Starting Tips

With all the islands in Lost Ark, it can be hard to find the one you are looking for. Thankfully the game makes it easy to just search for it. There also tends to be a bit of an order of progress to the islands themselves.

Whenever you are on one of the main continents you can always open up your map and in the bottom left corner click on the button “Ready to Sail.” For a small silver fee, it will teleport you to the docks of your ship. From there you can set sail or exit and go onto the docks.

You will also find near each port some traveling merchant ships. It is best to save your pirate coins for the next section in the short term. You can buy honing material, ship upgrades, and crew members among other things on these kinds of trade ships. Keep in mind the honing material you can buy is per character and is tradable which is one of the many reasons people have so many alts since they restock weekly.

As always before you set sail make sure to repair any damage your ship has taken. Not forgetting to do that and avoid any major hazards on the sea if you can make it highly unlikely that you will run into issues while at sea.

The island system in Lost Ark was introduced in other markets as a catch-up mechanic for the most part. Since the west got it right away it can be quite the boost to quickly speed through tier 1 gear. Just keep in mind that many of the chest rewards from doing quests on different islands are roster bound meaning you can share them with your alts. However, once open many of the honing materials are bound.

I always find it useful that if I don’t need or am unsure of something that is roster bound I’ll save it for later. That way you don’t open up lots of chests getting 1k’s of Guardian Stone Fragments that are bound that then go to waste once you no longer need them on that character. Since most of these quests can only be done once per roster.

Resonance and Forest’s Minuet's Songs

For the short term, you should consider holding onto all your pirate coins till you have 16,800 to buy Song of Resonance. While there are lots of other things you can buy while exploring islands and ship vendors on the open waters getting this song first is quite important.

Once you have acquired a song of resonance from Peyto Island you can head to Lullaby Island to start working on the next song. Make sure to pick up the quest at the starting area of the island. You will need to do a group activity and score 3 points which could take 3 attempts or more.

There is a group activity that is active for a short time every other hour. You can see the next scheduled time for it by hovering your mouse over the island to see a list of times. In my personal experience with so many players trying to do this event, I would crash and lose out on doing it. I always found it best to switch channels to a less busy instance in the upper right corner.

Once you have arrived at the group location you will notice vines are blocking the path. At the start, you play the song to remove the vines. You then run inside to the next group location and play the song of resonance till the event ends.

With any luck, you get credit for playing it three times before the event ends and unlock Forest’s Minuet. If you are not so lucky try switching to another channel and seeing if they have finished the event yet. Otherwise, you will need to return to this island again at a later date when the group event is up again.

Now that you have these two important songs you will be set for quite a lot of things that require them. You will still run into situations where you need further songs. That is however beyond the scope of this post.

One possible place to check out that you need Forest’s Minuet is Dreamgull Island. This will allow you to get that island's soul and thousands of honing resources such as destruction stone fragments, guardians tone fragments, and harmony shards. Along with over 100 gold, this comes in quite handy at these lower item levels.

Shadow Island And Tower

One of the biggest things to remember about this island is unless you are being blocked you don’t have to clear each tower floor on Shadow Island. You are free for the most part to just go up and down the floors.

This is also one of those islands you will want to read the questline. They will sometimes tell you what floor you need to go to for the target the quest is looking for. While other ones you can do on almost any floor.

Unless it’s required I usually skip the first two floors when working on these quests. They tend to have the low monster density for what you are looking for. Along with players who think you have to clear an entire floor before advancing to the next making it hard to get all the skills you need.

Unless you need to take down a boss the best tactic is to have some area of effect (AoE) damage spells at the ready. Run around the tower floor in a circle slowly spiraling inward till you ball up all the enemies. Then just AoE them down.

Once you get the quest Shadow’s Mark you will notice it states to reach level 24 of Shadespire. Shadespire is not on Shadow Island itself. Instead, it is the endless Tower challenge that can be accessed in any major city such as Vern Castle.

The first roster character of yours that clears a floor in the Tower will get a one-time reward that is usually tradeable. After that, you can clear the floor again on a different character for bound honing resources. Many choose to use an alt to clear first and then use their main so they end up with the honing materials.

Shadow Island is just one of those islands I loved running. It is quite visually different and quite rewarding for the time invested. It however can be a bit out of the way as other islands. Well worth taking the trip out.

Toto Silver Island

The quest chain on Toto Silver Island is massive for getting harmony shards. Since it rewards the large version of shard pouches.

While you would think an island like this would reward a lot of silver for the normal quest that is not so much. While it’s above average what you would find on many other islands. Some choose to run this place for Una’s Tasks for thee silver they reward.

Panda Island

This is another island you will find yourself running around on for the most part. You might even need to stop and eat some bamboo and take a nap somewhere. Islands like this are also why you need songs like Resonance if you are working on collecting mokoko seeds.

While not all islands end up rewarding harmony leapstones for doing the quest you can pick up a small amount here. Just remember the reward chest itself is roster bound but once you open it the leapstones are bound.

If you are however in need of a lot of harmony leapstones an island like Starlight Isle that rewards 180 leapstones might be more up your alley and worth your time checking time.

Turtle Island

While the quests on this island are quite simple some of them require you to go elsewhere which can be a bit time-consuming. If you don’t need uncommon engravings and some rapport items this can be an island to skip for the short term till you are looking for easy-to-get island tokens.

If you find yourself still in need of some uncommon engravings another island to check out would be Lost City. Otherwise, it’s off to the next islands for more honing materials.

Glacier Isle

I love this place for the overall look of it. The island itself is screeched out over a couple of landmasses that you get to jump and glide onto. Making it worth the trip to check out.

Aiwana And Serenity

Just keep in mind the big rewards like Serenity Isle offers will require you to go elsewhere to further work on the quest chain. You end up needing to run two separate dungeons Moria Ruins and Tortoyk’s Heart.

Sometimes that is just how many islands in Lost Ark go. You end up needing to go from one another place to yet another. While exploring so many islands I would often wonder if I spent more time at sea or on an island itself exploring. Sometimes I would have many island quests stacking up as I go around trying to finish a bunch at once.

Final Thoughts

Islands in Lost Ark can be some of the most rewarding and different content in the game. Each island has an opportunity to be a different environment and have its lore and small story chain that adds to the game.

It can also be quite easy to get sucked into doing nothing but running from one island to the next. Spent over a week just seeing what they all have to offer. Don’t forget to keep advancing the storyline when your gear allows. Along with not opening chests until you need the resources inside.

Never forget if you are deep into an island and need to make it back to your boat you can always F2 and play the song of escape. No point in running through an entire island again just to get to the boat.

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Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar. Screenshots are from Lost Ark.