Classes

AION 2 launched with eight classes and added a ninth, the Brawler, with the July 1, 2026 Chapter 1. Lands of Sand and Snow update on the Korean and Taiwanese build. All are available to both Elyos and Asmodian factions. The roster covers the full Holy Trinity of tank, healer, and damage: a mix of melee, ranged, and magic damage dealers alongside healing and support roles. NCsoft's global storefront copy and its own global teaser material both present eight classes, naming Gladiator, Templar, Assassin, Ranger, Sorcerer, Spiritmaster, Cleric and Chanter, while the Korean and Taiwanese live build runs nine. NCsoft has never said in so many words that the Brawler is excluded from the global launch build, and it has not said when the class reaches it.

The global service opened to Founder's Pack holders in paid Advance Access on September 30, 2026, with the official launch on October 5, 2026. Its launch shop sells class weapon skin chests for eight weapon types, one per class from Gladiator to Chanter, and as of October 7, 2026, two days after launch, NCsoft has not announced when the Brawler will reach the global service; none of its global Steam posts or global notices checked that day mention the class. As of October 15, 2026 NCsoft still has not announced when the Brawler will reach the global service. The global Halloween weapon skins on sale from October 14, 2026 again cover only eight weapons (greatsword, longsword, dagger, bow, spellbook, orb, mace and staff), while the Korean version of the same line adds gauntlets for the Brawler, and no global notice, patch note or storefront post published from October 8 to October 15, 2026 mentions the class.

Each class now has its own page. The table below links to all nine.

Global PvE builds

Four Global launch builds cover point-spending order, specialties, Stigmas, Daevanion, Arcana, gear and rotations: Templar Global PvE Build, Cleric Global PvE Build, Gladiator Global PvE Build and Sorcerer Global PvE Build. Choose the party role and use the starter priorities before chasing the full bonus-level setup.

Class Roster

Class Comparison

The eight weapon types match the global shop's launch weapon skin chests (Greatsword, Longsword, Dagger, Bow, Spellbook, Orb, Mace and Staff, each sold only to its class) and the weapon listed on each class's skills in the global client. Gauntlets comes from NCsoft's English announcement of the Brawler. Range and damage type follow the skill tooltips: melee attacks reach about 4 meters, ranged attacks 20 meters, and party heals and buffs 40 meters.

Naming Note

The magic summoning class travels under three English names, and which one you meet depends on where you are reading.

All three describe the same kit: a magic damage class that fights alongside summoned spirits. The Korean name is 정령술사. See Spiritmaster for the class itself.

A parallel case sits at the other end of the roster. The ninth class is filed internally as Fighter, but NCsoft's own English announcement names it Brawler, which is the name used here. Community renderings including Vandal, Fistmaster, Fist Fighter and Soul Fighter were never official.

Choosing a Class

NCsoft's own one-line class overviews give the clearest official picture of each role: the Gladiator is a greatsword fighter built for both offense and survival, the Templar a sword-and-shield protector, the Assassin a stealth and ambush specialist, the Ranger a precise long-range damage dealer, the Sorcerer a spellcaster who keeps its distance, the Spiritmaster a wide-range specialist fighting with spirits and elements, the Cleric a healer who protects and restores allies, and the Chanter a versatile jack of all trades who sustains allies with its staff. Community tier lists vary, and change with nearly every balance patch on the Korean and Taiwanese service.

NCsoft's official Korean guidebook has a page for each class. Its class introduction (updated May 28, 2026) still describes eight classes; the Brawler's page is dated June 30, 2026, the day before Chapter 1. The weapon named on each page and a short paraphrase of NCsoft's description:

As of October 7, 2026, NCsoft has not announced a class change service for the global version in its launch notices or its global FAQ, and none of the Korean service's update notes, notices or guidebook pages describe one either, so a different class means a new character.

Combat Style

Every class uses the same hybrid combat system described under Combat and Skill Chains: tab-target with active dodge, parry, and skill chains. Each class has its own chain pathways, positioning bonuses, and resource mechanics, but the underlying input loop is consistent across the roster.

Shared Skill Structure

The global client data gives every class the same skeleton: 12 active skills, 13 Stigma skills and 10 passives, plus Dodge and chain follow-ups that do not take a slot of their own. Several pieces recur across the roster.

Most crowd-control chances that can fail against players land every time on NPCs, and skills marked as mobile can be used while moving. NCsoft has changed which skills are mobile several times in balance patches.

Each class also has a full skill reference with Korean names, unlock levels, cooldowns, costs, specialties and a dated balance history: Gladiator Skills, Templar Skills, Assassin Skills, Ranger Skills, Sorcerer Skills, Spiritmaster Skills, Cleric Skills, Chanter Skills and Brawler Skills. How skill points, Stigma levels, specialties and presets work for every class is covered on Skills and Specialties and Stigma System.

