[Game Play] [Adventurer's Board_Tips] NEWBIE GUIDE (2024)

New to bdo?? welcome to my guide xD

Best Beginner Class

Choosing the right class for you is a very personal decision. Do you like complexity or simple? Speed or slow and heavy hitting? What's important to someone else, may not be important to you. Ultimately, you will end up playing the class you enjoy the most, no matter what some guide tells you.

Is Witch/Wizard Class right for me?
For beginners to BDO, looking for the easiest class to play, most recommend Witch or Wizard. There are several reasons for this:

• Easy key combos: you can Chain Lighting all the way to level 50. (Hold Shift + Right button)
• High & Cheap Sustainability: Beginners have to worry less about using up precious inventory and weight limits on buying and carrying Mana and HP potions. (Pots are very heavy.) They are more free to focus on obtaining loot and using silver for gear. They have several spells that almost instantly regenerate health and mana.
• Magic Lighthouse: a spell that turns a monster's attention away from you and reduces their defense. This can help beginners, who probably have lower gear scores and need to save money on repair bills and pots

There some other beginner friendly class too , but in my opinion witch/wizard is more friendly classes in the game.

Rookie Attendance Rewards

The most recent "Rookie" Attendance Rewards for new players looks good! (You Must Get It)

Beginner Loot:

• Value Packs
• Tier 5 Horse
• +6 Inventory
• Kuku Bird pet
• Enhancement Goodies (Keep these)

P.S Screenshot is from another souce cause i didnt have rookie attendance anymore xD

When you join a Guild, you will also get access to another whole Attendance Reward tab. Sometimes special event Attendance tabs open up. Returning players (who have not logged into their account for 30 days) also get a special tab.

Notice that Attendance Rewards are only available for a limited time. "Loyal Attendance Rewards" normally only have a short monthly window. "Guild", "Rookie", and "Returning" player tabs usually have a broader time frame to collect.

BDO Alerts and Notifications

Soon after you enter the world, the default UI will alert you to many different things that occur in the game. These include Marketplace notifications and other things like when other players fail or succeed at enhancements.

If this feels like spam to you, you can customize the messages that are shown. Press Escape key > Settings > Display > General > Alert

Chat Filters

Esc > Community > Chat Filters. BDO has its share of people advertising this or that. You can limit what you see in chat by filtering out whatever terms you like.

• Filtered words can be up to 50 characters long.
• The chat filter is literal, not case sensitive and does not support wildcards.
• Any chat containing the filtered word will be completely removed.

Giving Money (Silver) & Game Items Away

The main game currency is silver, and it can't be given to another player. Player to player trade is very limited in Black Desert Online. Most things like gear and accessories cannot be traded to another player and must be sold at the Central Market. Some exceptions are Health and Mana Potions and some foods and drinks. Also, once those items are traded, they become bound and can't be re-traded or sold.

Energy

Energy is another type of currency in the game and has many uses, such as allowing you to use Life Skills like Gathering and Farming. Maximum Energy is increased when any character you play completes Knowledge topics. Your Energy and Knowledge gained is shared across all your characters (Family).

The easiest Knowledge topic to complete is the Character type, in which you have to talk to the NPC to gain their Knowledge. Talk to every NPC with a question mark on your mini map to discover them and gain Knowledge. Press the H key to see a breakdown of all the Knowledge to be gained.

Contribution

Your Contribution pool is shared across all of your characters (Family). Each character adds Contribution exp to the pool by completing quests. To gain more Contribution Points, finish as many quests as you can that award Contribution. (Most do.) As you gain knowledge and amity with NPCs, more quests will open up to you. You can also obtain Contribution through Alchemy and Cooking, which provide a byproduct that you turn in to an NPC. (You get about 1 byproduct every 5 crafts.)

Contribution has 2 main uses in BDO. Most people spend their Contribution on purchasing Nodes and building their "Worker Empire". It takes Contribution Points to buy lodging for workers. Any kind of workshop housing will cost you CP as well. Renting weapons, armor, and storage space is another option for spending Contribution, for players that don't like crafting or world building.

