Introduction
Artist is one of the 3 support classes in Lost Ark. Whereas Bards prevent damage by focusing on high shield uptime, Paladins with consistent area wide team buffs and Artist is possibly 1 of the best babysitter support with the high healing rate and portals for allies that mispositioned.
The most unique tool that Artist offers is summoning portals with Paint: Door of Illusion that your allies can interact with to get a massive shield and gets teleport to your location it can be improved by having properties to remove debuffs without allies interacting but the worst part of the skill is hoping your allies have the awareness to take your portal even if you tried to save them.
The other strong point of Artist support, it's her Harmony Orbs mechanic, Whereas Bards can't choose how much meter they use for Heals and Buffs as their identity skills consume all the filled bar that she has and Paladins will always consume the entire bar regardless, Artist heals with Sunrise only cost 1 Harmony Orb each while Moonfall the damage buff only cost 2 Orbs. This allows Artist able to Heal or Buffs without accidentally consuming their entire Identity Gauge unlike other supports.
Artist has the best party mana regain skill in the game when compared to other supports, with Paint: Sun Well instant regains 30% max mana with fairly low cooldown when you have high Swiftness stats, whereas other supports only provides 40-50% mana regen increase.
The downside of Artist support is her ability to shield allies requires her to be jumping on them or close to them with Stroke: Hopper which sometimes it's not the wise choice as you might get yourself caught in big mechanic resulting in 2 man down instead of only 1 man and Stroke: Sprinkle can be difficult to shield multiple allies if everyone is not group up due to its linear area of coverage.
If supporting your allies with sheer cuteness while devilishly splashing ink all over them for morale boost brushes your canvas, then paint the path for your allies with Full Bloom Artist.
Check out the Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides for an introduction to their content.
This build guide assumes you have a Character at Level 50 before transitioning to it. Check out the Artist Leveling and 1-50 Leveling guides to reach Level 50.
Raid Skill Build
- Lets start with Branding skills, Paint: Drawing Orchids is generally best use for all situations as it provides Attack Speed , Movement Speed buffs as well as the Ink Brand and it has a lot of hits which you can use the Conviction and Judgment combo if you want to. Then Paint: Butterfly Dream it's a preference for a faster animation branding and Stroke: Ink Shower is generally only used when you do not have enough skill points to max out both of the previous skills mentioned.
- Paint: Sun Well and Paint: Sunsketch are your team damage buff that you rotate between them as they do not stack, only players standing on Paint: Sun Well gets effect by its damage buff. Party members will also get a massive instant 30% mana regen from Paint: Sun Well without being inside the area.
- Stroke: Hopper is your team shielding skill but it requires you to jump on top or nearby your allies for them to get it and it generates decent Harmony Meter.
- Stroke: Sprinkle is your 2nd team shielding skill but it does require some aiming as it is quite linear. This is 1 of your high Stagger Check skill.
- Paint: Pouncing Tiger is a multi-purpose skill that generates decent Harmony Meter and provides Destruction and Stagger Check. This skill is also 1 of your high Stagger Check skill.
- Paint: Door of Illusion provides Artist a debuff cleansing tool to cleanse debuffs and some Crowd Controls from allies and if your allies interact with the portal it will grant them massive shield and gets teleport to your location. This skill is also able to generate Harmony Meter by just casting it even if your allies don't interact with the portal.
- Unfortunately, Artist only has 1 good Counter Skill which is Stroke: Upward Stroke since it can generate decent Harmony Meter and has Tenacity as a save backup if you need to superarmor through certain mechanics or failed counter. Since Stroke: One Stroke start-up animation is too long for Counter Attacking even with high Swiftness.
Alternatives
- You can upgrade Paint: Pouncing Tiger to get Two Tigers for better Destruction Check, but the Stagger value and Destruction Check are split between both tigers. Hence if you can’t consistently hit two tigers, just leave the skill at level 7.
Being at level 7 reduces its mana cost as well. This leaves you with a bunch of unused skill points since there’s nothing else to upgrade.
- Paint: Pouncing Tiger can be replaced with 2 options of your preference but it also based on situations that allows you to use them.
- If the specific bosses do not need Destruction and Stagger Check, you can replace it for Paint: Ink Well for higher Harmony Meter gain.
- You can also replace it with Paint: Starry Night to help allies to greed damage by shielding them and giving them a massive 75% damage reduction on top of the shield but it requires you to be right next to your allies because of its small area coverage. Protection is require as Azure Starlight doesn't shield yourself.
Gameplay
- Keep the brand up as frequently as you can with Paint: Drawing Orchids, Stroke: Ink Shower or Paint: Butterfly Dream. Whichever brand skill you are using.
- Rotate your party damage buff between Paint: Sunsketch and Paint: Sun Well as the buff does not stack with each other.
- Shield your teammates with Stroke: Hopper and try to hit the bosses with it at the same time as well to generate some Harmony Meter.
- Stroke: Sprinkle is another shielding skill that you can use to maintain shield on your allies but it has a linear area coverage, which can be difficult to shield multiple Hit Master Classes. This skill is also 1 of your main Stagger Check skill as well.
