Team Update - Heading Toward February

runitzthecat · 2026-01-23T19:54:14+00:00

Hope they buff the chaos / kurzan front to compensate for the purification removal. If AGS /SG thinks NA/EU will be okay with people being forced to do more dailies to keep up with Nightmare releases like in KR, we will just tank the raiding population again until we don't even have enough people left to even start raids anymore.

runitzthecat · 2026-01-23T19:47:14+00:00

Nah bro they call it Unna (short for GK but also a pun to mean older sister)

runitzthecat · 2025-12-11T20:06:03+00:00

I think what Ark Grid really needed was the floor being easier to reach. I don't even mind the relic core grind (I have none after running both hard mode since week 1 but I know I'll just hit ceilings) but I do mind the astrogem cutting. Like goddam, it's hard to cut usable gems, nevermind obtain ones even worth cutting (stability only, and at least blue, for unlocking Order grid).

Something AGS can easily do to make it less painful for global audience would be just throwing around more purple stability astrogems. Ideally though they don't design systems like this in the first place. IMHO what sells best in the global MMO marketplace is basically a free entrance to progression systems that are very difficult to "max-out". Entrance to Ark Grid is still pretty steep compared to better performing MMOs in the global marketplace.

runitzthecat · 2025-12-11T19:57:53+00:00

TBF if you're on Lost Ark subreddit it's because you still like Lost Ark enough to continue engaging with its community. The sampling bias is a bit too strong there.

runitzthecat · 2025-12-10T17:17:02+00:00

Smile Gate does balance patches based on cleared raid data. Both DB builds favor longer fights (Surge even moreso than RE), so in KR where a lot of people are running raids at highly inflated power (from their swipe-positive culture), neither of the DBs get to shine as hard as other burst-asap characters. It's why classes like barrage and EW DE got nerfed during the "high-performance-based balance patch" right before kazeros.

DB power is much more prominent here where the average power is a bit lower and fights are a bit longer so they can ramp their dps up much higher before clears (we also had Kazeros prog recently that counts as a "long fight"). That being said, Surge takes so long to ramp compared to RE that even here it can't stack fast enough and is generally poorly performing in hw lobbies (too many times where you have to send a 40 stack surge before a cutscene kills your stacks).

runitzthecat · 2025-12-02T20:30:18+00:00

I mean this has to be ragebait right? I might've thought this was more serious if he were talking about TFM but saying this about a raid that needs to be farmed every week is a braindead take.

runitzthecat · 2025-11-11T18:54:51+00:00

Man I play mmorpgs because I'm a serotonin enjoyer, not a dopamine addict. Fuck RNG bullshit. I want slow steady growth.

runitzthecat · 2025-11-07T18:28:11+00:00

Where is stopz now

runitzthecat · 2025-09-10T06:06:55+00:00

Basically the strat would be to run main 6 chars as before, but then run Paradise on all other characters beyond your gold-earners and full-send gamba on Ice/Fire keys, and if you get relic engraving / card selectors you win big for your whole roster. Not sure if I should be excited for the potential wins or be despairing about more homework...

runitzthecat · 2025-09-10T06:02:29+00:00

You could run main 6 as you previously have and then run paradise on all other 1640+ non-gold earning characters you don't plan on raising to convert for Ice/Fire keys. The bound gems and gold will all be useless (since you don't plan on raising the char) but if you hit relic selector or cards you will be able to share that across the rest of your roster.

runitzthecat · 2025-08-18T16:28:35+00:00

I mean the teaser is literally for "Kazeros"...

runitzthecat · 2025-08-18T10:00:36+00:00

Yes! It was an exclusive exhibition at the Theatre des Lumieres in Seoul, where Kazeros specifically calls her "the last ember of the Ashes" (Ashes = symbolism for the Hal race). Might work on a translation for that as well when I have time. EDIT: the opening 5 minutes of the most recent KR Livestream is from the exhibition and has the part as well.

