The Lance Master, in English Lance Master, is the 5th subclass of the Martial Artist and will be introduced with the April update in Lost Ark. MeinMMO author Anny Bader has taken a closer look at her and explains what it’s all about.
On the Russian and Korean servers, the Lance Master is very popular. Amazon and Smilegate reacted to the fans’ wishes, which is why the class will soon be playable on our servers.
She is the only Martial Artist who carries a real weapon instead of fighting with her fists. With the Lance Master, you switch between a spear and a glaive. Accordingly, the skills you can use vary depending on the weapon.
As a Lance Master, you are similarly mobile as the Deathblade, at least when you activate the right tripods. This allows you to move quickly in combat. This is important, as you deal more damage with some attacks from behind and often need to reposition yourself.
Against monsters, you are incredibly strong with the Lance Master, which is why the class is ranked S in various tier lists.
This is how the Lance Master plays
This is the special ability of the Lance Master: The identity of the Lance Master is switching between the two weapons. In combat, you build energy, which allows you to deal more damage. Some of your attacks consume a portion of that energy when used.
With the blue attacks, you generate energy. The fuller the energy bar, the stronger your red attacks ultimately become.
The weapon switch itself has no cooldown, but you should keep an eye on the different cooldowns of your skills.
The red skills are called focus skills, while the blue ones are storm skills. Unlike other classes, you have not 8 but 14 skills that you can upgrade simultaneously.
All skills of the Lance Master
Focus Skills
Lightning Kick: Propel yourself 7 meters forward while dealing damage.
Double Strike: Attack 2 times with the spear.
Binding Blue Dragon: Shockwave that deals damage to opponents and makes them lose 3% of their crit resistance for 6 seconds.
Half-moon Strike: Drag your weapon along the ground, move forward and execute an upward strike.
High Jump: Stick your spear into the ground and jump like in pole vaulting. This is the counter-attack of the Lance Master.
Chain Strike: Strike upwards, then move 3 meters forward and strike twice in the opposite direction.
Claw of the Blue Dragon: Move 4 meters forward, strike 6 times, and then move back 3 meters.
Blade Wheel: Whirlwind attack that launches opponents back into the air and ultimately slams them to the ground.
Panic Strike: Move 4 meters forward while striking 3 times. You will launch your opponents back into the air.
Raging Dragon Strike: You spin completely, deal a lot of damage, and push opponents back.
Cutting Wind: Move 8 meters forward while striking 3 times. Then return to your starting position.
Soul Cut: Glide 3 meters forward and attack. Then move back 4 meters and crouch. Press the hotkey again to rush forward 4 meters and deal damage multiple times.
Spear Jump: Jump high and thrust your weapon 5 meters, then execute a rotating kick attack. Press again to land in the direction of the cursor and strike again.
Wind Splitter: Attack in different directions and pull opponents towards you.
Focus Skills
Dragon Scale Defense: Block attacks from the front, reducing up to 50% of your maximum HP damage. If you block quickly enough, you will thrust your spear forward and deal damage.
Red Dragon Horn: Hold to gather energy. Then thrust your spear up to 12 meters at a 90-degree angle at your opponent. Hit the perfect area to increase the attack range to 16 meters and deal more damage.
Spiral Spear: Strike at low stance with the spear. Little cooldown.
Starfall Jump: Jump 8 meters around the cursor and create a shockwave that deals damage and launches opponents into the air.
Pierce of Destruction: Gather energy and then thrust your spear forward to attack multiple times.
Four-Headed Dragon: 8 forward attacks plus a final attack that deals the most damage.
The Lance Master in the Level Process
How should I distribute my first skill points? The important thing when distributing the points is that you never need to raise the skill levels higher than level 10. Skill Level 4 is needed for the first tripod, Skill Level 7 for the second, and Skill Level 10 for the third.
Level 12: First, you allocate 4 points each to Panic Strike and Half-moon Strike.
Up to Level 21: Allocate a total of 48 points to Raging Dragon Strike for AoE damage.
Up to Level 30: Now increase Half-moon Strike to Level 10 to have another strong AoE attack.
Up to Level 38: Allocate 48 points to Cutting Wind and decide with the tripods whether you want to focus the attack on AoE damage or Single-Target damage.
Up to Level 50: The last points go into Starfall Jump, one of the red skills.
The best builds in the Endgame
In the endgame, you choose, as with most other classes, between two class engravings. This decides your playstyle.
Class Engraving A: Summit
What does the engraving do? This class engraving gives you more attack and movement speed and increases your crit and damage as soon as you switch from the blue stance to the red.
Your identity skill remains the same; you still switch between storm and focus skills.
For the stats, focus on agility and specialization. This reduces your cooldowns and fills your identity meter faster.
