BDO Horse Leveling Guide: EXP, Routes, & Methods (2024)

Horse Leveling is one of the most fundamental aspects of the Training Life Skill.

Horses gain experience by running around. After a horse levels, he will require more experience than the last level.

Leveling Horses increases their stats and skills. Max level for a tier 1-7 horse is 30. Max level for a Tier 8, T9 Dream, or T10 Mythical horse is level 100.

Horse Leveling takes longer for higher tier horses. A level 1 tier 8 takes about 40 to 50 hours of AFK Training to reach level 30.

Are you being left in the dust on a potato?! Dust no good! Potato for soup! Run around and be a horse leveling champ of the Dustless League!! 🙂

*laughs*

Horse Leveling at Higher Tiers

The max level of Tier 8 horses, Dream horses, and Mythical horses is level 100. (Source: patch notes June 29, 2021)

• Level 31+ do NOT gain new skills
• Level 31+ do NOT increase the stats of the horse.
  • HP, Stamina, Max Weight, Speed, Acceleration, Turn, Brake, etc do NOT increase
• You DO gain Training EXP when the horse levels up.
• Levels over 30 have no impact on their price in the Horse Market, Breeding Market, and Imperial Delivery.
• Monsters will not attack horses that are 10+ levels higher than them.
  • excludes some events in monster zones.

Mount EXP Per Tick

How fast a horse levels is determined by several factors. One of these is “Mount EXP per tick”

Your mount gains EXP every X meters it travels.

You can view this whenever you are traveling on your horse and press the P key to view their EXP bar.

Calculate EXP Per Tick:

• Take note of your current Mount EXP. Jot this down.
• Begin traveling
• Start counting the seconds until the Mount EXP bar moves up. Record the seconds.
• After about 5 to 11 seconds, the number will increase. Jot this down.
• The difference is that horse’s current “EXP per tick”
• Variations in EXP Per Tick is common even if you use the same food/buffs/etc on the same horse and route
  • variation is dependant upon several factors, which we will discuss below
  • find your average XP per Tick by recording the increase several times

How to Calculate Horse Leveling Time

Using the method above, jot down all of the following:

• Horse Tier
• Current Horse Level
• Desired Horse Level
• EXP Per Tick (usually a number between 400 and 1500)
• Seconds Per Tick (usually a number between 6 to 10 seconds and up to 25 seconds for wagons)
• Current EXP (shown in the Mount EXP bar, aftering pressing P)

The image below is from the wonderful website by Blisschen, which has a Horse Level Time Calculator.

Increasing Mount EXP Per Tick

• Special Events like “Giddy Up”
• Maintain a good internet connection and computer.
  • Lag and GPU performance can impact horse travel distance.
• Straight paths of longer distances with less turns
  • Every time your horse makes even a slight turn, the speed decreases before it climbs back up again.
• Clear roads (no obtacles like stones, monsters, etc)
• Riding Crops can lower the tick time dramatically for solo and wagon training
• Training Gear that increases Training Mastery and Mount EXP (Be careful, as Mastery gear can get very expensive.)
• Increase Horse Speed (active travel using skills orhorse speed gear)
  • wagons have a slower and lower exp tick than solo horses (But they also level 4 horses at the same time.)
    • wagon wheels help improve speed
  • Krogdalo Horse Gear and Granvere give +3% to +8% Movement Speed

Mount Exp Items for Horse Leveling

Life Exp and Training Exp buffs do not affect Mount Exp. The Mount Exp items below will help you level your horse to 30+ faster.

Mount EXP Consumables

You can also increase Mount EXP gain by using the following consumables:

• Elixirs:
  • Elixir of Training: +8% Mount EXP, 10 min duration
  • Elixir of Expert Training: 10% Mount EXP: 15 min duration
  • [Mix] Time-Training Elixir: 15% Life EXP, 10% Mount EXP, 8 min duration
  • Celerity Draught: +15 % Mount EXP, +20% Training EXP, 180 min duration
  • Unbridled Celerity Draught: +15 % Mount EXP, +20% Training EXP, 360 min duration
  • Fiery Celerity Draught: +30% Mount EXP, +30% Training EXP, 600 min duration
• Food:
  • Stonetail Wind’s Meal: +10% Mount EXP, +20% Training EXP, +25 Life Skill Mastery, 600 min duration (Grand Prix Reward)
• Scrolls:
  • Extra Mount EXP: +20% Mount EXP, 10 hour duration OR 60 min duration
  • Courser’s Aura: +30% Mount EXP, +30% Training EXP, +30 Training Mastery 300 min duration
• Event Items:
  • [Event] Lara’s Warm Black Tea: +50% Mount EXP, +30% Life EXP, 180 min duration (Black Spirit’s Adventure Board)
  • [Event] Delicious Japchae: +30% Mount EXP, +30% Life EXP, +25 Life Skill Mastery, 120 min duration
• Exchange 100 Energy to Herar in Florin:+2% Mount Exp, 5 hour duration
  • Requires completion of questline: [Music Log #2] Party in Florin. This questline is Level 56+ and Shai only. Purchase itemMusic Score: Party in Florin from NPCArtina and right click it to begin questline.

