Lost Ark can be a very fun game, but there are a lot of systems and things you need to be aware of. You can enjoy the game casually and not care much about engravings, cards, adventure tome, and dailies. If you want to make the most out of the game and use your character to its full potential, you need to be aware of a few systems and some tips that will help you through your journey in Lost Ark.
Table of Contents
- 1 1. There Are Two Leveling Systems In Lost Ark
- 2 2. Do Not Feel Locked Into Playing a Certain Class
- 3 3. Remember That You Are Playing an MMORPG
- 4 4. It Is OK to Neglect the Adventure Tome… For a While
- 5 5. Be Careful With Rapport NPCs
- 6 6. Engravings Can Be Complicated
- 7 7. Be Mindful of Your Rest Gauge
- 8 8. Interface Tips
- 9 9. Questing Tips
- 10 10. Learn How to Dodge Effectively
- 11 11. Leveling The Fast Way or the Fun Way
- 12 12. Save Important Items When You Level
- 13 13. Do Not Neglect Your Stronghold
- 14 14. Recycling Gear
- 15 15. Dismantling Or Selling Items?
- 16 16. You Can Farm More Than Two Dungeons Per Day
- 17 17. You Need To Understand How Ability Stones Work
- 18 18. Get Access to Bifrost
- 19 19. Save Materials for Crafting
- 20 20. Keep an Eye Out for Platinum Field Tickets
1. There Are Two Leveling Systems In Lost Ark
You hear everyone talking about reaching level 50 to enjoy end-game content. What they refer to is your character level. Lost Ark has a secondary leveling system that is account-wide. Called Roster Level, this system allows you to unlock permanent bonuses for all your characters.
Quests usually award roster level XP in the game you complete as you level a character. If you have a Roster level 10 and have unlocked several Roster bonuses, creating a new level 1 character will immediately benefit from those. To put it simply, each subsequent character you create is more powerful at level 1 than the previous one if you keep getting Roster level XP.
2. Do Not Feel Locked Into Playing a Certain Class
Just because the first character you created is a Berserker, you should not feel constrained to keep playing that class and play that character as your main. Lost Ark incentivizes players to have multiple characters with several awards and account-wide systems.
The hardest character to get to level 50 is your first one, and it gets easier with each subsequent character you create. You will still need to decide which main class you want to play.
You will need to make that decision when you reach item level 600. Increasing your item level after level 600 requires a lot of time grinding for materials. There is no point in playing a class that you do not enjoy. Just start a new character and pick a class you think you might like.
3. Remember That You Are Playing an MMORPG
Lost Ark is an MMORPG. While you can get to level 50 all by yourself, it is always more fun and faster if you play at a party. Playing a support class means that you deal less damage. Thus, you take more time to clear out the content. On the other hand, you can be very useful to buff or heal your team at a party. For end-game content such as Chaos Dungeons and Raids, playing at a party makes things much easier, and some classes have a really hard time even completing Chaos Dungeons on their own.
4. It Is OK to Neglect the Adventure Tome… For a While
You get access to the Adventure Tome early in the game. The tome is a set of challenges for each region. They can consist of activating vistas, killing named mobs, killing world bosses, or collecting special items. These things count towards your progression in that region. While the regions may be different, what you need to do for your Adventure Tome remains the same.
The rewards can be very tempting. You can get rewarded with potions that permanently boost certain stats, cards to use for your collection for additional bonuses, and rapport items that you can use to improve relationships with NPCs. Doing these challenges while leveling will consume a lot of time. It is much better to start completing them after you reach end-game content.
5. Be Careful With Rapport NPCs
In Lost Ark, you can improve your relationship level with certain NPCs. You improve your Rapport by offering them gifts, completing quests and tasks, interacting with them. It takes time to increase the Rapport with an NPC. The Rapport system is also divided into 4 levels. Each NPC has its distinct reward. Upon reaching a new level, you unlock a special reward from that NPC. Before committing to improve the Rapport with an NPC, make sure you want the rewards they can offer. Ideally, you would pick which NPC you want to improve your Rapport level based on the reward they offer.
6. Engravings Can Be Complicated
Engravings are of two types. There are account-bound engravings and glass engravings. Engravings can be found in your Character Profile by going to the Engravings tab. On the right side, you have items. Each accessory you wear, meaning your rings, earrings, necklace, and ability stone, adds points to your engravings. You unlock a level of that engraving for every 5 points you get in a particular engraving, thus activating the buff. There can be engravings with a positive effect and engravings with a negative effect.
You can also activate an additional type of engraving that works almost the same as items. To unlock an engraving, you need 20 books of that particular engraving. You then need to equip that engraving.
7. Be Mindful of Your Rest Gauge
Each day you can complete two Chaos Dungeons and two Guardian Raids. When you open the Chaos Dungeon or Guardian Raid window, you will see that there is a section called Rest Bonus at the top. This Rest bonus acts like a system that allows you to catch up for days when you may not play the game.
If you miss to complete them on a particular day, you get awarded 10 rest points. If you gather 20 rest points, you get twice the reward the next time you complete one of the two.
This means that if you miss your two daily Chaos Dungeon raids, you get more rewards the next time you complete one. You need to be careful about not allowing for more than 5 days to pass without completing your dailies. You cannot have more than 100 Rest points and after 5 days, you cannot accumulate any additional Rest points.
8. Interface Tips
The game does not explicitly tell you this, but you can use the Triport system to move around without going to the main map. You just need to put your mouse over the Triport where you want to get and then press CTRL+Left Click to travel to the destination.
Another useful trick you can do with the UI is to remove clutter. By pressing ALT+X once, you will have most of the menu items on the screen hidden while the essentials will still be there. If you press ALT+X again, the entire game UI will disappear. Pressing ALT+X a third time will restore the UI to its default view.
