Lost Ark Soulfist guide: Best skills, build, engravings, and leveling

Apr 4, 2022

The Soulfist is an advanced class of a martial artist in Lost Ark. It uses Inner Energy instead of Mana — if there's at least 1 Inner Energy left, it's regenerated up to 1,000 quite quickly. However, if you use up all your Inner Energy, you have to wait for a few seconds without being able to use any skills. There's a skill that helps you in this situation: Hype.

When you use Hype, you gain a blast of Inner Energy and it strengthens you for a period of time. There are three levels of Hype — the higher the level, the stronger the buff, but the duration is shorter, so you need to blast your Hype at the proper time.

Unlike other Martial Artists, the Soulfist has a ranged basic attack. Many of her skills are also non-melee, so the playstyle can vary depending on the content. Mostly, Soulfists have strong burst damage and can carry teams in both PVPs and PVEs, but she's quite squishy and it's one of the harder classes to master the mechanics. If you use up all your Inner Energy, all skills will be disabled until you've recovered full energy. Hype helps you in those situations, as you will gain full Inner Energy with a buff in Inner Energy recovery, damage, attack speed, and cooldown reduction.

Best Soulfist builds

Much like every other class, the two primary builds that Soulfist has are determined by their Class Engravings.

Robust Spirit Soulfist

The Robust Spirit engraving allows you to burst into level 3 Hype immediately, which makes it easier to deal damage in a short window of time where all the damage buffs are available. This makes the Soulfist a strong character in raids — all you need to do is land the skills while you’re in Hype. Robust Spirit is usually preferred over Energy Overflow, as it is easier to cram in all the damage skills.

On the downside, when you miss skills while you’re in Hype, you lose a lot of damage, so you’ll need to land your skills properly. Cooldowns are a nuisance when Hype isn’t available, and she’s squishier than you’d think. Soulfists are rather slow as well, and it’s difficult to allocate Swiftness stats since you need to aim for Specialization more. That being said, you need to get your Specialization as high as you can — aim for more than 1,500. The next priority is Crit.

The desired engravings are as follows (in order):

Grudge
Robust Spirit
Keen Blunt Weapon
Cursed Doll
Adrenaline
Precise Dagger

An example Robust Spirit build for a brand new level 50 character with 252 Skill Points will look like this:

For those of you who prefer the 123 system, here goes:

Lightning Palm: 31 or 311 or 312

Heavenly Squash: 121

Pulverizing Palm: 22

Merciless Pummel: 132

Bolting Crash: 21 or 212

Force Orb: 131

Flash Step: 33

Energy Release: 231

Energy Overflow Soulfist

With the Energy Overflow engraving, Soulfists can deal damage more stably as their Inner Energy doesn't decline under 1. This means that even if you were to fire your skills blindly, your skills will not be shut down. There's an extra damage buff when your Inner Energy is below 30% as well, which can be both good and bad. It’s definitely positive since you have extra damage, but when you want to use your main damage skills, you’d need to lower your Inner Energy to that point. When you enter Hype, all the buffs are available except for Inner Energy recovery.

The desired stats for Energy Overflow are Swiftness and Crit. You can either go for a 50:50 ratio or go 75:25, focusing on Swiftness more.

The desired engravings are as follows (in order):

Grudge
Energy Overflow
Awakening
Cursed Doll
Keen Blunt Weapon
Adrenaline

An example Energy Overflow build for a brand new level 50 character with 252 Skill Points will look like this:

For those of you who prefer the 123 system, here goes:

Lightning Palm: 33

Heavenly Squash: 121

Pulverizing Palm: 22

Shadowbreaker: 221

Merciless Pummel: 132

Force Orb: 131

Flash Step: 33

Energy Release: 331

Soulfist leveling guide

Leveling in Lost Ark is pretty streamlined and straightforward, but here are a few key skills and tripods that will aid you in the leveling process.

Flash Step

Flash Step is a great mobility skill for Soulfists. If you select Excellent Mobility, the distance you can cover increases drastically. It can be used up to three times, so this skill alone makes Soulfists one of the quickest classes when moving in a straight line. However, it doesn't go through monsters, and it takes up a lot of Inner Energy when you use all three charges, so keep an eye on them to use properly.

Flash Step should be leveled up to 7 only. The tripods to select are Excellent Mobility and Victory Shout. Victory Shout increases your damage, so it's also quite useful.

Heavenly Squash

Heavenly Squash is a popular skill among Soulfists. It requires much Inner Energy, but the damage is also very high. The cooldown is rather long as well. However, when you use it on monsters that are down or airborne, you can deal massive extra damage.

Leveling Heavenly Squash to 10 is a great option when you're leveling up. It's useful when you're clearing mobs but use it carefully because its cooldown is long.

Pulverizing Palm

Pulverizing Palm is a skill that is unlocked immediately for Soulfists. It's a great starter skill as it charges forward, and the second tripod is a synergy skill that increases your party's damage. The third tripod is rather underwhelming, so there's no need to level up to 10. It's best to keep it at level 7.

Tempest Blast

Tempest Blast is unlocked at level 20. It may not be included in the most recommended skills, but it's chosen quite often among players. Since you can use it from early in the leveling process, it's a great source of damage. By selecting Eradication, it turns into a charge skill — its damage is increased but the shot gets narrower. If you want to use it, at least make it level 7.

Lightning Palm

Lightning Palm is unlocked at level 12. As one of the earlier skills available, you can use it throughout your leveling process. The damage is great, and it can benefit from both front and back attacks. It's is also considered as a counter, so it's very useful. It's one of the skills you should level up to at least 7.

Force Orb

Force Orb is a skill that's unlocked at Lv. 28. It has high damage and is great to connect with other skills. The tripods you should select are Quick Prep, Powerful Wave, and Scattering Wave. Force Orb is useful in both PVEs and PVPs, so make sure you level it to 10 as soon as possible.

Shadowbreaker

Shadowbreaker is a skill that's unlocked at Lv. 24. Its damage is great and the skill is activated fairly quickly. It's one of the best skills for the Soulfists in PVEs. Like Force Orb, the tripods should be fixed with Predator, Weak Point Detection, and Sixth Sense. Weak Point Detection is especially great against the raid bosses as all of them are Push-Immune. Level this to 10 as soon as possible.