The Striker and Mystic, two martial artist classes in Black Desert Online, use up a special skill resource called Martial Spirit Shards. In many cases, Martial Spirit Shards are used to pull enemies or monsters towards the player and gain buffs by using Flow: Prey Hunt, but they can also be used to enhance certain skills and inflict greater damage. Additionally, they let players use survival skills while they’re on cooldown.

Martial Spirit Shards can be obtained by using some of the Mystic’s specific skills; some skills let you obtain several at once, while some skills won’t give any Shards at all. If you are looking for efficient ways to fight, coming up with skill combos that will allow you to gain Martial Spirit Shards in the most effective way will certainly be convenient. Remember, the Thunder Pound, Elbow Edge, Soul Basher skill combos are main skills that will let you fill up all your Martial Spirit Shards.

The UI for Martial Spirit Shards appear as 3 holes when playing as Mystic, and one hole will be filled up whenever 10 Shards are obtained. Once all 3 holes are filled up, they will shine. The Martial Spirit Shards are used in stacks of 10, and in some special occasions, all 30 are used.

◆ Activate Flow: Prey Hunt, the core skill for the Mystic

Crouching Wolf pulls enemies towards the Mystic by creating a burst of energy around the character and increases attack speed by 10%, making it an essential skill used during combat. Using Crouching Wolf when there are 30 Martial Spirit Shards will automatically activate Flow: Prey Hunt.

Flow: Prey Hunt can be seen as the enhanced version of Crouching Wolf. It inflicts damage and stiffens enemies while the player’s attack speed increases from 10% to 20%. Not only that, it is a great help during combat since the number of hits and AoE for Thunder Pound and Rage Hammer increase when Flow: Prey Hunt is activated. 

It is no exaggeration to say that players are gathering Martial Spirit Shards solely to use Prey Hunt, so it is important for players to always activate Crouching Wolf in between their skill combos to keep Flow: Prey Hunt activated.

◆ Use Martial Spirit Shards for more powerful skills

There aren’t many skills that become more powerful by using Martial Spirit Shards. The the skills most-used with the Shards include Soul Basher, Roaring Tiger, Flow: Rib Crusher, and all you need to make these skills stronger is just use the skill when you have 30 Shards, and it will automatically consume 10 and activate the enhanced version of the skill.

Once the Mystic’s skills become enhanced with the Shards, their damage will be increased. The increased amount has yet to be confirmed, but you can see that the damage will increase by 70%~80% when you hit a target with Soul Basher.

◆ Use survival skills constantly to stay alive

Pre-Awakenened Mystic has two survival skills, Flash Step and Silent Step, both of wich can be used to move forward and backward, and sideways. The cooldown for these skills is around 4 seconds when their 3rd levels are unlocked. The cooldown may not be that long, but it won’t seem short enough when you are surrounded by enemies and need to escape immediately.

However, using 10 Martial Spirit Shards will let you use your survival skill even during its cooldown. You don’t have to wait until you collect 30 Shards; you can consume whatever number of Shards you have at the moment. This means that if one of the UI for the Martial Spirit Shards are filled, you can use your survival skill during its cooldown.

▲ You can use Flash Step, one of your survival skills, 3 more times.

▲ You can use Silent Step, one of your survival skills, 3 more times.

◆ Collect 30 Martial Spirit Shards with Thunder Pound, Elbow Edge, and Soul Basher

= The estimates of Martial Spirit Shards that can be obtained for each skill

※ This estimation was based on an experiment done with a Mystic over level 50.

The Mystic can gain a different number of Martial Spirit Shards for each skill, and even the number of Shards obtained will differ depending on the order of the hits within one skill. For example, the skill Thunder Pound can be divided into several hits and one shot; while hitting the target several times will earn you a single Shard, finishing off your enemy within one shot will earn you 6 Shards. Also, the number of Shards you can gain when using Thunder Pound will increase during Flow: Prey Hunt.

The table for the estimation on the Mystic’s Martial Spirit Shards was put in order according to skills preferred by most players. One interesting fact is that 30 Martial Spirit Shards can be obtained via the most player-preferred skills. You can gain 14 Shards using Thunder Pound’s skill combo, which is Flow: Death Clout, Combo: Splinter Thud, and Combo: Bolster Thump , while you can gain 6 Shards through Elbow Edge, and 10 Shards through using Soul Basher and Flow: Blowdrive, which will make up 30 Shards in total. However, Combo: Hurricane and Flow: Tornado Kick are exceptions.

▲ You will be able to fill up 30 Martial Spirit Shards if you use the main skill combos, which are the Thunder Pound combo, Elbow Edge combo, and Soul Basher combo.