Review: Killer Guides Unofficial Aion Strategy Guide

Review summary: The Unofficial Aion Strategy Guide by Killer Guides really teaches new players everything they need to know to get started as either an Asmodian or Elyos (both factions are covered). It doesn’t go into excruciating detail in any one area but provides comprehensive coverage over a broad range of topics, including: questing, grinding and kinah-earning strategies, classes, crafting, flying, items, macros, and the Abyss just to name a few.

If you’re looking for one guide that covers just about everything in Aion, Killer Guides’ Unofficial Aion Strategy Guide is the best option available right now. It could go into a bit more strategic detail in some areas, however, I believe it provides ample coverage to get you started. Heck, it taught me quite a few things and I have been playing since closed beta 1.  I also understand why they may be holding back a little: they publish a number of other specific class guides and a kinah-earning guide as well. To include all that would make the guide too big and cut down on sales of those other guides.

This guide covers a lot of areas of the game. The class section gives a good overview of each class and includes some strategies taken straight out of their class guides. This should help you make an informed decision on which class to play and may even teach you something about the class you’ve already picked.

The guide also covers all the basics, including weapons, armor, jewelery, potions, power shards, food, manastones, godstones, enchantment stones, stigma stones and divine power. The author writes about in-game economics by covering inventory management, personal stores, the auction house, and basic kinah earning strategies (kinah is money in Aion).

The section on the Abyss is quite good. As one of the most important areas of the game, it’s nice to have it covered in such detail. Readers are given a great overview of the massive PvP area, including mobs, Abyss Points, fortresses, artifacts, and the Dreadgion. In this PvP-enabled space, it’s good to know which enemy players to target in what order. This guide gives you guidance in this area, which is especially helpful.

I think they did a pretty decent job with the leveling section of this guide too. It’s nowhere near as comprehensive as KFGuides’ 1-30 leveling guides for Elyos and Asmodians, but that isn’t what this guide is intended for. It isn’t a step-by-step walk through but it does give you a general idea of the areas you should be in at certain levels (see the screenshot to the right). The guide covers Elyos and Asmodian questing and grinding from levels 1-45, however, the sections aren’t all complete as of the time of this review.

Now is probably a good time to mention that some sections in this guide aren’t finished. That might be a problem if they didn’t provide you with free updates; but they do! Buying this guide from Killer Guides grants you access to free updates every time the author makes them. Over the course of my review period, this guide was updated three times!

You will notice a few mentions of “Patch 1.5 Updates” throughout this guide. Patch 1.5 was a huge patch for Aion that introduced a lot of new content and updates to existing content and game mechanics. This just goes to show you that they are willing to update the guide along with the game, providing their readers with the most recent information available.

I could go into detail about all the other areas of the guide but I won’t because this review would be way too long. I think it’s fair to see that they’ve covered all the game’s bases.

One final thing I’ll mention is the appendix section, which is quite interesting. One of the appendices is called “Recommendations for Dealing with Other Players,” where they give you some valuable information about dealing with GMs, griefers, farmers, and botters. They also suggest some strategies to deal with tiredness, stress, grinding, PvP, bugs, and lag/disconnects. You don’t often see sections like these in strategy guides, so it’s quite refreshing.

I am giving the Unofficial Aion Strategy Guide by Killer Guides an 8.5/10. Overall, I think it’s a really good starter guide for new players and will even teach veterans a thing or two about the game. Some of the sections are incomplete and it could benefit from a bit deeper strategy. The nice thing about the free updates though is that you’ll always have an up-to-date version. After all, the game hasn’t even released yet, so much of it is forgivable at this stage.