Beginner Mounts & Navigation

Beginner Mounts

Mounts are now easier to obtain for Beginners. There are usually quests or Attendance Rewards for them. If, however, you find yourself too long without one, visit the , where you can purchase a Horse from Stablein Velia. Horse Emblem: Beginner's Horse is available in his shop for 15k, but he also gives you access to a player Horse Market. You can find much better horses at the Horse Market. with a shop and Horse Market are available in most major cities.

Don't be fooled by the Donkey. He is adorable and soo lovable, but slow and hard to turn. Horses are faster and easier to handle, and most important, just as cute! (Some players have been known to defend their donkey's prowess to the death... beware of such players, as they are deluded.)

You will notice that Horse Market prices for low level horses of up to Tier 4 are fairly cheap. Perfect for beginners. Tier 5 is a bit expensive, but maybe you will get lucky with some overnight AFK fishing. :) Keep checking if you don't see anything at first.

Pets for Beginning Players

You can have up to 5 pets out at the same time. Pets are bought at the Pearl Shop or given as Attendance/Challenge Rewards. Pets pick up your loot for you. Pets have a max of 4 tiers and each tier has up to 10 levels. The higher your pet's level and/or tier, the faster it will loot. Pets gain higher Tiers after they are Exchanged. They are given 1 Special Ability, 1 Talent, and up to 3 Skills. Pets level up after being fed. To level your pets faster, switch them to Agile mode so your pet's hunger gauge decreases faster. If your pet's hunger level reaches 0%, it will no longer loot or use its special ability. It's skills, however, will still work.

Pet Talents & Special Abilities
This Pet Talent and Special Ability table is just a small list of available pets.Pet Talents and Special Abilities for T1 pets like dogs and birds are good for grinding. Other pets, like cats and Hedgehog, are good for Life Skills. Pandas currently have a strange mechanic, so you may want to avoid them, unless you think they are too adorable to pass up! (Which they are.) Their aggravate ability only works on one mob every 10 to 4 seconds and it has been reported that this animation takes priority over the pet's animation to pick up loot. (You can turn Special Abilities off.) If this has been fixed, please let me know!

Best Pets for Beginners?
Many players say the Hedgehog is the best pet in BDO. With my own testing, I discovered I gathered 3x less than my sister who had a Hedgehog. This makes a big difference in the amount of time it will take to gather logs for ship building, for example. But Hedgehogs aren't good for players who don't gather and craft. Both the Hedgehog and the Polar Bear have limited availability. You can obtain these pets after purchasing a Gift Package for yourself or a friend and having that account level to 30. Gifting yourself another account might sound strange. According to their game gifting buy page: "The only restriction will be that you will need to own the game yourself and have purchased it before the first of this month.

Is BDO Free to Play?

There is no subscription fee for playing Black Desert Online. Many people consider this model free to play. It also has a 7 day free trial. However, you do have to initially make a purchase of at least $10(or atleast 200 acoin) to continue playing BDO. This will give you the basic game without any extras. Some also consider the Value Pack a type of subscription fee. It lasts 30 days and removes a 30% penalty to Marketplace sales prices and gives buffs to weight, inventory, and experience.

Is Black Desert Online P2W? (Pay to Win)
This is a hotly debated topic, because everyone has their own definition of what Pay to Win means. But most people agree that you do have to spend more than $10 to make the game enjoyable.

Pets are a good example of what many consider P2W. They aren't required to pick up loot, but if you don't buy them, you will have to repeatedly mash the same pick-up button over and over again after every mob group that you defeat. Mob groups are usually 5+ so that's 5x pressing the R button to do something that quickly gets boring and routine.... (So it's basically, R + Wait for pickup animation... R + Wait for pickup animation... R + Wait for Pickup animation... Not very exciting.)

