Balance of points
An interesting point is that rezzing occurs on the spot you died (as opposed to the spot where the rezzer is standing) so dying close to mobs makes recovery harder. For example, I died in a tough fight (mini-boss) last night but the cleric managed to run for safety. In order to rez me we had to initiate combat, with a Sorcerer sleeping the named boss and the ads it spawned, while the Cleric rezzed me. It was touch and go but fun. Deaths to NPCs are expensive to erase so people really are cautious about dying. Deaths to PvP are free to remove death penalty though.
This is for the moment dominated by level difference and implicitly the level and quality of the gear you wear. One feature of the game is that you cannot determine the exact level of your opponent when you target them. You can see their Abyss Rank which shows how many points they have acquired in PvP areas but I believe this balance of points can go down when you spend Abyss points (for PvP vendor gear). In general though the higher Abyss rank, the more likely the player is to be of higher native level. I have been spending a lot of time with a friend who plays a Spirit master (aion gold). He has had a few frustrating fights where the level difference resulted in endless resists to the spells.
