Lost Ark was a highly-anticipated game that was finally released to Western audiences in February 2022. After making waves in South Korea when it was first released in 2019, the game has only picked up steam after releasing worldwide, also on the platform Steam by Valve.
Lost Ark is an isometric 2.5D game inspired by the likes of the older Diablo games but with a lot more freedom and creativity allowed regarding builds and classes. We will be addressing one of those classes today, the Glaivier, and its relevant builds.
Glaivier
The Glaivier was first introduced in April. It is one of the Martial Artist classes in the game. This class has two varied skillsets, with each of them based on stances: the Focus Stance and the Flurry Stance. These stances are accessed via each of her two weapons: Spear and Glaive. The best way to leverage each of them is to find a balance between the stances and the weapons to bring out the best of the Glaivier.
As is the case with any class in these games, the Glaivier has its own set of strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths
- Skills provide high movement speed and mobility in general.
- Overall powerful DPS output, right up there with the highest DPS classes.
- High attack speed to go along with the movement speed, making killing any unit a lot easier.
Weaknesses
- Purely a damage-dealing class, the Glaivier has no supporting skills to speak of.
- Defenses are not very good, passable at best, needs protection and support from allies to survive.
- HP pool is not the best of all of the classes in the game.
Skills
Here are the skills of the class. First, the Focus Stance skills:
- Dragonscale Defense: Blocks attacks from the front, with the damage reduction dependent on max HP. Successfully blocking an attack thrusts the weapon forward, damaging enemies twice.
- Four-Headed Dragon: Thrusts the weapon eight times in front of the Glaivier, inflicting damage, followed by a finishing thrust.
- Red Dragon’s Horn: Thrusts the weapon toward a foe within 12 meters, inflicting damage. Hitting this perfectly can extend the range to 16 meters and add a knockback effect along with the damage.
- Spiraling Spear: Lowers stance and thrusts the weapon, inflicting damage.
- Starfall Pounce: Creates a shockwave after an initial jump, inflicting damage and launching foes into the air.
- Thrust of Destruction: Deals damage to foes at close range, then releases a beam of energy that inflicts damage, causing knockback.
Here are the Flurry Stance skills:
- Blue Dragon’s Claw: Charges forward, spinning the spear to inflict damage six times. Knocks enemies in the air.
- Chain Slash: Charges forward, knocking foes into the air, following this with two slashes in the opposite direction, inflicting damage.
- Cutting Wind: Charges forward, inflicting damage thrice, then returning back to the original position while inflicting damage once more.
- Double Strike: Strikes twice, inflicting damage.
- Flash Kick: Charges forward, inflicting damage thrice, followed by a swift kick.
- Half Moon Slash: Charges forward, inflicting damage twice, followed by an upward slash that knocks enemies into the air.
- Raging Dragon Slash: Enlarges the weapon and spins around to inflict damage, knocking foes back.
- Shackling Blue Dragon: Spins the weapon then slams it down, creating a shockwave that inflicts damage. Reduces all affected enemies’ Crit Resistance.
- Soul Cutter: Slides forward and attacks before crouching back down. Pressing the skill again inflicts damage twice more followed by one final strike that inflicts damage. Knocks enemies into the air.
- Spear Dive: Jumps and thrusts the weapon forward, inflicting damage, followed by a spinning kick that hits all enemies four times. Pressing the skill again will land the player back on the ground, dealing another hit of damage to all enemies around.
- Stampeding Slash: Hits three times while charging along with a finishing blow that inflicts damage. Knocks enemies in the air.
- Vault Stick: Flips on the spear, inflicting damage and launching enemies into the air.
- Wheel of Blades: Hits three times while spinning along with a finishing blow that inflicts damage. Knocks enemies in the air and slams them back to the ground.
- Windsplitter: Strikes in multiple directions, inflicting damage and pulling foes close.
Builds
As far as builds go, they are focused on two specific build types: Pinnacle and Control.
Each of these builds has its own advantages and is best used in certain types of situations.
Pinnacle build
The Pinnacle Build changes the Flurry/Focus Stage Three effect while changing stances all during when the Dual Meter gets maxed out at level three. The build’s first awakening skill, Yeon-Style Spear Technique: Spear Meteor, is considered widely to be one of the best awakening skills in the game.
The perfect skill build for the Pinnacle Build would consist of these skills:
- Chain Slash
- Cutting Wind
- Half Moon Slash
- Raging Dragon Slash
- Red Dragon’s Horn
- Shackling Blue Dragon
- Starfall Pounce
- Vault
- Wheel of Blades
We recommend going with Specialization and Swiftness for efficiency purposes. Specialization should be the primary focus, with Swiftness being the secondary option. Ideally, aiming for a 70:30 ratio for Specialization and Swiftness would be perfect for a Pinnacle build.
Control build
The Control build just about disables the Focus stance in exchange for increased Flurry skill damage by 36 percent at max level for all Flurry skills. Being a Control build Glaivier involves dealing a massive amount of damage and using the bonus 36 percent skill damage for all Flurry skills. Due to this, a Control build Glaivier is generally more able to react to threats easier than a Pinnacle build Glaivier, also making it easier to time the counters. For the best results, it is still advised to stay behind the enemies to do the most damage.
The perfect skill build for the Control build would consist of these skills:
- Chain Slash
- Flash Kick
- Half Moon Slash
- Raging Dragon Slash
- Shackling Blue Dragon
- Stampeding Slash
- Vault
- Wheel of Blades
Differing somewhat from the Pinnacle build Glaivier, a Control build Glaivier’s preferred stats would be Swiftness and Crit, ensuring maximum efficiency. Of these options, Swiftness would be the primary priority while Crit works well as a secondary focus stat. Also differing from the Pinnacle build, the ratio on Swiftness and Crit should be balanced at about 80:20 for an ideal Control build.
