While I didn't get much playing done today, what little time I spent in the game was spent in the Nochsana Training Camp with a group of 5 (Templar, Ranger, Gladiator, Assassin, Cleric). With two hours to go until the end of the Beta, we rolled into the Abyss and finished the quick fed-ex quest that let us enter the dungeon, picking up several quests to kill bosses and obtain "Prototype Weapons" along the way. The entrance to the dungeon is far from obvious, and can't be seen from a distance. It's a relic buried halfway into a floating chunk of land, just north-west of the Terminon Landing. Double click on the relic, and you'll be ported to the Training Camp!
The Nochsana Training Camp is the first instanced dungeon in Aion. Instances are zones which are loaded for just you and your party. If another group were to go to the Training Camp while you were in there, they would start in their own version of it, completely separate to you. The moment you enter it, your re-entry timer starts ticking down. Type the /checkgroupentry command to show the re-entry timers of everyone in your group for every dungeon in the game. If you have a countdown (18 hours for the Training Camp), the dungeon will reset once the countdown is over, allowing you to do the dungeon again. The /checkentry command will tell you your own countdowns.
The Training Camp is, in essence, an Abyss Fortress guarded by level 25 Balaur. There's an Artifact outside the walls to the right that gives you a buff for a short time when you use it. There are a couple of trivial non-elite pulls between you and it, followed by around three elite Balaur and an elite patrol that comes up the road ahead of you. Marking with Brands is useful, and CC can seriously help, but it's a slow start compared to what you're going to go up against later. Once the elites are cleared you'll reach the Artifact, guarded by a 6 or so elites, including a miniboss and a patrol that walks around the back. They will all pull if you use the Artifact (as I found out; on purpose, I swear), so clear them methodically, and take out the miniboss for your quest.
Moving back down the hill, head towards the huge obvious fortress, clearing or avoiding patrols and stationary groups as you go. There's a miniboss on the road up, right in your path, but as with the first one it doesn't really do much special. After you pass through the second gate, take a right and go up to the top of it. There's a miniboss at the other end of it, but you'll have to clear through the mobs on the rampart to get to him. One patrol moves through the middle of them all, and it's key to wait for it to get to the end of its patrol (at your end of the wall) before you run to the top, pulling it and another mob at the same time. Any other position will pull several adds at the same time, which can spell doom. As a side note, any mobs named "Doc" should be killed first, as they heal their allies.
The two mobs in front of the boss can be pulled alone easily, so once everything's down, pull the miniboss. It has one ability worth noting, that gives it a very, very powerful energy shield. Don't be discouraged, as the shield will go down eventually (I believe it has a duration).
Back on the main path, use your the training siege weapon you got from one of the quests, and then use the pet commands that pop up near your health bar to order it to attack the fortress gate. The moment the gate goes down, a number of mobs pull from inside the doors, so hang back and mark them up/prepare as they run to you.
Once you're inside the fortress, clear every mob in the area, watching patrols and avoiding them until last as necessary, then proceed up the ramp to the right, ignoring the cool looking Nochsana General in the middle of the dais. There are Weapon Chests throughout the fortress, and every player will need 4 for their quest. Clear and collect them as you move around the top of the fortress towards the Nochsana Teleporter miniboss. The Teleporter summons additional mobs to the fight, which should be tanked, but killed last. Once everything's dead, move back down, and charge the Nochsana General. If you can't see in the video below, he opens the fight with an Inescapable Judgment style move, then throughout the fight spawns an energy shield, and regularly knocks down everyone in melee range. Have your healers stand back. While he had other abilities, none of them felt worthy of note, and ultimately he was just a higher damage elite mob that can knock down your melee classes. Fun nonetheless.
Enjoy this video, courtesy of Tora:
From testing my Legion did, I have heard that if the Teleporter isn't killed before the General is pulled, it will teleport a lot (and we mean a lot) of mobs to your group, wiping you. While we didn't get much loot from the dungeon (two of the minibosses dropped greens, and the mobs in front of the General dropped a blue chest item randomly), the experience gain was phenomenal. We got about 3/4 of a level from killing most of the mobs in the dungeon, and the quest hand ins brought us almost the rest of the way. Since the dungeon resets every 18 hours, and it only takes an hour and a half to complete with an organized group (and we were only a 5 man, not a full 6 man group!), it's possible to do it once every day, which will speed up leveling and gives some good grouping/dungeon experience, possibly some loot, and lets you get to know your group so that in future dungeons you'll work together even better.
Yet to come in the Open Beta Edition, Rifting, basic low level PvP, and Tanking stats in Aion!
Great read. I just recently decided on rolling a Templar for my main. I enjoyed reading all your write up and look forward to your opinions on pvp.
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