Black Desert Hunting and Whaling Life Skill Guide

A comprehensive guide to hunting and whaling introduced with the Valencia patch.

Intro to Hunting and Whaling

Hunting is new life skill that was expanded greatly with the Valencia update. You can now hunt whales and crocodiles to level up your hunting skill and kill Blue Whales to craft some of the best items in the game.

For hunting all you need is

A Hunting Musket

A Butcher Knife (Try to get a Lucky one if possible so you can get the best drops from butchering)

A Fishing Boat

Leveling Hunting is different from other skills. You can level it up via a series of short one time quests and 4 repeatable daily quests. In addition, you can hunt whales and crocodiles to gain hunting skill as well but you must be person to butcher the carcass to get the hunting XP.

You also need to use Hunting Muskets to kill the whales and crocodiles as normal weapons are rather ineffective. Muskets are single shot weapons with a short reload time after every shot. Equipping them will replace your primary weapons and slow down your movement speed. You cannot jump with Hunting Muskets as pressing space bar moves you into the crouching position that extends the range of your hunting musket.

Here is a great video from MaoMaoPrince demonstrating some of the concepts of Hunting and Whaling in a video format.

Hunting Muskets

Practice Matchlock

The very basic one that you can use to complete some of the hunting dailies can be rented from various NPCs for 2 Contribution Points. It has only 10 durability so it needs to be repaired or returned and re-rent often.

Below is a short list of NPCs whom you can rent the Practice Matchlock from. You can just type Matchlock into the NPC window next to your minimap to see who you can rent from assuming you have meet the NPC before.

Daphne DelLucci by Balenos Forest node

Guild Manager Laiano Pietro in Velia

General Goods Vendor Hessenvale in Western Guard Camp

Beginner Hunting Musket

Crafting

Crafting it requires a Level 1 Tool Workshop that can be found in pretty much every city. It takes 5-15 minutes for a worker to craft (depending on the worker speed).

1x Fir Timber (can be obtained from Treant Forest node by workers north of Trent)

4x Steel (Heating 20x Melted Iron Shard and 20x Coal)

1x Bronze Ingot (Heating 5x Melted Copper Shard and 5x Melted Tin Shard)

1x Black Stone Powder

Enhancement

There is no safe enhancement level, each enhancement level adds 300 more damage. Enchanting beyond +7 can cause it to lose an enhancement level when it fails.

Enhancement Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Damage +1500 +1800 +2100 +2400 +2700 +3000 +3300 +3600 +3900 +4200 +4500

Apprentice Hunting Musket

Requirement

You must be Hunting Beginner Level 10 to use the Apprentice Hunting Musket.

Crafting

Crafting it requires a Level 2 Tool Workshop that can be found in pretty much every city. It takes 5-15 minutes for a worker to craft (depending on the worker speed).

1x Fir Timber (can be obtained from Treant Forest node by workers north of Trent)

4x Steel (Heating 20x Melted Iron Shard and 20x Coal)

1x Brass Ingot (Heating 5x Melted Copper Shard and 5x Melted Zinc Shard)

3x Black Stone Powder

Enhancement

There is no safe enhancement level, each enhancement level adds 360 more damage. Enchanting beyond +7 can cause it to lose an enhancement level when it fails.

Enhancement Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Damage +1800 +2160 +2520 +2880 +3240 +3600 +3960 +4320 +4680 +5040 +5400

Skilled Hunting Musket

Requirement

You must be Hunting Apprentice Level 10 to use the Skilled Hunting Musket.

Crafting

Crafting it requires a Level 2 Tool Workshop that can be found in pretty much every city. It takes 5-15 minutes for a worker to craft (depending on the worker speed).

1x Fir Timber (can be obtained from Treant Forest node by workers north of Trent)

5x Steel (Heating 25x Melted Iron Shard and 25x Coal)

1x Silver Ingot (5x Melted Silver Shards, silver is a rare drop from manual gathering if you are skilled 5+, can also be gathered manually)

5x Black Stone Powder

Enhancement

There is no safe enhancement level, each enhancement level adds 420 more damage. Enchanting beyond +7 can cause it to lose an enhancement level when it fails.

Enhancement Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Damage +2100 +2520 +2940 +3360 +3780 +4200 +4620 +5040 +5460 +5880 6300

Professional Hunting Musket

Requirement

You must be Hunting Skilled Level 10 to use the Professional Hunting Musket.

Crafting

It can be only crafted in a Level 3 Tool Workshop which is found in most major cities and smaller cities like Epheria Port and Olvia.

