Aion 2 Beginner Guide: Everything You Need to Know Before You Start

Welcome to this quick Aion 2 beginner guide!

If you’re just starting out, there are quite a few systems and mechanics that aren’t immediately obvious. In this guide, I’ll go through some of the most important things you should know, from abilities and gear upgrades to exploration, daily missions, dungeons, and a few settings that can make your life much easier.

Let’s get started.

Understanding Your Abilities

Aion 2 has three main types of abilities:

• Active abilities

• Passive abilities

• Stigma abilities

Stigma Abilities

Stigmas are some of the strongest abilities available to your character, but you can’t equip all of them at the same time.

This is one of the systems that allows you to customize your build depending on what you’re doing.

For example, if I’m playing a Templar against a boss, I might choose Stigmas that provide additional defensive power or improve my ability to taunt enemies.

When I’m playing PvP, however, I’d choose Stigmas focused more on crowd control and damage.

So don’t think of one Stigma setup as your permanent build. You should adapt your Stigmas depending on the content you’re playing.

Leveling Your Abilities

Your basic active and passive abilities can be leveled directly from the abilities menu, up to level 10.

But there’s more to ability progression than simply increasing their level.

Ability Passive Slots

At level 8, every active ability unlocks its first passive slot.

These passive effects can significantly change how an ability works.

For example, Poach is an ability that hooks an enemy and pulls them toward you. One of its passive upgrades allows the ability’s cooldown to reset when the target is killed.

That means you can immediately use Poach on your next target without waiting for the cooldown.

At level 12, you unlock a second passive slot.

At level 20, you unlock the third and final passive slot.

So leveling an ability doesn’t simply increase its damage. As the ability reaches higher levels, you also unlock additional passive effects that can fundamentally change how it works.

However, the regular ability menu only allows you to level your abilities up to level 10.

If you want to push them beyond that, there are two additional methods.

How to Get More Ability Levels

1. Daevanion

The first method is through your Daevanion system.

Every active and passive ability exists somewhere in your Daevanion trees.

The icons make it easy to identify them:

• Blue icons = Active abilities

• Green icons = Passive abilities

Each ability appears only once per tree.

This means you can find Poach, for example, multiple times across the different Daevanion trees.

If you find it four more times, you can increase the ability all the way to level 14.

So if you’re looking to maximize a specific ability, make sure you explore your Daevanion trees and invest in the nodes that increase the abilities you actually use.

2. Gear

The final way to increase ability levels is through your equipment.

Your gear provides various additional stats, but occasionally an item can roll something much more valuable:

+1 level to a specific ability.

This means that instead of receiving a normal stat, an item can directly increase the level of one of your abilities.

Later in the game, you’ll be able to reroll these stats, allowing you to search for the specific ability bonus you want.

This will become an important part of optimizing your character in the late game.

What Should You Explore on the World Map?

When you open your world map, you’ll notice various icons and points of interest.

For beginners, there are three particularly important things you should look for:

1. Feathers

2. Strongholds

3. Sealed Dungeons

Let’s go through each one.

Collect Feathers

The first one is the obvious one: Feathers.

You need to collect a certain percentage of the feathers available in the area and deliver them to the Verteron Monolith.

The main quest will take you there at around level 17, so make sure you remember where it is.

The Monolith is important because every time you level it up, you’ll receive one Amulet Enhancement Scroll.

Don’t Ignore Your Amulet

Your Amulet and Belt are unique pieces of equipment in Aion 2.

Unlike your regular gear, you don’t constantly replace them as you level up. You’ll keep them throughout your character’s progression and upgrade them instead.

Your Amulet can be upgraded using Amulet Enhancement Scrolls.

Once you reach level 10, you can unequip the Amulet and use Substance Morph to craft it into the next rarity.

For example:

Green → Blue → Gold

Because your Amulet stays with you throughout the game, you should make sure you’re keeping up with its upgrades.

