Alternate Advancement

Achievement experience is an alternate and additional experience system in EverQuest II. Achievement experience is earned in addition to normal experience (with all experience being converted to Achievement experience at the level cap). That achievement experience can be used to acquire special abilities and powers that allow you to customize your character.

Many players refer to achievement experience points as "AAs" because of the original achievement ability system in EverQuest I. In EverQuest II, achievements are technically called "APs" (achievement points) but because of the prevalence of EQI players, "AA" seems to be the generally understood abbreviation. SoE's Achievement FAQ provides excellent information on achievement experience. Some important points are excerpted below.

Who can earn achievement experience?
You must own the Kingdom of Sky expansion and be level 20 or above to take advantage of the Class Achievement system. Alternatively, if you own the Echoes of Faydwer expansion, you begin earning Achievement experience at level 10, and can apply your points to the Subclass Tree.

How do I earn achievement experience?
You can earn your new powers by completing quests, defeating notorious enemies, acquiring rare treasure, exploring dangerous places, and by earning adventure experience once you have reached level 80. These accomplishments earn points that allow you to choose new powers and specialties to set your character apart from the crowd.

You earn achievement experience by:
 * Completing quests (See Soloing Timeline) that are rated for level 10 or higher.
 * Repeatable quests generally give AA on the first completion only.
 * Defeating special enemies, such as named bosses, for the first time - if they con green or higher. See Monsters that award AA.
 * If the special monster is gray to you, then you can mentor a low level friend to make it green, so as to earn achievement experience from it.
 * Looting rare treasures (this includes status items and the various ancient treasure vendor items). See Items that award AA
 * Exploring the world, finding landmarks and generally clearing the fog of war from the map. See Discovery Locations.
 * Completing collection quests

You can spend a maximum of 100 Achievement points before you reach level 70, and a maximum of 200 Achievement Points after you pass level 70. As with adventure and crafting experience, lower levels of Achievement are easier to attain, while higher levels take more time to level up.

How can I spend my achievement points?
You can spend points in either tree at any time, but you must follow the tree's progression. For the Class tree, you must spend 4 points in each bubble (except the beginning ability) in order to progress to the next. You can spend a maximum of 8 points in each bubble. When you spend 22 points in any one line, you can apply 2 points to the "final" ability. These abilities are usually very useful, and you get a prefix title along with your ability.

As for the class trees, each tree is different. As a general rule, you have to spend 3 points in an ability to be able to spend points in the next ability down the tree (connected by lines between the bubbles). Some abilities have only one or two ranks, but require more than one point to raise them. When you spend the required number of points in anyone section of AAs, you are able to spend one point to acquire the end ability. Each AA is part of one of the sections, and you can see which section an ability belongs to by reading the tooltip. You can only apply a point to the end ability if you spend the required number of points on AAs that are part of that section.

You can spend your achievement points in both trees with a maximum of 50 points in each, whereupon at adventure level 71 the cap for each tree is raised to 70.

You can earn more than 100 points at level 70, but the limits are not raised until level 71 (i.e., you cannot spend the 101st point prior to achieving level 71).

Where can I respec my achievements?
If you decide you do not like the way you have allocated your achievement points, you may reallocate (aka. "respec") your points; this unassigns all of your points in one of your trees and allows you to spend them again. You must respec each each tree separately, but (as of GU 37) you can spend the reacquired points in either tree, up to the maximum. The cap for AA points is 100 (50 per tree) up to level 70, where it is increased to 200 points (70 per Class/Subclass tree and 60 for the Shadows tree).

To respec your achievements, visit:
 * NPC:  Location:  in
 * NPC:  Location:  in the
 * NPC:  Location: Kelethin in the
 * NPC:  Location:  in
 * NPC:  Location:

The counsels will also give you one free Class Achievement Respec Card and one free Subclass Achievement Respec Card per character. (Start a new dialogue for each one.)

Achievement respec costs start out at, followed by and then cap at. 30 days after your latest respec the cost will reset back to. Character Development costs start out at. There is no card for respeccing character development.

If you often switch between two achievement setups, consider acquiring a Mirror of Reflected Achievements.

Helpful tips on earning achievement experience

 * AA XP is earned starting at level 10, thus you cannot get AA from any mobs, quests, or collections that are below level 10 even if you are above that level.
 * Lore and Legend quests give a very good amount of achievement experience and will give you a mastery strike against them.
 * Heritage Quests can earn you much more Achievement experience than normal quests.
 * When entering a zone for the first time, try to pick up any Bootstrutter quests in the zone so that you can complete the quest while gaining the discovery achievement experience.
 * It is no longer necessary to mentor down for gray quests. Starting with LU45, you earn AA XP from all quests, even if they are gray.  However, you must still mentor down if you want to earn AA XP from named monsters.
 * If you don't mind a slower form of play, you can disable Combat Experience and only level up from exploration and quests. This makes it a lot easier to keep up with quests (for purposes of Achievement). Completing the majority of Solo Quests available along with as many heritages and collection quests possible will net a new character 140 AA by the time they are level 80.