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Black Desert Online has been rapidly growing a fanbase since its release in 2014, retaining a huge number of players over six years later. In every MMO since the dawn of time, one of the first things players do is try to reach the maximum level of any game, proving they're the strongest in the land. BDO has considered this and made the grind to the top an impossible task, making the amount of experience needed for each level over 56 increase exponentially from the one before it.
That's the reason many consider level 62 to be the soft cap of the game, with the highest level of any player being 66. The average time to get from 62 to 63 is 500 hours, with difficulty skyrocketing upwards from there. Keeping that in mind, most players want a little guidance reaching 62 with some universal tips and tricks to help you get there.
6 Power leveling
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The fastest route to leveling up a new character is leeching off your more powerful friend for their XP. For this, you will need a friend that has already reached the top and doesn't mind carrying you for a few hours. It's, by far, the fastest way to hit level 62, taking as few as two hours to hit level 56. As you sit through the high-level grinding areas, watching your friends fight for you, providing low-level support, or being on loot patrol is highly advised.
The friend can't be more than ten levels above you for any quest or no members of your party will get loot, meaning the whole team has to monitor the lowest and highest level member to make sure the cap isn't reached. You'll need all the loot you can get as power leveling focuses heavily on experience and leaves you no skill points or money.
5 Buffs
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The first and easiest buff of all is simply grinding at night, giving you a 50% Exp buff without purchasing anything. If you want to time it out, the night starts at 10 p.m. and ends at 7 a.m. While buffs aren't as permanent as some of the other resources, they provide big boosts for short periods. Using buffs before a high-level quest or an intense horde combat session is a shortcut to the higher levels.
The Mercenary's Experience training scroll is another buff you'll be using throughout your journey, giving a 200% boost in combat experience. If you want to take it a step further, you can use simple alchemy to fuse up to three, creating a 600% boost for 60 minutes.
4 Gear
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After battling through the first parts of the story, you should be in Heidel at around level 17. Here's where you can buy the best gear to carry you through to level 56. The main aim is to get the character over 100 Attack Power so you don't have to worry about constantly swapping out gear through your travels.
There are three main items that make the journey much less painful, boosting your character and speeding up the grind — an Ornella weapon, sub weapon, and the Simple Cron Meal
Ornella Weapon - Ornella: Heidel
A different weapon for every class, these weapons are available from the woman herself. Incredibly high accuracy with a 30 point boost to your attack power, this weapon is the best your going to get at this stage and can easily carry you through to the late-stage quests.
AP Sub Weapon - Ornella: Heidel
Ornella also offers a range of sub-weapons for every class, each designated with a specific stat upgrade. Buy the AP secondary that will give you an extra cushion for battle, which is the best choice, seeing as the Ornella weapon already has Accuracy covered.
Simple Cron Meal - Simple Cooking / Central Marketplace
The Simple Cron Meal can be purchased from the central marketplace or from Ellie, although Ellie sells it for only one silver. This item buffs every combat stat in the game but the real prize is the 30 AP spike for 120 minutes — a must-have item if you want to make the grind as painless as possible.
3 Pets
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From the beginning stages, you should start looking for pets as they help your inventory and boost your experience bar. While all pets will loot corpses for you, only a select few have the skill to grant you between 1% to 4% more combat experience. It doesn't make a huge difference, but the good news is you can have up to five pets out at a time and their skills stack, giving you a potential 20% bump with the added loot for free. Here's a list of all the pets that have the combat experience skill:
- Most Dogs
- Panda
- Red Panda
- Young Black Dragon
- Young Gold Dragon
- Snowflake Reindeer
- Sylvian Wolf
2 Quest Selection
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Back in the early days of BDO, players were cursed to battle endless hordes in order to level up, but now, combat experience is added to side quests. You can now break up the repetition with an appropriately leveled quest, offered by NPCs with a thin gold barrier circling their feet.
Quest experience is separate from combat experience, so items that buff one won't work for the other. The only thing that boosts quest experience is the Chenga Tome, which is only available after you complete The Adventurer's Tome Regarding The Legend Of Chenga. The long-winded name suits the 22-quest journey that has a recommended level of 53, keeping most players away until the end stages.
1 Transfer
If this isn't your main character and you want the easiest possible time, transferring all your armor and items over to the new character is the best method. The easiest way to transfer items is through the warehouse NPC in any main town or city. The NPCs won't appear unless you've already discovered them, but, once found, they'll show up as a chest icon on your map.
Once you've switched over to the new character, you have to go back to the exact location you dropped off as other towns won't have your items. As soon as you retrieve the items, the need to avoid high damage enemies will disappear.