In Lost Ark a new class was released yesterday, on January 18th. For now, only in Korea. There, the Slayer brings intense action with the greatsword without driving their supporters insane, unlike their male counterpart.
What kind of class is this? The new class in Korea is called Slayer. It is female, belongs to a new base class, and is the counterpart to the male Berserker. This means she wields a greatsword and deals substantial damage.
Also, the skills are largely identical or at least similar. It’s pretty much like the previous classes, which should loosen the gender lock. That includes both Wardancer and Striker, as well as Deadeye and Gunslinger.
The classes therefore only differ in nuances, tripods, and class engravings, which, however, constitute a large part of the gaming experience.
What differentiates the Slayer from the Berserker? Aside from minor changes in some skills, the major difference is mainly the class engravings. Here, the Slayer does without the probably best-known mechanic of the Berserker, which regularly sent your group members and supporters into panic.
Because the “Mayhem” engraving, which significantly increases your damage but reduces your maximum health by 75%, does not exist for the Slayer. Instead, her engravings are named “Executioner” and “Predator”.
While the Executioner engraving works very similarly to the Berserker’s second class engraving, “Berserker’s Technique”, the Predator engraving introduces a new concept for the class with the hefty greatsword.
With it, you collect what’s called Fatique points with each hit that strikes an opponent. For each of these points, you receive 10% of your rage and 3% of your mana back. Additionally, the critical damage of rage skills is increased by 40%.
At the same time, each Fatique point also consumes 10% more of your rage. However, the cooldown for Berserker mode has been completely removed. You can imagine the playstyle to be somewhat similar to the Surge engraving of the Deathblade.
You can see the trailer for the new class here:
Europe has to be patient – But for how long?
When will the Slayer come to us? Currently, we can only estimate that, as there has been no official statement from Amazon on the matter.
Nevertheless, we can comparatively safely assume that the Slayer will make it to the western version of Lost Ark in 2023. There are several reasons for this.
The next class confirmed for the west is the Painter, which is set to arrive in April. Shortly thereafter, in the summer of 2023, the Aeromancer will follow. This means that by the middle of the year, only one class from what Korea currently has is missing in the west, and that is the Slayer.
A rapid implementation is also supported by the fact that Amazon announced at the release that they want to quickly ease the gender lock in the west. The other classes doing this, namely Striker and Gunslinger, were therefore already available at our launch.
So much speaks in favor of the Slayer appearing for us in the west sooner rather than later. When exactly that will happen is still unclear.
How is the Slayer being received? So far, the new class is being received very positively. Large streamers, such as ZealsAmbition on Twitch, have already played a Slayer in the endgame and offered their viewers exciting gaming hours with the new class on the evening of January 18th.
Both the reactions of the chat and that of the streamer were relatively positive. How the class integrates into the meta and performs in the long run will be seen in the upcoming weeks and months.
What do you think of the Slayer and the loosening of the gender lock? Do you play Berserker and are you thinking of switching classes? Feel free to let us know in the comments here on MeinMMO.
The Slayer is, by the way, just one of three new classes that were presented at the LOA ON in December.
