Introduction
It's finally here! After years (no, I'm not joking) the stat revamp has finally arrived! In this post, I'll guide you through all of the different changes for each of the stats, explaining in detail how everything works. You can find the official list of changes here.
Goals
Before discussing the changes themselves, it's worth mentioning the primary goals of this revamp:
- To establish a clear identity for each of the three main stats: STR, DEX, and INT: For years, INT has been the only main stat with a clear, distinct identity - it trades weapon attack power in exchange for access to MP and spells. By contrast, STR and DEX have languished behind, each for different reasons. DEX was originally a secondary stat, relegated to providing only 20% of stat damage for Ranged attacks (the rest came from STR). It was also tied into the accuracy of every item type in the game (hence why everyone used it!). In an earlier stage of the stat revamp back in 2022, DEX was removed from the accuracy formula of most items and promoted to being the primary stat for Ranged gear. However, this wasn't perfect (Pet and Guest accuracy retained DEX) and the stat was never given an opportunity to really stand out from STR, which traditionally enjoyed access to a greater diversity of items. Meanwhile, STR's main problem stems from AQ's underlying balance model. Although the stat has always possessed a clear identity (consistent damage over time), the way that this was implemented meant that Warriors always felt inferior to Mages. Yet changing this was nigh impossible because Warriors were used as the underlying assumption for AQ's player turn model. Changing the power of Warrior, the model's baseline, would also inevitably affect every other build at the same time!
- Guests: It wasn't just the main stats either - the support stats also had their fair share of problems. Particularly CHA and Guests. The underlying model used to create Guests is so old that it harks back to the early days of the sweep (yes, more than 12 years ago!). Back in those days, it was intended that CHA would eventually become a main stat, a plan that never really materialised (nor could it now). The issue? Guests were designed with that goal in mind, featuring a ‘decompression’ bonus that was intended to be associated with CHA-scaling weapons (which also never became commonplace). This makes Guests incredibly overpowered. Before the revamp, they cost approximately 21.75% Melee (*0.2175 the value of a standard melee attack) to use per turn, but provided 60% Melee in return. To put this into perspective, it would be like using casting a standard skill, worth 200% melee, and gaining 28% melee in SP (110 SP at level 150). It would be so efficient that it wouldn't just erase the entire skill's SP cost, it would pay you back for some of your turn damage! [NB: For the nerds: 21.75/60 = 36.25%. 200*0.3625 = 72.5% Melee cost. This is 27.5% lower than the assumed melee turn value of your attack].
These are just two of an extensive list of problems that the stat revamp attempts to resolve, but hopefully I've given you an idea of just how important this update really is. With that said, some of you might have noticed: How would the staff manage that if they can't change STR? They managed it by adding Style Bonuses, a 15% Melee power budget for each stat that can be spent to help define it without encountering the pesky baseline problem. It's a big buff to player power, but one deemed necessary to achieve the above goals. It's important to note that these bonuses only kick in after you reach 155 of a given stat. and only then at 25% strength. They scale up to their maximum power with additional investments into the stat, capping out once you reach 250.
So, with that in mind, onto the changes!
[NB: For those wondering what “balance” is, please see this post produced by the staff. For a detailed look at AQ’s game mechanics, please see here.
Strength [STR]
Base Changes:
- Warrior Lean: One of the big problems with STR was the lack of 100-proc melee weapons (weapons with 100% chance of activating a weapon special). Since weapon specials don't respect armour lean, 100-proc weapons are far more efficient in FD, dealing x1 damage while the player only intakes x0.8. As Warriors lacked widespread access to these weapons, they've never been able to compete with Rangers or Mages. This is what Warrior lean tries to solve. Now, if a player with STR uses Melee weapons in FD armours, Warrior lean will ensure those weapons deal x1 damage, approximating the 100-proc weapons. This gives Warrior a crucial competitive boost, allowing them to compete on fairer terms.
Style Bonus:
- +10% Weapon damage: Simple, but effective. Warrior deals more damage with weapon based attacks in keeping with the consistent damage theme. This applies to all weapons, but only for those people with enough STR. [NB: This does not apply to weapon specials or spell type skills. Most weapon click skills aren't boosted either because they're typically treated as 'bow' attacks, which are also excluded].
- Backhand: Whenever you're hit by your foe, you'll strike back for a single hit of damage that follows your weapon type (Melee, Ranged, Magic), worth 2.5% Melee per hit. The more hits, the better the return!
