Underwater Ruins Expansion Guide: Protty Cave, Sycraia

Black Desert Online introduced an Underwater Ruins Expansion on 5-22-19 on NA servers.

Players now have the opportunity to explore oceanic grinding areas, Protty Cave and Sycraia Underwater Ruins.

Underwater Expansion Highlights:

• Requires travel time over Balenos Seas. (need boat/swimming gear)
• New BIS Tungrad Ring drops in Sycraia Ruins.
• Abyssal Essence drops for creating the new Frenzy Draught: +20 AP, +12 Accuracy, +200 Stamina, Crit Damage +10%, +3 HP per hit, -15 DP, +100 LT… Nice! Read our Frenzy Draught Guide.
• Ships are unprotected from PVP attack. (Alt tagging system recommended) Patched on June 12th 2019 so that boats can only be PVP’d if there is 1 passenger of level 50+ on board.
• Underwater gathering nodes inside Protty Cave: Corals, Water Thyme, Sea Fan, Saffron. Rare procs of Lobster, Fruit of Nature, Fruit of Nature
• Rainbow Coral Ring drops in Protty Cave
• Trace of Nature drops for creating Splash Swimming Goggles: +20 seconds Underwater Breathing
• Repair and General Goods NPC in Protty Cave and Sycraia Upper Zone.
• Ancient Creature’s Scale drops for creating an item that summons field boss, Sycrid. Drops Tungrad Ring.
• Collect pieces for crafting upcoming Horse Gear

Let’s dive into this new and wonderful world of BDO Underwater!

HAPPY Underwater Exploring!!

Underwater Ruins Benefits

The main benefit of grinding in the Underwater Ruins is the chance to obtain a best in slot ring, Tungrad Ring.

The Tungrad Ring beats the old BIS, Ring of Crescent Guardian by 1 AP. It also gives +10% to Black Spirit’s Rage.

Protty Cave drops the Rainbow Coral Ring and a shard that can be used to help create a Tungrad Ring. Sycraia Ruins drops the Tungrad Rings and both shards to craft one.

Underwater Quests

Make sure all quests are turned on in your quest window! O key.

Underwater Ruins Quest Line Story

Protty Cave and Sycraia Underwater Ruins quest line is under the Recommended tab of the Quest (O) window. Look for “[Lv.58] Call of the Ocean: Journey to the Deep Sea” category in the Recommended tab when you are Lv. 58 or higher.

The quest chain shown below will give you one piece to create a Tungrad Ring and a key to enter the higher difficulty grinding area of Sycraia Ruins: Abyssal Zone.

Details about Calpheon Main Story:

The Underwater Daily quest series requires you to complete the main quest line leading up to and including all of the Calpheon story. Press O key then Main tab.

For my archer, Calpheon main story includes “Disappearance of Nella” and “The Qualities of a God”

Older characters, before the quest reworks, will see “Beginning of a Journey”, showing 193 total quests.

Protty Cave

The difficulty of Protty Cave has been compared to that of Crescent Shrine in Valenica

It is a winding cave system with many levels.

There are NPCs located just inside to repair armor, sell, and buy potions.

Protty Cave Requirements

• Minimum AP: 170
• Minimum DP: 230
• One-Hit AP: 250
• Recommended DP: 250
• Character Level: Monster levels are 59 and 60 (Players below these levels may experience higher monster evasion/damage.)

The game’s recommended AP for Protty Cave is 170. However, this is more like a minimum recommendation. You may get frustrated grinding here at that AP level because the mobs will not die in one hit.

Characters can come here lower than levels 59 and 60, especially if they have high gear scores.

Protty Cave Item Drops

Protty Cave is the only location where you can grind for a Rainbow Coral Ring. The monsters here also give Ancient Seal – Red Shard. You will have to grind in Sycraia to obtain the other half, the Black Shard.

Protty Cave Location

Protty Cave is located on Weita island, which is north of Velia.

The best way to get here is via your own boat on a tagged Alt. Taking your Tagged Alt and switching to your Tagged main character once you get there, will protect your boat from being attacked by PVP players. BDO was patched so that unattended boats can’t be destroyed by other players. Boats also have to have at least 1 passenger that is level 50+ in order to be attacked by others.

