Black DesertClass Guides

BDO 0-200 AP Gear Progression Guide

Disclaimer from the infographic:
This is for the NA/EU versions of the game
This is only a guideline for gear progression, RESULTS WILL VARY
You should try to buy the highest enhanced (+) weapons early on
This guide shows Witch, but works applies for all classes in general
Look up how to make FS (failstacks) and which numbers to use in another guide!
Early on, if you are considering using a PRI or +0 high grade accessory (50m+ base), there is usually a better higher enhanced item that is cheaper so sell the high grade accessory (ex: sell Ogre ring and buy a DUO Shultz Necklace)
Latest version contains Asula Accessory set considerations and upgrades.
Asula set makes it easier to get started, but upgrades from it are larger/costly, and more buyable.
Liverto

Blue Awakening

Marks of Shadow

There might be typos and wordiness here because I didn’t edit it heavily like the infographic version.

If you’re looking to enhance, start with the left image, if you like to buy stuff, buy the weapons/armor in the right image. Honestly I’d recommend buying due to new gear introduced on page 2.

This should get you to level 50/52. Go grind Mediah and do the main quest.

  • With 2 crystal slots, you can spare your helm slots for better stats (5 AS/CS + 5 Crit) [depends on class] 

Weapon – More green stuff, pick one with this priority:

  • Rosar – Higher AP, but for some classes it is much harder to find on the market due to unpopular drop zones
  • Krea – A hidden gem, no one ever thinks about Krea but you want the 2 slots. It’s a small amount of AP less than Rosar

Weapons to Avoid

  • Yuria – it is single slot and the human damage is worse than the AP from the previous weapons
  • Liverto – Use your green weapon until you switch to Kzarka. Otherwise you’ll be spending a couple hundred million to upgrade to something marginally better than Rosar. The benefits from Liverto can also be killed by narrower crystal choices (class dependent). A common sign of an unprepared newbie is +12 Liverto and no money. 

Offhand – Shown is a steel dagger for witch. For most classes, you will want an AP offhand. Some other classes may use other offhands and you could start out with those, but the accuracy/DP you get from those don’t help you level as much as AP offhands. 

Armor – Green sets, but if you can find an Ultimate one, get it so you don’t have to reform it later. We leave the chest at 0 for quest chest later.

The choice you make here isn’t terribly important, but what matters is having 2 crystal slot armor.

  • Heve – Shown here. It’s probably the best option because the 2 piece +HP effect will stay until you’re most of the way done swapping into boss armor later on.
  • Weight Set – Helps out when you’re grinding so you don’t have to unload as often. 
    • This is a Zereth chestpiece, Hercules helm, boots, and gloves. 
  • Grunil – +5 ap, but the effect basically vanishes on your first boss piece swap (Bheg’s)

Accessories – Whatever you can find off the ground or from random boxes. Don’t use the ones in the picture, they’re just placeholders for now.

To get here, you should complete the level 1-50 main quest line which starts the chain to get Roaring Magical Armor that will replace your chest piece. 

After that, you should grind in Mediah to get the Asula accessory set. 

Ring: Helms

Earring: Helms

Belt: Elrics

Necklace: Abandoned Iron Mine

It is also worth upgrading staff, offhand, and armor to pri/duo at this point. You should reform the mainhand weapon to ultimate to complete crystal bonuses because you will get +1 Attack/Cast speed.

Once you hit 56 and complete your awakening quest, I recommend getting the +10 green awakening weapon

Upgrading a blue awakened weapon is like a Liverto, you will spend a lot to upgrade it, when it is only an incremental upgrade from green and to a Dandelion, when Dande is best in slot anyway. Arguably a Dande takes a long time to acquire, but you could spend the money saved from skipping blue towards the Dande. There is more leeway now with Asula accessories to get a blue awakened, but casually you only need a green, and it will be more price efficient later on. You can grind and do PvE things fine with a TRI green.

You can upgrade a green awakening weapon very cheaply, and repair weapons are sold at the arms dealer in Altinova for 150k. Try to get it to DUO/TRI. You could also just buy one for very cheap.