1x Fir Timber (can be obtained from Treant Forest node by workers north of Trent)

5x Steel (Heating 25x Melted Iron Shard and 25x Coal)

1x Gold Ingot (5x Melted Gold Shards, gold is a rare drop from manual gathering if you are skilled 5+, can also be gathered manually)

5x Black Stone Powder

Enhancement

There is no safe enhancement level, each enhancement level adds 480 more damage. Enchanting beyond +7 can cause it to lose an enhancement level when it fails.

Enhancement Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Damage +2400 +2880 +3360 +3840 +4320 +4800 +5280 +5760 +6240 +6270 +7200

Artisan Hunting Musket

Requirement

You must be Hunting Professional Level 10 to use the Artisan Hunting Musket.

Crafting

It can be only crafted in a Level 3 Tool Workshop which is found in most major cities and smaller cities like Epheria Port and Olvia.

1x Fir Timber (can be obtained from Treant Forest node by workers north of Trent)

5x Steel (Heating 25x Melted Iron Shard and 25x Coal)

1x Platinium Ingot (5x Melted Platinum Shards, platinum is a rare drop from manual gathering if you are skilled 5+, can also be gathered manually or at a low rate from Abandoned Iron Mine- Zinc Node and Omar Lava Cave – Zinc Node)

10x Black Stone Powder

Enhancement

There is no safe enhancement level, each enhancement level adds 540 more damage. Enchanting beyond +7 can cause it to lose an enhancement level when it fails.

Enhancement Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Damage +2700 +3240 +3780 +4320 +4860 +5400 +5940 +6480 +7020 +7560 +8100

Quests

One Time Quests

Hunting in the Forest of Seclusion – 40 Amity with Hessenvale

Unlock this quest by gaining 40 Amity with Hessenvale, the General Goods vendor in Western Guard Camp. You can either do this via the amity minigame or by using F1 Greet command. Prepared to spend about 40 energy or more if you are doing it this way (if the quest doesn’t unlock immediately, you may need to increase your amity with her slightly over 40).

Now make sure to rent a Matchlock from the NPC and go to the quest area. Look up in the trees and shoot the owls up there. They might be a bit hard to see.

Bee Hurts Farm – Gathering Beginner 5 & 10 Amity with Alfredo

To unlock this quest, you first need to talk to Arms Dealer Alfredo near the Skill Instructor in Velia. You need to gain 10 amity with him. You can either do the amity minigame or simply use the F1 button near him a couple times. Then he will give you the quest Daphne’s Matchlock.

The quest should lead you to Daphne near Balenos Forest node. Talking to her and picking the Bee Hurts Farm quest will start this one time hunting quest. Make sure to rent the rifle from her for 2 contribution points. Go inside the quest area and shoot the beehives on the trees 3 times to complete this quest.

Shoot and Help – Level 30+

This quest is also from Daphne DelLucci but to get it you must not have the Practice Matchlock in your inventory. Regardless of who you rented it from, you can simply return to her and then check her quest list for this quest (should appear at bottom of the list).

This quest is basically a repeat of the last quest with the same objectives but you also get a Beginner Hunting Rifle as a reward. Remember to rent the rifle from Daphne after you get the quest.

Hunting-Loving Hunter

Complete Shoot and Help from Daphne and she will give you this quest in Velia. The quest will lead you to the inn. You will need to talk to the Black-Robed Man and he will mark the location of this hunter for you.

You will find Chuck Laurie once you arrive at the marked location. Completing this will unlock a daily from him.

Brothers at Lake Kaia

To get this quest, you must have finished the Hunting-Loving Hunter quest above and done the daily Fly Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee! from Chuck Laurie. He will then give you this quest to unlock another daily in Lake Kaia with his brother Leo Laurie.

Annoying Jellyfish (Level 50+)

Obtain this quest from Merio near Lake Kaia, you just need to be level 50.

Defeat 3 Jellyfish in Lake Kaia, they are just floating in the water. You have to defeat them using your Practice matchlock, the regular muskets do not work.

Dailies

Those Seagulls! (Repeatable every 22 hr)

This daily is given by Crio at the Velia docks. To get this daily you must have a Practice Matchlock rented from the NPCs in your inventory.

You need to aim at the seagulls flying in the sky near the docks to complete this daily.

An Eye for an Eye (Repeatable Daily Reset)

West of Heidel is a small cow farm with a villager that will give you a daily The Cat that Swallowed the Canary to put up a scarecrow. Finish that and he will give you this hunting daily.

Shoot a couple of the eagles flying overhead and they will drop a feather for you to complete the daily.

