AION 2 Abyss Guide: Reshanta, Abyss Points and PvP

This AION 2 Abyss guide covers the part of the game where Elyos and Asmodians finally fight each other. The Abyss is Reshanta, a shattered sky full of floating islands, and in AION 2 it is split into three separate maps, each with its own weekly time budget, faction bases, Artifacts and elites. It is also where most of your Abyss Points come from, and Abyss Points pay for the PvP upgrades that matter most once your gear is in place.

Everything below comes from the global client: map and zone tables, the event and spawn schedules, the Trade Shop, the season ranking tables and the skill data.

What is the Abyss in AION 2?

The in-game navigator calls it "a lawless land formed by the collapse of AION, where Elyos, Asmodians, and Balaur clash", and adds the rule that matters: "In the Abyss, you can attack players of the opposing faction." Your home maps run on faction servers. The three Reshanta maps run on a separate matched server type, so you meet players from other servers there. Each layer has an Elyos base, an Asmodian base and contested islands in between.

Lower Reshanta: the flying layer

Lower Reshanta is where you will spend most of your time. Its center is Reshanta's Root, "a region located at the highest altitudes in the center of Lower Reshanta", ringed by the Devastated Remnants (nearest the Elyos base), the Black Fragments Area (nearest the Asmodian base), Sulfur Tree Island and the Archipelago of Siel's Wings. The three Artifacts sit at Reshanta's Root, Branding Island on Sulfur Tree Island, and the Grave of Steel in the Archipelago.

Middle Reshanta: the ground war

Middle Reshanta changes how you fight. Its map lore says visitors "would report the impossibility of flying" and that "even spreading one's wings was a challenge in the middle", and our map data shows no Flight Circles on the layer at all. Fights there happen on foot. Its Artifacts are at Corroded Heart, "a floating island located in the very center", Contaminated Marsh and Distorted Old Growth Forest, and its monsters go up to level 80.

Upper Reshanta: the newest layer

Upper Reshanta is described as a "newly observed region at the edge of the Abyss" made of fragments of the Bloodflame Nebula. It has no Artifacts or named elites in the launch data, but it has 32 Flight Circles, islands such as Red Thorn Crown Isle and its own weekly time budget.

How to unlock the Abyss in AION 2

The client's unlock table gates the Abyss at level 45, with no quest or item level requirement on the unlock itself. In practice there is one more gate: the Lower Reshanta bases list "Reach Item Level 1,000 to enter" in their descriptions. For Elyos, the Episode quest Draupnir is the story step that tells you about Draupnir and the Abyss at level 45.

1. 1
   Finish the level 45 story

   Reach 45 through the Episode quests. Our leveling guide covers the fastest route on both sides.

2. 2
   Reach item level 1,000

   Wear your best Unique pieces and enhance them. Total item level is the gate for the Lower Reshanta bases.

3. 3
   Set Stigmas for PvP

   By 45 you have all four Stigma slots (they open at 22, 27, 32 and 37). Our Stigma guide explains which ones matter.

4. 4
   Enter Lower Reshanta

   Start in your faction's Latesran base, bind at its Kibelisk, and visit the Command Merchant before you head out.

Abyss time limits and the weekly reset

Every layer has its own timer. The ticket tooltip reads "Usage time will be deducted while inside the Lower Abyss. Basic usage time will be reset to 7 hours after the weekly reset", and the ticket table resets Lower, Middle and Upper access hours every Wednesday. The subscription's Abyss perk tooltip says it raises weekly usage time to 14 hours. A Lower Abyss Rift Stone adds 1 hour of Lower Abyss time and a Lesser one adds 30 minutes; Middle Abyss Rift Stones exist too.

Artifact Siege: schedule, Dimensional Cores and the Abyss Corridor

The Artifact Siege is the main scheduled PvP event. The tutorial explains it in three steps. When the siege begins, Dimensional Cores appear at the Artifact locations; the faction that lands the last strike on a Core claims that Artifact, and "a set amount of players from the winning faction will receive Abyss Points as a reward based on their contribution"; when the siege ends, an Abyss Corridor opens at each Artifact for the faction that holds it, with 5 minutes of play.

• Schedule: the event table runs the Lower Reshanta siege on Monday, Thursday and Saturday at 21:00 server time. The client warns players 10 minutes before a siege ends.
• Targets: the Dimensional Core is level 65 in Lower Reshanta and level 80 in Middle Reshanta. Middle Reshanta has its own siege event and Artifacts in the client, but no schedule row in the launch data.
• Holding Artifacts: each layer pays a faction-wide Abyss Point buff for occupation, +2.5% for one Artifact, +5% for two and +7.5% for three.
• Comeback rule: if one faction loses every Artifact on a layer, a separate Corridor spawns at that faction's base and only the disadvantaged faction can enter.
• Persistence: capture status and Corridors remain "until the next Siege or until server matchmaking changes."

After a Lower siege, Season 1 also has a weekly task to defeat a "Dominator of Lower Abyss", so expect a boss to follow the fighting. Season 1 achievements also pay for siege participation and wins, with Unique Amplify Stones on the win track.

Abyss elites and their spawn times

The spawn table puts the Abyss elites on fixed schedules in server time. They are level 65 in Lower Reshanta and 80 in Middle, and their loot carries the best Abyss gear sets.

