BDO Gathering Guide (Black Desert Online)

Gathering Tools

Each gatherable resource category requires it’s own tool.

Gathering Tools are obtained via Tool Workshops, Seal exchanges, Events, Contribution Points, and the Marketplace. You can obtain tools at a <Material Vendor>, but these are only recommended if you have no other choice.

Gathering Tools
	Axe	Use on trees to gather logs and timber
	Hoe	Use on vegetation to gather herbs, fruits, weeds, seeds, and flowers (Barehanded gathering without a tool will mostly reward weeds which are used in alchemy)
	Tanning Knife	Use on animal corpse to gather hides and feathers
	Butcher Knife	Use on animal corpse to gather meat (Also used in the Hunting Life Skill to gather blood, meat, and Hunting XP)
	Fluid Collector	animal blood or tree sap (used in Alchemy)
	Pickaxe	rocks, ore, and gem nodes
	Empty Bottle	gather river and sea water
	Shabby Shovel	Use in the desert of Valencia to gather muddy water, vanadium and titanium ore and shards, blue and violet crystals

Demihar Gathering Tools

There are 6 different Demihar Gathering Tools that you can obtain.

The major benefit is they give a whopping +50% Gathering EXP buff.

The Demihar Hoe is an excellent choice for leveling the Gathering Life Skill, because Herbs give the best Gathering Exp.

Demihar Hoe Stats:

• Gathering Item Drop Rate (with Hoe) +80%
• Gathering EXP +50%
• Gathering Time -11 sec
• How to Use: Interact (R) with gatherable plants
• 300 durability
• Cannot be repaired
• Equipping this tool won’t apply the Item Drop Rate increase effect from Gathering Mastery.

How to Obtain:

Achievement Reward for obtaining Apprentice 1 Gathering. (“Life! Let’s Get Going!”)

• You can equip Demihar Gathering Tools from Gathering Apprentice Lv. 1.
• Season characters can also equip Demihar Gathering Tools.
• Demihar Gathering Tools last for 14 days, and you won’t be able to use them after they expire.
• Demihar Gathering Tools all have 300 durability, and cannot be repaired.

Gathering Tools with a Lucky Boost

Lucky and Magic tools increase the items you gather. Use these, if your primary goal is to gather for items, until you reach 600 Gathering Mastery. After that use a Loggia/Life Mastery tool. (Demihar is the best option for beginners, but it is limited to one.)

Magic gathering tools give the best gathering speed and durability out of all the non-Life Mastery tools.

Magic Tools:
Requires Gathering Skilled 5
-11 Seconds to Gathering
250 Durability (250 uses, not repairable)

You obtain them by exchanging Imperial Seals.

They aren’t cheap, but they are usually worth the price. Always do the math first before buying on the Marketplace!

Lucky and Magic tools give a bonus to obtaining rare resources like:

• Hard Black Crystal Shards
• Sharp Black Crystal Shards

Rare resources like these are highly valuable and increase silver/hr.

Lucky Gathering Tools

• Lucky Sharp tools: 60 Durability (Beginner 1) -4 seconds gathering time
• Lucky Steel tools: 130 Durability (Beginner 10) -8 seconds gathering time
• Lucky Shining tools: 250 Durability (Skilled 5) -10 seconds gathering time

Lucky Tools are crafted in Tool Workshops available in almost every town.

• They have about a 10% chance to be crafted, when your worker creates a normal version of the tool.
• Lucky Tools are crafted about 1 in 10 crafts.

To obtain the crafting cost for a Lucky Tool, multiply the normal cost by 10.

When considering the costs of producing tools, remember there is a cost in CP for both the tool workshop and worker lodging. Weigh this against the profit you would have made having your worker gathering at a node instead.

Norma Leight
<Northern Wheat Plantation Owner>

Is the Leight Family Tool Worth It?

This is a good question! At a glance, this tool sounds like a dream tool! Who doesn’t want +30% drops? But you have to trade off 50 Contribution! Why do they do this to us?!? Ha. 🙂

I think this tool is great for people that don’t have allot invested in their worker nodes already.

