AION 2 Where Damage Comes From: Every Stat, Every System, and the Ten-Minute Audit

This is the written version of Episode 1 of How I Got to 100K DPS. Every section links to the spot in the video where I show it in game. The short version of the whole thing: I took my Gladiator from 38,000 DPS on the Training Scarecrow to 117,000 in two days without buying gear, and almost all of it came from systems I had been ignoring. This episode is for every class. The Gladiator-specific details are Episode 3.

Timestamps are links. 0:00 is the start, and the ten-minute audit is at 32:39 if you only want the checklist.

The one idea

0:38

Damage is a chain of multiplications, and every system in the game feeds one link of that chain:

Attack x Damage Boost x Crit x Double x Casts per minute x Uptime

A link you have ignored is cheap to raise. A link you have already pushed is expensive. So the fastest DPS gain is almost never the thing you are already working on. It is the link you forgot. Find it first, then spend.

Part 1: How damage is calculated

Buckets: add vs multiply

1:34

Stats in the same bucket add together. Different buckets multiply each other.

• Same bucket, they add: Damage Boost, PvE Damage Boost, Boss and Species Damage Boost all share one pool. The bigger that pool gets, the less each extra +1% is worth.
• Different buckets, they multiply: Weapon Damage Boost, Crit Damage, Double, Front/Back each stand alone and scale everything else.

Two +10% boosts in one bucket are +20%. In two buckets they are 1.1 x 1.1 = +21%. The gap grows as you stack. This is why you do not want to over-focus on any single bucket: time spent in each one pays better than piling everything into one.

The formula in four steps

2:00

1. Pure Attack. Weapon, gear, accessory and manastone Attack, scaled by Weapon Damage Boost.
2. Flat Attack added. Attack Bonus, scaled by Attack Increase %, plus PvE and Boss Attack.
3. The skill. Each skill is a flat number plus a percentage of your Attack, minus the enemy's Defense. Skill level raises both parts.
4. Multipliers. The Damage Boost pool, Crit, Double, Front/Back, and specializations.

Attack scales every skill, which is why it is always worth something. Deity stats are +0.1% per point, linear, with no breakpoints.

What +1% of each stat is worth

2:18

This comes from a community analysis done in Korea. I would not treat it as exact, but it is a useful way to compare stats against each other per point:

How to read it:

• Stats that sit in their own bucket are at the top.
• Damage Boost shrinks as you stack it, because it shares a pool with so much else.
• Crit Rate is worth about half a crit's bonus per point, up to the cap.
• Class note: a Gladiator's two main skills crit automatically, so Crit Rate is worth far less for us and Crit Damage far more. Check your own class's specializations before you chase Crit Rate.

Rules and caps on NA

3:15

• 50% crit chance cap. Stop stacking Crit Rate there. Guaranteed-crit skill traits bypass it.
• A crit is 1.5x in PvE (1.25x in PvP). The Crit Damage stat adds to that.
• A Double hit is 2x in PvE. The meter calls it Crush. Wisdom is the deity stat that feeds it.
• 30% max Evasion. Accuracy above the target's Evasion always lands, so you want a little, not a lot.

The multipliers that are not in the formula

3:28

The formula is per hit. DPS is per second. These are the levers no stat screen shows you, and for me they were the biggest ones:

• Casts per minute (3:39). Combat Speed, animation cancels, chain timing and macro order decide how many hits actually land. The way I had my macro set up, I was casting my main skill far less often than the top players because I kept interrupting it with other skills. Looking at other players of your class on NotMeter and counting their casts per minute against your own is the single most useful comparison you can make.
• Mana (4:35). A rotation you cannot afford is a rotation you do not run. Out of mana means basic attacks, which is near zero. For a Gladiator, getting to the point where I could sustain without Keen Strike was a big damage boost on its own.
• Buff uptime. Class buffs are multipliers only while they are up. Cooldown reduction and cooldown-reset traits are damage stats.
• Ping and settings. High ping and a macro delay that does not match it cost real casts.

Where to read your own numbers

• Character sheet (5:00): the stats tab shows Attack, Weapon Damage Boost, Damage Boost, Crit, Crit Damage, Combat Speed and the deity stats. If one of them is near zero, that is a lane.
• The Training Scarecrow and the built-in meter (5:56): turn the damage meter on, hit the dummy with the buffs you normally run, stop, and open Combat Analysis in detailed mode (6:55). It shows the breakdown by skill.
• NotMeter (7:25): the same breakdown, plus the ability to look at what the top players of your class are doing, which skills they use, and what their meters look like. I used it for this project; the built-in meter does most of the same job.
• Set a baseline first (7:57): test a few times before you change anything. My first baseline was about 34,000 to 38,000 DPS over a minute on the dummy. Use the same dummy, the same length of run, and the same food and scrolls for every before and after.

