Aion Online 2.0 Single Player Instances Guide

Aion Online 2.0 Single Player Instances Guide by Nightflower

This guide is for the three single Player instances introduced in the 2.0 patch. It is based on the Aion 2.0 available on the Public Test Server (PTS), so things might change with the live servers. I figured that a guide would be very useful for the single player instances, since you would not be able to take another player along to show you the ropes inside the instance. Others are still contributing to Kromede’s Trial and Taloc’s Hollow guides, so I have provided links to the actual threads on the PTS. The location of all instances can be seen on your maps. The last two instances each take about 2 hours if you kill everything. My Nightflower alt got a gold mace in Kromede’s Trial on the third run through and a gold earring in Taloc’s Hollow in the second run through. Good luck on the drops!

Haramel:

This instance (levels 19-22) almost doesn’t need a guide, since it is very straightforward and easy. The instances are located in Verteron (@ the Observatory) and Altgard (Impetusium). There are flight points to both of them.

Attunement: None- just walk in.

Walkthrough: Well, just walk through on this one. There is a quest giver right inside the instance. There are only two problems that you need to remember here. The first is gathering. There are several things you need to gather. There are an exact number of items provided for gathering, so you will need to get them all. If you are short on one, keep hunting around. The second thing is the tower. You can only get out by jumping out. Hopefully you have learned how to glide by then. The level of the mobs will increase as you go through the instance.

Kromede’s Trial (aka Nightmare):

Kromede’s Trial is usually called Nightmare in chat. It seems to generate the most questions so far. These notes are based on two runs made by my PTS Asmodean cleric, Nightflower. Right now she is undergeared, and both her Blinding Flash heal and Earth’s Wrath I are lvl 30 or lower (due to lack of kinah). She is using two lvl 30 rental gold pieces, the staff and the miniskirt (pants, lol)

Preliminaries: The run takes me over 2 hours, so plan accordingly, and ppl have complained that they get kicked out if they are AFK too long – there is a 20 hr lock out period. Pick up the prequest from the commander at Belusian (Heiron) who sends you to an suspicious shugo (do all suspicious shugos lead to intances?). You can find the instance on the map. In Belusian, if you fly, you will need to go through Red Mane, since there is not a direct flight from the fortress. It is best if you have several health pots with you, although you get some in the instance.

Background info: The first time through is sort of a walk-through, since none of the secondary bosses are available, and the final boss is in a non-elite mode. ALL the mobs in the instance are lvl 38, of varying degress of dots and eliteness. The second time through you have access to the other bosses, but if you don’t fight them. The final boss is a two dot lvl 38 elite and you have a chance at a gold item, from a key that the boss drops. The first elite is a one dot lvl 38. Use the Rotan in fighting him, it helps. Along the way you pick up three items: 1. Rotan (30 sec cooldown), 2. An AOE (longer cooldown), and 3. something that repluses enemies (10 min cool down). Because of the long cooldown, I suggest that you keep the last one until the final boss, unless you get a 3 pull.

The first time through you only have one quest. You get three repeatables after the first time through. For the repeatable about soul pieces, only the guards have them, not the “guests”, and not the butlers or maids.

The butlers are melee, and the maids are casters. Half the time the guards pull in twos, one melee, and one ranged. You can use the AOE to take down the bats (there is only one group of these). You can kill the librarians (casters) (why do librarians wear masks?) and the librarian next to the bookshelf on the far wall has the key to the armory.

Walk through: After you enter, you get a cut scene telling you what is happening. Next, some warmups against ogre types and spiders. This leads you to the place where you fight some Kagolem and pick up the rotan. Use it to kill the pillar thing and break down the wall. Practice using against the next mobs until you get to the first gate. Kill the mob, enter the gate and slip to one side when the pats are not there. You can then take them down one at a time. You will then be ready for the one dot lvl 38 elite, who is guarding the portal to the dungeon.

After the portal you get another cut scene. Clear the guards in the hallway to get the key to get through the next gate. The prisoners you have to kill for one of the repeatables are on your right. After you get through the gate Kromede finds her love in another jail cell. She needs to get the key. The key is in the last room on the left, being guarded at the back of the room. The two guards in the back on the left are your first two pull, there are many more of these. Get the AOE artifact out the chest.