Even with the maximum of 5 pets, you may have to wait for pets to pick up loot, depending upon how fast you can kill monsters and what tier and level of pets you have. In order to raise a pet's tier, you have to buy another pet and combine two pets into one, so that doubles the price.

Beginner Quest Tips

Crossroad Quest in Heidel, Serendia

After you complete the quest, 'Paying Off Debts,’ to take money to Bobby Lauren in Heidel, you will have a window appear where you can select a Crossroad quest line of your choice. The window will not disappear until you make a selection of a Crossroad quest line.

• You can choose and play through 1 among 3 dividing quest lines at Serendia. The quest you choose at Serendia will eventually join into one quest at Calpheon.

• Each dividing quest line has its own story, and each has its own path of Monster Zones to go through.

• ①The first path starts with the quest[Crossroad] The Lamenting Head of the League of Merchants. This path follows the same story as the pervious main quests. It follows Jordine and his ambitions to take revenge against Calpheon.

• ②The second path begins with the quest[Crossroad] Silence, We’re Done Here!. This path will lead you to NPCs around cities and towns that will ask you to help them with their big and small problems. Follow this path past the northern sections of Calpheon to arrive in Keplan. This is where you will start the quests covering the story about Oze, the daughter of the Lord of Keplan that has gone missing.

• ③The third path starts with the quest[Crossroad] Each of Their Reasons. The story here will reveal the power struggles between aristocrats. You’ll be watching the story unfold by the side of the Xian Merchant Guild as they make their move into Calpheon.

• The Black Spirit quest, [To Level 50!] Breaking New Ground, must be completed in order to level up from Lv. 49 to Lv. 50. After you turn level 50, you can be killed by other players who have flagged for PVP.
• After completing the Black Spirit's Gift (Adventurer's Tome) quest, you will get an item with the effect "Prognyl Silver Bar Gain +20%." Prognyl Silver Bars are frequently obtained with beginner quests and can be exchanged at the Storage Keeper for 20,000 silver.

Black Desert Online Storage

For hoarders like myself, it will not take long for you to discover Black Desert Online storage can be a real issue. That is, unless your plan is to buy Pearls with real cash to increase Storage. When you are first starting out, it's not as bad. But expect to get much more loot after you hit level 51 and arrive in Mediah.

Most Life Skills require lots of storage. You may want to choose one Life Skill to focus on. For example, you might want to store Cooking ingredients only and sell Alchemy ingredients to make more room. Cooking is much easier for a BDO Beginner to get started with.

Most small towns and cities have a default storage of 16 slots each. This is where workers from that town or city will place goods they have gathered from Nodes. Storage is shared with all of your characters, enabling you to give gear and other items to alts.

How to obtain more storage in Black Desert Online:

• Alts:Turn your alternate character's inventories into storage.
  • Obtain 32 additional Inventory Slots on each character through questing. View allInventory Expansion Quests


• Storage Housing:Purchase a House > Storage with Contribution Points
  • Cheapest Storage for Velia: Toscani Farm after purchasing Lodging for more workers (House 6-2 gives 12 storage for 3 Contribution Points)
    
  • Cheapest Storage for Heidel: every house on block 4 except 4-5
    


• Transport:Some items can be held in Transport via the
  


• Wagons:Leave items on a wagon and stack your wagons at the . Farm Wagons are sold by the for 180,000 silver and have 14 inventory slots. This is a great way to store items that are not used often. (Stable slots can be increased after purchasing a Horse Ranch with CP). Note: if you Remote Collect Wagons or Mounts via the , Trade Goods will be destroyed and if it's a non-Trade Good item, the mount will be transferred to the nearest
  


• Central Market:Leave items in your Central Market Warehouse. Some items that can't be stacked normally, like Ancient Relic Crystal Shards, can be stacked inside this special storage. Visit the Marketplace or Storage NPC to do this. Click on the "Warehouse" button. (This is seperate from our "Storage".)
  


