If you’ve just crossed the threshold into Lost Ark’s tier 2 content, you’ve probably already hit the first major roadblock of endgame progression: figuring out how to get tier 2 materials in Lost Ark without spending 8 hours a day grinding repetitive content. I spent my first two weeks in tier 2 wasting dozens of harmony leapstones and running the wrong dungeons because I didn’t know there were far more efficient ways to stock up on the shards, stones, and leapstones I needed. This guide pulls from 100+ hours of tier 2 gameplay and community-tested methods to help you farm only what you need, skip the useless grind, and get to tier 3 as fast as possible, even if you only play a few hours a week.
The Most Reliable Ways to Get Tier 2 Materials in Lost Ark Daily
Your daily and weekly reset content is the most consistent source of tier 2 materials, and you should always prioritize these tasks before you waste time on random open world farming. These activities give guaranteed bound materials that you can’t buy from the auction house, so skipping them means you’re leaving free upgrades on the table every single day. You don’t have to run every single activity every day, but sticking to a short daily routine will cut your total grind time in half.
The most important daily tasks to prioritize are:
- 2 x Tier 2 Chaos Dungeon runs (use rested bonus if you skip 1-2 days for 2x higher drop rates per run)
- 2 x Tier 2 Guardian Raid runs (focus on guardians that drop the exact leapstone type you currently need for upgrades)
- 3 x Una’s Tasks that reward tier 2 materials or Una’s Tokens you can exchange for rare material chests
- 1 x Guild weekly donation request for extra harmony shards and bound leapstone chests
You can knock all of these tasks out in less than an hour a day, which will give you 70% of the materials you need for weekly upgrades. If you have extra time, you can run extra chaos dungeons after you use your daily aura, but the drop rates are drastically lower, so it’s usually not worth the time unless you’re only missing a tiny number of shards to hit your next upgrade level.
Leverage Event and Exploration Content For Free Bonus Materials
A lot of new tier 2 players completely miss the huge pool of free materials hidden in exploration and limited-time event content. These one-time payouts are often enough to push you 2-3 entire gear levels in a single hour of play, which is way more efficient than running daily content on repeat. I once finished the Glacier Isle quest line in 45 minutes and got enough harmony shards and leapstones to upgrade my weapon from +12 to +15, which saved me 3 full days of daily grind.
First, work through all the tier 2 island quest lines, starting with Glacier Isle, Twilight Isle, and Shadow Island. Each of these islands has a short quest line that rewards hundreds of harmony shards, dozens of leapstones, and even rare honing material chests that reduce honing failure chances. You can also check for travel merchant spawns in major tier 2 cities like Vern Castle and Yorn, as they often sell tier 2 leapstones and shards for silver, which is far cheaper than buying them from the auction house for gold.
Don’t forget to check the event tab every time you log in, either. Smilegate regularly runs events that give free tier 2 material chests for simple tasks like logging in for 7 days straight, running 10 chaos dungeons a week, or participating in casual world events. These rewards are completely free, and you don’t have to do any extra work to claim them if you’re already sticking to your daily routine.
Optimize Your Auction House Purchases to Avoid Wasting Gold
Sometimes you’ll be just a handful of materials short of an upgrade, and it makes more sense to buy the missing materials from the auction house instead of grinding for another full day. But you need to be smart about your purchases, or you’ll waste hundreds of gold on overpriced materials that you could have gotten for free in a day or two of regular play. The key is to only buy materials that are far cheaper than the time you would spend farming them.
Harmony shards are almost always the cheapest material on the auction house, so if you’re short on shards, it’s almost always better to buy them than to spend extra time running low-drop rate extra chaos dungeons. Leapstone prices fluctuate a lot depending on the time of day and week, so check prices at off-peak times like early weekday mornings, when you can often get them for 20-30% less than peak weekend prices when most players are online.
Never buy bound materials from players selling roster bound chests unless you’re truly desperate, as they’re usually marked up 50% or more compared to unbound versions. Also, don’t buy materials to upgrade every piece of gear to max level right away; focus on upgrading your weapon first, as it gives the biggest item level boost, and you’ll hit the tier 3 entry threshold much faster.
Maximize Alt Character Runs to Farm Extra Tier 2 Materials Fast
Alts are the single best way to farm extra tier 2 materials without spending extra time on your main character, and you don’t even need to gear them fully to use them for farming. All you need to do is get your alt to the minimum item level for tier 2 content, and you can run their daily chaos dungeons and guardian raids to get roster bound materials that you can send straight to your main.
You don’t have to run your alts every single day, either. I only run my two tier 2 alts on weekends, and that gives me enough extra roster bound leapstones and shards to upgrade my main 1-2 levels a week without any extra weekday grind. Just make sure you don’t burn yourself out running alts every day; it’s better to run them 2-3 times a week consistently than to run them every day for a week and quit the game entirely out of boredom.
If you don’t have any alts yet, it’s worth leveling one alt to tier 2 once your main is comfortably in the middle of tier 2 progression. You’ll get a ton of level up rewards along the way, and the extra materials you get from the alt will pay for the time you spent leveling it in less than a week.
You don’t have to treat tier 2 like a full time job to get enough materials to progress to tier 3. Stick to your short daily routine first, grab all the free event and exploration materials you can find, buy cheap materials from the auction house when it makes sense, and use alts if you want to speed up the process even more. By following these simple methods, you’ll be able to figure out how to get tier 2 materials in Lost Ark far faster than most players, and you’ll be stepping into tier 3 content before you know it.