While Black Spirit’s Adventure 2 is still pretty simple for a board game (it is just a mini-game, after all), in classic BDO fashion, few of the mechanics are explained, and many are even obfuscated by RNG.

There’s a pretty helpful starter guide that you can access by clicking on the question mark on the left edge of the window, but if that’s not enough for you, then keep on reading!

The Black Spirit’s Actions

Every day, you’ll be able to spend up to 10 of your Black Spirit’s movement points to perform various actions to collect items from all around Balenos for you. The Black Spirit can only store a maximum of three movement points, and they recharge at the rate of one per hour. (Note that the BSA2 reset is 5 hours after the daily reset!)

Gather is more or less the “default” action, and picking this option will have the game spin up a random item for you. Gathering’s loot table is likely the worst, given that it’s the simplest and easiest action.

Combat is a more advanced version of Gather in that your Black Spirit will have to defeat a monster in order for you to roll an item. It’s pretty safe to assume that Combat offers better rewards than Gathering, though I’m not sure whether each monster has their own unique loot table or they just use a better version of their Node’s drop table.

Explore randomly picks one of three options for you: Obtain Item, Combat, or Special Event. From my experience, Exploration seems weighted towards Special Events.

Special Event isn’t an action you can take, and you’ll only be able to perform it through Exploration. Special Events typically reward you with either a Combat card or an EXP Potion for your Black Spirit. Sometimes, Special Events can also fully recharge your Black Spirit’s movement points! (If there are any other Special Events you’ve had, let us know about them in the comments!)

Obtain Item isn’t an action you can take, and you’ll only be able to perform it through Exploration. Like Gather, Obtain Item gives you a random item drop, though it uses a separate table from Gathering.

Rest doubles the speed at which the Black Spirit recovers its movement points. (Though you’ll still be capped at three movement points, which really limits the usefulness of Resting.)

Excavate functions identically to Gather, and the difference in names just seems like a way for the mini-game to signal that the Node offers better rewards than the others.

Black Spirit’s Adventure 2 Combat Guide

Combat in BSA2 is pretty straightforward – the Black Spirit encounters a random enemy, and you roll two 6-sided dice to determine the victor. Most enemies simply require your roll to beat a certain number (a Grass Beetle requires a 3 or higher, for example), but a few of them might require you to roll for a more specific set of numbers (like even numbers only or doubles).

However, before you roll the dice, you can use up to two of the Combat cards you’ve collected while Exploring with the Black Spirit. The two types of cards I’ve found either reduce the difficulty of the dice roll’s victory condition or improve the RNG for the item drop you get for winning. There are two things to keep in mind before you roll those dice, though:

You can’t use duplicate Combat cards. For example, you can use Tachro’s Textbook and Spot Weakness together, but you can’t use two Tachro’s Textbook or two Spot Weakness cards (even though they do the exact same thing). Cards with “Lower Difficulty by X” do not mean “Reduce the dice result needed by X. ” Be sure to always read the victory conditions carefully both before and after you pick your Combat cards!

Black Spirit’s Level

Most actions taken in BSA2 will raise the Black Spirit’s level – however, it doesn’t seem to have any meaningful effect. Most theorize that higher levels will weight your dice rolls and/or item drops for better results, but given the nature of RNG, that isn’t easily verifiable so soon after the mini-game’s release.

We’ll update this section if we learn anything new about how the Black Spirit’s level works.

Boss Fights

Once per day, the Black Spirit will have the opportunity to fight a boss monster. Just bring your little friend to the marked Node and initiate combat! The biggest difference between a boss fight and regular Combat is the difficulty of the Victory Condition – you’re either going to need a lot of luck on your dice roll or two powerful Combat cards (and a little bit of luck).

I wouldn’t bother wasting a movement point on tackling a boss if you don’t have a Kzarka Weapon Box or Mortal Blow card and at least one other Combat card.

Treasure Hunting

The Black Spirit will be able to collect Treasure Map fragments from Special Events or from Gathering. Once you collect all four fragments, the mini-game will mark your destination Node with a treasure chest icon.

The Nodes you can find Treasure Map fragments from are: Velia, Coastal Cave, Balenos Forest, Olvia, Coastal Cliff, Imp Cave, Altar of Agris, Goblin Cave, Cron Castle Site, and Cron Castle.

Note that the Map Fragment notifications are mistranslated – if you’re told that you’ve “found 4 map pieces,” you’ve actually found the 4th map fragment. It’s also possible to get the same Map Fragment repeatedly, though it’s unclear as to whether or not that’s a bug or BDO just being BDO.

Hopefully this guide will help the Black Spirit find better items for you! However, if all of this sounds like too much hassle for you, you can always just use the Auto-Gather option!

If you’re interested in our other Black Desert Online guide content, you can find it all here!