- Use Paint: Pouncing Tiger sparingly as this is your multi-purpose tool that is used for Harmony Meter generator and also for Destruction and Stagger Check.
- Paint: Door of Illusion generates a decent chunk of Harmony Meter on cast even without being interacted with or being used by allies, so use it as often as you can unless the specific boss has debuffs that need to be cleansed or if your party members need babysitting to help them reposition.
- Use Stroke: Upward Stroke sparingly to generate Harmony Meter to keep your Harmony Orbs going if your party members needed heals or damage buff but hold onto it if Counter Checks has not happened recently to be ready for it.
- It is best to always able to keep using Moonfall to boost the damage of your party and it stacks on top of buffs provided by Paint: Sunsketch and Paint: Sun Well but if your party requires healing, Sunrise will top them up with the area burst heal when you have Full Bloom equipped and when they interact with the orb.
- If you are using the Conviction and Judgment combo with Paint: Drawing Orchids and Paint: Sun Well, make sure to keep a mental note of the rune effect internal cooldown(30 seconds) and keep the longest cooldown skills if it's close to the end of the runes cooldown to benefit from the extra cooldown reduction. It is best to use your awakening Masterwork: Efflorescence during Judgement rune buff window to shorten it's cooldown to generate tons of Harmony Meter.
Stats Priority
Supports usually only use Swiftness and Specialization Combat Stats with the main focus on Swiftness to maximize cooldown reduction to able to use your damage buffs and shielding as frequently as possible which will also benefit in generating Harmony Meter.
- You want to focus Swiftness on every piece of accessories with Specialization only from Necklace and Bracelet.
Bracelet
Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls.
Note: Bracelets should not be your top priority to optimize since it'll be much more efficient to optimize your other gear first. Bracelets are costly! So slowly build towards a Main Stat and a Sub Stat. Anything else is extra!
Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.
Possible Special Effects to Roll:
Optimal
Combat Stats(Swiftness* + Specialization)
Expose Weakness
Dagger
Enlightenment
Cheers
Alternatives
Basic Effect(Intelligence)
Vitality
Max HP
Weapon Power
Harvest
Flip
Emergency Transfusion
Charge
MP Recovery
Max MP
Engravings
Class Engravings provide powerful benefits that dictate the playstyle of a class. Battle Engravings are generally used to increase damage. Below are the recommended Engravings for this build.
Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.
Starter Engravings
- Full Bloom adds AoE burst of healing to your Sunrise for all allies around the area.
- Awakening reduces Awakening Skill cooldown to provide more opportunities to shield allies from specific damage soak mechanics. Awakening Skills also fill your Harmony Meter, so you can use Sunrise when needed to heal allies or Moonfall for burst of damage buffs for your party members.
Add-On Endgame Engravings
- Expert increases heals and shield efficiency of your skills. The effectiveness increases further if an ally is below 50% health pool.
- Drops of Ether generate Ethers that can be picked up by allies to grant Attack Damage, Critical Strike Chance, Movement Speed, Defense or Mana Gain.
- Vital Point Hit increases Stagger damage done, which will help loosen the pressure on certain bosses with high Stagger check.
- Heavy Armor increases defense for higher survivability. Moreover, armor shredding debuffs don't affect the bonus defense from this Engraving.
- Explosive Expert increases the number of consumables you can carry which does provide some convenience and extra safety when extra Stagger Check or Imprisonment dispel is needed with Whirlwind Grenade or Flame Grenade, but the most value to pair with this engraving is Dark Grenade to increase the damage output of the raid for an even longer duration of the boss encounter.
Optimal Setups
Engravings are listed in order of priority from left to right.
Option 1
Option 2
Gear Sets
These are the specific gear sets for each tier.
Check out the Gear Set Guide for more details.
Early Game
250-1100 gearscore
Providence Set
1250-1340 gearscore
Dimensional Set
Early Tier 3
1340 -1414 gearscore
Erupting Waves Set
Piercing Gaze Set
Craft any combination of the legendary gear sets listed above and try to push to 1415 as soon as possible.
Tier 3 Legion Raid Set
1415-1490-1580+ gearscore
Yearning Set
The name of your set will change with every higher tier gearset you acquire, but the set effect will remain the same. Look for the keyword of your set when recrafting it so you don't easily get lost.(e.g Entropy, Hallucination etc)
Sidereal Weapon
Recommended Sidereal Unity Effects for your Dreamy Peach Garden is Balthorr.
Check out the Sidereal Weapon Guide for more details.
Runes
Runes enhance Skills with extra bonuses. All Rune drops are account bound and have limited availability, so placement of Runes on the correct Skills is important. Below are the recommended pairings.
