AION 2 Beginner Guide: Leveling, Gear and What to Do First

AION 2 is NCSoft's Unreal Engine 5 follow-up to the original AION, launched globally as free-to-play on October 5, 2026 for PC (Steam and the PURPLE launcher). This guide walks you through the decisions and systems that matter most in your first days.

Step 1: Pick Your Faction

You choose between the Elyos and the Asmodians. The choice is permanent for that character, and servers are faction-based — if you want to play with friends, you must pick the same faction and the same server.

Mechanically the factions are equal: same classes, same stats, same crafted gear. What changes is the world, the story campaign, and the look of your wings. Read the full breakdown in our faction differences guide.

Step 2: Pick Your Class

There are 8 starting classes in four archetypes:

Archetype	Classes	Role focus
Warrior	Gladiator, Templar	Melee DPS / Tank
Scout	Assassin, Ranger	Burst / Ranged DPS
Mage	Sorcerer, Spiritmaster	Magic burst / Summoner
Priest	Cleric, Chanter	Healer / Support

Every class is viable — balance patches since the Korean launch have brought damage dealers and support classes close together. Pick the playstyle you enjoy. Details in the classes overview.

Step 3: Leveling 1-45

The global launch level cap is 45. Leveling is story-driven:

1. Follow the yellow Episode quests (the main story). They give the most XP, hand you gear as you go, and unlock core systems like flight and Stigmas. Click a quest to auto-path to the objective.
2. Ascension gates: around levels 22 and 32 the story pauses until you fill an Ascension gauge. Regional quests, Sealed Dungeons and Strongholds each fill a chunk of it — do whatever is closest.
3. Don't grind mobs for XP. Side systems and story XP are far more efficient.

Step 4: Understand Gear Score

Your Gear Score (item level) gates content, while Combat Power is what party finder groups actually check. After the main story you will sit around 700-750 Gear Score, and the story continues at 1,000 — the first real progression wall.

Key rules:

• Don't over-invest in leveling gear. It is replaced fast. Guaranteed enhancement succeeds up to about +9/+10 early, so enhance lightly and save materials.
• Extract, don't delete. Extracting old gear refunds enhancement stones and adds the item's skin to your wardrobe, which grants passive collection stats.
• Belt and Amulet are permanent. Upgrade them with scrolls (Belt scrolls from Strongholds, Amulet scrolls from turning in Empyrean Feathers at your faction's Monolith), take them to +10, then use Substance Morph to raise their rarity and repeat.

Step 5: Never Skip Permanent Progression

These systems pay off forever and are easy to miss:

• Empyrean Feathers: glowing feathers scattered across the map. Turn them in at the Monolith for stats, Amulet scrolls and cube keys.
• Sealed Dungeons & Strongholds: gold question marks on the map. Short solo content that awards Daevanion points, stat points and gear.
• Daevanion board (U key): spend Daevanion Crystals here for stats and +skill levels. Check your consumables tab — bound crystals and Wisdom Stones do nothing until you activate them.
• Skill specialties: as skills level up they unlock specialties (cooldown resets, bonus effects) that must be manually slotted in the skill window. This is one of the biggest commonly-missed damage gains.
• Gathering: level Essence Extraction as you travel so you are not forced to grind it later.

Step 6: Spend Your Freebies

• Check Settings → Miscellaneous → Account → Enter Coupon for active codes.
• Duty quests are the only true daily: 5 per day with one guaranteed reward. Prioritize enhancement stones and Odyle Energy refills.
• Save Odyle Energy (the dungeon chest currency) for max-level content instead of opening low-level reward cubes.