[Ego]

Since Unzeal started a chanter compendium but has since been inactive for a rather long time i thought i would take some time to expand on his original work and update it with some of the newer info now available to the aion community. Hopefully this will go some way towards us being able to agree on some of the more hotly debated topics and gather our group discussions into a single place for new users to access.

A lot of the meat of this guide and its layout was originally posted by Unzeal, i have editted and cut some parts and added some parts of my own. Factual information will be posted in white, opinion from myself or others will be added in hot pink (i couldn't resist) as they are discussed.


Contents


* 1 Introduction
* 2 Lore and History
- 2.1 Current known lore.

* 3 The Basics
- 3.1 Benefits of beeing a Chanter
- 3.2 Weaknesses of beeing a Chanter
- 3.3 Mantras and You
- 3.4 Attack rotations

* 4 Stats and Stats Mechanics
- 4.1 Base Stats

* 5 Skill lists and resources
- 5.1 Stigma Skills In Depth

* 6 Equipment
-6.1 Introduction to the Chanter Equipment
-6.2 Manastone Builds
-6.3 Chanters and Crafting
-6.4 Item Enchantments

* 7 Strategies and Tips
-7.1 Levling Strategies
-7.2 Grinding Strategies
-7.3 PvE Strategies
+ 7.3.1 Healing Strategies
-7.4 PvP Strategies
+ 7.4.1 Strategies Vs. Certain Classes
-7.5 Keybindings

* 8 Theorycrafting

* 9 Current Bugs
o 9.1 Skill related bugs
o 9.2 Stat related bugs

* 10 Media

* 11 Links

* 12 Credits

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[U]1. Introduction[/U]

The Chanter Class Taken from AionOnline:

A good friend of mine once summed up the role of Chanter for me, and for whatever reason, I still remember his words today.

It`s about versatility, Sabahla. With one hand, the Chanter will bring down a staff on their enemy, while the other summons a shield to protect a fallen comrade, all the while shouting words of encouragement to the rest of his men.?
It wasn?t until two years later that I actually met a Chanter for the first time, and understood how little he was exaggerating. The Chanter?s ethos is one of duty and faith, disciplining his or her body and soul harshly. While their abilities may cross into several more specialised roles, still the chanter has unique skills that any group of adventurers would be grateful for.



Begining from the Priest sub-class the chanter is primarily a buffer for his or her group, through permanent "mantras" and shorter duration "words" he or she and increase his groups effectiveness in almost any desired field, from physical or magical damage and mitigation through to the speed at which people run, attack or cast spells. The chanter also brings the ability to heal to a group at a lesser power than the Cleric, while sufficient for a lot of content throughout Aion when paired with a Cleric as an off healer the Chanter can truely shine.

While Chanter's damage abilities are on the lower end of the charts compared to pure dps classes we have skills which apply useful debuffs to our targets and several chains which can result in high damage though on longer than usual cooldowns. With the ability to wear chain armour and wield either staves or a mace and shield combo we have the ability to gear for a more offensive or defensive role.

An excellent post dealing with the concept and play style of the chanter class as a whole: http://www.aionsourc...s-concepts.html

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[U]2. Lore and History[/U]
-2.1 Current known lore

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[U]3. The Basics[/U]

-3.1 Benefits of being a Chanter
-Mantras/Words that aides allies in battle
-Chain attacks that debuff enemies
-Moderate healing ability

-3.2 Weaknesses of being a Chanter
-Must be in melee to utilize debuffs and stuns
-Weak vs CC and kiting
-No detaunting abilities

Some chanter concerns well expressed: http://www.aionsourc...eta-boards.html

-3.3 Buffing and You
Both Cleric and Chanter is the sub-class of the Priest. But are they alike? No, while Clerics focus heavily on healing magic and some ranged damage spells/debuffs the chanters focus is providing his group buffs which range from moderate to extremely powerful. The first of these you will come across are Mantras, moderate buffs which you can maintain indefinately:

* Mantras are toggle abilities. you turn them on, they stay on until you turn them off or until you die.

* You can run up to three Mantra's at any one time, deactivating and activating the correct Mantra's at certain times will be key to playing a successful Chanter

* Mantras work in a 25m radius around your character for anyone who is currently in your group (not raid group). this radius is increased through various skillbooks as you level.


Mantras:

(Highest level example)

Victory Mantra
Shield Mantra
Magic Mantra
Celerity Mantra I - Skills - Aion
Revival Mantra
Clement Mind Mantra
Intensity Mantra
Protection Mantra
Enhancement Mantra I - Skills - Aion (stigma)
Invincibilty Mantra (stigma)

Though these effects seem small they do add up over time. While Celerity, Enhancement and Invincibilty are the best sets for group pvp all of the lesser mantras stack with Invincibity so in pve you can for example stack Victory and Invincibilty for even more damage.

Words(and a few others):

Word of Revival (basic hot)
Word of Protection (stigma)
Word of Wind (DP skill)
Word of Life (stigma)
Word of Quickness
Word of Inspiration (stigma)
Recovery Spell (stigma)
Swiftwing

These are the most powerful buff effects in the game (well not the basic hot), while a lot of them are stigma skills which we will discuss in detail later on some of note are Word of Wind a very powerful DP skill which is excellent for any fight, Word of Quickness which effects all casting including healing and Swiftwing, which started out life as a Mantra but was judged to powerful and demoted to a cooldown buff, an excellent group escape or rush skill.

Other longer duration buffs worth mentioning:

Blessing of Health II - Skills - Aion
Blessing of Rock I - Skills - Aion (stigma)

the stigma skill has a weaker baseline version we receive as a Priest, it stacks with the Blessing of Health buff but not the baseline Blessing of the Rock.


-3.4 Attack Rotations

There are two prefered methods of attack rotations, threaded autoattacks (AA) or skill spam.

