Olvia Academy - Combat

Introduction

Olvia Academy has a combat course with some rewards that are too good to miss out on!

• The biggest rewards for completing the combat course is two guaranteed PEN Blackstar weapons
• You can choose the weapons, making this an amazing start for new or returning players
• There's also excess materials to help upgrade TET blackstars which can also help get another PEN
• Completing the course will also level you from level 60 to level 61 so its overall really helpful

 

Starting The Course

If you're not sure what the Olvia Academy is, we have a full guide breaking down everything about it. For a more in depth look at the school system, how it works and the rewards you can check that out. 

 

Since it also covers the different life skills available in the game, there's plenty of rewards to grab. The Olvia Academy also does a really good job with onboarding and providing gear + Exp for starting those skills! 

 

Still, you won't need all of that information for this guide. The TLDR is that the Olvia Academy has a series of quests to complete for combat in particular. This will teach you about the system briefly, then have you visit grind zones.  

 

To start out, click the Green Olvia Academy UI at the top right of the screen, or visit NPC Emma Bartali for directions on where to start the course. 

 

 

You can click on the navigation arrow to find the first course, it'll take you to visit NPC Cliff who'll start the course.

 

Completing The Combat Course

When you first get to NPC Cliff you'll have to open up the General Chat and type in a phrase in the chat exactly how it's worded. This will complete the first questline. 

 

The game will run you through a series of simple tutorials, they're well presented and pretty easy to understand. They'll teach you the different types of CC and combat effects, starting with Down Attacks on knocked down enemies.

 

Defeat the NPC to move on to the next lesson: 

 

The same style of tutorial repeats, next up you'll have to do Back Attacks, which is just hitting an enemy from behind. These tutorials are great because they explain the modifiers. 

 

 

It is a little strange that they present these to players that have to be at least Level 60 and graduated from Season Servers, they feel almost like a Level 1 type of tutorial. You'll then be able to go actually do combat.

 

Finishing Basic Tactics

After completing the early stage tutorials, you'll start a story based questline, this is the overarching story for the combat tutorial. It's nothing too complicated. A bunch of pirates have shown up to disturb things. 

 

It's your job to go down and see to them, it's recommended to have 250+ AP and 320 + DP which you can hit pretty comfortably with PEN Tuvala gear. Grabbing a Simple Cron Meal and Beasts Draught can help with these.

 

 

After defeating the Bumblin' Buckeneers you head down to the beach. You can't be in a party for this as it puts you in a cutscene when you arrive. You'll find a treasure map.

 

 

Go back to NPC Cliff and do some talking with him and Justin Bartali, they also show off how to use Evasion, a skill which I don't think I've ever used or any one else has ever used.

 

Most people tend to lock this skill in the Skill menu (K) by clicking the pad lock icon, so don't worry too much about this skill honestly, classes all have much better ways to avoid damage than a slow roll. 

 

 

It'll also teach you the CC resist effects, it'll explain Super Armour resists crowd control effects, Forward Guard reduces damage and resists CC from the front and Iframe give you periods of invincibility. 

 

 

You'll do some more talking with Emma and Eileen before having to visit another NPC for a church buff. Church buffs are buffs you can pay silver for in major cities, just in case you R spam through the explaination. 

 

 

After grabbing your church buff you'll get a quick section on Artifacts and Lightstones as well as getting some as a free gift. To use your new Artifacts and Lightstones you can open your Esc menu and search for Infusion.

 

You can also just right click your Lightstones in your inventory to open up the Infusion menu. 

 

 

You'll want to use the Monster AP +6 set of Artifacts and then load up on the damage Lightstones they give you, you won't really need more DP than PEN Tuvala gear for these quests. 

 

You can actually make a set effect with the Lightstones you've been given, here's the combination: 

 

 

If you've got too many Artifacts and Lightstones in your inventory, you can store them in your Artifact inventory. You can find it in your inventory towards the bottom of the screen. 

 

 

There's a lot more you can learn about Artifacts and Lightstones, they're an important part of Black Desert's gearing process. If you need more on Artifacts and Lightstones, check out our full guide here: 

 

You might also want to head to the nearest Skill Instructor in Olvia, who can let you add some skill add-ons for your class. They don't really need to be min-maxed to get through these grind spots or anything. 

 

If you're not sure we have a guide on it, or you can look up ones specifically through your class, here's our guide!

 

 

Cliff will also give you some Magic Crystals, you can open the Esc menu and open Transfusion to place your crystals in the open slots, all of these should give you a nice jump in power together. 

 

 

Magic Crystals can be used for Offense, Defensive and even Life Skills, again if you need a guide that takes you step by step through how the Magic Crystals system works, we have a guide for it: 

 

I just want to note that it's not strictly necessary to understand any of these systems for what you're about to do, the questing is easy enough — it's just that the sooner you're comfortable with these systems, the better. 

 

Before you go, you can also look in your Olvia Academy UI and see which rewards you have available, you can make a PEN weapon of your choice by using these two rewards which will increase your gear score:

 

You'll get 2 PEN Blackstar Weapons from these rewards, you should've also gotten a TET Blackstar weapon for hitting level 60 and you get one at level 61. You can try to use the other protection materials later on your first TET blackstar.

