All advanced classes in the game have their own set of unique skills, and the nature of their skills depends on their class.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – In-Depth Guild Guide

You do also have a regular attack, which can be used without any limitations, but it is usually only used when all your skills are on cooldown, you’re out of MP or energy, or you need to stall till the enemy is in a position to be attacked properly.

As you progress through the game, you unlock more skills and more features around the skill system to make your character stronger.

In this guide, we cover everything that you need to know about the skill system in Lost Ark, from how each skill system works to how to get more skill points after level 50.

Table of contents

• How do skills work in Lost Ark?
• Ways to upgrade your skills
• Skill Tree system
• How to get more skill points
• What to do with leftover skill points
• Are skill point potions account-wide?
• What is the maximum number of skill points you can get?
• Are skill preset page expansions roster-wide?

How do skills work in Lost Ark?

All classes’ combat in Lost Ark revolves around their skills.

You can open the Combat Skills menu by pressing ‘K’ on your keyboards or by clicking Character and then Combat Skills in the bottom-right menu, which is where you’ll find the list of all your class’ skills.

At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find all your hotkeys or active slots, and all of the ones to the left of the middle gauge are your skill slots.

You have 8 regular skill slots and 1 awakening skill slot, which means that you can bind a total of 9 skills at a time from the Combat Skills menu.

To bind a skill to a skill slot, drag it from the Combat Skills menu into the desired skill slot. You can then use the skill by clicking the hotkey associated with the skill slot.

All skills have both a cooldown and an MP cost. Your current MP is displayed in the blue bar to the right of the middle gauge.

A lot of the skills that your class can use will already be available from level 10, but some of them first become available as you reach specific levels.

Skills can be leveled up in the Combat Skills menu by spending skill points. Leveling up a skill increases its damage and sometimes other effects. To level up a skill, click the ‘+’ icon next to it in the Combat Skills menu.

Upon leveling a skill to levels 4, 7, and 10, you get access to skill tree upgrades, which can change the nature of the skill and greatly increase its power.

To start with, skills can be leveled up to the maximum level of 10, but when you reach combat level 55, skills can be upgraded further – called level expansion.

There are many types of skills in the game that describe the way that they are used:

• Skills that instantly activate towards your cursor’s location
• Combo-skills that require you to click the key multiple times in a row
• Charge-up skills that require you to hold down the key before execution
• Holding skills that require you to hold down the key to keep using
• Point area skills that require you to select the area of impact by right-clicking or clicking the same key again after use
• Casting skills that take time to execute after use
• Toggle skills that remain active till you de-toggle it

Skills also have different types of damage that they deal besides the regular damage that decreases the HP of enemies.

These extra types of damage include Stagger, Super Armor, and Weak Point, which are relevant against boss monsters. Depending on the defenses of a boss, these types of attacks will help you in combat against it.

Besides all their regular skills and awakening skills, all advanced classes also have identity skills, which revolve around the gauge at the bottom of the screen.

Identity skills range from large, powerful abilities to strong buffs or changing of weapons. It all depends on the class.

Experimenting and building new skill builds is a large part of learning the class you play in Lost Ark.

The game offers complete customization when it comes to skills, as you can reset your skill points as often as you want for free. Just click the ‘-‘ button on a skill to instantly get back the skill points you spent to increase its level.

You can also use the preset option at the top to save a specific skill build, including the skill slots you’ve bound skills to.

Ways to upgrade your skills

Leveling up your skills using skill points isn’t the only way to upgrade your skills.

Here are the different ways that you can upgrade your skills in Lost Ark:

• Skill points
• Skill Tree
• Skill Runes
• Skill Gems
• Skill Tripods

Both Skill Runes, Skill Gems, and Skill Tripods are first unlocked later in the game. They are not available to you right when you reach level 50.

Every time you upgrade the level of a skill using skill points, its damage and sometimes other effects are increased.

In relation to skill points, when you upgrade skills to levels 4, 7, and 10 using skill points, you unlock skill tree upgrades.

Skill Runes are runes that you can apply to any of your skills on the right side of the Combat Skills menu.

You can first obtain Skill Runes when you start doing end-game content. One rune can only be applied to one skill at a time, and a skill can only be boosted by one rune at a time, too. Runes can increase anything from casting speed to stagger damage.

Skill Gems are gems that you can wear to increase the damage or decrease the cooldown of skills.

You cannot wear two of the same kind of gem – but you can wear both a cooldown-decreasing and a damage-boosting gem for the same skill at the same time. You can wear a total of 11 gems at a time. Gems are unlocked after completing the main storyline in Yorn.

Skill Tripods are special effects that tier 3 gear gives, which increases the level of a specific upgrade in the skill tree of a skill.

What tripods a piece of gear has is rolled randomly upon it being obtained, and tripods only increase the level of a specific skill tree upgrade, which means that it can take a while to find gear with the exact tripod combination that you need.

Skill Tree system

All skills have a skill tree full of upgrades, which can change both the nature and look of skills, as well as give them powerful boosts and other effects.

To see the skill tree of a skill, open the Combat Skills menu, click a skill on the left side, and look at the center of the menu.

There are three parts to the skill tree. The first two have three upgrades, and the third part has two upgrades to choose from.

Each part of the skill tree is unlocked at the following skill levels:

• 1st skill tree branch = skill level 4
• 2nd skill tree branch = skill level 7
• 3rd skill tree branch = skill level 10

To reach these skill levels, you have to level them up with skill points by clicking the ‘+’ button next to them.

At each skill tree branch, you can select one of the two or three upgrades.

Like with skill levels, you can change the skill tree upgrade you’ve chosen for a skill as much as you want for free.

The level of each skill tree upgrade can be increased by obtaining gear with skill tripods on it. Only tier 3 gear can have skill tripods.

How to get more skill points

Getting more skill points greatly increases your character’s damage output, as you can level up your skills further to make them stronger.

Here are all the different ways to get more skill points in Lost Ark:

• Leveling up your character
• Adventurer Tome rewards
• Collectibles rewards
• Roster quests
• Serenity Isle
• Tower
• Una’s Tasks

To obtain all the skill point potions available from these sources, you’re looking at quite a long time investment. Therefore, we recommend starting with the sources where skill point potions can be obtained relatively quickly, like early collectible rewards, roster quests, Island quests, and Tower.

Every time you level up your character till level 50, you gain 5 skill points. You’ll have 252 base skill points at level 50.

Each level up from level 50 to 60 gives you an additional 6 skill points for a total of 312 base skill points at level 60.

In the Adventurer’s Tome, the rewards for completing 70% of the continents East Luterra and Rohendel, 60% of North Vern, and 50% of Shushire, are Skill Point Potions. The reward for completing 80% of Punika is a Greater Skill Point Potion, which gives 6 extra skill points instead of 3.

The Collectibles Island Souls, Giant’s Hearts, Omnium Stars, and Ignea Tokens give Skill Point Potions as a reward at some of their collection milestones, some of which are Greater Skill Point Potions.

After you unlock the end-game of Lost Ark in North Vern, you can start obtaining Skill Point Potions from certain quests. Here are the different questlines that give Skill Point Potions at the end:

• Memories of Luterra (From Thirain in Luterra Castle, East Luterra)
• The Wayward Son (From item Old Pendant, obtained Port Sawtooth Rat mob in Frozen Sea, Shushire,)
• Wondrous Find (From Cadri in Port City Changhun, Anikka)
• Return Trip (From Gherdia in Lake Shiverwave, Rohendel)
• Strange Mail (From Mail Carrier Sentos in Rothun, Rohendel. This questline consists of multiple separate questlines)
• The Last Melody of a Requiem (From Kaldor in Kalaja, Feiton)
• Those Buried in the Dark Ground (From Kaldor in Kalaja, Feiton)
• Eternal Love (From Mail Carrier Alice in Nia Village, Punika)

Some quests, including ‘Return Trip’ and ‘The Last Melody of a Requiem’, have prerequisites that you need to complete before the NPC shows the quest for you to accept.

The questline ‘The Stone of Power’ located on Serenity Isle also gives a Skill Point Potion as a reward in the end.

Tower, which is part of the end-game content in Lost Ark, gives Skill Point Potions upon reaching floors 20 and 50 in Shadespire and Fatespire. Shadespire can be accessed from tier 1 and Shadespire from tier 2.

The quest ‘Whispering Harmony’, which you can get from Una’s Tasks, give you a Skill Point Potion as a reward.

What to do with leftover skill points

When you’re choosing what skills to use and leveling them up using skill points, you’ll often find that you have skill points left over.

As you can only assign 8 regular skills at a time, and leveling up starts costing more and more skill points per level, chances are that you will have a number of skill points left that aren’t enough to level up any of the chosen skills further.

There are two things you can do with leftover skill points – you can either try to reallocate your skill points by changing the levels of your chosen skills or simply ignore them and wait till you get more and can level up a skill again.

Skills require different numbers of skill points to be leveled up at each level, so there might be a different combination of levels that result in you having fewer or no skill points leftover.

The problem with trying to minimize the number of skill points you have leftover is that you might have to sacrifice key levels for certain skills – 4, 7, and 10.

It’s far better to get the primary skills in your build to level 10, then focus on getting the second-most important skills to 7, and the least important to 4. It’s not worth it to sacrifice a level 10 skill just so you can end up with fewer leftover skill points.

Leveling up skills that you do not currently have assigned as one of your 8 skills in the skill slots makes no difference.

Are skill point potions account-wide?

Yes, skill points potions are shared within the roster on your account, which means the characters that are on the same server.

You do not have to worry about what character you obtain skill point potions on, as they’ll be shared with your roster.

When you obtain and use a skill point potion on your main character, all of the other characters on that same server will also receive the extra skill points.

Characters on other servers or in other regions do not receive the extra skill points, as they have their own separate roster.

What is the maximum number of skill points you can get?

The maximum number of skill points that you can obtain in Lost Ark is 408.

You receive 252 of those from leveling up to level 50 and an additional 60 by leveling from 50 to 60, bringing the total number of skill points obtained from leveling to 312.

The 96 extra skills points are obtained from various content in the game, which gives Skill Point Potions.

You can see all the different ways to get the additional 96 skill points in the paragraph on how to get skill points earlier in this guide.

Are skill preset page expansions roster-wide?

Yes, skill preset page expansions are roster-wide, which means that if you purchase an additional skill preset page on one character, all the other characters on the same server also receive it.

You can purchase up to 8 additional skill preset pages for a total of 10 skill presets.

To expand your number of skill preset pages, open the Combat Skills menu, click the next preset page at the top that you’ve yet to unlock, and click OK.

Expanding your number of skill preset pages costs 100 Blue Crystals per additional page.

Like Skill Point Potions and other roster-wide content and items, skill preset page expansions are not applied to other servers or regions on your account, as they are separate rosters.

That’s everything you need to know about the skills system in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

There are several benefits to joining a guild in Lost Ark, so it’s recommended to do it right when you start playing the game.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – Complete Rapport System Guide

Though guilds in Lost Ark do work in a similar way as in other MMORPGs, there are a couple of things that are unique.

To ensure that you get the most out of the guild system, you should know how the system and its activities work.

In this guide, we give you all the information you need on the guild system in Lost Ark, from how to join a guild to what guild activities there are.

Table of contents

• How to join a guild
• How to create a guild
• How to leave a guild
• Guild weekly tasks
• How to donate to your guild
• Guild shop
• How to get Sylmael Bloodstones
• What is guild contribution?
• Guild research
• How to level up your guild
• How to change guild flag, name, and join settings
• How to kick a member
• How to change a guild member’s rank
• Guild member ranks and permissions
• How to transfer guild leadership
• How to disband a guild
• How to not display guild name over character name
• Why should you join a guild?
• Can you join a guild from another server?
• How to get more guild member slots
• Guild vs. Guild, Guild vs. Environment, and Guild Skills

How to join a guild

Before you can start enjoying the benefits of being in a guild, you need to be part of one.

To join a guild in Lost Ark, press ‘Alt+U’ on your keyboard or click the Community then Guild in the bottom-right menu, find a guild you wish to join in the Guild window, and click Request or Join instantly.

You can also use the search bar at the top of the Suggested Guilds tab to find a specific guild.

Guilds can choose to be on either a Request or a Join instantly basis when recruiting new members.

If a guild has the Join instantly button next to its listing, anyone can join that guild instantly without approval as long as there are guild member slots left and there are no requirements.

Guilds that use the Request system cannot be joined instantly, you have to apply for them and be approved by the guild leader or a guild deputy to join.

After clicking Request to join a guild, you have to wait until the guild leader decides on your application. If they accept you, you’ll be in the guild.

A guild can choose to set an item level requirement for joining their guild. If a guild has an item level requirement, you cannot join it instantly or request to join before you meet the item level requirement.

Guilds can also choose to have a password to join, which is mostly used among friends who want a private guild.

If a guild has an item level requirement to join, you can see the item level on the Join instantly or Request button.

Guilds that have an item level requirement are usually better, as their members are often more active and have minimum the item level requirement.

If you’ve just started the game, however, you, of course, have no choice but to join a guild without an item level requirement, and that’s just fine.

How to create a guild

If you’d rather create your own guild instead of joining an existing one, you can do so right from the start of the game.

To create a guild in Lost Ark, open up the Guild window by pressing ‘Alt+U’ or by clicking Community and then Guild in the bottom-right menu, go to the Create Guild tab, choose a guild name and description, and click Create Guild.

You’ve now created your very own guild in Lost Ark!

Creating a guild costs only 2,000 Silver, which can be obtained in no time.

You cannot design your own guild flag when you create a guild, but you can change it later.

When you create a guild, the option Add to Suggested Guilds List will automatically be turned on. We recommend keeping it turned on, as your guild won’t appear in the Suggested Guilds tab otherwise, which is where most players find a guild.

