Aion: Anyone have class info?

[Winin]

Aion: So, what are the classes like? If it is grindy, I'll need a class that can solo so I can make progress off hours. Any word from the front?

[Keinermacht]

Sure Winin, I'll give the quick breakdown since I've been thru two beta weekends already.

Both playable factions (Elyos and Asmodians) have the same 8 classes. When you first roll your toon you have a choice of four "starter" classes and level through "N00b Island" (Poeta for Elyos, Ishalgen for Asmos) and once you ding level 9 the "Ascension" quest chain appears in your quest log. When this chain is completed (it's easily soloable) you are given a one-time choice (no mulligans!) for the actual class you will be playing for the rest of the game. They are as follows:

Warrior (starter class) becomes:

• Templar Tank class
  
• Gladiator Close combat melee DPS
  

Scout (starter class) becomes:

• Assassin Stealth combat melee DPS
  
• Ranger Ranged DPS with a bow
  

Mage (starter class) becomes:

• Sorcerer Squishy ranged DPS nuker
  
• Spiritmaster Slightly less squishy pet class
  

Priest (starter class) becomes:

• Cleric Healbot
  
• Chanter Jack-of-all-trades hybrid (buffs, heals, off-tanking)
  

As you can see, except for the Chanter these are pretty standard archetypes and the balancing seems to be pretty good right off the bat.

Because it's the "odd duck", I'm playing a Chanter in beta. It reminds me a lot of the Shaman in WoW, which was my main there for a long time. Most forum chatter has it as the best soloing class.

However I loves me some healbotting and may yet play a Cleric when the game goes live. Getting my Chanter booted from groups a couple times in favor of a second Cleric are all it will take It helps that both healer classes in this game are very NON-squishy with chain mail and shields

[Slurm]

I'll most likely try out the healing classes. I learned from WAR that I hate rolling with no healers, so I'll just be one. Chanter seems more my style, but I am really interested in the Templar.

[Winin]

Cool, thanks for the info! I enjoy being a healer, but they often are slow to solo. Chanter sounds like a good potential, or the pet mage. I like pets when they work well.

[Winin]

I read that the sorcerer is also the primary CC class. Hmmm. Though cleric gets some roots and nukes.

The trouble is that melee is better for soloing pve, and ranged is more my style for pvp. Hmmm.

[Slurm]

I torn between the Cleric and the Chanter at this point. The chanter seems to get a wide range of abilties to fit my ADD, but the Cleric gets big heals, some ranged dps, CC, and even a summoned turret-like dd pet....sounds fun.

I'll still probabably go Chanter at first because it's the hybrid, and thats what I always end up loving in MMO's

[Qhoren]

If you browse around a bit here you'll get a rundown of each class and can link to their abilities.

What I'm curious about is the Stigma. It seems that one could have a lot of fun with that and supplement their class really well with a little thought, depending on which other abilities you can get. I'm personally going for ranger right now, and hopefully I can add a heal and maybe a few more snares/roots/CC with the Stigma.

[Aberrant]

I read somewhere that clerics can wear chain, and I see here they have a shield. That's cool, a not-so-squishy healer.

[Winin]

Yeah, not squishy and ranged for the dps and healing seems like a good mix for my play style these days (minimize the running around like an idiot). I heard Ranger and Sorc are both good for CC.

I think ideally, a cleric with some nukes for stigmas would be cool for solo pve. Or maybe more CC for pvp.

Part of my prob is remembering fondly my days as a bard in EQ. Sadly I can't do all the fast micromanaging anymore (or, I should say, I don't want to). I need to think about what classes I liked in the last few games I played. RDPS is fun, but isn't as tactical as CC and healing. But you need it to progress.

[Slurm]

This could be wrong or change after the game is released, but the Super Dave on The Abyss said that Clerics are one of the best soloers right now.

[Winin]

Best is a meaningless term without extra info. They can maybe take down anything without dying, but it might take forever. Or they have to wait forever between kills. Best for me means minimal down time and fights that aren't super long. I guess XP/hour is a good measure. I hear assassin is best, chanter is best, gladiator is best...

But as long as they are ok solo and fun to play generally, I'd be ok with it.

[Big Hoss]

Wow this game looks pretty good so the question that needs to be asked how is the pvp?

[Slurm]

Guess you'll just have to play and find out.

seriously though, I have no clue

[Takzenen]

From what I've been reading, it's no easy task for a solo ranger to drop a cleric, in fact it seems they made clerics about as gank-proof as they could(which is good). Although with two rangers they seem to drop easily(as they should) the amount of burst DPS rangers have is apparently pretty nasty.


Me and Paz are going rangers as well Lyr, on the Asmodae side though. The Abyss is going to be our playground!


It seems the game is pretty well balanced as far as classes go. Although I don't know how the CC is and this worries me. Scouts have two forms of CC, a sleep arrow and a root. I know that much, and I believe that every class has some small form of CC. We'll have to see what the counters are.


Another complaint I've seen about rangers is their complete lack of sustained dps. But honestly, if we're good enough stealthing around with high burst potential, we don't need any sustained dps.

[Winin]

My Scout in DAoC was my fav pvp character.