Lost Ark Series

Lost Ark Engravings Guide, Best & Top Tier List For PVP/PVE Builds

Lost Ark Engravings Guide: Best & Top Tier List

Lost Ark Engravings Guide: one of the many progression systems in the game that can power up characters and build them for PVP and PVE battles in the Lost Ark MMORPG world.

In this article, we share our Lost Ark engravings guide including the best and the top tier list for PVP and PVE builds, which is based on our Lost Ark gaming experience. Plus, it focuses on overall players’ fun with less effort. Besides, it can help new players to know this system better.

In short: Engraving is one of many important means of character strength in Lost Ark. Besides, it’s a system that works by increasing points to activate and unlock passive skills or effects. Although it is a unique progression system in Lost Ark. However, a large part of it depends on RNG luck and sometimes costs too much to build and is lost easily. In addition, more than half of the general engravings are useless, which makes it harder to get the good ones. Finally, Lost Ark Non-P2W players such as New, Normal Casual F2P, and PVP Players should use balanced engraving builds by avoiding expensive engravings (Grudge, Cursed Doll, .. etc) as well as the red negative effects.

What Are Engravings In Lost Ark?

Engraving is one of the powering-up passive effect systems for Lost Ark characters or classes. Besides, the engravings system is based on points that can be found or obtained through books, ability stones, or accessories effects in the Lost Ark MMORPG game.

Although some good engravings may give very strong effects. However, many of them are useless or have a downside effect such as a combination or mixture of good and bad effects at the same time.

Not only that, there is some type of engravings that gives negative effects that are also found alongside the good once-inside accessories and ability stones.

Therefore, players should be very careful when building their character’s engravings in Lost Ark. Where it may also cost too many tens of thousands of gold at the beginning of a new update. In other words, accessories are lost after a stupidly short time such as a week or less than a month.

Moreover, correct points should be obtained to complete the engravings build set or list. Many engravings are useless at level 1 as well as the downside effect overcomes the good ones at a low level.

However, some of the class engravings are good and can be used at level 1.

How Does Engraving Upgrade System Work In Lost Ark?

The engravings upgrade system in Lost Ark works as a form of levels with points. Where each level needs a certain amount of points to activate and unlock the seal effect level.

As we previously clarified in our guide, Lost Ark players can get seal effect points from engravings books, ability stones, or accessories. Where ability stones or accessories have a specific amount of points effects according to their quality and based on RNG.

Accessories Engravings:

At some point in Lost Ark T3 content, the artifact accessories do have 2 good effects from 3 to 5 points and one negative effect from 1 to 3 points.

Therefore, the aim for the first primary engraving should be 5 points, the secondary should be 3 points and the negative should be 1 point if you are lucky.

Ability Stones Engravings:

Ability Stones are similar to accessories in terms of 2 good effects and 1 negative effect. However, these 3 effects have a maximum of 11 empty points for artifact quilty stone.

Where it should be filled from in-game NPC, with painful RNG chance. As for artifact stone, players should aim to get at least 7 or 6 points for the first two good effects and less than 4 points for the negative one.

Seal Effect Books (Imprints):

However, the engraving levels acquired from the effect books are different. Where these books do have 4 levels or qualities like gear.

Plus, each level needs 20 books to be unlocked, which gives the character 3 engraving points out of a maximum of 12 points (T3).

However, these are still not active and are only shown in the character effect list. Therefore, you need to Imprint them into your character to activate the points.

Furthermore, the below picture shows the best example of Lost Ark Engravings’ full set or build.

example of lost ark engraving full set

As you can see, there is a red negative effect because of how difficult to obtain the right amount of points. Because it’s based on RNG and sometimes so expensive.

How To Max Engraving Effects To Level 3 In Lost Ark?

For example, let’s say you need to max “Engraving Effects: Heavy Armor”:

  1. Get or buy 20 books of common green books, 20 rare blue books, 20 epic purple books, and 20 legendary yellow books.
  2. After using the books, you now have a 12-point that is not active in the engraving effect list.
  3. Activate the books by opening your character (P) then imprint the effect by adding them from your engraving list to your circle under your character weapon UI. ​
  4. Get or buy one accessory that does have from +3 to +5 points. However, 3 is enough since the max is 15 points.
  5. Equip the accessory with +3 points or more to get a full level 3 heavy armor of 15 activated points.
How To Max Engraving Effects To Level 3 In Lost Ark?

Best & Top Tier List Engravings Guide For Lost Ark:

Below is the shortlist guide of Lost Ark Engravings with a short brief of the level 3 effect. Moreover, it ranked according to the maximum benefit that can be received in general (PVP & PVE):

Note: don’t misunderstand, this is not an engraving set of builds. This is a ranked list of the best & top effects taking into account the downside or negative engravings effects.

