Beginner's Guide

*This article is a stub. You can help Lost Ark Wiki by expanding it.*

**This guide is incomplete.**

This guide describes most major game mechanics for new/returning players.

## Focus on Difficult Team Raids (Legion Raids)

* Lost Ark is almost entirely focused on **Legion Raids**, party based boss raids with a **wide variety of complex mechanics** that requires good communication and group coordination.
* The general way the game is normally played is to **learn to survive and complete these raids consistently weekly** as they are the primary source of resources and progression.
	+ Failure of mechanics, which may depend on a single party member, may result in failure of a raid which will frustrate other players because of spent time.
	+ If **new to the game** and given equipment through "catch-up" events, you'll need to learn these complex raids first and a decent way to find people for learning parties is through **Lost Ark Discord Servers with Learning Channels**.
	+ Before doing Legion Raids, there is still other content you should do such as **learning your class** and making your character(s) better with **horizontal content progression**.
		- Raid guides and videos are recommended before trying the raids themselves. **I personally recommend Maxroll's guides**, they appear up-to-date as of 1/16/2024.
	+ Experience is vital in completing these raids. One measure for this is Roster Level which roughly indicates how long a player has been playing.
* There is some content found in the world and life skills but primary progression is only through these raids.
* Some game mechanics are designed to combat Botting, RMT (Real Money Trading), and prevent easy "carrying".

## Notice

* Parts of this guide may become outdated/made irrelevant as Lost Ark gets new content and current/older content gets changes or made irrelevant, such as rewards being changed.
	+ Various online guides may become outdated so ideally you want to find guides from **active communities that can keep them up to date**.
* The South Vern Powerpass allows a character to skip much of the story and provides equipment (Tier 3 item level 1415) for early end-game content.
	+ This may change, such as what equipment you get, when new content and expansions are released.
* Information about the South Vern Powerpass, Super Mokoko Express Event, and a Progression Event from 1490 to 1580.
	+ Future progression events may have changes to them.
	+ The Mokoko Challenge and Mokoko Buff goes away at 1540 item level.

## Other Useful Guides

* **Choosing a Class** by Nexus - summaries of each class and the difficulty to learn them.
* For those who were able to skip content via a Powerpass, there are some useful guides on what to do.
	+ **LOA Mokoko Checklist** - Horizontal Content (Character progression not through Raids and Honing)
	+ **Jump Start Quick Start** by Nexus - provides useful general information if starting the game normally and not just through Jump Start.

## Early Game

* **General Early Tips**
	+ Do what is fun for you and play at your own pace.
	+ Press 'T' to toggle Auto Move which makes you keep moving toward the current direction you are facing. This is useful in reducing how often you'll need to click.
	+ Freely use Health Potions that heal an exact number as they are relatively cheap. You should **save HP Potions** that heal a % and other Battle Items (items with a distinct gray border) as these are the only type of potions you can use in most endgame content.
		- Engraving items/Boxes, Honing Materials, and Card Packs should be left unopened as they become relevant during end-game content.
	+ Save your "Select 1" chests for later in the game.
	+ Changing spent skill points is free and can be changed at mostly any time.
	+ To share your location to chat: Shift + Right-click
	+ Leaving a Guild prevents you from joining another guild for an amount of days (up to 32 days) depending on the number of times you have left a guild.
	+ For free pets from various boxes, try to get a pet with a Hardship Specialized (Element) that you don't have yet, the basic ones being Flame, Ice and Wind.
		- Adaptation affects Dispatch Mission rewards but not success rate. (\* I haven't looked into this very much.)
		- The White Bunny has Ice Hardship-specialization.
	+ Chaos Shards that were used for using Awakening Skills have been removed the from game with these skills no longer needing them.
* **Things Bound or Shared by Character or Roster**
	+ Honour/Harmony Shards **are Character bound** and are not shared to Roster.
	+ Many Honing Material chests/pouches are bound to character when opened so ideally you only open the amount that you need to not waste these resources.
	+ Currencies (silver, gold, etc), all Ship Progression, Stat/Skill Potions, Engraving points and a number of other things are shared by characters in the same Roster.
	+ Generally, equipment are bound to Characters, and Items from events or quests are bound to Roster.
* **Sailing/Ships**
	+ Your starting ship, the **Estoque**, is safe to invest upgrades in as it has decent resistances and other ship speeds aren't greatly different.
	+ The cost of the materials of upgrading this ship past level 7 are difficult to get so level 7 is an okay stopping point.
	+ A possible long term goal is to obtain and upgrade the **Astray** ship which is faster but has less resistances.
	+ Ship Skins may give certain effects (such as auto collecting flotsams). Some skins are available from Collectables such as Mokoko Seeds.

