AION 2 — September 2, 2026 Update Notes: Spacetime Rift Domination Arrives, and Half of Last Week Is Undone

Editor's take

A week ago we wrote that the client already contained a complete open-world faction war — every interface string, the garrison points, the contribution leaderboard — with no announcement behind it. This is that feature, and the shape holds: strongholds you already clear solo become the objectives of a faction war. One correction to our own count while we are here: we read 32 Domination points, sixteen a side. The notes name fifteen a side, in three groups of five, and open one group at random.

Read the entry gate before the rules. Level 50, item level 4,500, 500.0k Combat Power, and tier VI of the Stronghold Sweep achievement in both territories — that last one means every stronghold in Verteron and Altgard, cleared. This is not a mass event with a queue; it is endgame PvP with a gear check at the door, and the three Event Keys a week put a hard ceiling on how often anyone farms it.

The class section is where this patch gets interesting, because a good part of it is last week being taken back. On August 26 Spinning Strike went from a 30s cooldown to 15s, from 250 MP to 100, and from 15 groggy damage to 10. Today all three return to exactly where they started, and Impactful Crush's cooldown goes back from 10s to 15s as well. What Chanter gets in exchange is real — Spinning Strike becomes a 20m ranged AoE with +50% PVE damage — but be clear about what happened: the cheap, spammable version lasted one week.

Templar is the same story with the signs flipped. Pummel and Punishing Strike were handed +30% last week and are cut 10% and 20% now; Judgment, which lost 10%, gains 15%; Threatening Blow, which lost 35%, gains 30%. NCSOFT's stated reason is that chaining into Vicious Strike was losing efficiency, and that damage is being redistributed to widen skill choice. A fair reading is that the August rebalance was shipped without enough testing and is being tuned in public, one week at a time.

Two smaller things worth your attention. Watcher Kaira becomes a scheduled boss — 100% spawn every four hours from midnight, random location — which turns a lottery into a calendar entry and will move Abyss traffic to fixed times. And NCSOFT is refunding the item-restore charges people spent undoing the August 26 bulk-sell bug. Restores are a limited resource; giving them back is the correct call, and it is worth noting they made it.

NCSOFT has published the update notes for Wednesday, September 2. The headline is a new open-world faction war, Spacetime Rift Domination, fought over the strongholds of Verteron and Altgard — the feature we described from the client in our datamining report of August 26, now with a schedule and rules attached. It follows the August 26 notes, the largest class patch since launch — and it spends much of its class section adjusting them.

Spacetime Rift Domination

Each race is split into an attacking and a defending side, and the fight is over whether the attackers can take a majority of the strongholds in the defending race's territory. It runs in Verteron and Altgard.

Schedule and rotation

Every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, at 20:00 and 23:00 (Spacetime Rift times).
Attack and defence swap weekly: week 1 is Verteron with the Elyos defending, week 2 is Altgard with the Asmodians defending.

Entry requirements

Character level 50+.
Item level 4,500+.
Combat Power 500.0k+.
Achievements: Verteron Stronghold Sweep VI and Altgard Stronghold Sweep VI — that is, every stronghold in both territories cleared.

All four conditions must be met. This is a gear-checked endgame activity, not an open event — and the Event Key budget below caps how often anyone can take part at all.

Registering

You register through the Domination notifier UI while holding at least one Event Key.
Event Key: 3 are recharged automatically each week; 1 is deducted when you receive the event reward.
While the event is live, the [Join] button is only enabled in the defending side's territory.

How a battle runs

Population: minimum 60, maximum 200 characters per side.
The Spacetime Rift portal opens; 5 minutes later the event begins and the battle runs for 25 minutes.
You can enter during the 10 minutes the portal stays up.
While Domination is running you cannot use Expedition, Transcendence or Sanctuary content.

S-PVP mode

S-PVP mode turns on automatically when the preparation phase ends.
Only characters in S-PVP mode can fight each other. Field monsters, NPCs and normal-mode characters cannot be attacked — but field guards can still attack S-PVP characters.
An option lets you unify the nameplates and appearance of S-PVP characters.

Stronghold groups

Five strongholds in the defending territory form one group. When the event fires, one of the three groups opens at random.

Elyos-defended: Verteron	Group	Strongholds
Verteron	A	Ugaros Marauder Campsite Miros Post Poacher's Base Cohta Outpost Sanctum Outskirts Watch
	B	Mantasch Patrol Base Sehna Outpost Sabga Balaur Campsite Maktashan Outpost Romlon's Hideout
	C	Gargos Thieves Campsite Canyon Thieves Den Forest Shade Execution Site Renegade Hideout Plateau Hill Base

Asmodian-defended: Altgard	Group	Strongholds
Altgard	A	Graverobber Den Corrupted Forester Ruins Blades Temporary Outpost Deserter Encampment Logger's Rest Ruins
	B	Rubek Thieves' Occupied Territory Forest Marauder Campsite Legion Base Ruins Flauke Legion Outpost Latrima Outpost
	C	Barahta Extermination Unit Outpost Andsha Forward Base Amurahta Surveillance Base Detlef Thieves Camp Granach's Hideout

Stronghold names are resolved from the client's own map data, which stores them on each fort's gate marker.

Capturing and winning

A stronghold falls when all three monoliths in and around it are destroyed — captured for the attackers, a defence failure for the defenders.
Attackers win by taking 3 or more of the 5 strongholds. Defenders win by still holding the majority when time runs out.

