Best Lost Ark Sorceress build: recommended skill levelling, engravings, and awakening skills for PvE and PvP
How to kit out your Sorceress for adventures in Arkesia
What is the best Sorceress build in Lost Ark? A recent addition to Lost Ark's character class line-up in the South Korean version, the Sorceress is rumoured to be designed to provide an accessible entry-point for Western players in the EU/NA release. It's unsurprising, therefore, that she's proving a popular choice of starting character. Despite being a literal squishy wizard with her low defences and HP, she really does have a lot going for her - to the extent that we've described her as a solid A Tier character in our tier list.
The Sorceress might not end up leading the charge as a DPS main right through to the endgame, but she can still make a valuable addition to your combat roster thanks to her intuitive playstyle and high-powered burst attacks. On this page we'll give an overview of the Sorceress's skills, levelling guide, and which bonus class and engravings to choose when you reach the endgame.
Looking for more Lost Ark class build guides?
- Artillerist
- Bard
- Berserker
- Deadeye
- Deathblade
- Destroyer
- Glaivier
- Gunlancer
- Gunslinger
- Paladin
- Scrapper
- Shadowhunter
- Sharpshooter
- Sorceress
- Soulfist
- Striker
- Wardancer
Best Lost Ark Sorceress build: Overview
The Sorceress possesses two identity skills that make up the cornerstones of her build: Arcane Rupture and Blink. Fellow Dishonored fans out there getting deja vu at those names might be interested to know that Blink does exactly what you might expect: instantly teleports the Sorceress by 15 metres. Since she can be quite vulnerable in combat, this skill can be used to get her out of danger in the short-term; but using it to charge towards (or straight through) enemies is often an even better call, as Blink deals piercing damage to foes caught in the direct line of travel.
Arcane Rupture has no such defensive utility, but is an extremely powerful offensive skill, allowing the Sorceress to enter a Magick Amplification state, during which she deals extra damage. While the skill is active, she also gains a mystic armour which specifically protects her against knock-back effects.
Both of the Sorceress's identity skills draw from the same mana sauce, the Arcane Gauge, which is charged during normal combat. You have the choice to fire off either skill once the metre hits 30%. Save up until it reaches 100%, however, and Arcane Rupture becomes Arcane Torrent, a more powerful version of the base skill that adds extra elemental damage to the Sorceress's attacks, and reduces both spellcasting times and cooldowns on her damage-dealing skills (except for Blink).
Best Lost Ark Sorceress build: Skills and levelling
The Sorceress's normal skills are straightforward enough on the surface: each one corresponds to an element, and she can choose to wield earth, fire, ice, electricity, wind, or magick attacks at her (and your) discretion. You're not locked in to choosing just one element for her to specialise in, so feel free to mix-and-match or go all in on one type as suits you best. For our recommended skill set, we've elected to go for a few different elemental skills, to help you get the feel of what the Sorceress is capable of.
By the time you reach Level 50 you should have accumulated about 250 skill points, which is enough to put together a balanced normal skill build to take your character into the endgame. For the Sorceress, we recommend picking a few favourite elemental attacks and packing as many points into them as possible, advancing through to Tripod 3 wherever you can, as in the following example:
Best PvE skills for Sorceress
| Skill | Tripod 1 | Tripod 2 | Tripod 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blaze: (Fire) Creates a forward flame with a 5 second duration, which deals fire damage and paralyses foes. | Damage Amplification: Damage to foes from all party members is increased by 6% for 8 seconds. | Flame Expansion: Flames spread left and right for 3 seconds, and damage to enemies is increased by a minimum of 40%. | Weak Point Detection: Damage to Push-immune foes is increased by a minimum of 60%. |
| Doomsday: (Fire) Calls a giant meteor to a target location within 14 metres, inflicting massive fire damage on foes and knocking them back. | Insight: Doomsday potential target distance increased by up to 4 metres. | Overheated Meteor: An overheated meteor engulfed in flames crashes to the ground, damaging foes in range. Flames last for 2.5 seconds and inflict damage up to 24 times, with up to 70% extra damage dealt. | Magick Amplification: Outgoing damage is increased by up to 90%, with an additional +20% if the Sorceress is also in the Magick Enhanced or Arcane Torrent states. |
| Esoteric Reaction: (Magick) Creates a Magick Crystal within 12 metres of a target location. The crystal evolves by levels up to three times, at which point it explodes, inflicting damage to foes and knocking them back. | Quick Preparation: Cooldown time reduced by a minimum of 5 seconds. | Enhanced Strike: Damage increased by a minimum of 35%. | Shockwave: Each crystal evolution triggers a shockwave, increasing explosive range by 20% and damage dealt by a minimum of 70%. |