Part 2: Every system, one by one

8:17

Gear enhancement

8:48

• What it feeds: Attack on your weapon and guard. This is Pure Attack, the start of the formula. Armor pieces add Defense and HP, which is survival, not DPS. This is also why Combat Power can be high while DPS is low: a lot of CP is armor.
• How it works: +1 to +10 is easy. +11 to +15 can fail and gets expensive, especially on a bad run of luck at the later levels. The window shows the chance before you press. A failed press costs the stones and Kinah, not the level. Accessories get extra enhancement slots.
• Where it comes from: Enhancement Stones. The Daily Dungeon is the steady source (9:10), and you get a handful from almost every other activity. If you have spare Daily Dungeon tickets, they are sitting on stones you have not collected.
• What to focus on: weapon first, then accessories, then armor. Pure Attack hits every skill. Armor past +10 only when you are dying.

Manastones

9:48

• What it feeds: Attack, Crit, Accuracy, HP, MP, Defense and resist stats. Superior stones also have jackpot rolls: Damage Boost, Weapon Damage Boost, Crit Damage Boost, Front Attack Boost, Back Attack Boost, and flat Damage +100 that is added before the multipliers. Click the percent on a Superior stone and open the Ultimate tab to see them. They are very low odds, and any of them is a keeper.
• How it works: you pick the stone, and one random stat rolls in. Engraving replaces what is already in the slot, so never overwrite a jackpot roll. Socket count rises with item grade and enhancement.
• Where it comes from: the Market, and the boxes from Ascension. Crafting (11:58): an Intermediate stone has a chance to come out Superior when you craft it. That proc is where most Superior stones come from. You can also combine leftover Intermediates into a Superior, with a high failure rate.
• What to focus on: Attack on everything, Crit until the cap. Save your stones for an item at its final stage: manastones are lost when the item is not, so I have not gone hard on any of mine yet. Count your MP and HP stones. Each one is an Attack slot you gave away. I had 12 MP stones and only 6 Attack stones when I started this.

Soul Binding

12:54

• What it feeds: Might, Attack, Weapon Damage Boost, Combat Speed, Multi-Hit, Damage Boost, and skill levels (skill levels on accessories, rings especially, can be very good). Some lines only exist on certain slots: Damage Boost on chest, Crit Damage on shoulders, Combat Speed on gloves. Click Reset and then the percent and the game tells you what can roll on that item and the odds.
• How it works (15:22): Bind raises the four lines toward 100%. Sync spends spare items to reroll one line. Reset spends Soul Codex Reset books, which are rare, to reroll all four, and you only want that if the initial roll is bad. Binding is reset if you transfer the item, so a maxed weapon is where you spend; a weapon at its final stage can also take two extra stones from the season track for an additional effect.
• Where it comes from: Soul Codex and Kinah to Bind. I had 624 Soul Codex just from playing, and Hidden Cubes give a lot of them. Same-grade spare items to Sync.
• What to focus on: weapon lines of Combat Speed, Weapon Damage Boost, Damage Boost and Might. Shoulders Crit Damage, chest Damage Boost, gloves Combat Speed. Sync off dead lines like Flight Power, regen and MP. Once something is most of the way there, stop spending on it and move to the next bucket.

Skills, specializations and stigmas

15:59

• What it feeds: skill level sets the flat damage and the coefficient. Specializations at levels 8, 12 and 16 change what the skill does, and level 20 adds a third specialization slot. For Overhead Slam that is no cooldown, a guaranteed crit, and the Upward Strike chain, which is my hardest hit.
• How it works: you pick the specializations yourself and can swap them any time at no cost. Stigma traits are automatic. Chains share the parent's key and level.
• Where it comes from: skill points from leveling. Stigma Shards (17:09) from dungeons and shops, the Shugo shop among them, plus what you get as you level. Extra skill levels come from Daevanion nodes, Arcana lines and Soul Binding.
• What to focus on (17:40): get core skills to the specialization that matters, not necessarily to 20. Past the spec unlock a level is worth about 1%. Read every spec you have not picked: one of them is usually your mana fix or your crit fix. For Gladiators the big one is the 50 MP refund on a critical hit. That spec plus the Magic Arcana cards let me stop using Keen Strike entirely and almost doubled my DPS. Guides are a starting point; look at what the top players of your class are running on NotMeter and work it out on your own character.

