The Lost Ark early access release time lands very soon, and even if you’re not picking up a Founder’s Pack, the wide free-to-play launch is still coming this week. There are five Lost Ark classes, each of which has its own set of powers and abilities. So which one should you choose if you’re jumping in? Luckily, the developers have spent last few weeks working with a variety of YouTubers to provide extensive breakdowns of how each class works in action.
The Assassin is a melee fighter that focuses on mobility and burst damage at the expense of health and defense, using demonic power to fight the demon hordes. As with the other classes, Assassin eventually splits into another advanced class.
The Shadow Hunter can shapeshift into demonic forms, building a meter with human form attacks in order to power up those abilities. The Death Blade is more complex, wielding three swords to deliver advanced combo moves, building up a meter for supercharged power.
Check the Assassin out in action below.
Gunner serves as your ranged DPS option. The Gunslinger subclass actively switches between pistol, shotgun, and rifle stances based on what range you’re fighting at and which abilities you want access to. The Deadeye can similarly swap between those three weapon types, but its abilities offer a bit more technical complexity.
The Artillerist advanced class for Gunner is all about the big guns, with a giant shotgun, a flame thrower, a minigun, and an explosive napalm shot. Finally, there’s Sharpshooter, which trades the guns in for arrows. You generally wear enemies down from a distance, then rush in for another burst of melee damage.
Going back to pure melee, we have the Martial Artist. The Striker and Wardancer both use combos building up to big elemental attacks, while the Scrapper uses a heavy gauntlet to beat down enemies and the Soulfist offers a combination of melee strikes and magical ranged powers.
The Warrior class takes us into tank territory. The Berserker puts the focus on burst damage, building a fury meter that you can trigger for a boost to damage and attack speed. The Paladin focuses on buffing and supporting allies, while the Gunlancer has tons of defence and can still keep up damage with more DPS-focused classes.
Finally, we’ve got the Mage. The Sorceress focuses on damage-dealing, with elemental powers that can deal various damage-over-time and area-of-effect attacks. Then there’s the Bard which – like Warrior’s Paladin subclass, the only other support option in the game – focuses on buffing and healing allies.
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