Chrono Ark has a lot to offer in the diverse gameplay enabled by its large cast, unique mechanics, synergies and strategies. It can be intimidating to jump in unprepared as the game punishes mistakes harshly, potentially costing you hours of progress if you misunderstand a boss mechanic.
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PostsA winning playthrough is more based on having strong fundamentals than memorising esoteric techniques or gaining good loot. Building on the game's base mechanics will allow you to win any character by using each of them to their best. Here are some tips for helping Lucy and the Investigators conquer the ark and save humanity.
Character Roles Aren't Absolute
The recommended roles for the cast are the standard MMO assortment, of attackers, tanks and healers. These represent the characters' focus, but not their only style of play.
- The starting support, Joey, has easy access to damage over time effects that can trivialise some encounters.
- Ironheart's defensive skills can be used as fuel for his shield bash attack that surpasses most attackers for maximum potential damage.
- Charon's damage skills fuel her passive Soul Thurible, which can be spent on healing the team.
Not all characters are this flexible in their roles. Attackers like Azar and Silverstein will struggle without the support of a tank or healer.
Use Normal Encounters For Overhealing
You don't always want to defeat enemies in the shortest time possible. If you're in a fight with an enemy that can't out-damage your healing, use that time to overheal where possible. Casting a healing spell on a character can heal them beyond the damaged portion of their healthbar, but more slowly.
Event nodes can damage your investigators, so investigate them before clearing normal encounters to give them time to heal before the boss fights.
One of the popular mods is a boss-rush mode that removes normal encounters. This can increase difficulty because you won't be able to test your deck or overheal between boss fights.
Prioritise Unlocking New Options
There are a few different forms of progression between runs that can help you out. Sometimes, this means making sub-optimal decisions at the moment, like selecting an event that only impacts your next run or passing up on the shop so you can donate that money for unlocks.
Upgrades
How To Find Them
Effect
New Characters
Each investigator has a unique unlock condition, requiring you to perform certain feats or complete story events.
Once you have the full cast available, you're more likely to find a team that clicks with your play style.
New Items
Most items are unlocked via the research lab in the ark. You need to purchase all available items for the next tier of items to unlock.
Equipment and relics can unlock entirely new styles of play. A good example is the Wisdom Tooth Jar, which turns damage over time abilities into direct damage dealers.
Challenges
When starting a run you can select a challenge mode to impose a new ruleset in exchange for unique rewards.
The Decisive Strike card from Lucy's Adventure is especially potent, being able to instantly kill any boss once per playthrough.
Friendship
Gifting investigators items during campfire segments will increase your affinity with them.
Reaching maximum friendship permanently increases the number of skills available when you level them up the first time.
Play Around Each Boss's Unique Mechanics
Each of the game's bosses warrants a unique approach, even as early as the first zone.
- The Living Armour ignores the first attack you make each round, preventing you from spending all your mana on a single strike.
- The Golem will mark skills from your hand forcing you to play them or activate his special attack.
- The Reaper and Time Eater require you to rotate skill usage between all four party members.
For some bosses, these unique mechanics also provide convenient weaknesses:
- The Time Eater takes additional damage if you attack in the correct order.
- The Golem gives you discounted bonus cards if you play his blue module cards.
Paying attention to these unique mechanics and building a team and strategy around them is a great pathway to success.
You Don't Need To Level Your Party Equally
The game encourages you to build around a full team by increasing the cost of successive skills played by the same character. You shouldn't shy away from building around one character if you find good skills for doing so.
Levelling up does increase your stats, though the primary benefit is the addition of new cards to your deck.
There are a few different ways you can play around supporting a single party member:
Method
Approach
Deck thinning
You can reduce the number of cards an investigator has by giving them skills with the 'once' trait.
Swiftness
You can ignore the overload penalty for prioritising a character by using skills with the 'swiftness' trait. Azar has plenty of these by default, or you can use Lucy skills like Acceleration Circle.
Fainting
Allowing an investigator to faint removes all their cards from your deck, and draws you a new card for each skill of theirs in your hand.
Certain boss fights punish you for not fielding a full party. You should be careful about deliberately letting investigators faint while adventuring in the Graveyard and beyond.