If you do allot of active gathering, then this tool can’t be beat.

For us lazy AFKers, leave the Leight tools alone. 🙂

Magic Gathering Tools from Imperial Seals

In an update on June 24 2020, Imperial Seals were changed. You can now only obtain Golden Seals, although the old ones can still be turned in for magic tools.

• The new seals are rewarded for Imperial Alchemy, Imperial Cooking, and killing bandits, while traveling with a trade item.
• All other tools/seals were nerfed
• Golden Seals are not interchangeable with the old imperial seals. You can only exchange the new seals with the new list of items, and the old seals with the old list of items.

For details on the old Imperial Seals, skip to the very bottom of the page.

Gathering Loot Categories

Gathering allows you to obtain many types of items in BDO. Each item is part of a category.

Gathering Item Categories:

• Basic Resource: white grade gathered resources like hide, timber, sap, ore, blood, etc.
• Special Resource: low drop chance items like Intact Insect Amber, Old Tree Bark, Laila’s Petal, Deep Blue Hoof Root, etc
• Rare Resource: more common enhancement materials like Ancient Spirit Dust and Black Gem Fragments
• Very Rare Resource: the rarest of enhancement materials like Caphras Stone and Hard/Sharp Shards

Gathering Rare Drops

Very Rare Resources:

• Caphras Stone – safe Enhancement to obtain TRI+ gear.
  • Best Items to Gather for Caphras Stones:
    # 1. Gathering trees via Fluid Collector for sap or with a Lumbering Axe.
    # 2. Gathering ore and herbs
• Hard Black Crystal Shard – used in higher levels of Enhancement
• Sharp Black Crystal Shard – used in higher levels of Enhancement
•   Mass of Pure Magic – used to Enhance Blackstar weapons

 Rare Resources:

• Black Gem Fragment – Enhancement of Loggia/Manos Life Mastery gear
  • Best Items to Gather for Black Gem Fragments:
    # 1. Gathering meat, blood, hide
    # 2. Gathering herbs
• Ancient Spirit Dust – used to create Caphras Stones

Best Gathering Locations

The best gathering location is usually the secret one you stumble upon and tell no one about! 🙂

However, there are gathering areas recommended just because there is a huge number of resources all packed into a small area. The advantage is you don’t waste time running around looking for resources. So less time gathering means better profits per hour.

The disadvantage is that these locations are well known and the resources could be camped or low in price. Crowding isn’t usually too much of a concern. For me, switching channels usually does the trick, if someone is gathering at my desired location.

Gathering Logs Near Trent

Logs are highly sought after and worth good silver. When you gather timber that is also high value, it makes for profitable gathering runs. For example, the Calpheon Timber Crate timbers of Birch, Fir, and Cedar.

Somethinglovely.net has an excellent tool that lets you select and view gatherable nodes:

Gathering Meat & Blood at Sheep Hill

Sheep Hill is the most famous gathering location for meat and blood, but remember to check Market prices, if you’re gathering to sell and not use! At the time of this writing. sheep products had flooded the Market and were drastically low in price.

Gathering Rough Stone at Pilgrim’s Haven

The best place to gather Rough Stone is at Pilgrim’s Haven. Mudstone nodes are heaped one on top of another and you barely have to move to gather. Just jump on top of a Mudstone tower and press the R key multiple times.

This location is in the Great Desert of Valencia, so be sure to have Purified Water and Star Anise Tea. Otherwise, it’s safe enough to take even low level characters.

Gathering Requirements for Life Skills

Gathering Life Skill is a requirement for other Life Skills and many quests. For example, in order to obtain the ability to process higher tiers, you need at least Beginner 7 Gathering.

Obtain Beginner 7 Gathering with AFK Gathering using Empty Bottles 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 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.

Gathering Buffs with Gear, Tools, & Items

The items below help speed up the Gathering Life Skill.

