• this is a work in progress
  
• i will write more stuff, as soon i reached it ingame, and understood it.
  
• most of the infos are simply from things i understood, some lists are taken from other pages (no refs, since most of them just copied those infos too)
  
  
• i am a martial artist main (striker with an off scrapper and soul fist and a few more alts)
  
• at the moment i am at tier two
  
• so, no. i am not a "pro" players, just a casual having fun with the game and sharing what he understood with his mates
  
• this (steam guides) is a nice way to do that in a permanent form
  
  
• if you don't like it fine, feel free to comment and tell me what can be done better, or is even wrong
  
• if you think you need to insult me for stuff i wrote here, please think about that need again, and if that thought still remains, feel free to go ahead
  
  
• i am a native german speaker, so don't sue me on typoes and grammatical errors plz - you are welcome to mention them tho, so i can fix them
  
• i simply decided to start this in english, for a greater accassibility and since it's my prefered language
  
• at some point, i will or might translate the whole thing into german
  
  
• my main priority in this game is fun. i even enjoy the story!
  
• i never planned to rush to endgame (could have done that, but i am not a fan of that behaviour)
  
  
• this guide has an order, tho it might not be too obvious ;)
  
• it is ordered according to leveling progress in the game, as i encountered the features (mostly)
  
  
• styles and pictures are - like the rest - a work in progress

Thane.

just to mention some options that i personally found usefull, and reasons for my choices:

• if you own a 21:9 monitor anyway, ignore this
  
• most "pros" suggest to force the 21:9 aspect ration, for the increased view range (side wise)
  
• in PvP it is kinda mendatory, bc of the range advantage
  
• in PvE the normal view should be enough on the usual non forced aspect ration
  
• i prefer the normal aspect ration on my 16:9 monitor, bc the view simply gets too small (height wise)

• by default for some reason disabled
  
• locks the cursor to your active window
  
• enable it if you play on a non full screen setting

• i suggest to use the 80% setting, less clutter on your screen from the main UI/buttons

• you can actually set the default audio language to another one than the text language
  
• e.g. play on english sound, and have german text
  
• or play on english text with korean audio
  
• i suggest the korean audio, but that is just a personal pref. dialogues feel less way cringe this way for some reason ;) but as said, that's just me.
  
• the text language is defined by your installed client version, if you want to change that, do it in the steam game settings

• disabled by default
  
• enable if you want your sound to continue playing while you tab out of the game window

• under "Show Combat/Pet"
  
• draws a white outline on your character as soon you enter combat
  
• usefull to be able to always see your character, even if he/she is blocked by structures, or the zerg

• under "UI"
  
• silly yankie time system
  
• disable to get a european (24h) time display

• under "Combat Settings"
  
• enabled by default
  
• "magnetizes" your cursor aim, to focus on mobs
  
• can lead to inaccuracies when fighting bigger groups
  
• i suggest to disable it for higher precision while aiming

* i am playing with mouse. no comment from me if you are playing with gamepad, didn't test that. might be better to keep this setting on with gamepad, to get the "usual aim assist"

• gives you the option to chose what you want to see from player names (title, guild...)
  
• when in bigger raids (chaos portals for example) all the names on the screen can kinda block your actual view on the game, chose what you like for the situation

Trick Paragraph!

We don't get leveling from level one to ten in the western release version. Just know that there is some story content depending on each class which we won't get to see, but it will be referenced in the game a bit later on now and then, don't let this confuse you.

Our chars have a background story!

Example: the martial artists got the usual training / enemy stuff in which they rose to the top of their "clan", yeon.

Do you need them or not?

In general, you don't NEED them, but you WANT one!

Costumes not only come with the benefit of having a graphics applied to your armor, they also add Virtue Points and stats boni (for example: +0.5% - +1% strength) to your character, which can be pretty important in the later run (for Rapport).

Most costume variants offer different Virtue Stats on them in their colour variations, so check what you want/need before chosing one.

Also, not all but some of them can be coloured or have added added patterns at NPC when having the needed requirements, which you can get on a weekly base through the grand prix event atm or the AH/market.

Costumes can either be purchased for cash on the Lost Ark Shop, when they are available, or for gold on the auction house from other players.

