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  • What'due south A Stronghold?
  • Unlocking The Stronghold
  • Managing Your Stronghold
  • How To Upgrade And Level Your Stronghold
  • Obtaining Stronghold Materials
  • Boosted Stronghold Features
  • Leveling Characters With The Stronghold
  • Stronghold Tips

Lost Ark is a surprisingly complex game. Dozens of activities, multiple progression systems, and mountains of content will go along players busy for hours on end. It's also the perfect tempest for confusing newer players as to how sure systems work. Strongholds are a perfect example.

Strongholds—known as Estates in some versions of Lost Ark—human activity as a progression system, crafting system, and player housing all at once. If you're someone who saw the stronghold system and immediately overlooked it, we don't blame you lot. But nosotros do recommend you invest in this system. Strongholds let you craft endgame consumables, level your characters, and much more than. Here is a consummate guide to Lost Ark's stronghold organisation.

Updated April thirty, 2022: Nosotros've updated this article to include a handy video guide that tells you everything y'all need to know about Strongholds in Lost Ark.

What's A Stronghold?

Lost Ark Stronghold

Strongholds double every bit Lost Ark's thespian housing and particular crafting systems. Unlocked at around level 25, your stronghold acts as a base of operations of operations for crafting, researching new tools, and completing daily activities. You can decorate and reside in your stronghold similar other MMO houses, but Lost Ark'south strongholds offer much more than that.

The main use of your stronghold is crafting healing potions and battle items for the endgame. If you don't want to spend thousands of Gold purchasing consumables from other players, you'll need to invest in your stronghold. Y'all get enough of other benefits for doing so, such every bit unlocking the power to passively complete daily activities and heave alternate characters to level 50.

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Unlocking The Stronghold

Lost Ark Stronghold Song

You volition be given a stronghold after completing the "Clerk Theo's Invitation" quest. You'll unlock this quest upon retaking Luterra Castle, an event that occurs during the master story around level 25. Consummate the quest chain to unlock your estate and its associated fast-travel song.

Even with your stronghold unlocked, it won't exist at its full potential. Additional features for your manor are unlocked by completing quests obtained from your stronghold, finishing research projects, and increasing the rank of your stronghold.

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Managing Your Stronghold

Lost Ark Stronghold Manage Menu

To access your stronghold, enter your music canvass bill of fare (F2 by default). Use the "Song of Hearth and Dwelling house" to teleport to your stronghold. You can wander effectually your manor to admission its diverse structures and features, only there's a faster fashion: press Ctrl + i. This volition open a menu that will permit you access all of the important features of your stronghold through a series of menus. For decorating your estate, press Ctrl + ii.

While in the management bill of fare, yous can access the following:

  • Lab: Research new stronghold features and crafting options.
  • Workshop: Craft consumables and other items.
  • Station: Straight crew members to complete daily missions, including endgame activities.
  • Manor: Set bonuses for your stronghold.
  • Training Camp: Heave the level of your alts upwards to ii levels beneath your main.
  • Knowledge Transfer: Boost a graphic symbol's level straight to 50. Costs Gold.

Permit's break down what each menu does before we continue.

Lab

Lost Ark Stronghold Manor Rank 2 Upgrade

The lab is used to unlock new features for your stronghold. Unlocking new recipes for the workshop, upgrading parts of the stronghold, and unlocking new send types tin can all exist done from the lab. Inquiry projects accept multiple hours to consummate and typically require ore and wood.

Workshop

Lost Ark Stronghold Workshop Menu

Workshops are used to craft new items to use in the endgame. HP potions, battle items, tools, and corrective items for your stronghold are all crafted from here. To unlock more recipes for your workshop, research workshop upgrades using your lab. Just nigh all merchandise skill materials are used in this menu.

Station

Lost Ark Stronghold Station Menu

One time y'all unlock a ship, yous'll exist able to allocate crew members to complete sure missions. These missions offering currencies for your stronghold, upgrade materials, and even rewards granted from Chaos Dungeons and Guardian Raids (explained in the Boosted Stronghold Features section).

