Lost Ark – PVP FAQ

PVP: Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the state of PVP in other servers?

Pretty spotty/inactive in Russia/Japan. Korea, it’s populated enough mainly due to the much larger overall population that you can usually get a queue at any time of day (for ranked queue). Normal queue is fine on the servers.

Balance is not perfect, some classes are ‘lower tier’ than others, and PVP balances often come less frequently than PVE balances.

There has been increased focus on improving PVP in Korea lately with the addition of the Rowen continent and soon-to-be Royal Roaders eSports event.

2. What kind of PVP is there?

There’s arena PVP, island PVP, and GVG.

Arena PVP can be queued from anywhere in the world. It includes FFA (no one plays this), LTS (less populated, but has 1v1 combat), and TDM (3v3, has a normal and ranked queue).

There are no premades for ranked queue but you can premade LTS and TDM unranked. There is no actual 1v1 game mode either.

FFA is as it sounds, everyone gets put into a ring and kills each other. It’s a clown fiesta.

LTS is 3v3 but each team sends in one player at a time. Winner stays on. If all members of your team die you lose. Cooldowns and health are not replenished for the winner per bout. This does not have a ranked mode. LTS is extremely good for learning what each individual class does and how to win super armor battles against each of them.

TDM is 3v3 in the most traditional sense. Most kills within the time limit wins. Ranked queue is solo queue and puts you in a team of usually similarly skilled players (sometimes it’ll put a high rank with low ranks, but one on each side). TDM is the only environment where you can learn about team play, peeling, engaging/disengaging as a group, ult tracking enemies/allies, and awareness.

There is MMR gain and loss in ranked. Your first 50 or so matches of the season you gain and lose a lot of points, these serve as your pseudo placement matches. After that, your MMR gain and loss starts getting smaller and smaller and it becomes difficult to climb. There are MMR brackets (bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, master, grandmaster).

Island PVP are mini-games that appear on the islands that have different PVP objectives. There are a few of these. Most islands that have PVP events on them are also open PVP areas, but you gain nothing for attacking people in these places.

GVG is PVP among guilds and it’s a scheduled weekly event where guilds field their players against one another in different island occupation events. Each island has its own objective, some are combat, some are non-combat. Occupying the territory by winning the most points by the end of the GVG period confers benefits such as gold and other rights.

In the (near) future, Korea will be adding a continent called Rowen which is focused on open-world PVP. The continent, unlike previous continents, will feature a slew of PVP events in it, in an attempt to ‘celebrate the fun of PVP’ without it being too competitive. More details later.

3. What’s the difference between the PVP rank in the PVP menu and the PVP rank on my character sheet?

The one on your character sheet is strictly play amount. It doesn’t take into consideration your wins or losses. At the end of every week, the amount of PVP points you’ve accrued by participating in PVP activities is tallied up, and you’re placed in percentiles with every other player on your server (not region). Those who played more PVP are in a lower percentile and gain more rank points towards this PVP rank. Those who played less may not get enough points to maintain their rank. When PVP activity is high on the server, more PVP must be played to place in a lower percentile.

By ranking up your character sheet rank, you can unlock new things in the PVP store to buy. Some are materials for upgrading in PVE and some are vanity items that may or may not be temporary (mount, aura, etcetera). By being a higher rank in this category, you get more PVP currencies at the end of each week to buy stuff from this store.

The PVP rank in the PVP sheet has to do with your rating rank (bronze, silver, gold, etcetera). This is gained and lost with every match. You must play at least one match every 14 days or your rating will begin to decay. At the end of the season, the top players receive rewards including PVP costume, PVP mount, and sometimes even cash shop currency.

The PVP rank in your character sheet and the one in the PVP menu are not related and are for two different things.

4. Is PVP equalized? 

All Arena events are equalized. Everyone has the same combat stat cap that they can freely adjust in a unique menu, and everyone gets 340 skill points for Arena in a separate Arena-specific page. Players cannot exceed level 10 skill eithers, even if they’re over level 55. Health and attack power are set by the game. Literally no gear is required to do arena PVP, except for a weapon so that you can cast your skills (weapon restriction).

Most island PVP events are equalized minus a couple such as Slime Island.

GVG varies but a few GVG events are non-equalized as well, so only the strongest guilds can contest top territories. However, since the reward is not exclusive to 1st place, weaker guilds can still participate in higher rank occupation islands. Guilds 2-5 still get a large reward at end-of-week rankings in an island and guilds 6-10 get a smaller reward.

5. Can you get gear or stuff for PVE from PVP?

You can get PVE-related materials for upgrading from the PVP vendor using the currency gained from matches and your end-of-week character sheet PVP rank.