Lost Ark Chaos Dungeons Guide - Odealo (2024)

1. Rest Bonus

This is Lost Ark's catch-up system which ensures that you still make decent progress even if you don't complete your 2 daily Chaos Dungeons every day. For each skipped Chaos Dungeon, you'll receive 10 points. These points will gradually fill the Rest Bar seen on the screenshot. You can have a maximum of 100 points, so you can skip 10 Dungeons or 5 full Daily Resetsin a row and receive compensation; a further absence won't be compensated at all. Every 20 points grant you bonus loot from a single Chaos Dungeon.

The best way to utilize this feature, if you don't have time to complete Chaos Dungeons every day, is to accumulate 40 Rest Bonus, over 2 days, and cash out the bonus loot by completing 2 Daily Chaos Dungeons on the third day. Doing so will allow you to get 2/3 of the total loot from 3 days with 1/3 time investment*​​​​​​.

*Math here is very simple: You can complete 6 Daily Chaos Dungeons over 3 days normally. Skipping 4 of them (so 2 days) will grant you double loot from the next two that can be completed on the third day (2x2=4), soyou'll get as much loot as if you were to complete 4 normal Daily Chaos Dungeons, in just 1 day,compared to the previously mentioned 6 over 3 days.

2. Dungeon Location Selection

This is the visualization of the vertical progression in Lost Ark. Each major continent, starting from North Vern, features multiple Chaos Dungeons. Every consecutive Chaos Dungeon Location that becomes available to you gets more difficult but also offers better rewards. Dungeons located on different continents will also feature different aesthetics, so you're not at risk of getting bored by visual repetitiveness too quickly.

3. Level Selection

This is where you can select the Level of Chaos Dungeon you are eligible to enter based on your current Gear Score/Item Level. To maximize benefits, you should always pick the highest Dungeon Level available to you as it will typically offer the strongest rewards. Just keep in mind that the closer your Item Level is to the Dungeon Level's threshold, the more difficult the content will be (and vice versa: you'll breeze through Levels with requirements much lower than your current power level).

4. Recommended Gear Score

This panel shows the Item Level required to enter the selected level and the current Item Level of your Character. If your Current Item level is equal to or higher than the required, you can enter the Dungeon. Typically, Dungeons with higher Gear Requirements will also feature more complex and difficult encounters that require more game knowledge and skill to overcome.

5. Dungeon Tier

This marker indicates what Tier of Chaos Dungeon you've selected. Dungeons will drop Gear and Upgrade Materials that correspond to their Tier, soyou won't get any Tier 3 Items or Materials if you stick to Tier 2 Dungeons, and so on. This is quite obvious, but higher tier items will have higher item levels so you should stick to the maximum content Tier you have access to.

6. Expected Rewards

This panel displays the rewards available to you from completing a Chaos Dungeon. The rewards may range from Gear and Upgrade Materials to Currency, Engraving Recipes, and Tickets. Chaos Dungeon Rewards may include:

• Silver -The Game's main currency used for trading with merchants, repairing basic gear, and more.
• Gold -The "premium" currency used for trading with other players, upgrading high-end gear, and more.
• Chaos Dungeon Gear Sets -The power level of these will depend on the Chaos Dungeon Tier and difficulty.
• Accessories -These include Necklaces, Rings, and Earrings. Accessories provide your character with Basic Stats (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality) as well as Combat Stats (Crit Rate, Swiftness, and Specialization), and Engraving Effects.
• Shards -These are used in the Gear Honing process, so you'll need a lot of them if you want to improve your Item level. Depending on the Chaos Dungeon Tier, you'll receive; Tier 1 - Harmony Shards, Tier 2 - Guardian Shards, and Tier 3 - Honor Shards.
• Leap Stones -Also used in the Gear Honing process.Depending on the Chaos Dungeon Tier, you'll receive; Tier 1 - Harmony Leap Stones, Tier 2 - Guardian Leap Stones, and Tier 3 - Honor Leap Stones.
• Stone Fragments (Tier 1)/ Stones (Tier2)/ Stone Crystals (Tier3) - These are the main upgrade materials used in Gear Honing. Chaos Dungeons are the main source of these.
• Ability Stones -This is a type of equipment used to supplement your Weapons and Armor. In a way, it's similar to Accessories. Ability Stones give you Vitality and provide bonus effects from Engravings. You can have one of these equipped, but you'll have to polish it with the help of an Ability Stone Cutter first.
• Cube Tickets -A one-use Ticket that allows you to enter a Cube, which is a unique PvE challenge that features randomized stages, changing negative and positive modifiers, and more. Cube entrances can be found in all major cities. A Cube Ticket will generally drop from the 2nd-floor boss.
• Boss Rush Tickets -A one-use Ticket that allows you to enter a Boss Rush, which is an Eng-Game activity available once you reach Tier 2. Each Boss Rush consists of 15 waves of bosses to defeat.The more stages you beat, the better your rewards will get!
• Engraving Recipes (Class or Battle) -These are essential for your character's progression as a large portion of its overall power level comes from them. Collecting all Recipes required to learn an Engraving might take some time, mind you (if you were to only utilize Recipes that you drop), as there are 43 different Battle Engravings available. Tier 1 Chaos Dungeons drop Uncommon and Rare Recipes, Tier 2 drop Rare and Epic Recipes, and Tier 3 drop Epic and Legendary recipes.
• XP Cards -These are used in the Lost Ark's Card system to increase your Card's XP and eventually upgrade them.