Fly Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee! (Repeatable Daily Reset)

Given by Chuck Laurie, you will need to finish the quest Shoot and Help and Hunting-Loving Hunter to unlock this daily.

Give him 10 weed and he will summon Witch’s Deer near your location. Now you need to track it via the Monster icon on the minimap. Becareful to not get too close or the Witch’s Deer will run away. Once you get close enough to see its nameplate, press space to crouch down and fire your rifle.

It will take a couple hits to finish the deer off so you will need to keep chasing it and hitting it.

An Epicurean Alligator (Repeatable Daily Reset)

Given by Leo Laurie, you will need to finish the quest Brothers at Lake Kaia to unlock this daily. Hand him 5 Deer Meat to summon the gator. Deer Meat is given by Brothers at Lake Kaia as a reward. If you need more deer meat you can kill elks at Phoniel Cabin just east of Lake Kaia.

The gator will swim around the island so it is very easy to hunt him down. It just take a lot of shots to kill it. Once you killed him jump on the Bull Gator’s corpse and then use the butcher knife to obtain its meat. Hand it in to complete the daily.

Hunting Humpback Whales

Hunting Humpback Whales is one of the ways to gain Hunting XP outside dailies. There are whales out in the ocean north of the main land mass you can hunt down. They roam in specific regions marked with pink whale icons in the map below. You must have a fishing boat, hunting musket, and a butchering knife. The hunting XP is looted off the dead whale when you butcher it so only one person can get it (only the butcher get the hunting XP). This activity can be done solo at any level as the whales do not fight back.

Whales can be a bit hard to spot so you need to keep an eye on the ocean. They also show up as monster icons on the minimap if you are close enough. They do have a characteristic water splashing that differs slightly from the regular splashing made by waves.

Once you spot the whale you need to get close and then equip your hunting musket to shoot it. Depending on your musket it may take quite a few hits to kill it. Remember to press space when you are using the rifle to crouch down and shoot further.

Once the Whale is dead you need to swim to it and find a way up the corpse. Equip your butcher knife and press R to butcher the corpse and collect the loot and hunting XP. Usually you will just get some hunting XP and Soft Whale Meat but there are chances to get Blackstones, Hard/Sharp Black Crystals.

Hunting Crocodiles

Crocodiles are a good alternative to humpback whales if you do not have access to a boat or don’t have the patience for searching whales in the open. Freshwater Crocodiles can be found in the shallow waters in north and south Lake Kaia just SW of Calpheon. However, they are hotly contested and have a long respawn timer (~1 hr) so they are not always available (can channel swap to lower pop channels for better chances). This activity can also be done solo as the crocodiles do not fight back either but you may want to be close to Level 50 in level due to the catfish mobs there. Much like the humpback whales, only the butcher get the hunting XP, something to keep in mind if you are hunting in a party or contesting spawns with other players.

Usually you can find 1-2 Freshwater Crocodiles in each of the lakes in Lake Kaia. I prefer the north lake myself as there aren’t as many annoying catfishman there (Level 45-50ish).

The best way to see if they are on your channel is to do a quick scan on your minimap. Crocodiles show up on your minimap with monster icons so go to the middle of the lake and do a quick 360 scan with your minimap. To get experience for the kill you will need to butcher the crocodile corpse after you killed it. Usually you will just get some hunting XP and Crocodile Meat but there are chances to get Blackstones, Hard/Sharp Black Crystals.

Hunting Blue Whales

Blue Whale is giant whale that spawns every few hours with a server message and requires multiple parties to take down. You will need a party with a designated fishing boat driver and multiple hunters equipped with the best hunting musket they can obtain at their skill level.

Bring your best musket and extra muskets for backup increase you use up the durability of your best.

Bring a butcher knife, lucky one if possible for best drops.

Only the top 5 parties that did the most damage to the Blue Whale get the ability to butcher the corpse and receive loot at the end. The loot is party shared so the boat driver does not have to worry about shooting the whale as long rest of the party does their job. The Blue Whale also have an enormous amount of health so expect to take an hour to kill it with few parties.

Locating the Blue Whale

Once the Blue Whale spawns, your Hunting button near the minimap will lit up and you can hover over it to see a very rough location of the Blue Whale. Blue Whale will spawn randomly 3 times a day per channel.

Here is a map and route of the Blue Whale provided by Daum. The Blue Whale will follow the route here and depending on which region the whale it is in, it will follow a different route.

Red line indicates the whales in Calpheon, yellow line indicates Balenos, and blue line indicates the whales in Mediah.

