Faceting at the Ability Stone Cutter is something players will need to become intimately familiar with once they reach level 50 inLost Arkand receive their Tier 1 Set. The act of “Faceting” a gem is a real world practice in which the gem is cut and/or polished to remove impurities or to make it more aesthetically pleasing. Diamonds, for example, are Faceted before they’re embedded in jewelry.
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InLost Ark,the act of “Faceting"these lore-canon Ability Stonesis cutting away at the unneeded parts of them to enhance the effects of the stone. But, with every Facet, comes the chance for the stone to become worse or even crack, which is where the Reduced Ability Score comes in as well. So that people don’t misunderstand or under utilize this system, let’s go over Faceting a bit more in-depth.
What Are Ability Stones?
Ability Stones are introduced alongside Tier 1 Armor at level 50, and they’re essentially the way that players exert more control over what exact Engravings they want to max out and when. Not only that, but each jump to the next Item Level Ability Stone usually also has a large stat increase in overall Vitality.
There are Rare, Epic, Legendary, and even Relic-grade Ability Stones at a bunch of different level markers across all three tiers, and the main difference between the rarities is how many nodes they have for each of the three lines. Like the two slots everyone gets for their Engravings, think of the Ability Stone as the largest single way to increase a specific Engraving or even two.
How Do They Work?
To put it simply, players attempt to facet each of the nodes in all three lines of the Faceting menu and they either succeed or fail. If they succeed, that node is filled in and will then apply that node toward that specific Engraving if equipped (AKA Cursed Doll +4 becomes +5 if an Ability Stone with Cursed Doll +1 is equipped).If the Faceting attempt fails, however, it does nothing, and that slot remains empty and useless for that Ability Stone forever. So, with say ten potential node bonuses on an Ability Stone, only two or three of them can end up filled in depending on the luck of the attempts,and if Gear Honing is any indication, those odds can be incredibly cruel at times.
Additionally, the third line of each Ability Stone is actually a negative effect called a Reduced Ability such as Defense or Move Speed reduction, so Faceting attempts for that line failing are actually purely beneficial.
Every successful Faceting attempt lowers the chances of the next attempt of succeeding by ten percent (AKA a 75 percent chance succeeded lowers the next success to 65 percent), while every failure increases the next facet’s chance of succeeding, so it’s a real balancing actthat can cause specifically unlucky players to start feeling negatively about the game overall.Typically, players gravitate toward spending their highest successful Faceting attempt percentages on whichever of the two blue lines they care most about, spending their middle-of-the-road chances (45 to 55 percent) on the other blue line, and spend their lowest chances of success (0 to 35 percent) on the bottom red line.
Ability Stones & The Auction House
Since Ability Stones are given out at quite a consistent rate, players may notice they have a whole pile of them before they know it, and that they can actually put these stones up on the Auction House (not the Market). Though, it needs to be said that once a Stone has even one Faceting Attempt on it, it is no longer tradable and can’t be put up on the Auction House. Depending on the state of the marketplace, selling these Stones can be incredibly worth it for making a big chunk of gold at once.
The obvious game-incentivized mechanic is to dismantle the Stones that have useless Engravings and use that dust at the Ability Stone Cutter to make new randomized Stones, but that isn’t the best usage overall. Remember, Ability Stones have the potential to be incredibly helpful or useless depending on how the Faceting Attempts go, and people will actually pay a sizable amount of gold(especially the pay-to-win players)for the most optimal chances, even in lower item levels. They’re a bit more volatile in the rising and fall of their selling price,especially compared to Consumables,but still well-worth selling.
Thankfully,while bots plague the lower-tier area of the Auction House,selling high Tier 2 and Tier 3 Ability Stones is pretty bot-free.
Why Are They So Important?
As it turns out, Ability Stones are so monumentally important inLost Ark’sendgame. For one, getting as many Engravings maxed out as possible is a big part of Tier 3 Gearingafter the Punika questline.This is because players usually want to get their Class Engraving to Level 3, as well as two class-specific Combat Engravings such as Grudge or Keen Blunt Weapon. Because engravings don’t “activate” at their three levels unless they’re at 5, 10, or 15 nodes, getting just the right amount of Engraving Nodes can be challenging.
As player’s get higher and higher in their item level, and they get more and more Engravings to +9 Node status, it becomes a real balancing act of using the two Engraving Slots, all the accessories (rings, earrings, necklace), and of course the Ability Stone to get the best possible combination of Engraving activations possible.
Where to Get Them?
Let’s move on to some of the most reliable ways to get Ability Stones for those who can’t seem to get the one they’re looking for. Thankfully, Ability Stones are actually obtained from quite a few places, so they’re pretty easy to stock up on without even realizing it. They can appear as drops within a lot of the daily checklist of post-level 50 content,such as:
And that’s not all, players can also get them from:
Thankfully,there’s a lot of content from the original Korean version of the game left to release in the West,so there should be even more methods of obtaining them as time goes on.
What Resources & Tools Are There For Ability Stone Faceting?
Finally, let’s talk about what resources a standard player should use to get the most out of their Ability Stones. Yes, players can just roll-the-dice and play the odds themselves to try and get their preferred Faceting rewards, but there are also a variety of fan-made tools and resources players can use to get the most statistically beneficial results without having to do any of the hard thinking themselves.
There are a ton of them out there, but just to name the ones we have personal experience with:
Lost Arkis available on PC via Steam.
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