In the threaded method you will allow an auto attack to fire then before the animation has a chance to start you will activate a skill, this allows your AA damage to hit but does not slow down your skill chains as long as you have the timing right (impossible to macro), then wait for another AA to to fire then overwrite this AA with the next in chain or the start of your next skill chain. This results in you gaining several AA's through out your skill rotation, during this cycle you will overwrite some AA's with secondary skills such as Pentacle Shock, Resonance Haze, Parrying Strike. These take the place of standard AA's as they do more damage or apply secondary effects which lead onto higher damage or less damage received.

the best combo of chanter attacks is Hallowed Strike, Booming Strike, Meteor Strike, Incandescent Blow. all of these are on an 8 second cooldown so allow you the easiest rotation threading AA's and longer cooldown abilities.

The threaded AA method remains untested into the higher levesl (post 30) so as you gain more skills and more attack speed gear this my no longer be favourable, i am certain however that with the correct timing that this method will always be more mana efficient than spamming.

Threading AA with video


In the skill spam method you fire off any and all abilites which become available during your combat as quickly as you can then fill in the remainder of the time with AA's until your skills become available again.

Personally i prefer the threaded AA method while other Chanters perfer the spam skills method, after testing both seem viable with very little difference. Threaded AA is more mana efficient though so if your tight on cash use this, if you can drink mana potions all day long spam away.

More detailed information can be found here: http://www.aionsourc...affs-1-5-a.html

G15 macro for zombie mode one button grinding:

Sirinia said:

Actually, the snippet i posted in the "Staffs in 1.5" is very close to the "slack grind" macro i normally used in c-aion while panning the camera for baddies ;)

But first, a little disclaimer:
G15 MACROS ARE NO REPLACEMENT FOR MANUAL PLAY AND LEARNING HOW TO DO SO! THEY ARE ONLY A NICE CONVENIENCE WHEN DOING REPETITIVE GRINDING THAT DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR FULL ATTENTION, AS WELL AS A MEANS TO SAVE YOUR FINGERS, WRISTS, ARMS AND SHOULDERS FROM PLAYING-FATIQUE AND RELATED PAINS.

ALSO, YOU CANNOT (AND SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT TO) BOT WITH THIS SO FORGET ABOUT IT!
- ALWAYS KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR SURROUNDINGS AND ANYTHING UNEXPECTED!

Here's the full version of the very simple G15 macro and how it works:
---------------------------
[down] 1
[up] 1
[down] 3
[up] 3
[down] 2
[up] 2
[down] 4
[up] 4
[down] 7
[up] 7
[down] Accent Aigu
[up] Accent Aigu
[down] 8
[up] 8
0.1 sec delay
---------------------------

This corresponds to the following, where the first part is the keybinding, the second is the (starter) skill on the bar.

1 - Autoattack
3 - Booming Strike
2 - Hallowed Strike / heaven's Judgment
4 - Meteor Strike / Incandescent Blow
7 - Parrying Strike
´ - Inescapable Judgment (accent aigu key)
8 - Resonance Haze


This particular macro is setup for mindless grinding, and as such does not go for max damage, but mitigation. Some might already be wondering if the order of the presses skills aren't upside down. If that was what you were guessing, you were absolute right. The reason is that since this macro is essentially a spam macro where all the skills you want macroed are pressed at once in a specific order, Aion can't handle (wont) remember them all. Instead, Aion remembers the last pressed key as the actual one, but also has a small buffer, so if the last pressed skill is not available, it will fire the one pressed before that and so on.

In this case it means that the macro will make sure Inescapable Judgment is used every time it's not on cooldown. It's mana costly, but also a good chunk of damage and at a ~20% stun rate it's great damage mitigation for grinding. Second, the resonance haze (knockdown reactive) is up for priority. They could be switched around, but both happen so fast that it doesn't matter much. And you can actually stun a target which is knocked down, you just wont see the "stars" above the targets head before the get-back-up animation is done.

Then comes parrying strike, which is on lower priority as the cooldown is longer and a setup like this will sometimes save your cooldown for later if either inescapable judgment and/or resonance haze has gone off.

After this comes the actual combos following the same pattern, and since a starter automatically branches out to the next default, there is no need to be specific unless branching away from the default (as is the case with 3 - booming strike). Now, as you also might have noticed by now, the meteor chain has higher priority than the hallowed strike chain. There is a reason for this. The reason is, that the meteor chain takes longer to execute than the hallowed strike chain when pentacle shock activates. To avoid a hallowed strike starter to overwrite a potential pentacle shock (and thus good damage and knockdown), they are arranged like this.

Also you might notice that after auto attack, booming strike although being a strong debuff, has a lower priority than heavens judgment. This is again for damage mitigation/stun purposes. Damage is good, but as most of you know damage isn't the chanters strongest aspect, but we do have a fair few options for stun and knockdown. As such i value an extra stun higher than the debuff applied earlier.

Lastly, autoattack is on lowest priority but still pressed every cycle. The reason is simple: Even through multiple patches, autoattack still bugs here and there for a multitude of classes. Spamming it however ensures that you have it running and doing it's job whenever it can. The same was true when i played my ranger. But spamming autoattack between skills for hours and hours DOES hurt your fingers and more after a while. So this is also solved here.

Now here is the MOST important part of this whole setup once again:

G15 MACROS ARE NO REPLACEMENT FOR MANUAL PLAY AND LEARNING HOW TO DO SO! THEY ARE ONLY A NICE CONVENIENCE WHEN DOING REPETITIVE GRINDING THAT DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR FULL ATTENTION, AS WELL AS A MEANS TO SAVE YOUR FINGERS, WRISTS, ARMS AND SHOULDERS FROM PLAYING-FATIQUE AND RELATED PAINS.

ALSO, YOU CANNOT (AND SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT TO) BOT WITH THIS SO FORGET ABOUT IT!
- ALWAYS KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR SURROUNDINGS AND ANYTHING UNEXPECTED!

