Lost Ark: The complete guide to engraving system

The Lost Ark Engravings system is essential for setting up your character and upgrading it, as the engravings you use can change your play style. It is a complex system, with significant benefits, but also with some negative aspects.

Discover in this guide how to use the engravings, get nodes, and everything you need to know to make the most of the Lost Ark engraving system.

Lost Ark: Types of Engravings

There are two types of engravings available: Combat and Class

• Battle Engraving: Engravings that any class can use.
• Class Engraving: class-specific engravings.

In your Engraving Effect window (ALT + I), you can see all available Combat and Class engravings. The engravings you unlock will be available to all characters on the account, and each character can only have two engravings equipped at a time.

To activate the Engravings you want for your characters, you first need to get the Engraving Recipe.

Etching Recipes

As you participate in different Lost Ark activities, such as Dungeons, Islands, Quests, you will start receiving rewards from items such as Rare Battle Engraving Recipe Selection Satchel, Rare Engraving Recipe Selection Chest (exclusive to class).

When you open the Satchels and Chests, you will choose one of the recipes they contain for the Engraving you want. Some Satchels and Chests will not allow you to select the recipe you will get when you open them and give you a random recipe.

To unlock Engraving, you need to get 20 recipes of the same type and rarity, always starting with Uncommon. When you get them, you will enable Engraving Level 1, getting 3 Engraving points. There are 4 Engraving Levels, and to reach each level, you must unlock the previous rarity grade. Each level requires you to get 20 Engraving Recipes, and when you reach it, you will get more points.

How to get the Engraving Recipes in Lost Ark?

• 1. We are completing the Chaos Dungeons daily.
• 2. We are overcoming certain stages of the Shadow Tower.
• 3. Guardian Assault.
• 4. Special room rewards inside the Cube.
• 5. Randomly from Secret Maps obtained in Chaos Gate.
• 6. Abyssal dungeons
• 7. Completion of side quests in Eastern Lutheran.
• 8. Island-specific story quest rewards.
• 9. Island merchants with limited weekly availability.
• 10. Unique exchange with the high-ranking NPC Maga Jeneca in Bern Castle.

Engraving Nodules

As we said, the engraving system is complex and has different aspects to take into account. Let's see what they are for and how to get Engraving Nodules.

One of the ways to obtain nodes is, as you have seen before, by raising the rarity level of the engraving with 20 books of different degrees of rarity. But this is not the only way. You can get nodules through Accessories and Skill Stone.

As you accumulate nodes, you reach specific thresholds that trigger different levels of your Engravings and their respective upgrades. There are three levels in total, and you will reach them with 5, 10, and 15 nodes activated. You will not get a bonus until you reach the indicated number of nodes.

When adding nodes with Accessories and Skill Stone, you will need to find the jewels and stones that give you nodes of the specific engravings you want since you will not be able to choose the nodes that will give you. They are random. Watch out! You will also notice that they will give you nodules for the engravings you want to activate and nodules for negative engravings, which, if activated, will give you damage bonuses to a greater or lesser extent.

But how can you have a negative engraving if it is only possible to equip two engravings on your character? What happens is that, regardless of the engravings you have equipped, if you manage to have 5, 10, or 15 active nodes of some engraving, beneficial or harmful, you will activate the bonus even if you do not have it equipped.

Accessories

In addition to their main stats, accessories will also give you Engraving Nodules. The nodes you will get with each accessory are random and have positive and negative nodes.

These cannot be modified in any way and vary depending on the rarity of the accessory. Accessories can drop with class-specific engravings, but only for the class, you're playing as. Legendary rarity and higher accessories will give you nodules for two positive engravings.

The number of accessory nodes increases according to the tier of the accessory.

Skill Stones

You will get the Skill Stone by participating in endgame content, such as Chaos Dungeon, Guardian Assault, Field Bosses, Ghost Ships, and much more.

With Skill Stones, you will get random 2-engraved nodes (not including class-specific engravings) and one random negative-engraved node. You can process the stone at the Skill Stonecutter NPC in any major city. The higher the rarity of the stone, the more Engraving Nodules you will get.

The polishing process is random and can be quite frustrating. The more failures you accumulate, the better chance you have of succeeding. The maximum chance you can reach to Polish a stone is 75%.

Tips and Priorities

Lots of information, right? How to order all this to get to have the engravings you want? Although it is a complex process, it will not be as complicated as it seems if you follow these steps.

• 1. Plan the Build of your character. This is the first step you must take. It is important to know what your Build will be and how many engraving points your class has since this will determine the other engravings that you will use.
• 2. Skill Stones are the second step. These stones will give you many points for your two chosen engravings. As we said before, the Skill Stone does not include class engravings.
• 3. Necklaces are important, although, in principle, they do not make a difference. First, find the necklace with the attributes that work best for your Build, then search for it with the highest degree of rarity you can, as it will give you higher stat points. Finally, look for it to have the class engraving you want and one of the two options you chose on your Skill Stone. That will be your PERFECT necklace. It is practically impossible for you to get it on your own. So you will have to be patient and look for it in the auction.
• 4. Gather the Engraving Recipes. Each character can use two Engravings they have learned. You can use the same one twice to power it up. Depending on the level you have unlocked with the recipes of different rarity, you will get between 3 and 12 nodules per engraving. In general, these should be reserved for your class etching and the most important battle etching for your Build.
• 5. Complete the missing nodes with the other accessories. Look for the best options for your Build and calculate the number of nodes needed to reach whatever engraving threshold you're still working on, prioritizing reaching level 3 for your important engravings. Do not exceed the maximum points (+15) for a single Engraving and balance the Negative Engraving to avoid suffering too much. Please note that you cannot equip two rings and two earrings with the same name at the same time.

Related: The complete guide to team level and progression in Lost Ark!