Use Lucy Skills To Support The Team
Your young commander has no healthbar but plays a vital role in the team. She has near-exclusivity over draw skills and gains access to different support skills depending on the investigators in the party.
For some characters, these support skills are useful for setting up combos. Helia's cards rely on manipulating the top card of your deck, which her support skill allows you to directly choose.
For other characters, the support skills are just all-purpose good cards. Hein's Blade Grinder has a negative mana cost that makes it flat out stronger than most generic draw skills.
Lucy's generic skills can also be used to activate certain combos: Renovate and Hasty Counter work well for characters who use discard effects, like Ilya and Leryn.
Use Fixed Skills To Control Randomness
Fixed skills are a great supplement to the randomness of a shuffled deck but can be challenging to use. Your fixed skills will cost one extra mana but are always accessible. The downside is that you can only use the fixed skills of one character each turn.
Skills with the Innate keyword can be used every turn and ignore other characters.
Each character has a few different options for fixed skills and you'll want to use several of them across your team:
Fixed Skill Use
Example
Cards You Want In Your Starting Hand
Skills like Trisha's Shadow Slash gain benefits if used at the start of battle. Fixing them is a good way of ensuring they'll always be available on the first turn.
Cards You Want To Use Every Turn
Skills like Miss Chain's Rev Engine you might want to use every turn. Fixing it is easier than having multiple copies in your deck.
Important Single-Use Cards
Certain skills you'll only need once in a fight but can't afford to not have them on hand when they're needed. Fixing once skills like Fire Ground or Freezing Bomb means you'll always have that emergency defence or stun when its needed.
Cards That Get Stronger With Time
Azar's Storming Blade gets cheaper for every zero-cost card you use with it in hand. As a fixed skill, it will always benefit from these discounts but won't take up space in your hand or deck.
Combo Pieces
Skills like Ironheart's Shockwave are only useful when you have all of the supporting skills ready. Fixing it means that it'll always be ready when the rest of the combo is in place.
Look For Synergies In Your Starting Two Investigators
The only party members you can guarantee to appear in a run are the two you select to start with. Later additions you'll draft from a smaller selection. This makes the first two the most important pair in your team and you'll want to choose investigators that you know how to use and that work well together.
Here are a few duos that pair well together:
Starting Pair
Synergy
Ideal Third Investigator
Trisha And Pressel
Trisha's Double Team lets you use Pressel's expensive skills for free, while Pressel's Prophesy lets you manipulate your draws and activate Trisha's empty hand bonus.
Lian's parry can protect Trisha, who is extra fragile.
Huz And Charon
This pair both benefit from inflicting debuffs on enemies, and gain benefits from inflicting damage on allies.
Miss Chain also uses damaging debuffs, and can withstand damage from allies easily.
Helia And Selena
These characters are only available if you take both of them as your starting pair. Their toolkits are entirely designed around working together.
They work well with a tank who can activate solar flame and lunar curtain, like Ironheart or Miss Chain.
Lian And Charon
Lian's high damage and survivability can power through the first level without a dedicated healer. Charon's limited healing and high damage pair well with her.
You'll want a proper healer for your third character. Joey's healing over time pairs well with Lian's defenses and Charon's emergency heals.
Other characters are very challenging to use together since their core mechanics work against each other. Momori takes damage if you discard her unique cards, causing her to die quickly if teamed with Leryn or Ilya.
Challenge Modes Aren't All Downsides
The game offers a few different optional ways of increasing difficulty that all offer benefits to offset their added challenge.
Challenge
Reward
Expert Difficulty
Cursed encounters give extra loot and expert bosses reward you with bonus credits for unlocking permanent boosts.
Other subtle difficulty adjustments teach you better deck building and combat strategies.
Blood Mist
The stacking blood mist modifiers give bonuses like extra relics and skill books at the cost of taking on cursed skills and stronger enemies.
Crimson Wilderness
This optional area contains the game's toughest fights and requires you to pay before entering, but gives strong rewards and is required for the true ending.
Not every playthrough is suitable for challenging the Crimson Wilderness. Solo investigators are incapable of defeating the zone's final boss, as well as teams that rely on drawing lots of cards.
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