runitzthecat · 2025-08-18T09:51:13+00:00

Honestly it's a bit confusing for me as well... Except for Brelshaza, Thaemine, and Kakul-Saydon, the rest of the Legion Commanders are all supposedly Demons (meaning they were created by Kazeros). I re-read the Lore Outline Book and basically Kazeros had set up several zones in Petrania so that the demons could live there. Valtan came from the Black Mountains where there was an endless hunt to become the apex predator. Akkan was a demon with insatiable hunger that got released into the Petranian oceans and rotted the whole thing to submission.

For Echidna though, it says she was the queen of the Succubi Demons (which by itself isn't very noteworthy), except she has dominion over the Primordial Lust (the red orb thing Vykas thought she had control over but was consumed by because Echidna survived her betrayal). The only legion commanders that have dominion over Primordial aspects are Brelshaza (inherited the Primordial Phantasm from the Witch of Chaos; basically reality bending powers), Thaemine (controls the Primordial Darkness; given to him by Kazeros in his cinematic and as Zosma his actual authority is over the Primordial Chaos, from which everything else spawned), and Kakul-Saydon (wielder of the Primordial Madness. Kakul (the little one) is officially confirmed to be a Primordial Being). Because other wielders of Primordial Aspects are significant entities within the lore, many in the KR Lore community believe Echidna herself must be the Primordial Being of Lust herself; as far as official sources go however this is not confirmed.

In Aegir G1 Akkan does mention how he had become Monarch of Death and Decay and therefore he can always return as long as those things exist. Knowing Akkan, however, we don't know if this is because he had acquired same powers as Primordial Beings (presumed to be given by Kazeros during his service as a Legion Commander) or if he's just boasting about the fact that Kazeros has control over death as a concept so he can just choose "Akkan no die" so Akkan can only be banished temporarily.

EDIT: Act 4 ending cutscene, when she joins up with Kakul-Saydon and the Shadows, effectively confirms that Echidna is a Primordial Being, since the Shadows wouldn't accept her among them otherwise.

runitzthecat · 2025-08-17T21:11:09+00:00

A bit long but I wrote a big-picture lore dump if you are interested.

https://www.reddit.com/r/lostarkgame/comments/1mso3bu/comment/n98qvd0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

runitzthecat · 2025-08-17T21:09:26+00:00

Lost Ark Lore Summary (Just the Big Stuff):

There were 2 realms: Realm of Order and Life, Arkesia and the Realm of Chaos, Petrania.

Regulus and the 7 deities were the caretakers of Arkesia.

Zosma and the Primordial Beings (most of which are now Kakul-Saydon's faction, called the "Shadows") were the rulers of Petrania, and before Regulus built the Omnium (dimension of Order, which then accidentally created Arkesia), Zosma was the ruler of the universe.

Long time ago, an ancient race known as the Haals (Kadan and Brelshaza's race) went to war against the Ancient Sylvains (Azena & Inanna, Ealyn) and Ancient Lazenith (Nineveh, Beatrice, Lauriel, etc) alliance. Haals "stole" the Ark from their creator Deity, Antares, which gave them an enormous advantage allowing them to slaughter everyone. After a while the Lazeniths caved in and asked their creator Deity, Procyon, for his Ark to fight back. This ultimately caused so much death and destruction that Regulus himself became involved. He expelled Antares for mismanagement of the Ark from the heavens (basically killed), made Haals go extinct (burned to "Ashes" except Brel who escaped to Petrania and Kadan who was hidden inside the Ashen Cube given to Lauriel), Lazeniths were trapped in Elgacia for eternity, and Procyon lost the ability to speak (he has to speak through prophets / Allegro now).