## Currency & Valuables

### Gold

Gold is an important currency and not easy to get. It can be used to buy items from other players in the Market, used in stronghold research, higher tier honing, and many other things.

* Primarily earned from Legion Raids.
* Exchange Una Tokens obtained from Daily and Weekly Una's Tasks.
* Adventure Island rewards though not consistent. (\* Don't know if these rewards are somewhat randomized.)
* **Items that can be sold for Gold**
	+ Adventure Tome collectables.
	+ Tradable Honing Materials such as Leapstones and Oreha Fusion Materials. **Good to learn these prices as Honing becomes more expensive.**.
		- For example, Marvelous Honour Leapstones cost 30 Gold each and Super Oreha Fusions cost 21 Gold each (costs are when this was written).
	+ Trade materials obtained with Trade Skills.
	+ Accessories/Ability Stones/Engraving Recipes with valuable Combat Stats/Engravings.
	+ And other items that are listed in the Market.

### Pheon

**Pheon** is currency required to buy equipment, accessories, ability stones and gems from the market that are sold by other players ~~or between your characters~~. Pheon can be bought from the Lost Ark Shop with Crystals.

* Spent Pheon is consumed and not given to the seller.
	+ **35 Pheon** for T3 Ancient items.
	+ **15 Pheon** for T3 Relic items.
	+ **9 Pheon** for T3 Legendary items.
* At the time of writing this, **15 Pheons roughly cost 6158 gold** (with 1 crystal costing 411 gold and 1 pheon costing 10 crystals)
* (\*todo: table for easier reading/comparisons)
* With Pheon having a high cost, Pheon should be saved for items you would **use for a long time, a month or more**.
	+ Or items that would improve significant utility to your character such as an item with Vital Point Hit.
	+ You can transfer accessories to another character in your roster without consuming Pheons though Mail, but this still uses the trade limit of the item.

### Equipment to sell for Gold

* This information are just personal findings. Better information may be found elsewhere.
* This information may not be currently accurate as stat and engraving combinations value is dependent on player demand which may change as the game changes with new content/changes and classes.
* The Combat Stats of **Swiftness**, **Specialization** and **Critical** are used in most builds while **Domination**, **Endurance**,  **Expertise** aren't in high demand.
* Engravings that provide consistent damage increase, such as Grudge and Cursed Doll, usually have steady demand. Each class and build have different ideal engravings though some ideal engravings are shared.
	+ Class-Specific Engravings are also generally valuable but may depend if the Class Engraving is popular/good or not.
* A good Necklace with ideal stats can be more valuable than a good Ring/Earring as it provides higher stat values and provides 2 Combat Stats. Earrings also have higher stats than Rings.
* To learn prices, you can start off selling cheap equipment like rings and earrings for 50-75% of what you find them listed for (as you can search for similar items) to see what sells quickly or not.
	+ If finding an item with more than around ~5 listed at a non-low selling price (over 300-400g), then that stat combination on that item is likely valuable.
	+ In finding no matches, the item might still be valuable or players **don't find it worth listing** on the market.
	+ Successfully selling decent accessories for around 100-200g every couple days is probably an okay method of earning gold. Though you won't get these valuable accessories everyday.
		- If unsold (for the initial bid price) for 200g or less, it is likely safe to dismantle.
	+ **Defensive/utility engravings aren't as valuable** as mid/high tier damage engravings (and specific engravings for support classes such as Awakening and Expert).
	+ If you think an item could sell for a couple hundred gold or more, you could increase the days the item is listed. This may increase how many players would see the listing.
	+ Ability Stones, Amulets, and Bracelets are rarely worth listing because of the extra RNG needed to roll them well. Specific options can make some Stones and Bracelets somewhat valuable.

