The monthly updates in Lost Ark are the ones that bring about the major changes. This July, another update is on its way. We at MeinMMO will reveal all the details about the patch.
When is the update coming? As Amazon has confirmed via Twitter and in the forum, the big July update will release on July 20. They are sticking to the new Wednesday as patch day.
We can also now provide an exact time. The servers will go offline at 9 AM sharp. They should be offline for four hours and return around 1 PM with the new update so you can continue playing.
The exact patch notes are now known, and they are extensive. You can find the detailed patch notes at playlostark.com. In this article, we want to highlight and explain the core features for you.
What’s included in the update? In July, you can expect the following new content in Lost Ark:
- The Arcanist as a new class of mage
- Valtan on the hellish difficulty setting, which comes with some challenges
- Abyssal Dungeons in challenge mode
- The summer event “Water Bomb Arena”
- New skins
- New power passes and extensive changes to the existing ones
- New progression up to gear score 1,370
- Bug fixes
Just in June, a new challenge entered the game with Vykas:
New class adds more DPS to the mage
What can the Arcanist do? The new Arcanist belongs to the class of female mages, which also includes the sorceress and the bard. Unlike the bard, the Arcanist is purely a damage class, offering less support than the bard. However, she deals enough damage to potentially steal the sorceress’s throne. With a bit of luck.
Because luck is crucial for the Arcanist. The card magician draws her powers from a magical deck of tarot cards. She fights with these and activates her skills, but as with any card game, chance plays a role. You never know which card you will draw next.
This makes the Arcanist one of the most challenging classes in Lost Ark.
What makes her special? The Arcanist is unique not only due to her luck-based class mechanic. Unlike the sorceress, the Arcanist operates at medium range and can also engage in close combat.
To do this, she relies on a reservoir of movement abilities that allow her to move quickly and gracefully across the battlefield and thus adapt to the situation at any moment. Which is simultaneously what you must do. Thanks to the element of chance, you must always be prepared to react to anything.
You can see gameplay from the Arcanist in this video:
When is the Arcanist coming? The new class will be unlocked simultaneously with the patch on July 20. A new event will also launch at the same time, which will help you get your Arcanist directly into the endgame. We have explained how this works in a separate article for you.
The hellish Valtan
What changes with the boss? The Legion Raid Valtan has been available since May in Lost Ark. He is currently accessible in both his normal and hard variants. However, with the July update comes the first hellish variant of a boss into our version of the game.
There are some peculiarities to watch out for, although little changes with the boss himself. The fight will largely remain the same, but the surrounding conditions will be made a bit tougher. For example, the Book of Coordination, which you already know from PvP, will be used.
You can no longer simply overlevel Valtan on hellish. Your equipment will be normalized, and you will always have the same gear score as Valtan has. For the hellish level, this means you will need a gear score of 1,445 and cannot exceed it.
This also means you need to pay particular attention to mechanics that you may have previously avoided.
Additionally, the checkpoints will be disabled. You will need to complete the hellish Valtan raid in one go and will not be able to save partway through and return later, as is typically the case with Legion Raids.
What rewards are there? The hellish Valtan is intended to be a special challenge and will be rewarded as such. This means you will not receive the usual rewards that you know from Legion Raids. Instead, Lost Ark will reward you with titles, achievements, stronghold buildings, and more.
We currently do not know what the further rewards will be. However, you increase your rewards by defeating the boss more frequently. So for some especially nice items, you will need to defeat Valtan several times on hellish.
Good news is that the hellish mode does not count towards your weekly limit for Legion Raids. You can play Valtan on normal, hard, and hellish within a week.
Abyssal Dungeon Challenges and New Event
Abyssal Dungeons in new mode: The new Abyssal Dungeon challenges add to the opportunities to help you level up your gear score faster. They are based on the already known Guardian Raids and create a new activity that you can complete weekly to gather rewards.
These rewards again come in the form of special currency that you can exchange for the materials you need. Additionally, Amazon is particularly emphasizing the chance of rare card drops, although we do not yet know exactly what these will be.
It is known that you can complete each Abyss Dungeon in challenge mode once per week per account. The same normalization applies here as it does for hellish Valtan, meaning you cannot enter the dungeons with too high a gear score.
New events: Additionally, July will bring a genuine summer event. You will need to dive into a swimming pool and try to push the opposing team out of the pool with your water gun.
As the game progresses, the pool will get smaller. So you always need to be careful not to fall out yourself while collecting enough points to win in the end.
Furthermore, skins for bikinis and summer outfits will finally come to the game, which fans have been requesting since last month.
You can see a trailer for the event here:
In addition to this event, a new express event will also start in Lost Ark. Here, you can again select a character, making it much easier to achieve a higher gear score. This time, the endgame gear score of 1,370 will be available to reach faster.
The event is quite self-explanatory and will be shown to you via a pop-up in-game as soon as you log in after the update. You will then need to select a character and will probably not be able to switch it later. The event runs until September 28.
The third event is the Mokoko challenge. It will replace the previous welcome challenge in the game and will present you with new tasks while also introducing new rewards. It aims to enable you to advance faster through Tier 1 and Tier 2.
Extensive changes to the shop in Lost Ark
What was adjusted? The biggest change to the Lost Ark shop will be that starting July 20, you can purchase new power passes. The power passes allow you to jump straight to a level defined in the pass. Unlike before, you no longer need to have a character at the desired level, but can practically jump directly into the endgame.
There will be 5 different power passes, starting at a price of 1,100 royal crystals, increasing by the same amount the higher you want to ascend. The first pass, named Vern Pass, brings you to level 302 for 1,100 crystals, while the 5th pass, Punika Pass, gets you to 1,302 for 5,500 crystals, roughly €60.
Additionally, the price of the passes adjusts depending on how far you have already progressed. If you want to give a character in Rohendel the Punika pass, he only needs to jump through 3 regions, which will cost 3,300 crystals.
There is no restriction on how many passes you can buy, nor information on how this might impact future, potentially free, event passes.
New skins for summer: As with every update, you will also receive a lot of new skins this month. Included are the long-awaited bikini skins in various designs. You can purchase them at the usual prices in the Lost Ark shop.
However, there is also a new exclusive skin for the Arcanist, as well as new companions available for purchase in the shop.
Easier progression to the endgame
Easier in Tier 3: The update on July 20 also brought extensive changes regarding how you reach the endgame. It’s not only made easier but also cheaper. The changes are divided into three different tiers.
To reach a new tier, you need to upgrade your equipment completely to +15. So once you have everything at +15 in T1, you can get T2 equipment. Previously, this was a laborious task involving a lot of grind and luck due to the upgrade mechanics.
Now it’s different, because in Tier 1 and 2, you now have a 100% chance that your upgrade will succeed, at least up to +15. Not only that, the attempts are also cheaper in terms of materials and gold. Thus, you will reach the coveted Tier 3 much faster and cheaper, starting at gear score 1,302.
There are also adjustments in Tier 3: Here you still need some luck, but there are also alleviations. Generally, you will now succeed in upgrades up to +15 20% more often than before. The required item experience has also been reduced by 30% in the same margin.
The required materials in Tier 3 up to +15 have been reduced by 50%, and enhancement costs are also down 30%. The success rate for enhancement has improved by 10%. You can now progress much easier up to 1,370, where the first Abyss raid awaits you.
What do you think of the July update? Are you excited about the new challenges and the Arcanist? Or is there not much for you personally this time? Feel free to let us know in the comments here on MeinMMO; we’re looking forward to a good discussion!
In July, Lost Ark is again among the 10 MMORPGs with the most players on Steam.