Which engravings do I use? Experienced players often rely on Wrath, but this increases your damage by 20% while also taking damage. Instead, at the beginning, it is worth taking Master of Ambush, as your attacks from behind deal more damage.
Additionally, you can use Adrenaline to increase your crit.
Which collectible cards are important? To further increase your crit rate, you should initially focus on the Howling Rock card set. It consists of Armel, Seria, Solas, King Thirain, Kharmine, and Delain Armel.
The optimal set is Light of Redemption, which consists of rare cards. Thus, it becomes expensive later, but it is worth it. The set consists of Shandi, Azena, and Innana, Nineveh, Wei, Balthorr, and Thirain. With a 6-piece set and 30-piece awakening, the cards give you 8% more holy damage and convert all your damage into holy damage.
Which skills do I use?
| Icon | Skill | Level | Tripods |
 | Chain Strike | 4 | Crash Dive |
 | Lightning Kick | 4 | Great Mobility |
 | High Jump | 4 | Quick Preparation |
 | Half-moon Strike | 10 | Whirling Sky Strike Final Decision Pursuit Strike |
 | Raging Dragon Strike | 10 | Quick Preparation Tempo Strike Awakening |
 | Cutting Wind | 4 | Fire Power Control |
 | Binding Blue Dragon | 10 | Quick Preparation Lightning Critical Spear |
 | Blade Wheel | 4 | Magic Control |
 | Four-Headed Dragon | 10 | Fire Power Control Shadow Strike Infected Wound |
 | Starfall Jump | 10 | Weakness Detection Quick Preparation Powerful Finish |
 | Dragon Scale Defense | 4 | Persistent Faith |
 | Red Dragon Horn | 10 | Quick Preparation Spear of Destruction Weakness Detection |
 | Spiral Spear | 4 | Fire Power Control |
 | Pierce of Destruction | 1 | – |
As an awakening, you use Storming Red Dragon.
What does the rotation look like? Before the actual rotation begins, fill your identity bar with at least 2.5 bars by using any blue attacks. This way, you will receive the damage buff.
You start in the blue stance and use Binding Blue Dragon to apply the debuff. Then you use your awakening.
If your awakening is not charged, you use Raging Dragon Strike instead after Binding Blue Dragon.
Now switch to the red skills. In the remaining seconds of the debuff, you use Four-Headed Dragon. The attack is executed by a clone of you while you charge Red Dragon Horn. If there is still time left, use Starfall Jump.
Then switch back to the blue stance and fill the identity bar again.
Class Engraving B: Interact
What does the engraving do? The second class engraving removes all red skills from you, meaning the complete weapon switch. However, the blue skills deal more damage. Instead of 14, you now have 8 skills available.
The gameplay is simpler as there is no more switching involved. However, you lose your ranged attacks and the defensive skill, making you attack constantly in this build and remain close to the enemy.
Since you do not receive a crit buff here, you focus on crit for the stats. Agility is also important for the class.
Which engravings do I use? To further increase your crit, the combat engraving Adrenaline is worthwhile in this build. As a third engraving, use Master of Ambush or, if you already have a lot of crit in the build, Reckless Blunt Weapon.
Which collectible cards are important? The collectible cards are not different from the other class engraving. To further increase your crit rate, you should initially focus on the Howling Rock card set. It consists of Armel, Seria, Solas, King Thirain, Kharmine, and Delain Armel.
The optimal set is also Light of Redemption, which consists of rare cards. Thus, it becomes expensive later but is worthwhile.
Which skills do I use?
| Icon | Skill | Level | Tripods |
| Chain Strike | 10 | Deadly Strike Final Decision Weakness Detection |
 | Panic Strike | 10 | Nerve Strike Enhanced Strike Rending Blade |
| High Jump | 4 | Quick Preparation |
| Half-moon Strike | 10 | Storm Mastery Final Decision Tornado Blade |
| Raging Dragon Strike | 10 | Quick Preparation Tempo Strike Awakening |
| Blade Wheel | 7 | Magic Control Persistence |
| Binding Blue Dragon | 10 | Quick Preparation Lightning Critical Spear |
| Cutting Wind | 7 | Quick Preparation Bravery |
As an awakening, you use Spear Meteor.
What does the rotation look like? Depending on the enemy, you use the many mobility skills to position yourself. It is important that you stand behind the enemy.
The rotation starts with Binding Blue Dragon for the debuff. Then you either use your awakening or, if it is not charged, Raging Dragon Strike.
As long as the debuff holds, you now use your other attacks. When Binding Blue Dragon is recharged, the rotation starts again.
What do you think about the Lance Master? Do you want to play her as soon as she arrives on the EU servers, or are you waiting for the other new classes instead? If you play her: Which class engraving did you choose? Which class are you most looking forward to? Feel free to let us know in the comments here on MeinMMO!
You can find more guides here: Lost Ark Guides: All tips, tricks, and builds at a glance