The AH prices rise as soon those costumes left the shop ofc, so you might need to wait a bit to find a decent pricing, or just go full whale and get what you want.

At the moment there are like three to five costumes per class (with one of them actually being able to be bought for currency you get by just playing the game, you can get those in all major cities at the NPCs). not all being class bound tho, but they ALL will bind to the class (and gender) you use themem on the first time.

You can chose to just wear a costume for the Virtue Boni, and switch their visuals off, incase you might get a head costume you do not like for example.

Also, there is a costume storage, so you don't have waste precious space if you don't actually wear em, just hit your closest storage NPC and open the corresponding tab.

This is where our game in the western version starts.

You will enter the game in a more or less short storyline, introducing you to the basic caracters, your character and its basic abilities.
The whole thing should roughly take you about 45-ish minutes to complete.

I suggest to do it once at least, bc there is a head costume part rewarded once per roster, for the first completion (it will bind to that char class, so use it wisely)

Even if you decide you don't need or want this, this is your first costume part, and it grants 1% strength, which ain't much at first, but as usual, boni stack up in this game, and sooner or later 1% won't be that little!

Note: if you don't like its appearance (mechanicle goggles on your head), you can chose to hide the optic and just wear it for the 1% bonus.

Nothing too complicated in here, or stuff you could do wrong, so as suggested, do it on your first char, and after that you can decide if you wanna skip it or not (still awards basic equipment rewards, even after the first completion)

As soon you reach the first city... you have to get through more intro stuff.

Armen's story is advanced during this part, and it basically leads you through the continent of Lutarra. Also the game will throw new "systems" at you now and then, explaining them in detail. basically nothing too complicated yet, just things like "different skills and their usage".

A few notable things here:

Technically, the level cap is at level 60. Players in Lost Ark refer to 60 as "hard cap", and consider 50 the "soft cap".

What this means? At 50 you reach "endgame", and will be able to participate in the "real" content, depending on your item level.

You will continue to gain experience and levels past 50, the pace of that happening will DRASTICALLY slow down tho.

things you get for leveling up after 50:

• level ups for you Tripod skills (at 55 and 60 one more level possible)
  
• more Skill Points (again, at 55 and 60 each 30)

The Main quest light will first be shown as orange icon during this part, this is the quest you need to advance, to get to later content.
This icon changes its colour later on (as soon you get sailing) to blue.

You will reach a clean level 50 in Vern without doing any side-quests just by doing your main quest line.


A lot of characters you meet will offer additional side quests, those are NOT needed to advance the story and leveling, and can be done at a later point.

Note: You WILL reach level 50 about the time you hit Vern, if you only play the main quest line. Depending on the number of side-quests you complete on your way, you should hit 50 at some point around Arthetine (4th continent).


Some of the quests will be ranked as "Roster Quests". Those quests can either not be repeated on alts at all, after doing them once, or will simply not reward the full thing at it's end. Don't be puzzled by that, just know they exist.

You will meet your first rapport charaacters here, and they aren't very important at first, first rewards are very minor (for every character), but keep in mind that:

• you will get gold from some of those rapport chars later
  
• cards
  
• some of them actually reward Skill Point Potions or Virtue Points
  
• once you maxed each of those chars (which you won't be able to do now, they require certain stats to advance to the end), you can place them in your stronghold, for extra fluff.

The adventurer's tome is your "achievements reward list" for each continent.
It is split into segements for the available continents, and offers rewards for each 10% completion of the secrets, kills and gatharables of each area.

You can check for easy rewards (for example, Vern offers you a raptor mount at 30% which can be done during the normal leveling process easily), but you will complete this beast at a later point.

Some of those rewards (eg. skill point potions) are important for maxing your char, but those usually are on a higher "rank" in its tome sections, first reachable is rank 6 some time after Vern.

• item level 0 - 599: Tier 1;
  
• item level 600 - 1099: Tier 2;
  
• item level 1100 - 1575: Tier 3;

• acquisition: collectible, World Tree Leaves (12)
  
• improves gathering (all tradeskills +1, basic reward bonus +5%)
  
• can be upgraded in rarity for improved stats

• acquisition: collectible, Island Souls (15)
  
• improves sailing (increased speed on sea and islands, reduced ship repair costs)
  
• can be upgraded in rarity for improved stats (turtle on Opher)

Songs can serve different purposes.
From completing certain Queststeps to Rapport or just "basic functions", the range is quite wide.