Boat Speed

The Blue Whale moves very fast so you will need a fast boat to be able to keep up. Fishing Boat is the fastest boat for the job and there are parts and skins you can put on to enhance it even further. See this guide for making Fishing boat parts/accessories.

The faster your boat is, the faster you can get to the Blue Whale and being able to keep up with it to ensure your party does the maximum amount of damage.

Fishing Boat Prow – 1% Movement Speed

Equipping the Prow, Cargo Container and Decoration will give you 2% movement speed as a set bonus.

Equipping the Dark Thorn Fishing Boat Hull from Pearl Shop will give you an additional 1% movement speed.

If the extra 4% movement speed isn’t enough for you, you can enchant the Prow with Armor Blackstones to increase its movement speed value. A +10 Prow along with other parts and skins would give you a total of 9% more movement speed.

Enhancement Level 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Speed +1% +1.5% +2% +2.5% +3% +3.5% +4% +4.5% +5% +5.5% +6%

Instead of using the Prow, you can also buy Totems of the Sea from fishing vendors at the various docks and upgrade that. It take the place of Prow so you can’t use both at the same time. The totems require you to install that totem and then fish on your boat for the specific fish corresponding to your totem to level it up. So if you brought Totem of the Sea [Amberjack] for example, you will need to fish for Amberjack on your boat with the totem equipped in the boat interface (F2).

The Totems are much more time consuming to level up and you will need to be at a certain fishing rank to upgrade them to the next tier (Profession 1+ for the first tier). However, they grant much more movement speed bonuses along with other benefits. Once the totems reach 80% of the level, they can be upgraded using the totem button in your inventory with weapon blackstones to the next tier (can fail and the totem lose some XP)

Totem Old Plain Hard Refined Resplendent Sacred Speed 2% 4% 6% 10% 14% 18% Fishing Level for Upgrade Prof 1 Artisan 1 Master 1 Master 1 Master 1

Killing & Butchering the Whale

Attacking the Blue Whale is a bit tricky as it has a pretty tiny hitbox and you can only hit it with your musket once you get close enough to it. To be eligible for a hit, you must aim at the red crosshairs that appear on the whale. It might be easier for some people aim at the tail when it flips down. Make sure you are not blocked by other players, pets, and parts of the ship as they can absorb your shots. Having attack speed and critical hit buffs can also help with landing more and harder hits from your musket.

Having +movement speed gear can help you swim faster and get back on the boat faster if you get knocked off.

It is still debatable if wearing +luck or +accuracy gear has any effect.

If your boat get too close to the whale, it will collide with the whale and stop your boat. In addition, if your boat is near the whale when it turns, it can knock everyone but the driver off the boat. For faster turns on the fishing boat, use mouselook and press T (assuming you don’t have a path set).

Your hunting musket will only lose durability if it registers a hit on the whale so you can use this to keep track of the number of hits you scored on the Blue Whale.

Once the Blue Whale is dead, the top 5 parties that did the most damage will be allowed to jump on the carcass and loot it. There will be a notification of the top 5 parties so you will know if your party is one of them. Blue Whale usually drops Blue Whale Meat/Tendon/Oil to make some of the best food/potions and some goodies like Blackstones, Hard/Sharp Black Crystals but on rare occasions it will drop the Blue Whale Molar that can make one of the best earrings in the game.

Hunting Fugitive Khalk

Fugitive Khalk is a giant flying bat that appears randomly twice a day per channel in the Calpheon and Mediah area. This hunting target was added with the Sept 14 patch.

You must hunt Khalk on horseback since he moves fast. However, he has a much shorter path so it is easier to catch. You must equip your musket first before getting on the horse for the proper animations to show up. Much like the Blue Whales, only the top 5 parties that deals the most damage will receive the loot.

Here are some tips to make your Khalk hunting experience more enjoyable.

Bring carrots and a horse with a good speed. Your horse will take a beating from all the boars, cyclops running around chasing you and stamina runs out fast.

Use the up arrow key to move your camera angle as high as possible to reduce headaches trying to locate Khalk in the sky.

You get a new title for killing Khalk the first time – Learning ABCs in Mounted Hunting.

Crafting

Hunter’s Salad

You can make this food using Soft Whale Meat that drops from regular Humpback Whales or Crocodile Meat. This dish give you +1000 Hunting damage for 5/10 mins with a 30 min cooldown so you can use once or twice per Blue Whale hunt usually.

