Lost Ark’sTranquil Karkosa is the second of three different Dungeons in the all-encompassing Abyssal Dungeon that isThe Gate of Paradise.And,if Sea of Indolence was a C+ in terms of complexity, Tranquil Karkosa is assuredly a B+. For one,this eight-person Dungeon has three bosses instead of two, with each one having at least two important mechanics to remember.
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Then, the last boss, while simple in its actual attacks, has one of the more complex Wipe mechanics inLost Ark,andthat’s including Brelshaza’s in the Hildebrandt Palace.So, let’s go over everything a player needs to know for thisItem Level 960 (whichshould be easy to reach with the new Battle Pass) Abyssal Dungeonso 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 theKarkosa 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:
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 inTranquil Karkosais theEroded 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 hisStagger Checkand possibly hisAnchor or Pistolattack.
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, andeach one has to be killed and their shield broken to Dispel Kallivan’s shield.To do this,the party just needs to use Weak Point skills on the Ghost Magiciansuntil 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 theirWeak Point SkillsorDestruction 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 thatthese Ghost Magicians don’t have mini-map iconsso party members should absolutely ping the Magicians as soon as they see them,which is an aspect ofLost Ark’scombat that only becomes more important over time.
Important Mechanic: Anchor Or Pistol
In comparison to hisStagger 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 whenhe 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 handorthe 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 orfor some reason still have friendly particle effects on.
Description
Water Rise & Fall
Eroded Storm Kallivan summons a bunch of watery projectiles that shoot into the air, leaving a circular aura on the ground behind. Shortly after, they come right back down and explode upon impact on those same circular auras left behind. This wide-reaching attack can feel hard to dodge, but there is plenty of safe space around the arena.
Ethereal Flintlock
The Boss summons these ghostly flintlock pistols to appear in front of a couple of players at random with a single line of light coming out of it. This light points toward the direction the gun will shoot, so any player with the pistol should move out of the way and look toward the edge of the arena. Anyone who doesn’t and hits their teammate knocks them up (and also does a small amount of damage).
Anchor Toss & Slam
Kallivan dashes forward, turns around, and throws his anchor at a random player behind him. Then, he puts a yellow telegraph on the ground that quickly fills. Once filled, Kallivan pulls himself to his Anchor, releasing a wide-reaching shockwave of water that deals moderate damage as well as draining a substantial portion of the O2 Meter.
Stone Pillar Anchor Throw
The Boss summons a line of stone pillars both in front and behind him and then throws his Anchor forward. Any pillar the anchor passes through explodes outward to the sides with two straight lines of water. Additionally, the Anchor passes through Kallivan once it starts heading back toward him, breaking all the Stone Pillars he summoned behind as well.
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’sKarkosa’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 itsStagger 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 andslowly move toward the Punisher at all times.The goal here is tokill them long before they reach the Bossbecause 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 thatthe entire party should switch focus to the Pufferfish as soon as they appear on the map.
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 andtry 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.
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:
Rooting Vines
Karkosa’s Punisher either jumps backward and then summons vines in front or doesn’t do the jump first and summons vines in front. When it jumps backward, the Vines do damage and have a bigger AoE around them. When it doesn’t jump, the Vines root players in place on-hit but doesn’t deal damage. Similar to Akam’s Petrify in Sea of Indolence, rooted players can be freed if their allies attack them a couple of times.
Water Shockwave
The Boss channels for a second or two while putting four red telegraphs on the ground in a cross formation around the Boss. Once the telegraphs fill, the Punisher releases a watery shockwave in the shape of the telegraphs, stunning and dealing moderate damage to anyone hit. There’s also a variation of this attack where the telegraphs will follow the player’s movements instead. In this scenario, players should try and escape the telegraph by moving away from the boss rather than around it. There’s also a brief moment where the telegraph “locks” in place before firing, which players can use to dodge out of the way as well.
Breaching Whale Summon
Karkosa’s Punisher places these watery spinning portals on the ground directly below random players, which literally whales “breach” out of after a short amount of time. This attack is by far the most damaging one this Boss has and is deceptively hard to dodge. Watch the direction the whales breach out of the portal, as they “fall” back down and hit the arena again outside of the portal circle before fully disappearing.
Fifth Section: Karkosa Monarch Drakhan
Now onto the final boss of Tranquil Karkosa, and the reasonso many parties throw up a Surrender Votedespite 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 withDrakhan’s Wipe Mechanic,and to a lesser extent, it’sConstant 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:
Now, here’s what players need to do during this mechanic:
The second instance of Drakhan’s Wipe Attack works a bit differentlythough, and it’s players who forget this that end up making the party restart time after time. Here’s how it’s different.
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 electricityalso 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, thisDebuff reaction can leave a small aura behind as wellthat 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.
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:
Body Slam
The Boss jumps up into the air and belly-flops back down onto the ground, releasing electricity around the impact point as well. It can do this attack two times in a row, so it’s usually best to wait for the animation to end before jumping back in from the first Slam.
Expanding Waves
Drakhan releases a circle of rampant water around it before very quickly releasing two more circles, each one getting larger and larger. If hit, players are knocked back, gain a water Debuff, and take a bit of damage as well. Plus, this attack is fast enough that if someone is hit by the first circle, it’s very easy to get caught by the second and third.
Rotating Breath Attack
Both heads of Drakhan point straight down and release a torrent of their respective element from their mouth before slowly spinning counter-clockwise. Obviously, getting hit by either breath will deal damage and apply a Debuff of that type.
Water Orb Summon
The Boss summons two medium-sized Orbs of Water that travel out toward the edges of the arena from either side of it. While traveling, these Orbs release jets of water below and above them, dealing damage and water Debuffs to anyone hit.
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:
