1-50 Leveling Guide

Introduction

In Lost Ark, just like in a lot of other MMORPG's, there are certain benefits for leveling fast and reaching the endgame sooner rather than later. Upon reaching level 50, you can start completing Chaos Dungeons, Guardian Raids and Una’s Tasks for daily rewards. Other benefits include: less populated Islands, which makes obtaining their Island Tokens easier, and less contested Life Skill nodes. You can expect to take 9-12 hours to achieve max level in Lost Ark when focusing on efficiency, but depending on your class choice and previous experience, this time can vary significantly.

Disclaimer! This guide assumes you are willing to skip most of the side objectives to reach level 50 as quick as possible.

If you already reached level 50, check out the post level 50 guide. For a more advanced guide, check out the Speedrun to Tier 3 Walkthrough.

Getting Started

1. Create a Character Preset

If you’re the kind of person that takes a long time perfecting your appearance at character creation, you can create a preset and later use it for your other characters as a base foundation. Simply create a fully customized character and save it to any of the 5 preset slots on the left. To make sure this preset doesn't get lost, you can copy the files in “steam\steamapps\common\Lost Ark Live\EFGame\Customizing”.

2. Choose Your Class

Upon creating your character, you will be brought to Trixion, walk across the bridge and interact with the Prophecy Book. Choose your subclass and enter the Test Area. When ready, click "End Test" on the bottom right, finalize your class choice and begin your journey! If you haven't decided on what to play yet, you can get an idea of all classes in our Class Overview.

3. Skip the Prologue

Skip the Prologue to save about 20 minutes. This can be done in the top left corner of your screen, shortly after arriving in Trua, the Forgotten Land. Don't be worried about missing out on the Arthetinean Engineer's Goggles Chest (Headpiece skin) reward for completing the Prologue. These Goggles can be obtained on a new character and traded between any class archetype in your shared warehouse if they are left inside the chest. Some restrictions regarding the skin once unboxed:

• They are obtainable only once per account on the server you're playing on.
• Tradable only between characters within the same class archetype: Warrior, Martial Artist, Gunner, Mage, Assassin.
• You can't trade male version goggles to female characters and vice versa. This applies to Striker (Male Martial Artist), Gunslinger (Female Gunner) and their gender counterparts.

4. Optimal leveling route

Getting to 50 in Lost Ark is extremely simple. All it involves is exclusively following your Main Quest line, while ignoring every other quest type you come across.
In this order:

1. Rethramis

After having returned from saving Prideholme of the demon attack. Open your quest journal (J) and under the Guide Quests accept "Learning About Pets". Complete it to obtain a pet that will loot you items for free.

2. Yudia
3. West Luttera
4. East Luterra

Once you're finished with East Luterra and put in the Sea of Gienah, hide your "Finding the Arks" Main Quest since it won't be relevant for quite a while. Equip the sailor Eshu and follow the World Quest leading you to Tortoyk instead. These will act as your new Main Quests going forward.

5. Tortoyk
6. Anikka
7. Arthentine

This is where you will reach level 50! Continue with the World Quest leading you to North Vern to unlock the endgame activities of Lost Ark.

8. North Vern

Follow the steps outlined in our post level 50 guide upon reaching this point.

Leveling Optimization

A lot can be improved to make the leveling experience quicker and more enjoyable. We'll go over the most important topics to make this happen.

Skill efficiency

You have limited access to powerful skills early game, so don’t waste them on individual monsters. Group up enemies and kill them with Area of Effect (AoE) skills for maximum efficiency.

Overpopulated channels

Always make sure you are not in an overpopulated channel during quests associated with monster kills or resource gathering. This way you can avoid wasting precious time waiting for objectives to respawn. Use the dropdown menu above your minimap to change channels.

Healing Potions

During leveling make sure to never use HP Potions which heal you for a percentage of your life instantly. These are very valuable as they are the only potions you're allowed to take into endgame Raids. Instead, use Apprentice Healing Potions which heal you a set amount over time and are easily obtained through leveling.

