Lost Ark Online

BoozeCube said:

can someone give me a guide or go over

2. Cards
4. Ships and blueprints
5. Structures
6. Rapport items - similarly I have kept all the chests for these things.
7. Alts (what can I funnel to mains, what content is restricted to one character) how much is it required that I start powerpass getting characters to 50 I haven't wanted to waste it not knowing if it is a class I would enjoy.
8. All these stronghold structures that are clogging up my inventory.

I know that is a fair bit of topics to ask about but if one of you guys that are really knowledgeable could either provide some links or can give a breakdown on these things my storage will greatly thank you.

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I don't have an endgame level of knowledge but i've picked up on some things so i can give a blurb.

1. Engraving - I don't open the grab bags till i know i want one. the rest go in the bank. i have like 60 green grab-bags. unless you can get 5 'ranks' of an engraving it doesn't do shit. so you either need a stone + some books. or green+blue books done to get anything so i just sit on them till it looks like i can use it. each book tier gives 3 permanently, to all your menz. some green books cost 1 gold in the market, some cost a shit load more. those are my primary candidate of the ones to get from grab bags. i think i have a good youtube guide bookmarked at home. i'll look later.

3. Coins (I have 100x chests to choose between Gienah, Sceptrum, Acrturus, Ancient, Sun)
you can trade those to merchants for pirate coins(bad idea), or some quests or vendors ask for them. i'd honestly just bank all of those chests till you know what you want.

5. structures just go into your stronghold. you can right click any you find and they are wisked off to storage in stronghold until you care later (or just forever unused). just use them to clear your inventory.

5.5 stronghold is used to craft potions and things later so idley doing the research in the background while you play the game is a pretty good thing to do.

BoozeCube said:

Well I picked up this game on the 15th so a full week behind you guys with the founders pack. If I had paid more attention I wish I had bought the founders pack and gotten the head start like many of you guys did. Sounds like selling shit to whales worked out well for Voldeth . Overall impressions is very solid there are tons of things to do in this game once you start breaking through the surface of it. If anyone want thinking twice about this game because of the P2Win shit like I was just give it a chance. I haven't dropped a cent on this game and have gotten many times my moneys worth out of it.

The storyline at least the initial ones to 50 are god awful but later on as they have released newer parts of the game I see many comments from people it greatly improves in the T2 area. The fighting side of the game is something I am still learning the nuances of but this is what Diablo 3 should of felt like. It isn't just pure spam and there is more thought in the mechanics. I would recommend anyone play this game for the dungeons alone, they are visually impressive and each one is surprisingly fun to experience. And if you just feel like casually grinding and exploring there is tons of shit to just chill and explore the game.

The gear acquisition can be slowish but really I mean people are in T3 inside of 2 weeks so it isn't that bad at all. Also the game does a very shit job explaining the finer points to it, thankfully there are a good number of guides and info out there. I have to say the raids are visually impressive and I have only done a handful of them so far. I did one today of a giant 9 tailed fox and they are one of the coolest aspects to play through.

Overall Impressions

Story -1/10
Dungeons 9/10
Raids 10/10

Now onto some questions as my inventory looks like @Chysamere in that I horde everything. I have tons of Battle Items I haven't used a single one, I know they are for raids but I have been hording for when I needed them for actual content. Same with things like pheonix plumes. Also Voldeth mentioned I should work on engraving so I have hundreds of chests in my inventory can someone give me a guide or go over

1. Engraving
2. Cards
3. Coins (I have 100x chests to choose between Gienah, Sceptrum, Acrturus, Ancient, Sun)
4. Ships and blueprints
5. Structures
6. Rapport items - similarly I have kept all the chests for these things.
7. Alts (what can I funnel to mains, what content is restricted to one character) how much is it required that I start powerpass getting characters to 50 I haven't wanted to waste it not knowing if it is a class I would enjoy.
8. All these stronghold structures that are clogging up my inventory.