By default, a newly created guild is set to Request to join, but you can change the settings for how players can join in the Manage tab after you create a guild.

You can see guild applications and either accept or decline them in the Manage tab.

How to leave a guild

If you get tired of your current guild and want to join another better one or want to create your own, you can leave the one that you’re currently in.

To leave a guild in Lost Ark, open up the Guild menu by pressing ‘Alt+U’ or by clicking Community and then Guild in the bottom-right menu, go to the Manage tab at the top by pressing the right-arrow icon, click Leave Guild at the bottom, and click OK.

Leaving a guild comes with a 4-day leave penalty, which means that you cannot join another guild or create a new one before 4 days have passed since you left.

You also receive the leave penalty if you are kicked from a guild, so it doesn’t make a difference whether you leave yourself or you get kicked.

Guild weekly tasks

You can access and complete various weekly tasks for yourself and your guild when you’re in a guild.

When you complete weekly guild tasks, you earn both resources and XP for the guild and Sylmael Bloodstones, Weekly Guild Contribution, Guild Weekly Tasks Points for yourself.

You can only receive Symael Bloodstones from weekly tasks once per week, but you can keep completing the same weekly tasks to earn more Guild Contribution and Guild Weekly Tasks Points.

To start a weekly guild task, open up the Una’s Tasks menu by pressing ‘Alt+J’ or by clicking Adventure and then Una’s Tasks in the bottom-right menu, go to the Guild Request tab, and click Accept on the quest that you wish to do.

Before you can start a guild task for you to complete in the Una’s tasks menu, the Guild Leader, a Guild Deputy, or an Officer needs to have started one or multiple weekly guild tasks for the entire guild in the current week.

If no guildmate with the appropriate rank has started any weekly guild tasks for the guild in a given week, nobody in the guild can accept and complete any weekly guild tasks.

The Guild Leader, a Guild Deputy, or an Officer, can accept one or multiple weekly guild tasks for the guild in a given week by opening the guild menu, going to the Weekly Tasks tab, clicking the ‘Weekly Tasks’ button in the top-right corner, and clicking Accept on one or multiple weekly guild tasks.

After one or multiple weekly guild tasks have been accepted, everyone in the guild can start the individual weekly guild quests in Una’s Tasks as described above.

When any guildmate completes the weekly task that’s been accepted in the guild, that weekly task gains points in the Weekly Tasks tab of the guild. The more points a weekly task gets, the higher the level it reaches, and the more rewards it gives to the guild.

In a new guild, only one weekly guild task can be accepted for the guild at a time, but as the guild starts to do research, they can unlock an additional 2 weekly guild task slots and thereby accept up to 3 weekly guild tasks at a time.

There are many different types of weekly guild tasks, but they are all relatively simple to complete. They range from collecting quest-specific resources from Trade Skills to fighting in the Boss Rush.

If you’re a new member of a guild, you cannot complete any weekly guild tasks before 3 days have passed since you joined. You’ll be met with the message: “New guildmates cannot progress guild requests”.

How to donate to your guild

You can donate to your guild to help it grow, which in turn will increase your guild contribution rate.

To donate to your guild, open the Guild menu, click the ”Guild Donation’ button in the bottom-right corner of the Overview tab, and click the ‘Donate’ button under the currency you wish to donate.

Silver, gold, and honor can be donated to your guild in the amounts of 6,000, 100, and 1, respectively. They each give different rewards to your guild and you – here is an overview.

• 6,000 silver = 1 Guild XP and 50 Guild Bloodstones for your guild + 10 Guild Contribution and 50 Symael Bloodstones for you
• 100 gold = 1 Guild XP and 200 Guild Bloodstones for your guild + 30 Guild Contribution and 200 Symael Bloodstones for you
• 1 Guild Honor Banner = 2 Guild XP and 200 Guild Bloodstones for your guild + 50 Guild Contribution and 200 Symael Bloodstones for you

You can make donations to your guild every single day. The same currency can only be donated once per day, but you can donate each for a maximum of 3 donations per day.

Guild shop

The items and resources that you can purchase from the guild shop are what make spending time on the guild system worth your while.

In the guild shop, also called the Sylmael Bloodstone Exchange, you can exchange the Sylmael Bloodstones you’ve obtained from guild activities for various useful items and resources.

Here are the overall categories of items and resources that you can purchase in the Sylmael Bloodstone Exchange:

• Combat XP Potions
• Silver Chests
• Honing Materials
• Content Entrance Tickets

You’ll find the Sylmael Bloodstone Exchange NPC in every major city of the game. To see their exact location, open the map, and search for ‘Sylmael Bloodstone Exchange’.

Not all of the listings in the Sylmael Bloodstone Exchange can be purchased from the start. Some listings require that your guild has researched a specific level of the guild shop. Some listings also have an item level requirement.

If a listing has either an item level or research requirement, you can see it in its listing box or in its description when hovering over them.

How to get Sylmael Bloodstones

Sylmael Bloodstones is the guild currency in Lost Ark, which you can spend at the guild shop.

You can earn Sylmael Bloodstones by participating in guild activities – specifically weekly guild tasks and guild contributions.

The first time you complete a new type of weekly guild task every week, you get a number of Sylmael Bloodstones.

Every week, the guild distributes its earned guild bloodstones to the guild itself and its members, based on the set distribution rate and the contribution goals and actual contributions by the members in that given week.

To get a share of the guild bloodstones, which will become Sylmael Bloodstones when sent to you, you need to increase your guild contribution and reach the minimum contribution requirement in a given week.

If you don’t meet the guild contribution requirement in a week, you won’t get any Sylmael Bloodstones from the weekly distribution and will have to build up your contribution for the next week.

What is guild contribution?

Guild contribution is a measure of how active and contributing a guildmate has been in the current week since the last reset.

Every week when Sylmael Bloodstones are distributed amongst the members of the guild, you need to have reached the set contribution requirement to get a share of the Sylmael Bloodstones sent out to guild members.

You can see your current guild contribution, what the contribution minimum is set to per week, as well as what percentage of the shared Sylmael Bloodstones will be sent out to members and what percentage is kept by the guild in the Bloodstone Distribution tab under the Manage tab in the Guild menu.

There are two ways to earn guild contribution – by completing weekly guild tasks and by donating to your guild.

The easiest way to reach the Guild Contribution requirement is by making donations to your guild.

You might not want to spend your gold donating to your guild, though, nor want to acquire the Guild Honor Banner, in which case we recommend just donating the 6,000 silver daily.

The Guild Honor Banner, which gives a lot of guild contributions when donated, can be obtained by purchasing it from Mari’s Secret Shop in the Store. It is rarely for sale there, though.

The second and most efficient way to earn guild contribution, resource-wise, is completing weekly guild tasks, which require your time.

Depending on the type of weekly task, you do also get other resources like Trade Skill materials when completing the task.

Guild research

Guilds can perform research to unlock new features, better weekly tasks, guild shop listings, more research and weekly task slots, and more.

Guildmates with the appropriate rank can start guild research by opening the guild menu, going to the Research tab, clicking the ‘Research List’ button in the top-right corner, selecting what to research, and clicking the ‘Research’ button.

Guild research costs Guild Bloodstones to start and takes time to complete. Guild research takes much longer to complete than most research in the Stronghold, but there aren’t as many things for the guild the research either.

The guild earns Guild Bloodstones from its members conducting guild activities and the weekly distribution.

Before the guild can start certain research, the guild needs to have reached a specific level. You can see what guild level is required for each research in the list of research.

How to level up your guild

Like many systems in Lost Ark, guilds also have their own level.

Leveling up of a guild unlocks access to new research and increases its number of guildmate slots.

To level up a guild, its members need to do guild activities, which give Guild XP. When enough Guild XP is earned from members completing weekly tasks and donating, the guild levels up.

You can see the current guild level, XP, and XP needed to reach the next level on the left side of the Guild menu.

How to change guild flag, name, and join settings

When you create a guild, you can only choose its name and description, not the guild’s flag or join settings.

These things, including the name and description of the guild, can be changed after you create it.

To change the flag icon of a guild, open the Guild menu, click the right-arrow at the top, go to the Manage tab, click Edit Flag, design your flag, and click OK.

You can edit your guild’s flag as often as you want to for free.

When creating and designing your flag, you can choose a base flag and up to 3 marks on top. Each mark can be fully customized in size, location, color, rotation, and flip.

To start with, you cannot choose between all base flags and marks, as your guild needs to purchase them with Guild Bloodstones and meet their guild level requirement if they have any.

To change the name of your guild, go to the Manage tab in the Guild menu, click the Change Guild Name button on the right side, click OK, and select the guild’s new name.

Changing the name of a guild requires one Guild Name Change token, which costs 2,900 Royal Crystals, which equals approximately $30. It’s therefore recommended that you find a guild name that you like when creating a guild.

To change the join settings of your guild, open the Guild menu and go to the Manage tab, click the Join Settings button at the bottom and choose how players can join your guild, then click Save.

If you wish to set an item level requirement that players need to meet before they can join or apply for your guild, type it in the field next to Min Item Level.

By default, your guild will be set to Subject to approval, which means players have to request to join, and the guild leader, guild deputy, or an officer then has to approve them.

There are four types of join settings you can choose for your guild.

Subject to approval lets anyone who meets the item level requirement, if any is set, apply for your guild. They then have to be approved to become part of the guild.

Join instantly lets anyone who meets the item level requirement, if any is set, join the guild instantly if the guild isn’t full.

Require a password lets you set a password that must be typed in to join the guild. If someone writes the correct password, they will instantly join the guild.

Deny makes it so that nobody can join the guild and so that the guild doesn’t appear in the Suggested Guilds tab. It will stay like this until you change to another join setting.

How to kick a member

If a member of your guild is starting to become inactive or you wish to remove them because of another reason, you can kick them, called ban or banish in Lost Ark.

To kick a guild member, open up the Guild menu, go to the Guildmates tab, find the member in the list of guild members, right-click them, click Ban, then OK, and then OK again.

After clicking OK, that member will be banished from the guild, also known as kicked.

The member who you’ve kicked cannot join another guild or create a new one before 4 days have passed since their kick. The guild itself doesn’t face any penalties for kicking a member.

If you do not see a guild member in the list of members in the Guildmates tab, it’s because they are offline. Untick the box at the bottom of the window that says ‘Show only online Guildmates’ to see offline guild members.

How to change a guild member’s rank

When you’re the leader of a guild or the guild deputy, you can manage the ranks of the members in your guild to change their permissions.

To change the rank of a guild member, open the Guild menu, go to the Guildmates tab, right-click the member whose rank you want to change, hover over Set Position in the drop-down menu, and select the rank you wish to give them.

A member’s rank cannot be upgraded until they’ve been in the guild for at least 3 days.

Again, if you do not see a member in the Guildmates tab of the Guild menu, untick the ‘Show only online Guildmates’ box at the bottom.

Guild member ranks and permissions

Guild members can have different ranks, and each rank gives different permissions as to what that member can do and manage in the guild.

Here are the different guild member ranks and what permissions they give, in order of most influence and power to least:

• Guildmaster: Can do and manage everything, including transferring ownership of guild, disbanding the guild, and demoting Guild Deputies.
• Guild Deputy: Can do everything that the Guildmaster can do, including starting weekly tasks, research, accepting and rejecting guild member applications, and kicking guildmates, but cannot transfer ownership, disband the guild, nor demote other Guild Deputies.
• Officer: Can do everything that the Guild Deputy can do, but cannot change guildmates’ ranks.
• Guildmate: Cannot manage anything in the guild, can only donate to the guild and complete weekly tasks started by Guild Deputies or the Guildmaster

As not all aspects of the guild system have been released in the NA/EU version of Lost Ark, the permissions of Guild Deputies and Officers are almost the same. When Guild vs. Environment and Guild vs. Guild are released, the deputy will have a few more permissions than officers.

Only one guildmate can be given the rank Guild Deputy, while there is no limit to the number of players you give the rank Officer.

When you first join a guild, you have a special new member rank, which limits your capabilities in earning guild contribution, and you cannot be promoted to a higher rank while being of the new member rank.

You will automatically receive the Guildmate rank after being in the guild for 3 days, at which point your guild earnings capabilities increase, and you can be promoted.

How to transfer guild leadership

If you no longer wish to be the leader of your guild but don’t want to disband it either, you can transfer the leadership of the guild to another member.

To transfer the leadership of a guild, open the guild menu, go to the Manage tab by clicking the right-arrow, click the ‘Change Leader’ button in the bottom-right corner, and click ‘OK’.

In the confirmation window, it’ll display what guildmate you are about to promote to Guildmaster and thus transfer guild leadership to.

The guild member that you wish to transfer the guild leadership to must be a Guild Deputy before leadership can be transferred to them. If they aren’t the Guild Deputy already, promote them to that rank and then transfer the leadership.

There can only be one Guild Deputy in the guild, and they are the one that can be given the guild leadership.

If someone else than the player you wish to make the Guildmaster is currently the Guild Deputy, you have to demote them and promote the player you wish to transfer leadership to the Guild Deputy.

A new member of the guild cannot be promoted to any rank, including Guild Deputy, before they’ve been in the guild for at least 3 days.

You must be the Guildmaster to transfer the leadership of a guild.

How to disband a guild

If you wish to delete your guild in Lost Ark, you can do so by disbanding it.

To disband your guild, open the Guild menu, click the right-arrow in the top-right corner, select the Manage tab, click the Disband Guild button at the bottom, and click OK.

Your guild will now enter a disbanding standby period, where you can revert your decision to disband the guild.

After the disbanding standby period is over, your guild will be disbanded.

Before you delete your guild, we recommend considering transferring the leadership of the guild to another guildmate in case they want to run it.

After you transfer the leadership of the guild, you can leave the guild, and the new leader can run it.

How to not display guild name over character name

If you’ve just joined a guild in Lost Ark, you’ve probably noticed that the name of your guild is displayed above your character’s name.

