A Bares necklace gives 6 AP 4 AP (credits to reddit user Caspersaur for noticing this error) and costs 100,000 silver ( 16.7k 25k per AP). An Ogre ring gives 10 AP and costs 100,000,000 silver (10million per AP). The nature of gear cost scaling in BDO is not proportional to the base stats of items. This is often a point of confusion, so in today’s short blog post, we will examine Mark of Shadows and Crescent Guardian’s Ring.

Crescent Guardian vs Mark of Shadows is the only gearing dilemma introduced in Valencia that I consider purely mathematical in nature. Blue Whale Earring gives the same AP as Witch Earring but also an additional 100 HP. How much is 100 HP worth? I don’t know. Basilisk belt gives 3 AP and Tree Spirit Belt gives 2 AP and 1 accuracy. Again, how much is 1 AP worth compared to 1 accuracy? I don’t know. The dilemmas in earring and belt choices are not mathematical in nature, hence I cannot analyze them objectively with simple numbers. If you want my opinion, Blue Whale Earrings are not worth it because of the exponentially higher cost for 100 HP at higher enhancements. Tree vs Basilisk is highly dependent on the rest of your build.

Using the strategies outlined in the previous blog posts, the cost of optimal enhancement for these two pieces of gear can easily be mapped out, so I will not go into details about the mathematics today. For more information about failstacking, read this post.

In short the cost of jewelry can be modeled by the equation:

(CostOfJewelry + CostOfBaseJewelry) * ExpectedTries + FailstackCost

The total consumption of rings can be modeled by the equation:

(PreviousEnhanceRingNumber + 1) * ExpectedTries

Here is a table of MoS and Crescent AP, cost, cost per AP and total rings required using the optimal tactic for enhancement. The failstacks are obtained with Reblath+14 and 200k blackstones. The failstacks at extremely high values are obtained with Reblath+19 and 4mil concentrated stones as after a certain stack breakpoint, this becomes cheaper to stack with than +14 Reblath.

And there you have it. The reason it costs more MoS than Crescent is because you would stack higher on Crescents, thus increasing success chance resulting in less raw rings burnt. Note that the cost of jewelry quoted in the table are the minimum based on perfect enhancement strategies, if you use a sub-optimal strategy, you will likely spend more.

In conclusion:

Be realistic about your jewelry enhancement goals. Most people vastly underestimate how time consuming and costly it is at the higher enhancements. A DUO Crescent Ring is better than a TRI MoS in terms of cost effectiveness. They offer the same AP, but DUO Crescent is cheaper to make. The above means you should not invest in a MoS beyond DUO. Most jewelry enhancements follow similar patterns, thus can be approximately extrapolated using the tables above. As with all RNG based enhancements, this is subjected to fluctuations. If you go for TET/PEN enhancements, don’t expect that you’ll get it with certainty. Expect a jewelry enhancement guide for Base->TRI for a few common jewelry types in the near future.

As with likely all posts in the future, I won’t be responding directly to reddit threads unless I really like the question. To contact me, send me a PM or leave a message here.