I know that is a fair bit of topics to ask about but if one of you guys that are really knowledgeable could either provide some links or can give a breakdown on these things my storage will greatly thank you.

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Only get the Gienah coins at first, as they are used for getting collectibles that will help your account. Once you've gotten those, look at what you can get from the other coins.

Raes said:

Phoenix plumes should be right clicked and added to your UI inventory, and they are shared Roster wide.
Save engravings til you have read some guides and know which ones you want.
Open all your cards. The min/max card stuff is very late game/long grind, but you can still get a lot of utility from the base sets.
Save those coins until you need them. Certain ocean vendor stuff costs certain coin types. And if you run low on pirate coins Sun coins can be traded 1 for 20.
If you have earned a ship you'll have that ship available in your stronghold for dispatch missions.
Right click all structures to add them to your stronghold inventory.
Save rapport items and use them on Npcs with important/valuable rewards.
Alts can funnel weapon/armor stones and tradeable leapstones (although its best to sell the leapstones for now, these prices will drop like a rock soon. Even t1 at 17-20g a piece a sweet profit) After you use your 2 powerpasses you can always use Knowledge transfer to get more alts to 50. It's 600g a pop, which isn't that much.
You mentioned structures already.

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Using those coin boxes to get Sun coins to exchange for pirate coins has to be the worst thing possible. Getting pirate coins is probably the easiest currency to get. Don't troll newbies.

Zindan said:

Using those coin boxes to get Sun coins to exchange for pirate coins has to be the worst thing possible. Getting pirate coins is probably the easiest currency to get. Don't troll newbies.

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Stacks of coin boxes will be a constant thing in your inventory, since they love to give them away as login/event rewards. I have like 80 boxes in RU. Eventually, your one time rewards of pirate coins will run low, I was merely informing him of the box coin with the best exchange rate "when he runs low." Since they don't have much use after you've bought all the things that require coins that you want, and pirate coins are always useful.

Edit: 84 chests of 500 coins

Zindan said:

Only get the Gienah coins at first, as they are used for getting collectibles that will help your account. Once you've gotten those, look at what you can get from the other coins.

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what vendor wants the Gienah coins?

Pyros said:

They're all over the place, off the top of my head the good ones are in Blackfang Island(Giant heart), Freedom Isle(emotes and Giant's heart), Starlight Island(after the questline, Song of Starlight). You also need more for island tokens and other shit but these are more optional I think.

Gienah's Coin

A special coin that is only found in Gienah. Take it to a merchant ship that collects coins.

lostarkcodex.com

This should list most things you can buy and if you click the links it should tell you where too.

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oh damn. thank you. i just discovered the 'used to buy' button and it has changed my ark life.

BoozeCube said:

Now onto some questions as my inventory looks like @Chysamere in that I horde everything. I have tons of Battle Items I haven't used a single one, I know they are for raids but I have been hording for when I needed them for actual content. Same with things like pheonix plumes. Also Voldeth mentioned I should work on engraving so I have hundreds of chests in my inventory can someone give me a guide or go over

1. Engraving
2. Cards
3. Coins (I have 100x chests to choose between Gienah, Sceptrum, Acrturus, Ancient, Sun)
4. Ships and blueprints
5. Structures
6. Rapport items - similarly I have kept all the chests for these things.
7. Alts (what can I funnel to mains, what content is restricted to one character) how much is it required that I start powerpass getting characters to 50 I haven't wanted to waste it not knowing if it is a class I would enjoy.
8. All these stronghold structures that are clogging up my inventory.

I know that is a fair bit of topics to ask about but if one of you guys that are really knowledgeable could either provide some links or can give a breakdown on these things my storage will greatly thank you.

Click to expand...

