Being a new MMO, there’s a big and varied map in Lost Ark. But departing from most MMO conventions, there’s actually a lot more depth than one would expect. Of all the different systems, the game has a lot to offer. It would seem the team has taken cues from both other genre competitors, as well as other open-world games. With all that variety, comes a lot of unfortunate player confusion. Players new to the genre, or this specific type of MMO, may be a little confused. These Lost Ark Guides aim to help with that.
One of the more complex areas of understanding when it comes to character development is Lost Ark Life Skills. This is basically the category that all the crafting-related class skills go into. Players can utilize their Life Skills to acquire various materials and resources used in crafting and other disciplines. If you want to make in-game money with selling items like potions and such, this guide is for you.
Unlocking each skill requires completing certain quests. You’ll need to reach the Lakebar main story quests to unlock trade skills on alts and your main. This will happen around level 20. You will need to complete the quest to unlock the core life skill. Each one has its own quest as well.
What are the Lost Ark Life Skills?
Players can specialize in all 6 professions in Lost Ark, which eliminates a lot of the need for alts. This might not be the best approach though. The time-gating a lot of mechanics uses might actually be better utilized if you have alts specialized in one type of crafting. So that way, you can work on more than one project at one time. The main reason for doing this is to gather items for processing to make gear, or to help with affording Stronghold upgrades. First, it might help to learn what each skill is, and what they can do.
- Archeology – This Life Skill is focused on finding and digging up ancient treasures. The shovel is used as a tool in this skill.
- Fishing – This Life Skill focuses on gathering Food items. The main tool used in this skill is the Fishing pole.
- Hunting – The main focus of this Life skill is to hunt down animals for food and materials. Traps and Hunting Knives are the main tools in this skill.
- Lumbering – This Life Skill focuses on gathering wood and plant materials for Stronghold upgrades. The main tools used in this skill are Lumbering Axe and Saw.
- Herbalism – In this Life Skill, your focus is on gathering plants and mushrooms to craft different kinds of potions. Foraging Gloves are the main tool of this skill.
- Mining – In this Life Skill, you mine minerals and ores to craft bombs and weapons for combat. The main tool in this class is the Pickaxe.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about more details. Much like in games like Guild Wars 2, each discipline has a tool you must use. By default, tools have a fixed durability that you will need to keep track of. If a tool breaks, you will need to replace it. Repairing and upgrading tools is possible, but mostly relies on cash shop items. Life Skill Tools can be repaired using silver, although this reduces their maximum durability each time. Eventually, unless you pay Royal Crystals, the tool will break.
Getting Better
And with each skill, there are also two stats associated. The core Rank of each skill reflects how much you have used that skill. The more items you gather, the more Rank XP you get. As you gain more XP, you can also spend it on ability modifiers. Passive modifiers can be unlocked that change how many resources you get, as well as what kinds of demands are placed on your Life Energy Pool. If you upgrade Life Skills on one character, it’s going to affect the progress on all characters on your account. As you gain levels, you get more passives that can help with progressing faster.
Life Skills or professions also utilize Life Energy. This is consumed when you use the skill. You only get 10,000 or so each day, so use it carefully. You will also be able to change the cost of skill uses with rank upgrades and ability upgrades. You can see your current Life Energy by pressing B to switch out of combat mode. Keep in mind it’s shared across your entire account, so plan accordingly.
And speaking of planning, let’s talk about a method that other guides I’ve seen push.
What about Strongholds?
Yes, it’s technically possible to level Life Skills while inside the house, and it’s definitely fitting for the lazy player. You can easily burn through your Life Energy for a day by just doing the basic gathering that’s possible inside the Strongholds. When you get to level 10, you unlock House Professions. These are a passive aspect of the housing system that sets aside a private instanced node for gathering professions. This might seem great, but it’s actually kind of terrible. Here’s a list of everything that’s bad about House Professions.
- Everything that’s dropped inside this instance is worse than overworld drops from regular nodes.
- Everything gained from these nodes is account-bound, as is anything crafted with the materials, you can’t sell them.
- It’s incredibly inefficient using Life Energy here since the drops can’t be sold and uses more overall Life Energy.
- XP Gain for ranks is slower overall.
The only time you would really want to do this is if you’re doing other activities in-game and don’t want to waste your energy.
Now that this is done, the guide is over. And that’s by no means the only complex mechanic for new players to learn. There’s even sailing to contend with. So if you want to explore the high seas, this game offers plenty of that too. The premium Crystalline Aura in Lost Ark to get a discount on teleport fees, as well as other bonuses. Those players looking to get a leg up on crafting their own gear could do well with that.