Party Synergy and Season 3 Balance

The Korean and Taiwanese service's April 22, 2026 update reworked party synergy across the roster. Its party synergy sections turned the ally-affecting effects of three damage classes into self-only ones: the Ranger's Marking Shot debuff became Precision, a self buff, Bow of Blessing stopped applying to party members, and the Sorcerer and Spiritmaster had debuffs that raised the party's damage replaced with effects that help only themselves. The Assassin section of the same note had no party synergy changes. On the other side, the Gladiator's Lifestealing Blade gained a party life-drain buff and the Templar's Nezekan's Shield and Comrade in Arms were raised, while the Cleric's and Chanter's party effects were retuned.

The follow-up update on April 29, 2026 had sections for all eight classes, mostly numerical balancing and fixes rather than structural changes; the only change it described as a rework was the Gladiator's Rage Burst. The stated intent in the dev streams was to keep the four DPS classes competitive in solo and small-group content while giving tank and support classes a clearer reason to fill their roles in full-size Sanctuary groups.

Later Live-Build Passes

The KR and TW build kept iterating after the April dev streams. A late-April patch reworked a Gladiator rage ability, improved Chanter mobility, reworked a Cleric energy line, and added PvP-side buffs for the Sorcerer; the same patch lifted a PvP progression cap inside the Abyss layer. A mid-May patch followed with a focused Sorcerer rework that retuned a defensive armor cooldown and an offensive frost ability, aiming to sharpen the class's identity at the high end of solo and small-group content without inflating its raid contribution.

These passes are specific to the KR and TW live build. Because that build re-tunes individual abilities with nearly every major patch, treat any single ability name or number as a snapshot of the current live build rather than a fixed value; the global build, live since October 5, 2026, runs on its own schedule: its client data dated September 18, 2026 matches many Korean values but lags several September changes, which each class skills page lists.

A subsequent late-May patch followed up with skill corrections across six of the eight classes on the roster at the time, refining individual ability behavior rather than reshaping role identity. These corrections continued the pattern of the earlier balance passes: small numerical and interaction-level changes rather than structural rewrites. As with the rest of the section, the exact ability list shifts patch-by-patch on the live build; use the in-game tooltips and the most recent live patch notes for the current rotation.

Balance work continued into mid-June. The June 17, 2026 patch applied a targeted PvE and PvP damage pass, raising several Gladiator strike multipliers, trimming an Assassin critical-damage bonus and reworking its defense-reduction skill, and bumping a set of Ranger shot multipliers. The June 24 patch then began an account-wide combat-power equalization so that weapon and passive-skill power values count the same across all classes, a first step toward closing the gap between strong and weak classes before deeper tuning. NCsoft moved the larger balance patch originally planned for June 24 to July 1 to avoid disrupting the active ranking challenge. As with every entry in this section, treat individual numbers as a live-build snapshot rather than a fixed global value.

The first weekly balance pass after Chapter 1 arrived on July 8, 2026 and was the first to cover the full nine-class roster. It reworked the shared Defiance skill (충격 해제), moving its chain follow-up into a specialty, and applied per-class tuning across all nine classes, alongside a game-wide flat 30% cut to PvP damage. The official note lists the changes skill by skill, and each class's skills page carries them in its balance history.

The August 12, 2026 patch centered on healers and shared survivability. Cleric and Chanter healing skills had their radius widened from 25 meters to 40 meters while base healing amounts were cut by roughly 20 to 50 percent depending on skill level, and both classes' base healing-amplification passives were removed in favor of amplification that scales with attack power (26/30/34 percent for Cleric and 18/21/24 percent for Chanter at the passives' three marked levels), so healing output now grows with the healer's own gear. The same patch upgraded the shared healing-received-reduction debuffs carried by seven class skills and lowered that debuff's strength in the Abyss and arenas from 30 to 20 percent. Gladiator was tuned in the same pass: its charge stance lost its MP cost reduction, its blade-throw's healing cut rose from 30 to 50 percent, the cancel point on two of its heavy strikes moved from the first hit to the second, one major strike's cooldown went from 30 to 45 seconds, and four core strikes gained 3 percent PvE damage. The Gladiator skills involved were Lunge Stance, Blade Toss, Rending Blow and Smashing Blow, Ruinous Blow and the Keen Strike chain (English names from the global client).

On an August 11, 2026 developer broadcast, NCsoft also announced a phased class-concept enhancement program that aims to make optimal damage output depend on manual timing and decision-making rather than repeating macro-friendly patterns, with the first application targeted for August 26. That is announced direction, not shipped change, and the details may move before it lands.

That program reached the Korean and Taiwanese service on August 26, 2026. Every skill gained a guaranteed minimum cancel time, so chaining speed depends less on each player's setup, and the Templar and Chanter received the first core-skill reworks: the Templar's Judgment now follows its shield attacks, and the Chanter's Dark Crush follows its ranged skills. The same patch toned down the party synergy of Gladiator, Templar, Chanter and Cleric that the April passes had strengthened, raised the damage of several classes to compensate, and converted a number of shields to scale with maximum HP.

