AIONology

Gathering is a good way to make Kinah. Everyone needs resources sometimes for things like crafting, enchantments, potions, and gear. No matter what resources you gather, they will sell out all the time, as long as your prices are reasonable. If prices are lower at the moment than you want to sell for, just wait a day or two and they will probably change.

In Aion there are a lot of items that look cool, but don’t do too much for your character’s stats. Many of these good-looking items can be sold for a very high profit. People will othen use these items to change the model of their current gear if it has good stats, but looks like an outfit they stole from a clown.

Use your private store(for more than just going AFK)! Everytime you go AFK, make a store. Put anything in that you think another player could even have a remote possibility of wanting. You might get lucky and some player will come by and buy some unwanted item from you.

Finally, one of the ultimate tools for getting cash is your wings! Expensive Aether resources can be found all over the sky, so flying longer will help you collect more nodes, and therefore more Kinah.

These are just a few of the smaller tips I learned from the new kinah guide by Killer Guides. If you are interested in making tons of Kinah then check it out here Aion Kinah guide

Most players, regardless of class, should be able to solo Bubblegut by level 17, or at least by level 18.  Numerous players have difficulty with ol’ Bubblegut, (what a name!) and most of the difficulty stems from failing to use the provided Slime Immunity potions at the proper time.

The quest to defeat Bubblegut is the fighting portion of the “Source of the Pollution” quest chain. When you are done, remember to stay and talk to Kato, and then return to Spatalos to inform him of the result and pick up your quest reward.


When you receive the Bubblegut portion of the “Source of the Pollution” quest chain from Geolus he will give you two Slime Immunity potions and tell you to use them on Bubblegut.

Place the Slime Immunity potions on your Quickbar so you can access them easily during battle. See Options/User Interface 1,2,and 3 to add extra Quickbars.

You have to return to the Tainted Swamp near Roseino‘s tent to find Bubblegut. Bubblegut‘s swamp pool lies north of Pilgrim’s Respite, between Altamia Ridge and  Zumion Canyon. If you look at the map of Verteron you will see the Tainted Swamp area in the east. Bubblegut is in the swamp pool that is furthest north.

Note: You may find it helpful to change your compass on the mini map to always point north. You can do this in Options. To get to Options press Escape twice to bring up the small Quit/Logout/Options menu. Click on Options.  In Game Options/User Interface Option 9 allows you to fix your compass on North.

The easiest, quickest way to get to Bubblegut is to fly from Verteron Citadel to Pilgrim’s Respite. From there turn right just past vendor Ibion‘s tent and follow the road north to the Tainted Swamp.

Go to the the last swamp pool, the one furthest north, just past Roseino‘s tent. You’ll find Bubblegut playing about in the contaminated waters, chasing some unsuccessful player down the road, or mauling a dead or dying player.

Tip: If you are traveling at night (in game time) in addition to the Broken Rock Kalgolems that are always there, you have to beware of the Ancient Elysean Spirits who stand about at the side of the roads.

If Bubblegut is out and about in battle with another player, take this opportunity to target him and look for the green square representing the Slime Spouting buff below his name. This buff is the key to defeating him.

DO NOT USE YOUR SLIME IMMUNITY POTIONS YET.  The trick is to attack Bubblegut, wait until he puts on his Slime buff, and THEN use one of the Slime Immunity potions that Geolus gave you.

If you use the Slime Immunity potion before Bubblegut buffs up, it will be wasted. If you use it too late, you may be dead. If you forgot about the Slime Immunity potions entirely, you don’t stand a chance.

If you find Bubblegut outside the swamp with his buff already up, you can attack him and use your Slime Immunity potion.

If Bubblegut does not have his buff up, you have to attack him and get him to put it up BEFORE you use the Slime Immunity potion.

Geolus does give you two Slime Immunity potions, so you can run away and try again. Try using it a second time, if your attacks do not seem to be doing any damage to Bubblegut; he sometimes puts up his Slime Immunity buff a second time right after you neutralize it with your first potion.

