Amazon Details Lost Ark's New Card-Slinging Arcanist Class Ahead Of July 20 Release

The latest addition to Lost Ark's ever-expanding class roster is coming July 20, this time in the form of a new advanced class of the mage variety, the card-slinging Arcanist.

A new blog post from Lost Ark's Western publisher Amazon breaks down how the new class is played ahead of the game's July update. The Arcanist revolves around imbuing a deck of cards with powerful magic to deal damage to enemies, Gambit-style. Arcanist skills come in three different varieties--Normal skills, Stacking skills, and Ruin skills.

Normal skills are nothing fancy, but deal damage and build up a special Card Deck meter. Stacking and Ruin skills, however, are what make the Arcanist stand out. Stacking skills will buildup four stacks on an enemy target. When a Ruin skill hits that same target, the stacks are consumed, creating the potential for massive damage.

The Arcanist's specialty skill, Card Deck, allows her to draw random cards from a deck, which can be used for a variety of effects, ranging from granting an increased attack speed buff to making all attacks have a higher chance of being a critical strike. Players can store two drawn cards at a time to be used when they see fit, making for some potentially devastating combos.

Two key class engravings are available for players to choose from. Order of the Emperor puts an emphasis on Normal skills and the Card Deck mechanic by granting Normal attacks additional damage and Card Deck meter buildup. It also adds a powerful card, the Emperor, to the Arcanist's deck. The class's other engraving, Empress's Grace, is focused on using the Arcanist's Stack and Ruin mechanics to deal even greater amounts of damage.

For those eager to take the Arcanist for a spin and have reached Punika in the game's storyline, a Punika Powerpass that will boost a power's item level to 1,302 is coming on July 20, as well as an Express Event for item level 1,302 characters to further progress to 1,370 item level.

The Arcanist is just the latest class to be added to the Western release of Lost Ark, with the Destroyer and Glaivier also having joined the free-to-play MMORPGs rosters in recent months. There are still a number of classes available in the Korean version of Lost Ark that Amazon and developer Smilegate RPG are in the process of bringing to the West, including the Scouter, Reaper, and Artist.

Lost Ark's latest update added new raid content and a new solo dungeon for high-item-level players, while at the same time removing the planned implementation of the new Yoz's Jar cosmetic system following player complaints about the system being pay-to-win.