PTR has been released to the public to test the balances for classes. The developer has touched around every single class and in this guide, we will summarize every single class balance change in Lost Ark, these changes in Korea will not impact as much in other servers because it impacts late game too far away and majority of the large changes are specific builds. Take this information to an account of how character will build up in the future as you progress through the game.

Lost Ark Class Balance Changes On Korean PTR Server

Berserker

Berserker got an overall nerf, most of his main dps skills including hell blade and sword storm. Therefore, mayhem has gotten much weaker than usual, problem is he used to do way too much damage compared to the technical ability required to land the skills. Berserker's technique has been buffed in crit damage, so it opened some more options to builds. Berserker is also able to provide a consistent synergy of 6% more damage to yourself and your party. In short, he has received a 6% more damage party synergy while taking away some dps.

Gunlancer

Gunlancer got a decent buff along with an interesting optional skill counter spear. Counter spear used to be an unusual skill because due to its lack of damage, but the huge damage buff made the skill viable. Therefore, as developer notes said they wanted to improve the overall play style of the red gun lancer because it lacks survivability compared to the blue gun lancer and the reward was not good at all.

Destroyer

Destroyer got a really decent change, although his dps went down a little bit due to his main dps skill, Seismic Hammer got nerfed, however, the story's real problem was his playstyle. There was some rng and his overall mechanics were really bad compared to other classes. Basically, those of you don't know, you have to land your blue skills to fill up your core and you have to use those core to do more damage on your purple skills. Blue course filled up as a rng, now it provides consistent course and the most important skill endure pain provides full three cores and also taunts. So there are two classes that can top now in Lost Ark and an overall combination of skills are much smoother for a Destroyer.

Paladin

Paladin has gotten an adjustment in positional play by swapping some skills into back attacks since the front. This is more of a nerf than a buff because head attacks provide additional bonus stagger and Paladin's main stagger skill, executions and holy sword turned into a back attack, so their stagger potential has been put down a lot.

Wardancer

Conviction and judgment rune used to be the most op rune due to the cooldowns providing additive percentage, meaning it turned 15% cooldown into 65. But this patch turned these runes into multiplayer increase so the effect has been nerfed down a lot. There are classes that utilize this conviction and judgment room and Wardancer is one of them. Basically, there is a relic set called domination and it requires you to do your awakening skill to be in the awakened state, this buff lasts two minutes and it provides huge cooldown percentages and flat damage increase. Problem is this buff only lasts two minutes and it requires the player to consistently use the awakening skill to keep the buff up, this means awakening needs to be under 2 minutes. To keep awakening lower than 2 minutes of cooldown, you need to equip awakening engraving. However, if you realize conviction and judgment rune with high swiftness, the awakening timer goes about a minute and 50 seconds so you were able to equip another damaging waving to boost 16 to 18% more damage. This min max method has been blocked due to the nerf of conviction judgment rule, this is actually the biggest change in Lost Ark. This is one of her nerf.

The second one is her wins whisper it no longer provides 16.6% crit rate, therefore this crit rate needs to be pulled from somewhere else. So high swiftness one dancer is impossible to be played because 16.6% crit needs to be moved from somewhere else which is about 450 crit combat stats. However, her overall 18% damage increase provided her lower dpsn to be a little better, so beginner players will not feel clunky as much along with yun's whisper providing mana region. Builds like first intention may be a good potential in the future, but it needs more research. It requires a lot of research to figure out the best mid max build. So far, think of it as all of the absolute mid max builds are blocked, this doesn't mean your ward dancer is going to suck so make sure you don't worry too much.

Scrapper

Scrapper has got a huge buff, one of the biggest. Before Scrapper needed to use charging glow to increase her attack power to be viable. Now majority of that dps boost buff has been passively detained by giving all scrappers skill 24% more damage, therefore, the class itself has become even easier to play with better maneuvering skills and less penalty for not playing properly. It is a good day for Taijitsu scrappers, but shock is also fine due to flat damage increase.

Soulfist

Soulfist has a questionable change, the problem is they did get a 30% damage buff on all of her skills, but this is due to the removal on their pre-set-up buffs. The scale energy release used to provide 55.6% damage increase on full tripod level. So the class's goal was to pre-set up by using the energy release and her height mode, then dish out as many dps skills as you could, this is why the class was very hard. Since they removed that pre-setup and put everything into passive damage increase, they're missing about 25.6% damage. Problem is in robust spirit the missing 25.6 damage can be covered with being able to take another dps skill instead of energy release where you can enter hype 3 mode and spam as many skills as you can to cover that with dps loss from the balance match. Energy overflow, longer cycle continuation makes this change very rough, because the build's advantage will smoother buff pre-setup. So therefore, because of the hype 3 utilization, robot spirit is much in a better end.

Lancemaster

Lancemaster’s changes are great but it brought some new problems. Nobody knows how to build it properly, this is due to majority of red skills being buffed. For example, all red skills provide additional crit damage increase, if this is the case, Keen Blunt slowly becomes inefficient as more red skills you take and if you don't take Keen Blunt, blue skills become very inefficient. Although, in overall play style, she has another counter in the red skill and more optional takes, it is up to the users to find a perfect combination of skills and engravings. The self-control blue build is also above because one of her major dps skill has been changed into back attack from front where the entropy set back attack build became more efficient doing more damage.