• Loyalty Storage:Storage can be purchased with 500 Loyalty. (Would take 5 days of staying logged in for one hour each day.) Loyalty Storage gives 1 Extra slot for 2 city storages, in one territory. The Serendia Storage includes 1 extra Storage Space for Heidel and Glish. Calpheon is the only one that offers 3 cities instead of 2.
  

Storage Bugs Anyone?
Make sure you always leave one empty space in your storage, or your workers will get severely confused and not work anymore until you free up a space. This occurs even if they are harvesting something that is already stacked inside that city's storage. Poor workers! :( To me, this seems like more of a game bug. Similar weird things can happen when your character has a full inventory. So, if you are getting weird errors, when trying to hire a worker, for example, always check to see if your inventory is full! They like to sit in your pockets? LOL! Funny, but true.

Inventory Quests & Expansion Coupons

You begin with 24 Inventory slots, but you can raise that by 32 with quests for a total of 56 slots. To increase your inventory beyond 56, you will have to purchase inventory with Rookie Rewards, Loyalties, or Pearls. You receive 100 Loyalties each day you log in, allowing you to buy 1 inventory slot every 10 days. Or you can buy 8 slots for 800 Pearls ($8 or 16 slots for $14.50). 8 slots via Loyalties will cost you 2.6 months of waiting. Maximum inventory is 192 per character, so you can purchase up to 136 inventory slots.

The most recent "Rookie" Attendance Reward gives you 6 slots. (This could change at any time.) Noramlly, Attendance Rewards don't give Inventory increases. "Rookie" is only available to new players, once per account.

OTHER INVENTORY QUESTS:
+ 8 quests from "Suggested" Inventory quest tab

= 32 Extra Inventory Slots

The inventory quests below are part of the old Main quest line and might still be available via choosing the 1st Crossroad I quest line. ([Crossroad] The Lamenting Head of the League of Merchants) All Crossroad quest lines give the same Inventory slot numbers.

Black Desert Online Inventory Quests (Old Main Quest Line)
	Inventory Quest	Level	NPC	Node	Inventory	Description
Choose 1	Jarette's headache	1	Jarrett	Western Guard Camp	Bag space +1	Requires Gathering: Beginner 5
	Claus Can't Contain!	15	Claus	Western Guard Camp	Bag space +1
	Experience of the Ancients	1	Edan	Ancient Stone Chamber	Bag space +2
Choose 1	A Very Minute Flaw	1	Sealus	SE Velia	Bag space +1
	Eileen’s Request	6	Eileen	SW Velia	Bag space +1
	Crio and Sandfish	20	Crio	Velia (docks)	Bag space +2	Have Fishing Quests turned on! Pre-requisite quest:Basic Fishing - A Fishing Rod. Make sure you don't have "Throw away useless items" checked.
	Military Power in Heidel	1	Jordine Ducas	Heidel	Bag space +2
Choose 1	Puia and the Wooden Box Design	17	Puia	Heidel	Bag space +1	Requires: Gathering: Beginner 6
	Techthon and Quality Iron	15	Techthon	Heidel	Bag space +1
	Donatt's Will		Cheremio	Glish	Bag space +2	Freharau storyline
Choose 1	Glazed Naga Oil	18	Seilane	Glish	Bag space +1
	Injured Adventurers...	20	Deborah	Glish	Bag space +1	Requires: Gathering: Beginner 3
	Trent Worker Experience	40	Spotty Troll	Trent	Bag space +1	Requires: Gathering: Beginner 2 Have knowledge onChopping: Beginner
	Calpheon Military Representative	39	Norman Rate	Northern Wheat Plantation	Bag space +1	"Calpheon and Giant Trolls" quest line. Finish waragon questline or get 100 amity withMartha Kiyen(Northern Wheat Plantation), which unlocksRuins Excavation Disruption
	Gift for Happiness	40	Soon-to-be Bride	NE Calpheon City (behind Skill Instructor)	Bag space +1	Uncheck auto-arrange: (Veil > Wine > Glass). Noble doesn't appear at night!
	Keplan, Free of Threats	47	Clam Cessory	Keplan	Bag space +1	Keplan main story questline

The quests below are from the old main quest line, but the Black Spirit quests were reworked. The new quest lines give similar inventory rewards for defeating bosses. [Co-op] boss quests were renamed to [Boss] at this time.

