Aion 3.5 Chronicles: Comprehensive 3.5 Guide

Features to be added:
Named Mobs: Locations/Maps
Gearing Process and Options: What armor to get.
What Not to do in the Eye: Bugs/Exploits to AVOID
PvP Friendship 101 - A good way to bond with your fellow players. Don't drive them away, get to know them.
Tiamat Stronghold Guide (Almost done! Just adding pictures!)
Dragon Lord Refuge Guide (So close, yet so far)
Leave suggestions in the comments section if you have any requests!


Staying Relevant in the post 3.0 World: A General Guide

Well hello there! Welcome to the last Aion general guide you'll ever need. This guide will encompass all of the 3.0-3.1 content with additional 3.5 info being added as it is made available. So, as this is a fairly large project I won't be able to have it all done at once! Be ready to come back and check as updates are made available, I'll bold them at the top of the guide for easy notification. If you have anything that you feel this guide needs to focus more on be sure to shoot me an e-mail at teaminfestation@hotmail.com! Well, here we go!

Gear in 3.0-3.5:

Kahrun Gear:
This was one of the larger additions to 3.0 as it provided people a fairly easy and progressive way to get top-tier endgame gear with both weapons and armor being available. For any new 60's this is definitely a good place to start getting your PvE Armor/Accessories in order before attempting any of the more difficult instances 3.0 offers.

What's the best way to get Kahrun symbols? 
There are numerous ways to acquire these symbols so don't be daunted by the hefty price tag on some of the eternal gear. The easiest way to consistently get Kahrun symbols is to do the daily quests offered in both Tiamaranta and Sarpan. There will be two regular quests and one [Group] quest for each map. In addition to these daily quests there is also a set of weekly quests that reset every Wednesday after maintenance. These provide tons of symbols and it is fairly easy to find a group for the two [Alliance] quests as most players run them at least once a week. If you're on Tiamat and would like to do these feel free to whisper me on Fest. Since the 3.5 update two of the daily quests in each zone have been switched to Weekly quests and have had their rewards upgraded a bit. This saves on time and you'll total roughly the same amount of symbols per week!

I don't like doing daily quests, is there another option?
Yes! There are other options for getting Kahrun symbols. Since 3.1 came out there have been quests that are automatically acquired in every 3.0 instance that reward you with a Kahrun bundle when you kill the final boss of the instance. So, by running 3.0 instances you not only open yourself up to receive nice gear from the instances themselves but they also contribute to your Kahrun symbols!

Fest I don't have time for all this crap! Give me Kahrun symbols!
For the extremely time restricted player you aren't out of luck! In the near future you'll still be able to buy the tradeable Kahrun boxes that people are selling on the broker. As of tomorrow this promotion on the Black Cloud Marketplace ends but many players still have the conversion items and will be posting them up even after the promotion ends. If you find yourself short on time but have the extra kinah to throw around then look to the broker for some extra symbols!

What mobs should I be killing for my Kahrun daily quests?
-Coming Soon- (With maps!)

PvP Gear:
As Aion continues to develop we will continue to see more tiers of end game PvP gear pop up. Currently there are several eternal sets of PvP gear that may seem quite pricey but are often worth the work to get them. Thankfully 3.5 has brought us multiple ways to pursue this top-tier PvP gear with easier access to both AP and Mithril Medals. (More to come here)

AP In 3.5:
If you like PvP then chances are good that you'll be needing a good way to gain AP as fast as you can to ensure a speedy gearing process. You may be saying silly things like: "Fest! Gaining ap is slow and stupid! What do!?" Fear not, 3.5 has given us a way to make some juicy AP extremely fast and allowing us to utilize multiple methods to do so.

I love PvP! Can I make AP realistically through just PvP?
Yes! I have found the most profitable PvP to be Solo or Duo PvP in the eye as this also opens you up to finding keymasters and get some nice AP bumps through that. In addition to the eye there is also an increased level of PvP in all cross-faction zones (rifts n' stuff). 3.5 has given level 60 players the ability to rift again and every zone is accessible!

I typically make my AP through PvP in Tiamaranta's Eye as it's fairly populated with officers trying to farm keys and whatnot, a veritable AP buffet for an Assassin such as myself. Don't worry though, any class can be successful in the eye, it's just a matter of knowing how to go about it.

Fest! You jerk! I keep dying in the eye, people are zerging like crazy!
This is a fairly common issue people have while playing in the Eye and it happens for a few reasons. First off, there is a PvP daily in there that requires five kills. Often if a group of players is having trouble finding people to fight they tend to congregate near the breakout of the opposing faction and then...a zerg is born. This can be extremely frustrating for people but it doesn't have to be the end of your PvP session.

