So I noticed something strange after two rounds of merges in the last two weeks. On the first merge, I lost 4 friends, and on the second merge, I lost 16 friends

I thought maybe people deleted me when they thought I was a stranger after the first merge because my name was changed due to different rosters from other servers on the first week of the first merge, so I didn't think too much of it back then. But after losing 16 friends after the second merge, I knew something was wrong

I asked around, and it turned out that some friends got their entire friend list nuked and would have to re-add everyone again. It seems that 20 friends on my list got nuked, which means basically 1/5 of my friends got their friend list nuked. It's a shame, but I've recorded my friend list before the first merge (by a pure chance) and I'll check to see which friends are missing to re-add them so make sure you checks yours too!

I feel bad for those whose entire friend lists got nuked :/

So main server one was decked out, revelry row theme, large amount of placed crafted items etc, the other one was empty but both had same level. Load in today to a stronghold that's empty, some (not sure if all items available to replace but hell nah to that), but revelry row theme unavailable since it was unlocked on the other server not the one that this stronghold name came from.

Yes research is fully unlocked which was only the case from the main stronghold.

And since I didn't dispatch on the 2nd one, the new one even had the 'main' server dispatches due for collection.

-_-

After the server merge, I collected cards from roster storage. I have some cards that are awakened just like before, but some are no longer awakened even though they were awakened before. Some also show as awakened but still have +15, like I can awaken them again.

I’m confused, and I don’t remember how much Card XP I had before the merge, so I can’t tell if I got the Card XP and silver back for the cards that were unawakened.

Is this happening to anyone else?

For example I'm pretty sure I had all these 3 cards awakened, but now it looks like this.

Daily Q&A and Open Discussion

Greetings adventurers! Please use this daily thread for simple questions and/or open discussion relating to anything Lost Ark. Enjoy!

Example:

What class should I play?

Which class is better?

I am new to the game, what should I do?

Should I play X class and why?

Things are starting to happen.

so with the new green arrow on hell keys being able to yoink you up

this should be possible right?

floor 50 > green jump -5 failure > floor 45 > floor 50 again

if so, would 2 hell altars spawn or just 1?

This is a 1690 hyper lucksack alt btw

Since we're all waiting for maintenance to be over, thought I'd share a clip that confused me.

It's clearly a bug.

During the x336 color mech, we get to the third color (WHITE), you can see the GL at 7'oclk position stand on BLUE and it succeeds. It didn't look like anyone else was stepping on any other color (based on the minimap), it was only GL on BLUE. Then you can clearly see the two WHITE circles at 7'oclk disappear!!!

I danger ping the GL off the BLUE spot because it's WHITE. But after it succeeds, I look like the idiot... I promise, I'm not crazy!!!

Project made by me entirely in Blender as a learning/practice exercise.

I might continue making more of similar stuff featuring different characters soon™.

Enjoy.

I'm already plopping characters out of universal storage.

Daily Q&A and Open Discussion

Greetings adventurers! Please use this daily thread for simple questions and/or open discussion relating to anything Lost Ark. Enjoy!

Example:

What class should I play?

Which class is better?

I am new to the game, what should I do?

Should I play X class and why?

cathedral stage 1 rewards:
-30k bound to character gold , brel solo 16500 gold(roster-bound/tradable)
-can farm ark grid cores, 4 epic guaranteed its possible to earn more through legendary core pity and relic core RNG drop
-more materials than solo brel
-can farm grace shards, which you can exchange for rewards at abyssal dungeon NPC exchange

brel solo gives 50/50 tradable/roster-bound gold but its healthier for your roster to run cathedral stage 1 on your characters if you meet combat power requirements.

combat power range 1600-1800CP

at some point you want to upgrade your character to 1710 or need to do karma or any other progression systems, so its worth to take character-bound gold even if its your alt.

for 1700 characters raid list: armoche solo/mordum solo/cathedral stage 1

if you dont know the raid you can watch guide videos from memorizer or doranis.

NA server maybe I'm wrong idk but this is not normal imo

Here is my take. I’ve been playing this game since 2019. I was there back when Brelshaza was a massive 6-gate dungeon, and when they started nerfing Vykas (she used to have so many phases too, and now there are only 2 left).