Some are gained by completing certain steps of the main quest, other are earned via the Adventurer's Journal, and yet others again are gained completely different (#13: the larch).

Instruments are class bound, each class his their own variant of it. There are some skins for instruments, but they won't actually change the effect of it.
As before, they will add Virtue Points to certain Virtues, which again increases your chances in Rapport (also, they give you a colour for your instrument).

Follwing, a quick overview on how to get em and their purpose:

"On the Grand Line, you can't trust the wind, the sky, the waves, or even the clouds. Everything is treacherous. The only thing you can count on is the Log Pose!"

There are multiple ways to cross the oceans in Lost Ark.


Your first is ofc your little armada of ships. You need to watch out for hazards and ships having propper resistances to those, when staying around for too long.

To start sailing, simply visit a continent's port, and walk into the yellow circle at the harbor (or hit M and press start sailing on the lower left, which will teleport you into the port's harbor for a small fee).

Ships can be upgraded, to offer place for more crew members, enhance their resistences and/or stats.

Finding new ships can take you some time at first, some require progress in the Reputation System, others are handed to you just be reaching a certain point in the leveling process (for example you get your first one after Luterra, another one, the sturmbrecher will be given to you after Arthetine, to reach Shushire and so on).

After getting the first three ships by simply advancing the main story line (orange, then blue icons) up to the end of Vern and the start of Shushire, ship acquisition takes a bit longer.

There are Reputations / Daily Quests you can level on Una's List (Alt+U), which will reward you with a new ship at their final level each:

Quests

• "Bleak Night Fog" (kill the Ghostship / its Captain): Eibern
  
• "Ride Like The Wind" (drive 3 guests home from Peyto); Eurus
  
• Reputation: "Lopan Inc." (special delivery quests): Brahms
  
  the Astray comes in 3 parts:
  
• Astray Construction Blueprint: "She Drifts, Sea Gifts" (Co-Op sailing events, you need two certain ones to appear, so this might take a bit),
  
• Certificate of Pirate: "Pest Control" / "Sea Cleaner" (kill attacking pirates in Blackfang's Den) and
  
• Astray Operation Manual: "Pirate Star: Astray"; requires max reputation with Blackfang to finish the quest.

edit: i might add a full list a bit later


Your second way, is the Ocean Liner. A System that allows you to sail from pots to other ports - tho not all are accassible from anywhere.

To use the liner, visit your local port and find the NPC called "Riff", when talking to him, he will give you a list of ports that are available from your current location and - for a small silver fee - bring you there.


As last alternative for continental movement, you are given the song of return at some point in Luterra (portal statue). You can use that once an hour-ish to return to your set Return point in the Major cities.

And last but not least, you can use the Bi-Frost, which can be set anywhere and you can return to that location for a small silver fee.

At a later point ingame, you get another Bi-Frost slot to save a second location, unfortunately changes those locations later on, requires you to pay some crystals.

Islands reward Island Souls.
Those can be handed in on Gopher to get rewards (see Alt+L ingame).

There are a lot of islands, some for lower levels (250++), others a bit higher (460++).

Most of those islands don't require you to do a lot, they offer some distraction from the grind and monster slaying. Their rewards on the other hand can be quite handy, reaching from islands souls (as mentioned above) to skill runes, over toys and other thing.

Also, most of those islands are accassible all the time, with some exceptions:


Those islands are always accassible and on the same location, you can hand in your Island Souls (Gopher), Masterpieces (Sunflower Island), Mokoko Seeds (Tortoyk), Sea Bounties (Peyto) and Giant's Hearts (Wisdom Isle) on them.

Also most of them offer shorter or longer quests: usually just a lot of walking, finding, sailing, clicking and - if you want - story reading.


Those appear according to the calender (and a rotation) on set locations. You can do one of those per day, and their rewards and times can be checked in procyons compass (Note: times tend to be off, Amazon somehow managed to screw up DST, check the calander after checking procyons).


