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As a long-time MMO fan, I’m very excited about Lost Ark’s upcoming Thaemine Raid. When I heard that it’s supposed to be the most challenging raid in MMORPG history, that only added to my excitement. While I personally don’t do hardcore raiding like I used to, I’m going to be checking out attempts, and seeing who can come out on top in this limited-time, challenging content. Ahead of the game mode’s launch, I had a chance to speak to Amazon Games’ Community Lead, Roxanne Sabo.
We spoke about the original version of the Lost Ark Thaemine Raid, what players can possibly do to get ready, and the work the Smilegate developers did to make sure this is both challenging and rewarding for players. It promises to be a very interesting time to be an MMO fan when this content drops.
Roxanne Sabo discusses Lost Ark’s upcoming Thaemine Raid event
Q. Thanks for taking the time to speak with us about the Thaemine Raid! Can you introduce it and its lore for players who may not know?
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Roxanne: Thanks for giving us the opportunity to speak with you and your readers about this exciting upcoming content for Lost Ark! Thaemine is the most powerful of the Legion Commanders, whose claim to fame is having conquered half of Petrania alone, long ago. Petrania, aka the Chaos Star, is a world created from darkness and chaos.
So Thaemine claiming half of that world of darkness shows you how he’s on another level of evil! After facing Kazeros the Lord of Abyss (the archdemon who ruled over Petrania), Kazreros was intrigued by Thaemine, the one who single-handedly conquered half of Petrania.
Thaemine accepted Kazeros’ offer to become his Legion Commander and lead the most powerful legion – the Darkness Legion. Baratron, the beacon of darkness, is spreading chaos and eating away the light. Adventurers will be able to stand up to Thaemine and this threat to Arkesia.
Q. Thaemine Raid is being described as the most challenging raid in Lost Ark's history. What makes it so threatening, compared to previous encounters in the game?
Roxanne: The Thaemine Raid isn’t just the most challenging in Lost Ark, it’s among the most challenging in all of MMORPGs. When it launched in Korea last year, it took players there 11 days to clear it. When it’s released in the West, players who clear the raid will be able to take on the harder version, Thaemine the First, which is the original, unchanged version of the raid as it was unleashed in Korea. There’s an event for Western players to race to be the first to clear this nightmare of a challenge, with worldwide recognition on the line!
As the last Legion Commander standing, Thaemine has high damage which makes evasion or defense with expert reaction sense quite crucial in gameplay. Thus, Thaemine Raid’s ‘physical difficulty’ (control difficulty) is upgraded from the existing Legion commanders.
Not only that, plenty of new patterns and gimmicks are added which makes thinking, predicting, and analyzing important as well. However, the team at Smilegate RPG tried to refrain from making the raid rely too much on ‘group responsibility’ with these gimmicks, and worked to ensure that a single player's mistakes wouldn't be detrimental to the entire team.
Q. Is Lost Ark's Thaemine Raid something players who are undergeared, but highly skilled will succeed in? What sort of equipment level should they be targeting?
Roxanne: To take on Thaemine, players will have to be item level 1610 for Normal Mode, and item level 1630 at Hard Mode. Continuing to gear up and gain power will always help, but ultimately the Thaemine Legion Raid is going to be a true test of game skill. Players who are well versed in Lost Ark’s raid mechanics, know how to play to their character’s strengths, and can communicate well with their groups will see the most success in taking down the Darkness Legion Commander.
Oh, and the Thaemine the First difficulty will be available to adventurers after they have cleared Thaemine’s Hard Mode, which means it requires item level 1630 as well. This is going to be a notably more difficult challenge, and your best bet for success here is having a highly skilled group who works well together and is willing to take the time needed to learn and progress through this extremely difficult raid. Again, gearing up may help, but it will ultimately come down to team chemistry and ability.
Q. How many bosses will be appearing in the Lost Ark raid, and will any of them be familiar to fans of the game's lore?
Roxanne: All of the bosses from the Thaemine Legion Raid have previously appeared in Lost Ark. Bosses of Gate 1 and 2 appear during the Thaemine Prologue Dark Days questline, which was released in the March Update. The last boss, Thaemine, has been a regular mention or has appeared throughout Lost Ark since launch.