Striker

The striker didn't change mud in terms of performance, but lightning kick does not go through boss monsters anymore. This is a huge help in gameplay because it was really annoying in some losing rates.

Deadeye

We didn't get as much changes either other than small buff and hand gunner build.

Artillerist

Artillerist solver got a nerf on stagger, in the very end raids, people invited our trailers for huge stagger potential. For example, the combo missile launched an apoc shot before impact was a known stagger burst combo to make legion raid mechanics easier. The combo itself didn't get nerfed though, but his overall longer consistent stagger has been nerfed. Added counters and more options on skill is good, but it's not a very good change. 

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter is already an underperforming class, his identity gauge feeling has been buffed, but friends say that you used to be able to fill up your identity gauge when you use the skill bladestorm in place, but now they said you need to hit the skill in order for you to get the identity gauge. This could be a bug but we'll have to see. The loyal companion has gotten the minor buff but more changes should come to Sharpshooter.

Scouter

Non-transformation build scouter also utilize the conviction and judgement mode, so it is an overall nerf even if they got the skill buffs. As for transforming Scouter, his r skill used to be his counter and his main dps skill, so it was harder to utilize the counters because you cannot save your main dps skill you need to cycle it every time. Counter skills change to his a skill instead of r which is a better choice for countering.

Gunslinger 

She has more dps options, Reign of Bullets can be omnidirectional skill due to the new tripod in a tight spot like the shotgun one has. So most gunslingers are planning to utilize arena bullet instead of the shotgun fire because it is much faster and versatile in animation locks. Also a full rifle build is being researched at the moment due to the fourth scale catastrophe is being buffed as well. As for time to hunt, it feels like a buff for the crit rate, but it's actually a nerf due to the conviction and judgment room being nerfed. This build was also a build that utilizes those two runes for boost of overall DPS.

Summoner

Summoner's synergy has gone in an overhaul, instead of burst 24% for two seconds, she is able to provide consistent synergy of 12 decrease in defense, therefore people are thinking of utilizing some spec into summoner because high swiftness is not required to maximize the short burst of synergy. Since spec provides higher identity gauge gain and damage on elemental spirit attacks, it may increase our overall dps further. The problem is that her counter isn't good, the new counter water elemental is not very good at all, it's slow and it's not multi-target. This will be changed soon later.

Arcana

Arcana has gotten the general dps buffer red skills, Arcana requires to stack with blue skills and pop the stacks of red. Fun fact is our identity card has been changed where normal attacks will fight one stack as well. So it added more optional play to remove high rng play. At the same time, emperor build was super hipster build not to be really mentioned, but the emperor card can equip a gem now and emperor build’s main dps skill checkmate has been buffed by 12%.

Bard

Bard has an interesting change, her prelude of storm can counter now. However, Prelude of Storm is a skill where she gains the most identity gauge. So most of the time the skill is constantly rotating. However, if that's fine, people do not need to take rhythm buckshot, so they can utilize more identity gauge related skills or mark skills like stigma and harp of rhythm. Bard has gotten more freedom with choosing skills based on the player's play style. So it's an overall nice change.

Sorceress 

Sorceress is very simple, she has gotten about 10% damage decrease in crit spec ignition build, about 3-4% damage decrease in crit swift ignition build, with frost being another option to counter that particular skill has an identity gauge gained tripod, so that tripod price is skyrocketing.

Deathblade

Surge Deathblade has been nerfed, you cannot do 12 stack remaining search builds anymore, what this build did before is you turn on surge within the 3 bubble buff status where you get the maximum book efficiency, you squeeze in as many normal skills as you can for maximum damage. After releasing the surge, you utilize your skills again to fill back the bubble, this is impossible due to the nerf and board returns per stack. Also damage has been fixed 100%, so build that goal surge level 1 on purpose of high-end 33331 build though is not viable anymore due to damage being not efficient as 100% increase instead of 150% at full stacks. So there is really no reason to go surge anymore going at level 1 unless people want the extra 20% damage on surge with level 3 remaining energy is better mathematically right now.

Shadowhunter

Shadowhunter is also hugely buff like scrapper, the demonic impulse build just got a 6% flat damage increase due to her being able to keep this energy up 100 of the time during transformation phase and even on human face. Spacebar above is also pretty cool, the howling does give less identity gauge, but majority of the identity gauges fell off by demonic vision anyway, so the change is minuscule. However, perfect suppression just became perfect depression because the dps went down even more.

Reaper

Reaper became the king of counters, her skill nightmare can counter from far range and her blink also counts as a counter. So a skilled player can definitely counter really well now. She also got in the 12% damage reduction synergy that can be up 100% of the time. As for moon build as well, her cycle of skills has been revisited due to these series of buffs, so overall play has become more smooth. 

Artist

As for specialist artist, she has gotten buffs on overall stagger and her heel orb can automatically provide heals if nobody absorbs it with the g key. Other than that, some of the smaller is not that important like going through the portal gives you shield, but no one really takes the portal. 

So these are Lost Ark changes to classes in the balanced PTR release, the developers are starting to make classes much easier to control and provide better rewards for mechanical skills.