Group Grinding Guide

From the author of two previously posted guides, A Beginners Guide to PvP and Aion Enchanting Guide, comes this guide talking about grouping in Aion, primarily for experience farming.

Grinding in groups is a great way to get away from the usual routine of solo playing and does offer a few advantages over soloing the content, primarily higher experience gains. I’m guessing you actually want to contribute while grouped with others so this guide will surely be a useful introduction.

1. Introduction

For those that don’t know me my poster name is Keeg and in game char is Saphira. I have lved chanter, cleric, temp, sm, and ranger. Please note none of them are what I would consider endgame, but I have been in several groups with each for exp grinding. If you’re tired of lving off of quest and missions, or just enjoy the company of others, I would recommend giving exp grinding a go.

2. Know Your Role

Groups in Aion consist of 6 members. The basic roles of Aion are tank, dps, cc, and heal. The warrior archetype of Aion consists of Templar (main tank) and Gladiator (off tank). Depending on the lv of difficulty of content you are about to attempt will determine which you will choose for a tank. For grinding purposes for exp however, both will work.

The dps classes of Aion consist of the Scout and the Mage archetype of Aion: Assassin, Ranger, Sorcerer, and Spiritmaster. All of them are different and provide different dps options to the group, which is to vast to cover in this guide, so you will have to research that on your own. For grinding exp purposes though all 4 will work.

The Classes that excel in cc (crowd control) in Aion are Sorcerer, Ranger, and Spiritmaster. Sorc have a root, tree, and sleep spell for links which will come in handy. Rangers have traps and status arrows to keep links under control. SM have there pets, snare, poly, and fear (caution should be used however, this can lead to more links).

Finally the priest archetype consists of Cleric (main healer) and Chanter (back up healer). Clerics have the most healing abilities: self resurrect, instant heal, group heal, just to name a few; making them the ideal main healer. While the chanter focuses more on a support role with stronger hots, auras, debuffs, and more efficient dps in terms in mana consumption.

3. Group Basics

Now that you know your role, its time to make a group. You ideally want to get at least one class from each role then focus on extra members. To restate again basic party roles are tank, dps, cc and heal. Ideally you want one tank, one cc, two dps, and two healers. The tanks in Aion are very strong and can usally handle themselves fine w/o the aid of another tank, in terms of exp grinding. The cc will help you with any links you get due to elite/groupmob areas have a tendency to have group of mobs near each other, so fighting one more mob at a time is not uncommon.

The two dps will help you kill things faster and increase your exp, while aiding all other roles relief in the form that fights will not be as long drawn out. The two healers will usually assign one as main healer while the other contributes support in the form of buffs/debuffs/dps or all of the above. In addition it is always nice to have another healer if the group gets in trouble and extra healing becomes necessary.

4. What Should I Bring To The Party?

Food, drinks, and silly hats of course! (Bad joke) But in all seriousness it is a good question that gets asked very often. For exp grinding parties you want to gain exp as fast as possible, but having fun at the same time. So I would suggest you bring a few basic things and don’t worry about oh no my gear isn’t +1. For starters mages should bring a few mana pots and Odella powders with them. Odella powders can be bought at the general merchant and can stack up to 1k, you can hold multiple stacks if you really plan to lv all day (looks innocent, what I’m not a lvacholic, are you accusing me of that!?). The Odella powders are used in the skill mana treatment, which each class has access to.

Mana pots are usually cheap in the auction house, but if you’re cheap like me or you like crafting you can make your own threw crafting. Mana pots are nice to off set what ever the Odella Powders fail to recover, or if you end up in a long fight (multiple links for example) and end up needing more mana, as mana pots are instant unlike mana treatment.

For melees you are going to want hp pots and odella powders as well, however this is not as important as mages bringing them. Although if you’re the main tank… you can save your healer a heart attack if your hp falls to low, or give an extra nudge your party needs to over come a link if it begins to go down hill. Also note odella powders are still used, just consumed in the ability hp treatment instead of mana treatment.

On a closing note if your exp camp is far away from town, you may want to consider a bringing a kisk along or a rez stone. Both of these lovely items can be bought at your merchant. The kisk is like an obelisk on the go. You place it on the ground and then bind your self to it. Keep in mind it only works on your group members and in addition if they want to gain the benefit of the kisk they must bind to it as well. Keep in mind the kisk has a limited duration and respawn on it. You can read the kisk and it will tell you how much time and respawn on the kisk is remaining.

The rez stone works in the same fashion as the healer rez. It will bring a member back to life in the soul sickness state. This is handy if all your healers die as it can stop a full wipe or save your healer(s) a trip back.

5. The Prey

Now I know what you’re thinking wth is elite, is this wow 2? The answer is no, no it’s not. It’s a common term used for a stronger version of the mob then your use to fighting.

Credit goes to Lyankyj and Korean PowerBook for the follow images and info:

Rankings:

Normal mob (solo):

Elite mob (party, 2-4players):

Hero mob (1-2 parties, 12 players):

Legendary mob (1 force, 24 players):

Passive creatures are shown as yellow:

Aggressive ones are red:

“The dots in their names representing their strength, variety of skills they’re using, how strong they are in their own rank.
More dots = stronger.

Average mobs have 3dots, above that you should reconsider engaging in battle with them.” – Lyankyj

Groups of 3-6 when grinding exp will normally go with elite camps for grinding. These areas are very easy to find as your group missions and quests while lving up will lead you to them. However, you should take caution as these monsters are harder then what you are use to. Elite mobs hit much harder than normal mobs with a greater hp pool. In addition they like to be in groups (as in hang out close together, I haven’t seen a mob use a benefical spell on another mob to suggest they are actually in the same group, yet) and patrol threw out the area.

However if your willing to risk the grind, you shall be rewarded. Elites are known for there better drop table, higher exp given upon defeat, in addition to knocking out some of your group quests and missions at the same time!

Now I know some of you are thinking. Can I still grind with a smaller group, with out being in a nearly full party? The short answer is yes you can grind elites with a smaller party, but it will take longer to do so. Due to this I would advise a group of 1-3 (3 is pushing it some times) to grind normal mobs. Now I know what your thinking, why why would I want to grind normal mobs when some one soloing quests can grind faster. This is true and not true to a certain extent. At the lower lvs yes solo questing will get you more exp per hr if you are familiar with the quests and don’t read the quest logs. However, at the higher lvs this rate becomes harder and harder to maintain as more factors come into play (enemy fraction ganking, less quests, more running around, etc) to a point where it becomes more likely that a small group will lv faster then a solo player.

That being said at the low lvs you gain a very huge advantage grouping b/c of this, why? Just to name a few: experience with how a group acts and practicing your role, green equip (most quest equip is not very good at the low lvs, with a few exceptions), and most importantly CRAFTING MATS. If you are seriously considering taking up a craft you would be well to take my advice and save your self a fortune. Starting at the low lv and grinding mobs out rather the questing will give you a ton of crafting mats if you’re in the right spot. This will save you the headache of buying them off the broker.