Strongholds and Belt Upgrades

Your Belt works in a similar way, but its upgrade materials come from Strongholds.

If you open your map, you’ll notice question-mark icons scattered around the world.

Question marks located near a camp will generally be Strongholds.

These are relatively easy encounters, and completing them will reward you with the materials required to upgrade your Belt.

Because of this, you should make a point of completing all the Strongholds you come across.

Sealed Dungeons

The remaining question marks on your map are Sealed Dungeons.

These are short and relatively easy dungeons that provide important rewards.

Among other things, they give you the currency needed to upgrade your Daevanion passive tree, as well as regular skill points.

If you want to maximize your character’s power, you shouldn’t ignore these.

Try to clear all of them as you progress through the world.

Don’t Forget the Enemy Territory

Later, once you’ve unlocked Rifts, you’ll be able to travel into enemy areas.

You’ll find Strongholds and Sealed Dungeons there as well.

The rewards from these enemy-area activities are even better, so make sure you clear them too.

Gear Upgrades Explained

Now let’s talk about equipment upgrades.

There are several different systems you’ll eventually use to improve your gear.

Basic Gear Enhancement

The most straightforward system is the standard enhancement system.

You can upgrade an item to:

+1 → +2 → +3 → etc.

Each enhancement makes the item stronger.

However, I recommend not spending too many resources on this early in the game.

Getting to max level in Aion 2 is relatively fast, so investing heavily into temporary leveling gear isn’t particularly efficient.

Save your resources for later.

Manastones

Next, we have Manastones.

If you inspect your equipment, you’ll notice that some items have additional passive slots.

Manastones allow you to fill these slots with additional stats.

The stats you receive are random, so you’ll eventually be rolling these slots repeatedly until you get the combination of stats you want.

This is much more of a late-game optimization system, so don’t worry too much about perfect Manastones while you’re still leveling.

Godstones

Godstones provide another significant upgrade to your equipment.

They generally provide powerful offensive or utility effects that can have a noticeable impact on your character.

You’ll want to pay more attention to these as you progress toward endgame content.

Soul Binding

Finally, there’s Soul Binding.

One particularly important feature here is the reset option.

This allows you to reroll the current stats of an item.

Eventually, you’ll be looking to reroll your gear until you get a +1 level to the ability you want.

This can become one of the most grind-heavy parts of character optimization, so don’t be surprised if getting the perfect roll takes some time.

Regional Quests and Daily Missions

Now let’s look at where you can find your side quests and daily missions.

Press J to open your Journal, then go to Regional Quests.

Regional Quests

Regional Quests are essentially the game’s side quests.

You should eventually complete all of them because they reward you with Daevanion Crystals, which are used to upgrade your passive tree.

Because of this, completing Regional Quests as you level can be a great way to steadily build your character.

Personally, however, I prefer to reach max level first and then return to complete the side quests and collectibles.

Either approach works — the important thing is not to forget about them.

Missions and Commands

In the next tab, you’ll find Duty.

On the left side you’ll see Missions.

These are your daily quests.

If you have time to complete them, they’re worth doing because they provide useful rewards.

On the right side you’ll find Commands.

Commands are another type of daily mission.

To obtain one, you’ll need to purchase a Command Scroll from a specific NPC.

Once you activate the scroll, the corresponding Command mission becomes available.

These are also worth doing because they reward you with Abyss Points.

Understanding Dungeon Loot and Energy

One of the most important things to understand about dungeons is how Energy works.

After completing a dungeon, you’ll spend Energy in order to claim your loot.

The more bosses you kill, the more loot you’ll receive.

This doesn’t just mean better chances of getting good items — you’ll also receive more items overall.

Because your Energy is limited each day, you want to make the most of every dungeon run.

Kill Every Boss for Maximum Loot

If you want maximum rewards, you should clear every boss in the dungeon before finishing.

You’ll often see players rushing directly toward the final boss.

