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Then, the last boss, while simple in its actual attacks, has one of the more complex Wipe mechanics in Lost Ark, and that’s including Brelshaza’s in the Hildebrandt Palace. So, let’s go over everything a player needs to know for this Item Level 960 (which should be easy to reach with the new Battle Pass) Abyssal Dungeon so that their undersea adventures will be as painless as possible.

Quick Guide

While all three Boss fights in Tranquil Karkosa have their own gimmicks, the only one that players doing this Dungeon weekly may need a refresher on is the Karkosa Monarch Drakhan’s Wipe Mechanic, so we’ll go over the most important aspects of it. But, for those who just want a short and sweet little block of text that tells them the most important things to memorize in the Karkosa, this should help too:

The Tranquil Karkosa has a whopping five parts to it. There’s a general (albeit long) mob-clearing phase, the first fight against Eroded Storm Kallivan, another mob-clearing phase about the same length as the first, the battle against Karkosa’s Punisher, and then the final fight against the two-headed sea dragon Drakhan. Kallivan, the first Boss, actually has a lot going on such as the Ethereal Flintlock mechanic and the Anchor or Pistol attack, but the only one players “need” to know about beforehand is his Stagger Check. Kallivan’s Stagger Check has a pre-requisite to it, kill the ghost magicians first. At a certain point in the fight, Kallivan will summon a “bubble-like” shield around himself as well as around two ghost magicians he summons somewhere in the arena (usually one above and one below him). The shield around Kallivan only disappears once these two magicians are dead, and to break their shields players need to use Weak Point Skills. Karkosa’s Punisher, the second Boss, is more of a breeze compared to Kallivan. She really only has two mechanics, a walking Stagger Check, and her Pufferfish Summons. The Stagger Check only hurts the player grabbed, so it’s not crucial to clear, but the Pufferfish can easily lead to a wipe if left alone. Twice throughout the fight, Karkosa’s Punisher summons a couple of giant Pufferfish. Players need to immediately target these things, as they’ll trigger the Boss into a large, high-damage, AoE attack if they reach her. Think of them like the Wyverns that Amaus used in the Forge of Fallen Pride. The last boss, Drakhan, is where the struggle comes in. At 16 and 8 remaining HP Bars, Drakhan will move to the center of the arena and start channeling an attack where it sucks in water constantly toward it. After starting this attack, an Octogon with intricate patterns briefly appears around Drakhan, and this denotes where everyone needs to stand. All eight party members should have already assigned spots before going into the boss fight as to where they’ll stand when this mechanic happens. Remember, it’s an octagon, so it’s very easy to stand around the Battle Workshop outside Drakhan’s arena and ping all possible locations so spots can be assigned. Then, party members stay in their spot until an Orb makes contact with them, and then they move clockwise to the next spot on the Octagon and block the next Orb. Four Orbs are blocked in total, and players move spots three times total. Basically, if 1 is the starting position and 4 is the end position, players just need to remember 1234 as a shorthand for this mechanic. The second iteration of this Wipe mechanic is slightly different: after grabbing the third Orb, players need to stand still and grab an additional Orb at this position, then move one more position clockwise to grab the last Orb. This makes for five Orbs total and three movements. Essentially, instead of 1-2-3-4, it’s 1-2-3-3-4 where 3 is the third position where players will grab two Orbs instead of one. If done correctly, Drahken staggers, if done incorrectly, the party is wiped (which happens once or twice to even the most experienced parties). As far as Consumables are concerned, this is one of the Abyssal Dungeons where good Consumable usage makes a huge difference. For example, a party utilizing Destruction Bombs gets through Kallivan’s Stagger Check easily, using Swift Robes makes Drakhan’s Wipe much easier, and Whirlwind Grenades also help with both Kallivan’s and the Punisher Boss’ Stagger Checks.

First Section: Defeat Swarming Deep Sea Creatures & Ghosts

The mob-clearing sections of the Tranquil Karkosa are about as bog-standard as they can get, with the party of eight just running through a variety of different areas, clearing up some mobs in each one, and slowly moving forward.

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There’s nothing that players really need to “pay attention” to in these sections, other than interacting with the jumps, slides, and climbs that move them to the next area, but there’s nothing really exciting either.

Second Section: Eroded Storm Kallivan

First up for the Bosses in Tranquil Karkosa is the Eroded Storm Kallivan, a ghostly pirate captain (not sure how that fits into the “lore”). Kallivan has a lot going on both in his regular attacks and his gimmicks, making him a pretty interesting Boss fight overall. But, in general, players really just need to worry about his Stagger Check and possibly his Anchor or Pistol attack.

