AION 2

Just started AION 2? The first hours, and what nobody tells you

Updated 2026-10-12 · checked against Global launch (client 2.0.5.0)

AION 2’s opening is short, guided and hard to get wrong. Up to the first town there is no moment where you think “I wish I had known that” — it is limited, friendly and straightforward, and it is meant to be. What follows is the few things the tutorial explains badly or not at all, and what to do once it lets go of your hand.

Played on the global launch client in launch week. Screenshots are ours; other players’ names are blurred.

The opening: you rescue yourself

The game starts by asking for your faction, and nothing else. You do not design a character yet. Instead you are dropped straight into a rescue mission that doubles as the combat tutorial, playing a Templar — and the person you find and rescue turns out to be you.

That is when the character creator opens, and you can take as long as you like in it. Class choice comes right after you finish your avatar. If you are still deciding, Classes has all eight side by side.

A second character on the same account skips that first tutorial and goes straight to class choice, so alts cost you a lot less of the opening.

The second tutorial, and the experience bar

After the escape comes a second, more open tutorial. It teaches quests, killing monsters, the interface, and finally how to re-ascend and get your first set of wings back.

Two things it does not spell out:

• Do not grind. Nothing you kill in the first ten levels gives experience. All of it comes from playing the tutorial through, so relax and follow the story — farming mobs here is time you will not get back.
• The experience bar is the diamond between your health and mana bars. A thin light line fills it clockwise as you earn experience, and until you finish the tutorial it stays at zero, which looks like a bug and is not.

For the Elyos, the tutorial is Poeta. Finishing Episode 1 of the story there earns your first title, Island of Death, Poeta, which already adds a stat just for owning it.

Skills are not a commitment

Your class is a commitment; how you spend skill points is not. At launch the skill window resets for free, whenever you like, and holds three presets, so you can keep a solo setup and a group setup and swap between them. Skills unlock as you level — a locked one sits on your bar showing the level it opens at.

The long-term build lives on the Daevanion boards, which open from level 12. Try a path in the Daevanion planner before you spend real points on it.

The Dawn Legion Base

The first town is the Dawn Legion Base. It is where pets unlock and where you get your first mount.

Pets come from the monsters you kill: each kill drops one soul piece, and about five unlocks the pet, with about 25 more for its second level. Souls drop less often once a monster’s name turns grey, so collect them while you are still the monster’s level. The pet you have out is your mount — C calls it. Out of the box pets do not loot for you: you walk over to drops and press F. Pet Auto-Loot unlocks with a 30-day Pet: Auto-Loot Voucher from the Wind Breeze Merchants, a shop that needs an active Special Quai Membership, the monthly sub. There is a lot more to pets than riding, because every pet you max adds a bonus to your whole account; Pets explains it.

The keys worth learning first

The on-screen control panel lists most of these; it hides with the toggle under it once you know them.

Flying: the bar, the rings and the slipstreams

Flight in AION 2 is not free movement. It runs on a flight bar, a timer that drains while you are airborne.

Two things change that. Rings suspended in the air extend the bar as you fly through them, so a line of rings is a route you are meant to take. Slipstreams are better still: currents that fast-travel you to another part of the area through the air, and they have no flight timer at all. Learn where they are in each zone and the map gets a lot smaller.

Updrafts are the columns of light you will see on paths and at the foot of cliffs. Step into one and it launches you straight up into the air, the quick way to get up to high places and start your flight from there. The level 11 quest Bird’s-eye View uses one to send you up to the Sky Island.

Story moments happen where you stand

Solo story events do not send you through a loading screen to a separate dungeon. When one starts, the world shifts around you — the screen smears and splits into colour for a moment — and the scene plays out in your own instance of the spot you were standing on. It is one of the nicer touches in the opening, and it means other players never walk through your cutscene.

Cantas Valley, and what to pick up on the way

For the Elyos, the first field is Cantas Valley in Verteron: Valley Outpost, Western and Eastern Cantas Valley, Eastern Cantas Camp and Steep Guard Post. The first field quest, [Lv. 11] Odyle Collection, sends you to Nania at Valley Outpost. The World hub has the bigger picture.

Three things are worth doing as you pass, rather than coming back for later.

Empyrean Traces. The world map is covered in white feathers; every one is a trace, and F at the glowing mark collects it. Cantas Valley alone is thick with them.

Gathering. Plants such as Aria grow on the ground; Odyle hangs in the air and is gathered in flight, with a Success / Fail bar while you do it. Gathering levels its own proficiency — Aria raises Essence Extraction — and all five crafting professions are open to the same character, so nothing you pick up now is wasted. Crafting covers which ones serve your class.

Sealed dungeons. Small one-boss instances tucked into cliffs and gullies. You find them by walking into them — a Sealed Dungeon discovered banner goes up — and every one gives a title on its first clear. Titles you own add their stats whether you equip them or not, and those bonuses stack, so each sealed dungeon you clear is permanent power. Ours was Cave of the Desperate, which gives War Diary. Sealed dungeons lists all of them.

Breaking down gear you no longer use

Questing hands you gear faster than you can wear it. Instead of selling what you don’t need, you can break it down with Item Extraction, and it is easy to miss: it has no menu entry. It is the flask icon at the bottom of the Cube, your inventory, next to the bin.

Click it and the Cube switches to extraction. Pick the pieces you want gone, or let Quick Select fill the list, then press Extract (or F).

The results pop-up shows what came back. Ours was a stack of materials under Obtained Items, and every piece we broke down listed under Obtained Skin.

The skin is a roll, and each piece of gear has its own fixed chance: 20% or 25% on Common and Rare gear, 10% or 25% on Epic and Unique, and 100% on quest rewards, which is why every piece came back as a skin for us. Whether a piece is bound makes no difference to its chance. If the roll fails, the gear is gone anyway. Skins are worth collecting because each one feeds a collection track that adds damage or defence; Skins has the tracks and lists the gear that gives every skin.

Where your Kina should go

The quests hand you a Rare Noble Belt at level 13 and a Rare Revelation Amulet at 16. Keep them: they are the two pieces you can take all the way to Unique yourself, and they are where most of your Kina ends up.

Our read

The opening respects your time more than most MMOs: the tutorial carries your levels for you, so the right move is to stop fighting the game and play it through. The things that pay off later — traces, sealed dungeon titles, pets, gathering — all start in Cantas Valley, and all of them reward doing them on the way rather than coming back. Take off early, use the slipstreams, and clear every sealed dungeon you walk past.