Aion 2 Item Level 1,400: The Route From a Fresh 45

Slot	Free item	Grade	Item level
Weapon	Your class's Spiritforged weapon, e.g. Spiritforged Greatsword	Unique	45
Left Hand	Spiritforged Guard	Unique	45
7 armor pieces	Pilgrim set from Episode quests, e.g. Pilgrim Breastplate	Epic	38–41 (276 together)
7 accessories	Pilgrim set from Regional quests, e.g. Pilgrim Ring	Epic	43 each (301 together)
Belt	Noble Belt	Rare	13
Amulet	Revelation Amulet	Rare	13
2 runes	Clash Rune	–	40 each

That's 773 with nothing enhanced. The weapon comes from Diverging Paths (Elyos) or Farewells (Asmodian), and the Guard from the next quest, Draupnir or Forgotten Commander. The 7 accessories include both bracelets, and 4 Clash Rune Chests from Regional quests cover the runes.

One more piece is free: the level-45 Ascension quest, The One Who Witnesses the Nightmare or The One Who Witnesses the Nightmare, pays the Ascension Bracelet, a Unique bracelet at item level 51. It sits behind the Ascension Gauge; the level-45 guide explains how to unlock it. Swap it in for one Pilgrim bracelet: 781.

The ladder shows the two facts that shape everything else. First, the 1,000 checkpoint is cheap. Second, Tier 1 drops alone can't reach 1,400, however far you enhance them. Plan the last stretch around crafting from the start.

Strongholds: the belt scrolls

The 15 Strongholds of your home region (Verteron or Altgard) are solo instances with no level gate. Each first clear pays 15,000 Kina, 2 Noble Belt Enhance Scroll (Bound) and a title. That's 30 scrolls, exactly what the Noble Belt needs to go from Rare +0 to Unique +10. Strongholds are the only source of these scrolls, and they can't go into Server Storage, so every character collects its own. Find them on the Verteron or Altgard map.

Your Monolith: the amulet scrolls

Resonating Empyrean Traces at your home Monolith raises its level, and almost every level pays a Revelation Amulet Enhance Scroll (Bound): 1 at each level from 2 to 29 and 2 at level 30, so 30 in total. The Monolith of Eltnen or Morheim adds 5 more (levels 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8). The amulet needs 10 scrolls per grade, so your home Monolith must reach level 11 for Rare +10, 21 for Epic +10 and 30 for Unique +10. With the 5 Eltnen or Morheim scrolls, levels 6, 16 and 26 are enough. Collect the traces with the Empyrean Traces map, and see the Monoliths page for the rewards per level.

Sealed Dungeons: Enhance Stones

Each of the 60 Sealed Dungeons of your home region, plus Ruins of the Ancient City of Ru (Elyos) or Ruins of the Ancient City of Ru (Asmodian), pays 1,250 Enhance Stones and 15,000 Kina on the first clear, along with skill points and Daevanion Crystals. That's 76,250 Enhance Stones for the full set.

The other faction's Sealed Dungeons pay more stones and no points: 2,500 Enhance Stones, 1,000 Abyss Points and 15,000 Kina each, so 152,500 stones across all 61. You reach them through a Spacetime Rift, which opens every 3 hours for 10 minutes; each character has 1 hour of rift time. The Event Timer shows the next opening. Enemy Strongholds pay 15,000 Kina and 3,000 Abyss Points each. Enemy-faction clears give no Daevanion Crystals and no belt scrolls, so treat rift trips as a stone run.

The costs are per item, and the belt and the amulet cost the same.

Advice: take both to Unique +0 early. That's +52 item level each for 1,811,000 Kina and 72,340 Enhance Stones, cheaper per point than almost anything else, and none of it is ever lost. Leave the Unique +1 to +10 steps for later: they cost about 500,000 Kina per item level, ten times the rate of other upgrades.

The +5-point bonus after a failure exists only on Unique +11 to +15 steps, and it resets if the item is traded. The belt and the amulet never fail, so they have no pity to build. The data has no destruction on any enhance or Amplified step; read the in-game warning before you click anyway. The gear and enhancing guide covers the system in depth.