### Other Currencies

* **Silver** is your general currency which isn't difficult to get but used for many things.
	+ Notable purchases with Silver include items sold by **Wandering Merchants**. These merchants sell useful things such as specific Cards, Rapport Gifts, and items for both Adventurer's Tomes and Collections.
	+ There are items with costs possibly reaching **more than 100k+** (mostly for Adventure Tome completion) so silver shouldn't be carelessly spent.
* **Crystal** is premium currency which can buy items from Lost Ark Shop or increase your number of skill presets or the amount of cards you can hold. Crystal can be purchased with Gold.

**Sailing Currencies**

* An important purchase with **Pirate Coins** is the Song of Resonance needing 16,500 Pirate Coins.
	+ This song is used to unlock hidden areas or active certain things around the world.
		- This song is also needed for another song, Forest's Minuet, found at Lullaby Island from a quest that is only doable at certain times.
	+ Maxroll's Where to Use Sailing Coins (07/23/23)
		- This guide lists notable purchases with these coins.
	+ Sailing Missions that reward **Procyon's Coins** are harder than Missions for **Gienah's Coins.** Generally, you should save coin chests for the moment you need them such as for Wandering Merchant Ships.

## Progression

* Focus on the Main Quests as that's the main way to progress through the game.
	+ Even at Tier 3, story progression quests earn you honing materials, card packs, and valuable XP for levels which increase your skill points.
* The Mokoko Challenge's **Basic Guide** can help direct you to your next objective.
* There are many sidequests which may reward combat exp, useful resources, or permanent character benefits, making some quests worth doing.
	+ (\* Are there sidequests that should/(or could) be ignored? What do you miss if you skip the "optional" content?)
* You may want to do content that you don't want to backtrack for such as some of the early Adventurer's Tome tasks and Mokoko Seeds.
	+ Rewards include small but permanent character benefits.
* **Item Progression**
	+ Vertical Progression refers to increasing your item level which done by honing your equipment (armor and weapon) or finding/creating better equipment.
	+ You don't need to actively look for better equipment during most of the Main Story quest. Equipment you find along the way should do.
	+ Accessory stats don't matter too much early. On comparing stats, you probably want Swiftness (affecting movement speed, attack speed, and skill cooldowns) or stats that increase your Damage such as Critical and Specialization.
	+ Combat Stats become more important when content starts becoming more difficult, likely when you can start daily Chaos Dungeons and eventually Legion Raids.
	+ Accessories and ability stones can be moved between characters though mail without consuming pheons but consumes the amount of trades possible with the item.
* **Engravings**
	+ Maxroll provides a detailed guide on how to achieve 5x3 engravings.
	+ Engraving levels and points gained from Engraving Recipes are shared with Characters in a Roster.
* **Tripods**
	+ Tripods have been changed from being on equipment to being on skills themselves.

### Honing/Vertical Progression

* The **Honing** page has a good amount of information for when you should start honing.
* There are many ways to get Honing Materials and much of them are character/roster bound.
	+ Honing Books increase Honing rates for specific equipment at specific honing levels. **Don't forget to use them before upgrading past** when the books are usable as they would reduce honing costs.
	+ Lower tier Honing Materials, including **character bound materials**, can be exchanged for higher tier materials at **Exchange Honing Materials NPCs**.
	+ Other special Honing Materials, such as Solar Grace, Solar Blessing, and Solar Protection, are better saved for (todo: not sure when, around 1%-5% honing rates?)
		- There are tier 2 versions of these materials for tier 2 equipment.
* In general, honing weapons is more expensive than honing armor.
* I believe **Maxroll's Honing Calculator** is up-to-date which **calculates efficient special material usage** according to current gold costs.

### Horizontal Progression

* Horizontal Progression includes mostly everything that isn't about increasing your item level but can still increase your character's power.
* Some of this progression is behind various Collectables or the Adventurer's Tomes for each major continent.
* Skill Point Potions
* Card Sets
* Skill Runes
* Basic and Combat Stat Potions
* **Roster Level** is a good indicator of how much experience a player has. Players in difficult/higher-end content look for roster levels higher than 100.

