Thursday, February 13, 2020
Black Desert Mobile is mobile MMORPG, the mobile adaptation of Black Desert Online. We have a basic guide that will help you with your baby steps to playing Black Desert Mobile if you never play Black Desert before and totally new to it, no worries. And if you’ve already played it before, then this can be a refresher course for you.
The classes in BDM, Family Name, and what to pick as your first character:
BDM has five basic classes. One thing you need to know is that they are all gender locked. On the other hand, the game features a full character customizer where you can freely mold the feature of your character to make it as unique as possible. If you’re really good, you can even mold their faces to your own likeness. If you want to skip all those fuzzing over, there are preset customized avatars you can just pick up and go on your merry way.
Family Name: What is it and what you need to know about it:
The Family Name basically functions as your last name in the game. It is NOT your character IGN, so be careful and you might end up with a character with something like the first name of Moon, and a family name of Moon (Moon Moon, get it?) The Family Name will represent you and all your characters as you go on your journey through BDM. It cannot be duplicated and will be yours and yours alone in all servers of BDM. One very important thing to note; you will use the same name in every server within the same region so choose carefully. The game will prompt you to create one right off the bat so there’s nothing really to it, you just need to think of something creative.
The five starting classes:
- Warrior – is the balanced melee class of the game. They have fairly even stats and has the ability to block attacks to some degree due to them using shields as a secondary weapon while their main weapon is the long sword. As a melee class, warriors rely on close-quarter combat favoring combo skills while dodging enemy attacks. They excel in one on one PvP and can serve as either a tank or a damage dealer in PvE. They are quite easy to learn so the Warrior is a good pick if you’re familiar with MMO games.
- Valkyrie – are the female counterpart of the Warrior. They are a bit slower than Warriors but they make up for it with higher defense and tremendous damage output. They also use a sword and shield which gives them damage blocking abilities. The Valkyrie excels in group PvP and party PvE.
- Giant – is one of the newbie-friendly classes in the game. They deal a ton of damage against enemies and excel in group PvE. They wield deadly axes and an ornamental knot as a secondary weapon. In exchange for brute strength, their mobility is low and disengaging in fights is difficult. Nevertheless, they are fun to play and easy to learn. Berserkers are probably the most newbie-friendly class in the roster so if you’re an absolute beginner, you might want to consider this class.
- Ranger – is long-range physical attackers with high single target damage output with their longbow and dagger. They are quite difficult to master but excel in both PvP and PvE. Rangers are good starting class if you plan to farm first for your main character.
- Witch – deals with magical damage using her staff and dagger. The majority of a Witch’s skill leans towards AoE which makes her a great asset in PvP and PvE. Just like the Ranger class, she is a good choice for farming. Despite being a bit weak in defense, Witches can be a well-rounded class that class, but players will need to learn how to position themselves on the battlefield and how to time their spells right.
Additionally, your stash is not locked to one character. All of them can share it. This means whatever items you keep in the stash, any of your other characters can retrieve and use those items for themselves. This makes it a tad bit easier for your other secondary characters to grow and level up since you can farm higher gears using your main.
Black Desert Online has dozens of classes and the majority, if not, all of them will be coming to the mobile version as well, so if you haven’t found the right class that fits your playstyle, don’t worry, there are still a lot of new ones coming in future updates.
Leveling up in Black Desert Mobile:
Increasing your character level is just the same as any mobile MMORPG. It basically splits into two main branches: the main quest and side/sub-quests. The main quests will push the story and the plot that you are following in BDM. This will also unlock features in the game as you move on. Sub quests are extra tasks you can tackle to gain more experience points and level up. They’re usually requests from NPC’s that you need to accomplish. Think of it as a bit like a side story. The usual rule is finishing the sub-quests first then continue with the main quest and BDM is no exception.
There are other ways to level up such as using the Black Spirit Mode which we’ll talk about later on. Aside from that, here are some other ways for you to level up which will also become a daily routine for you to maximize:
- Grinding – find a spot where you can grind a monster without consuming too much HP potion and kill away with XP Boost in use. XP boosts can be acquired from events or can be bought in the Pearl Shop.
- Repeatable quests – there are a number of quests you can retake again in BDM. This is a great way to rack up XP points if you’re not into grinding.
- Life skills – aside from gathering materials, life skills can also give you bonus XP, especially at lower levels.
- Boss Rush – boss rush is just another term for the boss dungeon or boss hunting. You’ll need boss stamps to enter the boss dungeons. Additionally, you’ll also need to defeat a boss to unlock their dungeon. Higher tier boss equals higher XP.
- Ruins – the ruins is more or less the multiplayer equivalent of Boss Rush. You’ll need to create your own team or join one plus a tablet to participate in Ruins.
The mysterious Black Spirit:
The Black Spirit is an enigmatic figure in the world of BDM. It is connected to you as a companion of sorts but with some hidden agenda. You can level the spirit up by feeding him spare equipment or condensed dark energy. Dark energy can be obtained by finishing quests. They can also drop by killing monsters and can be bought in the cash shop. There’s also the Spirit’s quests you can finish to get dark energy as a reward. Arguably the biggest role of the Black Spirit is that it allows you to equip higher tier gear when you perform an awakening on it. Each awakening will give you access to the next higher tier equipment set.
Black Spirits can also give you bonus stats as well as giving you access to the Black Spirit Mode. This mode is very important to remember as this will allow you to perform actions even when the game is offline. In short, it’s an auto-farm AFK mode. It has three options: auto hunt, auto gathering, and auto fishing. Once you’ve chosen the task, the Black Spirit will take your place and will do the grinding for you instead. After a while, the game will be shut down. The next time you log in, you’ll receive the rewards of the AFK grinding.
