Lost Ark endgame nerfs detailed in full

While the first big update for Lost Ark is due later this month, a lot of conversation among players has been about the announcement that the next weekly update would rebalance some tier 1 and tier 2 endgame activities—several of its Abyssal Dungeons and Guardian Raids are being nerfed. Hardcore players wailed their game was being ruined for the sake of casuals, though there were also plenty of players pointing out that Guardian Raids in particular—activities intended to be repeated daily—don't need to be quite as drawn-out as they currently are.

As well as detailing the changes in full, the latest blog post explains more of the reasoning behind the rebalance. "In other regions," it says, "players had to stay in Tier 1 and 2 for a considerable duration, as Tier 3 had not yet been released. With the amount of time spent in these stages of the game, players had a long time to study the patterns and mechanics of the Guardians and Demons they encountered— leaving only a few monsters that ended up posing as challenging hurdles for them." 

Meanwhile, the western version of Lost Ark launched with three tiers of endgame activities. Rather than being the be-all-and-end-all, the first two tiers of our version were intended to be a gentle ramp-up into what follows. But that's not how they were working.

"With the different purpose of Tier 1 and Tier 2 in our regions," the post continues, "there were some overly difficult Guardians and Abyssal Dungeon encounters left behind. This balance update isn't about simply adjusting the difficulty as [a] whole. Rather, the focus is to improve some of the difficult patterns to better prepare players as they progress through each Tier and work their way toward Tier 3 endgame content."

The actual updates aren't nearly as cataclysmic as some were predicting. Many of them simply tweak the amount of damage caused by specific attacks or alter attack patterns rather than being sweeping changes. Here they are:

ABYSSAL DUNGEONS

ANCIENT ELVERIA

• Necromancer's Origin
• Improved player forgiveness during the orb phase when trying to defeat Sigmund during Stage 2 of Necromancer's Origin.
• Improved the visual effect of Sigmund's color wave to make it more clear to players.

PHANTOM PALACE 

• Hall of the Twisted Warlord
• Made a change to the Phantom Legion King attack pattern and Phantom Cut debuff stack that is applied to the character.
• Updated the Phantom Legion King Illusion Sword summon attack pattern.
• As the swords follow the players, if a player receives two stacks they will incur damage and upon reaching three stacks, they will die.
• Hildebrandt Palace
• Decreased the amount of damage required for the Stagger phase when Ephernia appears in Stage 3 of Hildebrandt Palace.
• Increased the Phantom Energy effect range from the Meteormechanicduring Stage 3.
• Changed the attack shape of the second Meteormechanicfrom a circle to a front attack during Stage 3.

GATE OF PARADISE

• Sea of Indolence
• Increased the warning time for the omen attack in Stage 2 of Sea of Indolence.
• Changed Indolence Sentinel Akam's attack from a wipe mechanic to a high damage attack in Stage 2 of Sea of Indolence.

GUARDIAN RAIDS

Vertus

• Removed the stun debuff that was applied when players were hit by the tail swing attack.
• Decreased the damage dealt by several attacks:
  • Jumping out of the ice.
  • Grabbing a player and breathing ice fire.

Nacrasena

• Decreased the damage dealt by several attacks:
  • Tail attack after thumping the ground with tail.
  • Jumping out of the ground.
  • Lightning projectiles.

Flame Fox Yoho

• Reduced the duration of Flame Fox Yoho's Flame Ground attack.
• Decreased Flame Fox Yoho's HP.
• Reduced the effect of the Burning Soul ability.
• Decreased the damage dealt by several attacks:
  • Throwing Fox fires.
  • Jump forward and claw attacks.
  • Jump upward and claw attacks.

Tytalos

• Decreased the duration of Tytalos' Circle of Spalling rock attack.
• Changed Tytalos’ attack that collects sand energy and explodes from a wipe mechanic to a high-damage attack.
• Decreased the damage dealt by Tytalos’ earth explosion attacks.

Achates

• Modified Guardian Achates summon statue pattern to always summon four Guardian Statues.
• Decreased the damage required to apply Weak Point to Achates.
• To keep Achates challenging in Trial Guardian Raids, that encounter will not have these changes – but more on that in a future update!

Lava Chromanium

•  Decreased the damage dealt by the lava eruption attack used by Lava Chromanium when becoming Berserk. 

Levanos

• Decreased the damage required to apply Weak Point* to Levanos.
  • *Weak Point is a mechanic which requires players to break a part of the enemy (such as shields, shells, wings etc.) or target a specific area with abilities and battle items marked with the 'Destruction' keyword.

Alberhastic

• Reduced Alberhastic's beneficial effect that was granted when obtaining the Heat Orb.
• Changed the wipe mechanic to a high-damage attack.

The update will also include several bugfixes and some improvements to how matchmaking works. It's going live tonight, meaning an expected downtime of six hours will begin at 10pm PST / 5pm AEST / 6am UTC.