	Silver Embroidered Gatherer’s Clothes	+2 Enhancement: Movement Speed+2 Level Gathering Ability +2 Level Gathering EXP +15%
	Magic Tool	A gathering tool used to gather resources. With a luck increase when gathering. Steel: -8 seconds Shining Steel: -10 seconds Magic: -11 seconds
	Lucky Steel Tool
	Lucky Shining Steel Tool
	Shining Steel Tool	-10 seconds gathering. No luck bonus.
	Special Balenos Meal	Movement Speed Rank +2 Fishing Speed Rank +2 Gathering Speed Rank +2
	Skilled Worker’s Elixir	Gathering +3
	Hard-Boiled Shellfish Big Hard-Boiled Shellfish	Gathering +2 Underwater Breathing +10 sec. Duration: 60/75 min.
	Grain Soup Pickled Vegetables	Gathering +1 Duration: 30/60 min.

Gathering Item Drop Rate Increase

There are a few items that give an increase in the amount of items you can gather.

	Sweet Fig Pie	Gathering Item Drop Rate +3% Cooking Recipe: Fig x5 + Wheat Dough x3 + Sugar x3 + Olive Oil x2 Duration: 60/75 min.
	____ Stone of Life	Gathering Item Drop Rate up to +25% on yellow grade life stones. Create via Alchemy or dropped by certain mobs. View them on bddatabase.net

Gathering Mastery Gear

Gathering Mastery helps to determine the best tools to use.

• Use Magic or Lucky tools until you reach 600 Gathering Mastery.
• Magic & Lucky Tools remove any Gathering Mastery bonus. (Only the Magic/Lucky bonus is left.)
• Switch to a Life Mastery tool when you reach 600 Gathering Mastery.

There are many items you can obtain that will buff your Gathering Mastery or Life Mastery level. Manos gear is the best, but also extremely expensive to enhance.

• Loggia Gear  (sold by Camellia Loggia <Seed Vendor> for 1 million Silver at Loggia Farm)
• Geranoa or Dostter Gear (sold by the <Material Vendor> Geranoa in Calpheon City for 10 million Silver)
• Manos Gear (Processing > Manufacture of rare ingredients.)

Pearl Shop Gathering Gear

Pearl Shop Underwater Gathering Gear:

Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit Set (2200 Pearls)
Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit Set Contains 2 Pieces: Set Effect: Swimming Speed +59%
	Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Hat	Underwater Breathing +30 sec.
	Da-Dum Da-Dum Diving Suit	-Endurance while swimming, Swimming Speed +90%

• Pet Life Skill Talent: Life Skill Experience Gain 1-4%. 4% doesn’t sound like much, but with 5 pets, you could increase your Gathering experience by 20%. Most cats give Life Skill buff.

• Pet Skills: Gathering Level +1 and/or Gathering Exp +5%. Random chance to obtain by all pets. Pets have 3 Skills at Tier 4, 2 Skills at Tier 3, and 1 Skill at Tier 2.

Gathering Limitations

Gathering is limited by gathering tool availability and Energy.

Each time you gather there is a chance that you will not consume Energy. It increases with your Gathering levels. This can go as high as 30% chance to not consume Energy, according to Patch Notes.

Gathering Tips

• the best Gathering experience is obtained via wild herbs
• equip a Matchlock to avoid the cheer animation while gathering. This is especially useful during AFK water gathering with Empty Bottles. (You won’t get interrupted and stop gathering.) Fixed in patch 6-29-21.
• mouse movement allows you to gather from a distance. For an explanation and demonstration, view Jeffy’s video: https://clips.twitch.tv/ObedientAdorableCucumberDoggo
• You can turn in weeds to Lara <General Goods Vendor> in Heidel for gathering experience. You must have 100 Weeds minimum in your inventory, then talk to her. Click “Chat” option. (Chat option isn’t visible if you don’t have Weeds in your inventory.)
  

Sources & Additional Info

• Jeffythewise Life Mastery Google Doc
• bdocodex.com and bddatabase.net data searches