Keep in mind that these zergs often form from players who aren't overly confident in their ability to be successful in small group situations. In order to discourage this kind of zerg PvP I urge people to start lashing out at some of these groups even if your numbers may not be on par with theirs. More often than not, if you can coordinate a bit with your fellow players you can drop high priority targets with good focus fire rather than just running back to the guards. Showing people that they're still vulnerable in a zerg is a good way to rattle their cage a bit and perhaps discourage them from zerging in the future. Not to be mean but, nobody likes a zergling.

So how do I deal with the zerglings?
The best part about the Eye is that you can quickly navigate it through the use of windstreams. One of these windstreams can be entered right from your breakout and may serve as an option to bypass those pesky breakout zergs. Now, this doesn't always solve the problem but it gives you options, and options are awesome.

To add to that thought I'd also like to urge caution at all times while PvPing in the Eye. It's a harsh zone that, at times, will be very unforgiving to players like myself who tunnel vision their targets. To ensure a positive experience go into the Eye with the understanding that, due to the presence of these windstreams, things change very quickly and a 1v1 you were having could turn into a 20v1 without much notice. To deal with this you have to be ready to drop your fight and book it out of there if things look like they're taking a turn for the worse. Windstreams also serve as a good countermeasure to a bad situation as they're quick exits with safe destinations.

Okay, that's cool and all but what if I don't want to do straight PvP for my AP?
Don't worry, you're in good company as the vast majority of the PvP playerbase also employs alternate methods to gain AP and gain it fast. One of these methods is farming keys in the Eye. Now, it's been a while since 3.0 came out so this isn't exactly new information but hey, I'm sure plenty of people aren't fully aware of how to farm keymasters with any consistency.

Your best bet for key farming is to farm the heroic grade keys from a mob called Keymaster Zumita. There are a total of six rooms that Zumita will spawn in, they are the the small rooms in the outer ring of the eye that have mobs forming an "X" shape with a dragon sitting in the middle. These keymasters will often spawn in basic hide so make sure you're popping an eye or running into the rooms to check if anything aggros you that isn't immediately visible.

Once you find a Keymaster Zumita and kill it you are guaranteed a blue chest key. Now for the important part; you've got a key and are on your way to finding a nice box to open but that's just a little AP and you need a lot so how can you get more? Farm it. Once you kill Zumita in a room it will have a respawn time of one hour. Once this hour is up there is a 20 minute window for the mob to spawn. It is important to make note of the times you kill these mobs so you can make your way back to the room an hour after you kill it. This is a great way to make a lot of AP fairly quickly even if you only manage to get the timer on one room, so get out there!

Fest I can't seem to get lucky with Keymasters are there any other ways to make AP?
Yes! As I mentioned earlier, 3.5 has added content that allows level 60 players to rift into any zone. Why is this useful? Well, as it turns out there are new guards that have been added to provide some extra protection for low level players but they also provide a fantastic source of AP relics and mithril medals! These mobs will spawn in Morheim/Eltnen/Beluslan/Heiron/Gelkmaros/Inggison and come in groups of six.

-edit- As of 3.7 this method has decreased in efficiency since they changed the timers on some rifts (Ing/Gelk) and nerfed the guard's drop rates. A new Gelk/Ing PvP Daily was added so be sure to swing by those maps and you should automatically pick up the daily quest!

Wow, that sounds awesome, how do I find them?
This is the tricky part. These new guards will only spawn near the exits of rifts and there will typically be two sets of six guards per rift. Each guard has a chance to drop an AP potion, Mithril medal, or a Major Ancient Crown, oh yes, these guards drop the good stuff. The guards will spawn between 15-30 minutes (based on my personal observations) after the rift pops up. I'll hold off on posting the exact locations of all guards for now but I may post them in the future should the desire be high enough. Just remember that they are generally on roads and at decent "choke" points. ;)

This may sound a little too good to be true, and it is, these guards may be elites but they aren't training dummies, these guys hit back...hard. There are three types of mobs per group, they are as follows: Sentinels (Easiest), Templars (Medium), and Sorcerers (Holypoop Difficulty). As you work your way down the line you'll find that the sentinels will get stunned and slowed just like most elites as they don't have much resistance to these things (I can solo two on my assassin). Following the sentinels you'll move onto the Templars which don't really hit terribly hard but are quite resilient and resist most stuns and crowd control skills. Finally, the last things you'll contend with are the sorcerers...and oh man these guys are nasty. Unless you are running fairly high MR these may give you some trouble. They resist essentially all forms of crowd control and stuns/slows. In addition to this they also have a buttload of HP and will do things like shooting star storm which hit for like 7-8k damage. You will either need two heavy DPS classes to drop one of these before they kill you or have a dedicated healer.