Note1: You'll only get these rewards from the first 2 Chaos Dungeons you complete each daily reset.

Note2:Chaos Dungeons are an excellent source of Upgrade Materials, which makes them extremely important if you plan ongearingmultiple Alts - Your Alts' gear progression will mostly be gated behind the limited availability of Shards (that happen to be one of the most common rewards from Chaos Dungeons). If you're looking to gear your Alts efficiently, taking full advantage of Chaos Dungeons and their loot tables is the way to go.

7. Your Current Restrictions

The only real restrictions for Chaos Dungeons are:

• Your Character's current Item Level/Gear Score (as discussed before, you need to reach certain iLevel thresholds to become eligible for higher levels of Chaos Dungeons).
• A time limit per stage. This is set to 5 minutes per floor/stage which is quite a lot of time, actually.

Other than that, you're also restricted to 2 daily runs that award you with bonus loot, however, you can do more than 2 Chaos Dungeons per day (you just won't receive the increased rewards for it).

8. Aura of Resonance

This is what determines the amount of loot you'll receive for completing a Chaos Dungeons. Each Daily Reset you are given 100 Aura of Resonance. 50Aura of Resonance is consumed when you enter a Chaos Dungeon, giving you access to full rewards in the process. So, you receive enoughAura of Resonance to guarantee full rewards from your 2 first Chaos Dungeons each day*.

Chaos Dungeons completed withoutAura of Resonance award special dungeon tokens (Perception Shards and Disorder Crystals at Tier 1, Guardian Shards and Contempt Crystals at Tier 2, and Shards of Purification and Fragments of Longing at Tier 3), instead of the "boosted" rewards. These tokens can be exchanged at Magick Scholar Jeneca near the Chaos Dungeon entrance. You can purchase accessories and upgrade materials for them, but there are weekly purchase limits.

*Chaos Dungeons reset each day at 10:00 am UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) for all EU and NA Servers. This translates to 3:00 am PDT, 5:00 am CDT, 11:00 am BST, and 12 PM CSET.

9. Matchmaking Options

There are three options here:

1. Matchmaking - By choosing this option, you sign up for a Chaos Dungeon queue and you will eventually be matched with three other players to create a dungeon group. Once your group is created, you'll enter the dungeon.
2. Find Party - This is the manual version of Matchmaking, essentially, where you can browse through LFM (Looking for Member) posts for the content you've chosen. You can either create your own post or answeran existing one. This option can potentially allow you to find a static dungeon group.
3. Enter - This button will immediately start the Chaos Dungeon for you and anyone in your current group. You can also enter Chaos Dungeons solo via this option; Doing so is often a good idea as most Classes can clear Chaos Dungeons relatively easily (Enemy HP scales with the party size, so it's not like facing a 4-man group content alone).

A Typical Chaos Dungeon Run

Each Chaos Dungeon you enter will consist of three different floors. You'll have 5 minutes to clear through each of them (this might sound like a tight schedule, but you should have no problems making it in time). In the upper left corner of your screen, you'll see two indicators: one of them is the above-mentioned time limit indicator, and the other one is the progress indicator that will gradually fill up as you defeat monsters. Once the progression indicator reaches a certain threshold, a portal to the next floor/stage will appear - the thresholds are 20% and 50%. Once it reaches 100%, the run is finished and it's time to collect your completion rewards.The first floor mostly features regular enemies that can be quickly AoEd down. The second floor will containminibosses and a stage boss. On thethird floor, Rift Cores (large red crystals, you won't miss them) will spawn - break them to spawn minibosses that have to be defeated to clear the Chaos Dungeon.