| Rime Arrow: (Ice) Multiple ice arrows are created at a target location within 14 metres of the Sorceress, inflicting massive damage in the water element. | Enlightenment: The Arcane Gauge gets a minimum 30% recharge when this skill hits. | Piercing Strike: Hits ignore an enemy's defenses by a minimum of 50%. | Ice Pick: Icicles are sharper for at least 60% additional damage. |
| Seraphic Hail: (Ice) A huge wave washes over foes in front of the Sorceress, inflicting water damage. Enemies who are in the air when hit will be launched up again by the wave. | Enlightenment: The Arcane Gauge gets a minimum 30% recharge when this skill hits. | Evolved Hail: Throws hail which advances 14 metres and inflicts a maximum of 8 attacks, for a minimum of 40% total damage increase to affected enemies. | Weak Point Detection: Damage to Push-immune foes is increased by a minimum of 60%. |
Best PvP skills for Sorceress
| Skill | Tripod 1 | Tripod 2 | Tripod 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Esoteric Reaction: (Magick) Creates a Magick Crystal within 12 metres of a target location. The crystal evolves by levels up to three times, at which point it explodes, inflicting damage to foes and knocking them back. | Quick Preparation: Cooldown time reduced by a minimum of 5 seconds. | Enhanced Strike: Damage increased by a minimum of 35%. | Stabilized Crystal: Creates a fully evolved crystal with an explosion ranged reduced by 20%, but a damage output increased by at least 40%. |
| Frost's Call: (Ice) Causes a Cold Snap at a targeted location within 12 metres of the Sorceress. Inflicts a massive amount of water damage up to 9 times over its 4 second duration. | Chill: An afflicted foe's attack speed is reduced by a minimum of 20% and their move speed is reduced by a minimum of 40% for at least 3 seconds. | Unstable Rule: Immediately creates frost energy at a target location for 2 seconds, for a total of at least 15% damage to foes in range. | Final Strike: Crit damage is increased by a minimim of 130%. |
| Inferno: (Fire) Creates a pillar of flame at a targeted location within 14 metres of the Sorceress. Inflicts massive fire damage on foes and knocks them into the air. | Rift Acceleration: The time taken to create the pillar of flame is reduced by 0.5 seconds. | Flame Area: A flame area with a 3-second duration is created at the pillar's location, for an additional 40% damage to foes. | Firepower Supplement: Attack preparation time shortens, and outgoing damage is increased by at least 25%. |
| Seraphic Hail: (Ice) A huge wave washes over foes in front of the Sorceress, inflicting water damage. Enemies who are in the air when hit will be launched up again by the wave. | Quick Preparation: Cooldown time reduced by at least 4 seconds. | Additional Explosion: A large explosion occurs at the location where the wave hits, knocking foes back and increasing the total damage by at least 30%. | Red Hail: Element changes to fire, and "hail" knocks down foes, inflicting Burn debuff that deals continuous fire damage for 5 seconds. |
| Squall: (Wind) Creates a powerful whirlwind in front of the Sorceress, inflicting 3 hits before pushing and damaging the enemy with a fourth and final hit. | Agile Cast: Magick casting speed increased by at least 10%. | Lightning Whirlwind: Element changes to electricity, with a cooldown of 10 seconds. Crit rate is increased by at least 30%, and the final strike electrocutes continuously for 2 seconds. | Wiping Wind: Attack duration increased by 20%, and damage increased by at least 50%. |
Lost Ark characters start out with a decent suite of early-game abilities, and new skills unlock fairly frequently as you progress through the first 20 or so character levels. Gaining XP and levelling up gives you skill points that you can spend on improving skill levels and unlocking "tripods". Tripods are enhancements to skills that become available at skill levels 4, 7, and 10; applying one gives that skill a new secondary function. Every tripod has three options for you to choose from.
There's a limit to how much you can customise any Lost Ark character's build until they reach Level 50 and you gain access to endgame Engravings and Awakening skills (see below). Until that point, the path each class takes will be relatively linear; so throughout the early game, selecting your normal skills and their enhancements is the key to setting up a build that's to your liking.
Best Lost Ark Sorceress build: Engravings
Once a Lost Ark character reaches Level 50, you can apply Engravings to them. Engravings are part of Lost Ark's endgame content, and allow you to apply a variety of buffs and boosts to customise your character's kit a little more. As well as generic engravings available to all characters, every class has two "class bonus" engravings unique to them. Effectively, these let you pick a subclass for them to specialise in.