Most players prefer not to have their guild name displayed above their character’s name, so here is how to get rid of it.

To disable displaying your guild’s name above your character’s name in Lost Ark, press ESC, click Settings, select Gameplay, then Name Tags in the drop-down menu, untick the box next to Show Guild Name, and click the ‘Apply’ button at the bottom.

Your guild’s name will now no longer be displayed above your character. To enable it again, just retick the box in Settings.

Why should you join a guild?

There are several benefits to joining a guild in Lost Ark.

The main reason why you should join a guild is that you can earn Sylmael Bloodstones, which can be spent in the guild shop.

Obtaining Sylmael Bloodstones from guild activities helps your progression, as you can purchase honing materials, Combat XP, and Content Entrance Tickets with them.

The second reason why you might want to join a guild for the community aspect, which can help you find groups for end-game content where a group is required.

Later, when the guild features Guild vs. Guild, Guild vs. Environment, and Guild Skills are added to the NA/EU version of Lost Ark, being in a guild becomes even more important late-game.

To get the most rewards from the guild system, you should be actively doing guild activities, but you should preferably also be in a guild with many members that also actively do guild activities, as the total rewards for all members will be greater.

Can you join a guild from another server?

No, you cannot join a guild that is on another server or another region in Lost Ark.

Guilds exist only within the same server.

If you wish to be in a specific guild that maybe your friends are in that play on another server, you would have to create a character on their server to join the same guild.

How to get more guild member slots

When a new guild is created, it has a maximum of 30 available guild member slots.

To increase the number of guild member slots in a guild, you have to level up the guild. Every time the guild levels up, its number of maximum guildmate slots increases.

In the beginning, you get two extra guild member slots per level up, but later, you start getting 3 and 5 guild member slots per level up.

You can see the maximum guildmate slots a guild has at each level by opening the guild menu, clicking the right-arrow in the top-right corner, selecting the Manage tab, and then selecting the Level Benefits subtab.

Guild vs. Guild, Guild vs. Environment, and Guild Skills

There are some aspects of the guild system that are not currently implemented in the NA/EU version of Lost Ark.

These include Guild vs. Guild, Guild vs. Environment, and Guild Skills.

Guild vs. Guild is a feature where you fight along some of your guildmembers against a team consisting of members from another guild.

Guild vs. Environment is a special event in various locations of the world in Lost Ark, where you can take on powerful enemies and bosses at specific times with your guildmates.

Guild Skills are skills your guild can unlock that the members can then use to increase their stats, etc.

All of these features are, as mentioned, not available in the NA/EU version, but they will likely be added later as the developers keep updating the game.

That’s everything you need to know about the guild system in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

Building Rapport with NPCs unlocks new questlines and useful rewards, including Skill Point Potions and gold.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – Gear Honing Guide

You cannot build Rapport with all NPCs in the game, only those who have a ‘Rapport’ option when you interact with them. They are displayed with a heart icon on the map.

The Rapport menu can be accessed by clicking ‘Alt+N’ on your keyboard or through Adventure and then Rapport in the bottom-right menu.

In this guide, we give you all the information that you need on the Rapport system in Lost Ark, from how to build Rapport with NPCs to what NPCs to focus on first.

Table of contents

• What is Rapport in Lost Ark?
• How to increase Rapport with NPCs
• Where to get Rapport gifts
• Rapport ranks and levels
• Rewards from the Rapport system
• What Rapport NPCs to focus on first
• The fastest way to increase Rapport

What is Rapport in Lost Ark?

Rapport in Lost Ark is a system where you can build reputations with specific NPCs to improve your relationship with them.

Building Rapport with an NPC to increase your affection and relationship with them gives you access to new questlines and various rewards.

You can access the Rapport system menu by clicking ‘Alt+N’ on your keyboard or by clicking Adventure and then Rapport in the bottom-right menu.

While the Rapport system works as a reputation system with individual NPCs, the game does also feature another reputation system through Una’s Tasks, where you can build a reputation with a group of people, often an island.

Far from all NPCs in the game are Rapport NPCs, and you can only build Rapport with Rapport NPCs.

All Rapport NPCs are marked with a red heart on the map, and they have a ‘Rapport’ option when you interact with them.

You can also see the full list of Rapport NPCs in the game by opening the Rapport menu.

How to increase Rapport with NPCs

You need to increase affection with Rapport NPCs to improve your relationship with them if you wish to unlock new quests and rewards.

There are five different ways to increase affection with Rapport NPCs in Lost Ark:

• Give Rapport gifts
• Play instrument
• Dialogue
• Show emotes
• Complete quest

They are the five options you can choose in the bottom-left corner under ‘Rapport’ when interacting with a Rapport NPC.

You can give Rapport gifts to Rapport NPCs to increase your relationship with them.

All Rapport NPCs have specific gifts that they prefer. You can see what gifts a specific Rapport NPC prefers and how many Rapport points they give when gifted by clicking the Details icon in a Rapport NPC’s box in the Rapport menu.

You can give a maximum of 30 of the same Rapport gift to the same NPC per day, and a total of 99 gifts per day overall.

Playing an instrument, which is playing a song from your Sheet Music collection, increases the Rapport points you have with a Rapport NPC.

You cannot play any song for a Rapport NPC, only the ones that they display when pressing Play Instrument.

The different songs that you can play for a Rapport NPC give different amounts of Rapport, which you can see after pressing Play Instrument, and you can play a maximum of 5 songs per day overall, 6 if you have the Crystalline Aura. The same song cannot be played more than once per day for the same NPC.

Every Rapport NPC has Rapport dialogue that you can listen to, which will increase your Rapport with that NPC.

Rapport dialogues are the options marked with a dialogue icon on the left and the name of the dialogue next to it.

You can only listen to the same dialogue from a Rapport NPC once.

Showing emotes to a Rapport NPC works similarly to playing them a song. You click Show Emotes and you’ll see the different emotes that you can show that rapport NPC.

Emotes that you can show a specific Rapport NPC give different amounts of Rapport points, and you can only show a total of 5 emotes to Rapport NPCs overall daily, 6 if you have the Crystalline Aura. The same emote cannot be used more than once per day for the same NPC.

Completing Rapport quests, or ‘receive a quest’, is the option that gives you the latest Rapport quest a specific Rapport NPC has to offer.

You can receive and complete a new Rapport quest after reaching a higher Rapport rank, level, or virtue points requirement.

To see what the requirements for the next quest are, click ‘Receive a quest’ in the Rapport options.

You often need to complete the next Rapport quest before you can keep increasing your Rapport with an NPC through the four other methods. Completing Rapport quests also increases your Rapport points with that NPC.

After you’ve reached a higher Rapport level or rank with a Rapport NPC, you cannot keep increasing the affection with a Rapport NPC through any of these five methods before you’ve completed their next Rapport quest.

Rapport NPCs have virtue points requirements that require you to have a specific number of points in some virtues before you can keep giving using each method to increase Rapport.

Certain Rapport NPCs also have either virtue points requirements or quest requirements before you can even start interacting with them. They will tell you their requirements when you try to interact with them. Quest requirements can also be seen in the Rapport menu.

Rapport options that are currently unavailable because you do not meet the requirements are greyed out, and when you click them, it tells you the requirements that you need to meet.

Where to get Rapport gifts

Giving gifts to Rapport NPCs will account for a large amount of the Rapport points you earn with them.

Here are the different ways to acquire Rapport gift items in Lost Ark:

• Exchange Rapport NPC
• Events
• Adventurer’s Tome and Collectibles rewards
• Island quests
• Mari’s Secret Shop
• Trade Merchants
• Wandering Merchants
• Welcome Challenges

You can see what Rapport items you currently have by opening your Inventory, clicking the Storage icon at the top, and then selecting the Rapport tab.

To see how many Providence Stones you have, click the Currency Inventory icon at the top of the screen, go to the Token Items tab, and click Collectible.

The Exchange Rapport NPC is located in every major town in Lost Ark. At this NPC, you can exchange Providence Stones for Rapport gifts.

That means that any content that gives you Providence Stones indirectly gives you Rapport Gifts.

Unlike many other exchange NPCs in the game, the Exchange Rapport NPC in each town is not the same. They sell only Rapport gift chests corresponding to the continent where the town they are in is located or nearby continents if they have no major towns.

So, if you’re building Rapport with a Rapport NPC in North Vern, use the Exchange Rapport NPC in Vern Castle.

Many events and event shops sell Rapport item chests, so make sure to check what events are running as you read this.

Both the Adventurer’s Tome and some Collectibles give Rapport gift items as a reward for reaching milestones.

Many of the island quests that you can complete on the smaller island on the open sea of Lost Ark give either Rapport gifts directly as a reward or Providence Stones, which you can then exchange for Rapport gifts.

One of the things that you can purchase for Blue Crystals in Mari’s Secret Shop located in the Store is Rapport chests.

Trade Merchants that visit your Stronghold sell a variety of items. Occasionally, they sell Rapport items.

Wandering Merchants that visit different areas of the game at specific times also sell Rapport items.

The last way to get Rapport gifts in the game is by completing Welcome Challenges, located in the top-right corner next to the minimap. The challenges that give Rapport items are under the Basic Guide tab.

Rapport ranks and levels

As you build your relationship with a Rapport NPC, you can reach higher ranks of Rapport or relationship.

Within each Rapport rank, there are between 1 and 3 levels.

Here are the different Rapport ranks or relationships you can have with Rapport NPCs:

• Disinterested (0 levels)
• Neutral (2 levels)
• Amicable (3 levels)
• Friendly (3 levels)
• Trusted (0 levels/1 level)
• Affection (0 levels)

Only the two Rapport NPCs Ealyn and Sasha can reach the Affection Rapport rank. All other Rapports can only reach the Trusted rank.

Ranks with 0 levels mean that you either haven’t started your Rapport relationship with them, don’t meet their requirements, or they cannot reach higher Rapport ranks.

The reason why the Trusted Rapport rank says both 0 and 1 level(s) is that Ealyn and Sasha can reach Affection rank, which means that they have 1 level to gain more Rapport points at Trusted rank, while the rest of the Rapport NPCs are maxed out at Trusted and thus cannot gain any Rapport points at that rank.

To increase your Rapport rank with a Rapport NPC, you have to go through the different levels at the current Rapport rank. After building enough Rapport points in the last level of the current rank, the NPC will reach the next rank.

You can see the current Rapport rank and level you have with a Rapport NPC at the top of the screen while interacting with them.

Rewards from the Rapport system

There are many great rewards to earn from the Rapport system, which is why you want to build up your Rapport relationship with NPCs.

Here are the different rewards that you can earn from building Rapport with Rapport NPCs in Lost Ark:

Collectibles

• Giant’s Hearts
• Island Souls
• Masterpieces
• Omnium Stars

Stat-increasing potions

• Vitality Increase Potions
• Stat Increase Potions
• Crit Potions
• Charisma Potions
• Courage Potions
• Wisdom Potions
• Kindness Potions

Currencies

• Ancient Gold Coins
• Ancient Platinum Coins
• Bloodclaw’s Glittering Coins
• Pirate Coins
• Gold Coins
• Sailing Coin Selection Chests
• Providence Stones
• Golden Goblin Coins

Game systems

• Cards
• Card Experience
• Stronghold Dispatch Crew
• Engraving Effect Recipe Pouches
• Adventurer’s Tome Item
• Skill Runes
• Mounts
• Emotes

Sailing

• Ship Crew
• Ship Blueprints
• Sail Glyphs

Combat

• Phoenix Plumes
• Recovery Battle Item Chests
• Battle Item Chests

Content

• Entrance Ticket: Secret Laboratory
• Secret Map

Crafting

• Crafting Ingredients
• Crafting Recipes

You can claim rewards from Rapport NPCs when you reach a higher rank of relationship with them.

To see what rewards a specific Rapport NPC gives at each Rapport rank, open the Rapport menu, find the NPC, and click the Details icon in its box.

Of all the rewards that you can get from Rapport NPCs, the most important are those that increase your stats. Especially Giant’s Hearts are important, as you get Skill Point Potions from the Giant’s Hearts collectibles rewards.

What Rapport NPCs to focus on first

With the vast number of Rapport NPCs, it can be difficult to know which ones are the best to focus on first.

In general, these are the best Rapport NPCs to focus on first:

• Beatrice
• Blue-Eyed Calvasus
• Sasha
• Nineveh

The reason why you want to start building your Rapport relationship with these NPCs first is that they give Giant’s Hearts.

In the Giant’s Heart collection rewards, you can get Skill Point Potions, which are very valuable.

Of the NPCs listed above, Beatrice has the lowest virtue points requirements before you can reach the rank that gives a Giant’s Heart, Blue-Eyed Calvasus has the second-lowest, and Sasha and Nineveh have the same requirements.

After you’ve built Rapport with these 4 Rapport NPCs or you’re unable to increase their Rapport till you’ve acquired more virtue points, you should start building Rapport with the NPCs that give you the items that you need currently.

You can see what each Rapport NPC gives at each Rapport rank by clicking the Details icon in their box in the Rapport menu.

If you’re unsure what items you need to keep progressing, we recommend looking for Stat Increase Potions, Virtue Point Potions, and gold, as those are always needed for progression.

The fastest way to increase Rapport

If you’re after a specific reward from a Rapport NPC, chances are that you want to get it as quickly as possible.

The fastest way to increase Rapport with a Rapport NPC in Lost Ark is by giving them Rapport gifts that they prefer to receive. You can give up to 30 Rapport gifts to the same Rapport NPC daily, which equates to a ton of Rapport points.

Do note that even though you might have enough Rapport gifts or enough resources to buy them to get an NPC to their highest Rapport rank, you might not have enough virtue points to keep giving them gifts.

As you increase the Rapport rank of a character, you need to complete their next Rapport quest before you can further increase their Rapport points.

