The desert has opened and the Kingdom of Valencia is now available for adventurers to explore. The desert pulls no punches, and will happily see you perish from heat stroke or fall under the blades of the notorious Gahaz Bandits.

Learning to survive the desert can be a daunting task, but fear not as the Kingdom of Valencia has released the following survival guide: [Land of Scorching Sun and Desert]

The heart of the desert beats again, and the ancient Kutum stirs in the Scarlet Sand Chamber. This terrifying ancient construct was once sealed away, but adventurers who travel near the Scarlet Sand Chamber have reported a rhythmic beating, almost heart-like, coming from deep underground. You can find out more about this monstrosity by visiting the GM Note:

[The Heart of the Desert Beats]

As a new world boss has been added, the world boss timetable has been modified. Check out the times below and schedule your next world boss fight.

(*The world boss times have been updated. We apologize for the inconvenience.)

The Lahn and the Ninja make their way to Black Desert.

The Lahn dances a beautiful dance of death with her Crescent Pendulum, and awakens to fill the blood thirst of the Crimson Glaives. With her deadly grace, the Lahn can slice anyone who stands in her way.

Embrace the shadows and deliver precise and deadly strikes on your enemies as the Ninja has been added to the game. This deadly assassin can hide in plain sight, or storm the battlefield with his Sura Katana in his awakened form.

As these 2 new classes have been released, the maximum number of character slots available has increased from 9 slots to 11. 

Discover your past to unlock your future as Awakenings have been added to all classes in Black Desert. Awakening brings a new way to play your favorite class. From a gigantic greatsword for Warrior, the elegance of the Ranger’s Kamasylven sword or the brutality of the Berserker’s Iron Buster, each class has something new to play with.

Switching between your awakening and pre-awakening form is as easy as pressing triangle during combat, or using certain skills that cause your character to switch effortlessly between the two modes. To find out more about what you learn about your class during awakening, head to the following GM Notes:

[Musa + Ninja]

[DK + Ranger]

[Witch + Wizard]

[Berserker +  Warrior]

[Lahn and Sorceress]

The highest tier of pre-awakened skills are here. Absolute skills allow you to transcend the power your already had, and unlock the full potential of your character. Absolute Skills add more effects to your skills, including things like more damage, more targets hit and more. To enhance a skill to its absolute level, you will need the skill at its Ultimate level, and invest a large quantity of Skill Points to learn the absolute version.

Node War pre-season has concluded, and as a result Conquest Wars are now available. Each Saturday, guilds will be able to duke it out for control over the whole region (Balenos, Serendia or Calpheon). Our original GM Note about Node Wars and Conquest Wars covered the how to, so check it out at:

[Node/Conquest War Guide]

Tribute Wagons will also be traveling between cities 2 hours before Conquest War begins. This is a chance for all players to try and collect back some of that tax you have paid over the week. Attacking the wagon instantly sets your status to PvP mode, but you will not receive Karma Penalties for attacking it. 

For the convenience of guild officers, we reduced the required minimum number of guild members to build a fort for node & conquest wars. You will now need 5 players online in order to place down your fort.

Duke it out with other guilds for control of one of the most profitable regions in the Black Desert world as the Calpheon Region is now available for Node Wars and Conquest Wars! Nodes will be contested Sunday to Friday, and the conquest war for control of Calpheon castle starts on Saturdays.

Node Wars for Calpheon will follow the schedule below:

We’re bringing some improvements to the enhancing process. This includes gear cleansing, devouring and more. 

New Enhancement Levels; TET and PEN 

You can now enhance your gear above TRI (III) as TET (IV) and PEN (V) have been added to the game. Enhancing to TET and PEN can be incredibly risky, so it is heavily advised to have back up gear when attempting to reach the higher levels of gear. Remember, failing enhancements at these levels will cause your enhancement level to decrease by 1.

Devour

You can now strike a deal with your Black Spirit, offering him an already enhanced item for more Enhancement Chance. Although some would say that bribing and feeding your Black Spirit is futile, offering items of power will greatly increase your favor with the Black Spirit, which hopefully allows you to succeed in your enhancement attempts.

You can access the Devour function by bringing up your Black Spirit, selecting enhancement, and then pressing RB to select the Devour function. You can Devour weapons from +8 enhancement level, or armor from +6.

Much like Advice of Valks, you can only gain enhancement chance from Devour while you are sitting at +0 Enhancement Chance.

Blacksmith’s Secret Book

Blacksmith’s Secret Book allows you to withdraw your Enhancement chance to use them at a later point. These work similar to the current Valks Advice, but you will need to build your failstack before trying to withdraw them.

You can purchase these Secret Books from Blacksmiths and Armor Merchants across Black Desert. The Blacksmith’s Secret Books are divided into 20,30,40 and 50 Enhancement chances, and cost silver to purchase. You will need to buy the book that is currently higher than your current enhancement chance.

Example: If you build +32 Enhancement Chance, you will need to purchase and use the +40 Blacksmith’s Secret Book in order to extract the +32 Enhancement Chance. This will create a Valks Advice (+32). It is not possible to use the Blacksmith’s Secret Book 30 to extract the Enhancement chance since 32 is higher than 30.

You cannot use the Blacksmith’s Secret Book to withdraw Valks’ Cry Chance Increases.

Cleanse Gear

Priests across the Black Desert world have been imbued with the power to cleanse the Black Energy from gear. The priests can now degrade weapons and armor from +15 to +14, allowing the item to be used for building more Enhancement Chances.

Cleansing gear only strips 1 enhancement level from an item, and is guaranteed to be successful. It costs 100,000 silver for the priest to conduct the ritual.

The following NPC’s can perform gear Cleansing:

Under the cover of darkness, a new vendor comes. The Black Market NPC, Patrigio, can be found across the Black Desert world, selling items ranging from Black Stones to Kzarka Weapons. It costs 50 energy to coax Patrigio into showing you a different item, so make sure that you are prepared . Patrigio will sell items between 22:00 ~ 07:00 in-game time, so make sure to visit him while you can.

If you currently do not have the silver to pay for the goods, you can press Triangle to hold the item for 15 real world minutes. This gives you a chance to shuffle silver between your characters and pick up potentially cheaper items from Patrigio. (There is an issue with 'Hold' function, so it will be updated soon.)

Here is the total list of what items you could possibly get from Patrigio.

Kzarka's Sealed Weapon Box, Kzarka weapons for each class, Kutum's Sealed Sub-weapon Box, Kutum sub-weapon for each class, Dim Tree Spirit's Armor, Giath’s Helmet, Red Nose’s Armor, Bheg’s Gloves, Muskan’s Shoes, Book of Combat (1 Day), Ogre Ring, Sicil’s Necklace,  Basilisk’s Belt, Ring of Crescent Guardian, Blue Whale Molar Earring, Tree Spirit Belt, Awakening Weapon Box, Witch’s Earring, Mark of Shadow, Hard Black Crystal Shard Bundle: 3, Sharp Black Crystal Shard: 3, Cron Stone Bundle: 10, Hard Black Crystal Shard Bundle, Sharp Black Crystal Shard, Black Stone (Weapon) Bundle: 5, Black Stone (Armor) Bundle: 5

Patrigio can be found in the following locations:

The road of a hardened adventurer is tough, and it gets even harder when it comes to travelling through the desert. So why not spend a little silver on yourself and enjoy a Villa. Access to a villa costs a 100G bar (10,000,000 silver), and will grant you access to daily quests, blacksmiths and more. In the Villa, you will also be able to purchase villa buffs, which will grant your character special bonuses when going out into the desert.