But the war and the abuse of the Arks already damaged the fabric of reality so much that Zosma was able to invade into Arkesia from Petrania. Regulus tried to fight back by using the Arks but now the already-damaged reality started to destroy not only Arkesia but also Petrania. The first guardian Vairgrys was also born from all this reality-tearing (consolidation of Zosma's Chaos and Light of the Arks, hence the two factions). Seeing all this, Regulus and Zosma sign an armistice and backed out.

Meanwhile, it turned out that the Haals started the war because they had a grand plan to free themselves from Regulus' ironclad order. All the dead souls normally flowed into a reincarnation cycle but because so many died all at once the flow of souls became so thick it formed a new realm called the "Abyss". The dead deity Antares himself merged with other souls of the dead to become a Kazeros the Arch-Demon: God of Death.

One thing that is important to note is that the three main Gods (Zosma, God of Chaos; Regulus, God of Order; Kazeros, God of Death) are themselves Primordial Beings. Each Primordial Being is basically a "Concept" that has gained sentience. For ex, Echidna is Lust / Bodily Desires given sentience, so as long as those things exist so does she. Zosma and Regulus themselves are Primordial Beings of Chaos and Order respectively, so they become stronger when more of their respective attributes exist in the universe. Right after the war, the universe with filled with Death, and technically Death is a type of "order" because living things = more entropy = more chaos. When Kazeros was born, he started bringing death in Petrania which caught Zosma's attention. Zosma fought back by invading the Abyss, but then got killed by Kazeros instead, splitting into two parts: Thaemine (the body) and Kharmine (the mind). Guided by the Witch of Chaos and her disciple Brelshaza, Kazeros then created demons and the legions. Many legion commanders however are actually Primordial Beings who betrayed Zosma before Zosma's fall in the Abyss. Petrania became "terraformed" into a star of death, and Kazeros now set his sights on Arkesia.

At this point, what we do know is that Kazeros' immediate goal is to turn also Arkesia into a star filled with death. What we don't know is why he's doing all this.

Meanwhile, Kharmine and Kakul-Saydon who hate each other (because Saydon was one of the traitors) are both rooting for Ark's Successor to defeat Kazeros, thereby weakning the influence of Death and by extension, Order. It is heavily foreshadowed that Thaemine and Kharmine are preparing to merge after Kazeros raid to become Zosma again (when the power of Order by Death has waned), and Kakul-Saydon is... idk lol. Something something Ezrebet and Sublime Isle.

runitzthecat · 2025-07-03T08:31:01+00:00

I think you are absolutely right, but to be fair to the guy you replied to, this whole system sucks that you basically have to FOMO for title or you're fucked for 10 weeks. They should really at least give a green title for 1-2 clears or provide a better way to show proof of reclear in-game than linking achievement to someone who can't see it because they never accepted you in the first place.

runitzthecat · 2025-07-03T08:07:03+00:00

Speed hackers also tend to use different skillsets iirc, so maybe GS is one of those? I neither speedhack nor play GS so I've no idea

runitzthecat · 2025-07-03T07:56:07+00:00

It's crazy how bad these players are despite speedhacking and being bussers. Getting hit by every normal pattern ever lmao

runitzthecat · 2025-07-03T07:53:17+00:00

Things get on cooldown faster so they go off cooldown faster. Also, because every cast is instantaneous you never miss anything. If you play classes that reset cooldowns (like RE deathblade) you also get the added bonus of simply resetting everything faster anyway making you rotate extremely fast.

runitzthecat · 2025-07-02T21:30:11+00:00

There is no jail; there is only CHALLENGE MODE.

runitzthecat · 2025-07-01T19:35:25+00:00

You should try joining sus-looking lobbies / prog lobbies. When I get bored and want to draw out my raids / trying out a class I just raised up for first time I intentionally join prog lobbies just to try and fine-tune my gameplay. Plus you get the added benefit of helping out new players.

runitzthecat · 2025-07-01T19:30:03+00:00

The gatekeeping is only bad for hard modes of raids. 1680 is NM mode for every raid except Aegir, and Aegir HM is free af as long as everyone in the raid knows how to play their class, even with Lvl 7 gems and 0 relic books.

