Lost Ark – Positive Engraving Tierlist (PvE)

Meta Tier

All credit goes to Lagoz!

This tier has engravings that are highly valued by the community and are considered as the most powerful engravings in the game.

[DPS] Grudge (+20% ALL Damage increase to bosses & +20% Damage taken from everything.)

Grudge is the crowd favourite and provides the highest single engraving damage increase in the game. ALWAYS run as LV3 when playing DPS. The general consensus is that players will get used to the extra damage taken from this engraving and in the endgame heavy hitters from Legion Raid bosses will oneshot you regardless if you have Grudge or not.

[SUPPORT] Awakening (Awakening skill CD -50% & +3 maximum uses)

Awakening is the crowd favourite for Supports because it allows you to use identity (Z/X) filling awakening skills more often and more times during guardians, dungeons and raids. ALWAYS run as LV3 when playing SUPPORT.

[ALL] Class Engraving (Varies per class, each class has 2 options, see the popularity on right)

Class Engravings are generally extremely powerful (some even as LV1) and you should always create your build around the class engravings of your choice. Class Engravings are the only engraving books you will need to upgrade to T3 (+9) in order to reach a viable endgame build. In the very endgame you will need a T4 class engraving (+12) and a good generic engraving (+12) such as Grudge (DPS) or Awakening (Support).

S Tier (>15% Damage)

This tier has generic engravings that provide over 15% damage increase, but might have conditionals. Before using make sure they function with your class and build.

Barricade (+16% damage when shielded)

Excellent damage engraving for classes that have shield mechanic inbuilt (i.e. Destroyer), use ‘Guardian Runes’ on heavy hitters (provides shield on use) or are playing with agility specced supports providing constant shields.

Cursed Doll (+16% attack power, -25% healing received)

Another huge crowd favourite providing damage boost at the cost of healing received. Like Grudge this engraving is one of those that players get used to running and the healing reduction is essentially ignored through experience.

Master Brawler (+25% head attack damage)

Master Brawler is excellent damage engraving for classes that have multiple skills that deal head attack damage (i.e Gunlancer and Destroyer). Notice that the skill must read it’s head attack capable and you will actually need to strike a head attack for this engraving to activate.

Master of Ambush (+25% back attack damage)

Master of Ambush is similar to Master Brawler except for back attacks. Excellent damage engraving and only activates with skills that deal back attack damage when you are actually landing a back attack.

Ether Enhancement (Hitting an enemy drops an orb only you can acquire that gives 1,5% (max 15%) attack power a 3% (max 30%) all defense /cd 10s/stacks 30/dur 90s)

This is bit of a sleeper engraving but provide excellent offensive and defensive bonus with the biggest downside being the build up. It takes at least 5 minutes to fully stack up bonuses, but once you have them it’s almost like running cursed doll + heavy armor without any downsides. The buff refreshes on pick-up so very difficult to lose the stacks.

Super Charge (Increases charge speed by 40% and charge skill damage 20%)

Insanely effective engraving for classes who use charge skills (note: CHARGE, not CAST nor HOLD). For example Destroyer and Deathblade absolutely loves this.

Spirit Absorption (+15% attack speed & +15% move speed)

Great engraving for both DPS and Support because it provides insane amount of survivability and a hefty damage increases. The ultimate amount of damage it provides is difficult to estimate but it is safe to say 15% faster attack speed provides significant amount of damage especially for classes dependable on head and back attacks.

Master of Strikes (+16% damage to skill that don’t have back attack or head attack capabilities (neutral skills)

One of the best damage engravings in the game. Simply provides 16% damage to skills that don’t have positional capabilities. For example Gunslinger just loves this engraving immensely.

Adrenaline (Provides 1% attack power for using a skill stacking up to 6% for 6 seconds and 15% critical hit chance)

Extremely good damage engraving and often seen as LV1 filler engraving because it provides 1.8% attack power and 5% critical hit chance even as LV1 engraving. Works best for classes that have a rotation which constantly keeps up the buff (enough low cdr skills).