Note: Only 1 Elixir/Draught can be used at a time. This does not include event items like [Event] Lara’s Warm Black Tea.

Pearl Shop Costume Items for Horse Leveling and Mount EXP

BDO has 3 Costume items that increase Training and Mount EXP. These items require a Pearl Shop purchase.

Venia Riding Attire and Hat

The Venia Riding Attire and Hat is equipped in your character’s costume slot. This allows your character to also equip Silver Embroidered Trainer’s Clothes or Manos Trainer’s Clothes in the armor slot.

The Venia Riding Attire costume covers the body, hands, and feet. It gives 20% Mount EXP and costs 2200 Pearls.

The Venia Riding Hat covers the head. It gives 15% Mount EXP and costs 500 Pearls.

When worn together, the Venia Riding Attire and Hat grants a set bonus of 15% Mount EXP for a grand total of +50% Mount EXP.

The Venia Riding Costume does not grant any other bonuses to Mount Capture Rate, Skill Learning, Training EXP or Life EXP.

Equipment Tailoring Coupon

The Equipment Tailoring Coupon can be used on the Trainer’s Clothes purchased from the Luxury Vendor in game. This converts the Trainer’s Clothes from an armor item into a costume item. The Trainer’s Clothes (Costume) is transferred to your Pearl Inventory and bound to the character you first equip it on.

The Equipment Tailoring Coupon costs 1500 Pearls.

Trainer’s Clothes grants several different buffs:

• Training EXP 10%
• Mount EXP 15 %
• Horse Capture Rate 15%
• Mount Skill EXP 15%

Note: Your character must have Skilled 10 Training or better to equip the Trainer’s Clothes and/or the Trainer’s Clothes (Costume)

Horse Leveling via Wagon or Solo?

You can connect 4 horses to a Merchant Wagon or Forest Path Wagon and level 4 horses at the same time.

So which horse leveling method is best?

There are a few things to consider before you level horses.

• Wagons give an overall greater amount of Mount Experience within the same time frame, but the exprience is split between 4 horses.
• Wagons nullify the set effects of horse costumes.
• Riding crops increase the speed of wagons.
• Wagons will take longer to level all 4 horses vs just one horse solo.
• Wagons potentially produce horses with lower skills.
• Enhanced wagon wheels will improve experience.

In other words, use a wagon, if you have 4 horses of low tier.

If the horse is a T9, or a T8 and you’re trying to obtain Courser status, don’t use a wagon.

Forest Path Wagon

Forest Path Wagon with Rush is the top tier wagon for the most mount experience gain.

Forest Rush is a skill like Instant Accel, causing greater speed.

Forest Path Wagon requires exchange quests and materials to obtain. Its greatest benefit is it has an unlimited Lifespan.

Forest Path Wagon Guide

All Wagon Stats

Merchant Wagon has the lowest cost and is the easiest wagon to craft for horse leveling. But Forest Path Wagon has the best stats, especially if you obtain and enhance the gear. Noble has 4 spaces for horses as well, but isn’t as fast.

Minature Elephant has the same LT as the Shabby Wagon after he is leveled to 15. Forest Path Wagon is considered BIS and has the largest weight capacity and excels in every stat except for base Speed. (This can be improved with gear.)

Example Horse Leveling Report

Training Professional 7

T8B Horse Coat, Level 20, +10 Light Iron Horseshoes

• Speed% 146.4
• Accel% 144.9
• Turn% 141.1
• Brake% 140.4

Source: Horse vs Wagon Horse Exp doc by Flippington Vain#1554

Horse Leveling Routes

You can save and load navigation routes from the World Map (M).

• RMB on the World Map to set and save 3 routes.
• Select “Set Looped Auto-Path”
• Path will turn green.
• Alt+RMB adds check points.
• Press T to travel the Auto-Path

• The routes are saved locally to your PC, so they won’t be loaded when you play from another PC.

• You can load and delete the saved routes by pressing the button “Retrive Looped Auto-Path” located at the bottom of the World Map.

Horse Leveling Route Best Practices

• Horse leveling routes should be as straight as possible
• You can be knocked off your horse or killed, if you auto-path outside a safe zone
  • Optionally designate a level 49 character to be your main trainer to avoid PVP
• Choose routes without rocks, monsters, and other obstacles in the way
• Watch the loop run once to make sure the loop will work well.
• Avoid any lag in your route (Some computers and connections will lag in large cities like Calpheon.)
• Some routes might be really good for solo horses, but awful for wagons.

Here are some example routes:

Route credit to ʝεŋʝıo (míѕѕ_чunα)

Route credit to Jezirea – NA

Route credit to KMD

Route credit to MesaFalcon

Sources & Additional Info

• Solo vs Wagon for best Training Exp by Xemp
• Horse vs Wagon Horse Exp doc by Flippington Vain#1554