Check the Rune Guide for more details.
| Skills | Runes |
| Stroke: Sprinkle | Overwhelm |
| Stroke: Hopper | Wealth |
| Paint: Drawing Orchids | Galewind Conviction |
| Paint: Pouncing Tiger | Overwhelm |
| Paint: Door of Illusion | Focus |
| Paint: Sun Well | Focus Judgment |
| Stroke: Upward Stroke | Galewind |
| Paint: Sunsketch | Focus |
| Stroke: Ink Shower* | Galewind |
| Paint: Starry Night* | Protection |
| Paint: Butterfly Dream* | Focus |
| Paint: Ink Well* | Wealth |
- Overwhelm is paired with Stroke: Sprinkle and Paint: Pouncing Tiger to significantly increase their Stagger Check. Especially, when you have Vital Point Hit equipped. Both of these skills provide additional utilities like shielding and Destruction Checks as well as decent Stagger Check which makes them a good stagger skills candidate when compare to other skills.
- Galewind helps speed up skills for comfortability and as well as allowing Stroke: Upward Stroke able to counter as smoothly as possible.
- Focus is highly recommended to manage mana issues as the higher swiftness you have the more mana hungry it is to maintain damage buffs and generating Identity Gauge with all the skills you'll be casting.
- Wealth helps with generating Identity Gauge which is pretty handy when pairing with Stroke: Hopper as you will be using the skill often shielding allies and try to hit bosses with it as well.
- Protection is paired with Paint: Starry Night, if you are you using the skill as it does not shield yourself but only your allies while using it. hence improving the skill with self-shield makes it a lot more comfortable to shield allies with it in sticky situations as you have to put yourself next to your allies while using the skill.
- Conviction and Judgment can be an option to use with Paint: Drawing Orchids and Paint: Sun Well as both skills have good amount of hit counts to trigger the runes combo effectively which the Judgement buff can help with mana regen and some cooldown reduction to use awakening more frequently to charge up your Identity Gauge.
(*) Optional skill choices.
Gear Skill Tree
While Gems add benefits to skills, you can also increase the effects of Skill Tree themselves. Skill Tree levels go up to 5 and each level can increase the damage, cooldown reduction or buff that they provide.
For more information on how to add equipment Skill Tree and how to get them, please visit our Skill Tree System Guide.
| Stroke: Sprinkle | Ink Shield |
| Stroke: Hopper | Energy Enhancement Yellow Ink |
| Paint: Pouncing Tiger | Quick Prep |
| Paint: Sun Well | Quick Prep |
| Stroke: Upward Stroke | Energy Enhancement |
| Paint: Starry Night* | Sturdy Armor Azure Starlight |
| Paint: Ink Well* | Energy Enhancement |
(*) Optional skill choices.
Supports most important Skill Tree nodes are nodes that provide more Cooldown Reduction, more Harmony Meter gain and Increased Shield Values. You can invest the remaining Skill Tree upgrades onto skill's damage nodes to help with solo contents like Chaos Dungeons and Questing.
Gems
Gems grant bonus damage and cooldown reduction to specific skills. You can only equip 11 of these Gems at a time so it is recommended that you prioritize the Gems for your most important skills.
Please visit our Gem System Guide for more information like how to create higher tier Gems.
Attack Gems
None
Cooldown Gems
Stroke: Sprinkle
Stroke: Hopper
Paint: Drawing Orchids
Paint: Pouncing Tiger
Paint: Door of Illusion
Paint: Sun Well
Stroke: Upward Stroke
Paint: Sunsketch
Stroke: Ink Shower*
Paint: Butterfly Dream*
Paint: Ink Well*
(*) Optional gems choices.
Card Sets
Cards are an endgame system for maximizing your character. Below are the recommended sets for this class.
Check the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain them.
Beginner Card Set
Artist heals work off of their own total HP, and thus you want cards that increase your HP pool. These two Recommended Card Sets do just that; every 2 set pieces increases your total HP by 4%. Because these set bonuses are activated every 2 pieces, you can mix and match the two sets below without worry.
Budget Card Set
This is the best mid-game card set for a support as it is basically a budget version of Lostwind Cliff set, if you have it upgraded this set can be use until you have fully upgraded your Lostwind Cliff set for better damage increase to your party members that has Light of Salvation sets.
Optional Card Set
The effectiveness of the 'Recommended' HP card sets shouldn't be understated, and is preferred for their support utility over this set even until late endgame. However, for those who want higher personal survivability or are not using the Heavy Armor Engraving, the following set can be viable if you have enough set pieces to activate them both.
Synergy with Light of Salvation Deck
Synergy with Kazeros's Legion Commanders
Summary
- Keeping your Ink Brand up permanently is top priority as it gives massive damage boost to your allies.
- Rotate your party damage buff between Paint: Sun Well and Paint: Sunsketch as the damage buff does not stack.
- Use Paint: Door of Illusion as frequent as you can since it generates massive amount of Harmony Meter even if your allies didn't interact with them.
- Paint: Pouncing Tiger and Stroke: Sprinkle are your quick burst of Stagger when Stagger Checks happen.
- Stroke: Upward Stroke is your Counter skill and the 2nd hit can Counter as well if you missed the 1st hit.
- Full Bloom, Awakening and Expert are your 3 cores engravings, then try to get Vital Point Hit as your 4th as you progress higher end of Legion Raids.
Credits
Written by Rei
Reviewed by Starlast