AION 2 Dungeons and PvE: How to Spend Week One
Over 200 dungeons across solo, 5-player and 10-player formats, with four named 5-player Expeditions. Week one, run what raises your item level first.
Dungeons are the backbone of launch PvE.
NC says over 200, in three formats: solo challenges, 5-player parties and 10-player groups. The official global teaser site additionally names four 5-player Expedition dungeons: Krao Cave, Urugugu Canyon, Fire Temple and Draupnir, each with its own background story.
What actually shapes how you play is the budget. Skip the low-star dungeons and your item level will not open the rest.
The four named dungeons
All four are labelled “Dungeon for up to 5 players” on the official teaser site, with lore attached.
| Dungeon | Official background |
|---|---|
| Krao Cave | Once a Lepharist laboratory. A combat-type experimental subject, Berk, lies sealed deep inside. Treasure-hunting tomb raiders reopened the cave and woke the dormant security systems along with it |
| Urugugu Canyon | A divine realm hidden deep in the Forest of Torbas, guarded for generations by the Aullaeu tribe. The legendary bird Auldor has awakened |
| Fire Temple | Built by the gods inside lava-pulsing caves. Beyond traps and Watchers lies a mirror with a will of its own. The shadow of desire that consumed Kromede still claims those who enter |
| Draupnir | The Draupnir caves, swallowed by an unknown Abyss. Transcendent Bakarma has surpassed the established order of Elyos, Asmodian and Balaur |
NC describes the total as “over 200 dungeons span multiple formats: solo challenges, 5-player party content, and 10-player group dungeons”, plus seasonal challenges, competitive rankings and open-world events.
What the launch catalogue looks like
NC published the scale and four names. The fuller catalogue comes from creators who play the Korea and Taiwan service:
- Expedition dungeons: six at launch. Each has exploration and conquest difficulties, with conquest split into star tiers
- Transcendence timed dungeons: two. Four difficulty levels, each stacking a new debuff
- Sanctuary raid: one at launch, 10-player (two 5-player parties split for mid-bosses, then regroup)
- Nightmare solo bosses: one-on-one, ten difficulty tiers each. The best place to drill your class
- Ascension Trial solo timed content: three entries a week
- Sealed dungeons and strongholds: scattered across the map, cleared by killing, bossing or solving
- Daily and weekly quests: a handful a day; weekly scrolls bought from a main-town NPC
- Daily dungeons: solo instances with a weekly entry cap
- Field bosses: timed respawns, drops weighted by damage contribution
- Shugo Festival: hourly minigames including racing, hide and seek and a memory game
That catalogue is a creator report. NC has not published a matching list. Anywhere you see a specific number, remember it comes from the Korea or Taiwan service.
How budgets set your priority order
This is the practical part. Nearly everything has a budget or a gate, and spending a budget in the wrong place genuinely costs you time.
- Odyle Energy: the currency that unlocks Expedition and Transcendence rewards. Creator testing puts regen at 10 per three hours, 15 with membership.
- Item level gates: NC’s Chapter 1 notes are explicit - new Expedition and Transcendence dungeons require level 50 and a minimum item level of 3,500, with higher difficulties raising the requirement. Creators add that global’s gates are higher, so low-star dungeons cannot be skipped.
- Ascension Trial: three entries a week.
- Daily dungeons: a weekly cap on entries, and it is server-wide. Clear it on your main and your alt cannot run it.
- Raids: creator testing suggests one reward clear per raid per week.
- Shugo Festival keys: they stack. Creator testing puts the cap at 14.
Put together, the priority order writes itself: anything that raises gear comes first. It decides whether you can enter the next tier. Cosmetics and collection can wait.
How far can you get without a guild
One of the most common new-player questions. Split “playing alone” into three and the answer becomes clear.
| Playstyle | What you can do | Where the ceiling is |
|---|---|---|
| Strict solo (never group) | Full levelling. Real progression through sealed dungeons, Nightmare and Ascension Trial. Normal-difficulty dungeons | Transcendence content and raid-tier gear, which need a pre-formed party |
| Independent (matchmaking, one-off groups) | Normal difficulty is fine; hard can be recruited manually | Heroic, mythic and raids: no automated matchmaking, so you recruit. Raid failure is expensive |
| Organised (static group or active legion) | Everything | - |
The evidence:
- Solo content is not a consolation prize. Sealed dungeons are a main source of Devanion points, the skill upgrade system. Nightmare is a solo boss rush with ten tiers and two entries a day. Ascension Trial scales to your gear score and never needs a party. Creators note both systems were expanded in Chapter 1, which shows NC is investing in the solo track rather than tolerating it.
