The big May update for Lost Ark arrives on May 19th, coinciding with next week’s weekly update. It brings a ton of new content and gets almost everything right, but one thing MeinMMO author Mark Sellner thinks is not as well done.
What does the update bring? Every month, the MMORPG Lost Ark receives a major update. In April, for example, the new class, the Lancebearer, was released. Also in May, fans will be treated to another update that focuses entirely on new content.
With Valtan, the game receives its first Legion Raid, where eight players must face a particularly strong boss opponent in two phases, and with Deskaluda, the latest Guardian Raid, there is also new content for four players.
The new continent South Vern is also being further populated. Although it is already in the game, it still lacks Chaos Gates, Chaos Dungeons, boss enemies, and more. All this content is expected to be delivered with the May update on the 19th of the month.
Thus, the patch primarily targets players at the upper end of the current gear score, meaning above 1,415. In the hard mode, you even need an item level of 1,445 to face Valtan. However, you will also receive brand new loot there, namely equipment of the “Relic” rarity. This has not been available in our version of Lost Ark before.
There’s something for new players too: Although most content is geared towards players who have spent several hundred hours in the game, there are also exciting contents for new players. The next new class, the Destroyer, is also making its debut in the West with the latest patch.
It even brings its latest balance adjustments that it has already received in Korea. So the update seems to really do everything right, right? No, almost. At least that’s what MeinMMO author Mark Sellner says.
Personal conclusion: Balancing issues and anticipation
What else is there? After all the content announcements, further down in the original post are new skins, quality-of-life updates, and a small section on balancing, but this small section is actually much bigger than it looks.
It is described there that there will be some extensive balance changes that were just made in Korea. However, this doesn’t quite fit into our version. Because assuming we keep exactly the same balance package as what Korea recently got, it would be way too early.
Korea has many, many more contents than the western version of Lost Ark has at the current stage. Especially the number of classes plays a major role in this.
Why is this a problem? The balance changes of the Korean server are adapted to their meta. If these changes come to us one-to-one, the original balance plan will no longer hold. Even with the Destroyer, Korea still has 5 more classes that can fundamentally change the meta gameplay.
There are changes that also make sense for our version, such as the strengthening of the Scrapper or the weakening of the Madness Berserker, but other changes make less sense for us. For example, a content of the balance patch also included changes to some skills of the Lancebearer, which was just released here a month ago.
Furthermore, many players are still in the process of slowly mastering their class. The fact that a large part of the skills will be changed, new counter skills will be introduced, and some effects of certain skills will change could cause problems here.
An overview of all changes in Korea can be found at Onstove.com. However, note that it is still not 100% certain that we will receive all these changes in Europe.
The anticipation outweighs despite everything
Only small concerns: Nevertheless, Lost Ark is getting almost everything right with the May update, as the headline suggests. The communication with the community was exemplary and Amazon kept the players constantly updated.
After there were initially great discussions about the fast arrival of content with the first new boss Argos, the release of Valtan seems very deliberate. The developers promised that they would closely monitor the progress of the players before bringing a new endgame boss into the game.
The reason for this is that Smilegate wants to prevent fans from feeling that they can only keep up by investing real money. Whether Valtan really comes at the right time, we will only know at the release. However, the mood in the community is already much more pleasant and positive than it was at the announcement of Argos.
The uncertainty: However, the developers will only reveal what awaits us in detail next week. Whether all balance changes will be adopted exactly as they are in Korea is currently still not 100% confirmed. However, there will not be a power pass for the Destroyer, as was the case with the Lancebearer.
Perhaps my opinion, as well as that of some fans, will change when the final patch notes are available. Until then, however, it is a matter of waiting.
What do you think of the upcoming update? Are you looking forward to the May patch or rather to the upcoming summer roadmap? Feel free to let us know in the comments here on MeinMMO.