These mobs all have a nice chance to drop major crowns and are a fantastic resource for fast AP gain. There are a few more things to keep in mind with this method of AP gain concerning how you pull them and minding your surroundings. Any set of guards that spawns will often be accompanied by a large cannon  that players from the opposing faction may enter and do away with any pesky rifters. These cannons have set damage and can turn even a harmless pinkie into a nightmare for a few 60s. These cannons give the person inside them 200,000 HP and access to an area bombardment skill and a direct target attack skill. If you see someone get in a cannon near you, run. If you force a player out of a cannon it will immediately disappear.

In regards to pulling these guards you'll often start by pulling all six of them at once, a potentially deadly task. To do this safely you'll need to be ready to pop defensive cooldowns. On my chanter I typically pull them all with protective ward up and hit my instant heal as soon as the initial skills land and then proceed to kite five of the mobs off while my friend(s) pull the one or two we're going to be killing. The templars and sentinels will open with force cleave (it stuns) and the sorcerers open with tranquilizing cloud (sleep storm). This can be a nasty combo as a sleep may land on you after the cleaves and leave you very vulnerable to further attack.

This all sounds awesome but can I solo these?
Soloing these guards would be fairly difficult for most classes and I could maybe see Chanters and Clerics being able to do everything save the sorcerers (unless they're MR spec). But there is one way for melee classes to farm these themselves it's just a bit less profitable. Last night on my assassin I rifted over to Inggison and killed all the sentinels at every guard spawn. This was only about six mobs in total but I scored crowns off of every single one of them and it wasn't terribly difficult to do since the sentinels have low HP and are vulnerable to blinds/stuns.

I would suggest finding a friend or two and working out an AP feed schedule maybe rotating every rift or every day. Depending on your luck you can clear several hundred thousand AP in a day if you do this right, a boon for any player seeking to get level 60 AP gear fast.

Well, this is a good start I suppose. Good enough to post for now, at least. If anyone has any feedback or suggestions for things to prioritize then please, please,  PLEASE...leave a comment or send me an e-mail at teaminfestation@hotmail.com. Cheers, good luck gearing up!

-Fest (60 Assassin - Tiamat)

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Aion Crafting Guide: Heart Costs

So, I hate flying all the way out to Tigraki just to check heart prices that I've been far too lazy to write down. But hey, I figured I've got the time and will make a price list of major (used) balic crafting designs to save people the trouble. This guide will cover Weapons and Armor since those are the dominant balic crafts at the moment, leave a comment if you'd like the accessory/consumable design costs!

Weapons:
Level 50 Designs: Hot Hearts
60, 180

Level 55 Designs: Burning Hearts
42, 126, 378

Level 60 Designs: Burning Hearts
60, 180, 540


Armor:
Level 50 Designs: Hot Hearts
Chest: 40, 120
Pants: 30, 90
P/S/G: 20, 60 (Pauldrons/Shoes/Gloves)

Level 55 Designs: Burning Hearts
Chest: 28, 84, 252
Pants: 21, 63, 189
P/S/G: 14, 42, 126

Level 60 Designs: Burning Hearts
Chest: 40, 120, 360
Pants: 30, 90, 270
P/S/G 20, 60, 180

I'll add the lower level crafts to this guide next time I'm out at Tigraki :3

Hope this helps!

-Fest

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Aion 3.0 Chronicles: Debarim the Omnipotent

Since most people scarcely even know this boss isn't a Sandstorm target I figured I'd throw together a handy little guide detailing how to kill him.

Information!
1. You don't need a templar to kill this.
2. He has an enrage timer, do not attempt without a solid set of dps.
3. Sometimes the floor doesn't light up the way it is supposed to, have someone who can see the effect direct the group away from it!
4. His spawn timer is less than 24 hours.
5. He spawns on both channels.
6. Suggested alliance size: 10-12


Guide:
First off, this is the legendary-grade Jotun boss that hangs out in the northernmost hallway of Debarim's Studio in Sarpan (that air PvP zone nobody uses). Getting there is easy as there are no mobs in the hallway leading up to his room.

It is important to note that upon starting this boss encounter the door to the room will close, potentially locking opponents out or separating your group should the boss fight be started accidentally. Also note that you can kisk in this room and should do so to avoid potential wipes.

Phase 1:
Debarim starts off by mixing a long range AoE, which will likely hit the whole group, and a single knockdown skill on the tank. Neither of which does much damage and should cause no stress for the healers or the tank. The AoE hits for roughly 2-3k and the knockdown skill is roughly 3-4k. This phase is rather simple and shouldn't take much time.

Phase 2:
Once Debarim hits 75% health he will cast rage, stunning the group, and begin to use Terraspin. This skill hits everyone in the designated area for roughly 7-8k and should be avoided if at all possible. Thankfully, avoiding this skill is simple as there is always text preceding the skill that will say "The center ground is shaking, move." and it can be either left, right, or center. Simply move out of the lit zone (or follow someone who can actually see it) and you will avoid the damage completely. This phase is made even more simple by the fact that Debarim enters a stunned state for 15 seconds after each Terraspin and is completely vunerable. Rinse and repeat until 50%.

Phase 3:
Debarim will now revert back to his AoEs in addition to using Terraspin every so often, thus making this phase a combination of the previous two. Assuming your group has gotten this far, you should have no trouble dealing with this phase.

Phase 4:
At this point in the fight (25%) text will show on the screen something like "The cave is collapsing! Find safe ground to attack Debarim!" you'll do just that. This time you'll see bright blue circles appear on the floor, do not stand in them as you will take periodic damage. Find a safe spot to continue dpsing Debarim and keep pulling him down. Everyone, including the healers, will need to be moving around to make sure they aren't in any of the circles.

Congratulations on a successful world boss encounter!

Debarim drops eternal level 58(?) earrings and several other blues.

Hope you found this guide helpful!

-Fest

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Aion 3.0 Chronicles: Rentus Base

Rentus base is proving to be a constant necessity for the average end-game player as it houses some of the best weapons 3.0 has to offer and a hefty amount of fabled loot for disenchating. The instance itself is quite short and if you've got yourself in a decent group this instance should take you an hour or less depending on your DPS. This post will serve as a guide for the heroic bosses that inhabit Rentus Base, there are elite "mini-bosses" that drop golds but they are incredibly easy and will not be included in this guide!

Boss #1: When you approach this boss you'll notice that there are two elite adds at her side, these will be your top priority when the fight begins. Neither has a ton of HP so they should be quick kills while the tank pulls the boss. The boss itself is a pain due to it's habit of randomly attacking people regardless of aggro/hate. Thankfully it doesn't hit terribly hard so you just need to toss heals on whomever is the chosen target and rotate heals when the boss rotates targets.

This boss also likes to go into hide so make sure nobody is afk auto-attacking, they will lose their target :D!

Drops: Eternal Shields!

After working through some elites and a mini-boss you will see some siege tanks on either side of you, these are used for the next boss. There are two types of tanks: a "tank" tank which can pull aggro, heal itself, and go invulnerable for a short period of time, you will only need one of these. The other tanks are geared towards offense and can lay mines and shoot cannonballs to deal with the adds before the actual boss, everyone else will be in these. Once you're ready to fight the boss have your dps tanks form a half circle roughly 25 meters away from him and use their siege transformations.

Boss #2
This boss is very easy since everyone will be in siege mode and just obliterate him with their cannons. All the tank has to do is kite back and forth in front of the boss and keep aggro on any adds that spawn while he is being burnt down. Once the boss goes down the adds all despawn.

Drops: Random Golds/Blues

Boss #3
This boss is a pain without an SM and most groups usually skip it since there are no eternals or relevant gear that drops from this boss. If people want a guide for it please leave a comment :D!

Drops: Random Golds/Blues

Boss #4
After killing another mini-boss you'll see a large dragon flying in an open area. This is a fairly easy fight but it can get out of hand if your dps/heals aren't capable so be aware.

Phase 1: Flight. While in the air, this boss will do fairly low damage but after a few seconds he will go to the middle and put up a shield and summon a couple adds. No big deal for the first shield so just wait for it to come off or dps the adds down while you wait but make sure to get right back on him when hes vulnerable. Ideally you'll have him down before the second shield comes and if not...prepare for lots of adds. If you find yourself at this point you'll need to pop defensive cooldowns if you don't have the adds under control, they can get overwhelming. They all use magic based ranged attacks so respond accordingly.

If you find yourself unable to kill him before another shield pops up and the adds are overwhelming you it is likely a lost cause. But there is hope!

Protip: If your dps is lacking you can bug the boss out of his shield by juggling aggro between multiple players. This means letting your tank lose aggro to one of the dps and then taking it back and losing it again etc. By doing this he will sometimes not put up a shield at all!

Phase 2: Once he is off his dragon you'll fight the captain on the ground. This is an easy fight but he does like to shift targets and use a line of ranger skills so healers be ready to switch targets. There are no real phases to this boss so just burn him down, he'll only wound you with his buggy audio and terrifying use of mana treatment!

Drops: Random Golds/Blues

Boss #5
Fatty-fat-fat-fat.
This boss is boring for me as I have no role in it, you really only need a tank and cleric to participate...everyone else can afk. This boss can't really be hurt by player attacks so you have to wait until oil barrels spawn in the corners of the room. You'll drag the boss over to the corner with the barrels and break them once he's on top of them. This will put a debuff on him causing him to take tons of damage from the bombs he summons. Rinse and repeat until dead!