Shangra and Tooki Island spawn on a two hour-ish Rotation, and on different possible locations. You wanna do Shangra for example to get the flying Nimbus mount (full Goku style!).

Those islands can spawn on multiple locations, and ten minutes before their appearance they will "introduce" their location with a water swirl at the corresponding location. If you start sailing at Vern 10 minutes before their spawn and watch the area chat for links, you will usually get their location and don't have to search em yourself.



The sea also offers more activities for its captains:

• co-op sailing events
  
• versus events (team)
  
• somewhere in the vast sea
  
• ghost ship

All of them have their respective rewards (and some associated reputation quests), and all of them are on a timer, watch the alarms window or check the calender.

To access the "Somewhere in the sea" event, you need keys, a key of harmony for the Gate of Harmony and so on. This event happens only on 3 days a week, so don't miss it!

• Awakening Quests give you access to your most powerfull skills
  
• the Awakening Skills deal MASSIVE damage
  
• they are on a 5 minute timer, and require one chaos shard per use
  
• note that you can only use one Awakening Skill, even tho you unlocked both you need to chose one of them, which you want to actively use in combat

• you get your first Awakening Quest at level fifty
  
• once you reach Vern and complete the blue quests up to a point, you will get a message from Beatrice
  
• complete that quest line, and you will have access to your first Awakening Skill
  
• you will also get your last class skill with that questline

• to get access to your second Awakening Quest and Skill, you will need to finish the Rohendell Questline (blue) and a gear score of at least 380
  
• at that point, you will receive a "letter", go to the postmaster and get your quest there
  
• this questline takes some time, even more than the first one
  
• complete that quest line, and you will have access to your second Awakening Skill (and get some skill points in the process)

If you play an alt character, and your main already completed their awakening quest, Beatrice will instead remind you of "an old untapped power", which you can directly unlock at Vern.

I am not quite sure about the 2nd awakening skill, but atm both my martial artist alts have their two awakening quests available in Vern. So i'd guess it's safe to say you get them both in or when completing the Vern main story line.

As soon you reach Vern and/or level 50, your leveling progress will slow down and shift to mainly upgrading your armor item level.

Also the game will throw some new systems at you:

• gear honing
  
• chaos dungeons
  
• the tower
  
• abyssal dungeons
  
• guardian raids

After the storyline of Vern, you are most likely somewhere around item level 250-ish.

In Shushire, at the end of its storyline, you will be rewarded with a 302 item level set (blue), or you can do some Chaos Dungeons to get better items.

After Vern and Shushire tho, continental story access is "blocked" by your item level, meaning: you need an item level of 460 to advance to the Rohendell storyline and 600 to advance the story in Yorn.


The easiest way to do this, is to repeat the Chaos Dungeon runs per day: two of them for items and after those you run for Honing Materials, to upgrade those items.

Higher Chaos Dungeons reward you with higher item levels and/or better rarity of accessoires and gear, as well as some other items (for the full list, check each chaos dungeon. On the right side in the UI after clicking the Chaos Dungeon Entry Statue, you see a list of possible rewards, which will drastically be reduced in possibility as soon your Aura of Resonance (lower right bar, the little one) is at 0. The Aura of Resonance refills every day with the reset, and incase you don't spend it, it will fill the upper bar as a catch up mechanic for more loot chances.

Note: I think Abysall Dungeons, the first Guardians and World Bosses on your level also have a chance to drop gear according to your level tier. Since i haven't done any Abyssal or Guardians yet tho, i can not comment on those ;)



To advance in the levels of each Chaos Dungeon, simply hone your items to the required level. Usually the next level of each dungeon is 20 levels higher than the last.

To advance to the higher Chaos Dungeons, you need to complete each's storline in the corresponding continent (after reaching its required item level). After that, it's upgrading your item levels again.