This is still up for discussion so if you have any input please feel free to bring it up, any detailed testing is welcomed and will be duly recognised by the community.

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4. Stats and Stats Mechanics

All Priests start with these stats:

Starting Stats:
Strength : 95
Constitution: 95
Accuracy: 100
Agility: 100
Intellect: 100
Spirit: 110

* 4.1 Base Stats
Details for each of the stats:

Agility: Decreases damage received from PC's by 1% per 10 points
Knowledge: Increases damage against PC's by 1% per 10 points


Gerbator has found an impressing number of tests at this address. The results are consistent with results he posted earlier, while at the same time being much better (more hits analized). He took them as replacement for former test data:

Code:

Crit Rate # hits # crits %

300 50000 15485 30.97%
320 50000 15840 31.68%
340 50000 16649 33.30%
360 50000 18045 36.09%
380 50000 18903 37.81%
400 50000 20361 40.72%
420 50000 21058 42.12%
440 50000 22014 44.03%
460 50000 21833 43.67%
480 50000 22328 44.66%
500 50000 22980 45.96%
520 50000 24027 48.05%
540 50000 24367 48.73%
560 50000 25017 50.03%
580 50000 25540 51.08%
604 50000 25921 51.84%
619 50000 26027 52.05%
634 50000 26142 52.28%
649 50000 26344 52.69%

What shines through these results, and here Gebator also quotes the site:

* from 300 to 440 in Crit Rate, each 10 points increase the probability of landing a critical hit by 1%
* from 440 to 600, each each 10 points increase the probability of landing a critical hit by 0,5%
* from 600 to 649, each each 10 points increase the probability of landing a critical hit by 0,2%


In the original text Gebator tries to go further, taking the risk to be mistaken. This part is in a separate post.

2.5 Accuracy, Block, Parry and Evasion

Gebator gives links to their test results: Tests made in CBT5 / Tests made in CBT6

Preconditions:

* To be able to block, you must have a shield and Block > Accuracy of attacker
* To be able to parry, no need to be equipped. However it is necessary that Parry > Accuracy of the attacker
* To be able to evade, the only precondition is that Evasion > Accuracy of the attacker

Maximum values:

* On average, not more than 50% of attacks can be blocked
* On average, not more than 40% of attacks can be parried
* On average, not more than 30% of attacks can be evaded


Considering Block/Parry/Evasion in isolation:

Gebator gives the general formula ( - Accuracy) / 10 for the probability, that must then be checked against above maximum values. Example: If the attacker has 500 Accuracy and the defender 800 Block, then the defender will block (800-500) / 10 = 30 percent of attacks.

Consequently he deduces the maximum probabilities are reached:

* For evading: With 300 more Evasion than Accuracy of the opponent.
* For parrying: With 400 more Parry than Accuracy of the opponent.
* For blocking: With 500 more Block than Accuracy of the opponent.


Interplay of these statistics:

Note that Evasion has priority over Parry, and Parry has priority over Block. The game makes a first random drawing to test, if there is an evasion or not, then a second drawing to test parry or not, then a third drawing to test block or not.

Thus when speaking of 40% block chance, we speak of conditional probability: we have 40% chance to block, under the condition of having previously missed the test for evasion, then missed the test for parry.

For example, let evasion chance be 30%, parry chance 40%, and block chance 50%:

* Evasion comes first, thus we actually evade in 30% of cases.
* In order to parry, the evasion test must have missed (70% probability). In practice: 70% * 40% = 28% of cases.
* In order to block, the evasion test must have missed (70% probability), as well as the test for parry (60% probability). Thus block happens in 70% * 60* 50% = 21% of cases.
* Consequently in total we have 30% + 28% +21% = 79% probability of the attack being evaded or parried or blocked; Thus 21% probability to suffer from the full force of the attack.


2.6 Magical Resist and Magical Accuracy

Gerbator gives a link to the major part of test results.

Base principle: The pair Magical Resist / Magical Accuracy works in the same manner as the pair Block / Accuracy for instance. Said differently, for each 10 points Magical Restist is superior to Magical Accuracy of the attacker, you gain 1% of probability that the spell will fail/fizzle.

Example: Player A has 500 M.Res and his enemy has 345 M.Acc -> (500 -345) / 10 = 15,5 -> Player A "blocks" spells of his enemy with a 15,5% probability.

Differences for specific spells:

The tests the group has done in CBT6 mostly utilize the spell Flame Bolt I, an example for a simple spell that only does damage. In consequence, informations concerning this spell are precise and the spell works exactly according to the base principle given above. Evidently it's also the case for all other spells of this kind, thus a big number of them.

Gerbator says that other tests have been done in order to measure the precision of the spells Restraint, Sleep, Curse: Tree and Ice Chain (effect of freeze only), but they take an insane amount of time to do, because of the long cool-downs. Less tests could be done, hence our results are imprecise.

What seems certain, is that their success-rate [Ed original: "precision"] varies in the same way as for simple spells like Flame Bolt. Said differently, if M.Acc of the attacker increases by 100, then the success-rate also increases by 10% for both cases.

What seems less certain, is the existence or non-existence of a malus for CC. Accourding to their results, Curse: Tree fizzles 10% more frequently than Flame Bolt. The freeze effect of Ice Chain presumably also. The problem is that we have a lack of measurements on this subject. Therefore it is possibly only a false impression, or the malus could be employed in places, where you don't expect it. In brief, the last word is not spoken on CC.

while more testing would be required on this for other stats thanks to raeyne for the hook up to this post: http://www.aionsourc...uly-2009-a.html
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5. Skill lists and resources

The complete list of all available for Chanter may be found here: Chanter - Skills - Aion
The generic Priest skills that you use in the starting area can be found here: Priest - Skills - Aion


Excellent Stigma calculator with skill details: Stigma Builder

Test Build Thread: http://www.aionsourc...d-postings.html


Solo soldier build: this is the generally accepted build for damage while solo, this somewhat gimps your buffing ability so you will not be as useful in groups. i'd use this for solo grinding and maybe the odd bit of solo ganking. Most of the abilities are self explanatory or are requirements for the advanced stigmas but no chanter should be without the stigma hot word of recovery in any build, soul crush allows you to chain off a stun (parry strike f ex) followed by soul crush followed by resonance haze for a good bit of burst.