If worse comes to worst, and you find yourself in front of the Obelisk by the Soul Healer, bent over, clutching your chest and gasping, with no more Slime Immunity potions in your inventory, don’t give up! Simply return to Geolus, and he will give you two more potions.

If you survive your encounter with Bubblegut, but fail to kill him and use up both of your Slime Immunity potions, see Geolus for more. See our (soon-to-be-posted) Quick Trips Category for a free (no Kinah necessary) shortcut from the Tainted Swamp back to Geolus, the Frillneck Woods, and the Southern Tolbas Forest. You will have to get back up to Bubblegut after you see Geolus. A quick return to Verteron Citadel and a flight to Pilgrim’s Respite is your best bet.

When you are successful, you will see Kato. Talk to him and hear his sad story, then return to Spatalos and collect your hard-earned reward.

I know that this method works, at least with a Gladiator, because I used it to solo Bubblegut with my Glad right after I hit level 17.

Let us know your experiences with ol’ Bubblegut.

It can be annoying to try to locate some of the wandering NPCs in Aion.

We all know that to locate someone you type: /where Name

Did you know that you can get the path of a wandering NPC with equal ease?

For instance, if you want to locate Gulux (Asmodian) or Paksigue (Elyos) type:

/pathfinding Gulux

or

/pathfinding Paksigue

This will note the current location of the beastie with a purple X on your map and mini map. The purple X then moves as the creature moves along its path.

Pretty neat, huh?

Whether you are gathering for a quest or just to level up your skill for future high level items, gathering everything from Rubis to Aether can be frustrating if you are having difficulty locating the item you have to gather.

There are a couple of items available to help with gathering once you have ascended (from level 10 on up.) You can spend some of your hard-earned Kinah (Q) and buy a vitality or aether gathering hat, called a Gatherer Hat or Aether Gatherer Hat.

The Gatherer Hat comes in Novice (Q 5,687) – Experienced (Q 25,289) – Veteran (Q 148,648) and Advanced (Q 962,797) versions. As they increase in price, they also increase in skill level and character level requirements.

Gatherer Hats are available from the Vitality Extraction and Aether Extraction item vendors in the Vitality and Aether Extraction areas of the Artisan’s Hall in Sanctum for Elyos, or the Aether and Vitality Extraction Training area for Asmodians in Pandemonium.

With so many expenses competing for your attention a Gatherer Hat may seem too costly. After all, you still have to expand your cube and warehouse space, pick up some new armor or weapons, and pay to level up your crafting skill.

If you feel that you just can’t afford a Gatherer Hat, there’s hope. Here’s a free alternative: macros.

You can set up macros to help locate, target, and extract vitality and aether. Macros work extremely well for items that may be difficult to see, such as fish in the water. (Think Miraju Holy Ground or the waters around Eltnen Fortress.)

Go to U to open Macros, then Create New Macro, and type in, for example:

/Select Ruko
/Attack

(Make this two separate lines, just as shown, capitalizing the words and adding / at the start of each line.)

A Gatherer Hat, it is true, goes one step further than a macro and tells you what gatherables are available in any given area, but it may be cost prohibitive for lower level characters.  It is also amusing when using macros to put your character on autorun, periodically click your macro, and find your character suddenly veering off to one side and running head-long into a barrier in an attempt to reach the item the macro is set to gather.

So, if you’re feeling the pinch from a lack of Q (kinah,) give the macro solution a try. It is very simple, yet very effective.

If you haven’t met him yet, Paksigue is an Elite Level 13, a giant crab that roams the sands surrounding Verteron Citadel striking fear into the hearts of low level players. He has been dubbed Crab Norris for obvious reasons.

Just because he is only level 13, don’t think that you can take him on when you’re level 14 or 15. An Elite is the equivalent of a mob many levels higher. Elites have more defenses and  hit harder than other mobs of the same level. Depending on your class and your skills, Crab Norris may be too tough for a level 18 or 19 to solo.