Item Rarity & Colors in BDO

Many item names and icon borders in BDO are color coded to help you determine how rare something is. Workers, Life Skill levels, and items are all colored by grade/rarity. Lowest is gray. Gray items (Having a gray colored name/title.) are considered trash for the most part and most can be sold at the vendor. Some items can be exchanged for more than vendor price, if you have a large quantity of them and exchange them to a certain NPC that wants them. This type of exchangable loot has been removed from the majority of beginner grinding areas, but keep a watchful eye in later levels. Right click the exchangable item to draw a path to the closest exchange NPC.

Gray�White�Green�Blue�Gold�Orange

Some things also have a title, denoting level/grade such as workers.

1. Artisan
2. Professional
3. Skilled
4. Normal
5. Naive

We also see color grades reflected in Life Skill levels:

1. Guru
2. Master
3. Artisan
4. Professional
5. Skilled
6. Apprentice
7. Beginner

Beginner Gear Basics

1. PEN (V) +20
2. TET (IV) +19
3. TRI (III) +18
4. DUO (II) +17
5. PRI (I) +16
6. +15 to +1

Armor Basics:
The main benefit to armor is that it offers DP (Defense Points). But many armor pieces include extra stats like Evasion, Weight Limit increases, Damage Reduction, and Health Points. Armor can be shared between all your characters by putting them into storage at the Storage Keeper located in most major cities. You could also transfer gear to an Alt via a Farm Wagon (Mounts that have gear on them can only be Remote Collected to their nearest .)

Weapon Basics:
Weapons and Sub-weapons (aka Secondary Weapons) are class specific. Some weapons can be shared with more than one class. The main-hand weapon of Staff, for example, is used by Witches and Wizards. The sub-weapon Steel Dagger is shared between Witch, Wizard, and Ranger. Awakening weapons can only be equipped by characters level 56+ who have completed their class specific Awakened quest line. (Archer is the exception to this rule and he is limited to the beginner Archer Awakening Weapon until level 56.) Awakening weapons cannot be shared with a different class.

Enhanced Gear
As a beginner, you can survive on quested gear until around level 55. But you will eventually want enhanced gear. Enhancing is expensive and RNG heavy. With the new Central Market, that is supposed to allow for more free trade, you may be able to find good enhanced gear for a fair price. (Always keep in mind that if there is allot of something up for sale, and it's not selling well, it may be over-priced or not a good gear option.)

For a more detailed guide on BDO Gear, please visit ourGear Progression Guide.

BDO Leveling Guide

For details on the best leveling spots, Combat EXP buffs, and more, please visit ourBDO Leveling Guide.

There is no level cap in BDO. However, there is what people call a "soft cap", where it gets to be nearly impossible to obtain a certain level. You see this reflected in the image I obtained of one of graphs available onSmite Datamining, which shows the amount of xp needed per level. As you can see, the xp needed for level 63 is much more than the amount needed for level 56. Getting to level 56 is fairly quick, but after level 62, leveling gets extremely difficult.

Making Money In BDO

Making money when you first start BDO can be challenging, but it has been made easier with the newly released Shadow Arena. There is no level restriction to play. Read more in ourShadow Arena Guide

Attendance and Event rewards can help offset the costs of upgrading or purchasing armor and weapons. There was a recent change to the beginner zones so that less junk and even green grade loot does not drop. Instead, Beginners should expect higher Black Stone drop rates than previously and higher value junk loot that they can sell at a vendor NPC. This should save you from having to buy pets immediately, but you will still need them for loot pickup after entering Mediah at around level 52.

