Luna Shop Part 2: Taki's Mission - Contaminated Underpath

Welcome to Part 2 of my Luna Shop article.  Today I'll be talking about the section of the Luna Shop called Taki's Mission.  Here you'll find 2 new instances to run:  Contaminated Underpath and Munitions Factory.

Contaminated Underpath

This is a daily instance that can be run once a day for free.  There are 2 quests to take before running it for the first time:

1.  Luna - Unknown Creatures
2.  Luna - Gathering Samples

The first quest,  Unknown Creatures,  requires that you kill the boss of the instance,  Maad-S.  When you loot Maad-S you receive an item called Maad-S skin tissue.   When you turn in the Unknown Creatures quest to the lab tech,  he'll transform the tissue into a tooth  (a molar).    When you collect 7 of these molars,  you can complete the 2nd quest,  and the lab tech will give you a key to open the treasure chest with.   One complaint I have is that the drop rate on Maad-S has been recently cut in half.  He used to drop 2  tissues,  meaning you could collect 7 molars by running the instance 4 times,  with one molar to spare.  Then you could get another key after 3 more runs.   Nowadays he only drops one tissue,  meaning you have to run the instance 7 times before you get a key.

When you enter the instance be sure to pick up the Bright Aether next to the NPC.  It's used to set up guns in front of the NPC barricade:

This instance,  like Taloc's Hollow or Shugo Kingdom,  transforms your character into one with a limited skill set.  You can't use your regular skills here.  You're given 5 skills,  from left to right they are:

1.  Soul Skewer, an AOE that attacks up to 8 nearby enemies,  dealing 3500 damage per hit.
2. Crushing Darkness an AOE that deals 7,200 to up to 10 nearby enemies per cast.
3. Terrifying Rupture a skill that deals 7,000 to 1 enemy per cast.
4. Hellish Strike. a hit that deals 16,000 damage to one enemy per cast.
5. Hellish Wave,  the highest damage skill in the set,  best reserved for the boss enemies.
    It deals 150K damage per cast. This skill has a 1 min. cooldown.

The instance begins with a wave of enemies assaulting you and your NPC helpers,  and continues in this way until the final boss fight with MAAD-S.

The first wave of enemies

If you die while fighting,  you'll res at the start of the instance and  have a soul sickness debuff on you for 1 minute.  There's always a healing fountain that spawns when that happens:

 However, during the rest of the fight, the healing fountain isn't always there.  It spawns only sometimes,  so use it wisely.

There are a few waves of enemies,  and each wave is harder to kill.
After the clodworms,  who'll keep you pretty busy cause they take forever to kill,  spawns MAAD-S:

I've learned that in order to stay alive during the fight with him,  you have to know when to back away.  He casts 4 different skills: Destruction, which hits for 15K,  Demolish, Domination and Discharge.   Discharge makes clodworms appear around him.  Domination is an AOE poison stun that deals 18K damage.  There's no way to avoid it or the other 2 skills, except by backing out of his range, like up the steps or the alcove behind the treasure box.   The healing fountain will spawn in and out of the fight in case you need a top off from accidentally getting hit.
In between times of avoiding his skills,  I go back in and cast Hellish Wave, Hellish Strike andTerrifying Rupture until he's done.

MAAD-S casting Destruction

Waiting in the area behind the treasure box while he casts Destruction

After the fight is over,   a bunch of cores and a lump of flesh are left.

Hit them all and watch your XP bar fill up as you do.  The new game patch has made leveling up a very slow process,  and this instance is one of the best ways to quickly get large amounts of XP. Opening the flesh lump gives you the quest item:

You take it to the NPC and he turns it into a molar for you.

Turning in the quest

Run the instance 7 times and you'll get a treasure box key,  which gives you ______.  I won't spoil it!

If you're new to running the instance I hope this helped, and thanks for reading.

Oh and since I'm publishing this on the last day of 2016,  I'd like to say:

Happy New Year to all my Readers :)

Milestone: 100,000 Page Views!

To All My Readers,

My blog reached 100K page views today.   I'd like to thank all of you for helping me achieve this milestone with your continued readership.  Aion is still a fun game and I'll keep writing about it for so long as it remains that way.

As I always say at the end of each post,  Thanks for Reading :D

What's New In Reshanta

Reshanta (also known as the Abyss) has seen a makeover in the recent patches of Aion.  Quite a few changes have been made,  and while I can't outline them all,   here are the outstanding basics:

Redemption Landing/Harbinger Landing

These are the new faction landing zones in the upper abyss.  These were actually added in 4.8 I think, but I didn't get a chance to check them out at that time,  so I'm getting familiar with the new layout now in 5.0.

The upper abyss has been remodeled a lot with the addition of these 2 landings.  The Elyos landing is near the Ruins of Roah,  and the Asmodian landing is near Lake Asteria.

These landings have to be maintained by each faction's players in order to have better services,  such as extra NPCs,  Wells of Life and Flight,  etc.   The landings are maintained by the completion of base camp quests by faction members.


Base Camps

Another new addition are base camps.  Modeled off the same idea as the ones in Levinshor and the deleted areas of Katalam and Danaria,  these camps change faction affiliation throughout the day,  but can be "taken" (conquered) by opposing faction players if or when the Commander has spawned.  These camps offer weekly quests that give rewards such as Blood Medals (a new currency used for buying gear) and  Blood Marks.  

Re-Assignment of NPC Levels

The mobs of the upper abyss have all been upgraded to lvl 65.  Back in the early days of Aion, the abyss was a place for players of  lvl 25-45 to go.   Ruins of Roah and Lake Asteria  used to have lvl 30ish mobs.  As a matter of fact,  Ruins of Roah was the place that Elyos players were sent to for a lvl 30 campaign quest.  That's probably been changed now.  

Introduction of Wells of Life, Flight and Strength

These are the power buff stations that grant a 1 hour buff to the player.  They're found at each faction's landing in the upper abyss,  depending on the level of the landing.  The Well of Flight is probably the best improvement I've seen in Aion in a long time.   Wind serums are hardly needed anymore because of the unending flight time offered by this buff.  The only time they would be needed is if or when the player is hit with the "burn wings" debuff that many of the mobs in the upper abyss cast.  It's great to be able to fly freely without worrying about flight time running out!

Give the upper abyss a look if you're coming back to the game.  It's a different place lately.
Thanks for reading :)