Manor

Lost Ark Stronghold Manor Menu

You can create sure structures in your stronghold that grant a passive consequence. This carte du jour is used to allocate which passives yous want active at any given moment. For example, platinum founders received a train cosmetic that grants passive crafting bonuses for your stronghold.

Training Camp

Unlocked upon reaching level 52, the training camp allows you to passively increment the level of your characters. You lot can simply level your characters upwards to two levels behind your highest level character. For example, if you have a level 60 character, you lot can only level your alts to level 58 through this system. Leveling characters through the training camp takes multiple days or fifty-fifty weeks to attain, depending on the character's current level and your max level. Y'all can still use characters that are actively grooming, so this is a costless XP farm.

Noesis Transfer

This is effectively a ameliorate training camp. After completing the "Nothing is Impossible for Cykins" quest, you'll be able to spend 600 Gilt to boost any character to level 50. This process takes eight hours to consummate.

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How To Upgrade And Level Your Stronghold

Lost Ark Stronghold Manor Rank 2 Upgrade

Nearly of the stations in your stronghold take tiers that can exist unlocked through your lab. If yous meet an option such equally "Manor Lv. 2" or "Workshop Lv. two," get in a priority to enquiry those. These research tasks volition unlock more options in your stronghold and progress certain quest lines pertaining to this system. Some options also require your stronghold to reach a certain level. In general, if you're looking to upgrade an attribute of your stronghold but can't, yous probable need to upgrade your stronghold level.

Lost Ark Stonghold View Research Tip

You tin can view the prerequisites of every stronghold upgrade by selecting "All Research" in the drop-down menu atop the Lab UI. For workshops, untick the "View Craftable" box to see every recipe.

Simply similar your characters, strongholds besides have a level associated with them. You earn stronghold XP by, yous guessed it, using your stronghold. Researching, crafting, and sending crew members on expeditions all grant stronghold XP. By far the all-time way to level your stronghold is by completing station missions, and so exist sure that one is ever agile whenever you're playing Lost Ark.

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Obtaining Stronghold Materials

Lost Ark Paladin(2)

Anyone who'southward dabbled with strongholds will know that virtually every feature tied to this arrangement requires trade skill materials—ores, wood, plants, and food. If you desire to apply your stronghold at all, you'll need to frequently use your trade skills. As a quick fresher, merchandise skills revolve around gathering materials in Lost Ark. While out in the world, press "B" to swap to your merchandise skill tools. Harvesting ore, flowers, and woods all count equally using your trade skills.

You can only harvest so many resources each twenty-four hour period, denoted by your work free energy bar (present while using trade skill tools). This resource passively regenerates over time and differs from your Stronghold'due south activity energy.

Each cloth yous harvest has a pocket-sized risk of granting uncommon and rare varieties used in more exotic recipes. For those who merely unlocked their estate and need a kickstart of materials, we'll briefly mention some skillful spots y'all tin find in Luterra—Lost Ark's starter continent.

  • Ores: Lakebar
  • Wood: Sunbright Colina
  • Flowers: Dyorika Plain

Exchanging Materials

Lost Ark Stronghold Material Exchange

If y'all are sitting on a lump of exotic materials and want to progress your stronghold quickly, in that location is an exchange merchant virtually the spawn point of your isle that will catechumen rare materials into common variants. You can find them correct abreast your island'due south rotating trade merchant. You can also exchange seals earned from crew missions in this area, although the conversion rate isn't one-to-one.

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Additional Stronghold Features

Lost Ark Login Screen

We've covered the essentials of your stronghold thus far, yet your role player home can offer even more services and goods with enough investment. Let's quickly get over some features that unlock in your stronghold as you increase its level and complete certain inquiry projects.

