33 articlesThe Arcanist is an advanced Mage class in Lost Ark. She can deal high damage but has low defense which makes her a glass cannon.
However, she has to keep track of a randomized deck of cards that greatly change her moment-to-moment gameplay.
If you’re overwhelmed by the cards but still wish to master the Arcanist, this class breakdown is for you.
What You Need to Know About the Arcanist in Lost Ark
The Arcanist is a tough class to play and master. Despite her low defense, she needs to get within melee range for most of her attacks. On top of that, you need to fully understand her card mechanics.
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Lost Ark: How to Get to the Flowering OrchardApr 4, 2023Her main gimmick is that she uses a deck of cards for her abilities. Her regular cards come in three different color-coded varieties:
- Yellow Card skills are aimed at crowd control and buffing the Arcanist.
- Blue Card skills deal some damage and apply a stack of Ruin on enemies which can stack up to 4 times.
- Red Card skills are used to cash in your Ruin stacks. When used on an enemy with Ruin, it will trigger a highly damaging explosion. More Ruin stacks equal more damage!
Her gameplay mostly consists of stacking Ruin as much as possible on her enemies and then detonating them with red cards.
That’s not all, however, as she also has to keep track of her Card Deck gimmick!
Arcanist’s Identity Gimmick: Card Deck
As the Arcanist uses her different skills, she will fill up her identity gimmick meter. Once full, she gets to draw two different cards from her deck.
There are a total of 17 cards and you can only hold 2 at a time.
The cards are completely random each time, and the game doesn’t describe their effects in real-time. Memorizing what they do will be key to mastering the class.
This is the list of cards and their effects:
- Three-Headed Snake: Boosts your damage greatly and also makes basic attacks hit in 3 directions for 16 seconds.
- Mayhem: Increases your Attack Speed by 3% every time you use skills, up to 15%. Lasts 30 seconds.
- Corrosion: Has a 30% chance to apply a Damage Over Time effect on your enemy. The DoT deals 10% of your damage over 5 seconds while the card effect lasts 30 seconds.
- Joy: Reduces the cooldown of your skills by either 15% or 30% randomly. This doesn’t apply to movement and Awakening skills or Stand Up.
- Twisted Fate: Randomly boosts your damage by 0 to 40% for 4 seconds.
- Ghost: Allows you to phase through enemies unharmed. It also increases movement speed by 20% for 16 seconds.
- Cull: Increases Crit Rate for all skills by 100%. If a skill only hits one enemy, it will also deal 50% more damage. Lasts 4 seconds.
- Royal: Fills empty card slots.
- Wheel of Fortune: Cancels the cooldown of your next skill.
- Moon: Reduces cooldowns by 20% for 30 seconds.
- Star: Recovers half of your MP while also boosting MP by 20% regeneration for 20 seconds.
- Clown: gives you a duplicate of the last card you used.
Additionally, Emperor Engraving will enable more cards while disabling others. Here are the cards that are only usable if you do NOT have Emperor Engraving:
- Balance: Skills that apply stacks will apply 1 stack more with each hit. Lasts 30 seconds.
- Judgment: Makes your Ruin skills always act as if they had max Ruin stacks. Lasts 4 seconds.
On the other hand, here are the cards that are only usable if you have Emperor Engraving:
- Emperor: Deals massive AoE damage to foes within a 14-meter radius.
- Chancellor: Increases the Crit Rate of normal skills by 20% for 10 seconds.
- Sovereign: Increases the damage dealt by normal skills by 50% for 4 seconds.
Make sure to memorize these effects to make the most of your card deck! It’s absolutely key to becoming a master Arcanist.
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