A maintenance on August 27, 2026 followed up on the cancel-time change: it trimmed the Gladiator's Rending Blow and Overhead Slam lines and the Templar's Pummel line and Judgment to keep the feel of their cancel sequences while adjusting damage, eased a Spiritmaster damage loss from a bug fix, and changed a Brawler basic-chain specialty so that its charged rising strike (승천타) is used more often.

NCsoft moved the next round forward into a separate Class Care maintenance on September 4, 2026 so it would not land on the same day as the September 9 sanctuary update. It adjusted six classes (Templar, Assassin, Spiritmaster, Ranger, Chanter and Cleric). The September 16 patch lengthened the cancel delays on the Templar's Pummel and Judgment and the Assassin's Savage Roar and Heart Gore to discourage mouse macros, and gave Ranger attacks elemental damage types. Each class page carries a dated table of these changes.

The September 23 update moved the Gladiator's Fracturing Rush in the direction of the held movement key and fixed tooltips for several classes, and the September 30 update corrected two Sorcerer tooltips. The October 7, 2026 update, the first after the global launch, fixed attacks made while in the air sometimes failing to land on a target, for every class, and expanded skill presets, along with equipment, wings, titles, Pantheon, species understanding and Arcana presets, from three to five; its only class-specific changes were Sorcerer fixes.

The October 14, 2026 update on the Korean and Taiwanese service reworked melee play in Realm-versus-Realm fights. It cut PvP damage by about 30% for all classes, a change dated October 14 and separate from the July 8 cut; changed every Assault Stigma to raise Defense and all elemental resistances by up to 80% for 5 seconds, scaled by the number of targets hit (previously up to 20% Defense), with cooldown reduction no longer applying to it; and made a successful block or evade cut the cooldown of the guaranteed-guard Stigma itself (Focused Block, Shield of Protection, Evasion Stance and Focused Defense) by 0.3 seconds, reduced to 0.1 seconds and limited to active skills at a temporary maintenance the same day. The same update made Spiritmaster, Sorcerer and Cleric attack skills deal elemental damage, gave the Brawler's Rampage 20% PvE damage resistance and fixed Ranger, Spiritmaster and Sorcerer skills. As of October 15, 2026 none of these changes has been announced for the global service, whose own October 13 PDT / October 14 CEST patch limited its class changes to Spiritmaster and Sorcerer fixes.

Progression

All classes share the Daeva System and Daevanion Board for talent investment past the base skill cap, and feed into the Gear and Progression and Transcendence System endgame. Class-specific skill rotations evolve as new content is added; refer to the live patch notes from the KR and TW build for the current balance state.

Ninth Class: Brawler

NCsoft revealed a ninth class at the June 14, 2026 Summer Festa showcase, and it went live on the Korean and Taiwanese build with the Chapter 1. Lands of Sand and Snow update. Its English name is Brawler, published by NCsoft on July 6, 2026 in the English announcement for that update. Earlier English coverage guessed at several renderings, including Vandal, Fistmaster and Soul Fighter, and this wiki previously used the Korean name Kwon-seong (권성) while no official English name existed. Brawler is now the name to use; the others were community translations and none of them was ever official.

The Brawler is a front-line damage class built around combo pressure rather than a conventional weapon line. Its dedicated weapon type is the Gauntlets. Basic attacks and active skills generate Rage, and filling the gauge to a threshold triggers a Rampage state that swaps the class into a more aggressive skill set. NCsoft granted every account one free character slot alongside the class so existing players could try it without deleting a character. The same update raised the maximum character level to 50 and lifted the Stigma enhancement cap to level 25 for the whole roster.

The July 29, 2026 balance pass on the Korean and Taiwanese build was the Brawler's first substantial tuning. Its finisher was reworked to consume the entire remaining Rampage gauge, scaling up as more of the gauge is spent, and its cooldown reset now keys off that finisher landing a kill rather than any kill. A duration bug on its unstoppable effect was corrected, its projectile-style ranged attack was sped up, and its passive now restores Rage on kills. The same pass touched Templar, Ranger, Chanter, Cleric, Spiritmaster and Sorcerer with PvE and PvP damage adjustments and specialization swaps. A follow-up pass on August 12 continued the Brawler tuning, shortening its Rage ability's cooldown from 120 to 90 seconds and reworking several of its defensive passives.

NCsoft's official Korean guidebook adds detail on the state: its Brawler skill page lists Rampage (폭주) as a skill that enters the state, after which Rage drains at intervals until it reaches zero and the state ends, and during Rampage every Brawler skill switches to its Rampage version. Brawler Skills lists all 35 skills with Korean names and provisional English renderings.

Related Pages

• AION 2 Overview

• Combat and Skill Chains

• Aerial Combat and Flight

• Daeva System and Daevanion Board

• PvP and the Abyss

• Templar

• Gladiator

• Assassin

• Ranger

• Sorcerer

• Spiritmaster

• Cleric

• Chanter