Therefore, your choice should be made from within and not from the best or the top. Because it differs from class to class, from gameplay to another, and from player to player as well.

For example, Pay To Win PVE players play the Lost Ark game way differently than non-hardcore F2P PVP players.

S Tier: Mostly Doesn’t Have Downside Effects (For PVP & PVE):

  • Class Engravings: Increases or adds effects to the class’s special abilities (“Z” and “X”).
  • Heavy Armor: increases the defensive stats by 150%.
  • Spirit Absorption: increases attack speed and movement speed by 15%.
  • Awakening: decrease the awakening skill cooldown by 50%, and increase the use number by +3.

Note: You can see that the S Tier engravings list doesn’t have any negative effects. Plus, any engraving in the S list can be used as the first engraving for your class.

Yet, the best choice you should consider first is your class engraving. Besides, you will not face any problems no matter what your build purpose is whether it is PVP, PVE, or both at the same time.

A Tier: It Needs Common Conditions To Be Effective (Mostly For PVE).

  • Barricade: increases attack by 16% when the character is under a shield or barrier.
  • Guillotine (Master Brawler): headshots deal 25% additional damage.
  • Backstab Master (Master of Ambush): increases backstab damage by 25%.
  • Adrenaline: After using skills (except movement and basic attacks), the attack power increases by +1% for 6 seconds (stacks up to 6). Plus, at the max stack, increase the critical chance by +15%.
  • Master of Strike (Hit Master): Increases damage by +16% for attacks that do not fall under Back Attack or Head Attack. This effect does not apply to Awakening skills.
  • Mass increase: Attack speed is decreased by -10%, but attack power is increased by +18%.

Note: the A Tier engravings list doesn’t have noticeable downside effects. Besides, most of them need to fulfill a specified condition, or else they will be useless.

Moreover, some of these engravings can’t be used in PVP since it’s hard to fulfill conditions in that kind of intense battle.

B Tier: Have Big Downside Effects, Need Rare Conditions (Mostly For PVE Only).

  • Cursed Doll: increases attack power by 16% and decreases healing and potions heal by 25%.
  • Super Charge: increase the damage of charge skill by 20%, and reduce charge time for every step by 40%.
  • Sharp Blunt (Keen Blunt Weapon): increases critical damage by 50%, low chance to decrease hit damage by 20%.
  • Blitz Commander (Raid Captain): Increase damage dealt by 45% of the bonus movement speed [140 MS = 18% Dmg].
  • Ignore the weak (Disrespect): deal 36% more damage to targets under 30% HP.
  • Grudge: increases damage by 20% to the boss only and receives 20% more damage from them.

Note: the B Tier engravings list has significant downside effects and/or has very hard conditions that must be fulfilled. Moreover, most of these engravings are no way to be used in PVP and some of them are so expensive.

C Tier: Used By Few Classes Or For One Purpose.

  • Fast Speed (All-Out Attack): the speed of Holding and casting skills are increased by +20%, and damage increases by +20%.
  • Steady State (Stabilized Status): increases damage by +16 when HP is over 80%.
  • Indomitable Will (Strong Will): when the character is knocked down, it takes 30% less damage from all attacks.
  • Broken Bone: +40% damage to the staggered or broken target.
  • Near-Death (Crisis Evasion): the character becomes invincible for 3 sec after receiving fatal damage, recovering 50% of the damage as HP, and at level 3 skill cooldown is 9 min.
  • Master’s Potential (Master’s Tenacity): when health is below -50%, the damage dealt damage to enemies increases by +16%.
  • Precision Dagger: Increases critical hit rate by +20%, but reduces critical damage by -12%.
  • Expert (Specialist): Shield effects and HP recovery effects that are used on self and group members increase by +24%, and when the target’s HP is below -50%, this effect increases by an additional +12%.

D Tier: Mostly Useless Effects that cost only 1 Gold.

The rest of the engravings already in our opinion have little to no value. Even in the game, very few players buy these engravings since most of them are useless.

To clarify, accessories on the market that contain one of these engravings are very cheap even if they are high quality.

Besides, some engraving effect books that contain these engravings are worth as much as one gold in Lost Ark Market. Even the ability stones that contain one of these engravings many of them also worth one gold.

Accordingly, players might not see any point in placing these ability stones and accessories on the market. In return, they break them.

Where you can see the top-tier list of Lost Ark Engravings in the image below. Plus, this ranked according to the Max Received Benefit In General For All Class In PVP & PVE Contents. In addition, taking into account the price, bad side effects, and its usage availability for normal casual players.

Lost Ark Engravings Guide

Moreover, If you want to see the full list of Lost Ark engravings for all levels and for all classes. Check the following website page:

Engraving Guide Notes:

This section is considered important in our Lost Ark Engravings Guide, as you need to pay attention since ignoring some of these points may cost you a lot in Lost Ark.