Battle items are used in difficult content, most prominently guardian raids, abyss dungeons, & tower. They can be divided between two sections;

1) health potions & beneficial items: these should traditionally be crafted in your stronghold and used as required during the aforementioned content. As an example, when pugging Guardians, it's traditional that you follow the group alignment for who should use a flare.
2) Damage potions: The most common use for these are for difficult stagger checks. As an example, when we were running the abyss dungeon yesterday I pop'd a destruction bomb which is listed as high stagger. You learn which are required for content based on your groups make up and action accordingly. I wouldn't particularly be stingy with these as there's so many available and crafting them is relatively easy.

Phoenix plumes should be right clicked to get out of your inventory. They can be used across characters, so there's no detriment here. They allow you to rez back at the location of death for non group content (e.g. pirate ships).

On the subject of your questions:

1. Engravings are the most important (and expensive) aspect to learn of the game to maximize your character, except maybe for gems. They are obtained one of two ways;

1a. Through your skill books, which will allow you physically equip two engravings that will boost your overall rating towards the engravings. Where you stand in the progress of these engravings can be seen by clicking 'P' and looking under the engraving tab. You should have received a fair amount of class engraving books (both green & blue) as well as general engraving books (again, both green & blue) while leveling up. You need to collect 20 of each prior to being able to equip the quality of engraving that you're looking to equip (e.g. 20 green, followed by 20 blue, followed by 20 purple, followed by 20 yellow). The manner in which you go about selecting which to use is entirely up to you: either look up a maxroll guide with the caveat that they'll favor the 'best' which may not be the best for you (e.g. Grudge is the best general engraving to get but it's not newbie friendly) or go with what you feel works best for you and wing it. These can vastly change how you play your character (and are quite fun). My only suggestion here is to stop hoarding and use them. Green & blue books are easy to obtain (there are just soo many ways) and as a result, you shouldn't hoard these and instead should use them and get some enjoyment out of it.

1b. Through accessories that drop in chaos dungeons, guardian raids, abyss dungeons, etc and your stone. Accessory farming is an art form -- traditionally at T1 & T2, you don't really care about what engravings are offered and instead focus on the quality of the accessory and ensuring that it has the main stat you want unless you're close to a break point on a critical engraving (e.g. getting a class engraving to t3 via equipping a 'lesser' accessory). By the time you hit T3 however, you begin to hoard the living hell out of accessories and pray to RNJesus when you get a good stone that it 'cuts' favorably. These provide insane boosts (but also have negative effects) that you need to balance. The goal here should be to hoard up accessories that have a good main stat and engraving effects as you may need to modify them a bit based on your build.

2. Similar to all these points, I'm giving a short version of something that has a lot of nuisance (just want the caveat out there!). Ultimately, your set bonuses on cards are what matters the most. Under the card details, you can see what effects give what. These should be considered long term goals (in that they will take weeks/months/years) to maximize but you can get some relatively small boosts early on. The idea of the cards is that you need to collect multiple duplicates of the set you want and level them up (this is what the crystal icon under every card is -- how many duplicate copies you have that are level'd up). The most common one to get is Lostwind Cliff for the 7% crit buff (this is because Solas & Seria are both easy to obtain). You also obtain additional stats under the collection boosts (these are minor) however you should prioritize stats that you want (e.g. specialization) if you have the option of leveling up a specific card.

3. Coins can be exchanged for pirate coins at the ship merchant. Traditionally, you'll want to use Gineh coins for the giant heart's associated with them and sun cards for the Omnium Star that can be purchased from it for the access to skill points with the rest mostly being used for pirate coins (which also has a giant heart you can purchase with). I would suggest continuing to hoard these until you have a better understanding; while obtaining more isn't too difficult, there early game value is decent.

4. Not my strong suit, I'd default this to Raes .

5. Not sure what structures you mean? In your stronghold? They grant minor buffs for the stronghold. The only thing I would say is you shouldn't need to hoard these as they can be right clicked and equipped directly in your stronghold (thus freeing up precious inventory room) and as your stronghold is account wide there's no detriment towards doing so.

6. Rapport items can be opened to free up inventory room as they go to a separate tab. Rapport is a long term goal, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. With that being said, there's value in using items to unlock Beatrice's giant's heart with any additional going to Sasha (for the same thing). You may also want to use them for quick gold that can be obtained at an early stage (the rewards are all viewable under the rapport UI (Alt + N by default).

