The Mists in Albion Online: how to enter, risks and rewards

What the Mists are

The Mists are a hidden world designed for solo or duo play. You enter through a portal that appears when you pass a Will o' Wisp, a small light you can see and hear in the open world. Inside there are camps, resources, chests, mythical creatures and a dungeon, and whoever is in there may be another player looking for the same thing.

They are one of the most popular activities for solo players who want high-level rewards, but the risk depends on the zone you enter from.

How to enter

Listen for the whistle of Will o' Wisps, off the main paths, and pass close to one to open the portal. The portal closes after about 30 seconds or when you enter, and takes you to a random Mist of the same rarity as the Wisp.

There are two kinds:

• Mists: for one player, solo.
• Greater Mists: for up to two players, who enter together.

Nobody can follow you through the portal, but inside the Mist there may already be other players. Everyone appears as Mysterious Stranger, so teaming up is practically impossible. They are not for guilds or large groups.

If you carry a faction flag, you lose that flag when you enter. Entering a Mist from a blue zone always puts you in a yellow zone Mist.

PvP rules by entry zone

The risk depends on the zone where you pick up the Wisp:

• Yellow zone: low-risk PvP. If you die to a monster, you fall and get up after about 15 seconds. If a player downs you, you are ejected to the entry point.
• Red or black zone: lethal PvP. If you die, you lose everything you carry, except silver and untradeable items such as tomes.
• Greater Mists: only entered from red zones, the Outlands and the Roads of Avalon, and always lethal.

Not every zone has Wisps (blue zones generally don't), so check in the game.

Rarity and tier

In the Mists the level is not measured by the zone's tier but by the Wisp's rarity, which you recognize by the trail color: white (common), green, blue (rare), purple and gold (legendary). The higher the rarity, the better the monsters, resources and rewards.

If you are in a low-rarity Mist and see a higher-rarity Wisp, it is worth switching.

The Wisp's rarity sets the Mist's tier, as a percentage chance. Non-lethal Mists (entered from blue and yellow zones) give tiers 5 to 7, and lethal ones give tiers 6 to 8:

How long they last

Each Mist lasts about 20 minutes. When it is closing, you have about 5 minutes to find another Wisp and continue; if you don't, you return to the open world. The game says you can go deeper by finding new Wisps or entering Knightfall Abbey.

What is inside

• Camps: you defeat the monsters to complete a fame quest and open the central cache. Regular camps usually give more than small ones.
• Resource areas: concentrated nodes of the five resource types, sometimes enchanted. A relatively safe way to gather high-tier resources.
• Chests: valuable and visible to everyone on the map, so they attract competition. They can be interrupted while you open them.
• Coffers: only appear on the map when you are close and give more than camp caches.
• Mythical creatures: the Griffin, the Fey Dragon and the Mistcrawler, very hard and with valuable resources. They show up from uncommon Mists upward.
• Crystal Spiderlings: only in black zones and Greater Mists. They give some of the best rewards, but with a lot of risk.

Legendary enemies and crystal bosses appear very rarely.

There are also Resource Mists: they open with a green Wisp, which only shows up in the open world's dynamic resource hotspots, and lead to smaller Mists rich in resources of the hotspot's type, from tier 6 to 8. There are solo and medium versions, where you can meet other players, and they close after a short time.

Knightfall Abbey

It is the only dungeon in the Mists and always has the same layout: nine buildings connected by streets, with rooms holding enemy groups and bosses. Defeated groups give combat buffs or, sometimes, a chest, and bosses always give a chest.

The portal to the Abbey lasts about 2 minutes and comes in tier 5 to 8 versions: the higher, the tougher the enemies and the better the loot. It has no resources or mythical creatures.

Brecilien, the Mists city

Brecilien is the Mists city and has a market, a bank and other services. To enter you need 50,000 Brecilien standing points, earned in camps, chests, Crystal Spiderlings and by freeing Wisps. At 150,000 points you reach the next level. Portals to Brecilien are rare and appear in the Mists and the Roads of Avalon.

Inside Brecilien you can't use Journey Back: you leave through the travel NPC or through Avalon. Be careful, because portals to Avalon also show up, so read each portal well before entering.

What build to bring

In the solo Mist, bring a build that can hold its own, with escapes and recovery, and mobility to get out of bad spots. In Greater Mists, bring healing, because healers are common and their absence hurts.

On Builds Forge, check the instanced PvP builds with the Mists activity. Bring only gear you can lose if you enter from a red or black zone.

Healing cast is reduced in small instances: about 40% in solo Mists and Corrupted Dungeons, and about 35% in Duo Mists, 2v2 Hellgates and the Depths. So counting only on your own healing gives less than it seems. Check the values in the game.

Common mistakes

• Thinking that, because you enter solo, you are protected: inside the Mist you can meet other players.
• Opening chests in plain sight without checking who is around: the loot is rarely worth your life.
• Entering from a red or black zone with gear you can't afford to lose.
• Staying in a weak Mist when a better Wisp is nearby.
• Forgetting the clock and being ejected from the Mist with loot in hand.

What to check in the game

The Mists have changed with patches, so check:

• Which zones have Wisps and of what rarity.
• The PvP rules of each kind of entry.
• The standing requirements for Brecilien.
• The tier of each rarity and of Knightfall Abbey.