- Normal-difficulty matchmaking pulls region-wide. Creator reporting says matchmaking draws from a whole region, not just your server. That matters on quiet servers.
- Hard, heroic and mythic have no automated matchmaking. You recruit from chat or a community Discord.
- The raid weekly lockout is the scarcest resource. Ten players, once a week. If a pickup group falls apart mid-run, that week’s chance is gone whether you cleared or not. That is the genuine structural disadvantage of an ad-hoc group - not “nobody will take me”.
- Legions grant no combat power. Multiple sources, including write-ups citing developers, say legions deliberately have no heavy levelling or buff trees. Their value is organisation: a reliable weekly roster and people who already know the mechanics. Not numbers on a character sheet.
Creators also state one honest limit: nobody can yet report how long it takes to fill a hard-mode party from open chat on a live global server. That number only exists after launch week.
Do not spend on things you will replace
Beyond entry budgets, the other thing that wrecks progression is money spent badly. A Korea and Taiwan player turned his own mistakes into a full list. The parts relevant here:
- Enhance to 10-12 and stop. Do not push 15. Gear at a certain level is enough to enter the next tier, and the next tier replaces it outright. He parks transition gear at 10-12 and only pushes long-term pieces.
- Only transfer gear that already has best-in-slot stats and the level you want. Transfers carry enhancement and some stats, but mana stones and soul stones do not come along. Spending those on transition gear is money burnt.
- Do not chase perfect rolls early. One attack line on transition gear is enough. Save the hunt for endgame pieces.
- Lock important items. The game has an item lock that prevents misclicks during synthesis or extraction. He locks transfer candidates and rare progression pieces.
- Do not build an army of alts. Some content, daily dungeons included, is server-wide budget, so clearing on your main locks out your alt. His advice is one main and at most one alt.
All of this is creator testing from the Korea and Taiwan service; global numbers may differ. The underlying logic - do not invest in gear you will replace - is version-independent. The full video is here.
How to plan week one
- Clear the low-star Expeditions first. Not for the loot - for the item level. Skip this and everything else stays locked.
- Point daily dungeon entries at the enhancement-material track. Creators single out the enhancement-stone line as the best early investment, because enhancement materials are the scarcest thing at the start.
- Bundle weekly quests into one map trip. Quest budget is fixed; travel time is not.
- Bank limited reward keys. Creators suggest opening Shugo Festival keys once you are capped and the rewards matter. The keys stack to 14.
- Before every dungeon, check the reward preview and your remaining weekly budget, then decide between a final-boss speed run and a full three-boss clear. Full clears have better odds and take longer.
What NC has changed in the dungeon systems
Knowing these helps you spot which older guides are already stale:
- Entry tickets for Expedition and Transcendence were removed; rewards now come from Odyle Energy
- Expedition and Transcendence party sizes rose to five; Sanctuary holds ten
- Pets can be ridden inside dungeons
- Nightmare gained a fourth-layer boss; Ascension Trial gained a Doom difficulty (item level 4,000+)
- A Sprout Badge was added for new and returning players: while a badge holder runs content, others receive 50% of the Odyle Energy that player spends
All of those happened on the Korea and Taiwan service. Whether global syncs is unpublished.
The official Korean channel posted a new Sanctuary update for “비탄의 설원” (Snowfield of Sorrow) on September 9, 2026 as a look at the shape of future content: official update video.
Another creator breaks the solo, independent and organised ceilings down in detail, including the real cost of the raid lockout: AION 2 Solo vs Guild: Where the Wall Really Is (CrusherXGaming).
Sources
- Steam store page (AION 2, app 3393110), official about copy
- Official global teaser site, Expedition and pet sections
- NC press release “AION 2 Rolls Out ‘Chapter 1. Lands of Sand and Snow’ Update”, July 6, 2026
- Steam announcement “Founder’s Pack Content Showcase” (Shugo Festival and rewards)
- Creator reports: Anders “AION 2 Global PVE - Every Dungeon, Raid, and Daily at Launch”, CrusherXGaming “AION 2 Solo vs Guild”, MR4KTV “AION 2 - DON’T Make These 17 Mistakes!”, aLuckyRO “AION 2 Launch Scale Test Guide”
- Official Korean channel video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3MP9ZmRrB8