There is a ferry and griffon that will take you to Iliya Island, but it is quite a distance from there to Weita Island, especially if you are swimming. For more info about the ferry/griffon to Iliya read below.

▲ Look for the entrance on Weita Island shown here.

Sycraia Underwater Ruins

Sycraia Underwater Ruins is deep underwater and protected by a semi-invisible dome barrier. The trick is finding one of four entrances through the barrier and into the grinding area.

The center of the grinding area has a huge circular stone structure that is easy to spot from far away.

Once you swim through one of four stone entrances, you immediately stop swimming and can breathe and fight normally.

Sycraia Underwater Ruins (Upper Zone) Item Drops

Sycraia Underwater Ruins is the only location where you can grind for the pieces required to summon the field boss, Sycrid. It also drops Tungrad Ring and the Black/Red Shards used to create a Tungrad Ring.

Sycraia Underwater Ruins Requirements

• Minimum AP: 230
• Minimum DP: 280
• Character Level: Monster levels are mostly 60 (Players below these levels may experience higher monster evasion/damage.)

The game’s recommended AP for Sycraia Underwater Ruins is 230. However, this is a low recommendation. You may get frustrated grinding here at that AP level because the mobs will die more slowly.

Underwater Breathing and Swim Speed Requirements

Underwater Breathing Requirement:

• Pearl Costume or…
  
• +45 seconds Underwater Breathing gear

You will not be able to reach any entrance without Underwater Breathing buffs. You need at least +45 seconds to Underwater Breathing, if you don’t have any ranks in Movement Speed.

I recommend you get as many seconds of Underwater Breathing as you can, especially if you are new to the area and don’t know what to look for.

NOTE: Underwater Breathing gear isn’t necessary, if you own a Splat Fisher’s Costume or Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Costume. Both are purchased for 2200 Pearls in the Pearl Shop.

Sycraia Underwater Ruins Location (Upper Zone)

Sycraia Underwater Ruins is not easy to get to. It is located north of Iliya Island and east of Racid Island. You can use your own boat and sail directly over the ruins to the icon on the map. Be sure to sail there on a Tagged character Alt.

There is also a ferry that travels to Iliya Island, which would allow you a relaxing boat ride while you fish.

There is a faster NPC option of using a griffon from Velia to Iliya Island. The views are wonderful! It’s a 3 minute flight.

Griffon Ride Near Sycraia Ruins

If you don’t want to take a boat, you can travel there via griffon.

• Travel with scenic views via griffon from Velia to Iliya Island.

• Jump onto the timber box the Griffon is holding.

• The Griffon will depart 3 minutes after stopping at the station.

• Velia station location: Near the western entrance of Velia

• Iliya station location: Near the western entrance of Iliya.

• Griffon ride takes about 3 minutes.

• You may bring a boat license in your inventory, then register it at Dario <Wharf Manager>

• run or sail to the northern coast and give 20 Energy to Shiela for a Swim Speed buff.

• Total travel time: about 5 minutes.

Sycraia Ruins NPC Location on Iliya Island

There is an NPC who gives a swimming buff and a Marni Stone Vendor on the Northern beach of Iliya Island. The swimming buff lasts for 5 minutes, which is just long enough to get you to the underwater ruins, without a shark or fish Pearl Costume.

It’s not very obvious where you should stop your boat. The icon on the World Map will give you a general idea of where Sycraia Ruins is located, but once you dive into the water, any distances can be challenging.

The Ruins will look so close to you, but as you’ll soon discover, distance and time are hard to judge in the water and you’ll have to swim quite a while.

Of course, the fish/shark Pearl costumes make swimming extremely easy.

My first few attempts at finding any entrance were met with no success. At one point, I was so close to reaching the gate to the entrance, but ran out of Breath too soon. My Stamina was almost non-existent.

The water has this blue blurry haze over everything. If you know how to remove this, please let me know.

After some squinting, you should see the central ruins structure. This is at the heart of the grinding area, but you can’t reach it because of a mostly invisible barrier above it. If you swim directly to this, you will run out of air and have to turn back to the surface.

Look for stone gateways. They are much harder to identify from up high. They are small and rectangular from up high.

Note that the stone gateway closest to the central main ruins structure is NOT a gateway to gain entrance and is inside the grinding area just for looks. Phttt!

Make sure you are right above an entrance, before you press Q to dive straight down. This isn’t so critical if you have a Pearl fish/shark costume.

