Hit level 45 in AION 2 and the game stops being about levels. The number that matters now is gear score. It decides which story quests you can finish, which dungeons accept you, and whether a party leader even looks at your application before moving to the next name in the finder. A lot of early-access advice tells you to farm dungeons or pour enhancement stones into whatever you already own. That guidance walks you into a resource trap. The correct first move is the journal, and specifically the regional quest list inside it.
What is the fastest way to raise gear score in early AION 2? Complete the journal’s regional quests. Open the journal with J, work through the side and regional quests it lists, and take every accessory reward plus the Clash of Rune chest. These rewards are guaranteed, they cost zero dungeon energy, and the two Clash runes alone add roughly 120 gear score to a starting total near 700.
The journal is not the tutorial before the real game.
Why AION 2 Turns Gear Score Into a Wall
The main story quest line in AION 2 won’t finish below 1,000 gear score. The two-star dungeons sit behind 1,400. Transcendence content asks for 1,600. Every one of those thresholds forces you to interact with systems that most MMO players normally ignore until endgame: runes, Deva boards, belt and amulet morphs, skill books. The journal is the only early system that touches several of those at once without consuming a single unit of the resource that actually gates your week.
Dungeon energy is that resource. Every run you do in conquest mode draws from the same pool, and once you have done enough runs without opening the reward cube, you are locked out of further dungeons for the week. Spending that budget on low-tier content you will outgrow in two days is how players stall at 1,100 gear score. Journal quests have no such budget. They cost time only, and they pay out in exactly the currency you need: guaranteed gear score.
What the Journal Actually Hands You
The regional quest list is not a collection of meaningless kill quests. It is a structured progression path wearing a quest log’s disguise. The rewards cluster into three groups, and each group solves a specific problem.
Accessories fill dead slots. Most characters hit 45 with one or two empty accessory slots, and an empty slot contributes exactly zero gear score. A green ring at +0 with no mana stones beats an empty slot by a wide margin. The journal’s regional quests hand out rings, earrings, and necklaces as fixed rewards, with no drop luck and no dungeon lockout. One early-access player reported that nearly every accessory they wore in the first days came straight from journal rewards rather than loot.
The Clash of Rune chest is the single most valuable reward in the early list. Clash runes slot into your character and each adds roughly 60 gear score in most early-access progression reports. Two runes move a fresh 700-score character to about 820 before you spend a single enhancement stone. Based on character-by-character progression reports compiled across early-access guilds, journal and regional quest rewards account for between 36% and 42% of all gear score a fresh level 45 character accumulates before the 1,000 MSQ gate.
The Deva crystals that come from completing sealed dungeons feed your Daevanion board. Each point spent on the board adds gear score, and the nodes also grant combat power. That two-for-one trade is something dungeon loot does not match. The journal is what points you at those dungeons in the first place, converting map completion into a permanent stat gain rather than a one-time drop.
The One Argument Against Journal-First
The strongest case for skipping the journal is simple: dungeon gear has higher item level, so why bother with quest trinkets when Draupnir Caverns drops item level 54 yellow pieces? The answer is that you cannot farm those pieces efficiently at the gear score you have. At 700 to 900, you are spending Odal energy on partial clears and praying for specific drops from a broad table. The Draupnir pity box requires three loots, and the yellow gear it hands you will be replaced by Vakron and Ferocious Horn equipment within days anyway. Meanwhile, a single Clash rune is worth roughly as much gear score as enhancing an entire Draupnir set from +0 to +5, and it costs nothing to obtain. You have one weekly dungeon energy budget. Burning it on gear with a shelf life of two days means you arrive at the 1,400 bracket with no energy left for the content that actually matters.
The Level 45 Order of Operations
Follow this order and you will cross the thresholds without wasting materials.
- Open the journal with J and filter to regional quests. Do every quest that awards an accessory. These are fixed rewards, so nothing is left to drop luck.
- Take the Clash of Rune chest as soon as its quest chain unlocks. Equip both runes immediately. Do not gamble on enhancing them beyond +1.
- Work sealed dungeons in parallel with side quests. They drop Daevanion crystals, which you spend on the Deva board for gear score and combat power at the same time.
- Hit strongholds for belt enhancement scrolls on the way, but the moment you cross 1,000 gear score, stop everything and finish the main story quest.
- Only with the journal exhausted should enhancement stones come out of your bag, and even then only for the spirit-forged weapon and guard to +10, plus the green belt and amulet before morphing them to blue.
Completion of the MSQ at 1,000 gear score gives you the bracelet. That piece stays with you for months in most progression reports, so it is worth pushing to +10 or +11 early. It also raises attack and defense directly, which feeds combat power rather than just gear score.
The Rune Enhancement Trap
One thing the journal gives you will happily destroy itself if you let it. Class runes and Clash runes share a dangerous enhancement curve: past a certain level, the success chance sits around 80%, and a failure deletes the rune completely. The side quests provide four class runes, which sounds like breathing room until you watch two of them vanish in a row.
Players who spent their runes on enhancement gambling ended up re-farming nightmare content and festival shops to replace them. The safe play is to equip what the journal gives you and leave the rune enhancement for later, when replacement sources are more reliable. A rune in your hand at +1 is worth more than a +3 rune that exploded.
The same restraint applies to mana stones. Engrave every piece of gear with something, but stop at one mana stone per piece in the early game. Green rolls give two gear score where white rolls give one, so re-rolling until you hit green is acceptable. Spending beyond that on intermediate stones, before you know which gear pieces will survive the week, is how you run out of materials before the 1,400 bracket.
The Journal Has a Second Life
Treating the journal as a one-time level 45 checklist is a mistake, because the regional quest list keeps growing as you clear content. New sealed dungeons unlock new regional quests, and those quests refresh accessory rewards at higher item levels. Re-checking the journal after every map clear catches rewards you would otherwise burn enhancement stones to replace.
The space-time rift, which spawns every three hours, drops you into the opposing faction’s territory. That side has its own strongholds, sealed dungeons, and journal entries. They do not pay the same Daevanion crystals as your home faction, but they pay enhancement stones in volume. Top players use the journal as the organizing layer for this loop: enter the rift, open the journal, take the new regional quests, convert the stone income into belt and amulet upgrades. That is the pattern that separates players stuck at 1,300 from the ones already clearing Vakron. The journal is not the tutorial before the real game. It is the real game, keeping score.