Group support build: this is the generally accepted build for group support and buffing, while you can still kill things solo with this build if your grinding on mobs something with more damage stigma's may be more effective. This build is heavily favours stigma's which are useful in pvp, yet again the majority of them are requirements of the advanced stigmas, with the word of recovery spell added in to boost your healing power. Enhancement mantra is added as the last stigma slot as its generally accepted as the best stigma to run for pvp along with Invincibility and Celerity.

obviously any stigma build you choose to take with the advanced stigmas will only have space for two other stigmas and word of recovery is really such a good stigma you cannot be without it. thus far i have not tested any pve stigma builds however if i really had so many shards that i could change at a whim i'd probably drop enhancement mantra out for one of the curtains or more healing ability, with the current shard availability however i think most people will be running dungeons with their pvp setup anyway.

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6. Equipment

* 6.1 Introduction to the Chanter equipment

Your basic choices for equipment are either a Staff or a Mace/Shield combo, personally i prefer a good staff, knockdowns are very handy on a class with very little cc and i don't feel the benefit you gain from a shield is tangable enough for the ammount of manastones you would have to use to make it worth while. For armour you have a choice of Cloth, Leather or Chain. Most people will go for chain for the higher defense and the concentration stat, arguments can be made for wearing cloth for a larger mana pool but imho this is pointless considering a lot of chain has +mana on it anyway. Leather may be a good option if you want to solo dps as a chanter but testing needs to be carried out to determin if a) the loss of pdef is mitigated by the added evade and b) if leather actually has the stats required to pump your dps above anything achievable with chain.

While the debate rages on this post goes some way to analysing the benefits and drawbacks of wearing leather insted of chain as a method for finding gear with better stat distribution for a melee class: Leather vs Chain

Another handy thread to read through comparing the base qualities of staff with parry or mace/shield with block: Parry vs Block

-6.2 Manastone Builds

NOTE: THIS WILL NEVER BE A FIXED RESPONSE SUBJECT, ALL MANASTONE SLOTTING IS SUBJECT TO PERSONAL PREFERENCE

the general consensus is to to gem for crit to the soft cap (which is 440) and then add in some more offensive or defensive stones, attack stones seem to be popular with more aggressive chanter players and a mix of parry, magical defense and/or hp is popular with more group orientated chanters. While it has been suggested that you can stat for parry and mdef in the same gear build Sirinia suggests having two armour setups and using one for parry and one for mdef as the situation requires.

as a whole most classes entirely ignore the benefits that accuracy mana stones can bring, i have not done any testing at all into this but i recall Kandrah mentioning that she noticed a difference in combat with more accuracy manastones slotted, this may be another option to test in the future

With the advent of Eikoi's thread regarding the use of leather armour as a chanter there is now a strong case for using up several of your manastone slots for evasion if you should follow the leather armour route, these can either take the place of parry manastones or you can apply both to your armour to really up your defense into the higher end. of course as we already know evasion is checked before parry so having a high evasion does devalue your parry manastones somewhat and will result in you seeing less parries as you evade, this could cause some problems with your off parry abilities but with them being on longer cooldowns anyway i cannot forsee and problems with you not being able to use them within a few seconds of the cooldown finishing.

Crit stones: As we have already mentioned the crit soft cap is 440 after which point you begin to experience diminishing returns. with the best gear currently available you can reach about 230 crit rating (i used the lvl 50 orange abyss gear for calculations so there may be some slightly better but more obscure gear available). Using the best crit stones available you would need 14 stones to make up the 210 remaining to get to the soft cap (give or take)

Parry stones: The ideal ammount of parry manastones will take you to exactly 400 more than your opponents accuracy according to the stat calculations further up in the compendium.i'm hazzarding a guess that well geared oppenents will be looking at a maximum of 1000 accuracy with no additional stones slotted, the best orange level 50 staves give you 800 parry rating give or take ranging from 776 to 820. with our parry buff at 300 this takes us to 1100 give or take or a 10% chance to parry an attack, add in an extra 100 (ish) for a good belt and helm and you have a 20% chance to parry. to make up the additional 200 rating required to hit the parry cap of 40% you would need to use 8 of the best parry stones.

Of course this subject is still very open for discussion

-6.3 Chanters and Crafting

More detailed information is required on "Chanter" crafting professions. i have personally tried Handicrafting, Armoursmithing, Alchemy and Cooking but wouldn't like to venture writing another guild for any individual profession, if you have one or know of a good one feel free to let us know.

-6.3.1 Item Enchantments

Here is all you possible need too know about Enchantments, Godstones and Manastones!
Krinadon`s Item Enchantments Guide: http://www.aionsourc...-godstones.html

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7. Strategies and Tips

-7.1 Levling Strategies

Under investigation, join in at: http://www.aionsourc...tml#post1198531

-7.2 Grinding Strategies

Since 1-20 is quite easy we'll focus on everything after 20, i didn't do a lot of questing so i'm not going to run through anything specific but its worth while doing the campaign quests, the spy/infiltration quests are pretty fun with a group and there are the odd quests scattered about on your travels that are worth doing. Also i'm playing Elyos right now, i doubt i am gonna level up again on the asmo side but someone might be able to fill in some info. But lets focus on the grind...

20-25 Virago in Theobomos die quickly and give good xp, excellent grind spot

25-30 the abyss opens up, do the training ground instance as much as you can but there are a lot of excellent repeatable quests in the lower abyss which are worth while. head south from terminon landing first and do some repeatables available, as you get higher level you will want to head towards sulphur fort and do the elim's repeatables that are nearby, then a little north to the elyos guard tower and do those repeatables.