Fast Speed (Increases holding and casting speed of HOLD and CAST skills by 20% and damage by 20%)

This is the HOLD/CAST equivalent of Super Charge and simply put insanely good engraving when supported by the class. For example Sorceress absolutely loves this engraving.

S- Tier (>15% Damage)

This tier has engravings that can provide over 15% damage but have a severe gimmick involved.

Champion’s Tenacity (+16% damage when at or below 50% MAX HP)

Good engraving for situational uses. You will often see this on very endgame players who are wanting to deal as much damage as possible in lower level content. You can get to below 50% MAX HP by unequipping/equipping your gear but just make sure you don’t die or get healed. Proceed with caution.

Stabilized Status (+16% damage when above 80% MAX HP)

Good engraving to use in content where you can keep yourself above 80%. Difficult to the get full effect of in harder content and thus being in the S- tier.

Raid Captain (provides +45% damage of move speed bonus %)

Good engraving to use on classes that can significantly and consistently buff their movement speed (passively or actively) or are running a build with significant amounts of agility. Works well for example Scouter and Lance Master. In S- tier for build and class dependancy.

Keen Blunt Weapon (+50% critical damage but attacks have 10% chance of dealing -20% damage)

One of the most confusing engravings in the game thanks to it’s partial wording. Keen Blunt becomes valuable (>15% damage increase) when your critical strike chance is above 60% and critical damage is 200%. This either requires deep critical build or a class that has 100% critical chance on heavy hitters. For example Lance Master can benefit from this very early on while other classes may need to be well into T3 (1415+) to have enough crit. If your build has a lot of crit and not significant amount of extra critical damage this can have value over 20%. Great engraving but tricky to use, build and sometimes annoying in practice when not crittin and dealing LESS DAMAGE.

Precision Dagger (20% critical hit chance but -12% critical hit damage)

Similarly confusing compared to Keen Blunt Weapon but Precision dagger becomes more effective the less critical hit chance you have. This becomes valuable when you are below 20% crit chance while having critical damage increases from skills or gear. Precision Dagger for example fits builds running spec/agi and having very little critical stacked from anywhere.

Extra: Keen Blunt Weapon + Precision Dagger COMBO

If you decide to run these two together they will provide around 15% damage each and do have the potential to bring above 20% damage each. You should be targeting stats that have critical hit chance below 40% and as much critical damage as possible (>250%). When using these engravings it’s always crucial to check your stats closely so these don’t suddenly turn into budget engravings.

Utility / Support Tier

These engravings have excellent utility but may not directly provide damage increases.

Drops of Ether (Attacks have a chance to create an Ether (10s CD))

Excellent and somewhat underrated engraving for Supports. Your attacks have a chance drop ether every 10s that provides one of the following buffs for the player picking up the ether: 10% defense / 10% movement speed / 10% attack power / 15% critical hit chance / mana recovery. Obviously as a support you leave the AP/Crit orbs for the DPS players while eating the survivability ones yourself. Very useful engraving for Supports.

Max Mana (Max MP +30%)

Great engraving for supports who are deeply agility specced and tend to run out of mana. Often used as a last engraving for example Bards.

Pre-emptive Strike (You are guaranteed to crit rare monsters and below who have full HP. This crit will deal 160% extra critical damage)

This is an excellent utility/damage engraving for running Chaos Dungeons/Questing since you’ll be critting everything with 160% extra damage. Allows you to sweep monsters insanely quickly. However this has effectively ZERO USES outside Chaos Dungeons/Questing so don’t even think about running it to harder content. Still a very good specialized engraving for what it does.

Spirit Absorption (+15% attack speed & +15% move speed)

Hold up, wasn’t this already mentioned? Yes this engraving is an excellent for damage but it’s also insanely good utility and support tool. When it comes to this tier it’s one of the strongest runes to use on a Support because it allows you to cast everything faster and move around and dodge faster.

