Lost Ark Engravings explained: how to find and use Engraving books, gear, and Ability Stones
Specialize your character with this key piece of customization
Trying to figure out how Engravings work in Lost Ark? Engravings are a core component of Lost Ark’s endgame character building. While they are first introduced around level 27-30, Engravings won’t typically become part of your loadout until after level 50. There is a multitude of ways to acquire and activate Engraving effects, but the system is a little confusing at first glance. If you’re having trouble parsing Engravings and getting your build set up, this guide is here to help.
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Engravings are activated via “nodes,” which are effectively points invested towards a level of an Engraving. This is what trips most players up at lower levels; having nodes for an Engraving does not automatically activate that Engraving effect. Each Engraving has three levels, which require 5, 10, and 15 nodes to activate.
An Engraving is not active unless it is at least level 1. So, you need at least 5 nodes of an Engraving to activate it. In the example above, I have 9 nodes of Mayhem, 5 nodes of Adrenaline, and 4 nodes of Grudge. So, Mayhem and Adrenaline are both active at Engraving level 1, while Grudge is inactive.
You can view your nodes and levels for each Engraving under the Engraving Effects tab of your character profile, like in the example above. Where do those nodes come from though, and how do you get enough to activate an Engraving? We’ll walk through this next.
Learned Engravings and Engraving books explained
You will first encounter Engravings in the form of Engraving books, which you can earn via a Roster Quest in Luterra Castle around level 27-30. When you consume an Engraving book, you’ll earn a point towards learning that Engraving for your whole roster. You can view these under the Learned Engravings tab of the Roster menu.
There are four rarity tiers of Engraving books, divided into the usual Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary categories. It takes 20 books of a tier to “learn” the Engraving at that rarity, starting with Uncommon. Once you’ve learned an Engraving, you can equip it by dragging it from your Learned Engravings tab to the slots on the bottom left of your character menu. You can find Engraving books in most endgame content, including Chaos Dungeons, Guardian Raids, and Island quests, or buy them on the player Market.
Finding and using Engraving gear
Each rarity tier learned only grants three nodes towards an Engraving. So, you’ll need to either acquire and use 20 Uncommon and Rare books of an Engraving to activate it or get more nodes from accessories. After level 50, you’ll start finding jewelry with Engraving nodes on it. Gather enough of one Engraving, and it will activate when you equip the gear with those nodes.
Easier activities like Chaos Dungeons and early Guardian Raids will drop accessories with generic Engraving effects, while more difficult Abyssal Dungeons and higher-level Guardian Raids will drop accessories with class Engraving nodes. You can also buy jewelry with the desired Engravings on the Auction House.
In Tier 1 (the beginning of Lost Ark’s endgame, covering Item Level 302-600), you’ll want to quickly activate one of your class Engravings by combining Uncommon books with jewelry from the first two Abyssal Dungeons. If you do every Roster Quest (marked with purple objective icons) on your first character, you will earn 20 books by the end of the Shushire questline.
Ability stones and faceting explained
The third way to acquire Engraving nodes is Ability Stones. These are also introduced in Luterra Castle, alongside a brief tutorial quest. In case you missed it or are unclear on how they function though, we’ll break things down.
Ability stones drop with two random Engraving effects plus a third, strictly negative effect. They also have a passive Vitality bonus which will raise your maximum health, so you’ll want to equip one as soon as possible. Before you can equip an Ability Stone though, you must facet it.
To do this, visit any Ability Stonecutter vendor in a major city, marked by an inverted diamond icon. Insert a stone, and click facet on each Engraving until all three effects are fully faceted. Each time you hit the button, there is a chance to add (or fail to add) a node to that Engraving effect on the stone. Your goal is to acquire a stone that activates a desired Engraving with as few nodes as possible on the negative effect.
That's everything you need to start using Engravings on your Lost Ark charcter! Engravings are an extremely important part of your build, so it is important to start taking advantage of them once you hit endgame. If you're already there and are ready to boost up more characters, our guides to the Powerpass system and Knowledge Transfers can help. Speaking of characters, visit our tier list for some inspiration.