30-35 try to get into some fire temple groups. the upper abyss has a lot of mobs which are grindable at this level, heading towards the ruins of roah fort and then moving to the scattered islands to the south. the ghosts and drakes have low hp so are excellent to grind on. other than that there are some kerubials in herion near the observatory which are easy to kill and have a decent spawn rate.

35-40 start doing aether labs as soon as you have finished the prequest. the upper abyss once again has a excellent mobs for grinding, flametribe and klaw (how have a repeatable for lvl 38 from the upper layer teleporter) on krotan rock are good for grinding. if you head a little east or south from krotan rock there are a lot of level 36-40 balaur which are great for grinding but also great for getting ganked at. back in herion there are banshee's and spiders north of the observatory in the farm area, these die fast as well and are always worth a grinding session.

40-45 look for groups for steelrake middle. grinding becomes a pain at this level but the water spirits on the northern coast in herion have been good for me. once you feel comfortable taking higher level mobs you can move down to theobomos and start grinding in the southern part of the zone, basilisks to the west of the camp are good and have low hp, there are some 46 virago to the north of the camp which are low hp but drain mana.

45+ keep getting steelrake groups, enjoy the dredgion to break the xping, start looking for groups for indratu grinding and higher instances. the coin repeatable is available and pretty much all your time outside of instances will be spent grinding this quest. other than that theobomos has a large ammount of humanoids to grind or if you are feeling brave you can try the core abyss.

-7.3 PvE Strategies

More links for dungeon runs please

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* 7.4 PvP Strategies

* 7.4.1 Strategies Vs. Certain Classes

Basic translated guide from TTB: http://www.aionsourc...hanter-pvp.html

while TTB's translation focuses on endgame i thought i would add in some lower level observations.

Warriors: easy kills below 30

Templar: pre 30 - takes a while but you should be able to deal enough damage to kill him while your hot and the odd heal keeps you alive.

Gladiator: pre 30 - easy kills, watch for the knockdown and keep your hp above 50% until they get more skills post 30 they can't really out dps your heals.

Scouts: moderate below 30, keep moving to avoid them getting an easy stealth opener, binding word is probably your most useful skill.

Ranger: you will get kited, chances are you can't kill them as they will escape. as long as you keep your cool and do not panic they shouldn't be able to kill you without some very lucky crits, keep your hp above 50% and watch for the stuns. binding word might let you get the kill and a good parrying strike can let you get them low before they run if you time it well

Assassin: this will hurt, but if you use your parry buff and have binding word equipped they should be killable, once again they can escape but its harder for a melee class. keep some anti shock scrolls on hand to deal with burst and maintain steady dps until they panic and flee, then binding word and as much damage as you can. sometimes you have to binding word early to give yourself chance to heal.

Mages: moderate to hard depending on skill, you HAVE to break their shield asap to make them panic and give you the upper hand, a good mage will just stay calm and cc you so you have to choose running or dying.

Sorcerer: if your fighting a sorc and they get the jump on you it depends on the player, a good sorc you have to run or your dead, a bad sorc and you can heal up a bit then go in for a bit of damage they have to much cc to kill solo so they will nearly always escape

Spiritmaster: chanter bane, they will strip your buffs and cc you. use your healing pots, anti shock scrolls and run away with your speed mantra. you can kill a bad SM but you need to kill their pet in seconds or they will turn the tide on you

Priests: mirror matches are boring

Cleric: it is possible if you outlast his mana, but really a hella boring fight. every cleric i see waves at me and i wave at him, then we move away from each other incase either of us has friends. even if you can outlast him his root means he can nearly always escape

Chanter: gear and skill, i'd put myself against any equal or slightly higher level chanter on my server and expect to win, but the ammount of time it takes is boring so just pass it on by unless you know they suck

overall we can kill any class one on one if we play well, however stopping people escaping is our biggest problem. anti shock scrolls are a god send for surviving sin/ranger/sorc/sm burst and you might as well bend over and kiss your arse goodbye if you don't have any healing pots to remove cc. i rarely ever actually manage to kill someone 1v1 unless i have my 2k dp skill available and use it at the right time, we are very very prone to our lack of proper cc until we get a ranged stun at 42.

hopefully we will all be able to expand this section as time goes by...

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7.5 Keybindings and Macro's

Key-binding guide by Logandilts: http://www.aionsourc...e-keybinds.html

Currently the only macro i use on my chanter is to combine the usage of your two longer duration buff skills onto one key so you can just run through your group and rebuff quickly. you can make this macro easily by dragging the skills from your skill list into the macro windown and typing out the delay manually, though it is possible to make a longer version of this macro with /select %group1 (macro) /select %group2... etc. i find this macro cumbersome to run and hard to type out correctly to fit into the macro box.

Rebuff
/Blessing of Health
/delay 1.2
/Blessing of Rock

Darkmaka said:

First I'll explain Variables for all.

[%Variable1] gonna be remplaced by the text of Variable 1 in the Variable table of the Macro UI.
For set a macro, just open the chat and type:
/Variable [0~9] [name]
Exemple for set Blessing of Life I (the skill name must be exact) on Variable 1:
/Variable 1 Blessing of Life I

So, I setBlessing of Life I for Variable1 and Blessing of Rock I for Variable2.

