A comprehensive Guide about Bdo Auto Fishing

This guide is still a work in progress! The information is valid, but will be added upon and the layout is also going to be polished soon.

No Bullshit – Effective Auto-Fishing in Black Desert Online

Everything in MMORPG games like Black Desert Online works around balancing multiple factors together into one action and it’s hard to find comprehensive information about anything. There are so many aspects to consider for every part of the game – that there is never one single right answer.

Auto-fishing in Black Desert Online is a great method of spending your in-game AFK time. It’s an amazing option for everyone because of all the possible combinations it offers.

Whether you are a beginner, with no silver – or a pro-gamer with a Razor Gaming chair, Auto-fishing is a viable option for you to spend your AFK time doing.

I plan on going over every one of those balancing factors, while explaining why each of them is important and what is the best option for each of them. However, taking this into account – you will need to decide yourself what the best setup for your playstyle will be. You will have to chose to pick between profit, comfort, reliability and time input.

Profit – There are methods that will net you more silver per hour, however they require more time input, skill levels, investment – not all of us have. Sometimes all it takes is two, three hours extra a day and you can multiply your daily silver intake by a factor of two or even three.

Comfort – There are methods that net us less silver but are very convenient and don’t require much from us – as the player. e.g.: Less Time input, Lower Requirements, Less Investment needed, Less Setup required.

Reliability – There are methods that CAN net you the most silver per hour possible, however are unreliable and unstable depending on factors like – Game RNG, The current market saturation and the current in-game environment.

Now that I’ve explained the basics behind the game mechanics, let’s get into a boat together and go over the: How’s, Do’s and Don’ts of swimming in silver!

Starting off – your first choice while auto-fishing is going to be which grade of fish you want to keep. The fish grades going from least valuable to most valuable are: white, green, blue, yellow and orange.

NOTE: We are only talking about fish, e.g. Green Relic Shards are worth more than Orange fish.

When you start auto-fishing, and your Fishing skill is only beginner – the only choice that you have available will be to discard white fish. However, as your fishing skill increases – you will unlock new possibilities for your character.

You will level your fishing skill by mainly, well – fishing. This can be auto-fishing or active fishing. You can also increase your fishing level by doing certain quests.

From Beginner 1 you can discard white fish.

From Professional 1 you can discard green and white fish.

From Artisan 1 you can discard blue, green and white fish.

From Master 1 you can discard orange, blue, green and white fish.

Discarding fish is a good idea, if you fish for longer periods of time – and do not have the Inventory Space capacity to hold all your fished items. It makes sense to be as efficient as possible, and only hold on to the best possible drops, rather than a bunch of worthless items. How convenient, time efficient and profitable you want to be with your available Inventory Space – is up to you as the player. Just remember that being too “inventory efficient” can also be an issue as, you don’t want to wake up to a barely filled inventory – as each empty space is essentially deleted silver.

#TIP 1. Be as Efficient as possible with your inventory space.

On that note – you should always check the “Do not board other adventures ships” box – as you can have a wild surprise one-day and find your character in a completely unfamiliar place.

#TIP 2. Always check the “Do not board other adventures ships” box.

Fishing Rods & Floats

Now that we went over the basic premises of fishing – lets get into it. The most important thing for fishing after your friendly H2O – water, is having a fishing rod.

There are multiple fishing rods in Black Desert Online – however they all come down to two categories. Reparable and Non-Reparable fishing rods – As you can imagine, Renewable fishing rods can be fixed via Blacksmith or other means, while Non-Renewable fishing rods can only be used until their durability runs out.

All the non-reparable rods (except for the Triple Float Rod) are only good up until you get the level requirements to equip the reparable rods. This is because the non-reparable rods do not give any effects other than fishing speed levels.

Fishing Speed levels are important as they will decrease your bite time. Bite time is the time it takes for a fish to be caught onto your rod, which is incredibly important – as this is the base time of fishing. This stat has a level cap at 5, and anything beyond that cap does not give any status effects.

Usually the best Auto-fishing rod is the Balenos Fishing Rod, as it gives a -25% auto fishing time reduction time, when enhanced to the maximum level.

All the artisan fishing rods are named after the ports in Black Desert Online, you can craft or buy them from the marketplace. They can also be enhanced, which increases the base effect values that they each have.

Floats are like a sub-weapon for your fishing rod. They give a bonus effect while equipped while fishing. They work on the same basis as artisan fishing rods, where they can be enhanced to enrich the base values of the effect that they give.

Your Fishing Skill and Rods

Your fishing skill does not only dictate what rods and floats you can wear. The higher your fishing level is, the less likely you are to lose durability upon a casting your rod. This is very important, as it makes it possible to use one rod for a longer period.

To visualize this, let’s see this in effect while using an Epheria Rod +4 (70 Durability).

• At Beginner 1 you would typically get around 90 throws, before the durability of the rod would reach 0.
• At Master 1 you would typically get around 135 throws, before the durability of the rod would reach 0.