## Dailies/Weeklies

* The daily reset is at 10am UTC. (\* Depends on your region?)
* Guardian Raid (Daily)
* Adventure Island (Once on Weekdays, Twice on Saturday and Sunday)
* Una's Tasks (Daily/Weekly)
* Wandering Merchants (Daily) May check every couple of hours or so.
* Chaos Dungeon (Daily)
* Chaos Gate (Once a day when available)
* Chaos Line (Weekly)
* Field Boss Rewards (Once a day when available)
* Anguished Isle (Daily)

**Other Re-occurring tasks**

* Recovered Work Energy on Trade Skills or from your Stronghold Farm.
* Daily Rapport Actions targeting Collectables or Adventure Tome completion.
	+ Focus on just 2 or 3 NPCs to keep it simple.
* Stronghold Activities such as Research and Dispatch Missions.
* There might be other things to do that are not listed in this list.

## Trade Skills

**Basics**

* Unlocked after reaching Lakebar.
* Trade Skill levels are shared with characters in a roster
* Work Energy is recovered at the same rate online and offline.
* 24 hours recovers 4320 energy ( 1440 minutes in a day \* (30/10 (energy regened/time to regen)) )

**Resource Nodes**

* Extra resources can be sold for gold.
* Green named resource nodes (such as Copper Ore and Silver Ore) are assumed to have the same outputs.
* There are special purple named resource nodes such as Platinum Ore in Punika have additional drop which are for a World Leaf collectable or other purpose.
* High tier resource nodes require 30 trade skill levels in their respective trade skill.
* Higher tier Resource Nodes can be found randomly in areas after East Luterra. (\* to verify)
* Maps/Areas with nodes that drop Tier 3 special materials mention "Obtain Tier 3 special materials" at the upper right when viewing the map.

**Tools**

* (\* Haven't done this personally, might have been updated/changed since writing this.)
* Crafting Recipes for better tools are purchased from Stronghold Merchants with Adventure Seals.
* Craft Kits are obtained from Archeological Maps, these maps can be crafted at your Stronghold.
* Tool Restoration Kits which can recover Tool Durability can be crafted at your Stronghold after buying the recipe.

### Energy Recovery Table

 1 Hour
 2 Hours
 6 Hours
 12 Hours
 24 Hours

**Materials**

 Mining
 Hunting
 Excavating

**Early Work Energy Usage**

* Early in the game, Wood and Stone are useful for Ship repairs and for Stronghold Research and later for some battle item recipes.
* Ore, Timber and Flowers usually have good demand, but be sure to check Market Prices of other materials.
* Trade Materials from Fishing, Hunting and Excavating are also used in the creation of important Tier 3 Honing Materials.

* 30 Mining is useful to help in the process to collect the collectable, Spida Island Island Soul, should you have spare energy.

## Stronghold

**Basics**

* Unlocked around the end of the story in East Luterra.
* Early Dispatch Missions each take 2 hours to complete.
* Needed to craft Consumables such as Potions and other Combat Items.
* Training Camp: Unlocked upon reaching level 52, can passively train your other characters.
* Feasts: Unlocked at Stronghold level 10, craft powerful consumable items that grant two-hour buffs.
	+ The stronghold quest to obtain a Chef requires a level 50 character.

**Important Notes**

* To dispatch 2 ships at once, your Dispatch Station Lv. 3 which is an upgrade unlocked at Stronghold Lv. 17.
* Your first extra Dispatch Crew Slot is obtained from the Research A cup of rum!. It has a base cost of 4,008 Pirate Coins.
* A second dispatch boat, the Estoque, is unlocked from research that costs 334 Pirate Coins This requires you own the ship itself and have a Lab level of 2.
* Placeholder: Information about Resources at Strongholds. What they're used for? How are they different?
* Eventually, Research start costing decent amounts of Gold. (Need to look up what order research should be done for gold efficiency.)

**Notable Research**

 [A cup of rum!] +1 sailor
 [Lab Lv. 3]
 [Dispatch Station Lv. 3]
 More to be Added.

**Starting Travelling Merchants**

**Early Stronghold XP**

* Always have a Dispatch Mission active for Stronghold XP and Seals.
* Silver, Wood and Ore can also be spent for XP from crafts but is also costly.

