Lost Ark: Where We Are


Got a fair amount of well rounded progress in today. As it was reset day, my main activities were setting up everyone I placed in the guild with all their shiny new materials from the Guild vendor, getting various dailies (as per my usual), Chaos Dungeons on virtually everyone (that was an exhausting feat) and even some Guardian Raids so that I can farm some souls for a quick weekly win. I’m also really trying to push the weekly guild activities at least with regards to trade skills. Strategically, I got my Gunslinger, who was doing Yorn, to handle both Fishing and Mining. That was a nice and easy 1k worth of Bloodstones. I’m thinking that I’ll probably start taking one alt a day to do the weekly stuff especially those that don’t have a lot of Bloodstones.That way any spare Bloodstones, I can funnel honing materials to my Glavier.

My Artillerist is becoming fun again. I don’t know exactly what they changed with the little turret transformation thing but I’m really enjoying it right now. It feels pretty easy to change into turret mode with the double Wealth runes. With that, I feel my damage is smoother rather than me having to run around grouping up mobs all the time. Probably, the biggest hassle is remembering to shield myself right after changing forms.

I did maybe my 2nd or 3rd Chaos Gates on my Sorceress. I’m still uncomfortable about the whole Secret Map after party but I’m mostly trying to farm a skill rune there. Can’t really progress her much since my Gold is tight. But I’ll probably just continue to farm the usual stuff and slowly decommission my old gems as hand-me-downs to alts.

My Gunlancer also is a lot more fun since I changed him back to Combat Readiness. I found a little tip where if you use Spirit Absorption then he no longer feels slow. Unfortunately, the honing process is super slow and I only got one upgrade. I bought out the majority of the chicken event vendor for the week and started to use the Tailoring books to help boost his chances.

My Shadowhunter is in a similar place but hasn’t hit that soul crushing failure zone in tier 2 just yet. However, one thing that I’ve noticed since the patch is that she feels much more gimped because of the nerfs. Like Howl just feels like dog shit as well as Demon’s Grip. My biggest damage dealer has been Demonic Clone. I can’t tell if it’s just that I’m lacking gems or maybe some sort of stat but it’s definitely not what it used to be.

The Scrapper is doing alright. The rhythm of Taijutsu just isn’t there for me. I’ve heard better things about Shock Training but I don’t want to re-invest money into switching over. The biggest complaint I have about the Scrapper is that when she gets knocked into a huge hoard of mobs, it’s just trash. And this happens because you’re forced into melee range but don’t have some sort of visual indicator that your ability you think you hit went off properly. Instead, you just find yourself paralyzed. It’s so stupid and feels awful.

From there, the second major progress I made today was on my Glavier. I pooled a ton of resources onto her, buying up the chicken event vendor for tier 1 items, Guardian Raid mats, guild mats, etc. With all that, I only managed to hit ilvl 570. I think I ended up just running out of Life Shards and said fuck it. I really don’t want to have to do the stupid Tower to get more mats. Maybe I should run low level Abyssal Dungeons since I saw how high level characters farm them for easy cards. If anything, I’ll be able to get some better gear that I can transfer into.

My Berserker just hit below ilvl 420. I might try to buy some extra guardian fragments before hit Chaos Dungeon runs just so that he can start doing them at the highest level that he can. Right now, I think my goal is to at least hit ilvl 460, maybe up to 500 then either turn him into a Lopang Enjoyer or start looking into other dailies from islands I never do. It’s either that or I just say fuck it on my Glavier and run her through Rohendel since it’s really not that hard.

The biggest bit of progress that I felt I made today was on my Gunslinger. I finished up Yorn on her and even got her above 880 ilvl so that when she hit the Chaos Dungeons, she was already at level 3 in Yorn. So for now she’s just going to be farming her dailies and Chaos Dungeons until she’s ready for Feiton.

Lastly, there’s my Deathblade. I got her up to Wavestrand Port and am about to get her through the last part of East Luttera. Unless I get super lucky and hit the jackpot from the Gold Shop this week with one of those 10-20k bars, I’ll probably save on the Knowledge Transfer for a little while. Usually, sometime in Tortoyk is where I get bored of the main quest line and do a Knowledge Transfer. But that might not happen this week. Nonetheless, I hope to get her in Tier 1 soon just to have another farmer and not have to worry about the leveling process anymore.

After that’s over, I might take a day and go through the Rohendel Adventure Tome just to grab that +3 skill points. That one seems more feasible than the really grindy ones like Feiton or Yorn where the rewards are not tempting at this point.

At this point, I can’t imagine what would happen if I managed to get all my alts into Punika. I was reading another person, whose situation almost resembles mine except that he does a little more content. But his issue was just being blocked because of time constraints and being able to play the game at a higher level that’s demanded. I have a feeling that if somehow I manage to push all my alts to ilvl 1370 that might be it for the game for me. Unless SmileGate removes the giant stick out of their assholes and realizes that they can’t cater their game just to these 13-14 year old brats who hide in Korean internet cafes after school for a few hours to avoid homework and de-tune the game a little for the casual player, I really believe this game won’t survive the year. My guild is down to roughly 3-4 active members. I’m pretty much the most actively contributing person and even then I feel like it’s not enough. Usually, once this downward spiral in a game occurs, there’s no turning back. No matter how much free stuff the company can give away, once you lose your casual audience, it’s gone for good. And that’s sad to me because the base game is actually fun. The combat in general is rewarding. But I’ve seen some of those high end raids and it’s honestly as though some spastic guy on a severe amount of cocaine mixed has designed these things. There’s so many questionable things that had been built into the game that I think over time people are just going to see through it and leave unless major intervention from say Amazon comes through to force SmileGate’s hand.

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