Rapport quests have virtue points requirements, and the higher the current Rapport rank of the NPC and the more important they are in the story, the higher their virtue points requirements are, usually.

In other words, you’ll likely be stuck not being able to give them more gifts before you acquire more virtue points.

To optimally increase your Rapport with Rapport NPCs, make sure to also use your daily songs and emotes, as those are free ways of obtaining Rapport points.

That’s everything you need to know about the Rapport system in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

Your progress in Lost Ark largely revolves around honing gear after you complete the main questline in North Vern, making it important to understand.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – Stronghold Guide

Honing works similarly to upgrading gear in some other MMORPGs, but there are aspects of it that are unique to Lost Ark.

You can hone gear in any major city by visiting the Gear Honing NPC, but it can first be done after you reach level 50, have completed Ealyn’s Gift, and have tier 1 gear.

In this guide, we give you all the information you need on the honing system in Lost Ark, from how it works to what the chances of successful honing are.

Table of contents

• What is honing in Lost Ark?
• When can you hone gear?
• How to hone gear in Lost Ark
• Artisan’s Energy
• What gear to prioritize when honing
• Honing probabilities
• Honing costs for each gear tier
• How to get honing materials
• Special and Additional Materials
• Tier 3 honing strategy
• How much to upgrade gear and in what order
• Gear Transfer

What is honing in Lost Ark?

Honing is the name for upgrading equipment and weapons in Lost Ark.

When you hone a piece of equipment or a weapon, you raise its ‘+’ level, increasing its stats and item level.

In the end-game of Lost Ark, your progression is directly tied to honing your gear.

Honing your gear is the only way to increase the item level of your character and thus the only way to unlock later main story questlines and end-game content.

While there are many ways to increase the overall damage output of your character, honing is responsible for most of your damage output increase from the time you reach level 50 till you have a full set of upgraded tier 3 gear.

When can you hone gear?

When you’re playing through Lost Ark, you might wonder how and when you’re able to upgrade the gear that you acquire.

You can first start to hone gear in Lost Ark after you’ve reached level 50, completed the quest Ealyn’s Gift in Vern Castle in North Vern, and acquired at least one piece of gear that is tier 1.

Contrary to some other MMORPGs, you cannot hone all gear in Lost Ark, only tier 1, 2, and 3 gear. The first place you can acquire tier 1 gear is in Chaos Dungeons.

Chaos Dungeons are unlocked after reaching Vern Castle in North Vern through the main questline and completing the quest Ealyn’s Gift.

If a piece of equipment or a weapon doesn’t say tier 1, 2, or 3 next to its item level and doesn’t have the Current Level Honing XP bar in its description, it cannot be honed. Accessories cannot be honed either.

Most players reach level 50 before reaching the North Vern continent, which means that you’ll likely be playing for a bit at level 50 before gaining access to honing.

The guide quest ‘Strengthen Gear by Honing!’, quickly takes you through the basics of honing, but you can find a more in-depth explanation of the process in the next paragraph of this guide.

You can start the quest through the Quest Journal after you’ve completed the main story quest, Ealyn’s Gift.

While you level to 50 in Lost Ark, you don’t need to focus on your gear at all, as it will quickly be replaced, and there is no way to upgrade it.

How to hone gear in Lost Ark

Once you’ve acquired a piece of equipment or weapon that is tier 1 or higher, it’s time to start honing it.

You can hone gear in Lost Ark by visiting the Gear Honing NPC, which is located in every major town. You can use the map to find their exact location in a major town by looking for the hammer icon or by searching for Gear Honing.

Honing a piece of equipment or a weapon consists of two parts – upgrading and gear honing.

Upgrading

Before you can hone a piece of gear, you need to first upgrade it, which you do by selecting it in the left-side menu in the Gear Honing window, clicking Upgrade in the middle of the window, dragging the slider to the max, or clicking Max, and then clicking the Upgrade button.

Upgrading a piece of gear costs both shards and silver. What type of shards are needed to upgrade a piece of gear depends on what tier it is.

Once you’ve upgraded a piece of equipment or weapon to 100%, you can start honing it, and its upgrade level will stay at 100% until you’ve successfully honed it to the next honing level, at which point the upgrade level is reset to 0% again.

Gear Honing

Now that you’ve brought the upgrade level of a piece of gear to 100%, you can hone it.

To attempt to bring the selected piece of gear to the next honing level, click the Gear Honing button, which becomes active after you’ve upgraded it to 100%, and then click the Gear Honing button once more.

Unlike upgrading, gear honing isn’t guaranteed at higher honing levels, which means that you’ll likely need to attempt to hone gear several times before getting it to the next honing level later.

If honing is successful, both the item level and the stats of the honed item are increased.

Every gear honing attempt costs both destruction or guardian stones and leapstones, shards, and later also gold, silver, and fusion material.

Again, the type of destruction or guardian stone, shard, leapstone, and fusion material needed to hone depend on the tier of the selected piece of gear.

You can find both the required materials for each gear tier and the gear honing success probabilities at each honing level later in this guide.

The first many honing levels gear honing has a 100% chance of success, but after level 6, the success chance falls as honing level increases.

When the chance of success honing is no longer 100%, a failed honing attempt increases the chance of the next honing attempt being successful – called the Failure Success Rate Bonus.

It keeps increasing with each failed attempt up to a certain point, and after a successful honing attempt, the additional success chance is reset to zero.

The higher the current honing level, the lower the base success rate is, and the lower the maximum achievable success rate with Failure Success Rate Bonus is.

Failure Success Rate Bonus is a separate system from Artisan Energy, which is another pity system built into honing.

Artisan’s Energy

Artisan’s Energy is a pity system that ensures that you do not end up keep attempting to hone the same piece of gear to the next level without success.

Every time you attempt to increase the honing level of a piece of equipment or a weapon and fail, the Artisan’s Energy for that specific item goes up.

When Artisan’s Energy for a specific piece of equipment or weapon reaches +100%, the next honing attempt is guaranteed to be successful.

You can see how much Artisan’s Energy is increased for an item if the honing attempt fails by looking at the green parentheses next to Artisan’s Energy in the window right before honing an item.

The orange percentage to the left of the green parentheses is the Artisan’s Energy you’ve built up thus far. The current Artisan’s Energy can also be viewed from the upgrade window.

Whenever you successfully hone an item to the next honing level, the Artisan’s Energy that you built up for it through failed attempts is reset to zero. In other words, if you successfully hone an item to the next honing level before Artisan’s Energy kicks in, Artisan’s Energy makes no difference.

The amount Artisan’s Energy increases with each failed honing attempt is lower the higher the current honing level of the item.

This means that more failed honing attempts are required for higher honing level items before Artisan’s Energy gives guaranteed honing success.

What gear to prioritize when honing

What honing priority you should use when honing gear depends on what role you play.

If you’re playing as a DPS, you should prioritize upgrading your weapon first, then gloves, shoulders, headgear, legwear, and chestpiece, in that order.

The reason why you want to hone gear in that order as a damage dealer is that the weapon is responsible for most of your character’s attack power, and the remaining equipment pieces give varying amounts of your main stat, with gloves giving the most and chestpiece giving the least.

When honing your weapon to the next level, your character gains more attack power than honing your headgear to the next level, for example, given that they’re both at the same honing level.

Likewise, upgrading your gloves gives your character a greater attack power boost than upgrading your legwear, given that they are the same honing level, as gloves have a higher base main stat than legwear.

The reason why there is a difference in the amount of main stat acquired from honing different types of equipment is that their stats are increased by a percentage when honed, meaning those with a higher base main stat enjoy higher absolute increases in main stat.

Equipment that has lower base main stat amounts has higher base defensive stats.

If you’re playing support, it’s generally best to prioritize in the opposite order than damage dealers, meaning you should start with the chestpiece and upgrade your weapon last.

The reason why supports generally are recommended to prioritize in the opposite order is that they usually are better off building defensive stats instead of damage.

Even though these are the best way to prioritize your honing, you shouldn’t exclusively hone your weapon or gloves, as honing costs are a major factor in honing. You want to upgrade your gear simultaneously.

The priority is for later when a single honing upgrade is difficult to achieve and you’re not sure which item to start with.

Honing probabilities

The probability of successful honing decreases as the current honing level of an item increases.

Here is an overview of the chance of successful honing at each honing level in Lost Ark:

Tier 1 & 2 honing odds

Tier 3 rare and epic honing odds

Tier 3 legendary honing odds

Tier 3 gear has two different honing systems in terms of item level upgrades for rare or epic gear and legendary gear. Legendary tier 3 gear can reach higher item levels than rare and epic tier 3 gear. In tier 3, +15 rare or epic gear equals +6 legendary gear.

You can slightly increase your chance of successful honing by researching in the Lab in your Stronghold.

Honing costs for each gear tier

Honing gear in Lost Ark comes at a cost, and that cost is what determines the progression rate of your character.

How quickly you can obtain the materials and currency needed to hone gear directly impacts how fast you can increase a character’s item level.

The costs of honing gear depend both on the type of gear, its current honing level, and its tier.

Here are the costs of honing the different gear tiers in Lost Ark:

Tier 1 gear honing costs

• Harmony Shards and silver are required for upgrading
• Destruction Stone Fragments and Guardian Stone Fragments are needed to hone weapons and equipment, respectively
• Both weapons and equipment require Harmony Leapstones and Harmony Shards for honing
• From honing level +12, honing also costs gold

Tier 2 gear honing costs

• Life Shards and silver are required for upgrading
• Destruction Stones and Guardian Stones are needed to hone weapons and equipment, respectively
• Both weapons and equipment require Life Leapstones and Life Shards for honing
• From honing level +6, honing also costs both gold and fusion material

Tier 3 gear honing costs

• Honor Shards and silver are required for upgrading
• Destruction Stone Crystals and Guardian Stone Crystals are needed to hone weapons and equipment, respectively
• Rare and epic tier 3 weapons and equipment require Honor Leapstones and Honor Shards for honing, and legendary tier 3 gear requires Great Honor Leapstones and Honor Shards
• From honing level +3, honing rare and epic tier 3 gear also costs fusion material, and from honing level +6, it also costs gold
• Honing legendary tier 3 gear also costs both gold and fusion material from the start

Great Honor Leapstones are dropped from end-game PvE content like Chaos Dungeons from item level 1370 requirements.

You can also exchange 5 Honor Leapstones for 1 Great Honor Leapstones at the Essential Honing Material Exchange NPC.

The required XP needed to fully upgrade a piece of gear before you can hone it can be reduced slightly through research in the Lab in your Stronghold.

How to get honing materials

As honing is what makes your item level increase, acquiring honing material is the way to progress in the game.

Here is every single way to get honing material in Lost Ark:

• Chaos Dungeon
• Guardian Raids
• Chaos Gate
• Island Quests
• World Bosses
• Dismantling tier 1, 2, and 3 gear
• Pirate Coins exchange
• Una’s Tasks
• Mari’s Secret Shop
• Auction House
• Quests after Vern Castle
• Sylmael Bloodstones exchange
• Ghost Ship
• Welcome Challenges
• Events

Though all of these methods give honing material, most of them only give one or two kinds.

Most content has different tiers within them, corresponding to the gear tiers. They drop honing material corresponding to their tier.

If you need tier 2 honing material, for example, you need to complete tier 2 content, Chaos Dungeons in Yorn and Feiton or level 3 and 4 Guardian Raids.

Special and Additional Materials

You can use special and additional materials to increase the chance of successfully honing gear in Lost Ark.

Additional Materials are the ones that are located on the left side of the honing window under the honing success rate.

Special Materials are the ones located on the right side of the honing window under Special Materials.

Both Additional Materials and Special Materials serve the same purpose – they increase the chance of the honing being successful.

You can use multiple Additional Materials at once but only one Special Material at a time. Additional Materials and one Special Material can be used for the same honing attempt.

Like honing costs, different gear tiers have different Additional and Special Materials, which means that you need to use the materials corresponding to the tier of the item you are honing.

You can see what Additional Materials and what Special Materials can be used to increase the honing success rate of a specific piece of gear right before you hone it, as shown in the image above.

Note that Special Materials not only relate to tier but also honing level of the item. Therefore, there isn’t always any Special Material that you can use on an item.

You can see what tier and item level a specific Special Material can be used on in its description.

Additional Materials can be obtained from the Cube, Secret Maps, Sylmael Bloodstone exchange, and Una’s Tasks.

Special Materials can be obtained from Abyssal Dungeons and Events.

Both can also be purchased on the Auction House.

Tier 3 honing strategy

When you reach tier 3, honing becomes incredibly difficult and a grind to further increase your item level.

Tier 3 gear works differently than tier 1 and 2 in terms of item rarity, item level, and honing progress.

There are two separate honing systems for tier 3 gear – one for rare and epic gear and one for legendary gear. You can see the item level increases and success rates for each honing level for both systems earlier in this guide.

When you reach tier 3, you’ll start off with rare gear and later move onto epic gear, at which point you’ll already have started to hone the rare gear.

Honing rare and epic tier 3 gear only increases their item levels slightly, and they cannot be honed to more than +15.

You, therefore, need legendary tier 3 gear to reach the highest item levels in the game. Their item level is increased more per honing level and can be honed to +20.

As rare and epic tier 3 gear has a separate honing system than legendary tier 3 gear, their honing levels cannot be directly translated.

If you gear transfer a +15 rare or epic tier 3 item to a legendary one, the legendary tier 3 item only becomes +6, but the item level stays the same, meaning you can now upgrade it further and reach higher item levels.

So, even though your rare or epic tier 3 gear will appear as being a lower honing level after you transfer it into legendary pieces, they are still the same item level, have better stats, and have a much higher potential.

In other words, you need to transfer your rare or epic tier 3 gear into legendary pieces to keep progressing.

