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Lost Ark features a rich endgame experience that will keep casuals and veterans alike busy for months. Once you reach level 50, your character can embark on the endgame grind by completing Chaos Dungeons, a fairly easy endgame activity that is an excellent source of upgrade materials and your main source of upgrading skill Tripods.
While Chaos Dungeons are a daily activity that you can finish in a couple of minutes, it's crucial to understand how they work, the rewards they offer, and how to unlock them as soon as possible. This guide will go over what Chaos Dungeons are, how to unlock them, this activity's daily caps and catch-up mechanic, and we'll give a brief overview of the types of rewards you can expect while farming this activity.
Updated March 23. 2022: We've updated this article to include a helpful video that teaches you everything you need to know about Lost Ark's Chaos Dungeons.
What Is A Chaos Dungeon?
| Chaos Dungeon Overview | |
|---|---|
| Tiers | 1-3 |
| Players | 1-4 |
| Daily Cap | 2 runs per character |
| Catch-Up Mechanic | Runs grant double loot for every day you miss. Caps out at 5 runs. |
Chaos Dungeons are an endgame activity in Lost Ark that can be embarked on solo or with up to four players. In a Chaos Dungeon, you'll be tasked with slaying monsters to fill a progress gauge in five-minute intervals. Defeating enough monsters will open a portal to a new zone and reset your timer. Fill the progress gauge without running out of time to complete the Chaos Dungeon.
While simple, Chaos Dungeons are one of the most accessible and rewarding activities you can run in Lost Ark. For casual players, this will be your primary source of upgrade materials for your weapons, armor, and gems. And for more hardcore players, Chaos Dungeons give you a direct means of earning Engravings, jewelry, gems, and tickets to access the Cube endgame activity.
How To Unlock Chaos Dungeons
Chaos Dungeons are unlocked upon reaching level 50 and completing the quest "Ealyn's Request" in North Vern. Complete the world quests located at North Vern to finish the quest chain. You have to be level 50 to start this quest chain, so ensure that you finish a few world (blue) quests while leveling; completing nothing but story content (yellow quests) isn't enough to reach level 50. We recommend that you complete the Shushire questline as well to ensure that you are at a high enough item level to clear your first Chaos Dungeon.
Upon reaching level 50 for the first time, your account will receive a Vern Powerpass Token, allowing you to boost an alternative character straight to level 50. It also unlocks this quest. If you plan to make multiple characters in Lost Ark, we highly recommend using the Vern Powerpass on your first alternate character.
Once you've completed both pre-requisites, head to any populated hub town and look for this symbol:
This is a Chaos Dungeon statue, allowing you to queue for a Chaos Dungeon. You can attempt them solo, with a few friends, or matchmake with other players. Each Chaos Dungeon has an item level requirement and tier associated with it. If your item level is below what's listed, you can't run the dungeon. Be sure you're completing all of your dailies and upgrading your items to unlock additional Chaos Dungeons and other endgame activities.
Clearing A Chaos Dungeon
Clearing a Chaos Dungeon is simple enough. Use every ability at your disposal to take down the hordes of enemies housed in each zone. Chaos Dungeons are packed with hundreds of trash enemies with a few majors thrown in, so AoE skills are king here. With how weak most of these enemies are, min-maxing isn't required until you reach T3. So long as you have some AoE skills and Tripods allocated, you should be fine.
Chaos Dungeons follow this pattern for zones:
- Zone #1: Kill as many fodder enemies as possible. A portal opens when enough are slain.
- Zone #2: Defeat minibosses then a world boss to open the portal.
- Zone #3: Break rift core crystals to spawn a miniboss. Repeat until the Chaos Dungeon is cleared.
If your Chaos Dungeon portal is gold instead of blue, you'll be transported to a bonus zone that contains a phantasmal enemy. Damage the enemy enough, and it'll drop a plethora of currencies (including Gold) you can use back in town.
Chaos Dungeon Tips
- Zone #1: Group all of the enemies together until they stop spawning. Use AoE attacks to clear them out, granting massive progress.
- Zones #2 and 3: Slain minibosses and rift cores will drop Fighting Spirit Ether that increases your attack speed, movement speed, and reduces your cooldowns. Grab these whenever possible to speed up your runs.
- All Zones: You'll find blue orbs floating around the area. Walk past them to gain a temporary movement speed buff.
- Chaos Dungeon difficulty scales with additional players. If possible, clear these solo.
Daily Limits And Catch-Up Mechanic
Chaos Dungeons can be run twice a day per character for optimal rewards. Players are given 100 Aura of Resonance each day that is consumed upon launching a Chaos Dungeon. Each dungeon consumes 50 Resonance, granting you maximum loot. When you run out of Resonance, you can still run most Chaos Dungeons with a smaller reward yield—mostly currency you can use to purchase items at a Chaos Dungeon vendor.
Should you take a break from Lost Ark, there is a catch-up mechanic for this activity. For every 50 Aura of Resonance remaining when the daily reset occurs (10 AM UTC), you'll be given a +10 Rest Bonus. When your Rest Bonus reaches 20 or more, your next Chaos Dungeon clear will drop twice as much loot. You can have up to 100 Rest Bonus on your character at any moment. Bear in mind that the catch-up mechanic only boosts your first two Chaos Dungeon clears each day, so a Rest Bonus of 100 will take over two days to cash out.
Tiers And Rewards
Like most endgame activities in Lost Ark, Chaos Dungeons are broken down into tiers. Each tier represents an item level band. T1 is the lowest, and T3 is the highest. The first tier of Chaos Dungeons will drop upgrade materials relevant at T1, tier two drops upgrades relevant at T2, et cetera. If it wasn't obvious, accessing higher tier Chaos Dungeons will also grant access to items with a higher item level.
Chaos Dungeon Tiers
Chaos Dungeon Activity Rewards
There are two main reward types in Chaos Dungeons: gear and upgrade materials. Chaos Dungeons will be your main source of weapons and armor, both of which grant valuable upgrades to your skill Tripods. Beyond that, Chaos Dungeons are a great source of upgrade materials for enhancing your weapons and armor—a requirement for raising your character's item level. T2 and T3 dungeons are also a good source of gems, yet another way to enhance the strength of your abilities. Every reward tied to Chaos Dungeons can be found below.
| Tier | Rewards | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Currency | Upgrade Materials | Misc. | |
| Tier 1 |
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| Tier 2 |
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| Tier 3 |
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Chaos Dungeon Vendor Rewards
Completing Chaos Dungeons once your Aura of Resonance is at zero will grant you special currency items to spend at a Chaos Dungeon vendor. These vendors allow you to spend your shards and crystals on Battle Engravings, different rarities of jewelry, or crafting materials respective to the currency's tier. In other words, if you're having a hard time getting a particular item or resource to drop, you can spend some of your Chaos Dungeon currency to purchase what you need.
Here's a brief breakdown of what you can purchase:
The cost for each item varies. Each item also has a weekly purchase limit.
| Tier | Currency Used | Item Exchange |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 |
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| Tier 2 |
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| Tier 3 |
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