The global version of AION 2 has eight playable classes: Templar, Gladiator, Assassin, Ranger, Sorcerer, Spiritmaster, Cleric and Chanter. The Korean and Taiwanese version has a ninth, the Brawler, added by the Chapter 1 update on 1 July 2026. The Brawler isn’t in the global version. This class overview and tier list cover AION 2, not the original AION from 2009. Its classes have similar names, but they play differently.
If you’ve come across two different numbers, it isn’t carelessness on the part of one of those sites. Two separate services run under the AION 2 name: the Asian one since 19 November 2025 and the global one since 5 October 2026. Each has different content, and most texts online don’t say which one they’re writing about. This article keeps them strictly apart.
The key points in six bullets
- The global version has eight classes. These are the eight that have been in the game since the Korean launch in November 2025; the ninth, the Brawler, arrived in the Korean and Taiwanese version with the Chapter 1 update on 1 July 2026 and isn’t in the global version.
- The Brawler is the newest and least explored class on the Korean and Taiwanese roster. It has been through fewer balance patches than the rest, so its numbers will shift more.
- Role split: one tank (Templar), three physical DPS (Gladiator, Assassin, Ranger), two magic classes (Sorcerer, Spiritmaster), one healer (Cleric) and one hybrid support (Chanter).
- The global version tier list is built in collaboration with aion2.gaming.tools from the official leaderboards (as of 23 October 2026): the Chanter and Templar reach the top 5% most often, the Sorcerer least often. The older rough tier list from the Korean and Taiwanese version stays below for comparison.
- No tier list can tell you what to play in AION 2. Balance changes week by week, but the road to endgame gear takes months, so the meta gets rewritten before you reach it. Why that is and what matters instead of tiers is covered in a separate section below.
- Every class has its own detailed guide with skills and builds. This text is a hub: it gets you to one or two candidates, and the details are in the individual articles.
Early access for Founder’s Pack owners started on 30 September 2026, and the game has been free to play for everyone since 5 October 2026.
How many classes does the global version of AION 2 have?
Eight. Templar, Gladiator, Assassin, Ranger, Sorcerer, Spiritmaster, Cleric and Chanter, the classes that have been in the game since the Korean launch on 19 November 2025. The ninth, the Brawler, arrived in the Korean and Taiwanese version on 1 July 2026 with the Chapter 1 update. The global version launched without the Brawler and doesn’t have it.
That’s why two numbers are going around online, and each is correct for a different version.
| Where you’ll see the number | Number of classes | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Global version, material older than 1 July 2026 | 8 | The global version doesn’t have the Brawler; older material was written before Chapter 1, which added it in Korea and Taiwan. The most frequently quoted is the NC America press release from 21 April 2026 (“Players can pick from eight classes”) |
| Korean and Taiwanese version since 1 July 2026 | 9 | The eight above + the Brawler (gauntlets, Rage and Rampage system), which isn’t in the global version |
Sources that say nine usually don’t mention that they describe the Korean and Taiwanese version, and a reader deciding what to create in the global version can’t tell from the text. If you run into a contradiction over the number of classes, check which version the article is about.
The global scale test on 17 September 2026 ran without the Brawler, and the global version launched on 5 October 2026 without it as well. The class selection screen in the Taiwanese client shows nine icons, Brawler included, verified on 8 September 2026.