Once you have acquired a full set of legendary tier 3 pieces, you’re ready to hone towards even higher item levels.

The best strategy to use when honing legendary tier 3 pieces is to focus your success-rate increasing materials on the item that you should prioritize – weapons for damage dealers and chestpiece for supports.

As it becomes more and more unlikely that you’ll successfully hone an item to the next level in legendary tier 3, it’s important to spend your resources wisely.

Even if your items aren’t at the same honing level, it’s still recommended to focus your resources on the item that is most important for your role – weapon or chestpiece.

While you build your item level, it’s best to try and hone your gear at the same rate, as it’ll yield the highest item level increase per resource spent.

However, after 1370, your focus should be on increasing your character’s stats as efficiently as possible, not its item level.

How much to upgrade gear and in what order

When you’re raising your item level in Lost Ark, you should not keep honing gear till it reaches the maximum honing level.

You should only upgrade tier 1 and tier 2 gear to a maximum of honing level 15. When you have a full set of +15 gear, you have the item level required to access the next tier of the game.

If you want to spend your resources efficiently, you should not hone gear past honing level 15.

While you are honing your gear to reach higher level Chaos Dungeons within a tier, you should hone your gear equally, meaning that when you bring an item to honing level 12, for example, bring all other equipment to +12 before attempting to hone the first item to +13. That’s the most efficient way to increase your item level material cost-wise.

You might find yourself in the situation where you have more honing materials for either your weapon or your equipment pieces, in which case it’s fine to have either your equipment pieces or weapon at a higher honing level than the other.

When you reach legendary tier 3 gear, you don’t need to worry about honing your gear equally, as you want to get the most stat increases out of your honing material, not item level increases.

You can read more about tier 3 gear honing in the previous paragraph.

Gear Transfer

Gear Transfer is the process of transferring the honing progress you’ve made on one piece of equipment or weapon to another.

You can only use Gear Transfer on gear of the same type and tier.

For example, you can transfer your honing progress from one tier 1 weapon to another tier weapon or from one tier 1 chestpiece to another tier 1 chestpiece.

When you reach a new tier, you’ll start out with a set of rare gear. But as you start doing Abyss Dungeons, you will start getting epic and legendary gear.

The Gear Transfer function can be used to transfer the honing progress you’ve already made to your rare gear to the epic or legendary gear, so you don’t have to hone them from the beginning.

To use the Gear Transfer function, go to the Gear Honing NPC, select Gear Transfer at the bottom, select the gear that you wish to transfer progress to on the left side, choose the gear with the progress you wish to transfer on the right side, click the Gear Transfer button at the bottom, and click OK.

The honing level of the material gear will now be transferred to the target gear.

Transfering honing progress from one piece of gear to another costs silver. The amount of silver it costs to use gear transfer depends on the current honing level of the material gear and the tier of the two selected pieces.

That’s all you need to know about honing gear in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

One of those quests is ‘The Final Report’, which you need to complete to access tier 2 content and unlock skill gems.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – In-Depth Stronghold Guide

You get the quest ‘The Final Report’, after completing the dungeon, Ark of Arrogance, in Hall of Promise in Yorn through the main questline. The Final Report is the last quest in the main story of Yorn.

Table of contents

• Where is the quest The Final Report in Lost Ark?

Where is the quest The Final Report in Lost Ark?

The Final Report is one of the quests that is required to complete to access some of the end-game content and systems in Lost Ark.

It’s also the quest that you need to complete before you can start challenging and obtaining tier 2 content and gear, which will take your item level to the next level.

The Final Report quest is the final quest in the main questline in Yorn, which means that you simply have to follow the main questline there, and you’ll get to the quest.

Before you can reach Yorn, you need to have reached item level 600, which you can do by honing all your tier 1 gear to +15.

The main questline in Yorn has a similar length as Rohendel. You can complete it in a couple of hours, depending on how fast you are and whether or not you choose to do sidequests along the way.

You get the quest ‘The Final Report’ after beating the dungeon Ark of Arrogance, which is located in the Hall of Promise.

After finishing up in the dungeon, you’re asked by Balthorr to report back to the Great Castle in Yorn.

Once you’ve reported back to Kaysarr, you complete The Final Report and can access more end-game content.

That’s where to find and complete the quest ‘The Final Report’ in Lost Ark.

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

When you unlock the Stronghold, there are a lot of things to learn and understand, which can make the system confusing at first.

Recommended Read: How the Cards System Works in Lost Ark

Even though the Stronghold is an isolated part of the game, there are amazing things to be earned from it.

Some of the activities that you can conduct in the Stronghold directly impact the strength and progress of your characters.

In this guide, we give you all the information that you need on the Stronghold in Lost Ark, from what it is to how all of the various buildings work.

Table of contents

• What is the Stronghold in Lost Ark?
• How to unlock the Stronghold
• How does the Stronghold work?
• Lab
• Crafting Workshop
• Station
• Manor
• Training Camp
• Knowledge Transfer
• Trade Merchants
• How to level up Stronghold fast
• How to access Stronghold
• How to leave Stronghold
• How to visit other Strongholds
• How to do dispatch missions
• How to get more ships for dispatch missions
• How to get more Stronghold crew members
• Where to get materials for research and crafting
• How to place structures and characters
• What are Facility Points and Character Points
• Where to get seals and what they are for
• Is the Stronghold account-wide?
• Where to find and complete Nothing is Impossible for Cykins quest

What is the Stronghold in Lost Ark?

The Stronghold in Lost Ark is the game’s strategy or housing system, where you can conduct different activities in your own private area.

It works similarly overall to other MMORPG’s RTS systems like World of Warcraft’s Garrison.

Your Stronghold is your own island with various buildings and NPCs to interact with, as well as a couple of smaller islands surrounding it, some of which are first unlockable later.

The activities that you can do in your Stronghold range from sending your crew on missions to obtain rewards to crafting items and consumables.

Most of the activities that you can do in your Stronghold have a direct impact on the strength and progress rate of your character.

So is the Stronghold important to focus on and something you should do in Lost Ark? Yes, we definitely believe so, as it’ll help your character grow stronger without requiring much time.

Some of the activities, though, are purely for design and community and thus do not affect your character’s strength.

While there are quite a few things to learn about the Stronghold, it’s relatively simple once you get the hang of it.

How to unlock the Stronghold

You unlock the Stronghold in Lost Ark by completing the main story quest ‘Stronghold Ceremony’ in Luterra Castle in East Luterra.

Once you’ve unlocked the Stronghold on one character, you can access it from all other characters on the same server as it is roster-bound, even if they haven’t completed the main questline in Luterra Castle themselves.

As it is roster-bound, your Stronghold isn’t shared across different servers or regions, which means you would have to unlock it again if you were to start playing on a new server or region.

We were level 28 when we completed the Luterra Castle main story and unlocked the Stronghold.

You receive the Stronghold as a gift from King Thirain for your efforts in Luterra Castle and your title as the King’s Knight.

How does the Stronghold work?

The Stronghold is your private area in the game that only you, your friends, and guildmates can access.

Everyone has their own Stronghold where they can conduct Stronghold activities.

In your Stronghold, you can interact with the various NPCs and buildings to craft, exchange goods, start missions, and more.

Not everything is unlocked in your Stronghold right when you get access to it, and almost everything can be further upgraded through research, so they yield greater rewards.

When in your Stronghold, the primary activities are conducted in the Management menu, which can be accessed by pressing ‘CTRL+1’ on your keyboard or by clicking the board icon at the bottom to the left above your energy.

At the top of the Management menu, you can select one of the six different overall buildings:

• Lab – research
• Crafting Workshop – crafting
• Station – missions
• Manor – effects
• Training Camp – character xp
• Knowledge – character boost

You can see in the list above what their purpose is for, but you can also find a detailed description of what each building does as well as how to use them below in this guide.

Being a strategy/housing system, the activities in your Stronghold are based on time. They are quick to start but can take many hours to complete.

As there isn’t much reason to stay in your Stronghold all day, you can see the progress of activities and missions you’ve started in your Stronghold by clicking the house icon at the top of the screen to the left.

When an activity is finished, it’s time to visit your Stronghold to complete that activity and start a new one.

If you want to maximize the rewards that you get from the Stronghold, you should always have activities and missions active.

Starting activities and missions in your Stronghold costs Action Energy and usually also both Silver and various materials.

Action Energy is passively regained, and you can increase both your maximum capacity and regen rate through research in the Lab. Roster rewards and the Crystalline Aura also increase your Action Energy capacity and recovery rate.

Your Stronghold has its own level, which you can see in the top-left corner next to your Stronghold’s name. You can see the current XP and requirement to reach the next one in the Stronghold XP bar at the bottom when in your Stronghold.

Leveling up your Stronghold gives you access to more research in the Lab, which can be everything from new crafting recipes to higher levels of the different buildings.

You obtain XP for your Stronghold by doing tasks in your Stronghold, like completing research and dispatch missions.

While most of the activities you’ll do in your Stronghold are done through the Management menu, there are also some things you have to do by moving your character to the NPCs locations in your Stronghold.

Trade Merchants and the different exchange NPCs, for example, have to be visited in person to trade with. You can see their location on the map.

Other areas of the Stronghold that you unlock later on, like the Farm, which is unlocked when your Stronghold reaches level 15, also have to be visited in person, as it features Trade Skills sources for you to farm.

Lastly, you can decorate your Stronghold by placing structures that you obtain through crafting, exchange, and quests.

Decorating your Stronghold only affects the cosmetic look of your Stronghold. It doesn’t affect your character’s strength.

You can access the decoration menu by pressing ‘CTRL+2’ on your keyboard or by clicking the four arrows icon above your Action Energy at the bottom of the screen to the left.

Lab

The Lab is where you conduct research to upgrade everything in your Stronghold, from the level of buildings to more crew slots for dispatch missions.

Lab is the first of the six buildings in the Management menu and is located through Pucci on the smaller island all the way to the left of your Stronghold. But you can, like any other main building, access it directly in the Management menu.

When you open the Lab, you can see all research that you can currently conduct.

You can see what each research increases or upgrades by selecting it from the list of research and looking under its name on the right side.

Like most things in the Stronghold, conducting research takes time. You can see how long it takes to complete specific research under Time Taken on the right side when it’s selected.

Besides time to complete, it costs both Action Energy, materials, and either Pirate Coins, Silver, or Gold to start research.

When you unlock your Stronghold, you can only research one thing at a time. But later on, you can research up to three things at a time.

Here is an overview of when you unlock more research slots in the Lab in your Stronghold:

To upgrade the level of your Lab and other buildings in your Stronghold, you need to research them in the Lab.

You do not have all research available in your Lab to begin with. More available research is unlocked when you increase the level of your Stronghold, complete other specific research, reach specific item levels, complete a specific quest, or build a specific level of relationship with a Rapport NPC.

To see what the requirements to unlock specific research in the Lab are, click the dropdown menu at the top of the Lab, select Unavailable Research, and find the research that you wish to unlock in the list. Then click it and see its requirements on the right side.

As the Lab is where you improve your Stronghold and its capabilities, it is arguably the most important building.

It’s a great idea always to be researching something in your Lab.

Crafting Workshop

The Workshop, or Crafting Workshop, is where you can craft various items, tools, and consumables, like potions and food.

Crafting Workshop is the second building accessible through the Management menu or from Dorothy, who is standing in front of the Crafting Workshop building on the left side of the main island.

In the Workshop, there are six different categories of items and consumables that you can craft:

• Battle Item
• Cooking
• Structure
• Tools
• Special
• Farm

You can see what items and consumables you can craft by selecting a category and looking at the list of craftables.

Crafting an item or consumable both takes time and costs both materials, Action Energy, and Gold or Silver.

To see the required resources and materials to craft a specific item or consumable, click it in the list of craftables and look on the right side.

Most of the materials needed to craft an item or consumable can be obtained from Trade Skills around the world of Lost Ark, while others can only be obtained from the Farm in your Stronghold or from exchanging with the NPC Monet also located in your Stronghold.

Materials that can only be obtained from within your Stronghold have a small house in the bottom-right corner of their icon.

Like in the Lab, you can only craft one item or consumable at a time in the Crafting Workshop to start with.

As you level up the Crafting Workshop in the Lab, you get more crafting slots so you can craft multiple items and consumables at a time.

Here is an overview of when you unlock more crafting slots in the Crafting Workshop:

You cannot craft any item or consumable from the beginning. You need to unlock the recipes for the specific items and upgrade your Crafting Workshop to a higher level through research. Some require just a recipe to be unlocked, some require just a higher Crafting Workshop level, and others require both.

Like with the required ingredients, you can see the requirements needed to unlock a specific item or consumable for crafting by unticking the ‘View Craftables’ box, which will show you all items and consumables that are craftable, including those you haven’t unlocked. Click a specific item or consumable to see its crafting requirements on the right side.

There are different ways to obtain the recipes needed to unlock more items and consumables to craft.

Crafting recipes are obtained through research in the Lab, and others are obtained through exchange with the NPC Jeniff in your Stronghold or visiting Trade Merchants.

Station

The Station is where you can send crew members on dispatch missions to earn various rewards.

Station is the third building in the Stronghold, accessible through both the Management menu and the Dispatch Status Board in front of the Station building on the small island to the left of the Manor.

In the Station window, there are two tabs of missions – Normal Missions and Special Missions. Normal Missions are available from the time you unlock the Stronghold, and Special Missions become available when you reach level 50 and unlock end-game content.

Normal Missions are regular missions that only cost Action Energy and Pirate Coins to start. They give Stronghold XP, Pirate Coins, Seals, Providence Stones, and other materials as rewards.

Special Missions are related to end-game content and therefore share daily entrance limits to start on top of the Action Energy and Pirate Coins cost. In other words, if you were to start a [Guardian Raid] special mission, it would cost one of your daily Guardian Soul Harvests.

