The Gem system is a unique part of Lost Ark’s gearing process. This guide teaches you everything you need to know to make use of the system!
The Gem System in Lost Ark is an additional form of gearing up your character in Tiers 2 and beyond. It supplements your skill by granting them additional bonuses to damage or cooldown. We’re going to break down this system and how to best make use of it.
What is the Gem System in Lost Ark
Gems are an important part of gearing, which have their own section on your Character profile, much like the Card System does. However, this system only becomes available starting in Tier 2. They come in two variants.
Skill Cooldown Reduction, which reduces a skill’s cooldown by a percentage that scales with gem level. These Gems are called Farsea Gems in Tier 2 and Crimson Flame Gems in Tier 3. These will reduce your cooldown by 2% per Level.
There are also Skill Damage Gems, which increase a skill’s damage by a percentage that scales with gem level. These are called Azure Gems in Tier 2 and Annihilation Gems in Tier 3. These will increase your damage by 3% per Level.
At any given time, you are allowed to equip up to 11 gems. This would allow you to greatly empower 5 skills with both damage and cooldown effects. This isn’t always necessary as some skills generally only need a cooldown gem.
How a class uses gems varies from class to class. Supports being more Cooldown heavy, rather than Damage heavy. DPS classes will typically look to heavily empower key skills, while at least lowering the cooldown of their synergy skill. Some DPS builds for a class may only need to really have one priority gem
Where to get Gems
Gems have two Primary Sources, Chaos Dungeon and Boss Rush. They may also be available occasionally from events, as well as Mari’s Secret Shop.
Chaos Dungeon will only drop Level 1 gems, but typically enough for a few Level 2-3 for each pair of daily runs. This doesn’t seem like a lot, but it will add up over time. You’ll typically want to get a full set, or most of a set of Level 1 Gems before combining them.
Boss Rush is a rarer task that requires an entry ticket, which can only be gotten from Chaos Dungeon runs while you have Aura of Resonance. This however, if completed up to wave 15, will award a large quantity of gems from Level 1, all the way up to Level 4. A single run can fill about half your inventory with gems, usually 20 or so of each Level.
Events will be commonplace in Lost Ark, but they may not always offer Gem Chests. Typically if they do, they will only include Tier 3 Gem boxes, as those are much more permanent.
Mari’s Secret Shop will always be available, but since its inventory is random, it also will not always include Gem Chests. The big downside here is that it’s a pretty big gamble, as Mari’s Secret Shop only accepts Blue Crystals as a currency, which means trading for gold. It’s often more cost-efficient to buy the same tier of gems from the Market.
Fusing and Rerolling Gems
Gems go up to level 10, but will typically only drop at Levels 1-4 depending on source. This is where fusing comes into play.
Gem Fusion allows you to combine any 3 of the same level gem to create a single gem of the Next Level. The result of the fusion will be entirely random and cannot be influenced in any way. This means regardless of which gems you use, it’s going to be a 50/50 chance of getting a Damage or Cooldown Gem. The skill will also be entirely random, meaning it can roll as a skill you don’t even use.
To fuse Gems, you need to enter the Gem UI and from here you have 3 options: Manual Fusion, Semi-Auto Fusion, and Auto Fusion. This helps you to keep low-level gems you might want or need, but still allows you to fuse unwanted gems for a chance of getting a higher level gem.
Note: If a Gem is locked or in Storage, it cannot be fused by any of these means.
Manual Fusion is done by Right-clicking the preferred gems for fusion until you have three slotted into the fusion panel.
Once you have all three gems inserted, click fuse and it will fuse them. You can still manually add gems that are in a preset but not locked and the game will display a warning when you attempt to use such gems.
Semi-Auto Fusion lets you select a level to manually fuse to. You select a level above the Fuse button and hit Fuse. This will use every gem of every tier below that it can up to the selected level and fuse them up to the selected level.