Daevanion boards

18:50

• What it feeds: Combat Speed, cooldown, Damage Boost, Crit Damage, Multi-Hit, Attack, Crit, and skill levels for your core skills.
• How it works: five boards on NA (Azphel is the PvP one). The PvE boards share one point pool, so you cannot max them all. Finishing a board gives a bonus on that board's main stat.
• Where it comes from: board points from leveling and regular content, plus the shops: the Shugo shop sells board points, the Abyss shop has the PvP board's, and the Nightmare shop has more along with stigmas and Daevanion crystals. Buy them out everywhere you can.
• What to focus on: the skill nodes for your core skills first, then the Combat Speed and Damage Boost nodes. Get the corner pieces, the passives you want, and then as many offensive stats as the points allow. Finalize the layout once you have nearly all the points.

Arcana

20:11

• What it feeds: deity stats (each card has a Vigor version and a Magic version with a different deity stat), skill levels on the card lines, and set bonuses. Primal Vigor gives PvE Attack. Magic Armor's two-piece restores MP when you drop below 20%.
• How it works: five slots on NA. Each slot has a Vigor and a Magic card with its own deity stat; the Bell can be Justice or Destruction, the Chalice Time or Space, the Compass Freedom or Death, the Mirror Illusion or Wisdom, the Parchment Life or Destiny. Enhancing (21:34) levels the skill lines. Feeding a +3 card into another gives you +3 with nothing lost, so your investment carries over when a better card shows up. Crafting your own card from five crystals lets you pick the affix, which matters most on the Chalice because it can roll any skill. Transmute extracts crystals from cards; once you have reasonably usable cards, stop extracting and enhance instead.
• Where it comes from: the Arcana dungeon (the Transcendence dungeons, which open around 1,600 gear score), the season shop early on, and crafting with Mysterious Crystals.
• What to focus on: cards whose lines hit the skills you actually use. Get the deity stats you need, which may mean Magic instead of Vigor: I assumed Primal Vigor on all five was obvious, then saw that switching to the Magic cards gave me Wisdom (lower MP cost) and the MP-restore set, which is what fixed my mana. Two Magic cards keeps the Primal Vigor two-piece. Once you have five you like, enhance all of them. My Bell and Mirror were both Vigor and both +0, which is two slots doing nothing.

Pantheon and deity stats

23:06

• What it feeds: deity stats. Time is Combat Speed. Destruction is Attack Increase. Wisdom is Double Chance and lower MP cost. Death is Crit. Justice is Perfect and Defense. Illusion is cooldown. Life, Freedom, Space and Destiny are mostly survival.
• How it works: one Colossus, four Statues and twelve Paintings in the room. One point is +0.1%, linear, no breakpoints. Arcana main stats, some accessories and Monoliths add to the same totals. In some cases the deity stats do not make a huge difference on their own, but they add up.
• Where it comes from: dungeon remnants, field bosses, the Nightmare shop and the Market. Each decoration shows its source in the Pantheon menu. The Colossus from the Nightmare shop needs Nightmare finished and 14,000 points; it is about a 4.5% damage boost from its deity stats. There are not many statues in the game yet with a specific stat; one drops from Guardian Lord Nama, the Abyss boss.
• What to focus on: any damage deity under 20 is a free lane. Destruction and Wisdom first for most classes, Time for everyone. Pick decorations by the stat, not the rarity. The top Gladiators run Destruction around 75, Wisdom 57 to 76, Time 76. Mine were 6, 19 and 65. This was the most neglected area on my character.

Pets and Genus Insight

25:30

• What it feeds: every pet you own adds a small always-on owned effect, and they add up. The Genus Insight page is where the big numbers are: its lines can roll Attack Bonus, Max Attack, Double Chance, Damage Boost, Crit and more.
• How it works: every pet you own levels its genus. Genus level opens more lines and better odds. Rolls cost Soul Crystals plus Kinah. Select the stats you want, hit Auto, and it rolls until one of them lands.
• Where it comes from: souls drop from the matching monsters in the field, five per pet. Duplicate pet items convert to souls. Random shop pets, the Daeva Pass and Festa shops, and the Market fill in the rest. Cheap field pets count toward genus level the same as rare ones.
• What to focus on: level each genus to 10, then set slots 1, 4 and 5 on every genus. Attack Bonus or Max Attack in slots 1 and 5, Double Chance in slot 4. A roll of 15 or more is a keeper. Across all the pages that is on the order of another 10% damage boost and 75 Attack for me, which is more than a round of gear enhancement would give, and all genus at 10 unlocks a title with PvE Damage.