## Rapport

**Basics**

* Rapport is generally your relationship with significant NPCs which provide a variety of useful rewards at certain rapport stages.
* You have a daily limited number of actions to increase Rapport Levels.
	+ Crystalline Aura increases this number of actions.
* Trusted Rapport with NPCs, in various Continents, are needed for Ignea Tokens which, after earning 5, rewards the very useful Epic Tier Purify Rune.
* Rapport Gifts are stored in their own section in the inventory.
	+ (\* aside from the gifts that give more points if given to male or female) It seems like NPC don't have preferred Legendary(2000) and Relic(10000) Gifts. These gifts likely give the same amount of points if given to anyone unlike preferred Epic Gifts.

**Which NPCS to prioritize**

* Maxroll's Rapport Guide
	+ In short, important rewards are Giant's Hearts and Omnium Stars.
	+ Certain NPCs have very high virtue (310) requirements, which can be skipped with a number of the same Legendary/Relic level rapport gifts before passing a specific threshold. There are online guides on how to do this.
* Gold have been removed from Rapport rewards.
* It is generally safe to give NPCs their most favorite gift, which gives them the most Rapport compared to giving them to other NPCs. (Though you may also focus these gifts on NPCs with important rewards instead.)

**Daily Available Actions**

* Per Roster.
* 5 Songs
* 5 Emotes
* 99 Rapport Gifts
* (\* Crystalline Aura gives an extra emote action, not a song?)

## Card Catalog

* Obtaining, equipping, and Awakening certain **Card Sets** provide benefits like taking reduced damage from certain elements, increasing damage, or changing damage type.
* Completion (and Awakening) of **Book Sets** gives characters on the roster a variety of bonuses including Combat Stats.
	+ Notable Book Set bonuses includes **Damage vs. Demons**.
	+ **Card Collection Bonuses by u/RandomHominid** - This goes into detail about Book Sets.
	+ Book Sets are considered a **very long-term goal** as it takes a **long time** to see a benefit and more time to make bonuses better. There is no need to prioritize this early.
* Being **limited** in how many cards you can hold, you may want to **hold off on opening card packs** until you reach a point in the game where would matter more.
* Notable Card Sets: **Light of Salvation**, Deep Dive, Lostwind Cliff (Synergy with LoS party members) and there are some card sets that are situationally useful.

**Awakening and Card XP**

* Don't spend Card XP to awaken every card you can as important Legendary Cards will need a lot of XP.
* To fully awaken a card, you need 15 copies of that card where it is more difficult to fully awaken Legendary rarity cards.
* Card sets are where you can **select which card you get** are **very rare** and should be saved for cards that are difficult to get many copies of, especially Legendary rarity cards.
	+ This is also why card packs which may return a Legendary Card pack are decent rewards.
	+ Many cards in the **Deep Dive** set are sold by **Wandering Merchants** for Silver which appear randomly throughout the day around the in-game world.

**Storage Limit**

* At first, you can hold **120 cards**. More rows for card storage can be bought with 30 Crystals which can be bought with Gold.
* Duplicate copies of a card are not counted toward the storage limit.
* Deleting cards is not recommended due to various bonuses from completing Book Sets.
	+ (\* Though I personally would delete common cards that aren't in good Card/Book Sets that are easily obtainable from Wandering Merchants.)
* You may instead store extra cards on an alternate character.

## Main Game Content

### Preparations

* **Battles Items are a must-have for harder Guardian Raids and all Legion Raids.**
	+ Press **ESC** to cancel throwing an item.
	+ Elemental HP Potion for harder raids
	+ Destruction Bomb for Weak Points or more damage.
	+ Whirlwind Grenade for stagger checks.
	+ Time Stop Potion for temporary invincibility for certain mechanics.
* Learn basics of how the support classes work. This will help you receive their offensive and defensive buffs or heals better.
* Know which of your skills have **Stagger**, **Counter**, and **Weak Point** (destruction) as many mechanics require usage of these skills.
* During Raids, you can place a ping at your mouse's location with Ctrl + R-click.

### Chaos Dungeon

* Twice Daily Per Character (with Rest System)
* Rewards: Accessories, Honing materials

### Una's Tasks

* 3 Daily per character (with Rest System)
* Rewards: **Gold** (via exchanging Una's Tokens), **Ships**, Silver, Pirate Coins, Honing Materials, Collection items, etc.