The more unwary players there are roaming the dunes around Verteron Citadel, the higher the hourly kill count for Crab Norris. He usually kills the unsuspecting or preoccupied player in one or two hits.

Here’s a picture of Paksigue next to a regular sized mud potcrab, just so you can get an idea of his size. You’ll note that I took this pic of the backside of the big guy as he was moving away from me. This is the safest view of Paksigue when your character is only level 15.

I actually rather enjoy the big guy. He’s a nice touch. He adds a random element to the game that makes it more entertaining and realistic. He also performs a valuable function by alerting players to the necessity to watch the mini map for red dots that move rapidly and randomly; these fast, erratic red dots signal danger.

When you get to Eltnen, those randomly moving dots will be noticeably larger than the NPC mob dots and will represent players of the opposing faction who have stolen into your area bent on mayhem. You will be even less able to predict their presence or location than with Paksique.

Paksigue doesn’t seem to roam into the water or in close to the walls of the Citadel, so if you want to go afk on the Verteron sands make sure you are standing knee deep in water or high up on the dunes right next to the Citadel. Keep an eye on your mini map while you are questing about the dunes and you should be able to avoid Crab Norris.

If you’re looking for in-depth help in getting the most out of your Aion gaming, you couldn’t do better than Killer Guides. Their Aion Guide offers strategies for rapid leveling and for earning Kinah faster than you thought possible, as well as advice on each profession. They also offer individual guides for each class to help you get the most out of your precious gaming hours. If you can’t decide which class you like the most, your best bet is to get the Aion Complete Guide Package, which contains every guide they make- that’s 10 guides for the price of 3.

I’ve been playing my Ranger a lot recently and I keep seeing the same questions over and over again in the Ranger class chat. So I figured it would be helpful for all the new Rangers out there if I gave you some tips.
These 3 tips I think are the most important for any new Ranger.

#1 – Just because you are a Ranger does not mean you can’t melee.

I often see many new rangers just standing in front a monster getting beat on and slowly shooting arrows into it’s face. This is not how you play a ranger correctly. At low level you only have one ranged skill so you can’t keep the monster away from you. What you want to do is, first use your ranged attack, then switch to you melee weapons and kill it with melee skills. This will speed up your low levels considerably.

#2 – Physical Critical Manastones are your friends.

For awhile there was some confusion in the Ranger class chat about what manastones are the best. Some people were saying that they heard you want magic boost manastones… This is totally wrong and those people must be crazy.

The order of manastone importance goes something like this:
Critical > Attack > HP > Evasion

Basically, you want to kill things before they can even touch you.

#3 – Learn to kite things! (Also learn to “Jumpshot”)

If you can kite correctly you will never take damage. Thanks to kiting I was able to kill Trandilla at level 12, taking no damage. I also was able to solo Bubblegut at level 14 when everyone else was trying to find teams to kill him.

Here is an excellent video guide on how to jumpshot correctly.

One last thing I would really recommend is this Ranger Class Guide by killer guides. It has tons of useful information about action bar setup, pvp, stigmas to use, and leveling. It has been a great help to me so far.

To learn a Crafting skill visit a trainer of your craft choice (Cooking, Handicraft, Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, Alchemy, or Tailoring) and pay 3,630 Kinah to learn the craft. The trainer will also offer you a Quest to do a project with items you gather, but this is for XP only and is not required to level up the skill.

You level the skill with Work Orders you obtain from the trainer. If you want to save some Kinah when making these Work Orders, make only the exact number of items required.

Two reasons to make only the exact number of items required: 1) You save Kinah; 2) You increase your chances of receiving recipes as rewards.

The Work Order gives you extra materials, just in case of failure. For example, you receive eight (8) caprauna to make 6 caprauna juice. If you make all eight Work Orders successfully and turn in the completed Work Order, you do not save any extra created items towards the next Work Order, and you do not gain any additional Skill. Oops! This last part is incorrect, as a commenter pointed out. You do get skill increase from making the extra items. (Sorry, I was getting confused after too many late nights gaming.)

