Draupnir is one of the first Conquest expeditions you can get into in AION 2 – the entry requirement is Lv. 45 and item level 1,000, it fits one to five players, and for killing all three bosses you walk away with 300,000 Kina. This guide shows you how to get through it, why running straight to the final boss doesn’t pay off and how to survive Transcendent Bakarma’s stagger phase.
This is about the dungeon in AION 2 by NCSOFT, not Draupnir Cave from the original 2009 AION. The game lists it in the menu as Draupnir, without the word “Cave” – that name is a holdover from the first game, and part of the community still writes it that way.
Draupnir at a glance
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Where to find it | Expedition → Conquest tab |
| Level | Lv. 45 |
| Item level | 1,000 |
| Number of players | 1–5 |
| Difficulties | Normal and Hard |
| Kina for all three bosses | 300,000 |
| Cube Reward | 40 |
| Guaranteed item | after 14 opened cubes |
| Weekly limit | 3 runs |
Draupnir is the entry tier of Conquest, not the goal. For comparison from the same list: Krao Cave has the same Lv. 45 and item level 1,000 entry, Urugugu Canyon already asks for item level 1,600 and gives 405,000 Kina, and Consumed Deus Research Base at the end of the list requires Lv. 50, item level 3,800 and at least two players – for 1,005,000 Kina. So Draupnir is your launching point for the harder ones.
Why you should never skip straight to the final boss
This is the most important thing in the whole article, and most players get it wrong. Draupnir has three bosses and each of them has its own reward pool.
- Kill only the final boss → you get one pool, in practice roughly 100,000 Kina.
- Kill all three → 300,000 Kina plus triple the chance at items.
The 300,000 figure is confirmed by the game’s UI too – the expedition panel lists it as Kina Reward from defeating all bosses. The difference between “I’ll rush it in five minutes” and “I’ll do it properly” is therefore double the Kina and two extra chances at a drop. If it is going to eat a slot from your weekly limit anyway, there is no point in cutting it short.
Guaranteed item: the Bakarma set after 14 cubes
Besides random drops, Draupnir also has a safety net. After 14 opened cubes you get a guaranteed item and choose from six pieces of the Bakarma set:
- Bakarma Breastplate
- Bakarma Greaves
- Bakarma Helm
- Bakarma Pauldrons
- Bakarma Gloves
- Bakarma Boots
Watch out for one thing people mix up: it counts 14 cube openings, not 14 clears of the instance. You open cubes with Odyle Energy, so how fast you get to the item isn’t determined by the number of runs but by how much energy you have. The tracker in the expedition panel shows your progress as 1/14.
Reward pools and drop chances
The Obtainable Rewards window has three tabs named after the three bosses, each with its own pools. The chances differ between bosses:
| Pool | Chance | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| Reward Pool 1 | 0.25% or 0.5% depending on the boss | 1× |
| Reward Pool 2 | 7.5% or 15% depending on the boss | 1× |
| Reward Pool 3 | 100% | 1× or 2× |
The lowest numbers look depressing, but there is logic to them. At a 0.5% chance it works out to roughly two hundred runs before the rarest item drops for you – which is exactly why the fourteen-cube safety net exists here. Inside a pool, the roll is only between specific pieces: in one of them, Ancient Spirit Greaves sit at 45.46% against Ancient Spirit Boots at 54.54%.
In the Korean and Taiwanese version, Draupnir also drops heroic items. At the global launch they most likely won’t be in it, but they are worth knowing about – once the game gets further updates, they should be fairly easy to farm here. Treat this as an observation from the KR/TW servers, not as the confirmed state of the global version.
What actually drops in one run
To give you an idea of what you take home from one solo run on Normal besides Kina: Anguish Gloves, Anguish Cloak, Lesser Manastone, Artwork Scrap: Draupnir, 2× Blue Wave Wing Featherdown, 7× Silentium, 2× Refining Stone and Soul Codex. Most of it is bound, so you can’t trade it – it is material for gear enhancement.
Step-by-step walkthrough of the instance
Draupnir takes you through four environments. In the order you go through them:
- Abyss Control Sector – this is where you start and operate the entrance device to the Abyss.
- Unknown Abyss – you jump into a windstream and fly down.
- Phantasmal Sky – the middle section with two side bosses.
- Bakarma’s Subspace – the final arena.
The quest tracker guides you through eight steps: go to the Abyss Control Sector, operate the Abyss Entrance Control Device, jump into the windstream, operate the Windstream Activation Device, go to the Meditation Room, defeat the Bakarma Brigade, go to Bakarma’s Subspace and finally defeat Transcendent Bakarma.
