Last Cloudia - Ultimate Ark Ether Guide

Guide to Ark Ether

What Is Ark Ether?

You know how when you tap on an Ark, they have this little bottle container thing on the right side that has a label with a percentage? That’s Ark Ether.

When you first get an Ark, this bar jar thing will be at 0%. When the jar reaches 100%, you will get an item that we refer to as an AER, short-form for “Ark Ether Reward”. It will also triple the base rate at which you learn skills by making you gain three times more AP per run than usual.

These pieces of equipment tend to be some of the best equipment options there are, as the story map shops don’t leave much to be desired most of the time. So, how do we go about raising our Ark Ether from 0 to 100%?

How to Raise Ark Ether?

The first way is by summoning dupes. Duplicate Arks gain +5.0% Ark Ether per dupe, with rated up SSR and UR Arks gaining +10.0% Ark Ether per dupe on their respective rate-up banners. This method is obviously unuseable for the average player

The second way is by using Etherion. Etherion are items you can get, mainly from events, that raise an Ark’s Ark Ether by 5.0%, meaning you will need 20 of them to max out an Ark and get its AER.

It’s advised to be cautious about how you spend them, as they are not plentiful. They’re not exactly rare either, but it will take a very long time to accumulate the 20 needed to max an Ark’s Ether.

The third method to gain Ark Ether is simply by running stages in the game. Upon a stage clear, each Ark in your party individually has a 10% chance to raise its Ark Ether by 0.1%, so it is recommended to grind 3 Arks at the same time to not waste any Ether. You’ll know if an Ark gains Ark Ether if the value turns green at the end of a stage, and if you hear a little sound effect play.

This method, on average, takes about 6 days of continuous 18 hour farming to max out an Ark’s Ether but can vary greatly depending on the stage farmed, the units used to farm, and the investment those units have. Find Theria! Hard (mentioned below) is recommended over IGC3 if your clear time for IGC3 is over 30 seconds and your Find Theria! time is significantly lower, 5-10 seconds at least. Yes, this game is a grindy one. However, this task is less daunting than at first glance due to the existence of Auto Run in the game.

The best stages to grind Ark Ether are single wave stages. Single wave stages refer to the stages where you’re only made to fight a boss wave, when compared to multi wave stages they boast a much faster clear time, which leads to a much faster Ark Ether farm. The best stage to farm for this method are one wave stages which can be cleared easily on auto-run such as Imperial Guard Commander 3, also known as IGC3, on Hard difficulty (Hard difficulty for Soul Farming purposes). This stage is unlocked during your second visit to Gragia Mountains (Chapter 3-10).

This stage is not only relatively easy to clear on Auto, it’s also one of the most efficient stages to farm overnight. It’s drop table contains blue and green crystallites, crystals, and clusters, enhancement material like Ancient Material and Branah Ore, the elusive rainbow crystallites and crystals, on top of EXP Potions. So, coupled with it’s fast clear time, IGC3 can quadruple as an Ark Ether, Unit Soul, enhancement material, and EXP farm.

If you are a newer player, it might take you a hot minute to reach 3-10 on Hard mode, or maybe it’s a bit too difficult. If you want to start the grind earlier and easier, the stages Connection to the sea(1-3) located in Port Migal and Find Theria!(1-8) on Hard difficulty, located in the Royal Capital Aldana (coincidentally right below Gragia Mountains on the map), are also decent options.

Even though these stages are easier to clear, the drop tables aren’t as good as IGC3’s, and it gives next to no exp/zell. It is recommended to farm on IGC3 if you can manage it as its drop table benefits you much more.

However, as mentioned earlier, the most important thing to keep in mind is the clear time of your runs. If you can clear Find Theria! in 10 seconds, but IGC3 in 120 seconds, you’ll get much more mileage on grinding out your Ark Ether faster by sticking with Find Theria!. So if you are a newer player, it is recommended to stick to grinding Connection to the sea or Find Theria! if you can’t clear IGC3 at around the same speed as the aforementioned stages. Even though you will be missing out on the potential drops and exp of IGC3, you’ll be able to max out your Ark Ether much earlier on Connection to the sea or Find Theria!. You can transition to grinding on IGC3 later when your units are stronger and can manage a fast clear.

When grinding Ark Ether, it is very important to remember to lower your Ark Level to 1 if you have leveled it up, using the “Edit Ark Lv” button when editing a team. This is so that you don’t accidentally waste all your Red or Blue souls while auto-running for a long period of time, as the higher the Ark Level the more souls it takes to use it. Notice the difference?