Sounds easy enough? Well, it really is most of the time. Especially if you know your Class and your teammates know what they're doing. Here are some additional things to note, that should make your Chaos Dungeon Runs more efficient and even easier:

• The timer starts to tick the moment you start moving, so you can take some extra time if you need it. Also, the timer will reset when you enter the portal to the next floor - if you have some time left after a floor is cleared, you can use it to take a breather.
• If you need to heal up, use Regular Healing Potions instead of the HP Potions that restore your Health instantly. The latter ones are best saved for the harder types of content, like Abyssal Dungeons and Guardian Raids.
• Save Feathers of Ressurection - don't use them in case of an untimely death inside of a Chaos Dungeon. You are allowed a free respawn at the nearest checkpoint, take advantage of that.
• Rushing through a floor to complete it as fast as possible won't affect your rewards - take your time, five minutes is a lot!
• Before proceeding to the third floor, after eliminating the 2nd floor's boss, make sure that you've cleared all Elites (slaying Elites grants you certain buffs). After you've done with that, proceed to the 3rd floor immediately as eliminating any extra monsters on the 2nd floor will still count towards your progression and reduce the number of monsters you can eliminate on the last floor.

Bonus Stages

A typical Chaos Dungeon Portal, that transports you to the next floor, is blue. Sometimes, however, it will be made of shining and glittering gold or it may be colored purple. If that's the case, it means that you were lucky enough to unlock the Bonus Stage! After you enter the Chaos Dungeon Bonus Level, you'll have to face a Phantasmal Enemy. The rewards received for defeating it depends on the color of your Bonus Portal:

• Bonus Stage behind a Gold Portal will giveyou either of the following:
  • Currency (Silver and Gold) + Leap Stones
  • Currency (Silver and Gold) + Stone Fragments/Stones/Stone Crystals
  • Currency (Silver and Gold) + Shards
• Bonus Stage behind a PurplePortal will giveyouCurrency (Silver and Gold), Leap Stones, Ability Stones, and Accessories

Efficient Chaos Dungeon Clearing

Chaos Dungeons feature mechanics that will allow you to refresh your Cooldowns and regenerate your Energy at an increased rate. Taking advantage of these mechanicsshould allow you to take your clear speeds to a whole new level:

• Each Elite slain will grant you a buff that instantly Refreshes the Cooldown of ALL cast skills by 40% (yes, this includes your Awakening - don't shy away from using it!) and gives you a 200% increased Energy Recovery Rate.
• Blue Wind Spheres will grant you increased Energy and Health Recovery Rate and a 40% increased Movement Speed. Take advantage of these to group up packs of enemies quickly for more efficient AoE clearing.
• All your Cooldowns will be fully refreshed after you defeat the 2nd floor boss. This means that you should use everything you've got to defeat it quickly.
• Breaking Rift Cores will give you a buff that reduces the Cooldown of all your Skills by 40% and increases your Attack Speed by 40%.

If you take advantage of the above-mentioned buffs, you should be able to breeze through any Chaos Dungeon by simply spamming your abilities, especially if your build focuses on AoE (it should). It really is that easy.

Spamming Chaos Dungeons

Once you run out of Aura of Resonance, you can still enter Chaos Dungeons and complete them for reduced rewards. Each Chaos Dungeon finished without Aura of Resonance will give youspecial dungeon tokens (Perception Shards and Disorder Crystals at Tier 1, Guardian Shards and Contempt Crystals at Tier 2, and Shards of Purification and Fragments of Longing at Tier 3). Also, it's very much worth noting that the bonus portal may still spawn.The most efficient way of farming Chaos Dungeons withoutAura of Resonance is to clear the first two levels, check if a bonus portal opens, and leave if it doesn't (you can exit a Chaos Dungeon at any time via the menu on the upper left corner of your screen).

As mentioned before,these tokens can be exchanged at Magick Scholar Jeneca near the Chaos Dungeon entrance. You'll mostly get Honing Materials and Accessories for them.

