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How is the early-level grouping / grinding population nowadays?
It's a common issue in many seasoned MMO's (that have been out for a few months or more), that after that initial rush of powerlevelers in the first month, and the casual in the first few months after launch, the leveling areas become vacant except for the occasional player here and there or person on an alt, the other 98% of the server is in the endgame areas. This always sucks being a late comer or a come-backer to an MMO. You usually end up feeling like you're playing a single player game for the first month or two.
Last time I played AION was launch, and I played a pure sword&board tank up to about 30'ish (I believe it was called a templar?). Anyways, I like playing tanks in these games, and I'd want to level a pure tank up again, thus, my worry is how it always sucks leveling a pure tank by yourself.
So, my question is, if I make a new tank on AION and start leveling it up, am I going to be sitting around saying "damn, this sucks not having anyone to level with and not being a DPS class", or will I have an enjoyable group experience grinding all the way up to max (if I decide to buy)?
Much thanks.
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Well a quick search on my server showed up 43 people in the level 1-10 bracket and 118 online in the 10-20 bracket so population is healthy.
I play a templar and xp has been upped alot from questing now since lauch so just questing will suffice to having to find grinding groups you also have haramel ( level 18-22 ) which is a solo dungeon for lower levels,But finding groups is easy for me and has been since i started playing ( 4 months ago now)m also oney from questing has been greatley upped to...but im not sure many people will want to group to purely grind......but for dungeons etc finding lower level groups should be easy
im on Perento ( EU)
This also depends on what server you play on and what your play schdule is. Make sure to pick the right one for the schedule you are on. The population has been pretty awesome lately.
It is pretty quick and easy to solo up to lvl 25. Then, as a templar it starts to be come easy to find a group when you can start running NTC. But you get locked out of it at lvl 29 but then starting at 30 you can start running fire temple. You will also have most of your tanking tools by this time. Besure to slot doom lure which is your pull. And incite rage, which might seem like just provoke on a long cooldown but it is much more powerful than provoke. Trust me it is super useful for tanking to have the extra taunt when cc gets broken or isn't there.
FT will take you all the way though the 30s. Then at 40 you can start doing Steel Rake runs. There is also the solo instance from 37-44 and lots of quests. And if you are a good tank it only gets better as you get further on. Chain pulling FT or SR is a blast and the best part is that there is no AOE tanking. It is old school, target and taunt, use marks and cc kind of tanking. Much fun.
The best trick to tanking in Aion. Set your Fkeys in the keybinds so that they are used to select the marked targets. I select skull from F1 and 2 from F2 and 3 from F3 and so on. Then you can use your Fkeys to switch targets really, really fast. You can miss your target on mouse clicks, Tab targetting can be slow if you dont tab to the right one, and using UI macro buttons is sluggish. but keybinds are fast and precise. I can change target to the sleep target, provoke it and be back on the kill target faster than my auto attack goes off never breaking cc even when I am right next to the sleep target.
Oh, for dps, just make sure you slot at least 1/2 crit stones and possibly up to 3/4. The other 1/4 to a half can be Block depending on if you are feeling too squishy against bosses. Just make sure that you keep your shield up to date for tanking. and also invest in a good weapon. By going mostly crit, you are keeping your dps high enough to not hate life and it will help with your enmity gain while tanking. Block is your main defensive stat but you most of your block from your shield which is why you always want a good one. HP is not really needed since you will naturally have quite a bit of it. I find slotting mostly crit combined with mostly tanking stigmas to be a good balance for leveling if you enjoy tanking instances. And carry a lot of life potions so you don't have as much down time. They are not too expensive, especially if you take up alchemy.
All die, so die well.
Aion 2.0 helps lowbies a lot, xp is up, kinah's up, two solo-instances, my level 30 alt has still plenty of solo-quests left, no need for firetemple (I even skipped NTC). 2.1 will even make the leveling experience easier for lower level according to the patch-notes. On lower levels there are still plenty characters playing, so grouping should be no problem either.