Aion 2 patch notes, October 21: Hard expeditions and the Ariel board

The October 21 patch (October 20 in the Americas) adds Hard mode to two Expeditions and a new Daevanion board that only Hard mode feeds. It also fixes Sorcerer and Chanter skills, makes room for more players in the Abyss and starts a Kina shop event for Resurrection Spiritstones.

The short version

Hard mode: Krao Cave and Draupnir, item level 2,600 to enter.
New Daevanion board: Ariel, filled with fragments from Hard mode.
Classes: Bug fixes for Sorcerer and Chanter, no balance changes.
Abyss: More players per Abyss, and its bosses have more HP.
Event: Resurrection Spiritstones for Kina until December 16.

Hard mode for Krao Cave and Draupnir

Krao Cave and Draupnir now have a Hard mode, with stricter rules:

Item level: 2,600 to enter.
Frenzy timer: 4 minutes on the boss.
Revives: 3 per player.

Hard mode pays more than Normal:

Philosopher's Stone: Revelation. It can drop, and you can also pick it as your guaranteed reward.
Ariel Fragments. The amount depends on the dungeon. They feed the new Ariel board below.
More Kina than a Normal clear.
Every Unique crafting material. Wrathful Mind, Wrathful Will and Wrathful Ego all drop in Krao Cave and Draupnir on Hard.
Expedition Hero Artwork. A chance at it, with a new achievement for collecting them.
Unique skins from the new Hard mode achievements.

For the item levels of the other dungeons, see Aion 2 dungeon item levels and rewards.

The Ariel Daevanion board

Ariel is a new Daevanion board. Its points come only from Ariel Fragments, which you get in Hard mode and convert at Substance Morph:

100 fragments: 1 Daevanion Crystal: Ariel, up to 30 times per character. It's under Substance Morph > Special > Daevanion.
1 fragment: 5 Enhance Stones, with no limit. It's under Substance Morph > Special > Consumables.

All 30 crystals take 3,000 fragments. Fragments you collect after that still turn into Enhance Stones, so none go to waste. NC also says the number you can get through Substance Morph is limited for each dungeon.

Class changes

Only bug fixes this week, nothing was buffed or nerfed on purpose.

Sorcerer

Cold Storm: Hitting a target with stacked Frostbite now deals the extra damage it should. Frostbite now matches the skill's level, and with Specialty 1 it no longer applies one more time after the effect ends.
Fire Wall: No longer deals extra damage to targets without Embers, so your damage against those targets goes down.

Chanter

Spinning Strike: Its effects now display correctly.

New to the classes? See Aion 2 classes: which one should you play?

Abyss changes

More players can enter the Abyss at the same time.
The Dimensional Core in the Lower Abyss has more HP.
Every Abyss boss has more HP.
Kaira and Argo have slightly larger hitboxes, so they're easier to hit.

Event: Rise to the Challenge

Until the maintenance on December 16 (December 15 in the Americas), Shop > Wind Breeze Merchants sells Resurrection Spiritstones (Season 1) for Kina. The Wind Breeze Merchants are one of the Membership perks, so you need an active Membership to buy them.

Step	Price	Spiritstones
1	25,000 Kina	30
2	50,000 Kina	30

Each step can be bought once a week on each server, and step 2 opens after you've bought step 1. When you're revived, these Season 1 stones are used before your permanent ones. They can't be traded and they disappear on December 16, so use them rather than save them.

Other changes and fixes

Market: NC adjusted the system that stops some players from listing gathered materials based on their play history. Some restricted players can trade normally again; others stay restricted.
Empyrean Traces: The ones blocked by Halloween decorations at the Dawn Legion Base and Zumion Village in Verteron have been moved where you can reach them.
Key settings: The Movement Controls option no longer appears several times.
Titles: Title effects now match their tooltips.