The third UI tip you need to know is how to change the color of your cursor. Not everyone likes the default one and fortunately, you can change it. All you have to do is hold the left CTRL key and scroll your mouse wheel to switch between different mouse pointers.
Lastly, Lost Ark can be a genuine hurdle in inventory management. You will find yourself in many situations in which you have to consume stacks of certain items for various reasons. To avoid having to right-click multiple times until you consume a stack, you can hold ALT and then Right Click to consume the entire stack.
9. Questing Tips
In the first few hours of your time in Lost Ark, you will notice that the main questline has an orange icon in your quest list and on the map. After completing certain areas, the main story quest line icon will be replaced by a blue one. When that happens, you will need to sail to Tortoyk. From that moment, you will need to follow the blue questline.
Another aspect of questing that is poorly explained in Lost Ark is that some quests can be completed without turning anything in or speaking with an NPC. You will sometimes see a dark blue button appear right about the right side menu that shows your list of active quests. The button will stay “Ongoing Quests” followed by a number. If you click that button, a window will pop up from which you can complete certain quests.
10. Learn How to Dodge Effectively
All characters in Lost Ark have two dodges. The first time you press your space bar, you dodge in the direction of your cursor. The Gunlancer is an exception from the rule as he dodges away. When you use the dodge ability, it will go on cooldown. The cooldown can vary between 5 and 10 seconds, depending on your class. If you used your dodge, you could still use the space bar to dodge, but only if you got knocked down.
When you use your dodge skill, you always need to be mindful. Use it only when you need to. For example, You could take a hit from a boss to save your main dodge just to take another hit that you know you can handle, and that would knock you down when you use your secondary dodge. In other situations, you may choose to use your main dodge to avoid an ability or decide not to waste it if you know you will not get killed by a particular boss attack.
11. Leveling The Fast Way or the Fun Way
Leveling in Lost Ark can only be done by questing. However, the game throws at you plenty of side content. There are loads of side quests that you can complete. They come with plenty of rewards, XP and Roster XP. This would be a fun way to get to level 50, but it is slower.
The faster way to level is to do only the main quests. This means that you only need to follow the orange quests you see on your map. Lost Ark has a system of balancing the XP you get so that if you do all the side quests, you still get to the same continent at level 50 as a player that skipped side content. You end up richer in the process and with plenty of nice loot.
12. Save Important Items When You Level
As you level up, you will get plenty of items and rewards. The most valuable items that you get are percent-based healing potions and grenades. These should be saved for the end game as they are very valuable. You can make them yourself or buy them from the auction house. However, why would you waste them on leveling as you do not need them?
13. Do Not Neglect Your Stronghold
The Stronghold in Lost Ark is a very important part of the game. The moment you build a station, you will be able to build crews to send ships to complete missions and bring back precious loot.
Another part of your Stronghold is special missions. There you can also plan from the Station. You can send a party to complete Chaos Dungeons and Guardian Raids on your behalf. They will return with some of the rewards that you would normally get. These special missions count towards your daily limit of completing two Chaos Dungeons and Guardian Raids.
14. Recycling Gear
You may be familiar with the dismantling mechanic in Lost Ark. When you dismantle end-game gear you get upgrade materials. However, you do not want to dismantle gear you have spent resources on to upgrade. You can use the Recycling system to transfer the upgrades of a piece of gear to another piece of gear. There is a cost to pay for this transfer, but it is certainly better than having to farm all those materials to upgrade your new gear.
15. Dismantling Or Selling Items?
In the early game, as you level up, you do not get much from dismantling items. You get some broken pieces and powder that you can sell for silver. You will get less silver on these materials than what you would get if you sell the items directly. Also, these materials are of no use to you. When you dismantle end-game gear, you get upgrade materials. These are much more valuable than the silver you would get from selling the items to vendors.
16. You Can Farm More Than Two Dungeons Per Day
If you already have your daily routine but still want to do something to progress, you can complete more Chaos Dungeons and Guardian Raids. However, you will get a special currency instead of the standard rewards. That currency can be swapped for various items including upgrade materials, but the farming process is slower.
17. You Need To Understand How Ability Stones Work
When you get an uncut stone, you need to take it to the stonecutter. Each stone has two positive effects and one negative effect. You first need to decide which stone has engravings that benefit your class. The second step is to know how to cut the stone. At the stone cutter, you will need to cut the stone. You get a success rate for each cut. You should cut a positive effect when you have a high success rate as it has a higher chance of succeeding and improving the stone. When the success rate is low, you need to cut the negative effect. Ideally, you would want it to fail to avoid making the negative effect even stronger.
18. Get Access to Bifrost
At Level 50 you gain access to Bifrost. This travel system complements your Song of Return system. You can use the Song of Return to teleport to a city you have set once every 120 minutes. The Bifrost works in the same way but for a cost. You need to pay some silver to travel with the Bifrost. As you have just one at Level 50, you have two destinations to teleport. The game does allow you to add two more Bifrost slots for two additional destinations.
19. Save Materials for Crafting
Your Stronghold is your main crafting hub. Materials are important as you can craft valuable potions and gear in your Stronghold and it is always more cost-effective to craft than buying consumables and items off the auction house. However, if you do not have enough materials, you will not be crafting much. Make sure you chop down a few trees, collect herbs and mine some ores.
20. Keep an Eye Out for Platinum Field Tickets
When you harvest or collect something using your trade skills, you have a chance to get a Platinum Field Ticket. These tickets can be obtained from mining, herb collecting, or chopping trees. The ticket grants you access to an instanced area that is filled with harvestable nodes. You have 15 minutes to gather as much as you can.