There is a lot of crafting you can do in Black Desert Online. Things get pretty detailed — like drying meat out in the sun, grinding items into powder, heating ingredients to melt them together, and more.
Many things can be done anywhere in the world as long as you have the materials and fulfill the requirements, but some things must be done in a house. I’m going to go over the general aspects of crafting in Black Desert Online. Gear crafting works a little differently, so there will be a separate guide for that.
Visit my Black Desert Online Beginner Tips and Tricks for other help with the game.
This guide will go over general crafting in Black Desert Online including:
- Crafting Basics – How to start crafting, the different ways you can craft, and what you get for it.
- Cooking and Alchemy – How to do cooking and alchemy beyond the simple version in the production tab.
Crafting Basics
How to Start Crafting
You can start crafting when you get to Veila, pretty early in the game. Make sure you have all quests checked. Press O, then click on all if it is not highlighted. If you only want the crafting quests, just check Life and Fishing.
The chief, Igor Bartali, starts you on your crafting quest journey. He gives you a quest to talk to Zaaira, which teaches you how to gather with a Butcher Knife, and one that leads to the Innkeeper. The Innkeeper teaches you the basics of Simple Cooking and Alchemy.
As long as you follow these quests and go to the other NPCs they tell you to, you’ll experience each of the general crafting quests. Again, if you want to make sure you don’t miss any, only select Life and Fishing from the Quest tab.
Below are the different ways you can craft:
- Shaking – Mix different materials to make new items.
- Grinding – Makes powder and juice items by grinding materials into powder form.
- Chop – Use firewood you get from chopping trees to produce other items.
- Dry – Dries items in the sun, such as fish, to produce or preserve items.
- Thinning – This is used to thin powder ingredients to receive any items that may be hidden.
- Heating – Heats and melts items to produce new ones.
- Simple Cooking and Alchemy – Makes restorative items by combining ingredients.
You can do more advanced cooking and alchemy by buying a residence house and placing cooking and alchemy tools inside.
Gathering
Gathering is also important since you need materials before you can craft. There are multiple ways to gather and you need to a tool equipped for most of them.
- Hands – You can simply gather with your hands if it is from certain plants or crops. You can also use a Hoe.
- Butcher Knife – This is used to get meat from dead animals.
- Pickaxe – This is used to get ore and minerals from certain rocks.
- Tanning Knife – This is used to get hides from dead animals.
- Lumbering Axe – This used to get firewood by chopping certain trees.
- Fluid Collector – This is used to get animal blood or sap.
- Empty Bottle – This is used to gather water along the beach and from rivers.
Tools cannot be prepared, so you’ll have to buy more when they break. Gathering also takes about 20 seconds normally, so you’ll want to increase gathering speed from food buffs or gear if you plan on doing a lot of gathering.
Cooking and Alchemy
When you install the cooking and/or alchemy tool in a house, you can begin the real cooking or alchemy crafting.
Cooking
Cooking allows you to make foods that give temporary buffs to stats, such as increased HP or increased Gathering Speed. You can mix up to 5 items for cooking, though you don’t need to always use 5. The amount of each ingredient is also important when cooking.
When you successfully cook a dish, it is recorded in your list for you to look back on later. You can select Help from the ESC menu, or click the ? when in the Cooking menu, to bring up the in-game help to list several things you can craft and the ingredients needed.
Alchemy
Alchemy works like cooking, but it can make potions and magic crystals. This is very helpful for keeping your potions stocked and putting crystals in your equipment.
That’s it for my General Crafting guide for Black Desert Online. Let me know if you have any questions!
