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Welcome to the Artillerist. This heavy-hitting gunner class is probably one of the most enjoyable to play in Lost Ark, mostly because of its extremely powerful, visceral attacks that fill your screen with destructive chaos.

RELATED: Lost Ark: Complete Guide And Walkthrough

This overview guide covers some mechanics of the Artillerist, goes over how the Engravings impact your playstyle, and an overview of skills. We'll also include a short section on gameplay in T1 and beyond.

We continue to monitor and update this class overview where necessary. Changes aren't extremely frequent in Lost Ark's meta, but this overview will always be up-to-date with relevant information.

Artillerist Class Overview

So, should you play as the Artillerist? If you like big explosions and impactful abilities then this is the class for you. Honestly, the Artillerist just feels fun to play, and rather than just all show, the class stays relevant into the majority of endgame content, even if the abilities can get a bit tricky to land on late-game bosses.

You've got a real balance between tankyness, damage, and CC-immunity with the Artillerist. Thanks to a regular rotation of big-hitting combos and burst damage, you will be putting out consistent DPS with abilities that aren't too difficult to hit.

The Artillerist's Identity Gauge accrues Firepower over time. When your gauge is full, you enter into your badass Turret-mode, a high-damage yet static piece of kit that can easily solo PvE content, including some bosses and late-game content. Watch out, though. You can't dodge or move while in turret mode.

Best Artillerist Engravings

First up, let's take a look at the Artillerist's two Class Engravings.

Firepower Enhancement Barrage
  • At level 3, Firepower Enhancement reduces incoming damage by 30% and increases your Crit Rate by 25, 30, or 35 percent depending on the level of your Firepower gauge (1, 2, 3)
  • The Barrage Engraving works with your Barrage mode, resets the cooldowns of all Barrage skills when you kill an opponent. This also increases skill damage by +2% with a 25 max stack.

Which one do you take with the Artillerist? Overall, the Firepower Enhancement engraving sees more use for PvE leveling and endgame clearing. Not only is the incoming damage reduction great for difficult content, but the boost to your crit rate also helps you deal even more damage during your burst window.

The Barrage Engraving boosts your Identity skill, which isn't really the main focus for the Artillerist, mostly because it makes you a sitting duck. This isn't so great when you're trying to clear a Raid or a Dungeon, even if you can clear waves pretty quickly with the turret. The Firepower Enhancement is a more reliable and consistent engraving.

As a side note, though, Lost Ark is a fairly balanced game, which means there are builds and playstyles out there that value the Barrage engraving. You can play however you want.

Grudge At level 3, Grudge increases your damage to Boss or above level monsters by 20% while also reducing incoming damage by 20%. It's pretty much a go-to for any endgame PvE content.
Cursed Doll At level 3, Cursed Doll increases attack power by 16% and reduces healing by 25%. This is another go-to Engraving. The only time you might see this drop off is in very high-level, late-game raids due to its healing downside.
Keen Blunt Weapon At level 3, Keen Blunt Weapon increases your crit damage by 50% but increases the chance that your regular attacks do 20% less damage. This is fine on the Artillerist thanks to the crit rate chance from Firepower Enhancement and your high burst damage.
Barricade At level 3, Barricade provides an extra 16% damage to enemies while shielded. Pretty handy, then, that the Artillerist has a shield.

We will cover a more detailed breakdown of the Artillerist's best engravings in our build guide.

RELATED: Lost Ark: How Long Does It Take To Hit Max Level?

Best Artillerist Skills

This section is designed to give you a brief overview of the different Artillerist skills in a sample skillset that hovers between the 240-300 skill points mark. Rather than a detailed build breakdown, this is an overview of what sort of skills the Artillerist has on offer, as well as how the whole class comes together with shields, CC-immunity, and high burst DPS.

Ability Tripod One Tripod Two Tripod Three
Enhanced Shell
  • Simple damage skill with a low cooldown - provides almost constant buffs
 Vital Point Bombardment
  • At max level, increases crit rate by 40% - important in this crit-focused Artillerist build
 Bullet Enhancement
  • Max level outgoing damage is increased by 50%
 N/A
Flamethrower
  • AoE Flamethrower attack that makes up a big part of your AoE clear
 Vital Point Attack
  • Max level increases your crit rate by 45%
 Shield
  • Creates a shield that absorbs up to 19% of max hp damage - complements the Barricade Engraving
 Incinerate
  • At max level, increases AoE damage, inflicts Burn, and can be stacked up to 5 times
Air Raid
  • AoE attack that rains damage down on enemies and lifts them into the air
 Quickfire
  • Increases attack speed by 42%
 Lightning Bombardment
  • Changes the attack element to Lightning and increases crit rate by 60%
 The Big One
  • Huge AoE attack - increases outgoing damage by 83%, the explosion area by 67%. If the target has Push-Immunity (a boss or elite) you deal extra outgoing damage of 192%.
Plasma Storm
  • An AoE traveling storm that deals 5 damage every half a second with medium Stagger
 Swift Fingers
  • Increases attack speed by 27%
 N/A N/A
Gravity Explosion
  • Creates a gravitational field that pulls foes, deals damage, then explodes, knocking enemies back.
 The More The Merrier
  • Increases outgoing damage by the number of enemies nearby - 20% for 1, 40% for 6, 80% for 11, and 120% for 16 or more
 Sturdy Armor
  • While you hold the ability, it generates a shield that absorbs damage of up to 25% of max HP
 Planetary Gravity
  • Increases holding attack pulling range by 50%, changes to a circle explosion, and increases all outgoing damage by 80%
Homing Barrage
  • High stagger attack that can be placed/positioned, when the bomb explodes it sends enemies into the air
 Guiding Enhancement
  • Reduces the delay between placing the explosive and explosion by 1 second
 Vital Point Bombardment
  • Increases crit rate by 60%
 Power Bomb
  • The bomb inflicts 96% damage and creates an AoE of poison, deals 5% base damage every second for 6s
Napalm Shot
  • Large AoE attack that launches stuns the enemy (with Flash Explosion tripod) and sets the ground on fire, dealing DoT
 Wide Explosion
  • Increases AoE radius by 20%
 Flash Explosion
  • The ability no longer lifts the enemy but stuns the enemy instead (for 5 seconds)
 Chain Explosion
  • Two more explosions that inflict AoE damage and DoT, overall outgoing damage increase 92%
Energy Field
  • Summons a shield that absorbs damage equal to 31% of max HP for 4 seconds - essential for the Barricade Engraving
 Field Release
  • When you activate the skill it deals damage to all enemies nearby
 Shield Enhancement
  • Increases the shield gauge by 180%
 N/A

Here's a look at the two Awakening skills for the Artillerist:

  • Missile Barrage - Fires 20 rockets into the sky which then fly to the targeted location, and explode for 45,000 damage.
  • Heavy Turret - Summons a heavy turret that lasts for 20 seconds. It inflicts damage with a laser and guided missiles.

That's all for this class overview, you can find out more information about specific builds in our upcoming Artillerist build guide.

If you want to check out some other class overviews you can skip to these few:

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