Drops: Random Golds/Blues

Boss #6
Vasharti
This boss is the reason people run Rentus! He is also a royal pain in the ass with boat loads of HP and a constant reflect that everyone has to deal with. This is not a boss fight you can zone out on. Vasharti technically switches phases four times but it's the same thing every time so I'll just describe the two modes you'll be confronted with.

Phase 1: When the fight starts Vasharti will cast a reflect skill with either red or blue in the title. As you may have guessed...go to the corresponding flame pillar in order to get a buff. What these buffs do is decrease his reflect damage. He will do roughly 2k damage per hit if you don't have the buff so make sure you get it! If you have the proper buff you'll be reflected with 500ish damage per hit so be mindful if your hp, especially my fellow assassins out there who like to weave! Vasharti also spawns a fire and ice add from the fire pillars every few minutes. The ice add needs to be handled by the melee and the fire add needs to be dealt with by a caster. Each spirit is immune to either physical damage (fire) or magical damage (ice) and they can be problematic if you don't dps them down fast enough!

The tank's role in this fight is typically to spam taunts and stay roughly in the center or at least several meters away from the group using the fire pillar for the reflect buff to ensure that the party isn't hit with Vasharti's AoE. Fire Column is the name of the AoE you need to make sure doesn't hit you which isn't too hard considering the effective range is only a few meters. Once you get him to roughly 75% he'll head to the middle of the arena and put up a shield.

Phase 2: When Vasharti starts floating in the middle of the room he becomes invincible and starts flinging fireballs at everyone. The only ones you really need to worry about are the red/orange circles as they inflict massive damage if you get caught in the blast. These phases usually only last about 30~ seconds and then he goes back to Phase 1.

Repeat several times and you're done!

Drops:
5/6-slot Eternal Weapons
Pagati Mount (2nd Fastest in game)

Hope you found this helpful, thanks for reading!

Fest - Assassin 60 (Tiamat)

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Aion 3.0 Chronicles: Muada's Trencher

Last night Void decided to take on the other 12-man instance, Muada's Trencher. We didn't know what to expect going in and thought it was an actual instance, however, it turned out to be a single legendary-grade boss. We gave it a few tries to see how the boss worked and if we could handle doing it "legit" or not, we ran into some...issues.

Strategy: The first thing you need to do if you're going to follow this guide is drop a kisk outside of the entrance to the instance. Kisk res'ing during this fight is essential since the healers will already be bombarded with adds and will likely be too busy to res you. This boss also likes to enrage if you don't kill it fast enough, but fear not, there is a way to recover from the enrage.

IMPORTANT NOTE!: Enrage was a problem we ran into frequently, possibly due to our low numbers, and we have a solution for getting enrage off of Muada. We did something similar to the ol' Lannok trick where we had someone sit the first part of the fight out until Muada went nuts and killed everyone. Once everyone dies the buff runs off. Before Muada resets we had the person sitting out grab her to make sure she didn't reset before the rest of the group kisk reses and runs back in. This may not be a problem for full groups of 60's with good gear but we didn't even have a Sorceror with us so this was a necessary part in the fight for us.

Phase One: 100-75%
This is the easiest phase, Muada does a 360 degree AoE (Ray Thorn) that hits everything outside of 20 meters or so of her. To avoid being hit by this ALL party members must be standing close to Muada and the tank will be positioning the boss away from the rest of the group. Muada does some other minor attacks during this phase like projectile vomit but it's nothing terribly dangerous outside of Ray Thorn but be ready to run when phase two begins.

Phase Two: 75-50%
At this point Muada will use a skill called Rage and stun your party briefly, following this stun Muada will spawn a couple elite adds and add spawners. Now, we tried this several different ways and, possibly due to our less-than-average sized group, we were unsuccessful when we tried to burn the adds faster than they were spawning. One or two from each set would be left over and eventually overwhelm us.

To remedy this we decided to have all DPS stick to the boss as the Templar kited it around the circular room. When you do this it causes all of the adds to zerg around after various members of your group so it's important to kite when you've got a large number of adds on you. Moving in a circle prevents both the boss and adds from ever catching you since they are all pretty sluggish (<--Ohohoho so clever). After slowly but surely kiting and DPSing Muada out of this phase you enter phase three.

Side Note: If you feel you can DPS the adds down before more spawn then make sure to prioritize the spawners and be sure to utilize CC's (Unconfirmed, seemed most everything works on them though) and blinds (Confirmed) as both of them work on all of the adds. Also, when the adds die they melt into a puddle of acid and do significant damage to anyone that steps in it so be mindful of your environment.

Phase Three: 50-25%
Before you dig into Muada's health again it is important to kite off the remaining adds, they despawn after a while and no more adds should spawn. Once the adds are down have your tank settle Muada back into the same position as Phase one. The only difference between this phase and the first one is the additional AoE to complement Ray Thorn, Swiping Blow. This AoE hits in a 360 degree zone 15 meters around the boss, this needs to be outranged as it does heavy damage and knocks people down.

