Aion - Nochsana Training Camp Instance Guide

25 levels of harpies later, some real opponents!

On the way to the abyss, a lot of people say "Where are the instances?!". Thankfully the western release of the game came with patch 1.5, introducing the Nochsana Training Camp. NTC, or just TC as it might be referred to on your server is a level 25-29 instance. These are hard caps. Since it's in the Abyss, 25 is required, and once you hit 29, you can no longer enter it period. Enjoy it while you can!

One important thing to realize is that this is not a WoW instance. Loot will not drop off every boss or special monster as a guarantee. It is entirely possible, and even probable, that you will walk out of here with nothing new for gear. Before you throw your hands up in the air and abandon your quest however, you must realize that the experience points are ABSURD from this instance. With a party of 25-26s, you will be getting over 25,000 per elite monster kill. If you pre-ordered or recently completed a survey for a Lodas' amulet, this is the time to use it. On a full clear of the zone, running at a reasonable rate so the majority of your kills are with the amulet on, you will likely roll out with 70-80% of a level's worth of experience. It's incredible and should be run every day you can do it. There is a lockout period of a little under a day after you complete it, and three quests that will be done on the way that are given from an NPC near the ones that gave you your abyss training.

Quests
Nochsana Weapon Caches - These are located

near the end of the instance surrounding the fortress, and lots reside inside. There are enough spawns that a full party should be able to complete it all at once.

Guardians of the General - These four enemies are all part of your path to the General for the most part. We'll make sure you don't miss them.

The Siege of Nochsana - Just move up to the door and deploy your weapon. A pet bar will show up and you'll have to tell it to attack. Make sure everyone deploys it and gets credit if you're doing it as a static team with your legion or something. The followup will then tell you to kill the General, which is what you came to do anyway, right?

Route
Fairly straight forward. Upon entering, your party should move up either side. Patrols circle in a clockwise circle on the outer ring. Mark them and make your party aware as soon as they enter your line of sight. Typically they consist of two elites or one elite and a pack of Recruits, which barely pose a threat at all. There are drakes in the middle that can be totally ignored or grabbed for bonus experience.

Pull slowly and steadily. Before you reach the first gate, you'll see an artifact structure directly to the right of the first fortress gate. The first boss type is here for the quest, and he's a caster. Watch for large spikes of damage on your tank, and you can use the artifact to your advantage if you must. It'll create a damage shield for 60 seconds on your whole party that can soak up a lot of punishment. You can use it and then get dirty with a double pull for a little more thrill and AoE carnage.

Past the second gate is more of the same, but atop that second gate lies the third boss. His physical output is laughable, but he has an amazingly powerful stone-skin type damage shield. Whittle him down over time before he can recast it. Right up the ramp to the third gate is the 3rd boss, a Drake. All of his damage is single target except for one wide blast that will hit the whole party for about 1000. Your cleric can take care of this easily with a Healing Wind, so don't panic and start using potions. Nothing else he does will hit people beyond the tank, so waste this fool. Reports are mixed about his fire attack being cone-based so you could dodge it if you were behind him. I wouldn't bother.

Once you get to the gate, resist the urge to run up and bash the hell out of it with your bare hands. Actually, do it once. Fisticuffs have a great animation in this that you'll never get a good chance to see otherwise. If you have a lot of people looking to complete the Weapons quest, as you pull the outside of the fortress, look for the caches lining the walls. Once everything is clear, activate your siege weapons around melee distance with the gate if you have them and let rip. Then perhaps most importantly, get back. Everyone needs to stand back as upon the door falling, at least two elites will rush out to engage you and they're likely to get company on the way. Make sure your cleric has Rebirth up, if there is any threatening point of this instance, it's this pull. Handle them as they come out with crowd control and engage them around the corner of the gate.

Now, you have to clear the entire fortress out. Anything left alive will come running when the General is engaged, so don't even think about going up that ramp. Once the ground floor is clear, work your way up the ramp on the right side. By now you'll notice the weapon caches are liberally spread throughout this portion of the fortress. In this area you'll also find Nochsana Docs, which are healer types and should be dealt with first or last if good crowd control is available. Clear the area above the gate, as well as the bridge over the middle of the room. At the highest point in the back corner you'll find the last of the bosses for the quest. He'll summon help, but the help will vanish upon his death. Unload everything before the add goes for your healer and things get ugly. Do a quick survey around the fortress to ensure it's fully cleared, and pull the last two in front of the general. It's go time, people

Nochsana General

As intimidating as he looks, he's not that bad. His melee attacks consist of a smash that lowers physical defense and can be dispelled, and a wide area knockdown. His damage is rather high, so clerics will have to be on their toes. Ranged classes have next to nothing to worry about. Once he gets below 30%, he'll start using a fear move that will cause a random person to lose control for a few seconds. Templars should have Empyrean Armor saved for this in case the healer gets feared and things get ugly. Where you tank him is pretty irrelevant. Once he's dead, you'll get credit for the second part of the siege quest. His loot table consists of a wide array of blue weapons, high quality stuff that will take you into the 30's easily.

Unfortunately, that's if he drops them.

You'll be running this multiple times, and you have a time limit of sorts due to the level cap. This is without a doubt the fastest thing you can do to level though, and groups will be continuously springing up for NTC due to that. It's a good primer for how a fortress siege works, well, aside from the whole 'no enemy players in the area'. The quests will give you a huge infusion of XP and a fantastic helm that will carry you through the mid 30's with ease. Just remember that you're not doing it for the loot. There are repeatable instances in the low-mid 30's that will provide you with much more loot opportunity than here. I personally got more loot out of Tavan's Cavern than here, but a third of the experience in the process. Regardless the Nochsana Training Camp is your easy ticket if you don't want to grind out 25-29. So set that looking for group tag and brave the spammers to ride the fast track to 30!