Dexterity [DEX]
Base Changes:
- Opportunism: The player now tracks the number of times they hit and miss with Ranged attacks. Your accuracy is then adjusted according to the number of each, with the adjustment depending on the total number of hits conencted minus the number of misses multiplied by two:
BTH modifier: -85*(Total)^2 / (Total^2 + 32*Total)
- I know this looks confusing, so here's an example: Let's assume you attempt four ranged hits on a turn. Before you start, your BTH lean is Neutral (0 points, +0 bth lean, *85/85 damage). Let's now assume you landed three of those attempts, and missed one. Since you hit three times, you'll gain one point for each hit. Since you missed one, you'll then lose two points 0 + 3 - 2 = 1 point. Therefore your value of Total is 1. From there:
-85*1^2 / (1^2 + 32*1) = -2.58 bth lean
- So, how does Total work? It's an iterative and dynamic value that constantly changes, accumulating over the course of a single battle. Keep registering hits and your accuracy lean will continue to drop (reduced BTH, with a corresponding increase in damage). Repeatedly miss and the opposite will happen. The total BTH lean you can accrue has no cap. However, if your BTH lean exceeds 20 (or -20), an additional penalty is taken without the full corresponding compensation. Also, this doesn't get affected by autohit mechanics
- Take a look at the attached graph, which demonstrates your BTH lean at different values of Total. While this might be obvious, keep in mind that you're expected hit far more than you miss. So, while misses are valued twice as much as any hit on the scale, you're going to ramp upwards significantly faster (i.e. gain an inaccurate BTH lean) than you ramp down.
- Why would you want this? Opportunism ensures that Rangers will always be able to take advantage of the situation. Against monsters that are easy to hit, you can maximise your damage output by taking advantage of the BTH you don't need. Meanwhile, against evasive monsters you can sacrifice some of your damage to increase your chances of landing a hit!
- Pets + Guests: DEX no longer factors into the accuracy of pets and guests! Beastmasters rejoice! It also means non-beastmasters don't have to worry about your companions missing most of the time!
Style Bonus:
- Increased Accuracy: +4.25 BTH. Fairly simple. If you're confused about how accuracy works in AQ, see here.
- Proc Mastery: Weapon specials gain a bonus relative to the item's proc rate:
Bonus: + [15 * log(rate) / log(100)] %
- Check out the graph to see how this works. Logarithms are essentially inverse exponents/powers. The log function works extremely well in AQ because the vast majority of weapons in AQ either have a 100% chance of activating a weapon special, or have a chance set at 20% or below. While 0-proc weapons receive no boost at all, the full 15% is given to 100-procs. This further helps to distinguish Rangers from Warriors given the lack of 100-proc Melee weapons. Proc-mastery applies to all attacks tagged as weapon-based or weapon specials. However, it also boosts specials that don't normally receive effects from your weapons either, assuming a proc rate of 100%. An example of this type of attack is Lt. Lore's Shield.
Intellect [INT]
Base Changes:
- Nothing: INT is one of the few stats that's working as intended, so there wasn't a need to change its base behaviour!
Style Bonus:
- Wallbreaker: The main goal of the INT style bonus was to prevent it from becoming substantially more powerful than it already was. So, instead of directly raising the power ceiling, it was decided to provide Mages with some additional versatility. This is what lead to the proposal of a wallbreaker mechanic, where spell-type attacks that strike an element below 100% resistance would deal additional damage:
Bonus: +[(100 - [Resistance] ) / 130 * 100]%
- How does this work? Essentially, the lower the resistance, the greater the bonus will be. To show how this affects damage, see the table below. Sparing you the details, above 80% resistance, it's better to use a normal element than Harm. Above 60%, multi-elemental spells will do better than harm (though keep in mind most of the enemy's resistances must be higher than 60% for this to apply). Above 35% resistance, a spell with an elecomp modifier of *1.7 will be better than harm. This affects the base resistance directly, though due to coding difficulties it won't work with most status effects. Please note: This only applies to spell-type attacks. It won't work if you strike with your weapon, or using a weapon based skill.
| Base Res. | Modified Res. |
| 100 | 100 |
| 90 | 96.92 |
| 80 | 92.31 |
| 70 | 86.15 |
| 60 | 78.46 |
| 50 | 69.23 |
| 40 | 58.46 |
| 30 | 46.15 |
| 20 | 32.31 |
| 10 | 16.92 |
Endurance [END]
Base Changes:
- Nothing: END already received some baseline changes back in 2022. Reiterating those here:
- 1). Both the player and monster gains +END/50 status resistance
- 2). Both the player and monster gains +END/20% damage to incoming HP healing.
NB: The bonuses monsters receive for these mechanics are unintended
Style Bonus:
- Unstoppable: Once every 10 turns, the player is able to break out of a stun effect (e.g., Paralysis, Daze, Control, Freeze) for free. This effect is applied before any other kind of unstoppable effect so you don't waste them.