Overview of all AION 2 classes: eight in the global version, plus the Brawler
Each class has one main weapon and one clearly defined role. The choice isn’t tied to faction or character gender: both Elyos and Asmodians can play any class. A group in AION 2 has five slots, so the typical lineup is a tank, a healer and three DPS. Whichever class from this list you pick, you can show your loyalty off-screen too – the GamersTogether shop has AION 2 merch waiting – now also with NYERK! and Shugo designs.
| Class | Role | Main weapon | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Templar | Tank | Longsword and shield | Beginners, group players |
| Gladiator | Melee DPS / off-tank | Greatsword | Solo play, head-on fighting |
| Assassin | Melee burst DPS | Daggers | PvP, players with a feel for timing |
| Ranger | Ranged physical DPS | Bow | Safer solo progression |
| Sorcerer | Ranged magic DPS | Spellbook | Experienced players, high skill ceiling |
| Spiritmaster | Summoner / control | Orb | Solo play, per the official description |
| Cleric | Healer | Mace | Group and dungeon players |
| Chanter | Hybrid support | Staff | All-rounders who don’t want to wait for a group |
| Brawler (KR/TW only, not in the global version) | Melee DPS / skirmisher | Gauntlets | Experienced players who want to work with timing |
Sources disagree on secondary weapons (for example a mace for the Templar or a polearm for the Gladiator) and no official list exists, so the table only shows each class’s main weapon.
What the game itself says about the classes
Before you look at player ratings, it’s worth seeing how the client itself describes the classes. On the class selection screen, none of the classes has a tier or a ranking; the game only describes each one’s role. This text is in the client, so you can read it yourself.
| Class | What the game says on the selection screen |
|---|---|
| Templar | A classic tank with sword and shield. Exceptional defense and a range of abilities for protecting allies, indispensable as the front-line tank in a group. |
| Gladiator | A melee fighter with a two-handed sword. Typically front-line DPS; thanks to high HP it can also serve as a second tank. |
| Assassin | Uses invisibility to strike from behind. Dual daggers, high attack speed and combos with poison or stuns. |
| Ranger | Powerful ranged attacks with a bow. Keeping distance lets it keep track of the battlefield and react quickly to changes. |
| Sorcerer | A strong damage dealer with very effective magic. It pays for it with lower health and defense, which it makes up for with crowd control abilities. |
| Spiritmaster | Relies on summoned creatures. It leaves direct combat to its spirits and combines status effects with magic that drains health over time. |
| Cleric | A classic healer who restores allies’ health. Maintains maximum healing output under any circumstances and is indispensable in a group. |
| Chanter | Has many abilities with status effects, boosts allies’ stats and handles several roles at once, from buffer to second healer to damage source. |
| Brawler (KR/TW client) | An offensive class that fights with its own body. In an enraged state it overwhelms enemies with empowered abilities and breaks their formations with movement. |
The Chanter deserves attention: it’s the only class whose official description says it can handle several roles at once. And the Gladiator is the only one for which the game itself mentions a second role, secondary tank.
Templar
The Templar is AION 2’s main tank. It fights with sword and shield, holds the enemies’ attention (aggro, meaning an enemy’s focus on a specific player) and protects the rest of the group. International guides repeatedly name it the easiest class to start with: a mistake in your ability rotation won’t kill a Templar, while it will kill a squishier class.
The class rework of 25 March 2026 gave it a new Stigma skill, Battlefield Banner. The balance pass of 8 July, on the other hand, weakened its passive Fury, but that’s a change on the Korean and Taiwanese versions, not a confirmed state for the global launch. A detailed point distribution, recommended setups and a breakdown of its defense are in the Templar class guide.
Gladiator
The Gladiator is a melee attacker with a two-handed sword who can also take on the role of second tank when needed. It relies on high damage, toughness and the ability to survive on the front line even without a healer, which is why it shows up in recommendations for solo play.
This class sparked the loudest debate of the whole pre-launch season: part of the community claims the Gladiator is no longer the strongest DPS class in the game. That’s an opinion, not a proven fact, and two things argue against it. The PVPBank community tier list for Season 2 ranks the Gladiator at the top of its PvP S-tier, and the balance pass of 8 July 2026 actually increased its personal damage (though at the cost of the Zikel’s Blessing buff no longer applying to the whole group). A breakdown of both sides and recommended builds are in the Gladiator class guide.