All missions take time to complete – between 4 and 24 hours. You can see the time a specific mission takes to complete in the list of available missions.

While you do get the same items from special missions as the content they relate to, as well as Stronghold XP, you get far fewer drops. You would get way more rewards by doing your Guardian Raid runs yourself instead of doing them through special missions.

Therefore, it’s not recommended to do any special missions unless you know you won’t be using your daily runs. If you don’t use your daily runs on an alt character, for example, you could start special missions on that one.

You can start Normal Missions and Special Missions as long as you have available mission slots and enough boats and meet the requirements for Special Missions in terms of daily limits.

Here are the number of both Normal Mission and Special Mission slots that you unlock at different Station levels:

A boat is required to start a mission, so if you only have one boat but two mission slots, you can still only start one mission. You can get more boats by researching in the Lab.

When you start a dispatch mission, you can select crew members to send on the mission on the right side under the selected ship.

Depending on what crew members you choose and the conditions on the selected mission, you get a higher Adaptation rate.

The higher the Adaptation rate you have on a mission, the higher chance you have to get higher-tier rewards. You will, however, get rewards from completing any mission no matter what, even if you didn’t select any crew members for the mission.

The rate of completing a mission is always 100%, so the Adaption rate only determines your chance to get additional rewards. New missions are added to your Station every day.

Manor

The Manor is where you can activate effects that boost your activities in the Stronghold and manage unlockable locations.

Manor is the fourth building in the Stronghold, accessible through the Management menu or through Nahun’s Tome, which is located in front of the Manor, the main building in the middle of the main island in your Stronghold.

There are two tabs in the Manor – Effects and Unlockables.

Effects are passive effects that boost your activities in the Stronghold for as long as you keep the effects activated.

In the Effects tab, there are two sub-tabs – Structure and Outfit. They both work in the same way. You can equip special structures and outfits to give your Stronghold boosts.

Boosts that you get from effects can be everything from increasing Great Success chance when crafting to decreased Action Energy required for different actions.

You can get structures that give effects when put into the Manor by crafting them in the Crafting Workshop and you can get Outfits that give effects by achieving higher levels of trust with specific Rapport NPCs or by purchasing them with Blue Crystals in the Wardrobe, which can be accessed by pressing ‘CTRL+3’.

To unlock additional effect slots in your Manor, you have to research them in the Lab.

Unlockables in the Manor is a selection of areas in your Stronghold that cannot be accessed before their unlocked.

These unlockable areas do not add any new functions to your Stronghold, like the Farm does, for example. They are purely for cosmetic and design purposes.

The Unlockable areas are unlocked through research at the Lab.

Training Camp

The Training Camp is where you can assign alt characters on the same server – your roster, to train them by giving them XP passively.

Training Camp is the fifth building in the Stronghold, accessible through the Management menu or through Senior Magick Scholar Ascilia, who is located in front of the Training Camp, which is located to the left of the Lab.

Unlike the first four buildings in the Stronghold, the Training Camp is not unlocked when you unlock the Stronghold.

To unlock the Training Camp in your Stronghold, you need to reach level 52 on a character and complete the quest ‘Magick Society’s Amazing Technology’.

Characters put into the Training Camp can only gain XP till they reach max XP two levels below the highest level character on the same server – your roster.

If you, for example, have a character that is level 54, alt characters that you put into the Training Camp can gain XP passively from it till they reach level 52 with maximum XP.

When your level 54 character reaches level 55, the alt characters in the Training Camp can gain XP till they reach level 53.

There are two types of training in the Training Camp – General Training and Special Training.

In the General Training tab, you can assign characters to the Scarecrow of Concentration, which passively gives them 4,000 XP per minute for up to 7 days, at which point you have to reassign them.

In the Special Training tab, you can assign characters to the Ultimate Stress Buster, which passively gives them 7,000 XP per minute for up to 7 days, at which point you have to reassign them.

The Ultimate Stress Buster is only available if you have an active Crystalline Aura.

It costs nothing to assign alt characters to either of the two types of training nor does it cost anything to keep them in there. It’s an amazing way to level up alt characters for free without having to do anything.

You can even play on a character while it is being trained in the Training Camp.

To begin with, you have only one training slot, which means you can only assign one alt character to be trained at a time, but you can unlock one more later.

Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge, or Knowledge Transfer, is where you can bring alt characters on the same server – your roster, to level 50 and past specific parts of the main questline.

Knowledge is the sixth building in the Stronghold, which is accessible both through the Management menu or through the Knowledge Transfer Machine that is located on the beach on the far left of your Stronghold.

The Knowledge Transfer machine isn’t unlocked when you unlock your Stronghold. It first becomes available after you complete the quest ‘Nothing is Impossible for Cykins’, which you can start after you’ve reached level 50, completed the main questline in North Vern, and your Stronghold is at least level 5.

Using the Knowledge Transfer machine is the fastest way to get alt characters to level 50.

In the Knowledge Transfer Machine, you can bring alt characters on the server to level 50 and past specific points in the main questline. Transferring knowledge to an alt character costs Gold and takes 8 hours.

Before you can bring an alt character past a specific part of the main questline, you need to have completed it yourself on at least one of the characters on the same server and have reached a specific item level. It’s usually done on your main character.

Here are the different points you can bring alt characters to through the Knowledge Transfer Machine, all of which bring the character to level 50, and the cost of doing so.

To perform knowledge transfer to an alt character, you need to log in to the character that you wish to bring to level 50 and past a specific point in the main questline.

You just need to complete a few of the beginning quests in Prideholme to gain access to Sheet Music and thus access to the Stronghold.

When you can access the Stronghold on your alt character, open the Knowledge Transfer Machine, select the part you wish to skip past on the left side, click Knowledge Transfer at the bottom, and click OK.

After 8 hours have passed, that alt character will then be level 50 and will have completed all main storyline quests until and including the continent you chose in the Knowledge Transfer Machine. Sidequests have not been completed automatically.

While the Knowledge Transfer is processing, you can play on the character that you are performing the knowledge transfer on if you wish to.

Trade Merchants

Trade Merchants are special merchants that visit your Stronghold for a limited time with various items and materials for sale.

The items and materials that Trade Merchants sell cost Seals obtained from dispatch missions or from exchanging in your Stronghold.

No matter what Trade Merchant is visiting your Stronghold at the moment, they always reside in the same location. To the right of the exchange plaza in your Stronghold, which is located in the bottom-left of the main island. You can also see the location on the minimap.

All Trade Merchants have a pool of potential items that they can sell, but they only sell a smaller selection of that pool when they visit your Stronghold. What items they sell from their pool of items on a specific visit is random.

In the beginning, Trade Merchants sell very few items, but as you level up and increase the level of your Stronghold, they will have a lot more for sale.

Trade Merchants go on rotation, which means that the same Trade Merchant won’t visit your Stronghold twice in a row, and you can expect all the Trade Merchants you’ve unlocked to visit once in a while.

To unlock more Trade Merchants, so they have a chance to visit your Stronghold, you need to acquire the contract for them, which you can research in the Lab or obtain from specific questlines around the world.

How to level up Stronghold fast

You need to level up your Stronghold to unlock access to better research, recipes, and more.

Therefore, many players want to level up their Stronghold as fast as possible to get the most out of the Stronghold as quickly as they can.

The fastest way to level up your Stronghold in Lost Ark is to always be researching in the Lab, crafting structures in the Crafting Workshop, and starting dispatch missions in the Station whenever you can.

We still recommend not doing Special Missions on your main character, though, even though they do give Stronghold XP as well. If you really want to do them to level up your Stronghold faster, start them on an alt character.

Make sure to always research higher building levels in the Lab so you can unlock more slots in them, as it allows you to research and craft more things at the same time and start more dispatch missions at the same time, all of which will give you XP.

If you run out of things to research or missions to complete, you can always just keep making structures in the Crafting Workshop, which gives the most Stronghold XP per hour it takes to craft them.

We recommend crafting uncommon structures, as they don’t cost many materials to craft, and those materials are easy to obtain.

All the different structures you can craft give the same Stronghold XP per time and per Action Energy – 1280 XP per hour and 2 XP per Action Energy. The only difference is material cost, so go with the ones with the lowest cost.

Some of the uncommon structures with the lowest material cost compared to the Stronghold XP they give are NACT-1 Counter, Neria’s Tavern Menu Board, Awning, Urr’s Tree Bench, and Dyorika Waterwheel. These are all obtained from the Trade Merchant Tago.

If you can exhaust all of your daily Action Energy, then you’ll get the most Stronghold XP per time from crafting any structure in the Crafting Workshop exclusively. It provides almost twice as much Stronghold XP per hour than any other source.

For most players, it will be better to also focus on research and dispatch missions, though.

How to access Stronghold

Once you have unlocked the Stronghold and gone through the initial tutorial on it, you might wonder how to access it again.

To go to your Stronghold in Lost Ark, open the Sheet Music menu and use the Song of Hearth and Home.

You can open the Sheet Music menu by pressing F2 on your keyboard or by clicking Adventure and then Sheet Music in the bottom-right menu.

The Song of Hearth and Home can be used from anywhere, which means that you can access your Stronghold from everywhere.

Any character in your roster can also use the Song of Hearth and Home to access your Stronghold, which is roster-wide.

How to leave Stronghold

When you’re in your Stronghold the first or second time, you might wonder how to leave it again to go back to the main world.

To leave your Stronghold in Lost Ark, use either the Song of Escape or Song of Return in the Sheet Music menu or teleport to a Bifrost location.

The Song of Escape teleports you back to the location where you used the Song of Hearth and Home to access your Stronghold, while the Song of Return teleports you to the area you’ve set as your return point.

You can open the Sheet Music menu by pressing F2 on your keyboard or by clicking Adventure and then Sheet Music in the bottom-right menu.

Bifrost allows you to teleport to a location that you saved in the Bifrost menu. It can be accessed by pressing ‘Alt+W’ or by clicking Adventure and then Bifrost in the bottom-right menu.

How to visit other Strongholds

While your Stronghold is your private area, your friends and guildmates can visit and check out your Stronghold.

To visit another Stronghold, open either your Friends List or Guildmates List in the Guild menu, then right-click the player whose Stronghold you wish to visit, and click Visit Stronghold.

In your friend or guildmate’s Stronghold, you can check out their design, exchange with the Trade Merchant currently visiting their Stronghold, and enjoy their feast if they have any.

You can like a friend or guildmate’s stronghold while you’re visiting them by clicking the heart icon in the top-left corner.

If they visit your Stronghold and like your Stronghold, too, you two become Stronghold allies.

When you’re allied with another Stronghold, you can see information about their Stronghold in the Stronghold information tab at the top of the screen, including what Trade Merchant is visiting their Stronghold.

Up to 50 players can visit the same Stronghold at a time.

How to do dispatch missions

Dispatch missions are one of the most important aspects of the Stronghold, as it yields great rewards and seals for little effort.

To start a dispatch mission, open up the Station in your Stronghold by clicking ‘CTRL+1’ to open the Management menu and selecting Station or by visiting the Dispatch Status Board on the small island to the left of the Manor. You’ll see a list of all the different dispatch missions you can currently do. Click the one you wish to do, select your crew, and click Mission Start.

Selecting a crew is not required, and the success rate of missions is always 100%. Using crew members on a mission does, however, increase Adaptation, which is the chance that you’ll get more high-quality rewards.

You can either manually select the crew for a mission through the ‘Crew List’ button or use the ‘Auto Formation’ button, which automatically selects the combination of crew members that gives the highest Adaptation rate.

Starting a mission costs Action Energy and Pirate Coins, and if it’s a Special Mission, it also costs a daily entrance to the content type of that mission. Special Missions are not recommended to do.

A mission takes time to complete, and once a mission has been completed, you need to come back and click ‘Mission Results’ to get the rewards from it. You can then start another mission.

You can get more information about the Station building and dispatch missions in the Station paragraph above in this guide.

How to get more ships for dispatch missions

Once you level up your Station, you start getting more mission slots, which means you can do multiple dispatch missions at a time.

Before you can do multiple missions at a time, though, you need to have multiple ships, as each mission requires its own ship.

To get more ships for dispatch missions in your Stronghold, you have to research them in the Lab. All ship research is located under the Dispatch Ship Addition category.

As soon as you complete the research for a new ship in the Lab, you can use that ship for dispatch missions.

Ships you research in the Lab for dispatch missions in the Stronghold are not the same ships that you use for sailing in the world of Lost Ark.

How to get more Stronghold crew members

As you start doing multiple dispatch missions at a time, it’s a good idea to acquire more crew members, so you can get higher Adaptation rates on all the missions you do.

You can get more crew members, also known as sailors, for dispatch missions by purchasing them from visiting Trade Merchants in your Stronghold, by building relationships with Rapport NPCs, and from the Mokoko Seeds collection.

Most of the Trade Merchants that visit your Stronghold sell Stronghold crew members, so be sure to check the Trade Merchants that visit you.

Some of the Rapport NPCs in the game give themselves as a Stronghold crew member as a reward when you reach Trusted or Affection reputation with them.

Lastly, you can obtain Stronghold crew members by reaching milestones in the Mokoko Seeds collection.

Pets also have a crew member slot in the dispatch mission crew list, which means you need to obtain more pets to fill it out if you don’t have as many pets as you have dispatch mission slots.

Again, just like with ships, the Stronghold crew members that you get for dispatch missions are not the same as the sailing crew members that you use for sailing.

Where to get materials for research and crafting

To craft items and consumables in the Crafting Workshop and to research in the Lab, you need materials.

Almost all materials that you need for crafting can be acquired through Trade Skills around the world of Lost Ark.

There are some recipes in the Crafting Workshop that require items that you need to acquire through exchanging in your Stronghold. A few recipes also require a lower-grade version of themselves to be crafted.