Two practical things: you can’t use a mount in Draupnir, so you rely on wings and gliding. And positional damage is on just like everywhere else – attacks from behind give you higher numbers, so it pays to circle around.
Bosses and their mechanics
Predator Saraswati
The first of the side bosses, level 45. Good news to start with: you don’t have to run to it, you can fly down to it from the rift above.
It has two main attacks, and one of them deserves attention – it casts a polymorph on you that can’t be removed in any way. No skill or potion does anything about it; you simply wait for it to expire. It is more annoying than dangerous, but if it catches you at the wrong moment, you lose a few seconds of DPS.
Phantasmal Lakshmi
The second side boss, also level 45. You can glide to this one too, and you don’t need wings for it – your pet is enough.
On its own it is simple, but it has one mechanic that can get a careless player killed by their own damage. At a certain point, depending on its health bar, it activates a reflect shield. The boss isn’t the one attacking you – every attack you land on it comes back to you as damage. It is a thornmail-type effect, and the harder your burst, the more you hurt yourself.
The solution is simple: as soon as the shield goes up, stop attacking and wait for it to disappear. A few seconds of doing nothing costs you less than half of your own health.
Transcendent Bakarma: stagger, not damage
The final boss and the only place in Draupnir where you can realistically wipe. Its entire mechanic is built on a Stagger gauge that stacks – and players used to simply hammering away at a boss often fail right here.
The fight has this rhythm:
- The boss charges up and then casts a blind.
- Next come shockwaves you have to jump over. If you don’t jump over them, you get such a brutal slow that you usually die afterwards.
- Then comes the key part: you have to deal stagger damage, not regular damage. Regular damage does nothing to its Stagger gauge. Stagger damage comes from specific skills and the Stigma system.
- If you don’t stagger it in time, the whole team dies and you start over.
- If you don’t take the boss down in this phase, it starts summoning water tornadoes and returns to the blind sequence. From here on it gets noticeably harder.
The best approach is to save your resources. Keep all your Stigma skills and whatever burst you have for the second phase. Before that, just hit the boss a few times so it does the blind. Then stagger it, deal damage – and only then pour everything you have left into it. If you bring it down in that window, the fight is over. If not, you go back to the start of the cycle with fewer cooldowns ready.
Solo or in a party?
Draupnir can be cleared solo – the game even gives you the Draupnir Conquest Solo Clear achievement for it. But it is slower, and at the final boss you have no margin: if you don’t manage the stagger yourself, there is nobody to make up for it.
The recommendation is to run it with at least two players. The ideal party split looks like this:
- The first player goes to one side boss.
- The second player goes to the other.
- The third player meanwhile runs ahead to activate the device at the main boss, so the whole party can then teleport there at once.
This is the fastest and most efficient way to get Draupnir done. If you all go together from the first boss to the last, the run drags on needlessly. After clearing Draupnir, reward yourself outside the game too – the GamersTogether shop has AION 2 merch waiting.
If you are still deciding which class to take in, check out the best classes for beginners or the overview of all classes. You will reach Draupnir roughly when you finish leveling to 45.
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FAQ
Entry starts at level 45 and item level 1,000, the same threshold as Krao Cave. The instance fits one to five players and comes in two difficulties, Normal and Hard. You will find it in the Expedition menu under the Conquest tab.
For killing all three bosses you get 300,000 Kina. If you kill only the final boss, you leave with roughly 100,000, because each boss has its own reward pool. That is why it always pays to clear the whole instance instead of running straight to the end.
After 14 opened cubes you choose one of six pieces of the Bakarma set – Pauldrons, Helm, Breastplate, Greaves, Gloves or Boots. It counts 14 cube openings with Odyle Energy, not 14 clears of the instance, so your pace is set by energy, not by the number of runs.
The boss is built on a Stagger gauge that regular damage doesn’t affect. First jump over the shockwaves after its blind, then hit it with skills that deal stagger damage, and only after the stagger pour in all your burst. If you don’t bring it down in that window, it starts summoning water tornadoes.
Yes, the game gives you the Draupnir Conquest Solo Clear achievement for it. A solo run is slower, though, and at the final boss you have no margin – if you don’t make the stagger in time, there is nobody to make up for it. The recommendation is to run it with at least two players, ideally three with split roles.
In one phase, the boss activates a reflect shield. It doesn’t hurt you directly – it returns every attack you land on it, similar to thornmail. As soon as the shield goes up, stop attacking and wait for it to disappear.
The data comes from our own run through the instance on 4 September 2026 on Normal difficulty. Verified as of 23 August 2026. You will find more dungeons in our dungeon overview and the rest of our guides in the AION 2 guide.