This is great if you get a bunch of low-level gems and are still looking for upgrades at multiple Levels. You can stop at each level you need to. If there’s an upgrade, you can equip it before continuing. This setting will not allow gems that are equipped or part of a preset to be used and leave them untouched.
Auto Fusion is another step above the Semi-Auto version, which entirely removes the chance of finding upgrades at multiple levels. This will let you select a Tier and Level to stop at but will fuse them as the fusion requirements are met by drops. This removes most of the clicking involved normally. This is enabled by clicking the Auto-Fuse Setting button in the Fusing UI
This is best used when you get to gems of at least Levels 3 or 4 across most of your gear, as you’ll have no interest in Level 1 or 2 gems, which is the majority of how these will drop. They’ll fuse up to your preferred level without any extra steps.
All of these have their uses, but it’s best to make sure you don’t have a huge disparity in your gem levels, keeping them within 1 Level of each other.
There is also an NPC located in major cities as indicated by a Red Gem icon who can reroll. This lets you put in a gem, spend a bit of silver, and reroll which skill it will be for, but will not change the type of gem. It can, however, change which class it is for based on the character rerolling it.
When you open this Reroll UI will list all of your Gems on the left side of this UI, regardless if they are equipped or in your inventory.
From there you can right-click the gem you wish to reroll and it will be placed in the middle, as well as give a list of the options it can roll from on the right. It will also display the reroll cost below.
If you choose to reroll, it will ask you to confirm then reroll your gem. This will show the starting gem and the result of the rolling. This can, unfortunately, roll the same skill on occasion and will not be a guaranteed change. This however is a low chance as it’s one skill vs however many your character has.
The general consensus of most players is to only reroll a gem if you’re transferring it to another character. Since the odds of landing a specific skill is typically 1% or less, it’s not a great gamble and gets incredibly expensive the higher the level and tier of the gem. If you don’t land a skill you want, it is a better option to fuse up rather than reroll, even if it creates a disparity. Gem Fusion is free while rerolling can quickly drain your silver with multiple rerolls. There are better uses for Silver.
Gem Priority
Using gems is as simple as equipping them, but knowing which skills are the ones to prioritize relies on figuring out which skills you get the most out of. In a lot of cases, this means reading a guide or simply going with your skills in your current preset.
Below are the quick details of what types of skills should use which types of gems. However this is only a loose ruleset, so you can still choose to not follow this.
As a DPS class, your Priority would be getting 4-5 of your main DPS skills a full set of gems. This lets you have a quicker and more consistent skill rotation and helps you get additional damage out. The remaining slots should be used for cooldown on your Synergy skills and Mobility Skills. Most mobility skills will already be a short cooldown for most classes, so this typically is just an additional optional choice if you have remaining slots.
As a simple list, DPS Gem priority looks like this:
- Damage Skill Cooldown Gems (priority on core rotation)
- Damage Skill Damage Increase Gems
- Synergy Skill Cooldown Gems
- Mobility Skill Cooldown Gems (entirely optional)
Some DPS classes are a special case for this priority where a specific gem will take priority over all others. As an example of this, a Deathblade Surge build will prioritize their Surge Damage Gem over anything else, as it’s really the only damage gem it needs. This is the case most builds that typically run high Speciality and have a skill tied to their specialty, but is not a skill you directly level.
As a Support class, your priority is getting Cooldown Gems for all of your buffs, and skills that build your Speciality meter quicker. After this, the remaining slots can focus on your few damage skills to get damage, assuming that most would already have a cooldown gem. Most supports don’t typically have Movement, and their damage skills often serve as their Synergies, outside of direct buffs.
As a simple list, the Support Gem Priority looks like this:
- Buff Skill Cooldown Gems
- Synergy Skill Cooldown Gems
- Damage Increase Gems
Check out theLost Ark Guidesavailable on VULKK.com and stay up-to-date with thelatest news about the game.
