Lost Ark Positioning 101: X3 Rule & NESW

Many activities have bosses with mechanics that require players to position themselves in the cardinal or intercardinal directions within the battlefield, oftentimes with mere moments of warning. Saintone has a few tricks for parties to easily assign and remember positions.

X3 Rule & NESW Variant

An easy way to assign positions for these mechanics without difficulty or needing to choose random (and therefore easily forgettable) positions it is by using the “x3 rule”. The x3 rule looks at the battlefield like a clock, and players merely need to take their party number and multiply by 3 to figure out their cardinal position for these mechanics. In the party, each player has an assigned number, 1 – 4, found next to their name on the left side of the screen. For example, Player #1 would be 1×3 = 3, meaning they’d be located at 3 o’clock, or the right side of the battlefield. Following that, Player #2 would be at 6:00 (the bottom of the map), #3 would be at 9:00 (left side), and #4 would be located at 12:00, or the top of the arena.

While many players in the west are already using this method, there are some instead choosing NESW, which is unique to the west. NESW starts with the Player #1 position at the North position and then rotates clockwise, so the positioning is a little different than the x3 rule. You should be ready to adapt to either or depending on your party’s preference, as it doesn’t matter which one your group uses! These rules just serve to simplify the assignment of positions— the important part is that you’re on the same page as your team.

8 Player Modification

For 8-player content requiring a circular pattern, the x3 rule can easily be modified for the second party to provide intercardinal positions. The x3+1 rule means a player in party 2 needs to position themselves between two members of party 1, once again looking at the battlefield like a clock. For example, Player #1 in party 2 would go to the 4 o’clock position in the bottom-right, as 1×3 = 3, and 3+1 = 4.

For the NESW variation, party 2 just needs to shift to the intercardinal, with Player #1 going Northeast, Player #2 going Southeast, Player #3 going Southwest, and Player #4 going Northwest. Again, it does not matter which one of these rules you use, they both ultimately serve the same purpose!

Saintone hopes these tricks will help quickly communicate positions without having to discuss it, especially when pressure is mounting in a tough battle and you need to know your position at a moment’s notice.

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3x and 3x+1 group positions explained

Since the global release there has been some growing pains in the community regarding default group organization. Because many players currently playing on the global servers are brand new to Lost Ark, they have no way of being exposed to the cultural norms that Lost Ark follows in Russia, Korea, and Japan – every region the game is in follows the same etiquette because it works very well.

The first convention is default group positions – Some players who have no prior experience with the game have been trying to make use of a system assigning 1234 to NESW, and while this may seem like a trivial difference between the 3x/3x+1 systems it is actually quite significant.

With the release of legion raids we are about to start seeing encounters for which the NESW system will completely break down – this, as well as 3x/3x+1 transcending language barriers and only having a single way it can be interpreted are the reasons why this 1234/NESW system does not exist in a single other region that Lost Ark is supported in.

The second convention is the auto-assignment of battle items in Guardian Raids, although this has been adopted even by a significant portion of the global region already – the system sees:

Player #1 – Flare

Player #2 – Pheromone Bomb

Player #3 – Pheromone Bomb/Destruction bomb/Whirlwind Grenade

Player #4 – Pheromone Bomb/Destruction bomb/Whirlwind Grenade

This roughly divides the battle item responsibility of the group in a fair way, while also covering the requirements for every guardian raid.