Normal Mode Dungeons

You will encounter Main Story Dungeons that have Normal and Hard Modes. Always pick Normal Mode while leveling. They're a lot quicker to complete and yield the same amount of experience as Hard Modes. Only run these Dungeons once! During leveling, your gear will change quickly and often, so repeating them for more loot is unnecessary.
Note that they can be easily Soloed and don't require matchmaking. This is typically the fastest method because of enemy HP scaling by party size, making the dungeons harder and slower.

Song of Escape

For almost the entirety of Rethramis, Yudia, West and East Luterra, teleport to the Triport closest to your next Main Quest after completing a dungeon. Upon reaching Tortyok and onwards, use Song of Escape after completing a dungeon if the Main Quest continues outside it.

Don't overkill

Raw monster kills give almost no experience! Only do the bare minimum for your quests and move on the moment they are completed. Tagging monsters being killed by other players still contributes to your quest objectives. Use this to complete your quests quicker.

Use your power spikes

At certain level thresholds you have enough skill points to max out one or more of your abilities. This increases the power of those skills significantly and makes your progression through the game a lot easier. To find out more about recommended abilities for your specific class during leveling check out our build guides.

Accessories

Starting from level 18, one of your greatest damage sources while leveling comes from accessories. Make sure to equip them as soon as you get your first ones. Accessories with Crit and Specialization are ideal.

Combat Items

While leveling you are given Combat Items that aid your progression. Don’t hesitate to use Offensive Combat Items on tough opponents.
Utilize Swiftness Robes before you obtain your first mount and inside dungeons for long distance traveling.
Flame Grenade, Flash Grenade, Clay Grenade, Electric Grenade and Frost Grenade can be used to assist in bringing down the final boss of a dungeon or any monster that has a lot of hitpoints.

Life skills

In Lakebar (West Luttera), you'll get introduced to Life Skills. While they are an integral part of the late game of Lost Ark, they should be ignored as they don't play an important role during leveling. Logging and Mining are the best early on, as they provide materials to progress your Ships and Stronghold. Excavating, Foraging, Hunting and Fishing are the best later on, as they provide items related to gearing and raiding.

Tips & Tricks

• Always dismantle old gear you're no longer using to free up inventory space. Broken Equipment Powder & Useful Equipment Pieces sell for the same amount when sold to an NPC but only take up a single slot in your inventory.
• Use your Hotbars! Emotes, Songs and Mounts can be allocated to your Hotbar for quick access by simply dragging them into any desired slot.
• You can travel to Triports directly from your overlay map by holding alt + left mouse click on the Triport of your choice.
• Mount up for long distance traveling when Triports are not accessible.
• Utilizing autorun is helpful if you tend to tab out of the game frequently. Autorun key is "T" by default.
• Expend your 5 Emotes and 5 Songs with Rapport NPC's.
• While in the Sea, you can set auto-paths to any location by holding alt + left click. This pathing can be extended up to four times by repeating the action.
• Picking up barrels while traveling in the Sea refreshes your ship’s space bar boost. Be sure to pick them up if they happen to be in your travel path, but don't go out of your way for them.
• You can teleport directly to the Port from anywhere inside of a Continent by opening your World Map (M) and pressing "Ready to Sail" in the bottom left.
• Click on your overlay map with Mouse 3, hold and drag to move it around.
  

Video Guide

Summary

• Purely follow the _, Main Story Quest until Arthetine, afterwards complete Normal quests until your character surpasses level 49 and 545,874 experience points, then leave for North Vern where you will hit level 50.
• Mount up whenever possible.
• Don't kill unnecessary monsters that are not part of your quest.
• Group enemies to kill them efficiently with Area of Effect (AoE) Skills.
• Allocate your points into a few strong skills instead of spreading them over many different ones.
• Equip accessories starting from level 18 and prioritize Crit and Specialization when possible.

Once you're done with the leveling process and ready to move on you can check out the Post 50 Guide on what to do next.

Credits

Written by Choilicious
Reviewed by Lexyu