Assassin
The Assassin specializes in quick kills: daggers, invisibility, critical hits and high burst (damage packed into a few seconds). Across tier lists it stays at the top of the PvP rankings, but it’s also the least forgiving class. A badly timed attack means death before you manage to retreat.
From the class rework it got a new Stigma skill, Shadowstep; the July balance pass touched it only with minor quality-of-life tweaks and no nerfs. Full skills and PvP rotations are in the Assassin class guide.
Ranger
The Ranger fights with a bow, sets traps and lives off kiting, keeping a distance at which the enemy attacks but can’t reach you. For solo progression through the world it’s one of the safer choices: you fight most battles at a range your opponent can’t close.
The balance pass of 8 July brought the Ranger five changes, all on the Korean and Taiwanese versions. In one older release NCSOFT also used the name Marksman for this class; it’s the same class, just under a different set of names. Details are in the Ranger class guide.
Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a classic glass cannon: a spellbook, area spells, huge ranged burst and paper-thin defense. International guides consistently call it the most demanding class in the game. It requires constant work with positioning and distance, because a single enemy getting close usually ends in death.
The balance pass of 8 July significantly raised the effect of its Element Enhancement ability from 10 to 20 percent. Whether this change applies in the global version hasn’t been confirmed. A spell breakdown and recommended casting order are in the Sorcerer class guide.
Spiritmaster
The Spiritmaster summons spirits that fight for it and supports them with battlefield control spells: slows, fear, distractions. It’s the only class whose solo play recommendation has official backing: NCSOFT’s press release from 30 May 2025 describes it as “optimized for solo play”, meaning built for playing without a group.
Some sources list it under the name Elementalist. It’s one and the same class: Elementalist is its internal designation in the game data, which NCSOFT also used once in a report on the Korean service. For the global version the name is Spiritmaster, as used by the official AION 2 YouTube channel in a video aimed directly at the global release. So both names have a real origin, and you can search by either. Builds and an overview of the spirits are in the Spiritmaster class guide.
Cleric
The Cleric is the group’s healer: mace, group healing, cleansing negative effects and resurrecting fallen teammates. In group content it has the highest value of all classes, because a harder dungeon can’t be done without a healer. The trade-off is slower solo progression: the Cleric takes longer to kill things than anyone else.
For readers torn between support and healing, the most important comparison is Cleric versus Chanter. You’ll find the full table of differences in the Cleric class guide.
Chanter
The Chanter is a hybrid: it fights in melee with a staff, strengthens teammates with buffs and can handle some healing too. It isn’t the best at any single discipline, but it’s usable in all of them, which makes it a practical choice for players who don’t want to wait for a group to fill up.
Some sources list it under a second name, Guardian Sage. A breakdown of buffs and the recommended balance between support and damage are in the Chanter class guide.
Brawler: the ninth class, in KR/TW only for now
The Brawler is the only AION 2 class that wasn’t in the game from the start. The Chapter 1 update added it to the Korean and Taiwanese version on 1 July 2026. The global version launched without the Brawler and doesn’t have it.
It fights with Gauntlets, fills a Rage gauge with its attacks and, once the gauge is full, enters the empowered Rampage state, in which some of its abilities behave differently. Its role is melee DPS and skirmisher, a mobile fighter who attacks and then dodges away. The public skill database lists it as high difficulty, so it’s not a class for your first character.
You won’t find the Brawler in the tier lists below, and that isn’t a flaw in them. They cover the eight classes of the global version, and the Brawler isn’t one of them.
A detailed breakdown of abilities, stat priorities and builds for PvE and PvP is in the article AION 2 Brawler. Everything the Chapter 1 update brought is summarized in our patch notes overview.
Meta by game mode (November 2026)
The tier list shows how a class performs on the leaderboards. For an actual build, this table is more useful: the main stigma and skill of every class in four modes, based on the current meta of the global version (patch of 4 November 2026). Each link opens that mode in the class guide with the full build, stats and Daevanion.