The macros:

Self Buff => For self buffs or refresh buffs

/Select OWNNAME => Select the character named, remplace OwnName by Your Name
/Skill [%Variable1] => Skill Cast Variable1
/delay 1 => Wait 1 sec
/Skill [%Variable2] => Skill Cast Variable2
/delay 1
/Skill Promise of Wind I => Skill Cast Promise of Wind I
/delay 1
/Skill Rage Spell I => Skill Cast Rage Spell I

I use same macro with next after death or loging in:
/delay 1
/Skill Magic Mantra I => Skill Cast Magic Mantra I
/delay 1
/Skill Shield Mantra I
/delay 1
/Skill Victory Mantra I


GR Health => for buff the party with Blessing of Health

/Select [%Group1] => Select 1st person on the party, not you but the 1st guy on party list (like hit the F2 key)
/Skill [%Variable1] => Skill Cast Variable1
/Delay 1 => Wait 1 sec
/Select [%Group2] => Select 2nd person on the party
/Skill [%Variable1] => Skill Cast Variable1
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group3] => Select 3rd person on the party
/Skill [%Variable1]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group4] => Select 4th person on the party
/Skill [%Variable1]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group5] => Select 5th person on the party
/Skill [%Variable1]
/Delay 1


GR Rock => for buff the party with Blessing of Rock

/Select [%Group1] => Select 1st person on the party, not you but the 1st guy on party list (like hit the F2 key)
/Skill [%Variable2] => Skill Cast Variable2
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group2] => Select 2nd person on the party
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group3] => Select 3rd person on the party
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group4] => Select 4th person on the party
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group5] => Select 5th person on the party
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1


GR Buff
Group Rock & Health cast on party members.
Because of the macro's character limit, we can't put both macros in only 1.
So I put macros on an other bar, and do a macro for cast them.
I putmacros on the 11th & the 12th slots of the first bar of the 0 bar tab.
The 11h and 12th are the two last slots of the bar.
The first bar is this on.

and the 0 bar tab is the tab that you have by typing Shift+0.

Then the macro is like this:
/Quickbar 1 0 11
/Quickbar 1 0 12
1 = bar
0 = bar tab
12= icone slot
11=icone slot


Resurection => For tell to the target & the party that you are casting Light of Resurrection I on him.

/whisper [%Target] [charname:Resurrection incomming...;1 1 0]
/group [charname:Resurrection on;1 0 0] [%Target]
/Skill Light of Resurrection I

/whisper [%Target] => For whisp to the target

[charname:Resurrection incomming...;1 1 0]
For coloring the chat.
It works like this:
[charname:TEXT;1 1 0] = > Remplace the text by that you want -- 1 1 0 is the color code.

/group [charname:Resurrection on;1 0 0] [%Target] = > For tell to the party that you are resing the target.

Some other color codes:
1 1 1 =====White
1 0 0 =====Red
0 1 0 =====Darkgreen
0 0 1 =====Darkblue
1 1 0 =====Yellow
0 1 1 =====Skyblue/teal
0 0.5 1 =====Normal blue
1 0 1 =====Purple
1 0.4 0 =====Orange
1 0.2 0.6 =====Pink
1 0 0.49 =====DarkPurple
1 0.84 0 =====Golden
0.75 0.75 0.75 =====Sliver
0.49 1 0.5 =====LightGreen
0.91 0.66 1 =====LightPurple

obviously we're still open for suggestions on chanter macro's, if anyone finds out a way to cancel rage spell so you can cast a heal without having to click the buff off manually you win the internet.

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8. Theorycrafting

Reserved for unproved articles requiring citation

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9. Current Bugs

Currently Mantras do not always work during flight when you and your group mate are at different elevations. We assume this is being looked into.

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10. Media

Feel free to post a FEW of the best vids you think should be added in, perferably keep flaming to a minimal.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11. Links

Eikoi's chanter stuff a well written and up to date website on general chanter info

Hellbound - Aion Legion and Community Really helped me out with info when i was first looking into Aion

a good general FAQ for chanter related questions: http://www.aionsourc...er-related.html

Feel free to post links to any other outside sources that the community may find useful.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12. Credits
Thank you all for this vaulable information!

Unzeal (For making the start)
AionSource(With all it`s awsome members)
AionArmoury(For some info)
Kridadon(Item Enchantments Guide)
Logandilts (Keybinding Guide)
TTB (kick *** translating, Chanter pvp Guide)
Azza (K-Aion info miner extraordinaire)
Raeyne (excellent info and advice)
Eikoi (well versed second opinion)
Darkmaka (macros)
Kandra (tireless but realistic defense of our class)
Sirina (g15 macro)

This post has been edited by Ego: 13 November 2009 - 02:14 PM

[MadMaxx]

Chanters
======
"We don't make the pwnage you see, we make the pwnage you see better."™

[raeyne]

Quote

-3.1 Benefits of being a Chanter
-Above avarage melee dps

really?

and for another useful macro

[quote="Useful Cleric Macros Guide"]
b) Healing an enemy's target and re-select the enemy:

/Select [%Target'sTarget]
/Skill "Heal Name" "Rank"
/Delay 2
/Select [%PreviousTarget]

This macro is very useful if you have 2 off-tanks or find yourself in a group with people who pull aggro off the tank/s frequently.

Furthermore, you can still heal yourself along with the tank if you happen to take damage.[/quote]

[quote="Useful Cleric Macros Guide"]
c) Healing a group member and then re-targetting your previous target:

/Select [%Group"Number"]
/Skill "Name"
/Delay 2
/Select [%PreviousTarget]

Alternatively, you can also /Select "Player Name"[/quote]

As for stats mechanics:

Quote

2.4 Crit Rate

Gerbator has found an impressing number of tests at this address. The results are consistent with results he posted earlier, while at the same time being much better (more hits analized). He took them as replacement for former test data:

Code:

Crit Rate # hits # crits %

300 50000 15485 30.97%
320 50000 15840 31.68%
340 50000 16649 33.30%
360 50000 18045 36.09%
380 50000 18903 37.81%
400 50000 20361 40.72%
420 50000 21058 42.12%
440 50000 22014 44.03%
460 50000 21833 43.67%
480 50000 22328 44.66%
500 50000 22980 45.96%
520 50000 24027 48.05%
540 50000 24367 48.73%
560 50000 25017 50.03%
580 50000 25540 51.08%
604 50000 25921 51.84%
619 50000 26027 52.05%
634 50000 26142 52.28%
649 50000 26344 52.69%

What shines through these results, and here Gebator also quotes the site:

* from 300 to 440 in Crit Rate, each 10 points increase the probability of landing a critical hit by 1%
* from 440 to 600, each each 10 points increase the probability of landing a critical hit by 0,5%
* from 600 to 649, each each 10 points increase the probability of landing a critical hit by 0,2%


In the original text Gebator tries to go further, taking the risk to be mistaken. This part is in a separate post.

