Being an MMO, you’re going to want a place to put all of that stuff you’re inevitably going to collect. And along with all of the questing you’re doing, there’s a ton of looting and crafting to do. After all, to wage war, you need tools and manpower. As you gain levels, you will notice that you need more powerful items, and you’ll have to get deeper into crafting. The core of much of the mid-to-late game progression centers on your player stronghold. The facilities found here are key to progression on your account.
Your Stronghold is accessible to all your characters, and it acts as both base and storage. While you won’t be able to access the full breadth of your personal storage from the basic stronghold, you do have access to a number of facilities to help with certain gameplay elements. Keep reading to learn more about your Stronghold in Lost Ark.
How to access your stronghold in Lost Ark
You’ll unlock housing at about Level 25, and that enters you into the very basic form of your Stronghold in Lost Ark. You can then begin to interact with the various systems, unlocking elements as you play. One of the first things you will be asked to do is a quest called ” A Song of Hearth and Stronghold Ceremony”. To get back to the Stronghold, you need to use the Song of Home and Hearth by pressing F2. This will teleport you back to your home from wherever you are.
Your Stronghold has its own level, separate from the Combat and Roster levels used in other parts of the game. The various tasks you can perform here are based on your Action Energy. This unique energy charges over time, and you must carefully manage it. But what can you actually do? Well, there’s actually a few things you can get done. You have multiple different addons within the stronghold that accomplish various tasks. Check you the list below for more details.
- Lab – The Lab is your research tool for unlocking more powerful crafting items. As you try to unlock more powerful items, you need to invest more time. Real time needed can range from a few minutes to nearly an entire day, based on what you’re researching.
- Workshop – The Workshop is your primary crafting bench that works alongside the Lab. You may use this to engage in alchemy and make useful potions and bombs. There’s a bunch of other recipes you can unlock via the lab. Ingredients for more complex recipes can also be assembled here.
- Manor – The Manor lets you place certain structures that offer bonuses to your Stronghold, including reduced Action Energy consumption and other positive effects.
- Training Camp – This high-level camp helps you gain EXP on your lower-level characters. Useful for training up alts to get them closer to your main level. However, this only works with characters that are two levels or below your max leveled character. For example, if your main is level 58, then alts will only gain experience from training up to level 56.
- Station – The Station acts as a quest hub for all the different daily tasks you can do. Send your fleets on trade missions and combat quests, earning rewards along the way.
How to access your personal storage in Lost Ark
Every player has personal storage that their characters can access. The size of personal storage can be increased as well. You start with 180 slots by default, and can upgrade it as you go. There are two ways to access your personal storage — the first is by finding a Storage Keep in a town. This interactible will allow you to open your storage and get at the items held there. These NPCs are usually marked on the map, and very visible when you’re walking by. Look for the folks with the huge backpacks. That’s the best way to get your personal storage space in Lost Ark.
The second way is far easier, and it relies on the Crystalline Arua pet effect active. The Crystalline Aura works like a subscription, providing a variety of premium effects for a month. This paid bonus adds various bonuses to your crafting and various actions. It also gives you a +7,000 XP per minute bonus inside the Stronghold. The thing with this is that any pet can be used to directly access personal storage to grab anything from there. You can open the pet menu to find this option. The Pet Functions within the Pet Menu (Alt + P), can be used to find this function from there.