Engraving recipes and accessories drop in endgame activities: Chaos Dungeons, Chaos Gates, Abyssal Dungeons, the Tower, the Cube, and Guardian Raids. Guardian Raids only drop class engraving recipes, while most others reward you with battle engraving recipes, though Abyssal Dungeons contain both kinds.
Chaos Gates can also drop Secret Maps that reveal hidden dungeons on the continents, and these can have engraving recipes in them as well. As mentioned above, sidequests in East Luterra in particular will give you plenty of Engraving Recipe Pouches, and you can get some as login rewards, too.
Ability stones drop from many of the same activities, like Chaos Dungeons and Guardian Raids, as well as Field Bosses and the Ghost Ship. You get five of them just for completing the Road to Faceting guide quest. You'll have more of them than you know what to do with soon enough.
How to choose the best Lost Ark engravings
The number one choice should usually be a class engraving that emphasizes your playstyle. The Sorceress, for example, can choose between Igniter to improve the usefulness of her identity skill, or Reflux, which disables one of her identity skill's benefits—Arcane Rupture—in return for increased damage and reduced cooldown for every other skill. If you like your identity skill, go with Igniter, and if you forget to use it most of the time, go with Reflux.
After that, pick one or two battle engravings that likewise fit the way you play. If you're a support class and you often play in groups, Expert gives a solid boost to your shield and healing, which gets better when party members are below half-health. If you get a lot of use out of your Awakening skill, the Awakening engraving reduces its cooldown and increases the number of times you're allowed to use it in any given raid or dungeon (which starts at three).
Otherwise, the best engravings are those that synergize with whatever kinds of attack you lean on most. Check your skill list and see what your favorites have in common—there's probably an engraving to enhance them. Master of Ambush for those who specialize in back attacks (like deathblades), Hit Master if you don't do a lot of either back or frontal attacks (like artillerists or shadowhunters who spend a lot of time in demon form), Precise Dagger for those with hard-hitting crits (like sorceresses), or Barricade for anyone who likes to hunker down behind a shield (like gunlancers or some artillerists depending on your build).
Situational engravings like Raid Captain, which adds damage based on your movement speed bonus, benefit hypermobile types (like wardancers), while Master's Tenacity, which adds damage when you're under half-health, suits those who live on the edge (Berserkers, I'm looking at you). Again, it's all about paying attention to what you do the most of, then finding an engraving that makes you better at it.
If you're all about making big numbers pop out of bad guys, Grudge and Cursed Doll will seem like sweet deals, since the first boosts your damage against bosses and the second your attack power. And they are sweet deals, once you've maxed-out the effects by hitting 15 nodes. The downsides to each of them (+20% incoming damage for Grudge and –25% healing for Cursed Doll) are too significant to make them useful before that point. Don't take Grudge at its first level off effect for the pitiful +4% to damage versus bosses, it's not worth it. Wait until you're a tier 3 beast who has memorized every Guardian's attack pattern before equipping either of these.
You can buy Lost Ark Gold at MMOexp to help you buy weapons, gear, potions or cosmetics and more in-game.