Berserker -This is definitely a crowd favorite. He achieves solid clear speeds thanks to the sheer power and coverage of his AoE skills and his increased movement speed. As a Berserker, you'll be able to wipe your whole screen off monsters with just a single powerful AoE nuke skill. He shines in the initial Tiers, however, His clear speeds get a bit slower on later Chaos Dungeons. Also, both of the Berserker's Class Engravings are perfectly viable for Chaos Dungeons.

• The best Berserker Skills for clearing Chaos Dungeons are Whirlwind (AoE), Strike Wave (AoE), Sword Storm (AoE), Finish Strike (for Elites/Bosses), Mountain Crash (Crowd Control), Red Dust (Self Buff), Shoulder Charge (Gap Closer), and Chain of Vengeance (Awakening).

Sorceress -This ranged Class has access to multiple powerful AoE spells that can easily wipe the floor with monsters you'll encounter inside Chaos Dungeons. The amount of damage she can dish out is simply unbelievable, and she doesn't even have to move a lot of the time. If you want to maximize your clear speeds with a Sorceress, you should stack Swiftness and Crit on your Accessories (it's not necessary, however, so don't invest into a separate set of Accessories if Sorceress is your main and you're using a different setup). As for Class Engravings, both are fine but Reflux achieves a bit faster clear speeds.

• The best Sorceress Skills for clearing Chaos Dungeons are Blaze (Self Buff and CC), Lightning Vortex (CC that pulls enemies closer), Punishing Strike (AoE), Seraphic Hail (AoE), Reverse Gravity (AoE), Ice Shower (AoE), Esoteric Reaction (AoE), and Eviska's Might (Awakening).

Shadowhunter (Demonic Impulse) -Because of the sheer number of enemies inside of a Chaos Dungeon, and the number of potential buffs you can get, you'll fill up the Identity Gauge almost instantly. After that, it's just carnage...you can easily achieve up to 90% uptime on your Demon Form while inside of a Chaos Dungeon. If you want to obliterate hordes of enemies effortlessly, especially while in a Demon Form, the Demonic Impulse Shadowhunter is an excellent choice for you. Also, the best thing about this one is the fact that theDemonic Impulse Shadowhunter Raid build is well-suited for Chaos Dungeons as well, so there's no need for creating a separate skill build.

• The best ShadowhunterSkills for clearing Chaos Dungeons are Howl (AoE), Cruel Cutter (AoE), Decimate (For Elites/Bosses), Demonic Clone (For Elites/Bosses), Thrust Impact (For Elites/Bosses), Demonic Slash (Gap Closer), Sharpened Cut (Gap Closer), and Gate of Eruption (Awakening).
  • Once you enter the Demonic Form, just spam your AoE Demonic Skills.

Gunslinger -Another excellent Class choice for clearing Chaos Dungeons. Gunslinger offers solid AoE, great mobility, and a very dynamic playstyle, so you won't get bored too quickly if you pick her up. On the other hand, running Chaos Dungeons with a Gunslinger might feel tedious when compared to running them with a Sorceress (because of the difference in AoE potential and coverage). As for Engravings, either will work perfectly fine but Peacemaker is a bit more flexible as it does not lock you out from using the Shotgun.

• The best Gunslinger Skills for clearing Chaos Dungeons are Sharpshooter (AoE), Equilibrium (AoE), Bullet Rain (AoE), Death Fire (AoE), Dexterous Shot (Gap Closer), Quick Step (Gap Closer/Self Buff), Focused Shot (For Elites/Bosses), Shotgun Rapid Fire (For Elites/Bosses), and High-Caliber HE Bullet (Awakening).

Wardancer -Wardancer's Esoteric Skills offer tremendous AoE Damage and very solid coverage. Because of this, Her Chaos Dungeon clear speeds are among the fastest in the game. The most important thing to note here, however, is that First Intention Wardancer is ill-suited for Chaos Dungeons as She can't use Esoteric Skills. In other words, have spare accessories without First Intention on them or run Esoteric Skill Enhancement (running Chaos Dungeons without any Class Engravings is also perfectly fine).

• The best Wardancer Skills for clearing Chaos Dungeons are Call of the Wind God (AoE Nuke), Seismic Strike (Secondary AoE), Sweeping Kick (For Elites/Bosses), Roar of Courage (Debuff), Wind's Whisper (Self Buff), Swift Wind Kick (Gauge Generator for your Esoteric Skill), Lightning Kick (Gap Closer), Energy Combustion (Gauge Generation and passive AoE), and Fist of Dominance (Awakening).