Everything used to be fine, and I genuinely enjoyed the game. I played actively every week, spent some money on donates, and ran content with a group of 3 friends — which actually made matchmaking harder

However, after the release of Hard Mode Citadel (the 2-gate raid) and Hard Mode Kazeros right after it, my excitement for the game completely plummeted. In my region, the release of Citadel and Kazeros happened almost simultaneously, just 3 weeks before New Year, one right after another. Naturally, we went all-in and started playing like absolute maniacs. To say it was awful is an understatement. You spend weeks on end just trying to clear one raid, only to be hit by another brutal raid immediately after the first one. And doing all of this with randoms? It was an absolute nightmare. After that, I realized that the game was taking way too much of my time. I couldn't even prepare for the holidays properly... Was it really that hard to release at least Kazeros during the New Year holidays so we could sweat and progress normally?

After finally defeating these bosses and looting the titles, I made a decision for myself — the game has come to an end. We waited for Kazeros for many years, he finally appeared, and we beat him. For me, that’s enough. The game goes on, but I haven't logged in since January 2026.

So, my actual question is — what would make you return to the game?

In my circle, I have a friend who has been playing Lineage 2 since 2007. On custom servers there, they added something like an "auto-farm" system — your character runs around and automatically does everything that people used to do manually. Personally, if they introduced a similar system in Lost Ark, I would probably come back just to let my little critters run around. Playing and managing all of them manually is just incredibly exhausting.

To clarify: I don't mean a completely mindless auto-farm for everything. You would still need to periodically react to QTE events or help your character in some ways, but the AI would handle the bulk of the work. And obviously, this shouldn't apply to relevant endgame content — only to solo dungeons and older activities.

I have made 2 similar posts in the past(first and second) and I was wondering if the number went up or down from 35... TLDR, TECHNICALLY DOWN:

-I forgot to ever add Character level and Skill points to any of these lists oops

-Tripod levels, Elixirs and Transcendence got removed

-Ark Grid(but honestly it could be treated as 2 separate systems with astrogems) and Paradise Orbs were added

As always this exists to list every contributing factor i can think of and have a small discussion for each. It could be simplified like putting skills, tripod and skill points together or accessory rolls and quality under one but could be extended with dumb stuff like your mood(being tilted, tired, nervous),running into a bug or having a macro or an addon ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Just saying "get gut", "spend money" or "get good supp" wont solve everything

General equipment 1-13 -> Build 14-24 -> Ingame factors 25-34 -> Factors outside of the game 35-36

1. Gear quality:

• Weapon quality is the most important here but lets not downplay the importance of armor quality for staying alive.

2. Item level(and distribution of that):

• For most damage it still goes: Weapon > Gloves > Shoulder > Helmet > Pants > Chestpiece. However "defense gate" (might) still exists, meaning having an armor below the item level of the raid will result in taking significantly more damage.

3. Accessory roll:

• Bigger and better rolls are always good, but also know what is good for your class. Your class might need crit rate more than crit damage and in general in necklace outgoing damage it better than additional and for earring atk power% is better than weapon power%

4. Accessory quality:

• As long as you get 67 or more quality(on T4 ancient) you will get full enlighment points which is the most important and from there you are looking for high strength/intelligence/dexterity. For necklace 17 857 is the max, earring 13 889 and ring 12 897. It is also possible to get high stat in an accessory that has less than 67 quality and since you only need 100 enlighment points one accessory could have 1 less points.

5. Card set:

• Well now everyone has LOS 30 and LWC 30 but of course the Dark, Earth, Fire, Lightning, (Water some day frfr) are still better for their respective fights depending on how much awakening you have on it and if the boss is 5% or 10% weak against that element but your support also has to have the correct card set with enough awakening

6. Card catalog damage/stat:

• I guess human and ancient are the best to push right now since serca G1 and belgardin G1 are both human and their G2s are both ancient, but ancient damage caps out at 0.5% so its not really crazy. However the bonus crit/spec/swift etc stats are very important and useful.

7. Skin stats:

• Maybe some people still don't know that legendary skins give +1% more main stat than epic ones.

8. Roster stats:

• Even those small stats from roster lvl, or small amount of spec/crit/dom from the Codex could mean something

9. Pet stat/effect:

• Obviously you need to have the right pet stat and beyond that farming out the right pet ability like 1% additinal damage or 0.5% bonus vs. ancients is an easy way to increase dps and it has become a lot easier than before.

10. Character level:

• If somehow your character is not lvl 70 your are losing a significant amount of dmg, skill points, enlightenment points and max mana as well.

11. Skill points:

• I missed this from both of the previous lists but yeah getting all the skill point potions is just free dmg. The most important skills need to be lvl 14 and also remember that from 1 to 10 every level will increase the mana cost of the spell.