The Engravings for the Sorceress class are Igniter and Reflux, which come with the following bonuses:
- Igniter soups up the Sorceress's abilities whenever the Arcane Rupture skill is active, lowering normal skill cooldown duration by -50%, while raising Crit rate by up to 25% and Crit damage by up to 50%.
- Reflux is more of a devil's bargain, since it disables your use of Arcane Rupture altogether. However, the benefits are not inconsequential, as sacrificing this aspect of the Sorceress's power adds up to 16% extra damage onto all of your non-awakening skills, and reduces cooldown times by -10% on all non-movement skills.
On the surface, Igniter is much more desirable than Reflux, if for no other reason than that giving up one of your identity skills always feels like a step too far. But really, it depends on what aspect of the Sorceress's kit you like to focus on: Igniter is completely essential if your build is focused on burst damage, but if you prefer sustained attacks and spellcasting, then Reflux might be worth considering despite its cost.
The number of engravings you can equip is variable, and depends on the engraving slots you have available. Class-specific bonus engravings require Learned Engraving slots, which you unlock by reading books you accumulate throughout your adventures in Arkesia. The two "generic" engraving types that can be equipped by all classes (damage boosts and utility buffs) are equipped according to how many engraving points you have available through a combination of your character's equipped accessories (such as necklaces, earrings, rings, etc.) and their Ability stones, all of which can be picked up as loot or from merchants throughout the game. Shuffle your loadout until you've maxed out your engravings points to 35 and you should be able to equip about three generic engravings in addition to your class bonus.
The following engravings work particularly well for a Sorceress DPS build, regardless of which class bonus you choose:
- Grudge increases damage by up to 20% when fighting Boss level or higher monsters, while reducing incoming damage from them by the same amount. This is one of Lost Ark's best engravings in general, and it's a top choice whenever you're in doubt. It works particularly well for the Sorceress, though, because mitigating her vulnerability to incoming damage is one of the hardest parts of this build to get right.
- Master of Strikes increases damage dealt by attacks not dealt from behind or to the head by up to 16% (this applies to all skills except awakenings).
- Cursed Doll increases attack power by up to 16%, but reduces incoming healing by -25% (not including natural passive health recovery).
Best Lost Ark Sorceress build: Combat Stats and accessories
In addition to Engravings, accessory items in Lost Ark (necklaces, earrings, and rings) are your source for Combat Stats. These substats can have a major effect on your character, and it is important to target gear with the right stats for your build. During the main story, look for Specialization to help build your Magick Meter faster. Swiftness is a nice secondary stat that reduces your cooldowns, while Crit will crank up your critical hit damage. All three stats will help you clear content faster.
Once you hit level 50, you will want to adjust your Combat Stat priorities based on which class Engraving you are using. For Igniter builds, you’ll want tons of Specialization to build up Magick Meter and activate Arcane Rupture, with Crit and Swiftness as secondary stats. Reflux builds can forgo the Specialization to focus on Crit, with Swiftness as a second priority.
Best Lost Ark Sorceress build: Awakening skills
Like Engravings, Awakening Skills become available once a Lost Ark character has reached Level 50. Again, there are two options to choose from, and unlike with Engravings it's not an either/or proposition: you can unlock both Awakening Skills if you'd like, although you can only equip one at a time.
The Awakening skills for the Sorceress are:
- Apocalypse Call: Summons a shower of deadly meteors that fall in a random pattern across a radius of 18 metres for 8 seconds. Meteors deal fire damage and knock enemies down in a 6 metre AoE from impact. Challenge or below level enemies receive 200% damage.
- Enviska's Might: The Sorceress forms a dome of magical power around herself, inflicting lightning damage to enemies in range. The dome's energy then begins to radiate outwards while pulling enemies inwards, dealing more damage in the process. At the end of the skill's duration, the dome explodes, resulting in one final burst of damage.
Apocalypse Call is perhaps the more spectacular option, and has the potential to deal more damage under ideal circumstances. However, Enviska's Might still packs an impressive punch and is the more reliable choice, since it's hard to bank on the strike pattern of the Apocalypse Call meteors. If you do choose to experiment with Apocalypse Call, we recommend trying it out in PvE, since other players in PvP will likely be wise to the RNG element and subsequent vulnerabilites of a Sorceress wielding this skill.
Since you need to be at Level 50 to take advantage of most of Lost Ark's character build materials, be sure to check out our guide to levelling up fast in Lost Ark to help you get there as quickly as possible. If you choose to stick with the Sorceress as your DPS you're going to need some strong supporting characters, so have a look at our Lost Ark classes tier list to help you pick a strong set of friendly classes for her to play off of.