Go back to the cell where Kromede’s heart throb is, where she finds him …dead. That is when you pick up RAGE, a buff that gives 1000 HP and MP and lasts for an hour. From this point on I would advise you not to waste too much time. In fact, your Rotan expires 2 hours after you enter also. Go up the stairs and use the AOE on the bats on the stairs. Go clear the hallway. Mind the maid in the corner at the far left corner. You will see a big room to the right.

In the next room you will need to start minding your pulls. Pull the butler pat into the hallway. There is a maid to the right, so if you blunder into the room she might agro. Then clear around the edge. The fountain with the HP buff is in the center with two guards. Where you want to go is up the stairs (either side) and get the last artifact being guarded by the guy in the cowl. After you get the artifact, go through the hallway up on the second floor to the next room, which has a couple of pats and some guys sitting in chairs in the center. You do not need to kill the sitting guys, nor do you need the guys standing by the fireplace. They are guests- do not drop soul pieces for the repeatables. In fact someone reported some problems when they attacked the sitting people. Just clear around the edge to the right.

The next room is the trickiest, I think. The first time in I agroed 3 mobs. The seond time I found that 2 are named pats (cooks), and they will come out into the hallway. I suggest that you wait for them to come out. This room has food on the table. You can get a one time buff (timed) from the food. I suggest that you wait on eating them until you are ready to use the one way portal to the final boss. The library is to the right.

Final boss fight. There are two mobs just as you go in. Clear and you are then ready. You get agro signals as you walk down between your (potential) rewards, which are in boxes). The first time in, the boss is a multi dot non-elite lvl 38. The second time he can be a 2 dot elite. The elite fight is a multi-step fight where he goes to some orbs periodically to do something, like call those big stone walking guys to attack you. The stone guys keep coming too, and last night I ended up with four at once. The AOE destroyed 3 of the 4 at once. The boss is attackable throughout the fight. Good luck on the drops. Exit through the rear.

Talloc’s Hollow:

Taloc’s Hollow is a single-user level 51-55 instance and it has a two day lock-out period. You are given a task to help the Elim by cleansing the corruption, which in every other part of Aion consists of going around killing trees. This is different. Here you are transformed into a super avenging bug exterminator, a “Men in Black”, an Orkin and Terminix man, and a Starship Trooper going into the tunnels to exterminate Bugs. The closest other thing that I can compare it to in Aion is a combination of Taran’s Cave or the spider cave in western Morheim. Most everything that moves in this instance is a 51-52 elite. You go INSIDE of the Elim named Taloc that the bugs have hollowed out (Taloc’s Hollow, get it?) and start at the roots and work your way up through the trunk to the top branches.

There has been some bad press of this instance on the forums that it is too easy. Well, that might be true. However, remember that everyone on the PTS at this point is clothed in level 50 rental golds. On the live server, there are plenty of us that at best might have 1 gold piece. There are people that have full time jobs and have spent close to a year getting to level 50. I forsee that when 2.0 goes live, most of the “opportunities” to get gold items from the “old world” will evaporate. These people need something to be able to gear up for the 2.0 expansion area so they are not totally steamrolled by enemies. All the drops seem to be like level 51. This guide is based on two runs through the instance, and in those runs I got a green belt, green staff, green cloth leggings, blue sword, and a gold earring, all level 51. In addition, on the first run I got two stigma stones (unfortunately not for my cleric Nightflower) but they were the top level that go for 3.2 Mil Kinah from the stigma seller. I cut the price to 2 mil and sold them at the broker, and still made 4 mil kinah. Thus, you should look at this instance as a chance to get serviceable accessories , stigma, and kinah to get the gear/stigma you need for your alt. In addition, one of the quests gives you a stigma expansion slot.

Attunement: First you need to be level 51 to get in. Second, as far as quests go, Taloc’s Hollow is in the chain of Campaigns that you will have. You enter half-way through the third campaign. The second camgaign is harder, I think, at least for Asmos, than the instance. For Asmodeans, you will need to fight Balaur. The Balaur hit harder than Mack trucks, and I’m not sure how under geared alts will do against them. All I can say is, don’t let more than one of them agro you at once. During the 2nd campaign you have to put an orb in place at the Dredgion crash site. I gather that you can “use” the orb anywhere you are as long as the area indicator says you are at the crash site. In the third camgaign (Asmodean) Taloc sends you down in an area to fight air beings and snails (which are pretty ugly). They switch back and forth from air beings to snails, so if you don’t see one of them, just wait around.

