AION 2 Skill Progression Guide

AION 2 Skill Progression Quick Summary:

• AION 2 has Active Skills, Passive Skills, and Stigma Skills
• Skill Points raise Active and Passive Skills up to level 10
• The first four Daevanion Boards add up to +4 skill levels
• Arcana and Soul Bindings push skills beyond level 14
• Stigma Skills use Stigma Shards, not normal Skill Points

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How AION 2 Skill Progression Works

For some reason, AION 2 doesn’t have one single system for leveling skills. The initial upgrades are done with skill points, which is what we are used to, but they only take Active and Passive Skills to level 10, after which Daevanion Boards, Arcana, and Soul Bindings are the only way to get your skills to the top level. Stigma Skills are on their own separate progression path using Stigma Shards. It’s overly complicated, seemingly only to slow down your progression. Once you understand how these systems work, the whole system becomes much easier to follow. If you are a complete beginner, I suggest reading this guide as well before continuing with this one. Below is a nifty table that explains in simple terms how the skill progression works in AION 2:

Progression System	What It Does
Skill Points	Raises Active and Passive Skills to level 10
Daevanion Boards	Adds up to +4 levels to skills
Arcana	Adds levels to specific Active or Passive Skills
Soul Bindings	Gear traits can increase skill levels
Stigma Shards	Stigma Skills are upgraded separately

So your basic progression to max out your skill is therefore Skill Points → Daevanion → Arcana/Soul Bindings, while Stigmas have a different upgrade system. Higher skill levels aren’t just about raising the damage done by your skills, because Active Skills unlock new Specialties as they reach certain breakpoints at levels 8, 12, and 20.

AION 2 Active and Passive Skills

The game divides class abilities into Active and Passive Skills, with Stigmas forming a third separate category. Active Skills are the buttons you use in combat. They have specialties, which are basically perks. They unlock at levels 8, 12, and 16. You have a total of 5 specialties, but you can only use three at most. The specialty slots unlock at levels 8, 12, and 20 because, of course, you can’t just freely select a specialty once you unlock it. Passive Skills don’t have specialty levels, and they improve your class automatically in the background. Both are leveled through Skill Points, Daevanion, Arcana, and the best pieces of gear. Check out the table below for a summary of how skills work:

Skill Type	How Progression Works
Active Skills	Higher damage/effects + Specialty unlocks
Passive Skills	Passive damage/effects increase
Stigma Skills	Separate abilities upgraded with Stigma Shards

In this article, I focus mostly on breaking down Active Skills that you’ll spend your points on while leveling. Passive Skills are much easier to understand because they don’t have Specialties. Each additional level simply increases the highlighted values of the passive.

How Skill Specialties Work in AION 2

Skill Specialties are modifiers attached to Active Skills. They do lots of different things, like increasing range, adding CC, reducing cooldowns, or giving an ability an entirely new interaction, so leveling a skill isn’t just increasing its base damage. As I said before, every Active Skill has five Specialty options, but those options and the number of slots you can use unlock at different levels. The milestones that unlock Specialties and Specialty slots are levels 8, 12, 16, and 20:

Skill Level	What Unlocks
8	First three Specialties + first Specialty slot
12	Fourth Specialty + second slot
16	Fifth Specialty
20	Third Specialty slot

Level 16 is the major goal for your best Active Skills, because that’s where the fifth and usually strongest Specialty becomes available. Level 20 is the next important step to reach because it allows you to run three Specialty effects at the same time. Upgrading every ability like this is impossible, btw. You won’t have enough resources and character levels for that. Focus on the skills that define your build, then work on the rest once those are already where you want them. Oh, and also putting even one point in any of the passives is more than enough for early levels, as it activates the bonus immediately.

How to Get and Spend Skill Points

Skill Points are the first step of progression for both Active and Passive Skills. Your abilities start at level 1, and you spend Skill Points to increase them until they reach level 10, which is the hard cap for SP. After that, Daevanion takes you to level 14 of the skills. Later, Arcana and gear will let you push to levels 16 and 20. Most Skill Points come naturally from just playing through the game. The main Skill Point sources are:

• Main Story Quests
• Sealed Dungeons

You’ll get enough Skill Points to upgrade most of your skills, but it’s unwise to spend them equally. In the beginning, you’ll get away with just picking whatever looks cool to you, but later on, you’ll want to shift to skills that favor your build.