What I meant to say was that another reason that you might want to only make the minimum items necessary to turn in the Work Order is: by doing this way you increase the number of times you turn in Work Orders as you level up your skill, and thus you increase your chances of receiving some good recipes as rewards for completing the Work Orders. (I knew there was another reason.)

Save your Kinah; don’t buy more mats than you need to. I find the failure rate is fairly low, at least from Skill levels1 to 100, and by turning in more Work Orders I received a fair number of interesting recipes as rewards, which is much better than buying them off the Broker. You still have that option if you don’t get what you want as a reward from the Cooking Trainer.

If you are purchasing mats for one Work Order at a time, purchase enough mats to make seven, but resist the temptation to click the “Make All” button; make only 6. If you succeed you are done! If you fail on any of your attempts and you  need to make more, then do so.

For each 10 Skill levels (1 to 10, 11 to 20, etc.) you make the same Work Order over and over, so I usually buy enough materials to make sixty-five (65) to seventy (70) items for all 10 Work Orders at one time. This doesn’t save any Kinah, but it saves running back and forth to the Vendor table. (Even though it is not that far to go, it can be annoying.)

Here’s another Kinah-saving Crafting Tip:

The first Work Order is free, requiring no extra mats. In Cooking, for example, Gritty Inina does not require you to purchase extra mats. Making this can get you up to Skill Level 10, right? Well, if you are feeling really hard up for Kinah, try making the same first Work Order to level up further.  Reliable sources have confirmed that you can level up to the mid-30′s or even 40 using the same first Work Order. It does kind of s-l-o-w d-o-w-n your leveling, but it is free.

Try this same trick at other skill levels, too. Some of the higher level Work Orders require fewer, less expensive mats than those at lower levels. When you find an inexpensive Work Order, keep making it as long as you continue to gain skill level.

Let me know how this works for you.

Happy leveling!

We have updated this post with new maps and more info as of October 15, 2009.

Rift Basics

Rifts join Eltnen to Morheim and Beluslan to Heiron. There are seven rifts in each direction.

We have labeled the Elyos entrances and exits with numbers and the Asmodian entrances and exits with letters. The entrance letters and numbers correspond to the exit letters and numbers in the other faction’s territory. For example, entry point 1 in Eltnen sends an Elyos player to exit 1 in Morheim, while entry point A in Morheim sends an Asmodian player to exit point A in Eltnen.

The entry point for each rift is stable for both factions, but the exit points may vary slightly. No doubt this is intended to prevent defending players from camping the spot where incoming opposition players arrive. We have done our best to mark the maps accurately.

There are limits to the number of players who can enter each rift; see the charts for the rifts in each area. There is also a level maximum for entry into each rift, probably so that very high level players cannot suddenly appear in the lower level areas.

Note: All Rifts are open for approximately 26 minutes real time, which translates to 2 hours Atreia time (on the in-game clock.)

Morheim Rift Map - Asmodian Territory

Heiron Rift Map - Elyos Territory

Beluslan Rift Map - Asmodian Territory

You can also copy the following info into your in-game Memo Pad so that you can place the information on your in-game map. See the picture at the bottom for help to access the in-game Memo Pad. Just highlight. copy, and paste into the memo Pad with Cntrl V. You can then click on the links in your memo pad to mark the locations on your map.

Eltnen>Morheim
[pos:Entrance 1;210020000 183.269086357947 2829.47434292866 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 1;220020000 745.420675537359 1872.32548618219 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 2;210020000 824.070087609512 2023.46683354193 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 2;220020000 1364.66325486182 1334.96622313204 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 3;210020000 1655.10888610763 1858.26032540676 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 3;220020000 617.477993858751 209.070624360287 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 4;210020000 1024.32040050063 61.0137672090112 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 4;220020000 1820.13920163767 1309.37768679632 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 5;210020000 1459.8648310388 581.664580725907 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 5;220020000 1559.13613101331 2757.68884339816 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 6;210020000 2210.80350438048 2644.24280350438 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 6;220020000 2613.38382804504 2235.68270214944 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 7;210020000 2180.76595744681 541.614518147685 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 7;220020000 2930.68167860798 879.490276356192 0.0 -1]

