After finalizing my appearance and class, it brought me to the statistics page. Aecheland was pretty freeform with its stat allocation. If you wanted to play a mage with almost no mana, and a bunch of melee attack power, you could do that. The page was in two halves. On the left were Basic Arts, and on the right was Stat Allocation.

  The list of Base Arts was extensive and one of the tabs, for melee, was greyed-out. Unlike with the character class, the arts could be changed later if I wasn't happy with them. Including the Class Arts. Unfortunately, it was very expensive to re-specialize with the art training NPC. With such a long list it took me about half an hour to choose, and I had to choose exactly four. There were some strong contenders.

  Trust that I would have really liked to see the Minor Heal spell on my hot bar. One thing that Aecheland lacked was immediate healing. There were restorative items, but they were few and far between. Players could always heal outside of combat areas and safe zones, but out and doing the content; teams typically had dedicated Aether Weaver healers. Most players also had hit-point restoration runes applied by Rune Vanguards. It always took up a rune slot, and never liked that. I didn't end up ever using it.

  I considered Armor Piercing Shot since I already knew where the marked enemies were going to be. Then paired with Longshot I could fire a long distance at a high frequency. The enemies would try to run for cover, but I would be punching through the walls they were hiding behind. Very tempting. As for Sense Magic, I only wanted to make loot chests and items easier to find. One of the bonuses of playing a magic affinity class.

  I instead went with these four.

  You can probably see what I was going for. Rapid Fire increases fire rate and lowers accuracy. Homing Bolt had the casting speed of a basic attack, it was very fast. The description read that the spell "actively seeks its designated target, even around cover". What it didn't specify however is that it more importantly cannot miss. It had a 100 percent chance to hit. So instead of punching through cover at long range, I would always engage at a medium distance.

  The "even around cover" part wasn't a whole truth either. Enemies could run and hide inside a room with four walls and a door. For that, I needed something to prevent them from running away. With Aetheric Bind I could do just that, though it didn't last long.

  My other two were there for damage. Multishot on seeking projectiles was just plain funny. Anything that improved fire rate was going to be a godsend to my build. I was a one-trick pony and knew it the whole time. Getting that casts per second number up was one of the many about Aecheland that brought me joy. Empowering Aura wasn't chosen for the defensive buff. Sometimes I would use it for that, but I kept it on all the time to improve my damage. The duration was the same as its cooldown. My teammates also appreciated the bonus.

  Now on the right side of the user interface, we had the stat allocation menu. Aecheland's stat system took time for players to get used to. I found that I preferred it to other games that tried a similar mechanic. Instead of direct numbers, they showed symbols indicating the number stat changes.

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  As it increased the stat showed upward-facing triangles.

  Then as it decreased it showed the same in the opposite direction.

  It was always displayed this way, even looking at player's profiles in-game. I got used to it after a while. When stats were adjusted, an equal number of increases and decreases needed to be made. Otherwise, there were no restrictions.

  There were six stats in Aecheland. Three of them for attack: Vigor, Focus, and Unity. One for each of melee, ranged, and magic. The same for defense: Ward, Veil, and Fate. While they controlled flat attack and defense, they also each controlled other substats.

  Vigor also improved melee attack speed and governed the ability to equip heavy armor. Focus improved armor penetration and critical hit damage. Unity has many effects, but I just needed it for damage, mana, and mana regeneration. Ward was the hit point tank stat. Veil, negated status effects called "afflictions". Fate like Unity had many effects but was treated like luck in other games; improving drop rates, critical hit chance, and even caused random world events to occur.

  I decided on more Focus for armor penetration. Vigor wasn't important, but I needed some for staggering enemies. I was going for the whole "glass cannon" thing. I would be at range anyway. Hit points and magic resist were less of a concern, so Ward and Veil I didn't think I would need. Fate I didn't adjust at all. I didn't want to mess with that. I didn't want to miss out on something cool. Then Unity I jacked all the way up for magic potency and mana. Here is what my stats looked like at the end.

  It wasn't too much trouble, but there was a lot to process before jumping in. Like everyone else I spent hours in those menus before actually getting into the game. The worst part was. That time didn't even get me through the queue. I still had an estimated fifteen-minute wait.