2.5 Accuracy, Block, Parry and Evasion

Gebator gives links to their test results: Tests made in CBT5 / Tests made in CBT6

Preconditions:

* To be able to block, you must have a shield and Block > Accuracy of attacker
* To be able to parry, no need to be equipped. However it is necessary that Parry > Accuracy of the attacker
* To be able to evade, the only precondition is that Evasion > Accuracy of the attacker

Maximum values:

* On average, not more than 50% of attacks can be blocked
* On average, not more than 40% of attacks can be parried
* On average, not more than 30% of attacks can be evaded


Considering Block/Parry/Evasion in isolation:

Gebator gives the general formula ( - Accuracy) / 10 for the probability, that must then be checked against above maximum values. Example: If the attacker has 500 Accuracy and the defender 800 Block, then the defender will block (800-500) / 10 = 30 percent of attacks.

Consequently he deduces the maximum probabilities are reached:

* For evading: With 300 more Evasion than Accuracy of the opponent.
* For parrying: With 400 more Parry than Accuracy of the opponent.
* For blocking: With 500 more Block than Accuracy of the opponent.


Interplay of these statistics:

Note that Evasion has priority over Parry, and Parry has priority over Block. The game makes a first random drawing to test, if there is an evasion or not, then a second drawing to test parry or not, then a third drawing to test block or not.

Thus when speaking of 40% block chance, we speak of conditional probability: we have 40% chance to block, under the condition of having previously missed the test for evasion, then missed the test for parry.

For example, let evasion chance be 30%, parry chance 40%, and block chance 50%:

* Evasion comes first, thus we actually evade in 30% of cases.
* In order to parry, the evasion test must have missed (70% probability). In practice: 70% * 40% = 28% of cases.
* In order to block, the evasion test must have missed (70% probability), as well as the test for parry (60% probability). Thus block happens in 70% * 60* 50% = 21% of cases.
* Consequently in total we have 30% + 28% +21% = 79% probability of the attack being evaded or parried or blocked; Thus 21% probability to suffer from the full force of the attack.


2.6 Magical Resist and Magical Accuracy

Gerbator gives a link to the major part of test results.

Base principle: The pair Magical Resist / Magical Accuracy works in the same manner as the pair Block / Accuracy for instance. Said differently, for each 10 points Magical Restist is superior to Magical Accuracy of the attacker, you gain 1% of probability that the spell will fail/fizzle.

Example: Player A has 500 M.Res and his enemy has 345 M.Acc -> (500 -345) / 10 = 15,5 -> Player A "blocks" spells of his enemy with a 15,5% probability.

Differences for specific spells:

The tests the group has done in CBT6 mostly utilize the spell Flame Bolt I, an example for a simple spell that only does damage. In consequence, informations concerning this spell are precise and the spell works exactly according to the base principle given above. Evidently it's also the case for all other spells of this kind, thus a big number of them.

Gerbator says that other tests have been done in order to measure the precision of the spells Restraint, Sleep, Curse: Tree and Ice Chain (effect of freeze only), but they take an insane amount of time to do, because of the long cool-downs. Less tests could be done, hence our results are imprecise.

What seems certain, is that their success-rate [Ed original: "precision"] varies in the same way as for simple spells like Flame Bolt. Said differently, if M.Acc of the attacker increases by 100, then the success-rate also increases by 10% for both cases.

What seems less certain, is the existence or non-existence of a malus for CC. Accourding to their results, Curse: Tree fizzles 10% more frequently than Flame Bolt. The freeze effect of Ice Chain presumably also. The problem is that we have a lack of measurements on this subject. Therefore it is possibly only a false impression, or the malus could be employed in places, where you don't expect it. In brief, the last word is not spoken on CC.

source: http://www.aionsourc...uly-2009-a.html by SeismoGraf
I believe these are the few stats that chanters might wanna know about

edit:add stats mechanic quote+link

This post has been edited by raeyne: 14 September 2009 - 03:48 PM

[Ego]

raeyne said:

really?

was in the original compendium, seemed fair enough to leave it in since we do some dps.

will edit the macro's in tomorrow when i get back on my pc, on the mobile atm so its a pita to edit. nice crit info as well forgot that was on the forums, i'll link it in insted of putting the whole table in, will save on the space.

[raeyne]

Ego said:

was in the original compendium, seemed fair enough to leave it in since we do some dps.

will edit the macro's in tomorrow when i get back on my pc, on the mobile atm so its a pita to edit. nice crit info as well forgot that was on the forums, i'll link it in insted of putting the whole table in, will save on the space.

I do agree on DOING SOME DPS but.... I don't think it would be above average at all (unless you are talking first 20 levels) so it's better to cross that point as being benefit?:sigh:

Oh and I think putting whole table in is better, cos if you actually check it out, that link OP is a REALLY REALLY REALLY long post :sparkles:

[Crimsonyoshi]

Have a look at this
http://www.aionsourc...er-related.html

Also chanters do below average dps because we are the buffing class in the game. Our power comes from buffing everyone else which makes us useful in say a group of 6. The dps loss from taking out one pure dps class and replacing them with a chanter is a lot less when you factor in the chanter's mantras to buff everyone else. It's more beneficial for a chanter to be in a group of 6 for the buffing of others, but again because of it our dps that we do is much lower than average.

[Ego]

i'll pop a link in for your faq, trying to keep the main article as factual as possible though. while your thread does indeed give the basic answers to a lot of the questions we field daily on these forums it is mostly a personal view on the chanter rather than exploring the cold math of the class which will perhaps give us a greater understanding of what we are actually debating.

if you all find above average dps so offensive btw i'll remove it.