7. Alts can transfer guardian & destruction stones, as well as a limited amount of leap stones. They should be created rather early with a focus of classes you may want to enjoy. We're incredibly fortunate in our version that we got two free power passes PLUS the ability to Knowledge Transfer any additional ones we want. In short, there's no harm in wasting these. You should prioritize doing chaos dungeons with them, followed by Una's tasks (they can be used to complete certain Una's tasks that require multiple completions to unlock stuff so your main is free'd to focus on ones that provide additional stones) with guardian raids being last on the list. The other aspect that can be done is having your alt complete the tower for you, which then unlocks additional mats when re-cleared for your main.

8. Right click that shit!

Voldeth said:

6. Rapport items can be opened to free up inventory room as they go to a separate tab. Rapport is a long term goal, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. With that being said, there's value in using items to unlock Beatrice's giant's heart with any additional going to Sasha (for the same thing). You may also want to use them for quick gold that can be obtained at an early stage (the rewards are all viewable under the rapport UI (Alt + N by default).

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You should only open the random purple ones and legendary/relic ones. The purple ones you can choose you should save, because every Rapport npc has "favorites" of the purples that give more rapport.

On that topic, it’s kind of annoying rapport items are locked behind other stats. Like in Pridehome, I can’t give the inn keeper a potato until I get 150 kindness?

Got the "Hall of the twisted warlord" down just now. Pug'ed it but everyone knew the basic strats. Wiped three times on the last boss but then down he went.

Hope the next one goes as smooth but need to check a guide first.

For anyone who missed any of the Twitch drops:

Tmac said:

But, I still never see armor drop. It's always rings and earrings.

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Armor really only "drops" from Abyssal Dungeons. Most armor that you don't just auto-dismantle is acquired right upon entering a new "item tier". Your armor/weapon mostly come from Abyss dungeon tokens being turned into armor pieces or right upon entering a new tier's Chaos dungeons. From there, it's just you "honing"/upgrading the armor to +1, +2, etc.

Tmac said:

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. I didn't realize that you essentially just "level" one set of gear up to a certain point...and then you get another one or something?

I finally figured it out last night and got my initial set up to 460. But, I still never see armor drop. It's always rings and earrings.

Okay, so basically get my initial set up to 15+. Got it.

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You’ll get high enough ilvl to get into tier 2 where you will get a new set of gear. This is where you’ll transfer your “hones” from your 302 gear to your new set of gear and start the process all over again of getting it to +15. You on us west?

Funny some of you are like aww I’m slow as fuck only ilvl 500. Wtf. Just finished shushire last night, got my 302 set up to 320 and have about 50 hours into the game. You guys are not going slow at all.

Did servers just went down?

xmod2 said:

Yeah if you think of the tiers as expansions, then the first tier is 302->600. You get your first set of blue from questing or a chaos dungeon, then upgrade it. You can unlock Epic/Legendary sets also and transfer over your honing levels, but you still only gain ilvl from honing. The base gear is all 302. Once you hit 600, you unlock the next xpac's content and after you get into chaos you get the first armor set for that expansion, which starts at 802. You then do the same thing honing your gear to work your way through the second xpac until you get to 1100. Then you're at T3, the current content release and you do the same thing again, but this time without the catch up mechanics so all the honing attempts are way less successful.

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I would agree with this. My first day in Papunika had about half a dozen people in it with only one channel available -- it's gotten a lot better lately with multiple channels but it doesn't compare to even going to some of the leveling zones where there's multiple channels and fighting for respawns. The average player isn't anywhere close to T2, much less T3. The game offers so much content that I know a lot of people who just get lost (Mokoko seed hunters anyone!?). If you're in T2, you're well ahead of the pack and shouldn't feel any pressure when you fail to hone an item -- it gives you more time to do some of the other stuff.