BDO Ships of higher tier, allow you to use ship skills. Many of these skills are powerful and make a big difference in sailing activities like sea battles, barter, and ocean travel.

The first 3 ship skills you obtain require Stamina.

Almost all ship skills require Rations to use.

Ship Skill Highlights:

  • Ram – beginner Sailing skill that costs your ship Durability. Not as popular as it once was due to Durability cost and higher tier ship cannon improvements.
  • PowerAccel – a helpful ship skill to aid movement speed. Getting up to full speed is much quicker with this skill.
  • BreezySail – one of the most desired ship skills. It dramatically increases the speed of your ship, allowing you to travel much faster to your destination.

Ship skills can’t be used, when your ship has 0 Durability, 0 Rations, or is at max weight.

Each ship skill has a Sailing Life Skill level requirement. (Just need level 1 of each tier. Example: Skilled 1 for BreezySail)

BDO Ship/Sailing Skills

Ship/Sailing Skill Description Ration Stam Key Skill
Requirement
icon FocusFire:
Enter FocusFire mode to aid in aiming cannon shots.		 0 0 Q or E high tier ship (improved+)
icon Ram:
It is like horse instant accel for ships. Makes the ship rush forward for 5 seconds. Stops the ship for a couple seconds afterwards. Damage is done at the end or back of the ram animation. 20,000 Durability per sucessful hit. Max 9 hits.		 3700  10 F + Sailing Beginner
icon PowerAccel:
It is like horse start accel. Use when standing still to instantly speed up for a short time.		 5500 64 Space + W Apprentice
icon BreezySail:
After reaching full speed, get a surge of speed for 5 seconds. Like horse sprint skill for ships. Ship item called Ebenruth’s Nol allows 2nd use at 0 Stamina. (Item costs 2 mil. Crow Coin and requires a Carrack.)		 8150 80 Shift + W Skilled
icon Quick-Retreat:
Makes sailing backwards faster		 2000 0 S Professional
icon AbruptTurn:
While sailing, quickly change direction		 3700 0 S+ A/D Artisan
icon Smooth-Turn:
Turn faster while standing still (standby).		 2000 0 A/D Master
icon Bull’s-Eye:
Cannon reload time shortened by 1 second		 0 0 Passive Guru

 

Ram Ship Skill

Ram skill makes your ship surge forward. It takes some time to master. The distance between you and the target is important, as Ram does its damage at the end of the Ram animation.

TIP: press F again to stop the Ram animation, when you are over the enemy.

TIP: Optimal Ram range is seen via the mini map. Aim for when the enemy is just inside the radar circle.

Each Ram hit costs 20,000 Durability. Up to a maximum of 180,000 Durability for 9 successful hits.

ram ship skill

Ram Skill Damage

Ram damage is determined by the ship you are using, with higher tier battle ships, doing significantly more damage.

Using the table below, we see the highest tier ship (Carrack) does 30% increased damage against a tier 1 ship (Bartali). Table Source: Official Patch Notes

 

Attacking Ship vs. Ship receiving damage Old Bartali Sailboat Galley Epheria Sailboat Epheria Frigate Bartali Sailboat Improved Epheria Sailboat Epheria Caravel Improved Epheria Frigate Epheria Galleass Epheria Carrack
Old Bartali Sailboat – – – – – 5% ↓ 15% ↓ 10% ↓ 20% ↓ 30% ↓
Galley – – – – – 5% ↓ 15% ↓ 10% ↓ 20% ↓ 30% ↓
Epheria Sailboat – – – – – 5% ↓ 15% ↓ 10% ↓ 20% ↓ 30% ↓
Epheria Frigate – – – – – 5% ↓ 15% ↓ 10% ↓ 20% ↓ 30% ↓
Bartali Sailboat – – – – – 5% ↓ 15% ↓ 10% ↓ 20% ↓ 30% ↓
Improved Epheria Sailboat 5% ↑ 5% ↑ 5% ↑ 5% ↑ 5% ↑ – 9.5% ↓ 4.7% ↓ 14.3% ↓ 23.8% ↓
Epheria Caravel 15% ↑ 15% ↑ 15% ↑ 15% ↑ 15% ↑ 9.5% ↑ – 4.5% ↑ 4.3% ↓ 13% ↓
Improved Epheria Frigate 10% ↑ 10% ↑ 10% ↑ 10% ↑ 10% ↑ 4.7% ↑ 4.5% ↓ – 9% ↓ 18% ↓
Epheria Galleass 20% ↑ 20% ↑ 20% ↑ 20% ↑ 20% ↑ 14.3% ↑ 4.3% ↑ 9% ↑ – 8% ↓
Epheria Carrack 30% ↑ 30% ↑ 30% ↑ 30% ↑ 30% ↑ 23.8% ↑ 13% ↑ 18% ↑ 8.3% ↑ –

BreezySail

BreezySail is a huge improvement in ship sailing time. You can select “Continuously Use BreezySail” checkbox on the ship’s UI, which helps speed your ship even more. The only annoyance, is the game does not remember your preference, so you have to make sure it is checked each time you grab the ship’s wheel.

