The Best Cards in Lost Ark: A Lost Ark Cards Guide

Card Sets are a pretty complex feature of the game, which takes time (quite a lot of time, actually) and resources to enhance, so choosing the best ones from the very start is plays an important role in min-maxing your character.

In today’s article, we are going to dive into a general card guide, showcasing some of the best card sets overall. These sets are great for most of the classes, but ideal for the start to mid-game. We’ve also got specialized guides for each individual class, which are better designed to fit the late game, so make sure to check out the one you’re most interested in based on your current progress!

Understand the role of the card sets

First and foremost, you need to understand one basic thing about cards, and that is the fact that they provide mainly defensive bonuses at the first levels, with the offensive ones coming at various awakening levels. When you’re starting off in the game you won’t get some massive ATK or Crit boost from your cards because it’s simply not possible.

You can get, however, offensive buffs at the higher Awakening levels, such as Awakening 18 and 30 for Field Boss II, or 2% Additional Damage from Grand Master Trial Awakening 12. If this all sounds gibberish, then let me put it in plain terms.

How to Awaken cards in Lost Ark

In order to Awaken cards, you need two things:

  • Card XP
  • Duplicates of the card you want to Awaken

For instance, you want to Awaken Armen because you like the fact that it’s a cool Legendary card part of the Lostwind Cliff set, which seems pretty cool at Awakening 12; now you need to gather enough card XP and duplicates of Armen to level it up several times over (first awakening: 29k XP + 1 duplicate, second awakening: 43k XP + 2 duplicates and so on).

As a general rule of thumb, it’s easier to Awaken sets that don’t have Legendary or even Epic cards, since these are more difficult to obtain.

Card levelCard duplicates neededXP needed (white/green/blue/purple/orange)
112000/4000/10000/19000/29000
223000/6000/14000/29000/43000
334500/9000/22000/43000/65000
446800/13500/32000/65000/97000
5510000/20000/49000/97000/194000

Note: This table doesn’t have the XP required to max the cards once you reach Awakening 5 with them. I personally don’t know if that’s necessary to activate the effect or not, or it’s just for bragging rights.

Reminder: Never throw away any cards, no matter the rarity!

You know those pesky Common (white) cards you keep getting from the card lotteries? Don’t throw them away or anything like that. Instead, add them to your card roster because they grant you some bonus passive stats that can add up to quite a lot if you get every single card out there.

Of course, these stats increase as you awaken the cards, granting pretty neat bonuses. You can find your current progress in the Cards -> Books section (Alt + C -> Books).

How to expand the Card Catalog in Lost Ark

To expand the Card Catalog you have to head over to Cards -> Enhance and scroll down until you see the button shown in the image below.

Sadly the only way to expand the Card Catalog known to me is by spending Crystals. 50 Crystals will expand the catalog by 10 slots, and to collect every single card in the game you’ll probably need to unlock every single slot.

Don’t worry about doing that from the start, just expand it to roughly 200-220~ slots; that’s going to be enough until they release more content unless you’ve gone ham on card collecting (props to you in that case, you’ve got more patience than I do).

The best card sets for starting out

At the start, some of the best cards that can be useful later on are the ones that grant HP and some other useful stats at higher Awakening levels.

#1. Trixion Set

#2. Field Boss II Set

#3. Triarchy Set

This is a terrific set to have on a secondary slot for when you do Guardians. This can pair up well with We’ll Meet Again set (#4 in our list).

#4. We’ll Meet Again Set

#5. Farewell Weapon Set

The best cards for support (a.k.a. Bard and Paladin SUPPORT spec)

Support classes will most likely use shields and healing skills for the party, and the reason there’s a separate section for them is because these two sets are both exceptional for them. Shields and Heals are based on the caster’s HP, so the more HP they have, the better the shields/heals. Of course, engravings play an important role too, but right now we’re mainly focusing on cards.

#1. Field Boss II Set


#2. Farewell Weapon Set

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My personal favorites and my recommendations

I know very well that support characters can use any of the sets mentioned above, but I would just have to hand an additional vote to the Romanticist set, which is probably my all-time favorite. This set is great for mobility, and I personally plan on maxing it out too.

Romanticist Set

Cherish Your Books Set (you better!)

Field Boss II Set (yet again!)

What card sets do you recommend? Let me know down in the comments below, or if you have additional guide suggestions, I’ll do my best to make them happen!

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