First you want to TRI your awakening and offhand, and then reform the offhand to Ultimate. While you upgrade your weapons, you can use your armor to make failstacks for TRI. 

At this point, you should be about set to grind at most places and try out T1 node wars.

If you’re truly desperate to start node warring, I’d recommend getting armor to TRI. With TRI armor, you would be tipping over 400 GS.

If you’re going pretty casual and aren’t terribly interested in PvP, you can stick with DUO armor.

The next step is to start looking for boss gear from places like bosses, daily/weekly scroll bosses, night vendor, or market.  

You want to prioritize in this order, but you won’t necessarily get them in this order: 

  • Dandelion awakening – Probably the hardest to get, but this will be best in slot and the last awakening weapon you get
  • Kzarka Mainhand – Not very hard to get, but you want to get rid of that mainhand pretty quickly so Kzarka is pretty important for accuracy/AP/ CS/AS. 
  • Bheg’s gloves – Necessary for the accuracy bonus. It isn’t that hard to get compared to other pieces.
  • Muskan’s shoes – Pretty hard to get because it only drops from weekly boss (or bought).
  • Tree Spirit Armor – Also hard to get, but you have a field boss and weekly boss that drops it.
  • Giath’s Helmet – Easy to get and least important bonuses so it’s on the bottom of the list. 

This is good enough, I can just stop here now.” You should always be progressing! That’s the main point of gearing.

The first bought upgrades you should get are:

  1. DUO Shultz belt – This is better than the Asula belt and is super cheap. About 10m for a 1 ap upgrade… but it’s also 1 ap so kind of optional
  2. TRI RCE – If your class needs RCE, getting a TRI before other stuff would be the best move, because you’d break the Asula accuracy bonus and adding in the RCE accuracy instead
  3. TRI BCE – This could be another RCE, but a TRI BCE will fill in the upgrade from Asula and not cost you your first child. This will last you longer than getting DUO Marks of Shadow.

But I’m poor!” 

It doesn’t matter how much money you don’t have, you need to earn it. The Asula set makes it a lot easier to get PvP ready, but also sets back incremental upgrades so your first upgrades start expensive. 

Here’s to hoping you managed to get at least Kzarka, Bheg’s, and Dande. When you get them, upgrading them to at least DUO if not TRI should be the priority. A smart thing to do to build failstacks for these upgrades is to use the TRI attempts on the Heve gear to build higher stacks for boss gear enhancements.

The next accessory upgrades will be pricier than the last. If you don’t have Kzarka, Bheg’s, and Dande, you should focus on getting them as well as other boss gear, and you can take a peek at the next page for the next accessories. 

I’ll never get boss gear so I’ll settle for blues” isn’t the mentality of a winner! Once you get boss, it’s not like you have to get it again.
Unless you reroll. 

The next upgrades are:

  1. DUO Seraps or PRI Ogre or TRI Shultz
  2. DUO Basilisk Belt
  3. 2x DUO Rings of Crescent Guardian

You could pick these up in any order, but above they are ordered by cost.. Breaking the 300hp Asula bonus is kind of bad, but each of these upgrades are 300-500m if bought on bid. Basi belt won’t break the bonus, but is a 4 ap upgrade for a similar price like the others.

One thing to note: If you’re about to buy a 500m non-TRI accessory, you should probably think about putting that money towards a Dande/Kzarka/Bheg’s if you don’t have one. They will be a more permanent upgrade because you might blow up the accessory later, but you’ll at least have the boss gear even if it’s PRI. 

Some more reasoning behind these selections: 

  • Skipping Marks of Shadow because TRI MoS is the same as DUO Crescent, but without upgrade potential, and DUO MoS is expensive for a tiny  2 ap increase over Asula
  • A DUO Shultz necklace would be ~150m for a 2 ap increase as well. A TRI would work hereas well. DUO Seraps and PRI Ogre offer upgrade potential.

As always, keep aiming for boss gear.

Boss Gear with DUO yellow accessories and TRI blues. 

You can probably figure out where to go from here!