Global version tier list based on the leaderboards (23 October 2026)
We build the global version tier list in collaboration with the aion2.gaming.tools database. It isn’t based on impressions but on the official leaderboards of the global servers: for each activity we calculate how often characters of a class reach the top 5% of their server’s leaderboard and compare that with how many characters of that class are ranked. A value of 100 means a fair share, 150 means the class reaches the top one and a half times as often as its numbers would suggest.
| Class | Abyss | Nightmare | Transcendence | Arena of Solitude | Arena of Cooperation | Ascension Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chanter | 155 | 135 | 134 | 155 | 138 | 189 |
| Templar | 116 | 132 | 115 | 184 | 108 | 119 |
| Ranger | 113 | 96 | 93 | 51 | 86 | 97 |
| Spiritmaster | 94 | 81 | 71 | 75 | 92 | 84 |
| Assassin | 92 | 75 | 79 | 79 | 70 | 72 |
| Gladiator | 80 | 113 | 81 | 91 | 55 | 81 |
| Cleric | 76 | 74 | 124 | 108 | 157 | 69 |
| Sorcerer | 62 | 76 | 76 | 69 | 76 | 65 |
The index doesn’t measure damage or class power. The leaderboards also reflect how well players know their class, what gear they have and who they group with. What it does show is which classes reach the top most often on the global servers right now.
What the data shows
- The Chanter is above a fair share in all six activities and leads both the Abyss and the Ascension Trial. The hybrid support, which the game itself describes as a class for several roles, turns out to be the strongest pick on the global servers.
- The Templar is the second most consistent class and has the highest index of all in the Arena of Solitude, the one-on-one arena (184).
- The Cleric belongs in group content. It is well above average in the Arena of Cooperation (157) and in Transcendence (124), and below it in solo activities.
- The Ranger is strong in the Abyss (113) but the weakest class in the one-on-one arena (51). That’s exactly what you’d expect from a class that needs distance.
- The Gladiator stands out in Nightmare (113) and is below a fair share everywhere else.
- The Sorcerer is below a fair share everywhere. That doesn’t make it weak, it means fewer players reach the top 5% with it.
The Arena of Cooperation has the fewest ranked characters (49,464), so the numbers in that column are the least certain. We’ll update the data with further patches. How the classes differ in their builds is covered in the class guides linked in the table.
Rough tier list from the Korean and Taiwanese version: PvP and PvE
Before you look at the tables, read this caveat. The tier list below is based on ratings from community sources for the Korean and Taiwanese versions after the balance pass of 8 July 2026. It may differ in the global version: NCSOFT hasn’t published the class balance the global servers run on, and the first official patch notes of 7 October 2026 contain no class changes.
One thing is crucial for AION 2 tier lists, and almost nobody mentions it: the balance pass of 8 July 2026 cut PvP damage across the board by 30 percent. Every rating, impression or video older than that date describes a differently balanced game. If you come across a tier list from spring 2026, it isn’t necessarily made up. It just measures something that no longer applies.
PvP tier list
Player-versus-player fights reward burst, mobility and the ability to survive the first onslaught. The table is a consensus of the two most up-to-date community tier lists, not a measurement.
| Tier | Class | Why |
|---|---|---|
| S | Assassin | Invisibility and burst let it pick both the fight and the target. Highest ceiling, lowest tolerance for mistakes. |
| S | Gladiator | PVPBank ranks it first in Season 2. The July pass boosted its personal damage but limited its group buff. |
| S | Templar | Hard to dislodge when defending a point. It doesn’t kill fast, but it holds the spot until the rest of the group arrives. |
| A | Sorcerer | Highest ranged damage in the game. After the across-the-board PvP damage cut, though, it has to finish the kill, which is harder against mobile classes. |
| A | Spiritmaster | Battlefield control and summoned spirits break up the opponent’s coordination. On its own it kills slowly. |
| A | Chanter | Buffs and its own durability make it a class that walks away from a mass brawl on its own two feet. |
| B | Ranger | Excellent as long as it keeps its distance. Once an opponent closes in, it loses most of its value. |
| B | Cleric | Indispensable in a group, slow and easy to silence in a one-on-one fight. |
PvE tier list
In dungeons and group content the order flips. What counts is reliability and value for the whole group, not explosiveness.
