Lost Ark Sorceress guide: Best skills, build, engravings, and leveling

Feb 21, 2022

In Lost Ark, the Sorceress is a mage class that focuses on using the elements to unleash devastating attacks upon her enemies. The Sorceress skill set consists of a wide variety of elemental and arcane magic attacks. If you're interested in playing the standard mage that you always do in MMORPG’s, Sorceress probably has what you’re after. If the thought of burning, zapping, and freezing your enemies to death fits your power fantasy, the Sorceress is the class for you.

Sorceress can be one of the most complex classes in Lost Ark to play, in addition to one of the most basic. This is entirely up to what Class Engraving you decide to pursue. As a result, this class is a perfect fit for everyone looking to sling some spells. As a Sorceress, our identity is a gauge that fills up as we hit enemies. We can spend this gauge in two ways. Our Arcane Rupture (Z key) boosts our damage and halves our cast times. This effect further increases in potency when Arcane Rupture is activated at 100% gauge, granting more damage and cooldown reduction as Arcane Torrent instead. You can also spend 30% of your gauge by using Blink (X key), which teleports you in a target direction. This is useful for dodging sudden attacks that may have caught you off guard.

Best Sorceress builds

Much like every other class, the two primary builds that Sorceress has are determined by their Class Engravings.

Reflux Sorceress

The Reflux build buffs the damage of your skills (Except Awakening and movement skills) as well as reduces their cooldown, but completely disables the Arcane Rupture portion of your Identity Gauge (Z key). The Reflux build usually forgoes skills with long cast times in exchange for low cooldown, instant cast skills for rapid-fire spell-slinging.

Reflux is a faster-paced and mobile build with higher cast speed and consistent damage. This build has a simple playstyle and is quite forgiving compared to the Igniter build. There is not really any resource management necessary, just hit whatever buttons are off cooldown when you can. The Reflux build also has more mobility due to your Blink identity (X key), which can be used much more liberally compared to the Igniter build.

This build typically looks for Crit and Swiftness as their desired stats, with Crit usually being the primary focus. Aim for around a 70/30 Crit/Swiftness split to begin with.

Desired engravings for this build are (in order):

Reflux
Grudge
Precise Dagger
Hit Master
Adrenaline

An example Reflux build for a brand new level 50 character with 252 Skill Points will look like this:

Igniter Sorceress

The Igniter build significantly increases the power of your Arcane Rupture. Due to this, those opting for the Igniter engraving choose to activate Arcane Rupture at 100% gauge for the Arcane Torrent buff instead. This allows for the biggest possible burst window in order to maximize the Sorceress' potential damage output. The Igniter build uses the Sorceress' hardest-hitting skills in order to fit as much DPS into their Arcane Torrent burst window.

Due to this, a significant amount of your skills will have cast times. This means you will need to accurately track boss patterns to ensure your skills will even hit. Even with the reduced cast time and cooldown reduction from Arcane Torrent, this can be extremely difficult. However, the reward for hitting your skills is unparalleled damage that can’t be matched by any other class.

The Igniter build hits harder than the Reflux build, but is extremely deliberate in terms of how you need to play. A lot of skills have long cast times and your time in Arcane Torrent is limited, so every hit counts.

This build typically looks for Specialization and Crit as their desired stats, with Specialization usually being the primary focus. Aim for around a 70/30 Specialization/Crit split.

Desired engravings for this build are (in order):

Igniter
All-Out Attack
Grudge
Hit Master
Precise Dagger

An example Igniter build for a brand new level 50 character with 252 Skill Points will look like this:

Sorceress leveling guide

Leveling in Lost Ark is pretty straightforward, but here are a few key skills and tripods that will aid you in the leveling process. Sorceress is a breeze to level due to their wide variety of strong AoE skills. Do note that Sorceress leveling is actually very dependent on the person, as some abilities will feel better to use than the others. I personally don’t enjoy the skills with long cast times, but those who are accustomed to long cast times in MMORPG’s may feel more at home with skills like Explosion or Punishing Strike.

Note that there aren’t mobility skills here, as Sorceress has very limited mobility in general.

Blaze

This is a Flame skill that is unlocked immediately. This is your bread and butter skill for most of the leveling process. While its damage may not be as high as your other hard-hitting AoE skills, it will do more than enough damage to clear trash mobs during the downtime of your other skills. Its low cooldown means you’ll always have it available to clear packs. I would get this skill to level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it early, and then leave it at level 7. You can level this to 10 if you want, but it does pretty great damage even at level 7.

From here, choose four of the following AoE skills to level up to 10. These skills also do significant damage to bosses through their tripods, so they’ll function as single target damage skills as well.

Frost’s Call

This is a Frost skill that is unlocked immediately. This is one of our many high damage AoE skills available to you as a Sorceress. You’ll use this skill to clear large packs of trash mobs and as one of your main damage skills to bosses. You want to get this skill to at least level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it as soon as possible. I personally leveled this skill to level 10 second, but it should be interchangeable with Seraphic Hail, Punishing Strike, Reverse Gravity, Esoteric Reaction, or Explosion.

Seraphic Hail

This is also a Frost skill that is unlocked immediately. This is one of our many high damage AoE skills available to you as a Sorceress. You’ll use this skill to clear large packs of trash mobs and as one of your main damage skills to bosses. You want to get this skill to at least level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it as soon as possible. I personally leveled this skill to level 10 third, but it should be interchangeable with Frost’s Call, Punishing Strike, Reverse Gravity, Esoteric Reaction, or Explosion.

Punishing Strike

This is a Lightning skill that is unlocked at level 14. This skill has a long cast time, so try to use it when in your Arcane Rupture if possible. This is one of our many high damage AoE skills available to you as a Sorceress. You’ll use this skill to clear large packs of trash mobs and as one of your main damage skills to bosses. You want to get this skill to at least level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it as soon as possible. I personally left this skill at level 7, but it should be interchangeable with Frost’s Call, Seraphic Hail, Reverse Gravity, Esoteric Reaction, or Explosion.

Reverse Gravity

This is a normal skill that is unlocked at level 16. This is one of our many high damage AoE skills available to you as a Sorceress. You’ll use this skill to clear large packs of trash mobs and as one of your main damage skills to bosses. You want to get this skill to at least level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it as soon as possible. I personally leveled this skill to level 10 first, but it should be interchangeable with Frost’s Call, Seraphic Hail, Punishing Strike, Esoteric Reaction, or Explosion.

Esoteric Reaction

This is a normal skill that is unlocked at level 20. This is one of our many high damage AoE skills available to you as a Sorceress. You’ll use this skill to clear large packs of trash mobs and as one of your main damage skills to bosses. You want to get this skill to at least level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it as soon as possible. I personally leveled this skill to level 10 last, but it should be interchangeable with Frost’s Call, Seraphic Hail, Punishing Strike, Reverse Gravity, or Explosion.

Explosion

This is a Flame skill that is unlocked at level 32. This skill has a long cast time, so try to use it when in your Arcane Rupture if possible. If you prefer, you can take the Backfire tripod at level 7 and convert this skill to a normal cast at the cost of boss damage (It will still deal good damage without it). You’ll use this skill to clear large packs of trash mobs and as one of your main damage skills to bosses. You want to get this skill to at least level 7 by investing 20 skill points into it as soon as possible. I personally left this skill at level 7, but it should be interchangeable with Frost’s Call, Seraphic Hail, Punishing Strike, Reverse Gravity, or Esoteric Reaction.

Thanks for reading our Sorceress Guide! We hope you enjoy exploring your way through the world of Arkesia!