### Guardian Raids

* Small simple raids. Learn game mechanics here before doing Legion Raids.
* **Daily per Character** (with Rest system)
* **Rewards**: Honing Materials, Accessories.
* If your party quits, you can wait 5 minutes to use the button (located in the top left) to quit the raid without the leaving penalty.

### Legion Raids

* Endgame raids, the main content of the game.
* Weekly entries per character dependent on character item level.
	+ Entries count toward a complete Raid where gates are only a part of the raid.
	+ You can only clear a gate once each week. You cannot go back and replay it once cleared.
		- This means you will want to complete raids in one session with the same people. Once you clear a gate, you **can only party with people who cleared only up to that gate**, meaning the amount of players you can party with **much smaller** once a gate is cleared.
	+ For each Raid, only 1 difficulty can be completed weekly.
		- Rehearsal/Practice Raid entries share lockouts with other difficulties.
* Primary Rewards: **Gold, Gear crafting materials**
* Secondary Rewards: Honing Materials, Accessories, Engraving Recipes, etc.

### Other Content

* **Adventure Island**
	+ Rewards: Gold, Pirate Coins, Island Souls, etc.
* **Chaos Gate**
	+ Once Daily per Roster when available.
	+ Rewards: Honor Shard Pouches, chance for Gold, Card Packs, Engraving Recipes.
* **Field Bosses**
	+ Once Daily per Roster when available.
	+ Some early bosses are excluded from this limit.
	+ Honing Materials, Accessories, Omnium Stars, Island Souls, various Collection items, etc.
	+ More recent bosses are usually still being done.
* **Towers (Shadespire, Fortunespire, Fatespire)**
	+ Special rewards on specific floors on first clear on any character. Afterwards, special rewards are replaced and earnable once per character.
	+ One time Rewards: Skill point potions, Skill Runes, Combat Stat Potions, Card Packs, etc.
	+ Rewards: Roster XP, T2 Honing Materials, etc.
* **Ebony Cube**
	+ Entry tickets normally obtained from Chaos Dungeons.
	+ Somewhat more difficult that Chaos Dungeons but may be done solo.
	+ Rewards: Skill Gems, Honing Materials, Masterpieces, etc.
* **Co-op Sailing Quests**
	+ Pirate Coins, Gienah/Procyon Coins.
	+ Keys which may reward Treasure Maps which reward an amount of gold.
	+ Semi-required to obtain the Astray ship.
	+ Rewards: Silver, XP, Honing Materials, etc.
* Sylmael Bloodstone
* Abyssal Dungeon
* Abyss Raid
* (\* List content outside of the usual time limited raids.)

## Collectibles & Rewards

This lists of early notable rewards and excludes smaller rewards.

**Mokoko Seeds**

* 150: Stronghold Dispatch Crew Member (Green)
* 250: Eurus Crew (Blue)
* 500: Stronghold Dispatch Crew Member (Blue)
* 1000: Blooming Eurus Ship Skin

**Island Souls**

* 5: Greater Stat Increase Potion (25 Points)
* 15: Wooden Compass
* 20: Greater Stat Increase Potion (25 Points)
* 30: Masterpiece
* 40: Compass Upgrade
* 80: Turtle Ship Skin

**Giant Hearts**

* 4: Skill Point Potion (3 Points)
* 6: Skill Point Potion (3 Points)

**Omninum Stars**

* 2: Greater Skill Potion (6 Points)
* 4: Greater Stat Increase Potion (25 Points)

**World Tree Leaves**

* 12: Faint Ore Charm
* 24: Masterpiece
* 36: Charm Upgrade

**Masterpieces**

* 10: Sunflower Island Soul
* 20: 3,000 Gold
* 30: 5,000 Gold

**Sea Bounties (Adventures)**

* 4: Brahms Crew (Blue)
* 8: Sturmbrecher (Purple)
* 14: Brahms Crew (Purple)
* 14: White Wind Crew (Orange)

### Collection Notes

* Illusion Island needs 750 points for the reward. (go just a bit over to be safe, confirmed personally)
	+ Redditors said they got the soul from the chests that appear physically on the map.