Sycraia Underwater Ruins (Abyssal Zone)

Sycraia Abbyssal Zone is locked behind a device in the Upper Zone. It requires a key to be able to enter. The key pieces drop in the Upper Zone and Protty Cave.

This is a very tough grinding zone with densely packed mobs. Bring friends!

If you die, you are put on Racid Island. You loose your access back to the Abyssal Zone and will have to get another key to enter.

Mob difficulty is higher than Hystria Ruins.

Frequent Debuffs:

• -25% Casting Speed
• -25% Attack Speed

Sycraia Underwater Ruins Abyssal Zone Requirements

• Minimum AP: 281
• Minimum DP: 340
• One-Hit AP: not possible
• Recommended DP: as much as you can get! 🙂
• Character Level: Monster levels mostly 65-66 (Players can’t match these levels. Expect tanky mobs and hard hits.)

The game recommends 270 AP with 310 DP for Abyssal Zone. However, this is a low recommendation. You may get frustrated grinding here at that AP and DP because the mobs are very difficult.

Sycrid Field Boss

Summoning Sycrid:

Collect 5 Ancient Creature’s Scale and arrange in a shape of [+] to make a Form of an Ancient Creature. This lasts 7 days and starts a quest, Sealing the Sycraia Underwater Ruins (Weekly) that requires you to use the Ancient Seal in the middle of Sycraia Ruins (Upper Zone). Can be completed once a week.

After you use the Ancient Seal, there will be a server message. After about 20 minutes, Sycrid will spawn inside Sycraia Ruins (Upper Zone). Sycrid will despawn after 10 minutes.

Sycrid has a channel cool down of 6 hours. After anyone uses the Ancient Seal, it will disappear when Sycrid is summoned, and reappears after 6 hours.

If the Ancient Seal isn’t present, switch to another server or wait until it reappears.

You may receive a penalty if you die while fighting Sycrid or Sycrak.

Marni Stones: Level 57+

Wacky Toshi sells Marni Stones that you can exchange to him for Combat Exp. The stones require a certain amount of monster kills for mobs in Sycraia Ruins and Protty Cave.

Tier 1 Marni’s Stone: 60k • 250 Mob Kills
Tier 2 Marni’s Stone: 110k • 500 Mob Kills

Mob and Wacky Toshi Locations:

• Sycraia Ruins – North coast of Iliya Island
• Protty Cave – cave entrance on Weita Island
• Town Locations: Valencia City, Old Wisdom Tree, Duvencrune, Sand Grain Bazaar, Ibellab Oasis, and Shakatu.

You can use the NPC search button to locate Wacky Toshi, after speaking to him.

View Wacky Toshi locations and info page on bdocodex.com

Marni Stone Colors:

• Unused Marni’s Stones are yellow.
• Filled stones are orange, with a green check mark.
• Partially filled stones are blue.

Are Marni Stones Worth It?
Marni Stones are easy and really help for faster leveling. I think they are well worth the price. They do take up pack space, especially if you choose the higher Exp, 250 stones.

• 0 Weight
• Right click the stone and select ‘Item Count’ to have the kill count displayed on your UI.
• 2x 250 Marni Stones give slightly more Combat Exp than 1x 500 Stone
• Buy as many Marni Stones as you like. When one is filled, the next will automatically start filling. Turn in multiple stones at one time.
• You must get the last hit on the monster to get credit.
• Marni Stones must be kept in your inventory and will not work on your mount, Storage, etc.
• Marni Stones are bound and can’t be transfered to an alt.
• The Combat Exp you get is based upon your level and the Marni Stone used.
• Marni Stones have the name of the monster location on them: Ex: Marni’s Stone (Sycraia)

Exp Per Marni Stone?
Marni Stones give a set amount of Combat Exp, which changes depending upon your level. The stone Tier and grind location also affect how much exp each stone gives. Tier 2 Stones give more Exp, but give less exp when compared to 2x Tier 1 stones.

NOTE: Patch notes say you get “120% to 160% of Combat Exp for defeating monsters excluding Combat Exp Boost can be given”. I’m not sure how accurate this is since some players claim much less %.