What each point of item level costs

Our calculation from the client's enhance costs, cheapest first:

Kept? depends on Gear Transfer, the client's own way to avoid waste. It moves the enhance level and Soul Binding of one Unique piece onto another, costs one Transfer Stone (Unique) (Bound), and always succeeds. You make that stone with Substance Morph from one spare Unique piece, so a duplicate drop is never junk. Three limits apply:

• Only Unique gear has transfer groups. Enhance levels on Epic gear are lost when you replace it.
• The source piece must be Soul Bound. The Spiritforged weapon can't be Soul Bound at all, which is why we mark it "unclear".
• Groups are per slot and tier. The Tier 1 drops (Rupture, Bakarma and Berk, item level 54) share a group with the crafted True and Star Dragon Lord pieces of the same slot. The Tier 2 drops sit in the next tier's groups. The Transfer tab in game lists the valid targets.

Advice: take the story gear only as far as you need. +6 on the 13 Epic pieces is cheap and gets you to about 995, close enough to the 1,000 checkpoint that one more enhance level on a few pieces crosses it. Spend the next Kina on Unique drops instead of Epic +7 to +10. One exception: no Tier 1 drop and no crafted piece fits the bracelet slot, so your remaining Pilgrim bracelet stays for this whole route, and taking it to +10 isn't wasted.

Dungeon	Unique pool	Pity pick every 14 cubes
Draupnir (Conquest)	Bakarma armor (7 pieces) and the Bakarma Guard	A Bakarma armor piece, or Gear Change Voucher: Draupnir (Bound)
Krao Cave (Conquest)	Rupture weapons for all 8 classes, Berk necklace, earrings and ring	A Berk accessory, or Gear Change Voucher: Krao Cave (Bound)
Draupnir (Exploration)	Bakarma armor	Once: a Bakarma armor piece of your choice after 3 cubes

Each cube rolls a Unique at 7.5% on the final boss and 3.75% on each mid-boss, so about 15% per cube. In the data, the weapon part of the Krao Cave pool covers all 8 classes: each Rupture weapon is 5.75% of it, and the three Berk accessories share the rest.

The vouchers close the gaps. With Substance Morph, a Draupnir voucher plus 500,000 Kina becomes a Draupnir Armor Selection Chest, and a voucher plus 1,000,000 Kina becomes the Bakarma Guard. A Krao Cave voucher plus 500,000 Kina becomes a Krao Cave Accessory Selection Chest. A Rupture weapon for another class, a voucher and 1,000,000 Kina become a Krao Cave Weapon Selection Chest, so an off-class drop isn't wasted either.

How long it takes, our estimate: we simulated the drop and pity rates above, starting with the three Draupnir Exploration cubes. Owning all 14 slots (weapon, Guard, 7 armor, necklace, 2 earrings and 2 rings) took about 100 cubes on average, 78 for the luckiest tenth and 129 for the unluckiest. At 3 cubes a day from your Odyle Energy refill, that's four to six weeks.

Advice:

• Open the Draupnir Exploration pick first. It's a guaranteed Bakarma piece after 3 cubes, and it doesn't touch the server's unclaimed-clear count. Its reward count is 7 a week.
• Pity is per dungeon. Finishing one dungeon's set before switching keeps you from ending with two half-full counters. Draupnir has 8 useful pieces for you; Krao Cave has 6 (weapon, necklace, 2 earrings, 2 rings).
• Enhance each Unique to +10 as it drops. It's all guaranteed, and Gear Transfer keeps it.
• Ignore the Epic drops. Tier 1 Epic gear is item level 40, no better than your story set.

• High enhance on Uniques. +11 averages about 283,000 Kina for one item level, +12 about 522,000. Pushing every Tier 1 piece to +15 averages about 7.5 million Kina each, and even with the Ascension Bracelet at +15 too you stop at 1,325.
• Runes to +5. About 610,000 Kina and 16 scrolls per rune on average from +3, for +2 item level. The Clash Rune Chest (Bound) in the Nightmare shop is the steady scroll source.
• Crafted Dragon Lord gear. The True (Elyos) and Star (Asmodian) Dragon Lord pieces are Unique, item level 62, with 5 Soul Binding sub-stats instead of 4. Each normal craft has a 25% chance to give the Splendent version at item level 70 instead. Each one beats a Tier 1 piece of the same slot by 8 item level, or 16 for Splendent, and Gear Transfer can carry your +10 across.

