Black Desert Online Life Skills Overview: Professions, Nodes & Passive Income

The 11 Life Skill Professions

In the world of Black Desert there are a variety of life skill activities that you can discover, relax in, and enjoy separately from combat.

The eleven life skill activities available in the game are Gathering, Fishing, Hunting, Cooking, Alchemy, Processing, Training, Trading, Farming, Sailing, and Bartering. Depending on the desired resource, different gathering tools need to be used, and higher levels of this activity will decrease the energy consumed when performing it. As the quality of the tool increases, the time needed for gathering is reduced. In order to prepare dishes, you need to install a cooking utensil in your residence, while alchemy requires installing an alchemy tool in your residence. Processing transforms acquired items by changing their shape or properties through options including shaking, grinding, chopping, drying, filtering, and heating.

To advance in the training of mounts, you need to increase their level, train their skills, or capture wild horses. Trading is a commercial activity that involves buying and selling goods through trade managers located at nodes and towns. You can prepare a garden by setting up fences, and in it you can plant seeds and harvest crops, or improve the quality of the crops you have planted. Sailing represents your expertise when navigating the high seas with a ship, while bartering is the art of exchanging trade goods at sea to obtain materials for ship upgrades and profit. All life skill activities are closely related, so delving into one naturally connects with others across your journey.

Life Skill Levels and Equipment

As the EXP obtained from performing life skill activities accumulates, the level of each life skill increases across seven rank titles.

For the most part, every 10 levels, the title that refers to the level changes. For example, if you obtain additional EXP upon reaching maximum experience at Beginner tier 10, you will advance to Apprentice tier 1. The life skill titles are the following, in order: Beginner, Apprentice, Skilled, Professional, Artisan, Master, and Guru.

Life Skill EXP is shared within all the characters in your account. That means that if you are Professional 5 in Fishing with your Warrior, the rest of your characters will be also Professional 5 on Fishing. Feel free to experience the Life Skill content of the game with any class/character of your liking. When you reach certain levels for each life skill, you unlock leap quests that offer a good amount of EXP as a bonus for completing.

Specialized life equipment, including Loggia, Geranoa, and Manos clothes and accessories, enhances your life skill gathering yields and processing efficiency. Please note that Loggia, Geranoa, and Manos clothes and accessories that can increase life skill-related stats are not affected by the Equipment Enhancement Probability Increase value, and instead have a fixed probability according to the enhancement level. As you advance through the levels of each life skill, you will receive rewards through completed challenges (hotkey: Y).

Node Networks and Contribution Investment

This network of connected nodes lets you trade between distant lands with no penalty, send workers to gather natural resources, and reduce transport costs.

The world of Black Desert is divided into a determined number of nodes that every Adventurer has to discover on their own. Nodes are largely divided into two categories: exploration nodes and production nodes. An exploration node is classified into one of six categories: City, Town, Trade, Gateway, Danger Zone, and Node. Cities and towns are always safe zones, while the rest are usually combat zones. All city nodes are unlocked automatically, and networks start from any of the main cities and towns, such as Velia, Heidel, or Glish.

When different towns are connected via a node network, the silver cost of transporting items between them is reduced. If you transport items between unconnected towns, the silver cost is tripled. In a similar manner, you will suffer a penalty reducing the sale price of the trade good for 30% of its value if the nodes between the area you obtained the trade item in and the sale area are not connected. With connected nodes, you receive the full silver price according to the current trade market prices.

If you select an unconnected node icon in your world map and press the Previous Node button to the left, light pillars will indicate all the nodes you can invest in and connect to the corresponding node you have selected. Please note that if you have a value pack active, you will be able to remotely connect the nodes immediately without visiting the individual node managers. However, remember that it consumes 10 energy per node to remotely invest in nodes.

Hiring Workers and Empire Management

Their most important role is to gather ingredients from production nodes, or to craft items in town workshops for your family.

In order to hire a worker, you need to speak with a Work Supervisor NPC found in all cities, and certain towns. You will spend 5 energy when you press the Contract Workers option, and a worker will randomly show up. When you are hiring workers, you need to have a certain amount of silver, and the amount required will depend on the grade of the worker. You can get one worker for each town by default, and for more workers, you will need to obtain lodging by repurposing a purchased house as lodging.

There are different types of workers one can find throughout Black Desert's world, including goblins, humans, and giants. Goblin workers have the fastest working speed and movement speed, so they get the job done quickly compared to other workers. Giant workers have high stamina so they can repeat the work assigned to them many times, but they are slow. Human workers have balanced stats between giants and goblins, moving at moderate speed with balanced endurance.

When you assign a work task to a worker, their stamina will be spent, and you cannot order them to work when their stamina is depleted. You need certain types of food items, such as beer or grilled bird meat, in order to restore a worker's stamina. The Recover All Workers window will also allow you to toggle on and off the option to auto-recover the stamina of workers by feeding them automatically with items in your family inventory.

Items gathered and crafted by workers are deposited in the town storage where the worker is located. Every time a worker's level goes up by 10, they get a chance to take a promotion test that lasts for 8 hours. If they pass the test, their grade will improve, advancing through normal, skilled, professional, and artisan tiers.

Active Gathering and AFK Fishing Mechanics

Fishing is not just a way to catch sea food, but it is also an activity of recreation and relaxation that pairs with active gathering.

Gathering is the most basic life skill activity, and depending on the desired resource, different gathering tools need to be used. As the quality of the tool increases, the time needed for gathering is reduced, and higher levels of this activity will decrease the energy consumed when performing it. Gathered resources, such as meat, blood, sap, timber, and rough stone, serve as core ingredients for cooking and alchemy.

You can fish anywhere there is water: swamps, small creeks, lakes, rivers, the coastline, or the open seas. If you purchase or create a better fishing rods you will be able to fish longer and catch more rare fish. By using floats on fishing rods you improve the chance to get more of a specific type of fish, be it considered a bigger or rarer fish. You can increase your chances of catching higher grade fish by spending energy while using your fishing rod, holding Spacebar to charge up to 10 energy points.

After something has been hooked to the fishing rod, if you do not press the Space key to start the minigame, auto-fishing will begin automatically. After a set amount of time, the auto-fishing period will end and you will receive the item without having to do the minigame. Regarding the grade of fish to discard, it becomes available as you level up the fishing life skill, allowing you to discard green grade items from Professional 1, blue grade items from Artisan 1, and yellow grade items from Master 1 onward.