Aion: Tower of Eternity brings to the MMO world 4 primary classes (also known as archetypes) a player can choose from: Warrior, Scout, Mage and Priest. Each primary class  can select one of two paths after completing the Ascension quest at level 10. Warriors can become Templars or Gladiators, Scouts can be Assassins or Rangers, Priests are to be Chanters or Clerics and Mages can be Sorcerers or Spiritmasters.

Each class in Aion Online requires a distinct type of gameplay so, when creating your character choose your archetype wisely, for the role you want to play in Atreia. However, it doesn’t matter what faction you decide upon, each class is identical for both Elyos or Asmodians, the race does not offer you distinct abilities or anything like that.

To understand better the gameplay mechanics of each class in this MMO, and their roles in PvP and PvE, here are a few brief descriptions for the archetypes and classes of Aion: Tower of Eternity.

The Warrior Archetype – This is, no wonder, the heavy class of the game. They wear plates and are designed for melee close combat. At level 10, a warrior must pick a subclass, becoming Templar or Gladiator.

  • The Gladiator -  is a heavy melee DPS class. They have proficiencies for most melee weapons but their main speciality is using polearms. Their combat style is based on direct attacks, no dirty tricks spells or whatsoever. Gladiators are fearsome PvP opponents, they are important for every legion, and in PvE their heavy melee abilities are indispensable.
  • The Templar – is, no question, the heavy tank of this game. They have high defenses, use shields and 1-handed weapons, many defensive skills and abilities and also shield based powerful attacks. Templars are also have the proficiency for using greatswords and can switch on DPS mode if needed. The Templars’ tanking skills are crucial especially for hard bosses, respectively for end game PvE. Also, they can be very hard to kill in PvP, their shield skills and resilience giving quite a headache to any opponent.

The Scout Archetype – Scouts are light melee damage dealers, they wear leather armor and have defenses based on evasion. Their combat style is based on cunning melee or ranged attacks (based on  subclass) and their attacks focus on the weaknesses of the opponent. Each scout must choose between Assassin and Ranger after the Ascension quest.

  • The Assassin – is a light melee DPS. They can use stealth, they have powerful stealth attacks, can poison their weapons and deal huge amounts of damage. They can make excellent infiltrators, disrupters or ambushers for PvP spotting the enemies weaknesses and in PvE they are excellent damage dealers.
  • The Ranger – is a class based on archery skills and abilities. They can wield bows but also daggers and swords for close combat. Rangers can also use traps and they are adaptable in any PvP or PvE close combat or ranged combat situation. However, this class is pretty expensive to play as arrows and  trap reagents don’t come cheap.

The Priest Archetype – Priests are the healers of Aion Online. They wear medium (chain) armor, have powerful healing skills and abilities. They also have offensive skills, which combined with the regeneration and healing, can make the Priest resilient and effective combatants. The Priest Archetype involves two subclasses, Chanter and Cleric

  • The Cleric – is the main healer for this game. Clerics have powerful rejuvenating abilities, they can resurrect a dead player. For close combat they use shields and maces. They are indispensable in PvP and PvE. No matter what a group wants to accomplish, it’s very hard without a Cleric.
  • The Chanter – also a healing class of Aion Online. They have healing abilities and aslo powerful self and group buffs. They can use staves and have strong melee-staff attacks. Chanters make a great support class in both PvP and PvE.

The Mage Archetype – Mages are the main caster-type damage dealers of this game. They have low defenses but they can deal heavy amounts of ranged spell damage. They are also the crowd controllers and debuffers in Aion Online. The Mage Archetype divides in two subclasses, the Spiritmaster and the Sorcerer.

  • The Spiritmaster – is a pet-based class, as they use wind, fire, water and earth elemental pets according to the combat situation they are faced with. They don’t have many direct damaging spells doing they’re damage through the pets they summon and control. However, Spiritmasters have nasty debuffs that can turn even the toughest player or mobs into a weakling.
  • The Sorcerer – is a direct spell damage class. They have powerful fire, water, earth and wind spell attacks and also crowd control spells. The Sorcerer is a pure nuking class for both PvP and PvE, but as it is maybe the squishiest class of them all, they are usually the main target in PvP. In spite of the heavy damage a Sorcerer can inflict, since you need to kite all the time whatever you’re fighting against, this is by far, the hardest class to play in Aion.

I hope this helps you choose the class that suits your playing style best. However, to get the full potential out of your character, I strongly recommend you to use a guide. To be sure that you pick a guide that worth your money, I made this comparisson review for the most popular Aion leveling and Kinah guides.