Crafting is the real key. Every Tier 1 piece swapped for a True or Star Dragon Lord piece at the same enhance level is worth +8. Here's one way the sums reach 1,400 (our calculation): start from 1,246, take the runes to +5 (1,250), craft all 14 slots and carry +10 across (1,362), push the crafted pieces to +11 (1,376), and the 3 or 4 Splendent procs you can expect from 14 crafts add the rest. With fewer crafted slots, you need many more high-enhance steps.

The bottleneck is Wrathful Mind:

That's 75 for all 14 slots. A Tier 1 cube drops one about 9% of the time (5.4% on the final boss, 1.8% on each mid-boss). From your own cubes alone that's about 830 cubes, or roughly nine months at 3 a day (our calculation). The client marks Wrathful Mind exchangeable, so you can buy it from other players, and most players will have to.

Each recipe also needs an Artisan's Splendent Orichalcum piece and mastery 55 or 60 in the matching profession; the crafting guide and the Crafting Calculator walk the whole chain.

Advice: start crafting with the cheap slots (cloak, gloves, helm, pauldrons, rings). Their recipes need the fewest Wrathful Minds for the same +8. Keep the weapon and the Guard for last.

Weekly counters refill on Wednesday. Energy refills the same for everyone; the membership only raises the cap. Without it, a full bar takes about 4.7 days, so log in at least every 4 days.

What each one feeds on this route:

• Odyle Energy pays for the Tier 1 cubes: your Unique pieces, Kina, Enhance Stones and Wrathful Minds.
• Nightmare is solo, one boss per run. Its Phantasmal Fragment buy the Clash Rune Chest (500), Amplify Stone Fragment (Unique) (Bound) (500) and Daevanion Crystal (Bound) (300 each, 50 per character, no reset). Its suggested item level runs from 1,000 to 1,600; that's a warning, not a gate.
• The Daily Dungeon, Daeva Bio-Research Base, pays 3,000 to 10,000 Enhance Stones per run by score. Spend the server's 14 entries on your main.
• The Ascension Trial pays Enhance Stones and Amplify Stone Fragments by score.
• Duty Quests pay Enhance Stones, Kina and other materials.

The Daily & Weekly Checklist tracks all of it per character.

Day 1: the one-time haul.

1. Finish the Episode up to the Guard quest and, if your gauge allows, the level-45 Ascension quest.
2. Clear the 15 home Strongholds (30 belt scrolls) and any home Sealed Dungeons you skipped.
3. Level your home Monolith as far as your traces allow.
4. Take the belt and the amulet to Rare +10 and morph both to Epic.
5. Spend your energy on 3 Draupnir Exploration cubes and take your guaranteed Bakarma piece.

Week 1: reach 1,000. Spend 3 cubes a day on Draupnir (Conquest). Take the Spiritforged weapon, the Guard and the Ascension Bracelet to +10 and the story pieces to +6. Run the Daily Dungeon and Nightmare. Cross a Spacetime Rift for enemy Sealed Dungeon stones when one opens. Around 1,000 the Ascension Trial and the Lower Abyss open; add the Trial's 3 weekly entries.

Weeks 2 to 6: the Tier 1 set. Keep 3 cubes a day going, finish Draupnir's pity picks, then Krao Cave's. Enhance every Unique to +10 as it lands. When the Kina allows, finish the belt and the amulet: Epic +10, morph to Unique. Bank Wrathful Minds and start levelling your crafting profession.

After that: the last 150. This is the long part. Craft Dragon Lord pieces for the cheap slots first, transfer your +10 onto them, take the runes to +5 and push the pieces you keep to +11 or +12. Its length depends on how many Wrathful Minds you buy. The Upgrade Priority tool ranks the next step by cost, and the Enhancement Planner shows the expected cost of any +N.