Important Mechanic: Stagger Check

Kallivan’s Stagger Check is incredibly simple as he just starts charging up a move and a yellow bar appears underneath him. The only catch is, that he also summons a shield around him that’s unbreakable. To get around this, players need to pay attention to when this shield first appears around Kallivan. Once it appears, so do the Ghost Magician summons that also have a similar shield. There are two of them in total, usually one above Kallivan’s current location and one below, and each one has to be killed and their shield broken in order to Dispel Kallivan’s shield. To do this, the party just needs to use Weak Point skills on the Ghost Magicians until their shields break. Usually, parties tend to split in half as four fight one Magician and four fight the other, but any configuration works as long as players are using their Weak Point Skills or Destruction Bombs.

This can still be done while Kallivan is charging up his Stagger Check attack too, though it is cutting it pretty close. If the party fails to defeat the Magicians in time and Dispel Kallivan’s Shield, he can’t be interrupted, and his attack goes off, wiping the party. Just be aware that these Ghost Magicians don’t have mini-map icons so party members should absolutely ping the Magicians as soon as they see them, which is an aspect of Lost Ark’s combat that only becomes more important over time.

Important Mechanic: Anchor Or Pistol

In comparison to his Stagger Check, this attack is much less important, but knowing how it works can still save people from taking a bunch of unnecessary damage. Kallivan can use this attack at any time when he summons a large circle around him with three separate “sections”. Each section will either be blue or red, and these colors are important. Next, Kallivan will either hold up the anchor in his hand or the flintlock pistol in his other hand, whichever he holds up, that tells players which color slice to move into. If he holds up the pistol, move to the red, and if it’s the anchor, move to the blue. He’ll do this attack multiple times, with each player in the wrong spot getting damaged each time.

Regular Attacks

For how much Kallivan moves around and attacks, he actually doesn’t have that many attacks in his line-up. But, the ones he does have are all pretty visually “busy”, making it easy to get hit by them for those who aren’t paying attention or for some reason still have friendly particle effects on.

Third Section: Defeat The Swarming Deep Sea Creatures & Ghosts Pt. 2

Next up is yet another mob-clearing section, basically functioning the exact same as the first, except with a bit more scenery diversity. Not all too much to say about this section: clear out any enemies in sight and keep moving forward.

Fourth Section: Karkosa’s Punisher

Next up is a fight against yet another deep-sea monstrosity, this time it’s Karkosa’s Punisher. But, instead of a Ghostly Boss, this one is more…tentacle-based in the design and has a lot less going on mechanically. Essentially, players only need to worry about the Pufferfish that this Punisher summons, and maybe its Stagger Check.

Important Mechanic: Pufferfish Summon

At random increments throughout the fight, Karkosa’s Punisher will summon a Pufferfish or two of the larger variety. These Pufferfish have a very basic moveset and slowly move toward the Punisher at all times. The goal here is to kill them long before they reach the Boss because if they make it to the Punisher, it then releases a massive AoE attack that does some pretty high damage. Not necessarily a wipe mechanic, but important enough that the entire party should switch focus to the Pufferfish as soon as they appear on the map.

Important Mechanic: Stagger Check

This next mechanic isn’t all that important, but it’s at least a step above the regular attacks, so it deserves a bit of extra explanation. Essentially, Karkosa’s Punisher has a Grab attack that picks up a nearby player and traps them in an orb of water that the Punisher carries while walking forward.

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When this happens, players have to follow after Karkosa’s Punisher and try to drain its Stagger Bar as quickly as possible. If they fail, which is difficult to do, the grabbed player will end up taking a lot of damage that could have been avoided.

Regular Attacks

Just like the simplicity of the Punisher’s mechanics, their attacks aren’t all too numerous or scary either. But, just so people aren’t too surprised, let’s go over them:

Fifth Section: Karkosa Monarch Drakhan

Now onto the final boss of Tranquil Karkosa, and the reason so many parties throw up a Surrender Vote despite the time it takes to get here. As an actual Boss fight, Karkosa’s Monarch Drakhan is nothing much. Yes, it has a lot of attacks but all of them are pretty easy to ignore and most players spend their time just wailing on this big turtle to drain its HP as fast as possible. Out of the three Bosses of this Dungeon, it’s by far the easiest to fight against its normal attacks. But, the problem comes with Drakhan’s Wipe Mechanic, and to a lesser extent, it’s Constant Debuffing.