[raeyne]

it's not offensive =O
it just does not seem to be true (factual, as you put it)

edit: i think you should utilise BOLD and UNDERLINE function to make reading easier (e.g. bold and underline all sub-topics and bold all important point)

This post has been edited by raeyne: 14 September 2009 - 05:08 PM

[Ego]

yeah, it needs some editting. i knocked it together in about 20 mins today at work. the above average dps statement was in unzeals original compendium but i'll edit it out. good to see people coming out with typeface info insted of arguing about content though :)

like i said i'm hoping to keep it factual then link into the rare gem of a strong discussion on the forums that doesn't devolve into arguments about class balance. with luck we can have some information about what a chanter actually does and not what it should do.

[Meringue]

This looks promising, awesome already. I subscribed the thread until it's stickied. =)

[Suzeki]

This is a pretty helpful post Ego. I was going to point out the 'above average dps' quote too, but it seems to have already been done. I really feel Raeyne's contribution is extremely significant too. I didn't know the evasion/parry/block priority system was in additive succession, that really makes it much more valuable in terms of mitigation. I would be curious to see a full mail, mace/shield gear set up with HP and mitigation stones. Paired with some of our parry/block/hp increasing self-buffs this may present more than a moderate level of survivability.

As for the CC resist malus, I wouldn't be surprised at all. It would make sense to have snares and CCs possess a passive chance to be resisted as opposed to damage attacks. With a 15% chance to resist say, flamebolt, you may have a 20% chance to resist sleep from the same target.

[Eikoi]

Subscribed as well. I'm doing a lot of my own work over at SkyChanter, but I try to repost stuff there here for more exposure.

[raeyne]

Suzeki said:

TI really feel Raeyne's contribution is extremely significant too. I didn't know the evasion/parry/block priority system was in additive succession, that really makes it much more valuable in terms of mitigation. I would be curious to see a full mail, mace/shield gear set up with HP and mitigation stones. Paired with some of our parry/block/hp increasing self-buffs this may present more than a moderate level of survivability.

As for the CC resist malus, I wouldn't be surprised at all. It would make sense to have snares and CCs possess a passive chance to be resisted as opposed to damage attacks. With a 15% chance to resist say, flamebolt, you may have a 20% chance to resist sleep from the same target.

Not mine, simply quoting over from another thread :3
Subscribed and vote for sticky!!!
:sparkles: completion pl0x :sparkles:

[AsmodaeMyke]

Nicely written. This should be stickied.

[Li0n]

Quote

-3.4 Attack Rotations
Personally i prefer the threaded AA method while other Chanters perfer the spam skills method, after testing both seem viable with very little difference. Threaded AA is more mana efficient though so if your tight on cash use this, if you can drink mana potions all day long spam away.

Can you explain threaded AA method?

[Eikoi]

AA =Auto attack

By waiting until you see the animation for an AA, and 'threading' combo skills between the animations. Since you wait here and there to expend MP, you can strech your MP pool out longer.

[Ego]

i'll add a bit more info about attack rotations while i'm editting, its going to have to wait till i can get to a computer that i can access from. i'm still on the mobile atm, bloody work pc's.

[Darkmaka]

For my own, I've made those macros:

Variable1 = Blessing of Health I
Variable2 = Blessing of Rock I
/*##################################################*/
Self Buff

/Select OWNNAME
/Skill [%Variable1]
/delay 1
/Skill [%Variable2]
/delay 1
/Skill Promise of Wind I
/delay 1
/Skill Rage Spell I
/delay 1
/Skill Magic Mantra I
/delay 1
/Skill Shield Mantra I
/delay 1
/Skill Victory Mantra I
/*##################################################*/

/*##################################################*/
GR Health

/Select [%Group1]
/Skill [%Variable1]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group2]
/Skill [%Variable1]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group3]
/Skill [%Variable1]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group4]
/Skill [%Variable1]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group5]
/Skill [%Variable1]
/Delay 1
/*##################################################*/

/*##################################################*/
GR Rock

/Select [%Group1]
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group2]
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group3]
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group4]
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1
/Select [%Group5]
/Skill [%Variable2]
/Delay 1
/*##################################################*/

/*##################################################*/
GR Buff
Groupe Rock & Health

/Quickbar 1 0 11 (where is the GR Health macro)

/Quickbar 1 0 12 (where is the GR Rock macro)
/*##################################################*/

/*##################################################*/
Resurection

/whisper [%Target] [charname:Resurrection incomming...;1 1 0]
/group [charname:Resurrection on;1 0 0] [%Target]
/Skill Light of Resurrection I
/*##################################################*/

1 sec delay works for Buffs and Mantras

[Ego]

updated to everything posted thus far.

Could you explain how those macro's work Dark? i understand the variable component but they still seem over long and clunky for any kind of practical use. On a personal note as well i found while working out my keybindings that i could not afford the qbar space for anything more than a single buffing macro which was why i opted for the two cast macro and single targetting, the macro also has the advantage of working out of group so you can target someone you are running past and drop a couple of buffs on them without stopping.

the ress macro is excellent btw, without an addon to whispercast i'd say its probably one of the more useful macros to let other healers know you are rezzing someone and to let that person know they can stop pming you for a rezz. might work on it a bit in release to drop a note in the healer channel or in a shout to alert other healers of your intentions, saves time on multiple people casting the same spell on the same target.

[Li0n]

Eikoi said:

AA =Auto attack

By waiting until you see the animation for an AA, and 'threading' combo skills between the animations. Since you wait here and there to expend MP, you can strech your MP pool out longer.

Ahh, excellent. Yes, I found myself doing this method. Not having enough skills to spam.

I also noticed I could potentially interrupt my targets abilities if I styled, or was this just a coincidence? I seem to recall interrupting on an AA as well. Perhaps that theory is out the window as well.