Note the overlap: on Monday, Thursday and Saturday the Executors spawn 30 minutes after the Lower siege starts, so those nights are the busiest in the Abyss. Argo, the Spirit King in Siel's Right Wing has no timed spawn in the table.

How to earn Abyss Points

Abyss Points ("a mark of honor won on the fields of a war without end") come from many small sources. The steady ones in the data:

What to spend Abyss Points on: the Trade Shop

The Abyss Point shop is the Trade Shop. The top cosmetics also cost Silver Medals of Merit, and several items rise in price as you buy more.

The priority for most players is simple. Potential Stones first, because Potential never fails and turns straight into PvP stats. Each of the four Potential steps on a Unique item costs 100,000 Abyss Points plus 1 to 4 stones, so a full +4 on one item is 400,000 points and 10 stones, and on a weapon it adds 2.0% PvP Damage Boost. Our gear enhancement guide covers the armor side. After that, Brawler Wings are the long-term target: owning them adds +1% PvP Damage Boost permanently, as our mounts and wings guide explains.

Abyss rank: tiers, Rank Points and season rewards

Separate from Abyss Points, Abyss play earns Rank Points, and those set your Abyss tier. The season popup spells out the rules for global Season 1 (September 30 to December 16 2026): "This rank is calculated for individual classes. Season Grades are determined based on your rank and cumulative rank point range. Ranks are updated hourly." Rank Points can also be lost, and a Cleric competes only with Clerics.

The tier buff is called Abyss Tier Rewards. It adds the listed percentage as PvP Damage Boost, PvP Damage Tolerance and PvE Abyss Damage Boost, and the tooltip notes that "only the highest buff rewards out of the Abyss, Arena of Solitude, and Arena of Cooperation are applied." At the end of the season, each tier also pays a title, such as Abyss [Season 1] Supreme Commander. Ninth- to Seventh-Class titles are Common, Sixth to Fourth Rare, Third to First Epic, the Officer titles Unique and the top four Heroic.

Abyss gear: what drops in Reshanta

Abyss gear is its own family of weapons, armor and accessories, tagged "dropAbyss" in the client. Regular Lower Reshanta monsters drop four tiers and the named elites drop two more.

Every Unique piece in these sets carries the Abyss Potential track and enhances to +15 like other Unique gear. Courage is the realistic farm for a fresh 45, since 66 regular monster types carry it; Fallen Ancient God only comes from the scheduled elites.

Abyss PvP basics: flight, wings and positioning

Flight is the defining mechanic of Lower and Upper Reshanta. Flying drains Flight Power, and the tutorial says "passing through Flight Circles restores Flight Power." Lower Reshanta has 49 of them and Upper 32, so learn the routes between islands before you need them in a chase. Wind Brew restores 2,000 Flight Power for 500 Abyss Points, and every pair of wings you own raises your maximum Flight Power.

Flight also changes your skill bar. Four melee classes have a level-10 rush that only applies its control effect "after using [Dodge] or while flying": the Gladiator's Rush Strike (30% Knockdown chance), the Templar's Shield Rush (30% Stun), the Assassin's Infiltrate (50% Blind) and the Chanter's Tremor Crush (50% Stun). All have a 10m range and a 20-second cooldown. In the air, those are your openers.

• Every class has Defiance at level 16: it removes Stun, Knockdown, Airborne, Grab, Frost and Fear and grants 5 seconds of status immunity on a 60-second cooldown. Save it for the stun that would actually kill you.
• Full immunity skills (Tenaciousness, Salvation, Barrier Spell) share a rule: they "cannot be applied for 30s if Invincibility stacking is blocked." In group fights, stagger your team's immunity instead of stacking it.
• Middle Reshanta has no Flight Circles. Plan ground routes, and expect melee classes to do better there than in the open sky of Lower Reshanta.
• Abyssal Power Shards, paid out by Lower Reshanta Duty scrolls, make attacks deal 10% extra damage when activated and ignore part of Defense against players.
• In settings, "[Abyss] Display as Tier Icon" swaps nameplates for tier icons. It cleans up the screen in big fights.

Best classes for Abyss PvP

There are no global win rates yet, so this is kit analysis. The Abyss rewards three things a duel does not: reach (fights over islands and Artifacts happen at range), group tools (sieges are mass fights) and a way out. Our class tier list ranks classes for 1v1; this table is about the Abyss. Range counts come from the skill table.

Our read: in the open sky of Lower Reshanta the ranged trio (Spiritmaster, Sorcerer, Ranger) has the easiest time. For sieges and Middle Reshanta, a Cleric, a Chanter and a Templar pull are worth more than any single damage dealer, and the Assassin remains the best hunter of stragglers. Full builds are in our class builds guide.

Abyss survival checklist

1. 1
   Go in with a plan

   Check the clock. Siege nights (Monday, Thursday, Saturday) and Nahma nights (Sunday, Friday) are when the layers fill up.

2. 2
   Run Duty scrolls between spawns

   They pay 1,000 or 2,000 Abyss Points each, outside the PvE and PvP caps.

3. 3
   Fight near your side

   The Devastated Remnants are closest to the Elyos base and the Black Fragments Area to the Asmodian base. Pull enemies toward your side, not theirs.

4. 4
   Leave when the job is done

   Your 7 hours only drain inside. Log out of the layer, not the game, between objectives.

Still choosing a side? Our Elyos vs Asmodian guide covers it, and the endgame guide shows where the Abyss fits next to raids.