What Should You Keep?
Don't sell any items that are used in weapon/armor enhancement: Ex. Black Stones, Shards. If you see something on the Central Market that sells frequently and there are zero to few available for sale, it's a good indication to hang on to it. (Central Market was added in a Patch on 20th February 2019. The Patch Notes stated: "Central Market is the first step to create a free market economy where you as the adventurer create your own market without much restriction." The freedom of this "free market" has yet to be proven, but it does seem like it gives players more price flexibility over time. The previous MAX/MIN pricing determined by the developers was very rigid.)

Typical Enhancement Items to Keep:

• Black Stone (Weapon)
• Black Stone (Armor)
• Memory Fragment
• Sharp Black Crystal Shard
• Hard Black Crystal Shard
• Cron Stones

AFK Fishing
The easiest and cheapest way beginners can make money right away is with afk fishing. Equip a fishing rod, walk towards the water, press your space bar. Be sure to check the throw away junk box. That is all you have to do to afk fish. Set this up over-night and you will get Ancient Relic Crystal Shards, which sell for 1+ million Silver. Current selling price for Ancient Relic Crystal Shards is 1.4 million silver. (Price varies with supply and demand.)

The Crio, sells fishing rods with 30 durability for 500 silver each. Better fishing rods can be crafted and sold on Central Market, but it will be hard for new players to get them. Many fishing rods have a skill level requirement. Read the fine print!

Like many things in BDO, fish have different quality levels. White is the lowest quality and worth the least amount, followed by green, then blue, and lastly gold.

Fresh fish steadily decreases in value the older it gets. After 24 hours, your fish will be useless. If your fish is almost expired and worthless, dry it. Open the processing window (L key) and select the fish icon that represents the drying process. Insert fish, dry, and you'll have your fish forever. Dried fish can be sold at the Marketplace and used in cooking. One fresh fish = 2 dried fish in recipes.

Beginner Fishing Hot Spot
West of Veila, along the beach, you will find a small group of players fishing all together. This fishing spot is well known for catching higher quality fish (gold and blue grade fish).

Karon, the NPC on the dock in front of the in Veila, will buy blue and gold quality fish at 250% of their base value, but he only buys a certain number of each type of fish during a set period. After his fish quota is filled, he will no longer buy your fish. Always try to sell your fish to him first, then sell what is left over to the Bahar. Use the NPC finder to locate him.

Nodes & Hand Gathering
Selling raw produce from nodes and hand gathering can net you a good amount, but processed materials are inherently worth more. (Most of the time.) Study the Central Market under the Materials tab and discover what products sell the most and the price they sell for. Items in BDO have a hidden price range determined by the game developers. Player supply and demand also makes pricing fluctuate. Each item has a base price visible on the item. Central Market allows you to order/buy/sell at 10% above or below this base price.

Some crafted items likeBeer, a worker Stamina regeneration food, and GoodPetFeed will be in high demand. They have always been profitable, but that could change. You can also find items in which too many crafters have flooded Central Market and the price has dropped. Keep in mind that many items are not profitable to make! You can actually loose money crafting vs selling the raw goods after processing them. And even processing raw goods can make you loose money. Do your research before getting into any Life Skill. Many aren't meant for beginners to persue.

Rulupee Travels & Her Goody Bag
After you reach level 30, you will be able to talk to Rulupee (Southern Heidel Inn), who will give you a series of quests. Each of her quest series has a goodie bag at the end, which is very nice. For more details, view ourRulupee Travel Guide. Here is the end reward bag for the first two quest series.

