Lost Ark Valtan Legion Commander Raid Guide: Gate 1

It has been over two weeks since the Lost Ark Valtan Legion Commander Raid was released for Lost Ark’s western players. While veteran Korean players may consider this one of the easiest of all the Legion Commander Raids, it still has multiple mechanics that newer Western players must master in order to successfully clear the two gates.

Before you start the Lost Ark Valtan raid

Legion Commander Raids mix features of Abyss Raids and Abyss Dungeons into one; much like Abyss Raids, Legion Commander Raids require eight players. However, unlike Abyss Raids, players can see the health bars of the bosses, a feature normally in Abyss Dungeons. This is because these bosses have specific mechanics that they use in certain HP thresholds that require players to coordinate together, so seeing their HP is vital for strategy. The biggest changes are the addition of Hero Skills — during the raid, the Hero Gauge slowly charges on its own, with landing counters accelerating this process. When the gauge is full, the party leader can choose to cast one of three skills that each has immense power. The Hero Skills for the Valtan Legion Raids are as follows:

– Thirain: Thirain deals devastating damage to the boss.

– Wei: Wei strikes the boss with powerful stagger damage.

– Balthorr: Balthorr creates a zone where allies take reduced damage from the boss.

Most importantly, starting from Valtan Hard Mode, you are eligible to craft Relic tier equipment using the materials that drop from clearing the raid. While certain equipment sets require the next Legion Commander, Vykas, to be released, the amount of materials needed to create full sets is extraordinarily high, so getting a head start right now will save a lot of future headaches.

This is also when players often expect you to have a proper build to be accepted into a party. Most classes are expected to have at least four engravings at the maximum tier and have good stat distribution.

Valtan Raid Gate 1 Guide

The wolf boss for the first gate has three different forms that are distinguishable by their different colors. I’ll explain each of them throughout the guide.

The raid starts with the dark wolf that deals more damage than the other two forms. So I recommend you use all your awakening skills to get the boss’ HP to x46-x45 as fast as possible.

After reaching that threshold, the red wolf will appear.

The red wolf’s swipe attacks add a stack of Bleed to anyone hit by them, which will constantly deal damage to the inflicted and stacks up to three times. On the third stack, it will deal massive damage to the player. I recommend that you bring Panacea to get rid of the debuff before it reaches the third stack. One attack to watch out for is the tornado attack, where the wolf creates a vortex and starts to chase after one player inside as a tornado. The targeted player just needs to run in a circle while the rest of the party stays clear from the tornado’s path.

The first important mechanic starts around x40 when a blue wolf appears alongside the red one. Two random players will bemarked with a red and blue marker when both wolves are present; the wolves will chase the mark with their color. Marked players must go to opposite sides of the room to make sure the party can deal maximum damage, as the wolves are stronger when near each other. Additionally, another random player gets a golden buff that increases their damage to the wolf that just appeared.

After the blue wolf disappears, the red wolf enters an enraged state. In this state, along with Bleed, every strike will apply a Dark stack that increasingly limits the player’s vision. A fifth stack of Darkness will paralyze the player. The wolf also starts doing lethal grab attacks here, so save your burst to get its HP down to x30 easily.

At x30, the next phase of the fight begins. Instead of playing through this mechanic as intended by the developers, there is a much easier strategy that lets you skip this entire mechanic. When the red wolf’s HP hits x30, every party member needs to go to the bottom-most part of the area. Multiple orbs will start to spawn and start heading towards the party. This is when the party leader uses the Wei skill to deal stagger damage to the boss; use Whirlwind Grenades and other stagger skills to quickly finish the rest of the stagger bar. If you do this successfully, the boss will stagger and the mechanic will end.

After that phase of the battle, the blue wolf will replace the red one. This wolf has more area of effect skills that don’t apply Bleed if you get hit by them, but some of his skills will freeze players who get hit. Watch for an attack where the boss throws a green ball at a certain area, as a large amount of potentially lethal AoE attacks will appear around that area.

Around x25, the red wolf joins the area and the mechanic is identical to the one at x40. Just separate them and attack both of them until the red one disappears. The orb mechanic starts once more at x15 so make sure your Hero gauge is full before bringing down the boss’ HP bar. After you stagger the boss, it will roar and charge a powerful attack. When you hear the cue, run to the same lower area you used for the orb mechanic earlier. If you don’t do this, a ring explosion will start from the outer ring and continue to explode towards the boss. The bottom area is just outside the first ring, so you’ll be completely safe from this attack if you make it there in time.

After this explosion, both wolves will combine, and the dark wolf will appear. This one has a lot of strong attacks, like an enhanced version of the red wolf’s tornado attack. However, there aren’t any devastating mechanics for this phase, so all you need to do is stay alive and deplete the dark wolf’s HP bar to clear gate 1.