Lost Ark: This is how professions and crafts work in the new Smilegate MMORPG (2023)

As in other online role-playing games, Lost Ark also has a crafting system that you can use to collect resources such as ores, flowers, mushrooms, wood, and much more from the world. The collected materials can then be used to create items, but not in the way you are probably used to from other MMORPGs. In this guide, we will introduce you to the Lost Ark professions and answer many of the questions that may be floating around in your head.

When do you unlock the craft?

In Lost Ark, you unlock most of the features automatically as part of the main scenario. This also applies to the crafting system. The author of these lines received his first profession quests at level 24. So around the turn that will also be the case with you. From this moment you get access to the menu item “Character” => “Crafting Skills” (hotkey L), which gives you an overview of your crafts.

Important: You can only practice professions if you have equipped the right tool. You can buy these tools from NPCs, for example. However, you should refrain from doing this at the beginning. There is a tutorial assignment for each craft, which equips you with the appropriate tool. Better versions of the tools can be obtained later through quests or crafting.

What crafts are there in Lost Ark?

You can practice the following six crafts in Arkesia to gather resources:

• Gathering: Gathers herbs, flowers, and mushrooms from the ground. You need a gathering tool for this. Important for the production of consumables.
• Logging: You can cut down selected trees in Arkesia to get wood. Several players can fell a tree at the same time. Requires a Lumberjack Tool. Important for research and building ships.
• Mining: Hit rock formations with a pickaxe to get ores. Alternatively, a mining bomb will do the trick. Requires mining tool. Important for research and building ships.
• Hunt: Press the B key to switch to the Combat Skills quickslot to gain access to the Search and Throw hunting skills. With “Search” you mark the targeted small animal that you want to hunt. With “Throw” you do it. After that, you can pull the fur over the animal’s ears to get meat and cases. Requires hunting tools. Important for cooking.
• Fishing: Press the B key to switch to the Combat Skills quickslot to gain access to the Float Fishing skill. At fishing spots, you can get the bait into the water. Use the skill again at the right moment to pull the fish (or pearl) ashore. Requires fishing tool. Important for cooking.
• Excavation: Press the B key to switch to the combat skill quickslot to activate Sonar. As long as this skill is active, you will search for nearby dig points. The sensor signal reacts faster as you get closer to the point. With “relic search” you can then carry out the excavation. Requires excavation tools. Important for ability stones and transfer material.

Tip: Not every zone offers resources for every craft! Open the map of an area and you can find out at the top right whether it is worth looking out for relics, ores, and the like. Alternatively, you can search for raw materials in the Codex (shortcut Alt + D) to find out their respective sources.

What’s with the working energy?

If you collect raw materials through your crafts, you automatically use up part of your work energy. The energy value is 10,000 and you consume 30 energy per collection action by knocking on stones or picking plants. So it takes time until you have brought this value to zero and have to pause your crafts. 30 energy is restored every ten minutes. That’s 4,320 points of work energy over a day (you do NOT have to be online to do this).

What is the point of leveling crafts in Lost Ark?

If you practice a craft, you automatically receive experience points for the respective guild. This is how you level up and unlock new skills. For example, Gatherers can’t pick up Mushrooms until they reach level 10 Gathering. There are also passive improvements that increase the chance of rare materials, for example, or that make your tools less durable.

Caution! This progression is account-wide. So you don’t have to level the crafts with all characters from zero.

Also, note that your tools can also have useful effects. It is particularly important if you are not interrupted by attacks from nearby opponents while picking plants or mining ore. At the latest when a visit to the platinum field is due, you have no time for unnecessary interruptions. But more on that later.

The warehouse for materials

Although Lost Ark is based on a Free2Play system, you don’t have to worry that all the collected resources will cause constant space problems. In addition to your normal inventory, there is also the warehouse, in which all crafting resources, but also fortress seals, ship materials, or relationship gifts are stowed away automatically.

Note: The camp is open to all characters on your account. Items in storage cannot be destroyed, sold, or disassembled. But you can act all tradable items about the market, the post office or personal trading … now … act. And: A maximum of 999,999,999 items can be stored in the warehouse.

How do you craft items?

There are no manufacturing crafts in Lost Ark. Instead, you use the workshop on your housing island to commission the production of items – the activation also takes place during the course of the main scenario. You usually research the recipes for the production in the laboratory, whereby you can produce tools, buff food, furniture, and other housing accessories or upgrade materials for your equipment in addition to consumables such as potions and grenades.

Note: The production time depends on the quality and type of items. The duration of green potions is about a few seconds. You wait almost half an hour per pack of three for blue potions, and an hour for epic ones. The times for the production of objects from the “Buildings” category can be completely different. You can find more information about your island in our housing guide.

What is the platinum field?

There is some content in the Lost Ark endgame that requires access authorization in the form of a ticket. This includes the three cube instances, the two hall challenges, and the platinum field. The latter content is a zone in which you can find lots of plants, ores, mushrooms, and Co. and which, in addition to the ticket, requires an average item level of 250 from you.

The trick of this content: You only have 15 minutes to collect as many resources as possible. You don’t need any work energy for this (but you don’t get any experience points for your crafts either). You can also pick up special platinum resources in the zone and bring them to the starting area to unlock useful bonuses or restore all resources in the area again. Mean: You can’t fight with the items in your luggage. However, the zone is full of enemies. Incidentally, tickets for the platinum fields are random when you collect resources.

What are World Tree Leaves?

World Tree Leaves are one of the collectibles in Lost Ark and you can also get these randomly through the various crafts. The more Worldblueleafs you find, the more rewards you can unlock at the Worldtreeplat vendors in cities.

For the first milestone (6 sheets), for example, there is a trade skill EXP potion that provides you with several levels of rises across all trades. Later you can also earn transformations, buildings for housing, titles, or jewels in this way.

How important is crafting in Lost Ark?

It doesn’t matter whether it’s potions, tools, grenades, or upgrade materials: You can also buy all of these things, for example in the auction house. The problem with it: You pay with gold there. However, gold is not as easy to farm as the other main currency, silver. So if you farm raw materials and make the stuff yourself, you can save a lot of gold. And then of course there is also the option of turning raw materials or manufactured items into gold yourself in the auction house, which you can then invest in other things. In other words: The craft is certainly not essential for survival in Lost Ark, but it makes sense to get the expensive hero’s everyday life financed.