How Daevanion Boards Increase Skill Levels

Once Skill Points stop letting you upgrade the skills at level 10, Daevanion boards take their place. The first four boards contain dedicated skill nodes, with blue nodes increasing Active Skills and green nodes increasing Passive Skills. Every Active and Passive Skill appears once on each of those four boards, which means Daevanion progression can add another four levels. Honestly, it’s not that different from just spending Skill Points, it’s just that now it looks like a simplified Path of Exile skill tree. It takes you from level 10 to level 14 in your skills. The Daevanion Crystals used to unlock these nodes mainly come from side content, including side quests and Sealed Dungeons.

How Arcana Increases Skill Levels

Arcana becomes one of the main progression systems, along with gear and Soul Bindings, once your skills get to level 14. Arcana Cards can provide extra levels to certain Active or Passive Skills, depending on the card, which makes them one of the main ways to push core abilities toward level 16 and eventually 20. Unlike Daevanion, this isn’t a flat +1 to everything, so the cards you get need to match the skills used by your build. That makes Arcana much more targeted and a bit more grindy. But what else did you expect from AION? The main place to farm Arcana is Transcendence Dungeons. The cubes that you receive at the end of it will drop Arcana Cards. Don’t fall for the rarity of these cards, just look for the cards that boost your Actives. Oftentimes, it’s much more useful. Unless, of course, you get a legendary card that can change the trajectory of your whole build.

How Gear and Soul Bindings Increase Skill Levels

Gear provides another way to increase skill levels through Soul Bindings. These are traits that can roll normal stats such as Attack or HP, but they can also add levels to Active or Passive Skills. Soul Bindings are extremely useful when you’re trying to hit a 16 or 20 level milestone and Arcana alone isn’t enough. The catch is that different gear slots support different types of skill bonuses:

Gear Slot	Skill Bonus
Rings	Active Skills
Weapons	Active Skills
Other Gear	Can roll Passive Skill levels

I usually suggest trying to get rings for Active Skill upgrades. If you’re at level 45 and want to grind the Abyss, I do not recommend trying to roll for Active Skill traits on your weapon, as general combat stats are much more important at this point, and even a slight increase in your damage will go far since the gear in Abyss isn’t normalized.

 

 

AION 2 Stigma Skill Progression

Stigma Skills are separate from your Active and Passive Skills. Each class has 13 Stigma Skills, but you initially have only four usable slots, so choosing which ones support your build is just as important as leveling them. They’re a more advanced system, so don’t worry about them at the beginning of your journey. Increasing a Stigma’s level unlocks additional effects, but know that Skill Points, Daevanion tables, Arcana, or Soul Bindings don’t affect them at all. Stigmas use their own resource called Stigma Shards. The main Stigma Shard sources are:

• Abyss Shop
• Shugo Festival Shop
• Nightmare Shop

The Abyss Shop is gonna be your default source of shards. That’s why it becomes hugely important to farm Abyss. For Season 1, Stigma Skills can reach level 20, so much like with normal Actives, it’s important to understand which Stigmas you will upgrade for your build.

 

 

AION 2 Skill Progression Tips

Skill progression gets much easier once you realize that the upgrades are pretty straightforward. The only thing that can confuse you is three different menus you need to use for this, not counting the inventory window. Why complicate it so much when you could just have one window is a mystery to me. The biggest piece of advice I can give you here is not to spread out. Focus on the skills you need to upgrade first and do the Sealed or Transcended dungeons, depending on what’s important for you right now. This way you’ll waste less time. Some other skill progression tips for AION 2:

• Get core Active Skills to level 10 first
• Target level 16 before forcing everything to 20
• Don’t ignore Passives
• Farm Transcendence Dungeons for better Arcana
• Rings are the best source of Soul Bindings for Active Skills
• Focus on your build instead of being a jack-of-all-trades

Another useful thing to remember is that skill level itself is the result of several progression systems stacked together. Skill Points are only the beginning. The Daevanion tables, Arcana, and Soul Bindings are what will push your best abilities into their strongest Specialty milestones.

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