AION 2 — September 16, 2026 Update Notes: Macro Cancels Closed, Ranger Goes Elemental, and Soul Crystals Get Cheap

NCSOFT has published the update notes for Wednesday, September 16. There is no new content in them; it is a tuning week — eight of the nine classes get changes, two animation cancels are closed because they were being run with macros, every Ranger attack gains an element, and Soul Crystal becomes far easier to get. It follows the September 9 notes and revises several of the tables printed there.

Spacetime Rift Domination

• The score gained from attacking a monolith is raised substantially.
• While you are taking part in Domination, movement outside the region where the battle is running is restricted.

Two weeks in, this is the second Domination pass: last week shortened the fight and capped kill-farming; this week makes the objective itself worth more than the kills around it.

Abyss

Drops

• Abyss monsters now drop the tradeable (non-Bound) Potential Stone: Abyss (Heroic) and Potential Stone: Abyss (Unique).

New gear: [True] Praetorian Captain

• [True] Guardian Praetorian Captain / Archon Praetorian Captain weapons and guards are added.
• Buy them at the Abyss exchange shop, or Transfer-craft them using Elite Guardian Praetorian Captain / Archon Praetorian Captain weapons and Guardian Praetorian Captain / Archon Praetorian Captain weapons and guards as materials.

Set effects

The 12-set PVE Abyss damage amplification is raised on the three ranks that still have one. Last week's values are shown for comparison; X means the bonus does not exist at that piece count.

Ten points on every rank that has a 12-set bonus, one week after the same table removed the bonus from the two lowest ranks. The two changes point the same way: a full set of high-rank Abyss gear is worth more, a partial set of low-rank gear is worth less.

Class ranking rewards

• The medal amounts in the contribution rewards for Abyss bosses, Artifact Occupation and Spacetime Rift Domination are raised.

Shugo Festa and the Sanctuary

Shugo Festa — Mysterious Track

• The placement of various objects on the track is adjusted, including obstacles that could block a normal run.

Sanctuary — Snowfield of Sorrow

• On Easy, the HP of the bosses Triton the Returned and Deltras is reduced by 10%.
• Twelve fixes to the raid's mechanics — from an ice wall that would not break to a boss that killed itself — are listed under Fixes below. The raid's entry rules, its weekly clear ticket and the numbers behind its Hall of Fame are in our build 110 read-out.

Soul Crystals, Manastones and Soulstones

Soul Crystal

• The Growth Pet Chest (Bound) reward from the daily dungeon Odylium Repository is doubled.
• At [Shop – Wind Breeze Merchants – Special], Soul Crystal now costs 500 Kina, and the purchase limit rises to 30,000.
• Soul Crystal from mission quests is tripled.

Three separate faucets opened in one patch, on top of the 30,000 crystals in last week's Premium pass. Soul Crystal is the currency of Soul Binding; whatever it was worth to you as a scarce drop, it is now a shop item with a five-figure cap.

Manastones and Soulstones

• Superior Manastone (Bound) and Superior Soulstone (Bound) can be bought at [Nightmare – Exchange Shop] and [Shugo Festa – Festa Shop].
• Lesser Manastone and Lesser Soulstone are added to the [Supply Request – Urgent Reward].

Class Changes

Eight classes are touched; Spiritmaster is the only one with no skill line this week. "Spec N" is the skill's Nth specialisation.

Gladiator

Templar

To discourage mouse macros for the Pummel ▶ Judgment cancel, the skill cancel timing and balance are adjusted.

Assassin

To discourage mouse macros for the Savage Roar ▶ Heart Gore cancel, the skill cancel timing and balance are adjusted.

Both cancels are closed the same way: a longer delay, and a PVE-only damage bump on the skills around it. In dungeons a Templar or Assassin comes out roughly where they were. In PVP the cancel is gone and the compensation does not apply.

Ranger

Elemental damage is applied to Ranger attack skills.

22 wind, 4 earth, 3 fire. Until today a Ranger's damage was elementless, so elemental resistance on a target and elemental amplification on the Ranger did nothing; from today both apply to every attack in the kit.

Brawler

Seven Brawler skills and three Gladiator ones get the same line. They are the leap, dash and charge skills — rooted used to be escapable through them.

Chanter

Same change as Templar's Noble Armor. Duration still equals cooldown, so uptime is unchanged; what shrinks is the gap after a death or a dispel, from up to five minutes to up to two.

Cleric

Sorcerer

Read the three Sorcerer lines as one change. Fire Mark used to be a 20% proc that Blaze consumed and a Spec had to force. Now it is guaranteed, nothing consumes it, and the Spec that forced it pays fire amplification instead — the mark becomes a permanent state rather than a thing to manage.

[Promotion] Deva Pass: Abyssal Invitation

• Sold from [Menu] → [Subscription].
• On sale from the September 16 maintenance until October 6, 05:00; missions and reward collection stay open until the October 7 maintenance.
• Pass levels run to 40; XP earned past 40 pays repeat rewards. A level can be bought outright for 50 Quna.
• Pass shop coins are spent at [Subscription] → [Pass Shop].

It ends on the same dates as last week's "The Flower That Blooms at Night" pass, so the two are on sale together until October 6.

Pass XP sources

Capped at 12,000 XP per character per week. No daily attendance XP this time — last week's pass paid 1,000 a day for logging in.

What the track pays in total (levels 1–40)

Basic pays Small Odyle Energy, Premium pays full Odyle Energy on the same 22 levels, and Premium's Rift Stones are Middle-tier where Basic's are Lower. Past level 40, Basic repeats 3 × Battle Enhance Scroll (Bound) and Premium 1 × Odyle Energy (Bound) per level.

Per-level rewards

[Other] — Improvements & Fixes

Improvements

• In a dungeon, when the force leader leaves or hands over leadership, the new leader is placed first in party 1.
• Guards now deal the same damage to spirits as they deal to players.

That second line is the only Spiritmaster change in the patch.

Fixes

• In certain situations a cooldown-reset Spec effect was applied at an unintended moment, letting some skills be used twice in a row. Fixed.
• Eltnen part 2: the pillars and the Kibelisk that had been visible are hidden again.
• [Expedition] Trial dungeons: the commend popup did not appear on the results screen after a clear. Fixed.
• Some Fist (Brawler) gear had a shop sell price set lower than other weapons. Fixed.

Fixes: Snowfield of Sorrow

• After all of Deltras's swords were found, the ice wall intermittently did not break. Fixed.
• Triton the Returned: the crystals summoned by Manifested Wrath exploded abnormally fast when the boss was staggered. Fixed.
• Triton the Returned: the stagger gauge was not locked while Bittercold Wrath was being cast. Fixed.
• Triton the Returned: Bittercold Wrath was not performed correctly. Fixed.
• Triton the Returned: during the Cold Harvest pattern, the Warmth Orbs disappeared sooner than intended. Fixed.
• Triton the Returned: during Cold Harvest, the boss intermittently took massive damage and died. Fixed.
• Deltras: a target under Frozen Bind could still be targeted by Crystal Point and Ice Crystal Fall. Fixed.
• Deltras: a target under Frozen Bind that died and was resurrected came back without the stun. Fixed, as written.
• Deltras: when certain patterns started, Frozen Bind was released and the target took several hits at once and died. Fixed.
• Deltras: the Gaze debuff was not cleared when the fight reset. Fixed.
• Deltras: in the Core of Winter pattern, the purple ice crystals' visuals are improved for colour-blind readability. Hit detection is unchanged.

The pattern names in this list are our translations; they are not in the client tables we resolve names from.