Upgrading your items is pretty straight forward:

• usually those items with better Quality have better stats. This rule can be nullified due to RNG and small item level differences
  
• for accessoires get those with the engravings you want for your char (usually a class engraving and one or two general engravings depending on your class and playstyle) and check for stats after that
  
• earrings and the necklace can have class engravings and general engravings
  
• rings can only have general engravings
  
• if you find a gear item (weapon or armor) with a lower item level than the one you use, but better stats, you can use the honing NPCs second tab to transfer those to your owned gear up to that item level (meaning, you get the new stats on the item level of the item you wear)
  
• with higher honing level (up to 15), the chances of succeeding will reduce (should not be important up to honing level 8- or 9-ish)
  
• to hone your gear (armor and weapons) you need honing materials, which drop in the "no Aura of Resonance" runs of the Chaos Dungeons, Abyssal Dungeons and the Cube (in case you got some tickets from the Chaos Dungeons before)

short summary: engraving > stat > item level;

note: this rule only goes to certain "soft cap" values of your stats tho, in general i try to aim for 30% critical value on my chars as a base, and then go for speed values - basic WoW combat rogue behaviour!
30% crit might be a huge value in the first tiers, but i hope that changes on later tiers (atm i am on something 20-ish critical i think).

THIS IS JUST MY OPINION SO FAR! other guides suggest a 300 value of crit (for the striker taijutsu build), but that's just not my value, since it's like 10-20%.

there are always 2 valid options:

1. lots of crit (30++), or
   
2. lots of "white damage".

You just need to know (or find out) which you prefer, and especially which works/synergizes best with your character class.

Keep in mind that item level seriously impacts your main stats on the item tho, so at some point, you better get that new item somehow.

Also, last but not least: if you wear tier one items while being on a tier two item level, the extra stats on those items will reduce by 30% (to an effectiveness of 70%)


Honing materials can be used to upgrade your gear at honing NPCs, with decreasing chance of success the higher the item level.

They are split into:

• base parts (harmony shards),
  
• gear parts (guardian stones) and
  
• weapon parts (destruction stones)

Perception shards can be traded for either new gear (up to your item level), or more honing materials.

First of all: those item levels ARE worth it.
Prob being: when going from tier one to two (or two to three), you are getting a complete new set.

You can not take your tier one items and upgrade em to tier two. The tiers basically reset your progress at that time, and you need to get your accesoires and gear all again. The old items do give you a +1 item level tho when "transfering skills" at the honing NPC, which is a small gain at least.


Engraving seriously improve your skills and gameplay.
They must be learned, but can be accessed by the whole roster (with the exception of class engravings which obviously require the corresponding class),

You will most likely first encounter engravings in Luterra Castle, and get some Guide Quests for it.
Those quests will explain the basics of engravings, if you read the text ;)

In general you want to chose your engravings to fit your playstyle.
And yes, there are "best" engravings. Tho if you wanna use em is up to you. No one forces you to play with others or even effectivly!

Engravings come in rising quality, each of them having 20 ranks.
Once you reached rank 20 on a corresponding engraving, you can use it as Engraving Effect.
You can equip two Engraving Effects.
Each rank of the Engraving Effect adds +3 notes for its Engraving.

Usually, you want to chose one class engraving, and get that to tier 1.
After that, either advance that Engraving to tier 2, or get another (non class) Engraving to tier one.

For endgame, you will most likely have 2 Engravings on tier 3, and the better/higher you get, have more and more Engravings on tier one to three.

I will not talk about "best engravings" here (yet, might do it later).
There are pages for that, see https://lost-ark.maxroll.gg/ for example.

At about level thirty, you will get access to Una's Tasks (Alt+J).

They are split into:

• daily quests
  
• weekly quests
  
• reputations

• you can do three daily quests per character.
  
• you can repeat the daily quests on alts
  
• unless i was every time reallllllly tired, repeating dailies will only yield the daily reward, and not add extra reputation progress
  
• you will get rewards (silver, pirate coins, few honing materials and gems)
  
• they are the backbone of Una's Tasks

• you can do three weekly tasks
  
• they are a lot like daily quests, but with greater rewards for bigger tasks
  
• they are split into Chaos Dungeon, Guardian Raids, Cube, Boss Rush, Proving Grounds, Trade Skills and Sailing

• the real rewards of the Una's Tasks system
  
• they ask you to repeat certain daily quests, to advance in ranks for different factions/groups
  
• some of them reward new ships (ghostship and she drifts)
  
• other offer virtue points
  
• one of them rewards 3 skill points (whispering islet, choir teacher)
  
• best advice: check em ALL like once, find what you want for NOW and do em. when you find out what you actually NEED (new ships, skill points potions, songs, ...), do them.

