The first Asmodae weekend is over, didn’t spend a ton of time on it — just maxed out a Ranger. No real need for new screenshots here, the previous post on Asmodae will more than cover it (since it’s pretty much the same thing).

I didn’t notice too many differences between the C-Aion version and the NA one. I didn’t get the drop quests that I did in C-Aion, but that could of been poor luck on my part (or they simply left them out for now, allowing some surprise and ‘new’ stuff for launch). There were a lot of people playing when the servers launched; the newbie area was swamped. I’m quite sure this was the plan, however, as it simulates launch day. The channels made a difference. For those that don’t know, or never played City of Heroes, the channels are instances of the same zone that allow for overflow when the zones fill up. This helps with lag and, more importantly, questing. I think there were around 10 or so channels open when I played. Pretty much all of them had a good amount of players.

While the zones weren’t any different from C-Aion’s, getting to play a Ranger was. When you level up a Scout type, it feels like it takes after the Assassin more — likely because of the lack of ranged attacks (duh, right?). It took a bit of hunting to get a hang of the Ranger at level 10. This is mostly because you only have two ranged attacks — Snipe, your average direct damage attack that’s instant cast on a 8 second cooldown (can’t move while firing), and Entangling Shot, instant cast snare that slows the enemy for 8-16 seconds that’s on a 16 second cooldown (can fire while moving, yes the snare length is random and can last the entire cooldown or break early). Auto attacking with a bow also works while moving, but remember to keep the enemy in your view; I found snaring and back peddling were most effective, you need a lot of room to do it though. As long as everything works properly, and the monster you’re attacking isn’t naturally faster than normal, you can kill stuff without it ever touching you. That is fairly rare, however. I’ll have to wait till the next CBT weekend (in August…) to level the Ranger up further and actually get more skills. Oh, one last thing: the Ranger’s DP ability is a type of shapeshifting, it turns you into a Mau (humanoid cat with an indigenous feel) for a minute and gives you some very nice buffs.

Apart from the Ranger on NA-Aion, I played my Chanter on C-Aion. Chanters are one of the Priest sub-classes, the other is the Cleric. Wearing chain armor and wielding staves, the Chanter is a buffer that can stand toe-to-toe with any other melee, throwing heals while bashing things over the head. If you’ve played a Bladedancer in Lineage 2 you might be somewhat familiar with the buffs, or perhaps a Paladin from World of Warcraft. Essentially, you have different Mantras that you activate and anyone in your party that’s near you will receive the buffs. You can use more than one at a time. I have two buffs so far (at level 14, still pretty low) the first you get increases Physical Attack, the second increases all of your defenses (Physical Defense, Block, Evasion, etc). Very useful. The Chanter’s attacks focus on melee and are quite effective — not DPS class effective, but certainly better than your average healer in most MMOs. The chain armor is nice too, though the Clerics get Plate and shields. I haven’t tried a Cleric yet, so I can’t say how they’d perform in a side-by-side comparison, but I’d guess the Cleric does a bit more damage and doesn’t have the buffing or de-buffing the Chanter does — making up for it with higher personal defense and healing ability. Because of that it’s hard to say which would be the best in PvE or PvP, if you only had to bring one. I’d try to bring both. Simply looking over the skills, though (not seeing them used, or using them), I’d say the Chanter would be a bit better for PvP, and the Cleric a bit better for PvE — group-wise. Solo’ing, it may be the same way — for PvP — but PvE shouldn’t matter, they’d both do well at it. It’s really hard to tell by simply looking at the skills. Clerics are obviously ranged magic oriented, and their numbers should not change much, but the Chanter is melee and the numerous buffs do change the damage output and damage received. They could have similar damage outputs, they could be completely different. I would think, though, that the Cleric would have an easier time dealing damage as it doesn’t have to chase down it’s targets (in PvP). Should a Chanter get a hold of someone, though, they’d be in a bad way. The Chanter has plenty of de-buffs, including one that decreases flight speed by 50%. The Chanter’s DP ability increases Physical Attack by 100% for 30 seconds (as of level 14). That’s one I really want to try out in PvP.

I still want to try out the Cleric and Templar, after those I’ll see about Sorcerors. Not sure about the Assassin, I’m not much for sneaking about or backstabbing.