BDO Workers: Building the Best Worker Empire (2024)

BDO Workers are NPC characters you can hire that will help you progress in game.

Worker Benefits:

• gather materials from nodes, saving you time gathering manually
• build items in workshops, such as gear, ships, horse gear, furniture, trade crates, and more
• level, promote, and fire workers
• train and exchange helpful skills that cater to your game goals
• tend your farms for you by pruning and killing insects, so that plants grow faster
• choose fast workers that require more feeding and maintainence, or less powerful, but more slow and easy

Workers are a huge benefit to players because they are mostly a passive way to get materials and gear.

Passive AFK Income:

Workers require periodic feeding and management, but the rewards are well worth the time and cost. They work in the background making you money, while you play the game or sleep/work.

Worker Requirements

Start hiring workers as soon as you enter Velia. You get 1 free Worker Lodging per city or <Work Supervisor>.

Find a <Work Supervisor> by using your Find NPC button on the top right of your screen.

When you have enough Contribution from questing, you can invest in a node that can help you feed your worker. (Or purchase worker food on the Marketplace.)

Worker Management:

Access the “All Worker List” window by clicking the Pickaxe icon in the user interface.

You will need more Worker Lodging, if you would like more workers in Velia.

BDO Workers

Workers have 6 different classes. Each class has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some are only obtainable in a specific region.

Worker Stats: Speed, Luck, & Stamina

Work Speed:

Work Speed is an important stat because this number determines if a job can be done in 1 tick or more. 1 tick is equal to 10 minutes (Crates are 5 minutes). Work Speed stat is heavily reliant on the node’s Workload however, so you have to pay close attention to the node detail window visible before you give a work command.

Basically, you are trying to cover the node’s Workload with your worker’s Work Speed. If a node’s Workload is 200, and a worker’s Work Speed is 100, then he will do the job in 2 ticks (20 minutes) plus the distance calculation.

• Work Time = roundup(Workload/Workspeed)*10
• when Workspeed equals or is higher than Workload = 10 minute job completion
• when Workspeed is between 50% and 99% of the Workload = 20 minute job completion
• when Workspeed is between 33% and 49% of the Workload = 30 minute job completion

Movement Speed:

Movement Time = Distance/Movement speed * 2 Important for nodes located far away. It’s added after the ticks are counted. To save on movement time, look for close nodes that you may be able to use slow moving workers on, who have more stamina. (like Giant, Human, Fadus)

Luck:

Gives a better chance for obtaining secondary, more rare items from nodes. Studies confirm it’s not as effective as greater Movement Speed and Workspeed.

Stamina (aka Action Points):

Allows workers to work for longer periods without being fed. 1 job uses up 1 Stamina.

Worker Ranks (Grade or Tiers)

Workers have 5 different grades that show us their rarity and strength. Worker grades are shown by the color of their name. In BDO, the best worker grade of Artisan is colored orange…

1. Artisan – the best worker tier and most difficult to obtain. Keep this fella if you get lucky on seeing one! Normally you have to go through the Promotion process to get an Artisan worker. You can sometimes get lucky at the Worker Exchange. (Work Supervisor’s Worker Exchange button). Reportedly, it takes about 1.8k energy (360 rolls) to obtain one. (less than 1% chance.)
2. Professional – more common than Artisan, but still requires a very lucky roll. I like to roll new workers at the Work Supervisor until I get at least this grade. (Last try cost me 1040 energy, but then got the next one with 100 energy. RNG!)
3. Skilled – try not to hire anyone below this grade. Skilled grade is where you really start to see big improvement in worker stats at level 30. Skilled workers and above can be sold at the Work Supervisor. (Click Worker Exchange then Register.)
4. Normal – most common tier, but has significantly lower stats than Skilled workers. Until you gain more Knowledge, which increases your energy, you might have to settle for this at first. You can also check out our guide on Professional Amity Workers, which are low cost, but not a long term option.
5. Naive – poor stats! Click View Another button.

Artisan Chances?
So how many times do you have to roll to get an Artisan?!
For the lucky few: 1 time.
For the rest of us…

Ryu and Yollar!
Two generous BDO players (ryu1313 and Yollar) posted their dogged attempts to attain the unattainable… the rare Artisan worker. They posted their findings to Reddit, which helps us see the chances that you might get a particular tier. View the Reddit post.