Titles

27:45

• Three equipped title slots carry the big numbers (an Attack slot, a Defense slot, a Utility slot). Every title you own also adds a small always-on bonus, so cheap titles are worth collecting.
• Filter the title list by a stat (Attack Bonus, Damage Boost, PvE Damage Boost) to see which ones you are missing and what each one needs. Some are easy, like a dungeon achievement you have simply not done. Some are long collections, like the field boss artwork set.
• Keep a PvE title in the Attack slot for PvE. I had been running a PvP title there for the longest time. Swapping it was free.

Wings

29:40

• Every wing you own adds an owned effect (penetration, accuracy, attack, crit, PvE attack and so on) whether or not it is equipped. The equipped pair adds its own stats on top.
• Wings come from a lot of places: episode and zone quests, sealed drops from party dungeons (unsealed with Radiant Odyle), boss drops, Hidden Cubes, Shugo events, the Market, and the currency shops (Nightmare, Abyss and arena, Season, Festa). The wing's own info screen, and the Substance Morph menu, tell you the source and the recipe. I bought most of mine on the Market.
• Chasing one drop can be a bad trade: I have run one dungeon about 30 times for a wing that never dropped. If the Market price is within reach, buy it for the owned effect and move on.
• Wing enhancement is not live on NA as of this video.

Consumables and auto-use

30:53

• A combat speed scroll raises your cast rate. Attack food helps every skill. A mana potion keeps the rotation running, which for a mana-limited build is DPS, not safety. Weapon crystals sit on top of Attack.
• You can turn Auto Use on for consumables while they sit in your inventory. They do not have to be on your bar. Set the buff auto-use condition to In Combat so scrolls and food are only consumed when you are actually hitting something; by default they go off the moment you move.
• They come from the Market, crafting, dailies and event shops. Combat speed scroll on every boss. For classes with guaranteed crits, attack food beats crit food.

Part 3: Find your neglected link

32:22

There are lots of buckets. The fastest short-term DPS gain is to find whichever one you have neglected and raise it, rather than squeezing the top end of a bucket you have already spent on.

The ten-minute audit

32:39

1. Character sheet, detail stats. Write down Attack, Damage Boost, Crit Damage, Combat Speed. Anything near zero is a lane. Compare with a few top players of your class on the meter leaderboards.
2. Equipment, manastone tab. Count stones by stat. MP and HP stones are Attack you are not getting.
3. Deity ring. Any damage deity under 20 is a free lane. Destruction and Wisdom first.
4. Arcana window. A +0 card, or a Vigor card where a Magic one belongs, is a slot doing nothing.
5. Skills window. Core skills at 15 or 19 are one level from a specialization. Read every spec you have not picked.
6. Meter, 60 seconds on the dummy. Casts per minute of your main skill. If it is far below your class's best, stop buying and fix the hands.

Step 6 is the one nobody does. It is what found my gap.

My audit, before anything changed

33:47

Working: a +15 greatsword with Combat Speed 13%, Weapon Damage Boost 9.6% and Damage Boost 7.3% on Soul Binding. Time 65. Core skills and the three main stigmas at 20.

Neglected: 12 MP manastones and 6 Attack stones. Destruction 6, Wisdom 19. Bell and Mirror of Vigor at +0. Main skill one level from its mana spec. A PvP title in the Attack slot. And 39 casts a minute of my main skill, when the best Gladiators do 67.

Every item on the neglected list was free or nearly free to fix. None of it was gear.

What each fix was worth

34:42

Modeled against my 64K baseline from a real meter run, except the first row, which is measured:

Nothing you can buy is a +20% item. My whole shopping list combined is about +29%. Casting more often, which cost nothing, was +42% sustained on its own. Pushing all my accessories to 15 and the guard to i84 feels like the main driver because it raises the Attack stat you can see, but it is no different than rolling slots 1, 4 and 5 decently on my Genus pages.

The number one source of improved DPS for me was looking at my combat analysis, seeing which skills were triggering, how many times, and whether my chain skills were completing. That is Episode 2.