Every 20 seconds Muada will alternate between Ray Thorn and Swiping blow. To make sure nobody gets hit you run out of Swiping Blow and immediately back in after it ends to avoid Ray Thorn, repeat until the phase ends. Pretty simple.

Phase Four: 25-0%
Muada will use Rage, same as all new phases, and then burrow underground. Shortly after using this skill the text "Muada has created a giant sand hell, run!" pops up on your screen. Following the disembodied words' instructions quickly run out of the central area and onto the sides. I assume if you fail to do this you die horribly. But it's not hard to get out of so no big deal.

Once you're back on the boss he gets a new skill called Neurotoxin which he will randomly cast on party members. It does a medium amount of damage and puts a status effect on the target that cuts its attack and does damage over time. This is curable so clerics make sure you're dispelling the targets of Neurotoxin.

Muada will stop doing Ray Thorn this phase and will switch back to Projectile Vomit (Frontal Cone) and will continue doing Swiping Blow and Neurotoxin. Make sure to keep out-ranging swiping blow whenever Muada uses it and keep burning him down.

This should finish off the fight! Congratulations on defeating Empress Muada!

For those of you curious about the loot she can drop, there are two eternal necklaces (Caster/Melee) that Muada drops that aren't too shabby for PvE and she drops a fabled hat and shields. We got the fabled cleric shield to drop :3.

Thanks for reading!

-Fest
(Tiamat/Assassin/60)

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Aion 3.0 Chronicles: Elementis Forest & Argent Manor

Warning: This guide contains a ton of Fest-isms and due to this I have decided to give you all a key to decipher my ramblings.
List of known Fest-isms:

Safety Golem = Hetgolem (Things that spawn around Boss #5 of Elementis forest)
Rock O' Doom = Not a real "boss" but gives a loot chest
Yoda Monkey on Crack = Monkey boss (Boss #4 of Elementis forest)
Junkie Golem = Final boss of Elementis Forest who is overdosing on a tree.
Safety Golem Slavemaster = First boss in Argent Manor, utilizes safety golems to heal himself.
Where did my hp go? Final boss of Argent Manor, Zadra Spellweaver, hits like a truck throwing another truck at your face. Doesn't drop anything when "killed"
Where did my hp go? Pt. 2: The Reckoning: Final form of Zadra Spellweaver, is annoying until 25% Hits like a truck throwing another truck at your face and then firing a rocket at your nuts.

Well if you've taken a look around the map at all the new instances you may recognize Elementis Forest as one of the new twelve-man instances. This instance is part of a set, complemented by Argent Manor, similar in fashion to Upper and Lower Udas in the previous zones.

The Forest portion of the instance isn't setup like a dungeon or your typical instance at all. If anything it reminded me of an open zone and even contains some repeatable mob kill quests. There are a total of five bosses in the forest and I'll give a brief description of the strategy involved for defeating each of them. At some point in the near future I'll actually record these bosses and add commentary so stay tuned :D!

Boss #1 Canyonguard: This dude is a giant golem that you run into literally a few steps into the instance. He's a pretty standard tank n' spank boss that spawns some adds every so often that the group must shift priority to. His other noteworthy skill is Canyonguard's Wrath (Rage?) which is an AoE he will cast every two minutes or so, it has a range of 15 meters. Outrange this skill. It does quite a large amount of damage if you get caught in it and he repeat casts it three times before returning to normal.

In regards to the adds: The Canyonguard will spawn these boulders that don't really do anything for about a minute then they "hatch" into elite earth spirit adds. The dormant boulders can be burned down so you don't need to kill the actual adds. I believe there are a total of four or five adds to dps down during the last spawn so it's quite manageable.

Once he dies he turns into a bridge and spawns a chest which, from my two runs, contained Fabled accessories and one Eternal piece of armor (plate shoulders).

Boss #2: This next boss is a little more tricky since you need to have one group handle the invisible adds that constantly spawn at put a shield on the main boss. This can be done by using the plants on the ground that spawn around the boss. These will allow you to see the invisible adds and burn them down (they're really weak). Our group had the gladiators focus on these adds since a few AoE's is all it would take the drop the group of them.

More adds! This stupid horse also blips in and out of existence every phase and summons a literal wave of adds that encircles you. The first three waves are no big deal but towards the end, especially the final wave, things can get bad if you aren't careful. The final wave of adds consists of these jellyfish things that must be either burned down immediately or kited until they de-spawn. IMPORTANT NOTE: Never attack them from the front, they like to do frontal explosion AoE's that do some nasty damage. These adds do de-spawn after a relatively short period of time.