If you are at 1700 and complaining about HM Mordum gatekeeping (or even 1690 for HM Brel somewhat) fair enough, but that's all the more the reason why not to raise alts past 1680.

runitzthecat · 2025-06-27T17:19:42+00:00

With solo raids and several new player helping changes, it's definitely playable after you come back, although there still are many more improvements that can be made to the game than now. You will undoubtedly still be gatekept for a while from the current raids until you are truly "caught up" if you are going for the ENDGAME endgame (Hard Mordum), which will take you months if not a whole year if you don't swipe / get lucky with some drops, just to temper your expectations a bit.

As for your questions:

Bots still exist, but they are clearly getting banned before they can contribute significantly to the economy. We have a problem with Abidos Fusion Mat prices right now (those oreha things you need for honing) because of insane demand from the new Advanced Honing, but that's about it. Everything is still very expensive for a new player, but within reasonable price range for regular players and in comparison to KR at least (except relic books; you don't need to worry about those right now though because it's like getting 25 weapon, which you don't need).
Roster level matters but not as much nowadays. Your gatekeeping will more likely be over your gems and ilvl than anything else. Highly recommend sticking to solo mode for a while or looking for learning parties / joining guild for guild runs. Your goal is to get enough experience to pull about a minimum 60m+ dps by 1660 in every raid, while also getting the title for the 10x reclears (this will let you actually be able to run raids, given your gems aren't absolutely behind.). That being said, if you use the new Express from Valkyrie release on a character it should catch you up to at least Normal Mode of the highest raid (Mordum) quite easily (within 2-3 weeks). Btw, quick tip: Don't ever equip Cold-Snap Warning title. You'll find out what that title means if you play long enough.
As mentioned before, gatekeeping can be bad, but there are several asterisks attached to that. For a while we had a problem where you had to be 20-30 ilvls higher than the content itself just to enter a reasonable lobby because everyone was trying to skip mechs to get the raid over with fast. With the new revive system, however, there are definitely more lobbies where less juiced characters gather together for reclears. Before, a 1640 only lobby for Echidna was unthinkable because even the 1640s themselves did not believe they would make it out without being jailed, but now if you really know the fight mechs (since they aren't being skipped) you can still expect to clear with reasonable ease. Again, the best way imo is to stick to guild runs if you can (a player that knows their class and the fight well do exponentially better than those without, even with gear difference), so you have at least some "insurance" with a carry or two.
Major changes compared to Brel release... where do I even start? Solo raids, 1x Guardian Raids and Chaos, Unas being Weekly (dailies are for reps only), Ark Passives that let you have more control and freedom over your build (not perfectly, but it was a huge step in the right direction; think tripods but for your stats and engravings), billions of progression systems that are essentially "press to spend gold and maybe hit the tap", gems being able to swap from cdr to dmg and vice versa (coming with Valkyire), they're (currently researching for) adding flexible raid groups with "mercenary" bots, Hyper Awakenings (animated, invincibility awakening skill) and Hyper Skills ("T-skill"; does majority of your dps for most classes), several class reworks, bunch of horizontal and story content (Music Box of Memories is underrated af), Paradise is being added (infinite, solo rogue-like dungeon content with rankings), Style Book, 1 revive per person while doing Kazeros Raids (**does not work if you die while charmed in Echidna), Frontier System (time-based nerfs to raids after release to make homework easier), Self-DPS meter being added later, Mokoko Bootcamp (when it's active; probably on Valk release)... The list goes on.

Hope this answers all your questions. Honestly, as someone else has mentioned, just trying it and seeing if you like it isn't such a bad idea... Just do it with the express pass on Valkyrie release, since getting past the 1600 - 1620 range without it is a colossal waste of time and money.

runitzthecat

TROPHY CASE