All the recipes in the Farm tab require Stronghold-specific materials, which can only be acquired in the Farm area of your Stronghold.

Research in the Lab only costs Iron Ore and Timber to conduct, which you obtain through Mining and Logging.

On top of the material cost, research and crafting also cost Gold, Silver, or Pirate Coins, all of which can be obtained through various means.

To help you get the materials that you need for research faster, you can exchange higher rarity resources to lower rarity ones at the NPC Technician Rondo in your Stronghold. There you can also exchange powders for resources and vice versa.

How to place structures and characters

If you’re looking to redesign the look of your Stronghold, you can do so by placing structures and characters.

To place a structure in your Stronghold, open the Placement menu, click a structure in the Facilities tab, move it to the desired location in your Stronghold, and click ‘Apply’ in the bottom-right corner.

To place a character in your Stronghold, open the Placement menu, click a character in the Character tab, move it to the desired location in your Stronghold, and click ‘Apply’ in the bottom-right corner.

When placing a structure or character, you can move your view by using W, A, S, and D on your keyboard.

The Placement menu can be opened by pressing ‘CTRL+2’ on your keyboard or by clicking the four arrows icon above the Action Energy bar at the bottom to the left.

You can rotate a structure or a character by clicking it and clicking either of the rotate buttons or by pressing ‘Q’ or ‘E’ on your keyboard. To enable slight rotation, click the ‘Slight Rotate’ button or click ‘Tab’ on your keyboard.

To retrieve a structure or a character, click them, and click ‘Retrieve’ or press ‘Delete’ on your keyboard.

What are Facility Points and Character Points

Facility Points and Character Points are the points that determine how many structures and characters you can place in your Stronghold.

Placing a structure in your Stronghold costs Facility Points, and once you don’t have any more Facility Points available, you cannot place any more structures.

Different structures cost different amounts of Facility Points to place. You can see the Facility Point cost of a structure by hovering over it in the Placement menu.

Placing a character from your roster in your Stronghold costs 5 Character Points, and placing rapport NPCs cost different amounts of Character Points.

The different areas of your Stronghold have separate Facility Points and Character Points.

If you retrieve a structure or a character, you immediately get back the Facility Points and Character Points that they cost.

In other words, Facility Points and Character Points are simply a mechanic that stops you from placing an infinite number of structures and characters in your Stronghold at the same time.

Where to get seals and what they are for

The currency of the Stronghold is seals. There are three types of seals related to the Stronghold in Lost Ark:

• Raid Seal
• Adventurer’s Seal
• Victory Seal

You can obtain seals by completing dispatch missions and by exchanging high-quality items from dispatch missions at Trade Merchants.

You can also exchange one type of seal for one of the other two types at the NPC Monet. She sells them at the rate of 65 seals per 100 seals, so it’s only recommended to do if you really need a specific type of seal now for a limited deal at a Trade Merchant or something similar.

Seals can be used to purchase Stronghold-specific materials needed for crafting from the NPC Monet and items and materials from Trade Merchants.

As you don’t know when a Trade Merchant that sells the items that you need comes by your Stronghold, it’s a great idea to have some seals saved up.

Is the Stronghold account-wide?

Yes, the Stronghold is roster-wide, which means that it is shared with all characters on the same server – your roster.

When you access the Stronghold on any character on the same server, you’re taken to the same Stronghold, your roster’s Stronghold.

Because the Stronghold is shared across the roster, your alt characters benefit from the progress you make on your main, making them stronger and able to progress faster.

Like with everything else in Lost Ark, the Stronghold isn’t shared across different servers or regions, only within the same server.

Where to find and complete Nothing is Impossible for Cykins quest

To unlock Knowledge transfer in your Stronghold, you need to complete the quest ‘Nothing is Impossible for Cykins’.

You can start the quest by talking to Adeline, who is located in front of the Manor on the main island in your Stronghold.

Before you can start the quest, you must have reached character level 50, Stronghold level 5, and have completed the quest ‘Ealyn’s Gift’, which is the last quest in the main questline in North Vern.

The quest ‘Nothing is Impossible for Cykins’ is quick to complete. It just requires you to go to the beach on the far left of your Stronghold and talk to Engineer Gothielf and the Knowledge Transfer Machine.

After you’ve talked to them, you’ve unlocked the Knowledge part of your Stronghold and thereby Knowledge Transfer.

That’s everything you need to know about the Stronghold in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

As you need Harmony Shards to upgrade all tier 1 weapons and gear every time you want to hone it to the next level, you end up needing a lot of them.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – Engraving Effect Guide

There are several different ways to obtain the Harmony Shard in the game, some of which yield them much faster than others.

The primary ways way to get Harmony Shards in Lost Ark is by doing Chaos Dungeons, completing Island Quests, and using Maps from Chaos Gate. If you want to get Harmony Shards fast, focus on these methods.

Other ways to get Harmony Shards in the game include Ghost Ship, Pirate Coins exchange, Una’s Tasks, and the Auction House. There are many more ways to get them – find all the different ways below.

Table of contents

• How to get Harmony Shards in Lost Ark

How to get Harmony Shards in Lost Ark

Harmony Shards are essential to your progress in Lost Ark, as you need them to upgrade tier 1 gear and weapons before you can hone it.

The two other honing materials that you need for tier 1 gear and weapons are Harmony Leapstones and Destruction and Guardian Stone Fragments.

As you start reaching higher honing levels, the Harmony Shard costs start to increase, and you might find yourself in need of more.

Luckily, there are quite a few different ways to obtain Harmony Shards in the game.

The fastest way to get Harmony Shards in Lost Ark is by using your daily Chaos Dungeon runs, your daily Chaos Gate entry, and then complete Island Quests that give Harmony Shards as a reward.

When you’ve exhausted the number of Harmony Shards that you can obtain from those three methods, start utilizing the other sources.

Here is every single way to obtain Harmony Shards in Lost Ark:

• Chaos Dungeon
• Chaos Gate
• Island Quests
• Dismantling tier 1 gear
• Pirate Coins exchange
• Una’s Tasks
• Mari’s Secret Shop
• Auction House
• Quests after Vern Castle
• Sylmael Bloodstones exchange
• Ghost Ship
• Welcome Challenges
• Events

Chaos Dungeons can be run twice a day with full rewards. One of the rewards that the monsters inside drop in plenty is Harmony Shards.

After you’ve used your two daily Chaos Dungeon runs, you can still keep doing them to earn Chaos Dungeon Shards and Crystals, which can be exchanged at the Chaos Dungeon NPC for different materials, including Harmony Shards. Learn more in our guide on Chaos Dungeons.

Chaos Gate is an event that occurs in different parts of the world every hour. One of the rewards from Chaos Gate is a Map, which you can follow to access a secret dungeon that gives Harmony Shards.

You can see where the next Chaos Gate for your item level range starts next through the Calender in the top-left corner.

Many of the questline on islands, so-called Island Quests, give honing materials as a reward for completion, including Harmony Shards.

Some of the islands that give the most Harmony Shards include Starlight Isle, Glacier Isle, and Shadow Island.

Dismantling tier 1 gear and weapons give various honing materials, including Harmony Shards.

As you get Harmony Shards by dismantling tier 1 gear and weapons, you indirectly get Harmony Shards from any content that give either tier 1 gear or weapons, like Guardian Raids.

One of the things that you can exchange Pirate Coins for at the Tea and Libra Guild Vessel in the waters next to major ports is Harmony Shard Pouches.

You can learn how to get Pirate Coins fast in Lost Ark here.

Una’s Tasks are the daily and weekly quests that you can complete on various islands.

Many of the quests that Una’s Tasks offers give Harmony Shards as a reward.

In Mari’s Secret Shop, located in the Store, you can purchase different items for Blue Crystals.

One of the things that Mari’s Secret Shop sells is Harmony Shard Pouches.

On the Auction House, players can sell Harmony Shard Pouches for gold.

If you had enough gold in the game, you could technically buy all the Harmony Shard that you need on the Auction House.

After you reach Vern Castle, where you unlock most of the end-game content, including honing, some quests start giving honing material like Harmony Shards as a reward.

In the Sylmael Bloodstone exchange, you can exchange the Sylmael Bloodstones you get from guild activities.

One of the things that you can exchange Sylmael Bloodstones for is Harmony Shards.

The Ghost Ship is another event that occurs every hour in different locations of the world.

Ghost Ship gives Harmony Shards as one of its rewards. You can find the location of the next one on the Calendar in the top-left corner.

Welcome Challenges are challenges or objectives designed to guide you through the various content in the game.

Many of the challenges in the Upgrade Gear tab give Harmony Shards as a reward upon completion. You can find them through the Welcome Challenges icon in the top-right corner next to the minimap.

Events usually offer Harmony Shards as a reward in some way, be it directly or through an exchange shop. Login rewards also give Harmony Shards some days.

As we don’t know what events are running when you read this, we recommend you check out the current events and see if they give Harmony Shards.

That’s every single way to get Harmony Shards in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

You need a ton of Harmony Shards and Destruction and Guardian Stone Fragments at tier 1, but also Harmony Leapstones quickly become a material you’ll find yourself running out of.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – Cards System Guide

There are a couple of ways to get Harmony Leapstones in the game, some of which can be done multiple times, while others can only be done once.

Harmony Leapstones can be obtained in Lost Ark from Chaos Dungeons, Guardian Raids, Quests after Vern Castle, Mari’s Secret Shop, daily and weekly Una’s Tasks, Sylmael Bloodstone exchange, Island Quests, Welcome Challenges, and Events.

You can also purchase Harmony Leapstones from the Auction House with gold, but they can be a bit expensive when you need a lot of them.

Table of contents

• How to get Harmony Leapstone in Lost Ark

How to get Harmony Leapstone in Lost Ark

Right when you start honing gear in Lost Ark, you will have plenty of honing materials to work with.

But after just honing all your equipment and your weapon a couple of times, you’ll find yourself in need of more honing materials to keep upgrading your item level.

One of the honing materials that you’ll run out off is Harmony Leapstones, which are needed to hone tier 1 gear.

Luckily, there are quite a few ways to obtain the material in the game, so you can keep honing your gear.

Here is every single way to get Harmony Leapstones in Lost Ark:

• Chaos Dungeons
• Guardian Raids
• Island Quests
• Auction House
• Mari’s Secret Shop
• Daily and Weekly Una’s Tasks
• Quests after Vern Castle
• Sylmael Bloodstone exchange
• Welcome Challenges
• Events

Tier 1 Chaos Dungeons is one of the biggest sources of Harmony Leapstones in Lost Ark that can be consistently farmed every day.

After you’ve exhausted you’re two daily Chaos Dungeon runs with full rewards, you can keep farming them for Chaos Dungeon Shards and Crystals that you can exchange for various honing materials, including Harmony Leapstones, at the Chaos Dungeon Exchange. Learn more in our Chaos Dungeon Guide.

Another big source of Harmony Leapstone is Guardian Raids, which you can also get loot from twice a day.

All tier 1 Guardian Raids drop Harmony Leapstones, and if you do both of your runs daily, you’ll get a decent amount over time.

If you’ve just reached level 50 and haven’t explored many islands yet, you can quickly get a ton of Harmony Leapstones by completing Island Quests.

Island Quests are the questlines that you find on the small islands scattered all over the open sea of Lost Ark. You need to sail to reach these islands.

Some of the islands that’ll net you a bunch of Harmony Shards quickly by completing their questline include:

• Starlight Isle
• White Wave Island
• Shadow Island
• Panda Island

There are other islands that give Harmony Leapstones as well. These are just some of the ones that give the most the fastest. The only downside to Island Quests is that you can only complete them once.

Harmony Leapstones can be bought and sold for gold on the Auction House, which means that you can acquire them by earning and spending gold.

It can be a bit pricy to purchase Harmony Leapstones on the Auction House, though, as they usually cost a couple of gold each, and you need a bunch of them at higher honing levels.

You can also purchase Harmony Leapstones from Mari’s Secret Shop, which is located in the Store.

It costs Blue Crystals to purchase Harmony Leapstones from Mari’s Secret Shop.

Through Una’s Tasks, you can complete both daily and weekly quests on various islands and in different end-game PvE content.

Many of the Una’s Tasks that you can complete, give Harmony Leapstone as a reward when you’re tier 1.

After you’ve completed the main storyline in Vern Castle in North Vern, quests start giving Harmony Leapstone as a reward.

Not all quests give them, but a lot give some honing material, and sometimes that honing material is Harmony Leapstones.

The Sylmael Bloodstone exchange NPC, which is located in every major town, lets you exchange the Sylmael Bloodstones you earn from guild activities for various resources.

One of the things that you can exchange Sylmael Bloodstones for is Harmony Leapstones.

Welcome Challenges, which can be accessed through the icon in the top-right corner, gives you a long list of challenges to complete.

The rewards for completing some of these include Harmony Leapstones. Especially those in the Gear Upgrade tab often give Harmony Leapstones.

Participating in events is the last way to get Harmony Leapstones in Lost Ark.

Harmony Leapstones is often one of the rewards you can earn from events, including the Login Event, but check what events are running when you read this to make sure you don’t miss out on some great rewards.

That’s every way to get Harmony Leapstones in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

But one of the items, which is far from obvious what is for, is the Tournament Champion’s Plate you get after winning the tournament in Changhun on Anikka.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – Engravings System Guide

There is currently no use for the Tournament Champion’s Plate in Lost Ark, as the NPC where you can exchange the item doesn’t exist in the NA/EU version of the game. You should just keep the Tournament Champion’s Plate in your Storage in case the NPC gets added, do not sell it.

Table of contents

• What to do with Tournament Champion’s Plate item in Lost Ark

What to do with Tournament Champion’s Plate item in Lost Ark

You can usually figure out what an item you get in Lost Ark is for, but that’s not always the case.

