Spiritmasters rely on taking control of fierce creatures from four cardinal elements of Earth, Water, Wind and Fire. They can summon these elemental spirits and use them to their advantage. Spiritmasters can only summon one elemental at a time and their versatility lies in the type of spirit/elemental they summon in specific situations. Each elemental has their own strenghts, weaknesses, unique skills and abilities. Earth elementals are made for melee combat. With their high vitality, physical and magical defense, earth elementals can serve as spiritmaster’s personal tanks. Fire spirits have close-ranged, high burst damage with average stats and lower than average magical defense. Water spirits are usually used for healing that has exceptional magical defense but lower than average stats. Wind spirits are primarily used for magical offense, but can be fast melee attackers as well. Elementals undergo four stages of growth. With each stage, they grow larger and fiercer. The spiritmasters’ real strength is only gauged by their abilities to take command of these spirits but how they channel their abilities to make their summoned creatures more powerful and efficient. Spiritmasters can still use spellbooks and orbs as their weapons, and they can only wear robes for their protection.
Spiritmasters can summon their first spirit as early as level 10. Though they can’t use high damaging spells and crowd control abilities, spiritmasters still retain all of the mages’ skills, including the invaluable Stone Skin skill (raises a protective shield for 5 minutes or after absorbing a certain amount of damage). Their passive skills are not that impressive. Aside from the typical stat boost and special effect (increased mana regeneration for instance) during flight, concentration or basic dress skill, spiritmasters has a passive skill that lowers the enemies’ resistance to weakening magic. Aion Spiritmasters can also increase their spirits’ stats and defend themselves with damaging spells with HP siphoning properties. They can also order their spirits to inflict negative status ailments to targets, such as decreasing the enemy’s defense, lower their elemental resistance or stagger them. While lacking long-ranged burst and nuking spells of sorcerers, spiritmasters can still bind and restrict enemy movement if ever they feel threatened or if ever enemies get too close. As spiritmasters increase in level, they gain access to even more devastating and powerful support spells that can make their summoned spirits unstoppable. Spirits can also perform the function of a remote chanter, though spiritmasters simply channel chant-like skills to the spirits. The best example for this are the Wall of Protection skills available at level 34. For example, when Wall of Protection: Fire is active, all party members within a 15m radius of the spirit can reflect a small amount of damage when attacked and also increases their physical attack by a certain percentage. These bonuses not only enhance the party’s offensive capabilities, but they also have another party member to help in the offensive, in the form of the spiritmaster’s elemental summon.
Spiritmasters are one of the most complex classes in the world of Aion and their greatest strength lies on what and when to summon the correct spirits at the right time.
