Black Desert Online Grind Spots Etiquette Guide

Black Desert Online Grind Spots Etiquette Guide by FSkittles

I recently had a newbie come in and grief mobs from me, then complain when I killed them. So I figured for all the people who have been recently getting their characters up to level 55+ and are starting that brave new world of sausan and pirate grinding, here’s a general guide to how grind spot etiquette works.

First off, nobody owns a grind spot or channel, no matter what a castle-owning guild member might tell you. That being said, there are some generally accepted rules about how they work. To get going in grinding them, consider the following:

1) Learn the rotations for the area.

For sausans that means, in order of desireability: main, front left (which sometimes main takes as well if a geared group), back, and back left. You want at least 150+ ap to be able to solo farm most of these rotations efficiently.

For pirates this means: main, jungle, mountain, beach, and back, although if you’re not geared enough or you’re a musa/maehwa, you can make your own smaller rotation and be out of everyone’s way (should probably do sausans instead for efficiency) [edit for clarification: musa/maehwa can do unconventional rotations that are inefficient for other classes if necessary due to their mobility. They are excellent grinding classes if you know how to use them well]. You want at least 170+ ap to farm these rotations efficiently.

Expect Main spots to be full almost always. If you want one you’ll almost certainly have to contest it, although sometimes asking to join the party works too.

2) Check the rotation before starting.

The whole thing, not just the first camp. Is it being used? If no, take that shit and get grinding.

Thanks Sandlboxx for this recommendation: scout on horseback! Much safer.

3) If someone is at the rotation you have 4 options.

A. Leave and look for a different rotation. This doesn’t necessarily mean leave the zone entirely, just look for a different rotation there or if they’re full or you want a specific spot, change chanels (CC).

B. Ask if you can join them. So many people overlook this option. Some people will say no, but plenty will say sure. It’s really not that hard to communicate.

C. Attack them. In this case you either want to flag up or dec on their guild. In general if you’re stronger than them they’ll leave the spot after a few deaths, especially if you decced on them. If you die a couple times without killing them, it’s generally expected that you’ll give up on it and look for a different rotation. Either that or bring a bunch of guild reinforcements to try to push them out of the spot. If you do this, expect them to do the same. This is how some great gvgs have started and I’m all for it.

D. Grief them. This means going ahead of them in the rotation and killing the mobs before they get to them. Frowned upon unless you are trying to start a fight/war, expect pvp. Unless you’re low karma and waiting for your war to pop for the grind spot, you’re an asshole. Stop it.

NOTE: If the person tells you they have their 200% half hour daily going, consider asking to join their group before choosing to attack them or grief. People will fucking hate you if you mess with their 200%. If they say no though, fuck em, fair game.

4) Once you have a rotation, sometimes people will try to push you out. You have a few options.

A. Leave. This can mean head for a different rotation or CC. As Cleverbird points out, this is a great option for when a big guild rolls up for a guild quest, as you’re almost certainly going to have problems grinding efficiently there until they’re done. Another option if you’ve been grinding for a while is to stretch, get a drink, return a phone call, etc. before returning to the keyboard and looking for new rotations to grind or deciding what to do next. I know I focus on efficiency a lot here, but it’s important to take a moment to refocus sometimes too.

B. Invite them to party. Doesn’t always work, but again, works more often when you actually try talking to them than when you don’t.

C. Just keep farming and out farm them. Much more acceptable if they’re not flagging up on you and you had the spot first. Up to you to decide if it’s worth getting less exp and silver for the chance of pushing them out. Expect people to flag/dec on you in this case.

D. Fight them. If you choose to fight them and lose a few times without killing them, it’s considered good form to concede the spot. Same with if they flag on you and kill you a few times. After that you’re karma bombing, aka feeding deaths to try to force them into negative karma. Again, this is kind of a dick move, especially if you’re guildless or undeccable. If you try to do this, expect them to start just griefing mobs, and to generally not like you when they see you in the future.

Please note: If you get pushed out, relax. It’s ok. You’ll find another spot or get your gear up so next time you can contest better. We’re all just having fun here.

Good luck, I hope this helps people who were confused about how high priority grind spots work.

If anyone disagrees or has something to add, please comment and I’ll check out your input.

Edit: I just want to reiterate, there’s no reason to get mad about getting pushed out of a farm spot. If anything it just informs you that you need to work on upping your gear, practicing pvp, or that it’s not unreasonable for a group of 5 to seek the main spot if someone is soloing it inefficiently (there are other spots that are just as good for solo grinding). There’s no need to throw a tantrum or try to create a “if I didn’t win, nobody does” situation. If this type of thing upsets you, you’re life must be fucking fabulous. It’s ok, there are other grind spots, and you’ll be able to get them! Just grab a different one or cc, ezpz.

Edit 2: Musa/Maehwa are not bad at grinding. They’re really really good at it. With their mobility they can efficiently grind unconventional rotations with more distance between camps. I was not attempting to belittle the musa/maehwa community.

Also, a lot of people seem to not understand what efficiently grinding a rotation means. You can efficiently grind a rotation if there’s very little time between the mobs respawning and you reaching their camp. If you’re just finishing a camp and your previous camp has finished respawning, the efficient rotation for you is probably just going back and forth between those two camps if they’re equal in size. When you’re not farming a rotation efficiently, people are more likely to try to push you out, because they can grind it efficiently and in some cases it’s the only place they can get efficient exp, while other rotations would suit you just fine or better. This is why I advocate the 150 and 170 ap levels for efficiently farming the larger rotations at sausans and pirates respectively. Group farming is of course different, and if you’re willing to make your own small rotation, you will be able to farm it efficiently with less ap, though it will not be optimal exp or silver gain. If you don’t care about efficiency and don’t like pvp, I’d recommend avoiding premiere grind spots.