Morheim>Eltnen
[pos:Entrance A;220020000 450 2350 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit A;210020000 718.938673341677 2779.41176470588 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance B;220020000 750 920 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit B;210020000 383.519399249061 1277.53441802253 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance C;220020000 250 500 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit C;210020000 1289.65206508135 2438.98623279099 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance D;220020000 1650 1400 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit D;210020000 93.1564455569462 246.245306633292 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance E;220020000 1630.78403275333 1099.5516888434 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit E;210020000 1329.70212765957 346.370463078848 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance F;220020000 2400 2300 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit F;210020000 2295.9098873592 2278.7859824781 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance G;220020000 2450 600 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit G;210020000 2586.27284105131 651.752190237797 0.0 -1]

Heiron>Beluslan
[pos:Entrance 1;210040000 2662.01160005043 434.266044634977 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 1;220040000 126.507629704985 1061.38860630722 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 2;210040000 1300.266548985 1437.9225822721 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 2;220040000 1067.50457782299 313.677517802645 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 3;210040000 1103.57004160888 656.180052956752 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 3;220040000 1036.98575788403 2073.59613428281 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 4;210040000 649.655024587063 1821.22859664607 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 4;220040000 2125.49033570702 456.098677517803 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 5;210040000 725.307527424032 2512.18812255705 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 5;220040000 2863.02848423194 542.568667344863 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 6;210040000 503.393519102257 555.310049174127 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 6;220040000 2725.69379450661 2343.17904374364 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance 7;210040000 2742.70760307654 2078.44710629177 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit 7;220040000 1744.00508646999 1900.65615462869 0.0 -1]

Beluslan>Heiron
[pos:Entrance A;220040000 233.323499491353 150.910478128179 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit A;210040000 2132.44408019165 434.266044634977 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance B;220040000 1301.48219735504 634.12512716175 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit B;210040000 1955.92157357206 1821.22859664607 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance C;220040000 767.402848423194 2226.19023397762 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit C;210040000 871.569032908839 903.311562224183 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance D;220040000 2069.53916581892 262.812817904374 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit D;210040000 861.482032530576 2194.44761064179 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance E;220040000 2842.68260427263 618.865717192269 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit E;210040000 291.566511158744 2658.44962804186 0.0 -1]
[pos:Entrance F;220040000 2812.16378433367 2561.89725330621 0.0 -1] > [pos:Exit F;210040000 362.175513806582 514.962047661077 0.0 -1]

It should look something like this:

After I found that video with the shortcut to get to the back of the Krall area solo, I have been looking for other shortcuts as well. I found these two videos that show shortcuts from Verteron => Miraju’s Holy Ground and Altgarde => Impetusium. I don’t have an Asmodian character high enough level to try the Altgarde to Impetusium shortcut so I can’t say for sure if it still works or not. (If someone with an Asmo character could try this out it would be cool.) I did try the shortcut from Verteron to Miraju, and it works well.

Here is the video for the Shortcut from Verteron to Miraju’s Holy Ground:

Here is the video for Altgarde to Impetusium:

Let me know if these work well for you or if you find another cool shortcut.

There is so much happening in-game with such great graphics that I sometimes find it difficult to locate my team. Ok, I admit I can get lost in the mayhem or absorbed at the Broker.

Anyway, those floating icons that the group leader can place over group members’ heads really help! The icons are visible from a much greater distance than the individual characters are. It’s also quite amusing to see a huge smiley face, heart, star, etc. bouncing along in the air and emerging from a valley or village, etc.

Using icons can also facilitate coordination of group attacks if the group leader places an appropriate icon (the skull leaps to mind) over the head of the current target.

We did experience some temporary loss of icons at times during the beta. They seemed to drop off for some, but not all players, but would reappear if the group leader placed them again.

Aion Icons for Groups