Walkthrough: You talk to Taloc and enter the instance. Once inside you see him again and he has quests and offers you some items you need to take. One is a two hour power up fruit that gives you 95k HP and 54k MP. The second is the AOE artifact. The fruit also encases you in something that looks like all-over wood armor that makes you look ….strange, lol. Go to the next room. From here on, most everything from the smallest cockroach to the final room-filling boss Celestra is an elite (there are a VERY FEW non-elites that come in packs at you). You don’t go very far until you get swarmed, one of them (the bigger spider) will drop your ranged attack artifact. The AOE does 2.5k damage and the ranged does 7k damage. As you proceed, keep an eye out for dirt piles. Getting stuff from the dirt piles is one of the quests. Keep an eye out for the power-up places. The power-up places look sort of like blue aether gathering places. You are buffed so high that “normal” heals/pots don’t really do much, so you need these places to power back to full. Go up the ramp to the next room, where you will see three cocoons. You can release one captive, who can then be your helper (but you must ask them first). The one on the right is a cleric and the one in the center is a warrior type. I advise getting the warrior, since I hear that the cleric won’t help you unlesss your HP gets really low. The warrior, however, can serve as an off tank for you.

I advise you too look at your map continually, since although it looks straightforward on the map, it can get confusing when you are looking around the tunnels through the normal view. Proceed up to the left and you will come up to the entrance to a room on the right. The entrance is covered over with “sticky webs” that you must break down. Go in to the mini boss in the back and kill him to get the next artifact, a shield. One of the quests is to use these artifacts a certain number of times. You don’t have to be fighting anything big to use them, though. If you are going to make it through in under 2 hours you MUST use them all the time. If you look at the map you will see something like a spawning area up on the left. There is a dirt pile there. The tunnel is confusing enough that the main trail is marked on the floor, lol.

Eventually you get to the room with the first boss, who looks like a floating sea cucumber. There is a cut scene where Taloc tells you how to fight him, so I won’t repeat it here. Just be sure to clear the other enemies in the front of the room before you take the boss on. To exit the room you have to walk up the tree trunk lying on it’s side in the back of the room. You start running into enemies in twos on the tree trunk. Now, the first time I did the instance I didn’t see anyone else on the trunk. The second time I saw some guy with a quest there. I delayed to go fight another enemy and when I turned back the quest giver was gone. I suggest trying to get the quest first. I don’t know what the quest is. Proceed up the trail.

You start running into some enemies called Komads?, that look like ET made out of water, but who don’t have any face. One of them up outside the final boss’s room dropped one of those stigma stones I told you about. About the time you see the first Komad you see some watery looking tentacles pushing back and forth on the trail. I timed my run through the tentacles and didn’t get hit, but if you look at the “Assualt on Balaurea” trailer it shows the tentacles pushing a hero off the trail (and off a short cliff). Proceed up the trail, and just before the second boss you run into a big spider, who drops the final artifact. This artifact does a sleep on enemies.

The second boss is a giant mosquito that flies around. You get another cut scene from Taloc, who tells you how to get to the final boss. The second boss pats in a circle counterclockwise, just follow her(she lays eggs, so I assume it’s a her) around the room and kill the other enemies. These other enemies are some of the few non-elites, so just AOE each group down. You are now ready for the boss fight. You will need to continually use your artifacts, since she keeps laying eggs that hatch, and grow other mosquitoes all the way to adults during the fight. The AOE will keep these in check. To get to the final boss, go to the giant mosquitoe egg in the center of the room and face back down the cooridor you came in. Break the egg and mist starts going up. Get in the mist and hit your space bar to deploy your wings and float up to the next level.

You get up to the next level and find that the mist places your right in the middle of about 7 blue Komads. AOE them down. If you are facing back in the direction of the corridor you came into the mosquitoe room, you should be facing the room where the final boss, Celestra is. Kill a few more Komads to get to the room. The first time through Celestra reached out and jerked me into the room. The final boss fight isn’t hard technically, just long. With the HP buff, MP buff, and the artifacts the fight was a cinch. It just took about 5 min to take her down. You probably should only use your normal skill when the artifacts are on cool-down. After the boss fight Taloc appears and you can complete any quests you have with him. He will also teleport you outside the instance. Good luck with the drops!