Underwater Breathing Gear

There is underwater gear in BDO that will help you reach Sycraia Ruins by improving Underwater Breathing and Movement Speed. You can’t reach the ruins without at least +45 seconds Underwater Breathing. (I was unable to reach the Entrance with +30 seconds and 0 Movement Speed ranks.) Get as much as you can, but at least +45 seconds. Even with this much, you will need to position yourself directly above an entrance, before diving straight down with Q key.

	Splash Swimming Goggles (Appearance Head Slot) Equip Effect Underwater Breathing +20 sec. – potential for +4/6/8 piece set effects Crafted in a Level 2 Costume Mill. – Crafting Recipe: 10 – Translucent Crystal 10 – Silk 5 – Iron Ingot 10 – Trace of Nature 35 – Black Stone Powder
		Appearance Head Slot [Event] Seahorse Diving Hat (from Water Events) or… Vadabin Diving Mask from Margoria (Port Ratt) quest: Sibyl’s Blessing Equip Effect Underwater Breathing +15 sec. – Outfit Slot Equip Effect (4 Parts): Combat EXP +10% – Outfit Slot Equip Effect (6 Parts): Skill EXP +10% – Outfit Slot Equip Effect (8 Parts): Weapon Durability Consumption, Death Penalty -10%
	Magic Crystal of Infinity – Submergence Equip x 2 in Luck Shoes of Fortuna. +15 sec Underwater Breathing each. Alchemy Recipe: Skilled Lv. 1+ Alchemy. Alchemy Tool Ingredients: Green Crystals x2 + Clown’s Blood x2 + Sapphire x2 + Essence of Nature x2
	Luck Helmet of Fortuna		3-Piece Set Effect: Movement Speed +3 points Movement speed affects speed underwater.
	Luck Armor of Fortuna
	Luck Shoes of Fortuna
		Agile Seal Elixir [Party] Agile Seal Elixir	Underwater Breathing +15 sec. 8/15 min.
		Hard-Boiled Shellfish Big Hard-Boiled Shellfish	Gathering +2 Underwater Breathing +10 sec. Duration: 60/75 min.

Underwater Breathing with Fairy Skill Buff

Your Fairy Laila has an RNG chance to obtain up to +30 seconds of Underwater Breathing. The Level of skill depends upon her Tier. Only Tier 4 Radiant Fairy can obtain the highest levels of 4 or 5 in Tingling Breath. A Tier 3 Fairy can only learn up to Level 3 of the skill, etc.

Fairy Skill	Level	Underwater Breathing
Tingling Breath	1	Underwater Breathing +5 sec.
	2	Underwater Breathing +10 sec.
	3	Underwater Breathing +15 sec.
	4	Underwater Breathing +20 sec.
	5	Underwater Breathing +30 sec.

Pearl Shop Underwater Gear

There are costume sets in the Pearl Shop that offer +149% Swimming Speed buff.

• Splat Fisher’s Clothes Set

• Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit Set

• El Pento Set? (need more info/verification)

• Coco Set? (need more info/verification)

Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit Set is the only Pearl Costume that provides +30 seconds to Underwater Breathing.

Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit Set (2200 Pearls)
Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit Set Contains 2 Pieces:
	Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Hat	Underwater Breathing +30 sec.
	Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit	Swimming Speed Increase & Stamina Cost Reduction when Swimming

Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit Set

Splat Fisher’s Clothes

Swimming Mechanics & Tips

Somehow, I frequently find myself stuck underneath a pier or my own boat, while swimming! Do you have the same troubles? Remember that there are key presses to swim up or down.

E = SWIM STRAIGHT UP
Q = SWIM STRAIGHT DOWN
F = RECOVER STAMINA

TIP: When you use the Q key you dive straight down. If you need more of a diagonal downward direction, then you must use your W key and angle the camera so that you are looking down. Q+W will not work.

Stamina regenerates at 1 every 3 seconds while you are in the Recovering State (F key). If you run yourself out of Stamina, expect a 5 minute wait as you recharge in water. Land recharge is very fast. The only thing that can help with Stamina, is increasing your Max Stamina with gear or wearing a shark/fish Pearl Costume. There is no item that will speed up regeneration.

Sources and Additional Info

• Jannanomana’s Underwater Ruins Guide on official forums
• Official Wiki Pages:
  • Protty Cave
  • Sycraia Upper Zone
  • Sycraia Abyssal Zone
• How to Get to Underwater Ruins by Inven