In Black Desert Online, horses are indispensable as riding animals. On the one hand, there is no fast travel system in BDO, and on the other hand, they serve as pull power for heavy carts. It is even possible to participate in mounted combat. In this article, we at MeinMMO explain how you can acquire these noble creatures.
In general, there are several ways to obtain a mount in the MMORPG. You can catch and tame horses yourself, buy breeding animals from other players, and even rent or breed horses yourself.
How do I get a horse? To acquire a mount, all you need to do is visit the stable master in the nearest town and buy a riding license or a draft horse for 15,000 silver. The latter cannot be ridden, but only hitched to carts. How to quickly earn silver, we reveal here.
Alternatively, you can access the horse market through the same NPC and purchase the horse you desire. Additionally, you have the option to sort the offered horses by ranks, talents, and gender. With a bit of luck, the horses offered by players might even be cheaper than the NPC’s.
Can I rent a horse? You can rent horses from friends, but only those ranked up to 8, and for a duration limited to one week. However, this function is rarely used because it is not worth it due to the limited time and fees.
Where do I get my first mount? You receive your first mount, a donkey, free through the Black Spirit questline. The experience of the donkey increases when you ride on it. There are three types of donkeys with different colors, but mules have no gender in BDO and cannot be bred.
All about horse taming in Black Desert Online
What do I need to tame a horse? To tame a horse in BDO, you must first meet two requirements.
The first is that you must have reached at least level 5 in the training category. You can access this menu with the “P” key. To improve your training, you need to level up your horse first. The easiest way to do this is with automatic pathfinding. We recommend beginners to start with the donkey, which is obtained as an early quest reward.
The second requirement is a few tools you need for taming. This includes a lasso, which can be purchased from the stable master. Here, we recommend buying at least 20 or even 30 lasso units, as the amount decreases with each taming attempt.
Cubes of sugar are also important to keep the horse calm while taming. These can be easily made yourself. By searching for NPCs, you can buy 1 mineral water and 10 sugar cane from the cooking goods merchant and heat the items with the “L” key.
How do I tame a horse? Once you have found your suitable place and spotted some wild animals, proceed as follows. Important: You must not approach too closely, and beginners should be particularly patient during the first attempts since the mini-game can be a bit tricky. Moreover, you will need to use more sugar if it tries to break free with a lower training level:
- Take your lasso in hand with a right-click
- Move slowly towards the horse with the W key
- Activate left-click when the red crosshair appears
- If you aimed poorly or the animal leaps forward, you must start over.
- Move slowly and cautiously towards the horse again
- Wait until the horse raises its front hooves
- The mini-game starts; confirm with the left mouse button
- By pressing the space bar at the right moment, you calm the horse
- Wait until the horse raises its front hooves again
- Spam the space bar to land in the right area of the horizontal bar
- Approach the wild horse slowly and cautiously again
- Use a sugar cube when it raises its front hooves; then it won’t run away
- On average, you need to repeat this process 3 times, and then the animal belongs to you
Once you have successfully tamed the horse, you need to go to the stable master with it and register it to yourself. You will need to enter a name for the animal and find out its gender – which is important for breeding, which we will explain to you in another guide in the future.
Leveling Horses
How do I level my horse AFK? You can raise your mount’s level while you are not at the computer. To do this, you use automatic pathfinding and ensure that the circuit is large enough to allow your horse to gallop. If the animal cannot speed up due to a too-small route, you will not gain experience.
It is important to pack enough carrots before your automatic ride because your horse consumes stamina, and when it is exhausted, it negatively impacts your experience gain. You can simply check the box for “Automatically use carrot,” and your steed will run in circles and eat by itself.
YouTuber Refaser has taken a closer look at the mount system in BDO:
Interesting Facts about Horses in Black Desert Online
What else do I need to know? Lastly, here are a few additional pieces of information that will make breeding and leveling mounts easier for you:
- Initially, you have limited space in the stable; a maximum of three animals fit in. You should invest contribution points here to quickly obtain a horse farm. The higher the stable level, the more animals fit in.
- Never buy breeding horses on the market that do not possess breeding points.
- You can sell your horses at the horse market. The price depends on their level, abilities, and gender. Logically, you can offer mares at a higher price.
- You can buy a mount breeding set in the pearl shop for 333 (stallion) and 640 pearls (mare) to reset the number of points.
- You gain five percent more experience when wearing the silver-embroidered trainer clothing. You can either buy this on the marketplace or craft it yourself. The luxury clothing merchant has an item for you that even grants you ten percent experience.
- If you are often galloping with the horse, it consumes a lot of energy – you can refill it with carrots from the stable master. Alternatively, you can set up a carrot field.
- By the way, you can level horses while trading. Just hitch them to the cart, and the experience comes almost by itself.
- For mounted combat, you need a stirrup, saddle, harness, horse head, and of course, horseshoes to increase your animal’s attributes.
Finally, we have the current Black Desert Roadmap 2021 with all important information for you.
