Lost Ark Review - A Truly Polished MMO Experience

Overall, Lost Ark feels like a reward after so many hashed-out and rocky launches of new games. You know what you’re getting with Lost Ark, it’s an experience that has already been through the tests and tribulations of its first two years of content. Its story won’t speak to everyone, but the endgame experience is worth a few cutscenes here and there. Lost Ark is one of the most polished titles I’ve played for some time, especially an MMO. The game is free and will be hyped-up thanks to Amazon and Twitch. I can’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t try it. Pick a class and go— if you can get into the servers this week, that is .

Judgment increases the damage of your Punish (blue) skills, but its real use is in building up your Piety Meter faster. It's not uncommon for Paladins to spec for this Engraving to build up their gauge faster, allowing for better uptime on Holy Aura.


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The Paladin's Identity skill revolves around their Piety Meter , a gauge that grants access to one of two powerful buffs when full—a damage buff or a support aura. As we've just mentioned, you're going to be using Holy Aura the most to frequently buff the damage of your allies. In general, you'll want to ignore Sacred Executioner (the blue buff) unless you're playing solo content.

To be a good Paladin player, you're going to want a mix of Punish (blue) and Holy (yellow) skills in your rotation. In general, your Punish skills will be used to quickly build up your Piety Meter. Your Holy skills are used to buff your team. Let's go over the most common skills used in each category.

I’m here to tell you this: take your time with your first run. There is a massive world to explore. Hundreds of NPCs, quest lines, hidden dungeons, and all sorts of other secrets and places to discover. The endgame content isn’t going anywhere. I’m expecting Lost Ark to be very popular, so there will always be people to complete content with, wherever you are in the game. If you’ve played before then you’ll know all about the fastest ways to level up and which alternate characters you want to master first. All of this should come some way down the line if you’re a brand-new player.

As a support, the Paladin is only matched by the Bard in the NA and EU version of Lost Ark. Paladins provide a plethora of damage buffs, survivability increases, and they even cleanse debuffs. If you want to support your allies while wielding holy magic and a massive sword, the Paladin is for you. If you're looking for a DPS class, pick something else.


Death Orb is the Deathblade's class identity, acting as a gauge you can activate to enter an ultimate form called Deathblade Arts . There's quite a bit going on with this mechanic, so let's break it d

However, it’s important that I talk about microtransactions. Lost Ark does have them. You can pay a monthly subscription for something called Crystalline Aura - it’s sort of like a buff, allowing you to fast travel for free, perform extra tasks at your Stronghold (your home island, with research and buildings), and a few extra opportunities to complete daily quests. In Korea, the Anime game online guide has many more boosts and upgrades that you can purchase with real cash.


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For the western version of Lost Ark, you've got quite a few options for builds. Each Class Engraving is worth building around, and the Deathblade is so powerful in PvP that it warrants its own build. We'll give an overview of two common endgame builds for the Deathblade below, but feel free to read our Deathblade builds guide for an in-depth look at how to bring the Deathblade into Lost Ark's endg


Deathblade Surge is cast in the max level of Surge Zero form, regardless of the number of Death Orbs you have. When Arts is activated and skills other than Basic and Awakening attacks hit, the Surge Enhancement effect is stacked every 0.4 seconds (max 20 stacks). When Death Trance ends, gain Death Orb Meter for each Surge Enhancement effect you have (5% ea

Others might be wary of Lost Ark’s aesthetics. That’s fair enough. It’s a Korean MMO. It has dancing girls, moody dudes with fringes, and some truly massive swords. Some people just don’t gel with this sort of thing, and that’s alright. The endgame content is enough to carry Lost Ark regardless of its aesthetic, and I should note that the actual world design, cinematic set pieces, and the bustle of the game’s large quest hubs are all gorgeous, especially on high graphics settings. Barring any sort of launch day server chaos - which I 100 percent expect, by the way - Lost Ark is one of the smoothest games in terms of performance that I’ve played in a long time.