*** Rulupee's Lightweight Adventure Bag ***

This daypack contains items handy for first time adventurers.
Right-click to obtain:

• Black Stone (Weapon) x5
• Black Stone (Armor) x5
• Memory Fragment x5
• Sharp Black Crystal Shard x3
• Hard Black Crystal Shard x3

PVP & PVE Death Penalties

Characters of level 49 and under are safe from PVP, but player versus player combat can't be avoided at level 50 and beyond (You can run, but you can't hide.) After you complete the quest that lets you move past level 49, another player can "flag up" and attack you at any time, except in safe areas like cities and towns. Unwanted PVP occurs most often because of hunting territory squabbles. If you don't like PVP, stay away from other player's "rotations" for popular grind spots. You will still get occasionally PVP'd while grinding, when someone wants to take your leveling spot, but it's not an every day occurance. Switch channels when grind spots are full.

PVP flagged characters have glowing red names above their heads.

Some players just enjoy playing the bad guy and killing others for sport. These players may even enjoy having negative Karma (aka red Karma). Negative Karma occurs when you "flag up" and keep killing players that aren't flagged for PVP (that don't have a red name) and your Karma points sink below 0.

PVP & PVE Death Penalties Depend Upon Karma:

• PvE Death (you have 0+ Karma):Chance to lose crystals + guaranteed exp loss
• PvE Death (you have negative Karma)Guaranteed exp/crystal loss + chance to degrade gear.
• PvP Death (you have 0+ Karma):nothing happens
• PvP Death (you have negative Karma):Guaranteed loss of crystals (usually 5 max) + guaranteed XP loss (more than Elion's Tear can recover) + chance to degrade gear if it does not have slotted crystals.
• PVP Death in Desert (you have negative Karma):Jail time only: sentenced according to Karma (30/50/60 min.) Desert area is in Valencia whenever you can't view yourself on the World Map. You will see a desert icon on your minimap.

PVP penalties do not apply during node war, RBF (Red Battlefield), guild war declarations, duels, or arena.
PVE Penalties don't apply for boss deaths.
Arsha is a special PVP server that removes any Karma penalties, and also increases loot drops for level 50+ players.

Guild Benefits

Summary of Life Skills

Pressing your P key will bring up a window with your character's information, including a list of Professions (Life Skills) within a tab window. There are 7 ranks for each Life Skill and 10 levels in each rank. Master has 30 levels and the highest rank of Guru has 20 levels.

We see grades reflected in Life Skill levels:

1. Guru
2. Master
3. Artisan
4. Professional
5. Skilled
6. Apprentice
7. Beginner

Gathering

Gathering is a profitable activity that lets you gather all kinds of crafting materials used in other Life Skills and worker workshops. In many quest lines, it's a requirement that opens up other Life Skill quests. Each gatherable resource requires it's own tool to gather. Buy gathering tools at a or on the Marketplace. Or purchase a Tool Workshop and have your worker craft them for you.

All gathering methods have a chance to proc the very valuable Hard and Sharp Black Crystal Shards which are used in enhancing gear. Lucky and Magic Tools increase luck while gathering. There is debate on how much, if any, Luck plays in gathering Shards.

If you would like to increase your Life Skills, I recommend leveling up your Gathering Skill to at least Beginner 7 ASAP. This is easily done via Empty Bottle gathering at the fountain in Heidel. Purchase 34 Empty Bottles at the Material Vendor near the fountain. Or you can use any river/lake for gathering water. I like Heidel because the Material Vendor is only a couple steps away from the water source.

Speedy Tip:Get to Apprentice 4 Gathering Skill to bypass 9 prerequisite Processing advancement quests. You may want to do them anyway, though, since they give you a free fence and other goodies.

Gathering level Apprentice 4 is a little more challenging to obtain. You will need about 274 Empty Bottles filled. If you do skip the prerequisite quest chain for processing, then you will miss out on the Shabby Fence and some housing furniture, as well as additional Gathering/Processing XP.

Processing

Press L to open the processing window. No tools are needed to process materials. Processed materials are inherently worth more than raw materials at the Marketplace (but this does not always mean they will sell well, if at all, on the Marketplace. Look at supply and demand before processing anything!). Processing, like fishing, is usually a good AFK way to generate extra income, after it is leveled up to Artisan level. (Always check Marketplace demand.)

