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Yesterday was the annual Winter LOAON event held in South Korea to celebrateLost Ark’s impressive feats over the last year, and to take a look at what Smilegate has in the future for the MMORPG, specifically going into 2025.
This is always one of the most anticipated events for Lost Ark as it features huge announcements and exciting gifts for fans (usually for Korea only), and this year was a bit of a hit or miss for some people. On one hand, it features a good number of quality of life improvements that will help new and returning players, but on the other hand, there were some expectations that were not met.
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New Classes: Wild Soul and Female Paladin
By far the biggest announcements of the evening were the two new classes. This basically kicked off the show with Director Jae-Hak Jeon announcing Wild Soul, a Druid-esque class where you’re able to transform into an adorable fox or comical bear.
On paper this sounds amazing, as a Druid class is just what Lost Ark needs. But unfortunately, while a lot of players were expecting a character such as Danika to be the perfect model to base this class off of, we instead get another Specialist Yoz race. While there’s nothing wrong with having another child-like class in the game, when you think of a Druid class, a cutesy character is definitely not what comes to mind. Regardless, Wild Soul will be made available starting January 8 in Korea, with its release in the west being a month later.
Thankfully, Smilegate somewhat redeems themselves by announcing a female version of Paladin. This has long been desired, especially because there just aren’t enough supports in the game, and having a gender swap with the highly popular Paladin made more sense than a swap with an Artist or Bard. Unfortunately, players will have to wait a little longer to get their hands on Female Paladin as it arrives in the summer of next year in Korea.
New Kazeros Raids
If there are two things Lost Ark is known for, they are classes and raids. With Korea already being one raid ahead of the west, it only made sense for them to extend the gap a little more. The next raid will be a three-gate raid, with the first gate being a second encounter with Thaemine, and the next two gates being brand-new enemies. Normal mode will be open to players at 1680, and Hard mode at 1700.
Not only did Smilegate announce a new raid coming sometime next month in Korea, but they announced the final chapter in the Kazeros raids, where we will finally be taking down the big bad himself sometime in spring or summer of next year. Not a lot is known about this raid because it was only teased, but the Director has stated that it will be harder than even Thaemine’s original tier 3 raid. It only makes sense considering we will be facing the main antagonist we’ve had for almost three years now.
Miscellaneous Content
Smilegate is introducing a new region called Rimeria, which is the land of Yoz. This works perfectly considering the announcement of the Wild Soul class. There is a new type of raid where we face off against a fierce monster in a limited time, “Strike” mode, that can be completed with a party of 8 or a party of 4.
Solo Mode versions of Thaemine and Echidna will be added, with their currency and items being added to the Solo Mode vendor. There will be gold nerfs for Hard Ivory Tower and Thaemine, with the most notable being Thaemine Hard Mode Gate 4 being more than cut in half. On top of that, getting to Tier 4 will be made a little bit easier with gold and mat nerfs to Tier 3 honing.
Transcendence has been completely reworked to be more of a traditional board game where you roll a four-sided die. This is a huge improvement given the level of frustration Transcendence is upon the community, being heavily RNG based, a huge gold sink, but most importantly, a massive time sink. Also, Elixirs have been adjusted so what you’re choosing is a lot more understandable and easier to get your desired results.
There’s the standard new Chaos Dungeon (Kurzan Front), Ebony Cube and Guardian Raid called Drextalas, which looks like a reskinned fiery Moake. There’s also a new island and collectibles added to the world.
Suffice to say, Smilegate is doing a lot more for new and returning players, more so than existing players. While the new classes and raids are nice, they are more or less par for the course. The quality of life improvements won’t affect existing players too much, but for everyone else it will make getting into the game far easier.