Occasionally, you’ll acquire an item that doesn’t tell you in its description what it’s for, and it isn’t easy to find out elsewhere either.

One of the items that don’t give you a lot of information is the Tournament Champion’s Plate, which just gives the description ‘A Victory Crest given to the champion of the tournament. It looks quite valuable’.

The item is obtained upon completing the tournament in Changhun, which you’ll fight through in the main questline in Anikka.

At the moment, you should just keep your Tournament Champion’s Plate, as there is currently no use for it.

In the Korean version of Lost Ark, there is an NPC where you can exchange the Tournament Champion’s Plate for different weapons, but that NPC does not exist in the NA/EU version of Lost Ark.

Therefore, we highly recommend that you don’t sell it and just hang on to it for now, as the developers might add the NPC to the game at some point or give it another use.

If you don’t want it to fill up your inventory, you can store it in Storage, which is located in every major city.

That’s what you should do with the Tournament Champion’s Plate in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.

At the beginning of the game, cards don’t matter that much, but in the end-game, cards and their sets are a major source of damage increase.

Recommended Read: Lost Ark – Engraving Effects Guide

Though the card system might seem a bit overwhelming at first, you can quickly get an understanding of how it works and use it to boost your character.

There are two overall components of the card system – Card Deck and Card Books.

In this guide, we cover everything you need to know about the cards system in Lost Ark, from how it works to what the best card sets to use are.

Table of contents

• What is the cards system?
• How does the cards system work in Lost Ark?
• How to get cards
• Card deck and book bonuses overview
• How to enhance cards for awakening
• Best card sets to use
• What to do with duplicate cards
• Card pack odds
• Are cards account-wide?
• What are XP Cards?
• How to expand Card Catalog
• Can you delete a card?

What is the cards system?

The cards system in Lost Ark is a collection-based system, where you can collect cards to unlock boosts and buffs.

There are tons of cards to collect in the game, and each card represents either a notable NPC or an enemy in Lost Ark.

Along your journey in Lost Ark, you’ll obtain cards of specific NPCs by completing quests from them or by defeating specific enemies.

The majority of the cards that you get in the game do, however, come from card packs that give you random cards.

With the cards that you’ve collected, you can build card decks to unlock card deck bonuses.

As you collect cards, you’ll also fill up card books, which are collections of specific cards. These also provide boosts.

You can access the Card Catalog by pressing ‘Alt+C’ on your keyboard or by clicking Roster and then Card Catalog in the bottom-right menu.

In the Card Catalog, you can see all your cards, decks, and book collections.

How does the cards system work in Lost Ark?

When you’re first introduced to the cards system in Lost Ark, it might seem a bit overwhelming. But once you get the hang of it, it’s really quite simple!

The cards system in Lost Ark works by you collecting cards from quests, enemies, and card packs and using those cards to build Card Decks and fill out Card Books to unlock various bonuses for your character.

There are two overall components of the cards system – Card Deck and Card Books.

Card Deck, the first component of the cards system, is a selection of 6 cards that you can put together like a deck to unlock bonuses.

All cards in the game belong to one of the many card deck sets, which represent a specific type of bonus.

Depending on the composition of cards that you use from the same sets in your card deck, you unlock different card deck bonuses for your character.

To build a card deck in Lost Ark, open up the Card Catalog, head to the Equip tab, and click or drag your cards on the left side into the card deck in the middle. What bonuses your card deck gives are displayed on the right side.

Most card deck sets have different levels of their card bonus, which are unlocked when you have a specific number of cards from that set in your deck.

It could be that 2 cards from the same set in your deck unlock that set’s level 1 bonus, 4 cards unlock that set’s level 2 bonus, and 6 cards unlock that set’s level 3 bonus.

Some sets have additional bonus levels beyond just having a specific number of cards from the same set in your deck, requiring so-called awakening pieces to be unlocked. Awakening pieces are obtained by awakening cards.

Card Books, the second component of the cards system, are collections of specific cards that give you permanent bonuses upon being collected.

Like all cards belong to a set, all cards also belong to a book of cards.

You can see all the different books of cards that you can fill out in Lost Ark by opening the Card Catalog and going to the Books tab.

Unlike card decks, there is no limit to how many books of cards that you can get bonuses from. If you fill out 10 books of cards, you’ll get bonuses from all 10 at the same time permanently.

You can see the specific cards within any book of cards by clicking it on the left side of the Books tab.

To unlock the bonus from a book of cards, you need to collect all the cards in that book.

Books of cards also have additional bonus levels that you can unlock by collecting awakening pieces of the cards in that collection, which are obtained by awakening the cards in that collection.

You can see all the bonuses that you are getting from your collection of books on the right side of the Books tab in the Card Catalog.

The last tab in the Card Catalog is Enhance, where you can see all of the cards that you’ve obtained, their current awakening level, their number of duplicates, and is where you can enhance and awaken cards.

How to get cards

Now that you know how the cards system works, it’s time to fill out your card deck and books of cards.

You can get cards in Lost Ark by completing quests, defeating enemies that drop cards, and opening card packs.

While leveling through the game, you’ll get most of your cards from quests and enemies.

Once you reach the end-game, you will, however, get the vast majority of cards from opening card packs.

Here are the different ways to obtain card packs in Lost Ark:

• Tower
• Quests
• Mari’s Secret Shop in the Store
• Loti NPC exchange on Peyto Island
• Collection rewards
• Abyssal Dungeon
• Events
• Adventure Island through Procyon’s Compass
• Trade Merchants in your Stronghold

You can also get the card of specific Guardian Raid bosses by defeating them.

Other one-time ways to obtain cards in the game include rewards from the Adventurer’s Tome and Collections.

Card deck and book bonuses overview

The goal of collection cards in Lost Ark is to build a strong deck and fill out books to unlock bonuses for your character.

There are 31 different card sets to collect and build in your card deck.

Each card set gives a unique bonus and consists of between 2 and 7 cards.

To see how many cards a set consists of, check the number next to its name on the left side under the Equip tab in the Card Catalog.

The bonuses a card set gives at its different levels can be checked by clicking the Set Effect Details button also located next to its name.

There are 200 different books of cards to collect, consisting of between 2 and 10 cards each.

In total, there are 788 unique cards to collect for different books of cards, so you can see that it’s quite a task to fill out all books of cards.

You can see what cards a specific book consists of and what bonuses it gives when filled out completely and with additional awakening pieces by selecting one on the left side under the Books tab of the Card Catalog.

How to enhance cards for awakening

If you want to unlock the higher levels of bonuses each set of cards and book of cards can give, you need to enhance cards, also known as awakening cards.

Here is how to enhance a card in Lost Ark and raise its awakening level:

1. Open the Card Catalog
2. Go to the Enhance tab
3. Right-click the card you wish to enhance
4. Drag the scroller on the right side to the maximum to give the card full card XP
5. Click Enhance to give it the XP
6. Click Awaken to increase its awakening level
7. Your card will now be awakened to its next level!

When you awaken a card, it gains an awakening piece, which is displayed on its icon in the Card Catalog.

A card can be awakened up to five times, which means it can get a maximum of 5 awakening pieces.

To enhance a card, you need card XP enhancement points and silver, and to awaken a card, you need duplicates of that card and silver.

You can see how many duplicates you have of a card by looking at the blue cards icon with a + next to it on a card’s icon. The +X describes how many duplicates you have of that card. If there is no blue card icon, you have no duplicates of the card, at least not that you have used.

Here is an overview of how many duplicates of the same card you need to upgrade its awakening level.

As the duplicate card requirement increases steadily as the awakening level increases, it’s better to focus on bringing cards in the same set or book to higher awakening levels at the same time.

Upgrading a card’s awakening level from 4 to 5 gives you only one more awakening piece for the cost of 5 duplicate cards while bringing a card from awakening level 0 to 1 also gives you one more awakening piece for the cost of just 1 duplicate card.

Best card sets to use

There are a ton of card sets to build in your deck, but you can only choose 6 cards for your deck.

So what are the best sets to use, and how should you build your card deck?

These are the best card sets to build in Lost Ark:

• Lostwind Cliff
• Light of Salvation

Even though you can activate several card set effects by using cards from different sets in your card deck, it’s best to focus on only one set and activate it to its highest level.

Both of the sets listed above need to be upgraded to higher levels with awakening pieces than just their base 6-set card effect before they become the best sets to use.

At its maximum 6-set 30 awakening piece bonus level, the Lostwind Cliff set gives +25% Dark Damage Reduction, +7% Crit Rate, and +3.5% Holy Damage on foes for you and your party.

The Crit Rate and Holy Damage boost is what makes the Lostwind Cliff set so powerful. These boosts are first unlocked upon acquiring 12 and 30 awakening pieces on the cards in the set.

At its maximum 6-set 30 awakening piece bonus level, the Light of Salvation set gives +30% Dark Damage Reduction, changes damage type to Holy, and gives +15% Holy Damage.

Again, the change to Holy damage and Holy Damage boost is what makes the Light of Salvation set so strong. These are first unlocked when you acquire 12, 18, and 30 awakening pieces on the cards in the set.

For card books, there is no specific one that is the best to go for, as there is no limit to how many books you can get boosts from.

Over time, you’ll start unlocking more and more books to increase your total permanent bonus from card books.

If you want to actively finish card book collections, go for the ones that give either Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or any combat stat that you need for your build.

What to do with duplicate cards

When you’re farming cards and opening card packs, you’ll end up with duplicate cards – multiple of the same card.

You should use any duplicate card that you get, as you need duplicates of the same card to increase its awakening level.

If you haven’t unlocked a card, you need a total of 16 duplicates of that card to unlock it and bring it to level 5 awakening level.

You can see the duplicate card cost to increase the awakening level of a card at each awakening level above in this guide.

To see how many duplicates you have of a card, find it in the Enhance tab of the Card Catalog. If there is a blue card icon on it with a + next to it, you have duplicates of that card. The number next to the + is how many duplicates you have of that card.

If there isn’t a blue cards icon on a card’s icon in the Enhance tab, you do not have any duplicates of it, at least not used.

After you’ve fully enhanced a card, which means bringing it to awakening level 5, duplicates of that card will be turned into card XP when used instead of being added to your Card Catalog, as you cannot upgrade the card further.

You cannot sell cards on the Auction House in Lost Ark, so you should always just use duplicate cards, even if you’ve already fully maxed out a card.

Card pack odds

Ever wondered what the chances of getting the different rarities of card packs when opening card pack packs?

Here are the probabilities of getting the various rarities of card packs in Lost Ark from different card pack packs:

Legendary – Epic Card Pack Odds

Legendary – Rare Card Pack Odds

Any Card Pack Odds

These are the official numbers provided by Lost Ark. Probabilities are only provided for packs that are sold in the Store, which means we don’t have odds for the Legendary – Uncommon Card Pack, for example.

The probability of getting a specific card from a card pack is the same for all cards in the pack. If a pack can give 100 different cards, the probability of getting each one is 1%.

Here are the odds of getting a specific card in each of the five rarities of card packs:

There is a small discrepancy between the number of cards and the probability of getting each card in the pack for all card packs except for the legendary one.

The number of cards in each pack and the probability of getting each one is, however, provided by Lost Ark, so we’ve decided to not calculate the actual probability, which would differ slightly from the ones listed.

Some packs are on a select basis, which means you can pick the card you want from the card pack yourself. But most card packs give a random card.

The card packs that let you pick a card manually are recommended to keep till you know what cards you need for your card setup.

Are cards account-wide?

Yes, the Card Catalog is shared across the roster, which means all characters on the same server.

Any cards that you use on one character on a server show up in the Card Catalog on all other characters on that same server. All card enhancement progress and card XP does the same.

In other words, everything about the Card Catalog is shared across all characters on the same server but not the entire account.

As the card system is shared across the roster, you can farm cards on alt characters to build up your card deck and books faster.

What are XP Cards?

XP Cards are cards that do not add any NPC or enemy to your Card Catalog. They only give you Card XP used for enhancing the awakening level of cards.

There are different rarities of XP cards in the game, each of which gives different amounts of card enhancement XP.

It isn’t obvious from the description of XP cards that they just give card enhancement XP upon use.

These are the different names of XP Cards in Lost Ark:

• Soul Leaf (Uncommon) = 500 Card XP
• Eternity Essence (Rare) = 1,500 Card XP
• Creation Fragment (Epic) = 3,000 Card XP
• Menelik’s Tome (Legendary) = 9,000 Card XP

If you get any of these XP Cards, you should just go ahead and use them to get the card enhancement XP from them.

You can see how much card enhancement XP you have stored up at the top of the Enhance tab in your Card Catalog.

How to expand Card Catalog

When you start farming lots of cards to build up your Card Catalog, you’ll find yourself in need of more card slots.

If you get the message ‘The Card Catalog is Full’, you need to expand your Card Catalog before you can add more cards that you don’t already have to your collection.

To expand your Card Catalog, so you have room for more cards, go to the Enhance tab in the Card Catalog, scroll down, and click the first Expand Catalog Slots button you see.

Expanding the number of card slots in your Card Catalog costs 30 Blue Crystals and adds 10 more card slots.

The Enhance tab in the Card Catalog is where you see all the cards that you have, so when that gets full, you need to expand its slots before you can use more cards.

Can you delete a card?

Yes, it is possible to delete a card in Lost Ark, but it is never recommended that you do it.

There is no reason to delete cards, as you need all cards in the game to fill out various card books for permanent bonuses, and you need duplicates of the same card to enhance their awakening level.

If you still want to delete a card, you can do so by going to the Enhance tab in the Card Catalog, clicking the Delete Card button, right-clicking the cards you wish to delete, and clicking OK in the bottom-right corner.

Again, it is not recommended to delete any cards as you need them for both card book bonuses and card enhancement, even if you aren’t planning on using them in your card deck.

That’s everything that you need to know about the card system and how it works in Lost Ark!

Have any input or suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.