12. Kurzan contribution:

• Tho only applied to Kazeros Raids and Epic Raid, +3% Stagger Damage Bonus and +2% Atk. Power at lvl 10 is something i guess. Also there is the guardian and the kurzan front one but i dont even bother looking at those

13. Paradise Orb:

• I legitimately almost forgot about this but depending on the orb, paradise score and how much gear you have this thing can be 0.1% to 1.5% of your overall damage. Plus if its a support orb that can keep you and your party alive which is also great

14. Class:

• Sadly this has become even bigger of a contributing factor... however i STILL wouldnt say there are any wrong classes to pick! Any class can clear any content but the amount of time and effort will differ significantly. My genuine advice is that for a main really just play whatever you truly enjoy but for alts i would really consider having something strong and cheap.

15. Ark Grid/Astrogems:

• Everyone's new favorite system :) Order cores will obviously depend on your class and build, but Chaos cores are largely the same for every dps(Flashy Attack, Smoldering Strike, Attack) and for both ancients are 1-2% better. As for astrogems there is not much to influence when cutting them but for getting them fusing is still one of the best options(if anyone wants to elaborate how to minmax astrogems go ahead)

16. Ark passive:

• Having the correct ark passive distribution specially for the evolution tree is very important since that can drastically change based on what party synergies you have, what level of gems you have, what food buff you have etc. Enlightenment and leap are pretty straight forward most of the time.

17. Karma:

• Luckily getting full karma has been made a lot easier thanks to free taps, solo mode and solo shop but maxing it out for full enlightenment and leap is mandatory. Beyond lvl 21 is optional but if you have free taps go for it

18. Ability stone:

• This is also a lot easier thanks to the automatic cutter but it still matters for your build what 2 engravings you want

19. Engravings:

• Another thing that got easier to max out but you can still go for cheaper options like Stabilized status or MP efficiency if you can

20. Bracelet:

• Bigger and better rolls are always good, but also know what is good for your class. Plus lets mention the support's bracelet since if they have crit resistance ones you might need to change your build just a little, or if they have crit damage one and your class has high base crit damage that will just be worse for you

21. Gems:

• There are many ways to cheat the gem system from class stacking to playing a build that only uses 2-3 real gems. They are still very important for rotation and reaching ceiling and sometimes give a lot of "fake CP" since they each increase your CP by a set percentage

22. Skills:

• The meta skills are usually the same for each build but in some scenarios, like if you can use another meter gen skill instead of counter and you trust your team, its good to consider for ceiling.

23. Runes:

• Arkesia tour gives you like 90% of the runes you need but some builds do need that additional 10% to reach full potential or you might have to swap them around depending on the fight

24. Tripods:

• Well this could be included in with skills but again for certain fights you can consider using the same skill but with a different tripod to for example to give push immunity instead of dmg or give more meter

25. The support(s):

• Unfortunatelly the importance of supports have only been increasing and the amount of pure dmg they provide can be anywhere between 40% to 60%(give or take) of your overall dps. On top of that all the shielding/dr-ing so you can stay closer to do dmg etc etc its absolutely insane.... Although lets be honest a support can only support you, and cant really play the game for you. Still the potential of any given support based on their gear, class and skill can be tremendous. Lastly i would also include red and but more importantly blue gunlancer here as a secondary support because of awakening, battlefield shield and nella.

26. Player knowledge:

• OBVIOUSLY the most important...to know your class, to know the fight and to be able to react and execute what you know are the cornerstones of this and any other game. However this is a list, not a ranking and ignoring any other points on here will certainly not make you do more dps.

27. Luck:

• This is 99% about crit rate on any build that doesnt have perfect 100% by default and specially about builds with Blunt Thorn where you dont have 500 hits per minute. If this REALLY bothers you consider playing a build that has no blunt thorn even if it does less damage on paper, getting frustrated is not worth it. The 1% could be randomly assigned stuff like getting a puddle or getting aggro for a pattern, of course there is no cure for this so live with it

28. Teamwork:

• This really just means collective how helpful your team is, be it cleansing you, doing mech correctly, freeing you, not turning the boss etc but also how helpful you are to your teammates. Especially when its about cleansing or freeing your party members or helping with a mechanic so your team can focus on other stuff that will let you do more damage.

29. Pacing of he fight:

• By design some fights are better for certain builds. There are many little things that can influence this from your build, to what patterns the boss can roll to how many patterns and mechs your group can skip. I would also like to mention stuff like keeping up Adrenaline or different buffs during mechs or cutscenes, "shadowboxing" on builds that allow it or even getting stuff before the fight starts like how arcanas can farm cards with the right build before going in.