NOTE: The actual calculation that is done in-game by the game engine is as follows: “Durability use on fishing rods is determined as 90 – (0,5 * fishing level) = % chance to decrease durability on use.”

Now this might not seem as a big change, however it is a 50% increase in our maximum fishing time with that given rod. This is highly convenient as it allows us for longer AFK – periods.

Finally, if we would want to further decrease our durability usage, for convenience reasons – we are able to do so by using a Brand Spell Stone from the Item shop which would reduce the durability consumption of one item by 50%.

Fishing Times

The base fishing time is called the bait time and it is calculated with your Fishing Speed level (maximum of 5) and the resource level of the area you are fishing in.

The following items will increase your Speed Fishing Level:

• Fishing Clothes
• Costumes
• Rods
• Certain Foods
• Guild Buffs

Each fishing level – increases your average bite time significantly, which can be seen in the table below. The following table was graphed using a resource level of Abundant:

In order of best to worst which the area resource levels are is:

1. Abundant
2. Average
3. Not Enough
4. Exhausted

Where abundant offers the quickest bait time.

The base auto-fishing time is called the auto time and is a flat timer of 3 minutes.

The auto time can be lowered with:

• Certain Pets (Marmot, Penguin, Polar Bear)
  • The bonus from these pets cannot be stacked.
  • These pets give a base of 10% auto-fishing time reduction, along with a +1% per pet level.
  • Tier 4 pets give a 20% auto-fishing time reduction, along with a 1% per pet level.
• Balenos Rod
  • This rod gives a -10% auto-fishing time reduction.
  • The rod can be enhanced to +10 gaining -25% auto-fishing time reduction.
• Certain Foods
  • Arehaza Meal
• While having a fishing level of 5, we gain an 5% auto time

The maximum amount of time the 300 second auto time can be lowered to is 135 seconds, as the auto time cap reduction is at a maximum of 55%.

Total fishing time is calculated by adding the bait time with the auto time.

Fishing Locations

There are two types of fishing when it comes to auto-fishing.

• Regular
• Margoria

Regular fishing (fishing in any water) is great – as its convenient, however it is not the best option for silver.

Margoria fishing is great however it’s a long distance away and is very inconvenient for a lot of people. It also has some hefty requirements to get really into. Such as:

• High Inventory Space
• High fishing skill level/rod level/branded rod.
• A epheria level sailboat.

On the other hand Margoria fishing also has benefits to it, such as:

• Higher Relic Drop Rate.
• Fish are worth more silver.
• Bite time is significantly reduced.

The option in-between the two, that a lot of people recommend is Tooth Fairy Cabin – as it seems to have a higher relic drop rate than regular places, without the bite time reduction and the higher fish price.

Workers

One important thing that should not be neglected is a well balanced Node-Setup combined with an as big Worker Force as your contribution points allow. Often highly underestimated, all that your workers need is Beer to endlessly push your economy and silver gain by up to 30%. A short Guide by us about how to efficiently make all the beer in bdo you can ever need, will explain the process of brewing your own beer in detail.

Fish-selling

In black desert online there are two ways to sell your fish.

• Regular Merchant
• Imperial Vendor

Regular merchants offer you the base price + distance % bonus. The distance % bonus is great, as you can sell your fish for a lot more, the further away you sell them.

However, the fish have a expire time – and after the initial 2 hours, their price will begin to gradually drop. Starting from the 100% base price, it will drop all the way to 30%, after which the fish will expire, and you will be unable to sell them. You have 24 hours to sell your fish, after this time period they become spoiled and no vendor will take them off your dirty spoiled hands.

Imperial Vendor offers you 250% of the fish base price, along with a chance to gain a special token – which you can exchange for some additional rewards. Additionally, the fish base price does not change, and you will always continue to get the 250% of the fish base price.

The downside to Imperial Vendors is that – distance bonus does not work on them, and additionally there is a certain quota that gets periodically refreshed of how many the vendor can “buy” from any player on a given channel.

This can be a slight inconvenience as with bigger inventories you can find yourself doing multiple channel hops to empty out your inventory.

We wrote an extensive guide dedicated about where and how to sell your fish for maximizing your bdo profit.

Words of Fishdom

Take this advice from Crio-Thanos,

Everything in MMORPG games like Black Desert Online works around balancing multiple factors together into one action.

• Bait Time
• Auto-fishing Reduction Time
• Fishing Speed
• Fishing Level
• Rods & Floats
• Fishing Locations
• Time, Silver input
• Convenience

Find a sweet-spot that works well for you – and do that. Don’t try to force any guides upon yourself, because at the end of the day, that’s how you burn yourself out. Try to apply the advice given in a way that you find suitable.

Fishing is great, for beginners and for veterans. With a healthy setup – AFK fishing 24 hours per day and taking two sell breaks throughout the day (around 5 minutes each) – you can easily make about 80-100m/day.

If you liked this guide, be sure to check out our new Great Ocean Guide and our Guides Section in general!