The downside effect of Cursed Doll Engraving can be fixed by a special card set that increases potions’ healing. Still, you will receive less healing from support classes or skills.

The downside effect of Sharp Blunt Engraving won’t affect multi-hit skills as well it has so very low chance.

We always recommend using Heavy Armor Engravings for all classes. This is because it enhances survivability and can be used in every kind of game content. Plus, it makes the gameplay in Lost Ark so much fun.

In turn, enhancing survivability increases overall inflicted damage. This is because instead of running away all the time, your class now can endure most of the enemies’ attacks through shields or request less support.

Using engravings such as Grudge gives bosses an unnecessary advantage that makes their skills like wipe mechanics, which is not worth it at all.

To be more clear, Grudge is just only an addition of a ~3% additional damage compared to any DPS engravings at a level of 3.

Don’t forget the -20% damage you will receive from bosses. Plus, Grudge engraving is so much more expensive due to the army of Alts characters owned by hardcore players and P2W.

New players, Normal Casual F2P players, and PVP Players should avoid using some very expensive engravings such as Grudge or Cursed Doll. As these engravings have negative effects as well their price will put these players under great pressure that they cannot bear.

Don’t Underestimate Balanced Engravings Build.

Of course, it is possible to use different and lower-cost engraving builds and still do great DPS in Lost Ark dungeons.

So don’t let some people deceive you with words such as meta builds jokes. Many of these engraving builds are for P2W that are not suitable for everyone.

Moreover, those P2W builds can destroy your fun in the game by trying to get them. To clarify, most of those P2W builds cost too much gold for a minimum difference in DPS. In the same way, it shatters your defense resulting in a worse DPS.

See the videos below, as we were using a tank Destroyer build that included Heavy Armor level 2 that has no Grudge engraving. Since it’s a balanced dungeon, we all became equal in the gear level.

Therefore, our destroyer class was able to do a 40% DMG Done in the Lost Ark balanced dungeon by using a unique way of gameplay.

You can notice that the Grudge Engraving user has been defeated in the middle of the last boss fight due to a shattered defense.

In the next Lost Ark gameplay video, you can notice that our Destroyer class was able to do a 45% DMG Done in Equalized Dungeon Guardian Raid Boss using that same engraving build that contains Heavy Armer and Spirit Absorption with no Grudge or Cursed Doll engravings.

These were easy runs for us, unlike other Grudge users. Since most of them often struggle with challenging content since the gear item level doesn’t work.

Expensive Engravings Downside Effect Doesn’t Matter For High Item Level:

First, a player with higher gear levels in Lost Ark doesn’t mean that he is professional since the high item level gives a broken fake feel of power and can be accomplished easily by P2W players (in one day).

As you will see in the next videos, by memorizing high-level dungeons (Resulting from boring repetition), 90% of Lost Ark dungeons can be done solo easily. Plus, 8-player dungeons can be sold to other low players for a share of Gold.

In addition, the expensive engravings can benefit P2W and Hardcore PVE players who accomplish high-level gear sets. Still, most items with these engravings will be thrown away and stupidly become no longer relevant in a very short time.

However, you can use Grudge engraving if you are ready to spend a lot of thousands of gold on every update in a game. Plus, you must maintain a higher gear level than recommended to avoid fatal blows.

See the following article to learn about ways to farm and get gold in Lost Ark:

As a result, players who own high item levels mostly will not feel the expensive engraving’s downside effects. See the next videos to understand:

Plus, see the next video:

Engravings Combinations:

There are some engravings if used together will be more effective, such as the following:

Spirit Absorption & Blitz Commander (Raid Captain):

Since spirits absorption increases movement speed, the blitz commander engraving can be more effective. This is because it depends on the bonus increase of the movement speed, which is above 100%.

So, if the character has a 140% movement speed, which can be obtained from normal skills, support class buffs, agility, and spirit absorption.

As a result, characters’ DPS damage will be increased by 18% max. Since the level 3 blitz commander gives 45% of bonus movement to DPS.

Plus, you need to keep in mind that there is no way to surpass 140% at this moment. As this is the max limit in the Lost Ark game.

Adrenaline & Sharp Blunt (Keen Blunt Weapon):

Since max stacks in Adrenaline engraving gives an additional critical chance. Classes can benefit more from Sharp Blunt engraving because of the additional critical damage.

Engravings To Avoid If It’s Not Level 3:

Some Lost Ark engravings are very bad to use unless they are at their maximum level of 3. As in the first and second levels, their negative effects are always maxed, unlike the positive effects, which are activated well in the third level.