Merchandise Merchants

Trade merchants are temporary vendors that offer unique goods. These vendors can exchange seals obtained from station missions into rare materials, crafting recipes, collectible items, and even new crew members for your send. Vendors rotate in and out of your stronghold, and so be sure to check your stronghold daily to see what'due south in stock.

Resource Farm

Upon completing the "A Verdant Land" stronghold quest, you lot'll unlock a portal that'll lead to a dedicated resources subcontract aboard your stronghold. This isle volition abound trade skill materials for y'all to harvest each 24-hour interval, although there's a major caveat: y'all cannot trade or sell materials earned from this subcontract. Y'all can only use them for crafting. This island also grows unique resource used for crafting chest bundles in your workshop. Items you lot craft with these resource tin can be traded with other players.

Trade skill XP earned from the resource farm is profoundly reduced.

Feasts

Once your stronghold reaches level ten, you'll unlock the feast card. Feasts allow you to craft powerful consumable items that grant two-hr buffs for yourself and anyone in your stronghold. These buffs are quite powerful, stack with other consumable items, and persist after death.

Special Station Missions

Reaching level fifty and completing the quest "Ealyn's Request" in due north Vern will unlock Chaos Dungeons and, past extension, special missions for your station. Special missions are merely similar typical station missions except they likewise grant endgame loot, taking the identify of a traditional endgame activeness. For example, a Chaos Dungeon special mission will grant Anarchy Dungeon boodle when completed alongside your typical station mission rewards. These count towards your daily endgame limits (Chaos Dungeon resonance, Guardian Raid soul extractions, et cetera).

Pet Ranch

This feature is present in the KR version of Lost Ark and might non be in the NA/Eu version. We'll update this article once we have more information on this mechanic.

In the Korean client, strongholds can somewhen gain access to a pet ranch that allows you to plow excess pets into resource farmers. You lot tin select up to 4 pets to work in your ranch, creating cookies over time. These cookies can be redeemed to a vendor to upgrade your pets or obtain new pets entirely. With how pets take inverse betwixt the KR and NA versions of Lost Ark, this system isn't quite equally useful, provided information technology was carried over between versions.

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Leveling Characters With The Stronghold

Lost Ark Assassin

We mentioned this earlier in the guide, just this mechanic is so powerful that it warrants its own department. Through the training camp and noesis transfer menus, you tin featherbed leveling your alternating characters entirely. This differs from the Powerpass available upon reaching level 50; this feature doesn't take limited uses.

The training camp is unlocked upon reaching level 52 with whatsoever character. This system allows you to enhance the level of your alternate characters for gratis. You lot tin merely raise your alts to two under your max level with this method, but this doesn't cost Gold. Yous can still play characters that are actively using the training military camp, and so be sure to accept advantage of this feature.

Cognition transfer is a fairly new characteristic added to Lost Ark that allows you to heave whatsoever character to level fifty. Players can unlock this system past completing the "Cipher is Impossible for Cykins" quest. Dissimilar the training military camp, this costs 600 Gold and takes eight hours to complete. Gold is a valuable resource in the endgame, and then we don't recommend you use this system until you have a steady stream of Aureate. Once you exercise, this is a groovy way to aggrandize your character roster.

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Stronghold Tips

Lost Ark Trixion
  • Ever have a station mission active. This is your main method of earning stronghold XP and seals.
  • Focus on upgrading your manor first, equally this unlocks most lab enquiry options.
  • Before you log off, send your crew on a lengthy station mission. You can claim your rewards when you log in.
  • Activate a feast before embarking on an Abyss Dungeon or Legion Raid (when they go available). They give free stats.
  • Whenever a trade merchant is selling a collectible, buy information technology. Collectibles give rewards that increase your character stats, grant skill points, and much more.
  • Use your trade skills whenever possible. Y'all'll need thousands of ore, woods, and other materials to unlock all of your stronghold features.

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Next: Lost Ark: Complete Guide And Walkthrough