BDO Gear Progression Guide

April 20, 2023

BDO Gear Progression Guide

Gearing up in BDO for new players can be very confusing, as there is a lot of gear options for your characters, and you may be unsure what is the best path for you. And, choosing the right path of gear in BDO is crucial because it is where a significant portion of your power comes from. I made a version of this guide last year that people found very helpful for non-season characters, but now with the new guaranteed PEN systems in the game and seasons happening more regularly, the gearing path has definitely changed a bit. I am going to be giving you guys some gear recommendations as well as a path to follow, so you can make sure you’re gearing up in as optimal of a manner as possible.

I am going to primarily be discussing gear progression from the perspective of starting on a season server, as I think that is by far the most optimal way to start on your journey. If for some reason you start playing at a time where no season server is available, I recommend using my other gear progression guide, as that is the path that you’re going to want to take. Do note with that guide that it does leave you off in full TET gear, which afterwards I’d recommend segwaying into the guaranteed PEN system.

Getting Started

Now actually kicking this guide off, the first thing you’re going to want to do is create a character on a season server and progress through it. By leveling, following the season pass and doing the main quest on the season server through Altinova, you’ll be collecting this gear known as Naru gear which is going to serve as your starting gear, as well as some other fantastic rewards. You’ll also be gaining enhancing materials which are known as beginner blackstones, and you’ll use these to tap your Naru weapons and armor up to PEN. We are not going to bother with our Naru accessories, as they’re not worth enhancing because we will be replacing them very quickly.

Once you get these Naru Items to PEN, you’ll have the option to exchange that gear for Pri Tuvala gear. From there, you’ll want to utilize time-filled blackstones to enhance your Tuvala gear and weapons up to PEN. This is a super abridged version of the gearing progress through the season server, but I do have a separate guide for a much more in depth look.

Now at this point we will have PEN Tuvala gear and Weapons, but what about our accessories?

Level up rewards for 58-61 (Capotia Ring, Capotia Earring, Capotia Belt, Capotia Necklace)
PEN tuvala earring/ring through season pass
Graduation: if possible, choose 1 pen capotia piece of choice. I personally recommend the Necklace.

What’s Next?

So at this point, your account will be in a pretty solid spot to start tackling the later parts of the game! After this though, I’m sure many of you will have the question of “what should I get next?”. You’re going to want to segway into the guaranteed PEN System, exchanging your PEN Tuvala gear for Resplendent TET boss armor gear at Jetina. Now, for basically everyone at this gear level, you’re going to want to focus on a DR setup as that is going to give you the most defense possible since evasion only really becomes good at the way way end game. So, you’ll want to exchange your Tuvala gear for:

HELM: Griffon’s
ARMOR: Red Nose
GLOVES: Bheg’s
BOOTS: Urugon’s
MAIN WEAPON: Kzarka
AWAKENING WEAPON: Dandelion
SUB WEAPON: Kutum

In terms of the order of upgrades I recommend, I personally recommend starting with your weapons, going with:

Succesion? Guaranteed PEN Kzarka > Kutum (4) > PEN Dande
Awakening? Guaranteed PEN Dande > PEN Kzarka > Kutum (4)
Guaranteed TET Crescent Guardian (explain guaranteed pen jewelry system)
TET Crescent
TET Basilisk Belt
Earring choice is personal imo. If you want more defense, go with TET Narc Earrings. Want to go full dmg? Go TET Distortions. Want somewhere in between? Go with TET Tungrad’s.

Now at this point we can look into moving into some more end-gear upgrades.

Get Guaranteed PEN Red Nose > Bhegs > Griffons
Buy PEN Urugon
Vell’s Heart

Then youre going to want to start progressing your super end-game upgrades, getting your:

Garmoth heart
Fallen God/Labreska
Guaranteed PEN Kutum

At this point you want to start moving into your PEN accessories. Now, the BiS accessories for you are going to vary a bit based on your class, how much accuracy it has baked in, whether or not health is a massive priority, etc. But, by this point in the game, you’ll have an extremely good grasp on BDO and should know what you’re looking to get.

Crystals & Cups

In terms of what crystals you should use, this part of the video guide is a bit outdated since the crystal system has been updated. For a good all-around starting crystal set for new players, I recommend the following:

PvP: 4x HAN Hooms, 2x Jin (BON or WON are fine too) Special Evasion, 2x Elkars, 2x Corrupted, 2x JIN Vipers

PvE: 4x Power, 2x JIN Vipers, 2x Dark Red Fang, 2x Rebellious, 2x Corrupted

On the topic of crystals, be sure to farm garmoth for the garmoth heart as you’re approaching higher gear levels, as that can add 2 additional crystal slots to your awakening weapon and extra stats to your sub weapon.

For Elvia cups, I highly recommend looking into health cups to boost your hp. Some classes may want to use crit damage, but most people will benefit from the additional health. I would recommend getting the neck health cup on your pen capotia neck, but otherwise I’d wait til your PEN accessories to place the cups in since you don’t get them back when you remove them, and they can be quite time consuming to farm.

Caphras

Something to keep in mind too is that at any point during this process if you notice you’re very close to an AP or DP bracket as you start acquiring your PEN pieces, I highly recommend putting some caphras into your gear as it can be a very cost-effective way to give yourself a massive boost to your stats. Making sure you do some of your adventure logs too can also be a fantastic way to help your reach those AP and DP brackets by doing some exploration focused tasks.

Artifacts & Lightstones

Also, some of you may wonder about what lightstones you should use. In general for PVE, a very effective, easy to acquire and frankly cheap setup is to use 2 Marsh’s Artifact – AP against monsters with 4 Lightstone of Fire – Rage. For PvP, your lightstone and artifact setup is going to be class dependent, so check out your class discord to see which setup is best for you.