Rewards

Contribution is earned for destroying monoliths, killing stronghold guards and killing enemy players.
Only players who reach a minimum contribution are paid, and rewards follow the per-class contribution ranking.

Leaving and returning

You can leave with the [Leave] button and re-enter through the UI after a delay.
If you die and resurrect on your home server, or return to it through an abnormal disconnect, your participation is held for a while and you can rejoin through the UI; when that time runs out you are withdrawn automatically.

New item and missions

A Domination-only Kisk is added, sold by the general merchant and the Breeze Trading Company. Anyone can register to it or leave it regardless of party or force, and it holds more people than the Kisk Summoning Stone: Legion. Only the attacking side can place and use it during a battle.
Domination missions are added to [Season Mission – Server – Weekly / Season].

Kills inside Domination do not count toward field achievements or toward the Spacetime Rift season mission's [Challenge] > [Season] kill counters. If you are farming those, farm them outside the event.

Abyss

Watcher Kaira becomes a scheduled spawn

	Current	New
Spawn chance	20%	100%
Spawn cycle	—	every 4 hours, measured from 00:00
Spawn location	random	random — no difference in chance between locations

In Lower Reshanta. The location stays random; only the certainty and the timing change.

Stats and contribution

Abyss boss and Dimensional Core stats are raised substantially again, along with the contribution earned through PVP.
NCSOFT notes these figures may be adjusted further — this is the third consecutive week the Abyss has been buffed without published numbers.

Class Changes

Templar

NCSOFT's stated aim: compensate the efficiency lost when chaining through Vicious Strike, and redistribute damage so more skills are worth pressing.

Skill	Change
Vicious Strike Decisive Strike Desperate Strike Threatening Blow	PVE damage +30%. Spec 4: Punishment cooldown reduction 1s ▶ 2s.
Judgment	PVE damage +15%.
Punishment	PVE damage +20%.
Pummel	PVE damage −10%.
Punishing Strike	PVE damage −20%.

Compare with last week: Pummel and Punishing Strike were given +30% on August 26 and are cut now; Judgment lost 10% then and gains 15% now; Threatening Blow lost 35% and gains 30%. The redistribution has reversed sign in seven days.

Chanter

Spinning Strike becomes a ranged skill so dungeon fights stop forcing the class into melee, and damage is moved around to lift real-fight DPS.

Skill	Change
Spinning Strike	Becomes a 20m ranged AoE skill. PVE damage +50%. Cooldown 15s ▶ 30s. MP cost 100 ▶ 250. Groggy gauge damage 10 ▶ 15.
Incandescent Blow Bursting Blow	PVE damage +50%.
Impactful Crush	Cooldown 10s ▶ 15s.

Three of those four numbers are last week's changes reversed exactly. On August 26 Spinning Strike went 30s ▶ 15s cooldown, 250 ▶ 100 MP and 15 ▶ 10 groggy damage, and Impactful Crush went 15s ▶ 10s. All four values are back where they started; the range and the +50% are what is genuinely new.

Gladiator

Three passives were silently doing nothing while a low-level version of the matching armour buff was active. All three are fixed.

Skill	Change
Protection Armor	Fixed: the passive did not work while holding a Armor of Balance buff below level 15.
Experienced Counterstrike	Fixed: the passive did not work while holding a Wave Armor buff below level 10.
Murderous Burst	Fixed: the passive did not work while holding a Wave Armor buff below level 15.

Worth knowing if you levelled the armour buff late: the passive was reading as active in the UI and contributing nothing.

Next week — announced in advance

Templar: Shield Smite becomes a mobile skill by default and its animation is improved.
Assassin: Illusive Clone gains bonus damage and better hit feedback.
Spiritmaster: the DPS lost when the Elemental Fusion bug was fixed is compensated further.
Cleric: damage is adjusted upward to improve PVE DPS.

Other Improvements

Season Mission – Challenge – Weekly: the "Pride of the Elyos/Asmodian Army" and "Flying the White/Black Flag" missions are merged into one. It now counts a kill on an opposing-faction player anywhere in Verteron, Altgard, Eltnen or Morheim — but not kills made inside Domination.
Higher maximum stack sizes on Amplify Stone Fragment (Bound), Sync Stone Fragment (Bound), Transfer Stone Fragment (Bound), the Arcana synthesis crystals and their shards, Unstable Stigma Shard (Bound) and similar materials. The new limit takes effect when you use the inventory sort function.

Fixes

The general-store sale price of Mysterious Crystal (Bound), Harmonious Crystal (Bound) and Noble Crystal (Bound) is corrected to 5,000 Kina.
Dismounting a pet while falling now leaves you unable to use skills, the same as any other fall.
The hit timing of certain Atiel skills no longer disagrees with the animation, in Expedition Consumed Deus Research Base and Transcendence Deus Research Base.
Failing to enter the Abyss because it was full now shows a system message.
Elyos "Mysterious Track" event: a whirlwind that failed to spawn at one specific spot now spawns.
Being in combat or in flight no longer blocks entry to Dimensional Invasion. The mobile client gets this fix in the September 9 update.

The KR post writes the crystal price as "5,000 won" and the TW post as "5000"; it is the merchant's Kina price.

Recovery

After the August 26 update, a malfunction in the sale-registration and bulk-sell functions caused players to sell items in bulk unintentionally.
For anyone who spent an [Item Restore] > [NPC Shop Sold Items] charge because of it, that restore count is reset.