Aion 2 September 2 Update: Spacetime Rift Domination Is Live, Part of the Big Rebalance Is Undone

NCSOFT published the update notes for Wednesday, September 2, whose headline is the open-world faction war Spacetime Rift Domination — the feature previously read from the client in the August 26 datamine, now with schedule and rules attached.

It runs every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday at 20:00 and 23:00 (Spacetime Rift times) over the strongholds of Verteron and Altgard, with attack/defence swapping weekly: week 1 Verteron with the Elyos defending, week 2 Altgard with the Asmodians defending.

The entry gate is demanding: level 50+, item level 4,500+, 500.0k Combat Power, and tier VI of the Stronghold Sweep achievement in both territories. Three Event Keys recharge weekly and one is consumed per reward — a hard ceiling on farming.

The event needs minimum 60 and maximum 200 characters per side; the portal opens and the event begins 5 minutes later, running 25 minutes, with entry possible for the 10 minutes the portal stays up.

During Domination you cannot use Expedition, Transcendence, or Sanctuary content; S-PVP mode activates for participants, and only S-PVP characters can fight each other, with field guards still able to attack them.

Five strongholds form a group and one of three groups opens at random per event. A stronghold falls when all three monoliths are destroyed; attackers win by taking 3+ of 5, defenders by holding the majority when time runs out.

Rewards follow per-class contribution ranking for players who reach a minimum contribution; a Domination-only Kisk (attacking side only) and weekly Domination missions are added.

The Chanter changes from August 26 are largely reversed: Spinning Strike's cooldown returns from 15s to 30s, MP cost from 100 to 250, and groggy damage from 10 back to 15 — but it becomes a 20m ranged AoE with +50% PVE damage, a real compensation.

Impactful Crush's cooldown goes back from 10s to 15s. Templar sees Pummel −10%, Punishing Strike −20%, Judgment +15%, and Threatening Blow +30%, with Vicious/Decisive/Desperate Strike getting +30% PVE damage.

NCSOFT's stated reason: chaining into Vicious Strike was losing efficiency, and damage is being redistributed to widen skill choice. The site's editor's take is blunt: the August rebalance shipped under-tested and is being tuned in public, one week at a time.

Watcher Kaira in the Abyss becomes a scheduled boss: spawn chance rises from 20% to 100%, on a 4-hour cycle from midnight, at a random location in Lower Reshanta — turning a lottery into a calendar entry.

Abyss boss and Dimensional Core stats are raised substantially for the third consecutive week, along with the contribution earned through PvP.

NCsoft is refunding the [Item Restore] charge spent by players who accidentally bulk-sold items due to the August 26 sale-registration/bulk-sell malfunction — restores are a limited resource, so the refund is a meaningful gesture.

These are Korea-service notes; the global build launches October 5 and its content state at launch is governed by the global roadmap, not this KR patch.

Still, the direction matters: open-world faction war with a hard gear gate and weekly key ceiling is exactly the endgame shape global players should expect to see mirrored in the months after launch.

The public rebalancing loop — ship, measure, revert partially in a week — is a preview of how live-service balance will be handled globally, and the Kaira-style scheduled-boss pattern improves world-boss predictability.