Important Mechanic: Wipe Attack

When Drakhan gets down to both 16 and 8 HP Bars remaining, it’ll do this Wipe mechanic, so here’s how it works and what players should do, step-by-step:

When Drakhan reaches either of these HP Bar checkpoints, it’ll walk to the center of the arena and start “channeling” an attack that constantly pulls water into itself. About a second or two after it starts channel, a glowing Octagon with intricate carvings briefly shines through the water being sucked in by Drakhan, this is how players can visually confirm where to stand. After the Octagon disappears, gigantic Orbs will start spawning at every “edge” of the Octagon near the outer reaches of the arena and get pulled into Drakhan. The goal is to block these Orbs (seems to be a recurring mechanic) so they don’t reach Drakhan, which means each party member should be standing around Drakhan on a different edge of the Octagon.

Now, here’s what players need to do during this mechanic:

Decide before going into the Boss fight where everyone will stand, use the Battle Workshop as a makeshift “arena” and ping the eight edges of an Octagon within the Battle Workshop. Each player should then move to a different edge and remember that as where they’ll stand during this mechanic. Once the mechanic starts, everyone races to their spot and stands there, making sure that they’re standing near the outer edge of the Octagon and not “too” far out. Then, once these Orbs spawn, they’ll wait until the Orb hits them, and move clockwise to the next “edge” of the imaginary Octagon to catch the next Orb. To be fair, players should be used to this clockwise rotation system from the Hall of the Twisted Warlord. This is done simply because there are two different Orb types, Water and Electric (AKA blue and yellow Orbs), and catching two of the same type causes the player to take a big chunk of damage and get knocked up, usually stopping them from making it to the next Orb in time. Keep doing this until every player has “caught” four Orbs in total (AKA they’ve moved three spots from their starting point for a total of four spots in all), and Drakhan will Stagger. Go back to fighting it normally until it gets close to 8 HP Bars remaining and get ready to do this again.

The second instance of Drakhan’s Wipe Attack works a bit differently though, and it’s players who forget this that end up making the party restart time after time. Here’s how it’s different.

If the first Wipe Attack had players moving three times (think of it as 1234, with one being the starting spot and four being the end spot) and collecting four Orbs, the second Wipe Attack has players moving three times but collecting five Orbs total. On the third Orb (or second time the player has moved clockwise), Drakhan will summon an Orb of the same type/color at the next spot instead of an opposite Orb. This means that if a player moves to the Fourth Spot as they did in the first Wipe Attack, they’ll get knocked up. Instead, stay in the same spot after catching the third Orb, and catch a fourth here as well, since it’ll be an Orb of the opposite type/color. Then, move to the next spot clockwise on the Octagon and catch the last Orb. In summation, the first Wipe Attack is 1-2-3-4 and the second Wipe attack is 1-2-3-3-4.

Important Mechanic: Constant Debuffing

While most players ignore this mechanic for the most part, it’s nice to have an explanation of how it works. Basically, Drakhan’s two heads each specialize in a different element. One is water-focused while the other is electricity-focused. This can be seen in their normal attacks quite clearly as well.

But, every attack they use that obviously uses water or electricity also inflicts a Debuff that causes the player to take more damage from the same element of attacks for a small amount of time. These Debuffs also stack, maxing out at four stacks total. And, when the player with a Debuff is then hit by an attack of the opposite element, an AoE attack is also created around them, hurting their allies. The size of this AoE is entirely dependent on the amount of Debuff stacks they had when hit by the opposite element attack. Additionally, this Debuff reaction can leave a small aura behind as well that does consistent damage and lasts for a few seconds.

To get rid of these stacks preemptively, players can just grab any of the glowing blue orbs spread out around the arena.

Regular Attacks

On top of all those brain-busting Wipe Mechanic rules (just wait until Argos), Drakhan also has a fair share of normal attacks too! Thankfully, they mostly work the same and are relatively easy to avoid as well:

Recommended Consumables & Engravings

Since this is one of the longer Abyssal Dungeons with more content, there should be more Consumables to make use of here right? Well, not necessarily. There are some, but not quite as many as people would likely expect:

HP Potions are (hopefully) an obvious choice. Destruction Bombs make the Weak Point portion of Kallivan’s Wipe Mechanic much more reliable. Whirlwind Grenades also help with Kallivan’s Stagger Check as well as Karkosa Punisher’s. Swift Robes are not highly recommended, but they do help slowly classes make it to their spot in Drakhan’s Wipe Mechanic in time as well as guarantee they’ll never miss an Orb catch. Dark Grenades are sort of always a “helpful to bring” Consumable past this point of Lost Ark’s endgame content. And of course, as always, players should have many of the Skill Point Potions already collected and their Raid Class Setup equipped with regard to their Gear, Faceted Ability Stone, Engravings, and Accessories.

Lost Ark is currently available on PC.

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