Aside from all the waves of adds this boss is fairly easy and shouldn't give groups much trouble.

Boss #3 ROCK O' DOOM: At the top of a hill your party will encounter a large rock. It has a legendary health bar and is most easy piece of crap the hardest boss in the game. You gently push the giant boulder of death down a hill where it slams into another rock and gives you a chest with some golds, haven't seen an eternal out of this one yet.

I hesitate to call that a boss.

Boss #4 Yoda Monkey on Crack: After carving your way through adorable monkeys wearing leaf hats you'll encounter a large version of the Yoda-monkey pet from Esoterrace. This guy is like a mix of the first two real bosses and will blip out of existence and spawn adds. These are much more manageable than either of the previous bosses though as they don't have much health. This boss does nothing special outside of the adds just focus fire and you'll be fine. Also, mark the main boss so you can tell when he reappears, helpful for your tank since the adds look identical to the boss.

Boss #5 Junkie Golem: IMPORTANT NOTE: There are a bunch of adorable circle golems surrounding the area that the boss is in. These are used in the fight and I strongly suggest burning them all down before starting the fight.

This boss likes to put DoTs on people that can only be cleared by using the corpse of one of the aforementioned adorable circle golems, we'll call them safety golems. The boss will frequently resurrect all the golems and you can just have your gladiators AoE them down without much issue. It is important to keep the boss away from the safety golem pile.

When you get two debuffs on you it is important to cleanse them so your healers don't get overwhelmed. One debuff is manageable and waiting for two keeps the supply of safety golems high.

The one important skill this boss uses is Overload. When he uses this it puts a 20 second buff on him that makes him hit for 6-8k per hit. The tank and probably DPS need to back off when he does this skill. Kiting is not needed as the skill will make the boss stop moving completely, just sit back and let the buff run out before continuing the killing.

That concludes the Elementis Forest portion of the guide. Onto the fun part.

Argent Manor: This is a lot harder than the forest portion of the instance and the bosses are much less forgiving.

Boss #1 Safety Golem Slavemaster: This boss is a dick. Not only because he yells at the safety golems but because they heal him and buff him if you don't murder them first. This boss is surrounded by five safety golems that he will call over at random to heal and buff him. These MUST be killed before this happens. If more than two reach him he will likely wipe your group. We discovered that, while these golems are invincible until called, they can be hit through their shield by DoTs and any delayed activation skill (Lava Tsunami, Delayed Blast etc.). This is a good way to get a start on the dps before they're actually called in. It is advised to have at least 10 people for this fight. We did it with nine on our first run but the dps was a close call.

Once all of his adds have been called he's a very easy fight and you just tank n' spank him down.

Boss #2 This wall is stupid: After defeating the first boss head down the stairs into the room with a big wall and some elemental transformation things. Basically all you do for this "boss" is transform into the elemental spirit that can do damage to the wall. It will shift what it is vulnerable to every 30 seconds or so. Aside from that, there is nothing to this fight, it doesn't even hit you back.

Boss #3 Safety Golem Roller Disco: This guy is actually just another big robo-golem and does a couple of annoying things that don't really do anything at all. First off, as my name for this boss implies, he summons two safety golems to roll around him in a circle. Presumably to make himself look cool. These golems take no damage and appear to do absolutely nothing. The only real skill of importance to pay attention to is the ranged reflect he puts up. To remedy this all you need to do is make sure everyone is within seven meters of the boss. Then you just dps him down.

Also, avoid the jelly on the floor it appears to drain mana and debuff you. He does something to the main tank at some point that would essentially insta-kill him so watch for that and make sure someone is ready to alt-tank.

Boss #4 Where did your hp go?: This is actually just phase one of the final boss. He is a bastard. There is no freaking strategy for this boss. The only thing you can do is pray your clerics/chanters can put out the heals to keep your templar up through this guy's ludicrous amounts of damage. We had a level 58 templar in full stormwing gear in full tank spec do this fight and he was still barely living through some of this guy's attacks.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Similar to the first manor boss this dude has three crystals he summons one at a time starting from the far right, then middle, then left. When these crystals become vulnerable EVERYONE needs to burn them. If one happens to cast a buff on the boss he will begin one-shotting everyone.

This boss also loves randomly targeting people and pulling them towards him while doing about 7k damage. Depending on how many healers you have (We had two clerics and a chanter) they may be too busy spamming every heal possible on the tank so be ready to pot back up.

Once you get him to around 25-30% he will run away. No loot will be given. It's okay to be mad.

Boss #5 Where did your hp go? Pt. 2: The Reckoning: So this jerkbag decides to get even stronger now. The first phase of this fight is the hardest. You have to deal with his linear AoE's that do massive damage so stay spread out, healers and ranged on the right, melee dps on the left, have the tank stick to the wall with the boss facing away from the group.