 

This will give you a full set of PEN Blackstar and the possibility of making a sovereign weapon for either you main or awakening weapon, we have a guide for it but I won't list it here since it's a little far off topic for the course completion.

 

If you use the PEN Defense Gear box, don't use it on boots! Making DEC Tuvala boots later is more efficient. 

 

 

Completing Field Tactics

After completing the quest for equipping your Artifacts, you'll begin the next stage of the Combat Course, the Field Tactics section. You'll need to head to Hystria ruins, the quest wants you to have completed the Magnus for this. 

 

You only need to complete up to "In Return For Your Help" which about 25 quests in. The game teaches you about the desert debuff, which just causes damage unless you drink Purified Water or Star Anise Tea. 

 

 

Above is our Magnus guide, which will help you complete the puzzles if you need it. If you've already done the Magnus, you can talk to Cliff to teleport to Hystria which will save you having to find it in the desert. 

 

 

Step through Hysteria and make sure you interact with this light or the quest won't continue, after you do and run through Hystria, you'll get a cutscene. 

 

 

You can just continue to make your way through Hystria, you'll have to fight a few times throughout the quest but it's nothing major, eventually you'll come across some Bumblin' Buckeneers again. 

 

 

After defeating them, you'll be told to chat with the Buckeneer that's been left behind. Make sure after talking to him you use the teleport back to Olvia, otherwise you'll have to run back. 

 

If you've already started running back and you've found this guide to look for a faster way back, you can purchase a Traveler's Map from the Central Marketplace if you have a maid, at about half way through the desert you can teleport.

 

 

Teleporting to Sand Grain Bazaar will let you use the stable to remote collect your horse, then head down to Altinova to use the Abyssal Well to teleport to Olvia saving you a lot of time. 

 

The next part of the quests will have you going to Thornwood Forest and Tankuta. You can use the quest Auto-navigate to find them. For Thornwood there's an event you can look out for where a void spawns mobs at you.

 

 

These are RNG but can really speed up the required monster count, since mobs will charge at you and be squishier than normal. Next up is going to Tankuta. These mobs are harder but you'll only have to defeat 50 of them.

 

Make sure you're using Super Armours and Forward Guards, mobs at Tankuta can knock you down and will wipe your health pretty quick, being able to chunk you to half if you're only wearing PEN Tuvala gear. 

 

 

After you're done with both zones, you can head to the East to O'dylita's Abyssal Well, then teleport back to Cliff at the Olvia Academy. The next few quests are talking quests which don't really require any extra help. 

 

Just make sure you don't miss talking to the Black Spirit for advice in the "Quests tab" after resting at the dorm, the cutscene happens outside of the dorm so don't stray far. The next combat quest will be Gyfin Rhasia temple.

 

 

You can take the Abyssal Well down to Grana in the Kamasylvia region to save you time, make sure you interact with the golden light when you get to Gyfin Rhasia Temple. Make sure you're getting Back Attacks on the mobs. 

 

You can do this by gathering them up and then dashing through them depending on your class, this will group them for easy Back Attacks and extra damage, making them faster to kill. Use your "Z" black spirit buff as well. 

 

 

After this, you'll need to head into Gyfin Rhasia Underground but you won't need to fight any of the mobs here that have higher gear requirement, you can just ride through on your horse to get to the cutscene location. 

 

You'll then fight a few more of the pirates before being able to teleport back to Cliff to continue the quests. 

 

 

You'll have a few talking moments with a bunch of the NPCs, then it's time for your final exam. This section was actually pretty good for new players, it really helps give a good intro to some grind zones you might be interested in learning. 

 

The final exams will all make use of the Wormhole Generator, a convinient tool that lets the game give you these instanced tutorials for different grind spots without making you run around everywhere .

 

 

First up is Honglim Base, the game will have text on the screen explaining the different mechanics. You can take it pretty easy on Honglim Base, the mobs for this version aren't difficult or anything. 

 

 

Next up you'll do Jade Starlight Forest from the Mountain of Eternal Winter, I really like that they added mechanic based spots to the tutorials to make them less off putting to new players. 

 

 

Lastily you'll do Gyfin Underground. For this one you'll want to attack in the order listed. First you'll want to attack the Crusher type mobs that have a red symbol, this will grant you a buff after you kill them. 

 

Make sure you're using your back attacks and forward guard skills, if you're in PEN Tuvala you might want to thread in Q blocks every so often as the mobs attack slowly so it can reduce the damage you take. 

 

 

After defeating the Crushers and getting the red buff you can then kill the blue mobs called Guards, since the buff you got from killing the red mobs will increase your damage against them it should be a little faster. 

 

 

You then get a blue buff from the Guards that will let you do extra damage to the Flamen type purple monsters

 

Once you've defeated all three types, the Butcher mini boss will spawn, Defeating the Butcher will grant you a buff that increases your damage to all of the mob types, letting you finish off the test. 

 

After this, you'll have a cutscene and do some talking to NPCs, then you just need to finish up by typing Olvium Frontia! In the general chat to complete the combat course. Make sure to claim your rewards! 

 

What did you think of this as an intro to combat in Black Desert? Let us know!

Why not check out some of our other guides while you're here?