Processing Examples
raw material		T1		T2		T3
timber		plank		plywood		sturdy plywood
ore		melted shard		ingot		pure crystal

In BDO, the Processing Skill allows you to chop, heat, dry, filter, shake, and grind resources into processed materials. These refined items are often used in higher level crafting recipes. Everyone is able to do basic T1 processing. However, if you would like to do the second level of processing, (to create plywoods, ingots, cloth, etc.), BDO requires you to obtain "Beginner" Processing Knowledge. There are up to three tiers of processing: T2 Beginner, T3 Skilled.

Cooking

Cooking is one of the first Lifeskills you will most likely level early on as you need to make Beer to feed your workers.

Cooking requires a Cooking Utensil installed in your residence. Purchase a Cooking Utensil from chefs or innkeepers. Utensils can sometimes be sniped on the Marketplace, or have your worker craft one in a Tool Workshop.

The image below shows the location of all the Velia grain/cereal nodes you can purchase to make beer. ( I obtained the map's background fromsomethinglovely.netThanks Fam! )

Training

Taming wild horses and riding your mount increases Training skill. You need ropes from a Stable Keeper to capture a horse in the wild.

Fishing

Hunting

You need a matchlock to hunt. To level your hunting skill, you need to butcher animals with a butcher knife or do hunting quests. To get started with Hunting,

Farming

You need a fence and seeds to begin Farming. Pruning, killing pests, breeding, and harvesting crops increases Farming Skill.

Farming for Grain
Farming is another profession you can do as a beginner that will help you get grain for making worker food. There is a low level quest line which will give you a free fence, or you can spend 3 CP on a Small Fence. Seeds can be acquired through gathering vegetation, the Marketplace, and seed vendors. A Withered Seed, sold by vendors, is the lowest quality seed, which will not yield very good results. But the good news is that you can breed them and there is a chance to obtain better seeds, which produce better crops. The next tier after Withered Wheat is the normal white grade Wheat Seed, which after about 5 hours from planting, will yield an average of 70 wheat.

The image below shows the location of Camelia Loggia, who you can purchase Withered Wheat Seed from for 220 silver. It also shows the location of a Small Fence vendor, Martina Finto. ( I obtained the map's background fromsomethinglovely.netThanks Fam! )

Trading

Trading is the act of obtaining one Trade Good and selling it to a , (for, hopefully, a profit). Trading is often touted as a profitable profession in the game, but you can actually loose money doing it, if you're not careful. Before getting into trade, be sure to read up on it. It is not usually recommended for beginners.

Alchemy

Alchemy creates potions (most have a shorter buff than foods), magic crystals, and reagents for Skilled Processing (Plywood Hardener, Metal Solvent, Gem Polisher). Alchemy requires an Alchemy tool installed in your residence. Purchase an Alchemy tool from a General Vendor, or on the Markeplace, or have your worker craft one in a Tool Workshop. Alchemy isn't as easy to get started with as Cooking. All Alchemy recipes require rare materials that you have to gather yourself or rarely obtain through nodes. This profession will take lots of time to level up, but help boost your character's power in many ways.

Sailing

A beginner sailing boat can be purchased at the Wharf Master for 10k silver. You can sail at low levels to find fishing hotspots and other adventures, but it's not recommended to go too far out by yourself (Ross & Margoria Seas), until you have an Epheria Boat. Sailing is very slow and the waters that are far out have sea monsters that quickly destroy a slow and weak boat. Building a good boat takes time and effort.

BDO Hotkeys (Default)

The image below shows the default Hotkeys or Keyboard Shortcuts for different commands in BDO. The one you will use the most will be the Escape key. Through this, you can pretty much do anything you want, including accessing a helpful crafting knowledge database (F2) with recipes and item drop locations.

One very handy tool in the Escape Menu is the Central Market button. You can't actully purchase anything, but it's nice to be able to view markeplace demand on the go.