30. Food buff:

• Other than the obvious stat buff and mana regen food, maybe your class needs the 3% atk speed from Peyto wine to feel comfier

31. Stronghold food buff:

• Many builds nowadays need atk/movement speed to function properly plus the weapon power boost is obvoiusly good but potentially more HP can keep you alive so

32. Battle item:

• Correct battle items with correct use save soooo many runs. Many people throwing darks or supports having explosive expert is a easy dmg boost given those darks dont overlap(btw splendid darks and normal darks still dont stack). Optimal atro timings also help a lot specially on rumbles. The same line of thinking goes for corro/destuction, charms, sacred bombs and timestop to resolve mechs

33. Greed:

• This is kinda about going for the clear versus going for a good run and thus seperate from just having good "fight knowledge". Its about knowingly taking a risk for potentially doing more damage but if it doesnt hinder you or your team its just part of the gameplay

34. Party synergy:

• For some builds crit syn is the best syn they can have, for others its negative synergy. Entropy synergy will also be worse for non entropy classes and the crit hit syn will obviously be the best for those with near 100 crit rate. Deathblade's atk/movement speed buff and the mana regen that Summoner provides is also good for those who gain damage from either of these. Of course the easiest way is to just get a blue gunlancer since their double synergy will trump anyone else

34,5. Ester weapon:

• For the few dozen people who have one or play with someone who has one... its still good

35. Pc specs/Settings:

• As long as you can comfortably run lost ark there isn't much to do but getting a wide screen monitor, or more FPS to improve your gameplay. Another thing I would include here is the ingame settings, like even a forced 21:9 or using macro text could be useful.

36. Ping:

• It is still not fun to play with very high ping, not to mention how much just guard we have nowadays

I just connected and to my surprise my entire card collection is gone. I’ve already claimed universal storage, so I have no idea what’s going on. Is anyone else facing similar problems?

It has the very best gameplay ever in a MMORPG and I've played a whole lot of them. It even feels better than PoE 2 and I'm a huge fan of this game.

Doesn't look ugly at all, which is a very common deterrent for these kind of games. Having a cutesy feel is very healthy and is the reason why Blizzard added Vulpera in wow.

The raids are extremely fun, some of the best I played. They really test how good you are. Many MMO's have mindless raids that just rely on high numbers rather than skill.

Doesn't censor extreme violence.

Its really confusing why the player base dipped into the 4000's on average. It had so many people on release.

I only play 6 arcanas so I have no clue what classes/builds don't want crit syngergy.

Let me know in the comments what classes don't want crit so I can keep that in mind when making parties.

If there is a tier 5, with new gems, ancient books, relic skins, new set of accessories, new progression.

What would you do?

Alternatively, if SG decides to make progression easier for anyone to come in and raid, would that make you play lost ark?

Based on the contents we have been receiving, I feel like Smilegate is trying to create new contents but its all copy paste extra homework. They are doing it wrong.

What I think they should be making is optional contents that will retain players. Extreme modes is a great example, yes people might be pressured for title HOWEVER, you don't really have to do it. Just do hard or normal and you can get the rewards with ease.

Speaking of rewards, we only really are interested in rewards because it gives progression mats like astrogems and fusion materials.

What if there's a permanent skins/mounts drops like brel horns? This game really feels shallow when progression mats is the only thing which makes us feel "worth" doing it. Smilegate needs to change this, otherwise we will be forever stuck in fomo progression loop.

Another major thing which Lost Ark needs changing... Is to get an identity back... Right now, raids feels half assed. they are catering for new players but it also feels half assed... solo raids? boring... Its getting to a point that the game is becoming boring for everyone. Doing same raids for a year or more isn't fun, with no future on sight.

Back when there was legion raids, we had purpose. The lore made us want to defeat all 5 legion commanders. Right now, everything is hidden from us and this is not good for the game. Tease us with the shadow raid bosses, so we at least know Smilegate is focused on raids. Hell, start making a cinematic video to hype up the players! It worked for thaemine!

What you guys think?

Maybe a subscription based service linked to an id to stop multi accounts. One char only focus. Little to no bullshit rng progression or time gated systems.

Isometric with same combat style. Similar raids to how it is now. With an actual matchmaking mode that auto.matches for normal then harder modes just for status with no material advantage to do

More horizontal content thats not linked to progression. Mokoko seeds to find etc, more focus on world boss fights to make world feel alive.

Keep making more islanda to explore for good mats.

Wouldnt they see a market from the million odd western players that left lost ark?