| Tier | Class | Why |
|---|---|---|
| S | Cleric | Harder content can’t be done without a healer. The safest spot in any group. |
| S | Templar | The main tank. Same reason as the Cleric: a five-player group is always looking for one. |
| S | Chanter | Buffs raise the whole group’s performance, and in a pinch it can fill in for the healer. |
| A | Gladiator | Steady damage, durability and the ability to survive a tank’s mistake. |
| A | Spiritmaster | Spirits hold the enemies’ attention, which is valuable mainly outside a group. |
| A | Ranger | Safe positioning and decent damage without risk. |
| B | Sorcerer | Highest area damage in the game, but it needs a disciplined group and calm positioning. |
| B | Assassin | Top tier in PvP, but in dungeons it has to earn its spot through performance, as its strengths get less use here. |
A spot in B-tier doesn’t mean a weak class. It means that in a given type of content you have to put in more effort to get the same result as someone in S-tier. None of the AION 2 classes is unplayable.
And one more thing that puts tier lists into perspective: much of a character’s final strength isn’t decided by the class you pick but by how you set up your abilities. How skills are modified and what can be rebuilt is covered in the Stigma system guide. Resetting it is also free, so a bad build path choice can be undone.
Why an AION 2 tier list won’t give you the answer you want
The tables above are the best that can be put together from the available sources. Even so, they won’t tell you what to play, and it’s worth knowing why, because in AION 2 the reason is different from other games.
Balance changes weekly, but the road to endgame takes months
This is the core of the whole problem. NCSOFT releases balance changes on a roughly weekly basis, setting a temporary meta, much like Riot does in League of Legends. But AION 2 has a long horizontal grind: reaching the gear level and Combat Power that the meta even applies to takes months. Not a week, not three.
In practice, the meta you’re picking a class for today will be rewritten several times before you reach it. And then once more. The tier list isn’t badly made; it just measures a state of the game you won’t get to for a long time.
Two tier lists on Google’s first page contradict each other on five classes
This isn’t theory. If you searched for aion 2 tier list as of 8 September 2026, the first page gave you two sources making opposite claims:
| Class | Community database (overall ranking) | Google summary (from videos) |
|---|---|---|
| Gladiator | S | B in PvP |
| Templar | B | S in PvP |
| Cleric | B | S in PvP |
| Brawler | C | S in PvE |
| Sorcerer | B | C in PvE |
And the source that claims to be data-driven, building its ranking from the official player leaderboard, had updates paused at the time because the leaderboard API had stopped working. Below its table it also warns that it runs on data from the previous season and that the leaderboard favors some classes.
Combat Power only decides things when the gap is huge
When 900,000 Combat Power faces 100,000, the outcome is clear and no tier list will change it. What’s interesting is what happens when Combat Power is comparable, say 200,000 on both sides. There the outcome is decided by three things that aren’t in any table:
- how you’ve built your macro,
- how you chain skills outside the macro,
- how well your gear is optimized for your specific class.
“Well” doesn’t mean generally better gear here, but gear that fits what your class scales with. Some classes scale with damage, some with cooldowns, some with multi-hit chance, some with frontal or rear damage. How to build your macro and chaining is covered in the article on macros and presets.
Then there’s chance. A Ranger whose abilities keep triggering stuns and roots, each with a one-in-five to one-in-four chance, wins three times in a row and then loses the fourth. A single fight tells you less than it seems.