TIP: You can use BreezySail AFK: check “Continuously Use BreezySail” and the ship will automatically get up to full speed and use BreezySail in the direction it is pointed, without you having to keep your forward key pressed. If you have right clicked the world map and there is an auto-path, it will attempt to follow that.

BreezySail Notes:

  • BreezySail is the most expensive Ship Skill that quickly eats up Rations (Bring lots of food to restore if you are using this frequently and are venturing far from a <Wharf Manager>.)
  • BreezySail Requirements:
    • Skilled Lv. 1 or above in Sailing
    • Ship Durability 50% or higher
    • Ship inventory weight less than 100%
  • Ship must be at full speed. (This is tricky to determine. Full speed can be a snail’s pace if you are going against a wind with sails unfolded. Checking “Continuously Use BreezySail” will eventually get you to full speed automatically.)
  • You can use AbruptTurn skill while using BreezySail and PowerAccel.
  • Ship item called Ebenruth’s Nol allows 2nd use of BreezySail at 0 Stamina. (Item costs 2 mil. Crow Coin at Rebinia.)
    • Installs on Epheria Carrack only to allow 2 consecutive BreezySail (second one doesn’t consume Stamina) Minimum conditions: Acceleration 135% and Brake 160% (High repair cost: 10 mil)

FocusFire Skill

FocusFire is a ship skill that gives you a different cannon firing view and attempts to help the accuracy of your cannon shots.

IMHO Focus Fire makes aiming at and hitting the enemy much easier.

It has different mechanics and cannon rules.

Enter FocusFire mode by pressing Q or E.

sailing ship skill focusfire
ship skill focusfire

FocusFire Patch Notes

“FocusFire” skill was added in a patch on 22nd April 2020.

Below is a copy and paste of the patch notes regarding FocusFire skill.

——————-

Firing cannons is currently intuitive to use, yet it’s difficult to precisely hit targets that are far away. The FocusFire system was introduced to make it easier and more precise when aiming at targets.

 

Witness the precision of the new system, even as you cut through the rough waves.

 

  • Your view will completely change once you switch to FocusFire mode, and this will allow you to be more precise.
    • In FocusFire mode, you can quickly shoot cannons to targets far away since you do not have to hold in the mouse buttons.
    • You can use the FocusFire mode while using other sailing skills, except the Ram skill.
    • You can press Q or E to switch between aiming left and right for the FocusFire mode.
    • Due to this, the Ram skill’s hotkey was changed from the Q key to the F key.

 

Left FocusFire Mode Right FocusFire Mode
  • Q key switches to “Left FocusFire Mode”
  • Pressing Q key again switches back to “Default Mode”
  • Spacebar switches to  Default Mode
  • E key switches to “Right FocusFire Mode”
  • You can fire only through the portside by pressing LMB
  • E key switches to “Right FocusFire Mode
  • Pressing E key again switches back to “Default Mode”
  • Spacebar switches to “Default Mode”
  • Q key switches to “Left FocusFire Mode”
  • You can fire only through the starboard by pressing LMB

 

 

  • FocusFire skill can be used by the following ships.
    • Epheria Carrack
    • Epheria Caravel
    • Epheria Galleass
    • Improved Epheria Sailboat
    • Improved Epheria Frigate
  • The portside and starboard cannons will now have separate cooldown times for reloading cannons on a ship.
    • This means that you can now fire cannons from the other side, if either the portside or starboard is on a cooldown.
  • You can now fire simultaneously from the portside and starboard by clicking on the LMB and RMB at the same time while on default firing mode.
    • However, you can only fire from one side at a time while in FocusFire mode.
  • You can now get off the ship during the cooldown for reloading cannons.

Sources & Additional Info

  • Info searches on bdocodex.com
  • Great Expedition Guide Google Doc – Thank you to BDO family name: Airie (SEA), Akiri (Global-Lab), Discord: Kiri Airie#6217
  • Official BDO The Launch of a Great Expedition
  • Official BDO The Great Expedition Update
  • BDO Sailing/Vell Discord – talk and chat web app for everything Sailing