Goblin Worker Stats (Level 1)

Look at that handsome blue grade goblin! Unfortunately, I had to pass on him, because I only hire Professionals!

Worker Skills

Worker Skills can greatly influce a workers performance. With the correct skills, you can potentially turn a 20 minute job into a 10 minute job.

Workers Gain 1 skill per 5 levels:

• 1 Skill at Level 1
• 2 Skills at Level 5
• 3 Skills at Level 10
• 4 Skills at Level 15
• 5 Skills at Level 20
• 6 Skills at Level 25
• 7 Skills at Level 30

TOTAL SKILLS: 7 (Named workers have 1 extra skill.)

Skills can be rerolled periodically, after they reach level 30, so that you can attempt to obtain the best worker skill set.

Worker Skills help the worker with Movement Speed, Work Speed, and have other special abillities that can really help you speed up work time.

Worker Skill Example:

The image below is a good example of how worker skills make a difference. Look at the node info window and you can see that it shows a Workspeed of 151. This is the Workpeed of the Goblin with his worker skills applied. The Goblin’s base Workspeed is shown as 143 and it is not enough to cover the node’s full Workload of 298. But with his skills, he is able to trim off 10 minutes. Without his skills, the job would have taken another tick for him to complete. (or 39 minutes)

Worker Promotion

Workers can earn a maximum of 3 promotion chances each rank.

Promotion chances do stack and all 3 can be used at level 30. You may want to do this because a higher level worker has a greater chance of a successful promotion. But are you patient with your humble worker?!

*tick tock* WIN! 🙂

To learn more about gaining ranks and leveling workers, please view our .

Worker Stamina & Worker Food

Workers use one stamina per work cycle.

If you have many low tier and low Stamina goblins, this can keep you busy feeding workers throughout the day. For example, you have to feed a Skilled Goblin every 40 minutes, if they are on quick 5 minute crafting jobs in town. They only have 8 stamina.

A Skilled Giant, however, has the most Stamina and would last 125 hours on 5 minute jobs because he has 25 Stamina. As you can see, Giants are Stamina kings, but their workspeed and movement is slower.

• Beer and Grilled Bird Meat are the cheapest to make.
• Beer replenishes 2 Stamina, and Grilled Bird Meat replenishes 3 Stamina.

Please visit this Beer Guide, for more details making these foods, with a step by step how-to.

Best Worker

Goblins, Papu, and Dwarf truly excel at working on your nodes, especially if they are far away from town. In my work on the BDO Node Investment Calculator, I discovered that Goblins and Papu always produce more.

Often times this means they produce in less time, what a Human can produce. This amount is usually like 10 minutes, but for other nodes it can make a much bigger difference.

I always use a goblin on my excavation nodes. Their work loads are so long that every other slow worker can’t compete.

You might think Luck would play a big role in excavation nodes, but that’s not the case. Studies done and published by Balzor and other players concluded that a Human’s high Luck can’t outpace Goblin/Papu/Dwarf Movement Speed and Workspeed except if the node is very close to the town. View Balzor’s Worker Guide

Choosing the Best Worker:

• Giants, Fadus: highest Stamina (less feedings), but slow performance
  • You frequently forget to feed the workers you have
  • You frequently have to work in real life
  • You don’t like checking your workers more than once a day
• Goblin, Papu, Dwarf: best performance, but more feedings
  • You play often night and day.
  • Real life doesn’t prevent you from logging in often to feed workers
  • You don’t mind keeping an eye on workers and possibly having to log in an Alt to feed them
• Humans: middle ground
  • Humans are a balance between the races
  • For some nodes, it makes little time difference between a Goblin & Human

It’s important to consider your play style when choosing workers. Do you AFK for long periods? Then Giants and Fadus are the best. Are you constantly at the keyboard, ready to check your worker’s Stamina when they tucker out? Then Goblin or Papu is your man! ..err I mean class!

Humans are a safe middle ground. I often use Humans. There are some nodes in which you can take smaller cuts in production. (where it takes a few minutes more per work cycle.) If you visit our BDO Node Investment Calculator, you will see that many nodes have a default worker selection of Human because the decrease in silver value was small enough for my play style.