Skillpoints can be invested into skills, increasing their level to raise their effectiveness and add new effects or increase their damage.
One Tripod can be activated (out of three) at level four, seven and ten.
At level 50, the maximum level of a skill is ten, at level 55, you can upgrade skill to lvl eleven for a 10% damage increase, and at level 60 you can upgrade skills to level twelve, for 5% additional damage.

At level 50, you got a theoretical maximum of skillpoints of 348 and at level 55 and 60 you get 30 more skillpoints each, increasing that maximum to 378 and finally 408 (total maximum until South Vern arrives).


total: 60;

• from 50 to 55 (30)
  
• from 55 to 60 (30)

• this is a general reccomendation for the distribution of skillpoints on skills.
  
• i don't run this distribution on all of my chars myself. not sure i even run it on one of em
  
• nm, this is the general opinion, and i thought it would be of value to mention it.

total: 18;

• 70% East Luterra Adventure Tome (3)
  
• 60% North Vern Adventure Tome completion (3)
  
• 50% Shushire Adventure Tome completion (3)
  
• 70% Rohendel Adventure Tome completion (3)
  
• 80% Punika Adventure Tome completion (6)

total: 12;

• Shadespire 20th floor (3)
  
• Shadespire 50th floor (3)
  
• Fatespire 20th floor (3)
  
• Fatespire 50th floor (3)

• "Whispering Harmony" (3)

total: 42;

• “A Light Cast Over the Dark Fields” in East Luterra (3)
  
• “Eggs in the Sky” in Anikka (3)
  
• “The Hidden Robber” in Shushire (3)
  
• “The Stone of Power” in Serenity Isle (3)
  
• “[Awakening] The Sunset” in Rohendel (3)
  
• “Return Trip” in Rohendel (3)

• "The Wayward Son", Required finding an Old Pendant in Shushire (3)
  
• "Memories of Luterra", Starts with Thirain (3)
  
• "Wondrous Find", Starts at Cadri in Port City Changhun (3)
  
• "Journey: Strange Mail", Rohendell (3)

Feiton

• “The Last Melody of a Requiem” (3)
  
• “Those Buried in the Dark Ground” (3)

Punika

• "Lost letters" (3)
  
• “Eternal Love” (3)

total: 36;

• 20x Island Token (6)

• 4x Giant’s Heart (3)
  
• 6x Giant’s Heart (3)
  
• 10x Giant’s Heart (3)
  
• 12x Giant’s Heart (3)

• 8x Ignea Token (6)

• 2x Omnium Stars (6)
  
• 6x Omnium Stars (6)

• as before, your main goal stays to upgrade your items and their level
  
• this time, it will be a bit more complicated tho, or rather, take longer and most likely way more tries, recources and endurance ;)
  
• your next "major" goal once you reached tier 3 is 1370, at which you will be able to gain and buy most items, stuff and higher challanges and enemies
  
• additional to the gems you got at tier 2, you now get skill updates on items
  
• after that, the next step comes at 1415, which will bring you more una rewards (i read that you can buy 3 big boxes per week at 1415, still need to confirm that myself)
  
• a little warning: those upgrades WILL get tedious. they ARE annoying to complete, esp from +10 to +15, starting with a 15% chance of success, this WILL take its time (unless you are some really lucky bastard, then grats!)

• on tier 3 your items can increase your skills, or rather your chose subskills for them
  
• they will not increase any skills you do not actually have (so you cannot gain multiple of them)
  
• some skills can not be upgraded (max lvl 1)
  
• you can have up to 3 skill improvements per item (armor and weapon)
  
• in your combat skills window, under settings, you can chose to highlight skill you prefer on items, which will then have an extra icon on them for easier identification
  
  
• you can now start to gather items with your chosen skill improvements
  
• to make it a bit easier, when you find a skil improvement you like, you can chose to transfer it to another item (namely the one you are using) and use/overwrite one of its 3 skill tree notes
  
• not all transfers are a guaranteed success, but i didn't quite figure out which are. for the moment, be happy when you get a 100% transfer option, or when a 30% option succeeds
  
