Lost Ark has presented the roadmap for the second half of 2021. In addition to a huge raid, there will also be a new class and the promise to continue to loosen the gender lock.
This is the Sorceress: The Sorceress is the 21st class that will be released for Lost Ark. She belongs to the Mage archetype and wields a staff as her weapon. The class is a very classic sorceress, which has been missed by some magic fans in the MMORPG so far.
The Sorceress casts powerful elemental spells that cause massive area damage. These include meteors falling from the sky or thunderstorms that rain lightning down on opponents. At the same time, the introduction video also shows that the class is less mobile than her Mage colleagues Arcana or Bard.
The displayed spells have long animations and likely also preparation time, even though no UI elements like a cast bar are visible in the video. Unfortunately, nothing is known yet about her abilities, class-specific resources, and important identity skill.
The Sorceress will be released in Korea on August 11, which means that information about her abilities will not take long to arrive. You can see a short gameplay preview of the Sorceress in the video:
This is what the developers said about the gender lock: Like most classes in Lost Ark, the Sorceress will also have a gender lock at least at release. This means that you will only be able to play female characters with that class. However, according to Smilegate, this is expected to change further in the future.
Since the beginning of 2021, two new classes have been released in Lost Ark, which have loosened the gender lock restrictions. The loosening works similarly to Black Desert Online. Although the new classes play identically to existing ones, they have a different gender:
- Gunslinger is the female version of the Deadeye (Gunner archetype)
- Striker is the male version of the Wardancer (Martial archetype)
According to Smilegate, the two classes have been well received in Korea. The feedback was so positive that the developer will therefore release more such gender lock loosening in the future.
Is the Sorceress the secret 15th class for Europe?
This is being speculated: In Asian games, it is often the case that their content is released later in the West. However, some players suspect that the brand-new class Sorceress will be available in Europe directly at release.
The main reason for this was the announcement by Amazon that Lost Ark will have 15 playable classes at launch. In the first alpha, which took place in early June, only 14 classes were playable. The 15th class was confirmed, however, Amazon did not reveal which class it will be.
Fans on reddit and YouTube therefore suspect that Amazon wanted to wait for the official announcement of the Sorceress by the developer Smilegate to then present her as the 15th class for Europe.
The Sorceress would also serve well as a replacement for the Arcana. Arcana is also a Mage archetype class that was playable in Korea directly at launch. However, it will not be available in Europe for the time being. Fans suspect that we will first receive the new class Sorceress in the West.
It would not be the first time that brand new content from Korea is immediately released in other regions. Season 2 of Lost Ark, which brought significant changes to core gameplay, was even beta-tested in Japan before the Korea release.
However, these are just speculations from the fans. Whether the Sorceress will indeed be playable at release in our region will likely only be revealed in the first beta:
