KR Dev Letter – Tier 4 & Season 3

As a follow-up to the major reveals from LOA ON, Korea has received a dev post going into the details of how new systems function, what will happen to current gear, and more. Read on to find out how to best prepare for Tier 4's arrival in September.

If you haven't caught up with this year's Summer LOA ON yet, check out our summary.

Tier 4 Basics

A character can enter Tier 4 after completing the story of North Kurzan, which can be started after the following requirements are met:

• Item Level must be 1600 or higher
• South Kurzan's story must be completed
• The prequest for Kazeros Raid: Echidna must be completed
• The prequest for Epic Raid: Behemoth must be completed

It is not yet certain whether the epilogue quests are roster-wide or must be completed by each character.

Kurzan Frontline & Fort Kenuat

After completing the story of North Kurzan, you will gain access to the Kurzan Frontline and Kenuat Fortress, as well as two new Chaos Dungeon tiers, with entry requirements set at Item Level 1640 and 1660, and a new Guardian Raid that drops the new Vision Rune, with entry requirements set at Item Level 1640. Tier 4 content also include a new stage of Ebony Cube, a new stage of Chaos Gate, and a new Field Boss.

Kurzan Frontline is a new type of hack-and-slash content that functions as an alternative to Chaos Dungeons. It uses the same Energy of Resonance system, but instead of consuming 50 Energy, allowing two entries per day, it consumes 100, allowing only one entry. Rewards will be adjusted accordingly, and this content should last approximately 1.5x the duration of a Chaos Dungeon and grant 1.5x the rewards.

Kenuat Fortress is a new dungeon that can either be entered in a party of 4, or attempted solo. The required Item Level is 1620, and it can be entered up to 3 times per day. The main point of this dungeon is to allow you to farm Tier 4 Relic equipment, ensuring a smooth transition. Every day, a gear selection chest is guaranteed to drop the first time you defeat a boss in this dungeon, and additional chests can be obtained as drops.

Character Growth

Roster Level capacity will be raised from 300 to 400, and Character Level capacity will be raised from 60 to 70, allowing you to gain more Skill Points, and increasing the maximum limit of skills from 12 to 14. The current limit of 18 enhanced Tripods will also be removed, instead applying the highest available level of that Tripod when you select it.

Content changes

Epic Raid: Behemoth will be changed to provide Tier 4 materials and equipment, as well as Relic Engraving Recipes, with the required Item Level remaining at 1640. However, it will no longer drop Bracelets.

Gold can no longer be obtained from Fate Embers that drop in content requiring Item Level 1540 or lower, and some of the other rewards will be adjusted accordingly.

Tier 3 Pheon Costs

Pheon costs will be adjusted for all Tier 3 equipment as follows:

Tier 4 Equipment

Relic equipment acquired from Kenuat Fortress only goes up to +20, while Ancient equipment will go as far as +25. While initially unobtainable, Ancient equipment will become available from Kazeros Raid: Act 1 (Akkan). The stats will be exactly the same between these sets, with the only difference being the enhancement capacity.

Tier 3 equipment can be transferred to Tier 4 with the following results:

Honing

Equipment will use Traditional Honing, with new materials being introduced in Tier 4 content. Tier 3 Radiant Honor Leapstone, Refined Obliteration Stone, and Refined Protection Stone can also be exchanged to Tier 4 materials at a currently undisclosed rate.

Advanced Honing will carry over upon transferring to Tier 4 equipment, and will now require unknown amounts of Tier 4 materials to enhance. All other aspects regarding Advanced Honing will remain the same as in Tier 3.

Quality

While it has been mentioned during LOA ON that equipment quality will be raised to 120 in Tier 4, this will no longer be the case. Upon transferring, your current quality is retained and the maximum will be maintained at 100.

Weapon Glow Library

This is a new feature that allows you to select your preferred weapon glow at any time, regardless of your weapon's current enhancement. The only requirement is that you must have unlocked the glow you want to select by honing to that specific level. You may also preview glows that you haven't yet unlocked. Sidereal Weapon glows will not be included in this system.

Accessories

Unlike their Tier 3 counterparts, these accessories do not feature Combat Stats (Crit, Specialization, Swiftness) and Engravings, instead being granted new options. Relic accessories can be obtained from content that requires Item Level 1640, while Ancient accessories can be obtained from content that requires Item Level 1680.

The process that grants these accessories new options is called Polishing. Each accessory can be polished up to 3 times, increasing their regular stats (Vitality, STR/DEX/INT, Defense), and granting it various effects. Accessories can be used regardless of their polish level, and can be traded at any time (limited up to 3 times). The material required for this process can be acquired by dismantling other Tier 4 accessories.

Bracelets

Tier 4 Bracelets will become available starting with Kazeros Raid: Act 2 (Brelshaza), and will be added as rewards to other content within the same update.

Similar to Tier 3 Bracelets, when rerolling effects you can lock current options to prevent them from being replaced. However, Tier 4 Bracelets have a new feature that allows you to keep the current effects if the newly rolled ones are unfavourable. You may only select between previous effects and new effects as a whole.

Later, a new feature will be added to allow you to grant additional rolls to bracelets that have exhausted the initial amount.

Engravings System

The current system of engravings will remain in place, and can be used freely as long as Ark Passive are not enabled. However, under Ark Passive, engravings function in a different manner.

You may have up to 5 Combat Engravings equipped, and Engraving Recipes must be learned for all of them. Every engraving starts off with a basic effect at Heroic level, and with every 5 Engraving Recipes learned, it gains additional effects at Epic, Legendary, and Relic levels. Engraving values can be slightly different from current ones, usually leading to an improvement in performance.

Some engravings have also been rebalanced:

• Ambush Master
  • Old: Damage +5/12/25% for successful Back Attacks.
  • New: Damage +1/3/7%, and damage +3/7/15% for successful Back Attacks.
• Master Brawler
  • Old: Damage +5/12/25% for successful Front Attacks.
  • New: Damage +1/3/7%, and damage +3/7/15% for successful Front Attacks.
• Magick Stream
  • Old: Stacks up to +5/10/15% MP Recovery every 3s while you are not attacked. When the maximum stack is reached, skill Cooldown -3/6/10%. Being hit removes 1 stack of the effect. A new stack cannot be gained for 10s.
  • New: When using skills other than movement and basic attacks, MP Recovery increases by +0.5/1.2/2.4% for 10 seconds (up to 10 stacks). When the maximum stack is reached, skill Cooldown -2/5/8%.
• MP Efficiency Increase
  • Old: MP Recovery +5/15/30%. When MP is at 50% or below, Damage to foes +3/6/12%.
  • New: MP Recovery +4/10/20%. Damage of skills that consume MP +3/7/15%.
• Stabilized Status
  • Old: Damage +3/8/16% when your HP is above 80%.
  • New: Damage +3/8/16% when your HP is above 65%.
• Cursed Doll
  • Old: Attack Power +3/8/16%. Healing -25%, natural recovery excluded.
  • New: Damage to foes +3/8/16%. Healing -25%, natural recovery excluded.
• Mass Increase
  • Old: Attack Speed -10%, Attack Power +4/10/18%.
  • New: Attack Speed -10%, Damage to foes +4/10/18%.
• Precise Dagger
  • Old: Crit Rate +4/10/20%. Crit Damage -12%.
  • New: Crit Rate +4/10/20%. Crit Damage -6%.

Ability Stones

Current Ability Stones can be transferred to Tier 4 and will retain most of their value within the Ark Passive system. However, instead of providing engraving nodes towards the activation of engraving levels, they now provide additional effects to engravings based on the amount of successfully cut nodes on the stone.

Bonus effects will be granted to engravings at 6, 7, 9, and 10 successful nodes, and can differ depending on the engraving. In order for these bonuses to apply, the engraving itself must be equipped. For the detrimental effects, level 1, 2, and 3 will be activated at 5, 7, and 10 successful nodes respectively.

Additionally, if the amount of bonus effects granted totals or exceeds 5, the Ability Stone will grant you +1.5% Attack Power. This effectively applies to stones with 9/7, 10/6, or higher nodes.

The cost of upgrading a Relic Ability Stone into an Ancient Ability Stone will also be lowered from 6,000 to 3,000 per stage, and the current stage of your stone will affect the cost of transferring to Tier 4 as follows.

Gems

Tier 4 Gems will be introduced, granting new effects and expanding upon the current system. Both Damage and Cooldown Gems will now feature an increase to Base Attack Power.

Damage Gems now feature the following effects for support classes, based on the skill rolled on the gem:

• Increases the amount of Healing received by party members
• Increases the amount of Shields received by party members
• Increases the Attack Power effect (based on your own Attack Power) received by party members
• Increases the Damage effect received by party members

Tier 4 Gems can be obtained and interacted with starting with Item Level 1640, and existing Tier 3 Gems can be transferred with the following results:

The gem's type (Damage, Cooldown) and current skill roll will be maintained after transfer.

Tier 3 Gems will NOT have their effects halved when using Tier 4 equipment.

Tier 4 Gems can only be equipped after reaching Item Level 1640.

Ark Passive System

This is a system that replaces the current gearing process, and allows for a more flexible and fragmentated approach to building your characters. It will be enabled by default with the release of Tier 4, but it can be enabled and disabled freely, switching between this system and current Tier 3 gear. It consists of three separate elements, each replacing specific parts of your character's setup: Evolution, Enlightenment, and Leap.

Each tab of this system has four rows of effects, and each row becomes available after a certain amount of points have been used up in the previous row. Points for each tab are earned upon levelling up, starting from Level 50.

Evolution

The Evolution tab consists of passive effects commonly used by all classes.

The first row provides Combat Stats (Crit, Specialization, Swiftness, etc.).

The second and third rows provide reorganized combat effects that were previously outfitted in Relic Gear Sets (Nightmare, Salvation, etc.).

The fourth row will introduce new effects available to all classes.

Additional points for this tab are acquired from your Weapon and Armors.

Enlightenment

The Enlightenment tab consists of passive effects unique to each class, and replaces the existing Class Engravings.

The first and second rows provide effects similar to the current Class Engravings.

The third and fourth rows provide entirely new effects that allow you to change up how your class functions in different scenarios.

Additional points for this tab are acquired from your Accessories.

Leap

The Leap tab consists of effects that enhance your Hyper Awakening and Hyper Awakening Skills.

This tab will not be available at the start of Tier 4, and will be enabled later with the release of the Third Awakening.

Additional points for this tab are acquired from your Bracelet.

Life Skills

The level of all life skill professions will be expanded from 60 to 70, and there will be a rebalancing in order to make all professions as equally profitable as possible.

Tools

Some of the options available on life skill tools are currently not intuitive, so the text will be changed to better reflect what they offer.

• The Material Acquisition Probability option will now be split in separate options for each material grade.
• The Super Armor (Push Immunity) option will be removed, and instead all life skill actions will have this feature by default.
• The Minigame Difficulty Reduction option will now be guaranteed on Expert Tools and Master Tools. To account for this, an extra option roll will become available.

Crafting Recipes

In Tier 4, Oreha Fusion Material recipes will become available for all life skill professions, and new materials will be introduced accordingly.

Material Adjustments

The following materials will be removed entirely and replaced with the according Powder:

• Crude Mushroom
• Fresh Mushroom
• Exquisite Mushroom
• Treated Meat
• Redflesh Fish

The following drops can no longer be obtained, but can still be used if acquired before the update:

• Excavation Ruins Maps
• Entrance Ticket: Platinum Field
• Hunting Secret Maps

Other changes

New active skills will be added to all professions, except Foraging. These active skills will provide you with more materials for Mining and Logging, and will trigger the minigame for Fishing, Excavating, and Hunting. The rewards for minigames will now be based on your performance instead of your life skill's level, and failing the minigame will grant no rewards.

Tier 3 Changes

Once Tier 4 releases, several systems will be changed to ease character progression in Tier 3.

Permanent Engraving Support

All characters in Tier 3 will benefit from a permanent Engraving Support feature. This functions exactly the same as the one provided by Express events, and allows you to freely select 5 engravings at no cost. However, this system is not applied when Ark Passive is enabled.

Bound Gems

Completing the Main Story Quest of Punika will grant you a set of character bound Level 5 Gems, with bound versions of Level 6 and Level 7 Gems becoming available as you progress through the story, at Item Level 1415 and 1540, respectively.

Honing and Growth Adjustments

Honing costs will be reduced significantly for Brelshaza Gear, with the following effects being applied at all times, up to +20.

• Basic enhancement rate is doubled.
• Honor Shard fill requirement is lowered by 40%.
• Gold cost is removed up to +15.
• Gold cost and required materials are lowered by 50% up to +20.

Crafting equipment and upgrading set levels will cost significantly less Gold.

Combat XP acquired from content under Level 60 will be increased significantly, and new stronghold research will be added to further improve this aspect, as well as lower the costs of honing.

Transcendence & Elixirs

The following changes will be made to Armor Transcendence, and do not apply to Weapon Transcendence:

• During the Transcendence minigame for armors, the cost of using cards is lowered from 230 to 140.
• The cost of re-attempting a minigame is lowered from 1,850 to 925.
• The amount of Dark Fire obtained from Legion Raid: Thaemine is doubled.
• The crafting limit for Ancient Soundstone when using Soundstone Fragment is removed.

The following changes will be made to the Elixir system:

• The amount of Elixirs gained from Abyssal Dungeon: Ivory Tower is doubled.
• Splendid Elixir of Wisdom will be replaced with a new version, with the following features:
  • The cost of transmuting is reduced from 280 to 140.
  • The amount of Stabilized Ductility Catalysts required to transmute is changed from 5 to 3.