Charisma [CHA]
Base Changes:
- Guests: A major issue with this update, as described above, was the overpowered nature of Guests. As such, Guests have been slightly reduced in power. They now deal 45% Melee baseline (25% reduction, 60 -> 45), and cost 30% Melee (117 SP / 157 MP at Level 150) per turn to use. This is a power reduction from the previous 60% output and 21.75% cost baselines. Yes, Guests are still absurdly overpowered. This approach was chosen to prevent the power drop from being too severe. In addition, to reiterate from above: DEX no longer contributes to Pet/Guest accuracy. This means non-Beastmasters can use pets without fear of them missing all of the time!
Style Bonus:
- Guest Power: To further alleviate the drop, the staff decided to increase the baseline power of Guests to 50% Melee.
- Guest Ferocious Strikes: To further further alleviate the drop, the staff incorporated Ferocious strikes, essentially similar to a lucky strike mechanic but exclusively applied to Guests amd is based on CHA rather than LUK. Each turn, the Guest has a 20% chance to perform a Ferocious strike, in which its damage is doubled, affecting everything the Guest does (not just damage. NB: This doesn't affect booster Guests.).
- The above changes mean that, on average, a Guest will be outputting 60% Melee (the same as now) and costs 30% Melee to use.
- Yes, all the changes affect Guests. This is done deliberately because the drop would otherwise have been considerably more severe. Even so, Guests were still made to be overpowered. To summarise, non-beastmasters have Guests at 45/30. Beastmasters have their's at closer to 60/30, with 50 provided baseline and a further 10 through Ferocious strikes.
Luck [LUK]
Base Changes:
- BTH/MRM: LUK no longer contributes to your blocking or your BTH (the player now gets the BTH baseline). These were problematic assumptions because they were attributed to a stat that the player isn't expected to use (it's a support stat, not a main stat)
- Lucky Breaks: The player now has a LUK/50% (max 5%) chance to attempt a Lucky break during their turn. What is this? Essentially, this mechanic converts a negative status effect on the a player into a positive one. This mechanic applies before any status break effects to prevent them from being wasted. The convertion depends on the status:
- DOTs: Bleed/Burn/Disease/Poison/Prismatic Burn/Spiritual Seed -> Regeneration (1 turn, Power: 5)
- Damage Reduction: Blind/Choked/The Cold/Panic -> Elemental Empowerment (1 turn, x1.357 to all elements)
- Inaction: Control/Daze/Fear/Freeze/Paralyse/Sleep -> 50% chance of Celerity (1 turn, player only)
- Defence Loss -> Defence Boost (1 turn, +30 blocking)
- Elemental Vulnerability -> Elemental Shield (1 turn, x0.643 damage, same element as the elemental vulnerability)
- Mindlock -> Regain Mana (any element, worth 40% of a standard spell cost for the level)
- Main Stats: Brain Drain/Buffet/Cripple/Entangle/Offbalance -> Strength Boost, Intellect Boost, or Smooth (+DEX) based on your highest stat (1 turn, up to +156.33 [Stat])
- Fragile -> Tenacious (1 turn, up to +156.33 END)
- Repulsive -> Suave (1 turn, up to +156.33 CHA)
- Unlucky -> Lucky (1 turn, up to +156.33 LUK)
Style Bonus:
- 'Lucky' Lucky Breaks: Up to +15% chance for a Lucky break to occur (20% total).
Miscellaneous Changes
- Monsters that possess END now have less HP across the board, since they were a bit too tanky
- Attacks that autohit now have their BTH lean set to a max of +20
- Spellcaster Lean armours no longer boost healing spells. This also means that FO armours won't be able to boost any future weapon-based healing effects (gotta keep it fair for everyone!)
- Attack accuracy can now no longer drop below 5%. This is in response to certain dodge-based playstyles that essentially prevented your foe from hitting you at all.
- Many combat log messages have been updated (check your character hotbar in battle to access this feature)
As you can see, there's a huge number of changes associated with this stat update. It's taken an incredible amount of work (and no shortage of arguments) to make all this function. With that in mind, it's worth thanking:
- Ianthe: The main coder behind all of the above. Ianthe has worked through countless files over a period of months to get this working, not to mention coding all of the changes described above. It cannot be understated just how important their contributions have been (and will no doubt continue to be).
- Kamui: The other coder behind the scenes, Kamui has had to bear the brunt of normal weekly releases while Ianthe has been working on this update, as well as having to contribute to the discussions. Incredible work Kam!
- Lorekeeper: A cornerstone of the community, Lorekeeper takes a huge amount of time to interact and relay community feedback on these changes. The results above simply wouldn't have been possible without them.
- AnimAnimalKing: Incredible artist, and much like Lorekeeper invaluable in relaying feedback on this topic.
- Ward_Point: Forum moderator that's been participating in discussions and managing the extremely heated debates that inevitably arise from such a controversial topic.
- Hollow: The main lead of AQ, and the primary director organising these major updates. and finally...
- You! The community. A number of the ideas in the above list of changes were suggestions made by the community. That kind of feedback makes a massive difference to the continuing success of AQ.