Lost Ark – Cash-Shop Guide (What Is Worth Buying?)

S-Tier Purchases (Get Em!)

Crystalline Aura (Subscription)

This is the thing to buy if you are actively playing the game. Pet benefits are unmatched and the conviniences in the Aura are just too good to pass. You can buy this with gold-crystal exchange but it’ll really slow down your progress having to spend gold on this monthly.

Character Slots

These are the bad boys. Having more characters means more gold sources on the long run. Having the 6 free alts is great but going beyond that can be lucrative as well. Don’t buy them until you have 6 characters setup and you actually want more. Note: These are only buyable with Royal Games ($/€) in other regions.

Epic Avatar Set (4 % Stats)

Getting a set of epic avatars is significant in Tier 3 so definitely get these either from Events/Auction House or straight up Cash-Shop.

Blue Gems for Pet Reroll

You’ll need some Blue Gems (usually <200) to reroll your pet stats to 10% secondary stat + 5% max HP. This is important to get most out of the subscription, so definitely a S-tier purchase.

A-Tier Purchases (Useful Purchases)

Blue Gems for Mari’s Shop

Getting blue gems for Mari’s Shop (changing cash-shop for different in-game items) is important so you’ll be able to buy consumable packages. Consumables are usually significantly cheaper from packs and allow you to essentially swim in green/blue health potions and bomb consumables. These can be crafted in-game or bought from Auction House but do you really want to spend gold on these (most likely not).

2 Extra Pets

Having 3 pets with Crit/HP, Spec/HP and Swift/HP allows you to play any class with any build and having the optimal stat bonus for it. While you can keep rerolling your first free pet or playing with sub-optimal stats, having these extra pets for alts is extremely convinient. Note you can get extra epic pets from events, so not mandatory to purchase early on.

Ship Skin

If you can find a Ship Skin directly on sale, it’s very much worth the price. It gives your ship extra abilities and allows you to set extra resistance for the ship. This essentially turns your LV4-LV5 Estoc into a beast. As a mileage purchase, it’s usually very overpriced, so don’t splurge for mileage.

Ark Pass / Battlepass

We don’t know how this will turn out in NA/EU but generally battlepasses give a lot of materials and other rewards with a good value. Not to mention going for the pass is kinda fun, so it’ll improve your experience with Lost Ark.

B-Tier And Below Purchases (Hey It’s Your Money!)

Card Packs

These are always RNG/Gacha so avoid like the plague. Some people say these are great value but honestly cards are such a RNG min/maxing tool it’s not really worth it. If there are selectable packs for sale, these may help you finish a card set and can be of a high value.

Rapport Gift Packs

They are trying to get you. Rapport gifts allow you to rush affinities but it’s also something you shouldn’t rush and instead do it long-term for FREE. These are really fun to buy and use but essentially just a time-saver so avoid falling into this whaly loop.

Legendary Avatar Components

Legendary Avatars require ‘mana silks’ and ‘transmogrification pots’ and are essentially gacha. This may cost you 100’s of dollars so never buy these, if you can find the avatars directly from Auction House. If you are playing a dead class (rip. Deadeye & Wardancer) you will most likely need to gacha the avatars. Very whaly purchase.

Upgrade Materials

These babies are the biggest scam in the market. You are mostly likely paying extra compared to the auction house and you are most likely leading yourself towards a situation where you are gold-gated while having tons of materials. If you start buying upgrade materials, you’ll need to buy gold as well and your are stuck in a vicious whaly loop. Never buy these, if the auction house has a better rate.

Rest of The Progression Boosters

You can buy entry tickets, extra entries and different kinds of progression boosters from the cash-shop. Generally these are not worth the price because gold is always more valuable. If you are thinking about these just change royal crystals into gold and enjoy spending the gold in auction house and upgrading.

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 7928 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*