use frequently and may not want to have to buy) and to create orbs and spellbooks if you are of the Mage class. I would not suggest picking Alchemy to simply craft orbs and spellbooks to sell, as there are better crafts for that.
I strongly suggest picking up Alchemy if you are of the Mage class, and simply suggest it for those who gather lots of herbs and want to use them for something. One negative for being an Alchemist is that it requires lots of inventory/bank space. There are lots of various materials (lots of herbs, basic materials, and Manastones) required to craft everything, which can fill up inventories fast.
Armorsmithing
Armorsmithing is used for creating shields, chain helmets, plate helmets, chain armor, and plate armor. Armorsmithing is very useful to have if you are of the Priest or Warrior classes, as you can fill 6 or 7 inventory slots with high quality crafted gear, making a big difference in your character’s statistics. Armorsmithing really only requires Aether, ore, and Kinah. If you are like me and want a full set of the best possible gear, you will spend 5 hours gathering hundreds of ore and Aether to craft 5 of one item in order to get a ‘proc’ out of it. This not only is a huge time sink, but it also becomes very expensive, as turning raw ore into usable ingots is very expensive. And if you do not ‘proc’, the failed item is barely worth as much as you spent on it.
However, it is very nice to be able to have a full set of great gear every 5 levels. Basically, if you are a Priest or Warrior, I’d suggest picking up Armorsmithing; even the basic recipes craft decent gear. If you get ‘proc’s, all the better. As far as using it to make money, it simply requires too much time to be of any real value, but occasionally you will have an extra ‘proc’d item that will sell for a lot.
Cooking
Cooking is only used for creating food. This, more or less, is used for temporarily boosting certain statistics. It is fairly inexpensive to cook and I would suggest it to anyone who uses food on a regular basis. However, there is little money to be made from it if you include the time it takes to gather and cook. Also, you can simply purchase food off of the Trade Broker or from a merchant with near the same benefits for a reasonably cheap price. If you plan on consuming lots of food, as in never being without a buff, then I’d suggest it. However, if you only plan on using food for groups or hard areas, I wouldn’t suggest spending the time raising it up.
Handicrafting
Handicrafting is used for creating rings, earrings, necklaces, glasses (head slot), bows, and staffs. Handicrafting is both expensive and time consuming to craft, but also the best craft for making money. For jewelry, gems are the primary material. It is fairly uncommon throughout areas and can only be gathered once per node, unlike everything else that can be gathered 3 times. This increases the amount of time required to gather lots of materials for attempts. Also, it is pretty much required to ‘proc’ on the initial recipe to make anything of value, both to you or to someone else. Once you do proc, you can then use that for an even better recipe, which also has a chance to ‘proc’. Even if the second recipe doesn’t ‘proc’, you will still have a very valuable item to use or sell. If it does ‘proc’, the value triples.
Overall, Handicrafting is the best craft for making money. You can spend 2 hours gathering and create a few valuable pieces of jewelry that will sell for lots of money, let alone, good rings, earrings, and necklaces are hard to find other than from Handicrafting. If you choose Handicrafting as your main or secondary craft, you will not be disappointed. I would highly suggest Handicrafting for Rangers and Chanters, but really for anyone who is willing to craft, period, as it is very rewarding.
Sewing
Sewing is used for creating belts, cloth helmets, leather helmets, cloth armor, and leather armor. As the same for Armorsmithing, this craft is mainly designed to be used by the other two classes: Scouts and Mages. There is not a big market for making money from this craft and it is just as time consuming and costly as Armorsmithing. If you are a Scout or Mage, I would highly suggest using this craft, even if you do not want to invest the time to create full sets of ‘proc’d gear; as the basics are still useful. And the occasional extra ‘proc’d piece will sell for a pretty penny.
Weaponsmithing
Weaponsmithing is used for creating daggers, swords, maces, greatswords, and polearms. Weaponsmithing is both costly and time consuming to create, but fairly rewarding. If you are a class that uses any of the above weapons, I definitely suggest picking up this craft. However, you can go without it and purchase similar items from the Trade Broker for similar prices. For instance, if a 100 damage sword can be crafted for roughly 100,000 Kinah in materials and failed attempts, then there’s probably a 90 damage sword for sale through the Trade Broker at 90,000 Kinah.
The real benefit from Weaponsmithing is gathering lots of materials and attempting to get as many ‘proc’s as possible and then selling the ones you don’t use. Weaponsmithing works similar to Handicrafting where you need to ‘proc’ the regular recipe in order to use in another recipe and then ‘proc’ that to get the best result. Even if the second fails, you still will have a valuable item. If it succeeds, you will have a very valuable item. The best results can fetch prices in the millions, which is attractive at any level.
Overall, Weaponsmithing is not a bad craft for any class that uses the weapons listed above, but I definitely suggest it for Templars, Gladiators, and Assassins.
Original: Lowfyr@Source
by frank, thx!
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