The boss now has several new AoEs and still loves to pull people randomly to him. He also spawns fire on the floor that damages you so mind your surroundings. We had our tank die about 35% in and continued the fight by having whoever had aggro kite around the circular room. This worked well since the boss likes to stop and AoE a lot, giving the group time to recover. Then we worked our way through the aggro list until the templar had it back.

At about 25% he enters his final phase and calls a stupid golem to start shooting lasers at the group. AVOID THE RED DOT! Thankfully this part of the fight is the easiest. Zadra will frequently stop and just float in the middle of the room, allowing you to focus dps on him. Aside from that, he is exactly the same as before. You can have your group kite him around until he stops in the middle to simplify the fight further.

Extra Notes: Most (if not all) bosses have an enrage timer so mind your dps and try to limit the length of these boss fights so you don't wipe from enrage. Also, for anyone curious about our party setup for these two runs we had:
Fest - 60 - Assassin
Hikosejuro - 57/58 - Gladiator
Iamthelaw - 60 - Gladiator
Arkadies - 58/59 - Cleric
Etherea - 58/59 - Cleric
Bennyhinn - 58/59 - Chanter
Vengefulone - 58/59 - Templar
Zenji 58/59 - Ranger
Spankmi - 57/58 - Sorceror
Vikarious (2nd Run) 60 - Sorceror
Congratulations, you've completed Elementis/Argent!

I'll try to add videos next time I run this with Void :D!

Thanks for reading!

-Fest (Tiamat - 60 Assassin)

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Aion 3.0 Overview & AP

After trying several times to write about everything Aion's 3.0 update contains I realized that I was generating what I could only describe as a small book. So I decided to divide it up into a series of "guides" and general information posts discussing the various aspects of 3.0 and how to go about them. Some of these posts may be small tid-bits on quests I found or secrets discovered.

This first post will be on the new ways to gain AP in 3.0 that weren't previously available. The first thing I'd like to mention is the new Tiamaranta's Heart fort sieges and how awesome these sieges are if you participate in them. These forts go vulnerable three times a day and are a great way to assist both yourself and your faction in the AP department.

How these sieges help you: From all of the sieges I've attended thus far I believe the lowest amount of AP I've gained from dps'ing the fort boss was about 2.9k. This makes the paltry 800-1200 AP you gain from Gelk/Ing forts seem irrelevant considering it takes significantly less time to do the new TH sieges.

Typically both Asmodians and Elyos take two forts each and should a player participate in both forts during a vulnerability the total AP gain could be close to 6k. If you siege all three vulnerabilities you're talking 18k AP a day just from 20-30 minute sieges. Supplement this with frequent T-Dredges and PvP daily quests and you've got a rather large chunk of AP coming in every day.

How these sieges help your faction: The TH fortresses operate in a similar way as the Gelk/Ing forts, if your faction owns two or more forts a portal will open up. This portal will take you to Tiamaranta's Eye, a map that contains several daily quests, both PvE and PvP, that assist players in their AP gaining process.

This map also contains AP chests, like the ones found in Esoterrace, that come in varying sizes and may be opened by keys of the corresponding level. This is a fantastic way for people to gain AP since it is like having access to a 24-hour Esoterrace with PvP and a distinct lack of soul crushing-ness.

There is also a nice world boss in the Eye that spawns at weird times (on certain days), Governor Sunayaka. This big ol' dragon drops eternal grade weapons and accessories (Hairpin +?) at a high rate. These are some of the best weapons 3.0 has to offer and are on par with the Vasharti weapons from Rentus Base. Protip: This boss takes significantly less time than an instance and potentially spawns multiple times in any given spawn day. <- Great option for gearing up.

Unfortunately many players (On Tiamat-Asmo) don't take advantage of this zone and have displayed a minimal interest in fort sieges and the Eye's goodies.

That's all on this for now, more to come soon!

-Fest (Tiamat - Assassin)

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Whats coming up? (Some stuff I wanna say)

Right now I'm playing through Batman: Arkham City as well as Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and finishing up various side stuff on Skyrim. So the next few posts can be expected to be on any of those three things depending on what I want to talk about (Probably Batman first but who knows).

I'm also working on putting together an Aion PvP video from my massive backlog of fraps so that is eating up a ton of my time I'll be posting that on here when it is complete as well as my Youtube channel Fest1277.

Twitter: So I guess I decided to start tweeting again today and you can follow me at http://twitter.com/#!/TeamInfestation I guess. I'll post updates about the blog as well as random crap!

Comments: Anyone who reads this please feel free to comment even if it is just to let me know you stopped by. I am totally open to suggestions about what people would like to hear about as well as questions concerning games I have posted up on here, I love hearing from people and being able to help out in any game related problems.

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