The Basics of Artifacts & Lightstones in BDO
This is a guide to artifacts and lightstones in black desert online. Getting started with artifacts and lightstones is relatively easy, and they add another layer of customization to your character. So, we are going to discuss what artifacts and lightstones are, as well as which ones are going to be the best for your activity of choice in BDO.
Artifacts
Artifacts are an item that you can equip on your character, and you’re able to equip 2 at a time. These can provide with with a variety of bonuses such as melee accuracy, melee ap, monster ap, monster dr, and much more. Artifacts can not be purchased on the MP, and need to be acquired via grinding. However, you can get your first two artifacts via quests from the black spirit, who gives you an artifact that provides monster DR, and another one that provides monster ap. To do this quest, you need to have finished the Mediah questline and be level 51+. Once per family, you can get a quest from the black spirit called “A gift for leaping forward” and you will then be provided with your artifacts! Artifacts fall into different categories: Marsha’s Artifacts can give you offensive buffs, Lesha’s artifacts give defensive buffs, Kehelle’s artifacts give special effects and Sethra’s artifacts give life skill buffs. Which you choose to use will depend on your class and activity of choice in game. I have provided a link in the description below that has a list of all the artifacts in the game, what their effects are and where they’re dropped from. Just click the tab on the bottom left of the spreadsheet to showcase the artifacts.
Lifestones
Now while artifacts act as a way to give your character some stats, their main job is to house lightstones. Similar to crystals you put into gear, lightstones are placed into your artifacts. However, using certain combinations of lightstones will give you set bonuses, which give you massive boosts to your stats. Unlike artifacts, lightstones can be purchased off of the marketplace. They can also be dropped by monsters, acquired via alchemy (which requires guru 1 alchemy), or using simple alchemy on unwanted artifacts. Lightstones fall into 4 primary categories: Fire (Attack), Earth (Defense), Wind (Utility) or Flora (Life Skill). The first 2 lightstones you get from doing the quest that gives you your first artifacts are the Lightstone of Wind: Alert (Combat) and the Lightstone of Wind: Alert (Skill). If you buy another copy of each of these off of the marketplace, the set bonus plus the bonuses from these lighstones will give you 225% combat exp gained and 40% skill exp, which is going to help you progress your character incredibly fast. Then, once youre level 61 with enough skill points, you can transition these bonuses into more combat focused bonuses, or obviously just use lifeskill bonuses if the character is going to be a lifeskill alt. To see all possible lightstone set bonuses, click the link in the description below and click the tab on the sheet that says “set effects”, so you can see which lightstone combinations give you which specific effects. You can also click the tab that says “lightstones” to see the alchemy recipe for for the various lightstones, and a complete list of all lightstones and their effects.
Storing Artifacts
There also is an artifact inventory that your character has access to. By opening your inventory and clicking artifacts, you can bring up your family-wide artifact inventory, so you can house all of your artifacts in there and do not need to put them in a bank or keep them in your invidual character inventory. You can also store lighstones in there as well. Now, you may also want to make different presets depending on your activity. For example, i have 3 primary presets: one for PvE, one for t1 node wars, and another for uncapped pvp. To create these presets, simply click the preset and then right click the artifacts from the artifact inventory you want in the preset. You can then name it whatever you want and then click “save preset” to save. You can hover your mouse over the effects button on the preset to see the total effects of that preset, and then click equip to equip it to your character if you so choose.
Best-In-Slot
If you want to see some BiS lightstone and artifact combinations for PvP, PvE and lifeskilling, check out the links I’ve provided in the below. Again, your choice of artifact and lightstone will vary based on what activity your trying to do in game, as well as your class, so choose according to your needs.