• you can increase transfer success chance with poweder of sages, which can be crafted in highter level strongholds
  
• usually you want to improve your main damage skills, and some of the power generator skills
  
• skill improvements come on multiple level, and only the highest level will be regarded - so having a lv.1 and lv.2 will be a waste of that lv.1 improvement and its slot
  
• there are some quick approaches to checking your skillupdates on possible items:
  1) mark all skills you want/need (see above)
  2) go to theskill transfer NPC, and chose "equipped" items, only displaying your active items on the left
  3) now just click on every items once, if you have skills in your inventory that are an improvement to the ones you got equipped, it will display it with a little green icon on the "material" item on the right side (material gear)
  4) a skill advancement that allready have equipped will result in a warning when trying to transfer it again
  5) checking the S.T.N Gear button under Material Gear will only display items that have a "wanted" skill on them in the Material Gear window
  (note: most likely STN means Skill Transfer Note here, people aren't quite sure about that yet)
  
• basic math: with 6 items and 3 skill advancement slots vs 8 skills and 3 advancements each, you don't have to chose between a lot here, but you have to make a small choice there. don't worry about that at first tho, if you get a skill you can use, add it, and worry about the "maximizing" once you reached it (all slots full with useful advancements)
  
• when you find an item upgrade (statswise) and want to upgrade it, do NOT forget to save your skillupgrades from that item before the upgrade, or you will be stuck with the new items upgrades after it ([NPC] transfer skill tree > inventory)

your main source for upgrade materials (esp leapstones) are

• your daily runs in the chaos dungeon (with aura of resonance),
  
• una quests (just search for leapstones under dailies),
  
• boss runs (require ticket) and
  
• a few weekly vendors, namely the tea and libra guild vessal on seas (per character), the sylmael bloodstone exchange (selling more or less, depending on your guild store level; again per character)

• a lot of stuff in Lost Ark will cost gold; that includes basic things as item upgrades, upgrading your stronghold, getting the perfect accesssoirs from the market or just hookers and blackjack (just kidding, no hookers in LA found so far)
  
• one of your biggest gold income per week are the una rewards and the gold vendor
  
• do your rapports. check alt + n and if you have any rapport actions left, use them! (well, obviously not all gifts tho ;) )

which is why you want to:

• do your 3 una tasks (per character, but at least do em on one or two), at the end of the week, you DO want that una task points bar filled to the max, for max the gold reward (2 big gold chests for me atm at 1350 item level, which is about 2-4k gold a week)
  
• make sure your chaos dungeon bar does not fill up to max: either do it twice per day or more, or do it when your bar hit max and you wouldn't get any more the next day (also, the weekly for chaos dungeons helps with reaching max una points if you play less than 3 chars)
  
• for the una tasks: chose your favorites. meaning, whatever you want or need in the longer run (stat potions, gold, or anything else) from the una reputation status window, or chose your daily rewards from the una daily tasks window for updating your equipment
  
• anguished isle:
  lying south of punika, anguished isle is no daily una task, but a daily reset you want to use. after you completed its few story quests, you can do a daily quest there, rewarding you with an entrance key for the island instance, which can easily be completed solo.
  it will again reward you with some of the needed recources for the legendary overwhelm skill rune, bought from the island vendor. also some recources for upgrading your equip are sold on that island, which you surely don't want to miss either.
  also broken stella has the chance to drop an omnium star (#6)
  
• get king thirain (needed for best dd card set) and blackfang to max reputation level (needed for astray completion)

• killing the king, one who slew the king (tooky island, 7th island heart)
  
• the defense, pirates' idol (courage potion + tragon ship)
  
• pest patrol, meticulous sea cleaner (vitality potion + certificate of pirate for the astray)
  
• pirate star: astray. star of the night (astray construction blueprint)
  
• ghost ship: eibern's wound, master of ghost ship (eibern's wound ship)
  
• choir teacher, arkesia choir (3 skill point potion)
  
• insects in the grass, veteran insect hunter (3 skill point potion, 11th heart)
  
• loot pirate bird cave, serious tooki (lots of gold and tooki transformation sunglasses)

Sooo, you leveled your char up all the way to 1370 by now most likely, and hopefull you found out how to advance, if not: here you go!