What to take away from this
Use a tier list for what it is: a rough overview of where each class usually stands and what to expect from it. Don’t treat it as the order you should pick in. In practice, the difference between a player on an S-tier class and one on a B-tier class is smaller than the difference between a player who knows their class and a player who just picked it from a table.
And one note on roles: unlike the Chanter, the Gladiator has two basic attacks that draw enemy attention. But this mechanic doesn’t work on final dungeon bosses, so for the second tank role it makes no practical difference whether you play a Chanter, a Gladiator or a Templar.
How to choose a class in AION 2
A tier list won’t tell you what you’ll enjoy. Go through the following four questions. Afterward you’ll usually be left with one or two classes whose full guide is worth reading.
1. Do you want to be on the front line, or keep your distance from it? Close combat is for the Templar, Gladiator, Assassin and Chanter. The Ranger, Sorcerer and Spiritmaster fight at range. The Cleric adapts to the situation but most often stands behind the tank.
2. Do you want to kill, hold or heal? Damage comes from the Gladiator, Assassin, Ranger and Sorcerer. The tank is the Templar. The healer is the Cleric. Support is covered by the Chanter and Spiritmaster. If you want to do a bit of everything, go for the Chanter.
3. Will you play mostly solo or in a group? For solo progression, the Spiritmaster (the only recommendation with official backing), Gladiator and Ranger make sense. The Templar, Cleric and Chanter are made for groups, and above all you’ll be needed right away, which cuts your wait for dungeons.
4. How much room for error do you want? The most forgiving are the Templar and Cleric. In the middle are the Gladiator, Ranger and Chanter. The lowest tolerance belongs to the Assassin and Sorcerer: both reward precision and both punish every hesitation.
That leaves the question absolutely everyone asks: what should you pick if AION 2 is your first MMORPG? International sources most often agree on the Templar and the Cleric. Both classes forgive mistakes and both are always welcome in a group. A detailed breakdown, including which classes to avoid at the start, is in the article which class is best for beginners.
Whatever you choose, it pays to know how combat in AION 2 actually works. The game lets you switch between an aimed mode and a classic tab-target mode, and the mode you choose affects how each class plays. We cover it in the article on the combat system.
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FAQ
The global version has eight: Templar, Gladiator, Assassin, Ranger, Sorcerer, Spiritmaster, Cleric and Chanter. The Korean and Taiwanese version has nine, because the Chapter 1 update added the Brawler there on 1 July 2026. The Brawler isn’t in the global version.
No. The global version launched on 5 October 2026 with the eight original classes. The Brawler is the ninth class of the Korean and Taiwanese version, added there by the Chapter 1 update on 1 July 2026, and it isn’t in the global version.
According to the official global leaderboards as of 23 October 2026, the Chanter reaches the top 5% most often, in all six activities. The Templar is second and leads the one-on-one arena. The Cleric excels in group content, while the Sorcerer reaches the top least often.
No. You can play all eight classes of the global version as Elyos or Asmodians, regardless of your character’s gender. Your faction choice doesn’t limit your class choice in any way, but it does affect which server you play on and who you play against.
The Templar and the Cleric come up most often. Both classes forgive control mistakes, both are welcome in groups and both have an easy-to-understand role. The Sorcerer and Assassin, on the other hand, require precise timing and punish every hesitation, so they aren’t a great fit for a first character.
Yes, it’s one and the same class. Elementalist is its internal designation in the game data, which also appeared in one piece of NCSOFT material about the Korean service. For the global version the name is Spiritmaster, used by both the game’s official channel and the press release for the Western release.
Not yet. The global version has been live since 5 October 2026 and the tier list from its leaderboards (as of 23 October 2026) will change with further patches. We update it as we go. Treat the older tier list from the Asian version only as a comparison, because it comes from a different balance.
Picking a class in AION 2 is a long-term decision, not a one-evening one. You’ll find all our other AION 2 guides in the AION 2 game guides section. Information verified as of 23 October 2026.