Equipment System in Black Desert Mobile:
The equipment system in BDM is very different from traditional MMORPGs. When you start the game, all available equipment slots are unlocked. This is due to the unique mechanic where all your characters can share your gears and items regardless of equipment grade or level. So if you made a new character, they can use the high tier gears from your other characters right off the bat.
Enhancing skills is quite simple to understand. You just need to use enhancing stones. There are different stones that give various ratios of enhancing success rates. The higher the rate, the better the chance of a successful gear enhancement. The enhancements can be transferred as well as long as it’s the same type of equipment but at the cost of using some materials and a dwindling success rate every time you transfer. Don’t worry though since there are items you can use to increase your success rate.
You can acquire higher tier gear by either crafting them or get a lucky gacha draw in Shakatu’s Gold Coin Shop. High tier gears also have a chance of dropping in instances and from bosses.
Accessories are different. To enhance them, you’ll need the same type of accessory and use them as enhancement material. You can also use relics as an alternative. Just like gears, they also have a success rate, so better horde some relics and duplicate accessories so you’ll have plenty of materials to use.
About Stamina and how to use it:
The Stamina is more or less an Energy used in various contents and tasks in BDM like gathering resources, camp activities, and so on. Stamina normally recovers on its own after a certain period of time, but you can also instantly recover stamina by using stamina potions.
Pets and Mounts: Your trusty companions throughout the game:
Throughout your adventures in BDM, you’ll be able to meet various pets and mounts you can befriend and collect. They can provide additional stat boosts as well as other useful perks.
Pets are your trusty companions in the game. They will do a variety of useful actions like picking up loot and assisting you with skills among other helpful actions. The game will provide you with your first pet as you progress through the quests in the form of the “Valenos Mischievous Dog”. You can also buy more pets at the Pearl Shop. Here are important notes you need to remember about pets:
- Pet skills are random. The higher the tier the pets are, the more skills they have. Skills can be upgraded through training. You can only train one skill at a time.
- Don’t forget to feed your pet. If their hunger gauge reaches zero, they won’t pick up dropped loot for you.
- You can take out a maximum of 3 pets.
- You can exchange pets for a higher tier one. You’ll need 2 pets of the same tier to do this.
Horses are the preferred mounts in BDM. They are a lifesaver when it comes to traveling but they also provide useful skills as well. You can obtain a horse by completing quests or capturing one in the wild by using a rope and brown sugar. Both can be bought from the Livestock Merchants and the Pearl Shop. You can capture horses in specific areas that you can easily check on your map.
Horses have two types of skills: normal and bonding. Higher tier horses will have more skills and abilities. A random skill will be given to your first horse. Skills can be exchanged by using an item sold at the Pearl Shop: “Horse Bonding Exchange Coupon” where once you use it, a random bonding skill will be acquired by your horse. If there’s already an existing bonding skill, it will be replaced by the new one. The other item is the “Horse Skill Exchange Coupon” which you can use to change a horse’s normal skill. Just like pets, higher tier horses can have more normal skills.
Finally, you can breed your horses to get a higher tier horse. In order to do this, both horses should be the same tier and with maxed out level (10). The highest tier is tier 5.
The Guild System
An MMORPG would be complete without the guild system and BDM is no exception. To create a guild, your character must be at least be level 30, have 400,000 silver, and not be a member of another guild, of course. Do note that if you have left a guild to make your own, you will have to wait 24 hours before the game allows you to do so. There are no restrictions for joining a guild; your character will be able to join a guild starting from level 1.
Activities in the guild can earn you social points. As more members join the guild and guild activity increases, the more social points you can receive. Depending on the guild level, the maximum number of joinable guild members will vary. The maximum amount of members is 50. Guild masters are responsible for enlisting members, assigning officers, dismissal of members, accepting quests, canceling them and more.
Guild quests and Guild rushes
By doing guild quests, you can obtain guild points, activity, Guild EXP, and guild funds. You can also obtain social points or silver by completing quests. Guild points can be exchanged to summoning stone for Guild Rush in the Guild Fortress: The personal area where members of a guild can meet and enjoy various content, such as the aforementioned Guild Rush and Node War. Don’t forget that guild quests can be done 3 times a day, so maximize your entries with your guild members.
Ramoness Arena: where PVP legends are born
Players who crave for more action can participate in PVP in the Ramoness Arena, a 3v3 PVP mode where you can join forces with other players to outmatch the other team by raking in points. This can be done by either defeating an opponent or destroying certain items. To unlock Ramoness Arena, you’ll need to defeat the Muskan boss first. The overall Combat Power and HP of participants will automatically be balanced.
Adventurers can acquire Ramoness Score and EXP by simply participating in battles. You can earn more points and EXP if you are on a winning streak. The player that acquires the most points in a single battle will be chosen as the MVP and will earn additional Ramoness Score.
Wealth and Resources:
In a typical MMO game, we usually see around two or three types of in-game currency. But in BDM there’s a wide variety of them used for different features. Aside from Silver, there are other types of wealth in the game like Pearls, the aforementioned Stamina, and entrance tickets.
So there you have it. We know it’s a lot to take in for a “basic beginners” guide but ultimately, Black Desert Mobile is complicated with deep mechanics to it. There’s a learning curve to the game but figuring it out is a reward in itself since you’ll be taking advantage of the knowledge you have acquired so far. We hope this guide will help you on your journey through Black Desert Mobile.