First of all, to get items above item level 1370, you need at least legendary gear, which you can buy from the Abyssal Crafting Vendor.

The required currency for this transaction, comes either from your two weekly abyssal dungeon runs (oreah's well, two parts), which will drop the currency for the "tier one" set.
This set is a pretty decent dmg boost, adding

• a (nother) 10% chance on your movement skill to not go on CD as 2 set bonus
  
• and some timers and stacks and a 10/15% dmg buff depending on the stack phases for most classes (haven't found a class where that's different, but then i only play dds) as 5 set bonus.

Usually you buy 5 parts of this set, and then continue (two of those parts might stick with you for some time)

You can either do your abyssal runs the "normal" way, and find a group of players in your item level range, and then fight your way through Oreah's, or you take the easy way, and simply search for a "carry" group, usually named something like "carry, no bid" in the group finder for Oreah's. Normally you got one higher player running through that instance with you, who will get the books in the end (most of the time they just care about legendary book drops, but i simply leave all of the books to them).

At the end of the dungeon, you will be rewarded with a few item drops (accessories), and the Oreah's Empyrean currency drop. You will need 15 of those for a weapon, and 10 for an armor piece, so at all it sums up to 65 Oreah's Empyreans.
Those items will be crafted at a random quality, so check this, and incase you have enough gold, simply dismantle anything below at least 70 and recraft it (dismantle will yield all 10/15 Oreah's Empyrean).
Also, you can buy an extra reward chest at the end, which basically trades some gold for extra loot - including Oreah's Empyreans. So as long you do not run on your "full" set, get those and spend the gold you earned in the instance.

Obviously, since you can only do two runs per week, you can not get all parts without one week. Two weeks might be possible with enough luck.

On a sidenote, all accesspories dropped in the abyssal dungeons, will have one of your class skills on them.


After you got your Tier One set, the currency for Tier Two (Argos' Blood) will drop in the Abyssal Guardian Raid Argos. I haven't done that ohne yet (not the higher once at least), so expect an update on it in a few "days" ;)


Tier One and above sets can be upgraded again, above 1370! You will need

• Basic Oreah Fusion Material
  
• Great Honor Leap Stones
  
• aaand Gold

Also, after reaching item level 1370, you can now enter the next continent, South Vern.
To avoid any spoilers, let's just say you finish your open storylines here, open a few new ones, get some more dailies, rapport NPCs, a new Tome Page and everything else you expect from a new continent. And the storyline quests give a decent ammount of experience too, juuust incase you didn't hit level 60 yet ;)

And of course the completion of the storyline is - as always - the requirement for starting the Chaos Dungeon Tier 3: South Vern, but you will also need an item level of at least 1415 to start those, so don't get your hype up too soon.

• added "Endgame", 1370++

30.05.2022:
• added some screenshots to Tier 3 - Upgrading and Dailies for easier understanding

24.05.2022:
• minor updates to Tier 3 - Upgrading and Dailies

18.05.2022:
• updated Tier 3 - Upgrading and Dailies: your daily shores

17.05.2022:
• added a new section, "Tier 3 - Upgrading And Dailies"
  
• fixed (most of) the abyssal typoes in the guide ;)

10.04.2022:
• updated Astray acquisition infos (Crossing the Vast Seas/Ship Acquisition), this lady actually requires you to collect 3 parts before you can build her, not 1

30.03.2022:
• added "Advancing in Chaos Dungeons" to the "Advanced Dungeons, Gear Honing And Engravings" section

24.03.2022:
• updated/reworked the "Advanced Dungeons, Gear Honing And Engravings" section

23.03.2022:
• added "Brahms" to list of ships / "Crossing The Vast Seas"

20.03.2022:
• fixed some typos throughout the whole document (guess i didn't find all yet, sorry)
  
• added quick ship acquisition list to "Crossing the Vast Seas"
  
• minor Updates to "Una's Tasks: Dailies, Weeklies and Reputation"

19.03.2022:
• added "Faint Ore Charm" and "Uncommon Wooden Compass" infos to "Rapport, Adventure Tome and Items"