Heavy Armor Equipment (Defense increased by 100%)

This one has been an insanely long-standing meme amongst damage dealers but even nowdays some classes tend to run this just for the significant amount of survivability it provides. Squishy classes like Sorceress, Gunslinger and Reaper are allowed to make little more mistakes when running Heavy Armor and sometimes it’s a life of death difference. The same goes for Supports whose main purpose is essentially to stay alive and support which heavy armor suits perfectly for. Running this on tankier DPS classes is very frowned up by ‘meta-players’ so not really worth taking, but definitely holds it’s spot for supports and squishier DPSers.

Specialist (Shield and HP recovery effects on self and party members increased by 24% and 36% if target below 50% of MAX HP)

Insanely good engraving on Supports and almost must have for proper endgame builds. The amount of healing it provides is very significant and it also provides more healing from your own potions effectively increasing your potential potion heals by 25-30% for the duration of the fight. Makes your heals and shields stronger and keeps you alive longer. What is there not to love!? Oh right the fact that every supports wants this and it will probably cost an arm and a leg to get…

Budget Damage Tier

These engravings provide less than 15% more damage or there’s a ‘catch’ why these are inconsitent compared to S and S- tier damage engravings.

Disrespect (+36% damage to monsters with less than 30% health)

Strongest engraving when the monster you are hitting is below 30% of health. This is probably one of the most disrespected (pun intended) engravings because guardians and bosses tend to get harder when they closer to death (below 30% HP) and with this engraving you’ll be dealing significant amount of extra damage at that point. It also allows you to tell that the guardian (whose health bar can’t be seen) is below 30% HP when you start hitting a lot harder. However when calculated the whole fight duration the benefit of this engraving is around 8-10% and thus being worse than the S/S- tier +15% damage engravings. Nevertheless this a strong budget contender because it’s usually rather cheap and still helps in places you need the most damage.

Mass Gain (+18% attack power, -10 % attack speed)

This engraving is MASSive in terms of it’s attack power increases but the -10% attack speed puts it in a very inconsistent place. It will make your damage dealing harder through longer animations and you will be more rooted in fights which hurts your survivability but if you have heavy hitting skills that are easy to hit (i.e. Artillerist) you could run this for a budget choice with significant amount of raw damage. This engraving is often ignored because of the negative and thus it’s perfect for the budget tier.

Lightning Fury (Attacks have 60% of generating a lightning orb once every 1s. When 5 orbs are created the orbs explode in melee range dealing aoe damage.)

Lightning Fury is an excellent underrated choice for the budget tier because it’s able to provide consistently around 10-13% damage when used on a fast attacking melee class (i.e. Wardancer). The only issue with the engraving is that you need to be in close range with monsters and the damage it provides is unfortunately below 15% in practice. Works especially well in Chaos Dungeons.

Focus (When you type a phrase including “!!!!!!” in the normal chat your next skill deals 28% damage (14% for awakening) with a 30s activation CD) <– Yes this is real.

Focus is probably the weirdest engraving in the game and it is very rarely used. However the damage increase it provides for awakening and heavy hitters is nothing to scoff at albeit you need to hit a chat macro every 30s before using that skill. This is mostly a meme engraving however and well deserves it’s place in the budget tier. Perfect Swing!

Propulsion (16% damage for 5s after using Dodge ability)

Propulsion sounds like a great engraving in theory but when you take it to practice you are supposed to use your dodge manuever every 5s to consistently use the damage bonus. This however makes you very vulnerable to attacks and creates situations where you simply cannot evade the bosses attack. Because this engraving is so risky to use it actually has a massive downside. However it can be used on classes that are tanky or generally not fully dependable on the dodge move (i.e. Gunlancer) as a budget choice and does provide that 16% of damage like the engravings in the S/S- tiers.

Trash Tier

These engravings are mainly worthless except for very special uses so the list will be different from the above.

Class Engravings

Popularity TOP 200 KR