The recipe requires Cooking Apprentice Level 1 and the following materials

1x Soft Whale Meat or 1x Crocodile Meat

2x Vinegar

2x Dressing

5x Garlic

Whale Meat Salad

You need Blue Whale Meat from Blue Whales to make this dish and Cooking Skilled 1 (Professional 1 if you want to proc the blue version). This salad will give you +10/15% Life skill XP for 75/90 min.

The recipe requires the following materials

1x Blue Whale Meat

6x Tomato/Paprika/Pumpkin/Cabbage/Olive

2x Dressing

3x Egg

4x Pepper

Steamed Whale Meat

This recipe also requires Cooking Skilled 1 (Professional 1 if you want to proc the blue version) and Blue Whale Meat. It produces a dish that give +2/3 Damage Reduction and +8 Evasion for 75/90 min depending if you made the green or the blue version of the food.

It needs the following materials.

1x Blue Whale Meat

1x Honey Wine

4x Garlic

2x Salt

6x Mineral Water

Whale Tendon Potion

This is an alchemy recipe that requires Apprentice 1 (Skilled 5 if you want to proc the blue version) and Blue Whale Tendon from the Blue Whales. It recovers HP by 500/750 and MP/WP/SP by 300/500 depending if you have the green or the blue version of the potion.

To make this, you will need to place the following in the alchemy apparatus

1x Blue Whale Tendon

3x Medium HP Potion

3x Medium MP Potion

8x Purified Water

Whale Tendon Elixir

This is an alchemy recipe requires Skilled 1 in alchemy (Professional 1 if you want to proc the yellow version) and Blue Whale Tendons from Blue Whales. It is one of the best defensive potions for sieges/node wars.It give +100/125 damage reduction for 20/30 seconds with a cooldown of 10 minutes.

To make this you will need the following

1x Blue Whale Tendon

1x Clown’s Blood

12x Ash Sap

5x Purified Water

2x Clear Liquid Reagent

Perfume of Courage

Alchemy recipe that requires Skilled 1 and Blue Whale Oil from Blue Whales. This makes an elixir that give all sorts of combat bonuses that lasts for 20 minutes with a 20 minute cooldown (essentially no cool down).

To make this you need the following

1x Blue Whale Oil

3x Trace of Violence

6x Bloody Tree Knot

4x Purified Water

2x Clear Liquid Reagent

Perfume of Swiftness

Alchemy recipe that requires Skilled 1 and Blue Whale Oil from Blue Whales. This is a life skill version of the elixir granting +200 Weight Limit, +20% Life XP, +5 Attack Speed, +5 Gathering Speed, and +5 Fishing Speed for 20 mins with 20 mins cooldown.

To make it you will need the following

1x Blue Whale Oil

4x Powder of Time

6x Everlasting Herb

4x Purified Water

2x Clear Liquid Reagent

Khalk’s Elixir

Alchemy recipe that requires Skilled 1 and Khalk’s Skin from Fugitive Khalk. This Elixir grants a host of defensive abilities: All debuff resistance +10%, +15 Damage reduction, +100 Max HP, +5% Moving Speed for 20 mins with 20 minute cooldown.

To make it you will need the following

1x Fugitive Khalk’s Skin

?x Trace of Chaos (assumed to be 4 but not confirmed)

?x White Cedar Sap (assumed to be 6 but not confirmed)

?x Purified Water (assumed to be 4 but not confirmed)

?x Oil of Corruption (assumed to be 2 but not confirmed)

Khalk’s Fermented Wine

This is the perfect hunting food that lasts for 60/90 minutes. It give you +7 to all attack, +1 moving speed, +10 HP recovery, and + 700 hunting damage. Requires professional 1 in cooking to make.

To make it you will need the following

1x Fugitive Khalk’s Horn

5x Honey Wine

6x Date Palm

6x Leavening Agent

6x Sugar

Blue Whale Molar Earring

This molar earring is one of the best earrings in the game and one of the reason many players go Blue Whale Hunting. You need to get the rare Blue Whale Molar drop off the Blue Whales and then make this in any tier 3 Goldsmith. It grants 5 AP and +100 HP at base and +2 AP every enhancement level.

To make it you will need

1x Blue Whale Molar

1x Brass Ingot

2x Polished Opal

Fugitive Khalk’s Earring

This earring is an alternative to the Blue Whale Molar earring but requires a rare drop off Fugitive Khalk. It grants 5 AP, +50 Stamina/MP/WP/SP at base and then +2 AP at every enhancement level. Much like the Blue Whale Molar earring, it is also crafted at a tier 3 Goldsmith.

To make it you will need