The boss of Gate 1 ‘Killineza the Dark Worshipper’ is a fanatic berserker that devotes herself to Thaemine. She can change her body forms for combat. The boss of Gate 2 ‘Valinak, Knight of Darkness and the Wielder of Thunderstorm’ wields destructive powers and transforms to even stronger forms during combat. And last but certainly not least, ‘Thaemine the Lightqueller’ finally appears at Gate 3!
Q. As a long-time player of MMOs, I've also read this is supposed to be one of the most difficult raids in MMORPG history. What sort of research did the developers put in to create this challenge? Were they looking at raids from other MMOs for inspiration?
Roxanne: The team at Smilegate strived to differentiate the Thaemine Legion Raid from the existing Lost Ark Legion Raids as Thaemine is the last Legion Commander. The devs enhanced the challenges in controls and reactions, while also combining presentations like artwork, cutscenes, backgrounds, as well as sound and music along with the overall combat experience. They wanted to make the battle with the last Legion Commander feel as epic as possible.
Q. One of the things that makes raids interesting is seeing mechanics and challenges that have not been introduced before. Can Thaemine Raid players expect brand-new mechanics appearing?
Roxanne: Yes, the devs put in so much effort on this one due to Thaemine being the last Legion Commander in Lost Ark. (This doesn’t mean that the raids are gone from the game though. More raids are coming in the future!)
The devs did not re-use any existing raids when creating Thaemine Legion Raid, but did a lot of research and development to formulate new patterns just for Thaemine. Because there are many new patterns implemented for this raid, players’ physical and mental finesse will be challenged. As mentioned before, Thaemine is the advanced version of existing Legion Commanders in Lost Ark.
To briefly introduce combat aspects of each Gate: In Gate 1: Players will have to procure damage dealing through timing by countering or staggering the boss. Gate 2 is focused on how to provide a different combat experience per attempt with patterns and gimmicks randomly being triggered. In Gate, the physical aspect(controls) is more important than the gimmicks.
Devs tried to make combat with Thaemine as hands-on as possible by minimizing the ‘ultimate’ gimmicks where the boss’s pattern triggers regardless of combat situations. In addition, a new combat system “Clash” was added. Thaemine, especially being the last and the strongest Legion commander standing, will not fall from counters or staggers, and this system will allow players to procure dramatic damage.
Q. More important than the bosses, than the lore: at the end of the day, it's all about loot. What kind of items can players uncover? Will there be just armor/weapons, or will there be cosmetic mounts? Perhaps some unique, legendary items could drop?
Roxanne: For all players who clear the Thaemine Raid, they will be rewarded with new power via materials for a new progression system called Transcendence. The Transcendence system will allow players to strengthen their gear to new heights, earning additional power boosts.
For Thaemine the First, the hardest mode of the raid, players who participate in the special race and are among the first 10 to clear it will receive unique titles, stronghold structures, and trophies commemorating their accomplishment. Regardless of their place in the race, every player who clears Thaemine the First will receive a special chest of loot titled “Clear: Thaemine the First” which contains a title of Eclipse, an Abyss Grugach mount, 50,000 Gold and 5,000,000 Silver. This mode won’t be around forever, so once players are comfortable with going up against Thaemine, those who are interested in this challenge might want to start rallying potential groups!
Q. How long do you expect one of these 8-person raids to last?
Roxanne: As we previously mentioned, the Thaemine Raid initially took 11 days to clear on release in Korea! Of course, there are now a number of guides and resources for the raid that players in the West will have that those in Korea didn’t. We expect the access to these resources to speed up the time to first clear, however the raid is still mechanically challenging so it will be hard to say how long it will take players to beat it until they experience it for the first time.
We’ve been taking bets on how quickly some of the first clears for different modes will come in — right now, I’m guessing a couple of days max for Hard Mode, but when it comes to Thaemine the First those estimates are very broad. Of course, as players get practice and learn the raid, repeating it week over week it will become much easier to manage.
Q. Any advice for players going in to do battle in Lost Ark's hardest encounter, once it goes live?
Roxanne: While gearing up and diving into the raid head first to start learning and practicing will be important, nothing will be quite as important for your first Thaemine run as making sure you know how to communicate and work together with your teammates. This raid will be new and challenging for you— and for your 7 other teammates. If you want to find success, you’ll have to find it together, so figure out how to best work together and support each other (literally, if you’re playing a support class!) as you learn and progress through this new raid.
The Thaemine Raid has begun in Lost Ark, launching on April 17, 2024. It’s one of the many great reasons to pick up and play the MMO available right now.