That’s fine if you’re intentionally trying to speedrun the dungeon.

But if your goal is to maximize your loot, you should make sure everyone understands that you’re doing a full clear before starting.

So before entering a dungeon, decide whether you’re:

• Speedrunning for efficiency, or

• Full clearing for maximum loot.

That simple distinction can save you a lot of frustration.

Important Settings You Should Change

Before you properly start playing, there are a few settings I highly recommend changing.

These can make combat much smoother, especially when farming or playing PvP.

Go to:

Settings → Combat → Controls

Pursue Targets with Skill Activation

Enable:

Pursue Targets with Skill Activation

This makes your character automatically move toward the target if you’re out of range when using an ability.

It’s a small quality-of-life improvement, but it makes combat feel much smoother.

Auto Target Upon Skill Use

Right below that, you’ll find:

Auto Target Upon Skill Use

I highly recommend turning this on.

For some reason, it’s disabled by default.

With this option enabled, your character can automatically move from one target to another while farming.

It also means you’re much less likely to find yourself without a target during chaotic combat situations.

Target Scanning Settings

Next, go to the Target Scanning category.

I personally recommend setting:

Search Direction → Front of Camera

This makes the targeting system prioritize things in front of your camera.

Generally, where you’re looking is where you want to attack or switch targets.

Target Scanning Detailed Settings

For the detailed targeting settings, I recommend using Priority Ranking.

For PvP, you can prioritize targets in roughly this order:

1. Hostile Players

2. Players Attacking Me

3. Targets Already Hit or Currently Aimed At

This makes it easier to quickly identify enemy players during chaotic PvP encounters.

You can leave NPCs and monsters at their default priority unless you have a specific reason to change them.

Auto-Use Settings

Next, go to the Auto Use category.

For Buff Auto Use, I recommend setting it to:

In Combat

This means your character will automatically use the relevant scrolls when you’re actually fighting instead of wasting them outside combat.

Boss Orientation Indicator

There’s another very useful setting under Info Display.

Go to:

Info Display → Combat

Then find:

Display Boss Orientation

Set it to:

All

This adds a colored indicator underneath bosses that shows which direction the boss is facing.

This is extremely useful during boss fights.

It allows you to:

• Avoid frontal AoE attacks

• Identify the boss’s front

• Find the boss’s back

• Position yourself correctly for back attacks and combos

If your class relies on attacking from behind, this setting is particularly helpful.

Separate Your Defiance Hotkey

Finally, let’s look at one small but useful keybind setting.

Go to Key Settings and look for:

Separate Defiance Hotkey

Defiance is the ability you use to remove stuns, but by default it’s bound to Space.

The problem is that Space can also be used for movement and jumping.

So when you desperately smash Space trying to escape a stun, you can sometimes end up jumping or even activating your wings.

Separating the Defiance keybind lets you assign it to another key and avoid this problem.

It’s a small change, but one that can make combat feel much more comfortable.

Final Tips for New Aion 2 Players

And that’s pretty much everything I wanted to cover in this first Aion 2 beginner guide.

If you’re just starting the game, focus on understanding these systems rather than trying to perfect your character immediately.

The most important things to remember are:

• Experiment with your Stigmas depending on the content you’re playing.

• Upgrade your abilities and pay attention to their passive slots.

• Explore your Daevanion trees to increase ability levels.

• Look for ability-level bonuses on gear.

• Collect Feathers and upgrade your Monolith.

• Complete Strongholds for Belt upgrade materials.

• Clear Sealed Dungeons for important progression resources.

• Don’t overspend on temporary gear while leveling.

• Complete Regional Quests, Missions, and Commands when you have time.

• Decide whether you’re speedrunning or full-clearing a dungeon before you start.

• Take a few minutes to configure your combat and targeting settings.

Hopefully, these tips will put you on the right track and make your first hours in Aion 2 a lot smoother.

Thanks for reading, have fun playing, and I’ll see you in the next guide!