  • Grudge: Lvl 1 and Lvl 2.
  • Cursed Doll: Lvl 1 and Lvl 2.
  • Sharp Blunt (Keen Blunt Weapon): Lvl 1 and Lvl 2.

Even if you are a P2W or Hard-core player, these engravings at levels 1 and 2 won’t benefit you with low-level characters in Lost Ark.

Lost Ark Engravings Guide Recommendation For Normal Casual F2P & PVP Players:

Since this game is updated quickly, the Lost Ark player continues to lose what they already have in a few weeks, and then they have to start from scratch.

Accordingly, normal casual F2P and PVP players will have a hard time progressing over and over in PVE content. Especially ​if they have a normal life and can’t spend too much time in Lost Ark.

Therefore, to get to the endgame fast and maximize the fun with less effort as a casual F2P or PVP player, consider the following:

  • Don’t buy expensive engravings accessories at the beginning of new updates.
  • Use a few engraving builds or one balanced build for PVP and PVE (it can be done easily).
  • Collect much gold from selling expensive engravings.
  • Wait for engraving events to get them for 1 gold or free on the last week of the events.
  • Max 2 engraving to Lvl 3, and don’t get full engraving set in the low-level Tiers (Such as Tier 1 and 2 in Lost Ark Global).

There are many other recommendations for Normal Casual F2P & PVP Players that can enhance the gameplay efficiency in the Lost Ark game.

However, since it’s outside our current topic, it will be included in other posts.

keep in mind, that all Lost Ark game content can be done easily. Besides, we included this F2P recommendation because most players don’t like to grind the game such as repeating dungeons over and over again (daily and weekly).

However, some may heavily grind in Lost Ark aiming to defeat the game by soloing dungeons that are designated for groups of players.

Overall, This Engravings Guide Is Mostly For New, Casual F2P & PVP Players:

Finally, we hope that this Lost Ark engravings guide provided enough information that can help players in this game. Especially, for normal or casual F2P players.

Again, all of this was based on our Lost Ark gaming experience (More than 2 years) and focuses on overall fun with fewer efforts.

Where we know some P2W players, Hardcore or No-Life-Gamers might disagree with our opinion, which is a normal thing.

Since everyone has their opinions based on how they are playing the game. Plus, it depends on how much time someone is willing to waste.

Also, some of them may misunderstand this article Intentionally or unintentionally. As they take the game too seriously and become nervy and some of them may become toxic players.

This may be due to the repetitive environment within the Lost Ark game and how the progression system works, which can be wasted quickly.

Understand What Our Guide & Engravings Rank Was About:

The best & top Tier list engravings guide for Lost Ark was based on the engraving effects in general. This doesn’t mean that you should use all the first rank Tier.

Rather, we mean when you choose your engraving from any Tier, you should consider the negatives as well.

Moreover, focusing only on DPS engravings and pure damage builds for one purpose regardless of their massive flows. As result, it makes the game unnecessarily difficult.

Plus, normal F2P, casual, and PVP players, which are the majority in any game will struggle in handling the types of builds that are used by P2W or hardcore gamers.

This is because they can’t reach that high item levels before new updates. So, by the time they get them, they are no longer relevant.

Plus, normal F2P or casual players may also don’t have the necessary time to get many engraving builds or even one perfect build.

Besides, there are too many useless engravings that should be avoided. Even more, the RNG makes it harder for a F2P player to get the good one or make multiple Lost Ark builds.

Overall, Lost Ark is a very easy game when you get used to it. Additionally, using one balanced engraving build will make it so much more fun (based on our experience and our opinion).

And as always, support our Lost Ark engravings guide by sharing it. Plus, for updates and additional information leave a comment here or on our social media pages.

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9 Comments
    1. It is one of the best engravings that can benefit all players in all Lost Ark content, no matter what. In addition, it is effective in making the player use more skills without fear of enemy attacks, which results in more DPS.

      In some gameplay styles, it’s better than some ATK engravings that have side effects that only benefit high gear P2W players.

    1. I think you didn’t notice that these are ranked based on maximum benefit in general, which is about the good effect and taking into account the negative effect.

    2. And I think you’ve never actually played hard content in this game. Thanks for making good engraving books cheap for us I guess.

    3. Thanks. However, it may be cheap for your way of playing Lost Ark. but many may see it as time-saving by avoiding doing the same mistake, which is looking at things from one side.

      On the other hand, I played all Lost Ark game content until Valtan, then stopped after seeing the game wasting my whole year of progression by giving easy enhancement to everyone to get level 1415 so fast. I also saw that a game going globally and I found that I would lose my progress in both cases.

      Additionally, in Lost Ark, the hard dungeons become a joke for P2W players that got the maxed gear.

      For me, it’s not worth wasting time being a hard-core gamer. So it’s just better playing content until they give another free boost which is also better than losing gold for nothing.

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