Secret cow level

Introduction[]

This page is intended as a short guide for terms used in this guide, and their implications. It is generally advised to read this to get a better grasp of how comparisons are made.

The AQ Team[]

These fine folks are the people responsible for keeping the game running:

(The) Hollow: Artist and AQ's overall lead.
AnimAnimalking: Artist.
Lorekeeper: AQ's lead writer.
Ianthe: AKA Best Girl. One of AQ's two main programmers, alongside Kamui.
Kamui: One of AQ's two main programmers, alongside Ianthe.
Cap'n: Captain Rhubarb. AE's go-to for anything database-related.

Essential Mechanical Terms[]

These terms are used when describing core gameplay mechanics.

IMPORTANT NOTE
This is only a brief overview of the mechanics of AQ. For a more in-depth dive into mechanics, see here.

HP/MP/SP: Health Points, Mana Points, and Skill Points respectively. The three resources both players and monsters can use.

Resource Conversion: Certain items (such as Essence Orb and most modern (2018 onwards) Heromart Calendar weapons) "convert" a resource into another form (former converts HP to SP, while the latter damages SP instead of HP). When converting in this manner, the final value is calculated using the following ratio: 1 HP = 1.125 SP = 1.5 MP.

Stats: There are six stats in AQ:

Strength: STR. Scales Melee damage and accuracy.
Dexterity: DEX. Scales Ranged damage and accuracy.
- Opportunism: Player-exclusive mechanic. Accuracy (and damage) of Ranged attacks dynamically update based on how many times the player hits or misses in a single battle.
Intelligence: INT. Scales Magic damage and accuracy alongside providing MP.
- Mainstat: STR/DEX/INT are considered the three "mainstats" of AQ, which all builds are expected to have at least one of.
Endurance: END. Scales HP, healing, and makes statuses harder to inflict onto the player.
Charisma: CHA. Scales Pet/Guest damage and accuracy.
- Note: CHA provides all stat damage, while only providing half the accuracy to Pets and Guests. The remaining accuracy comes from having a mainstat.
Luck: LUK. Affects the chance of inflicting (most) statuses, and enables Lucky Strikes and Breaks.
- Lucky Strike: LS. If Luck is not 0 (positive or negative), all attacks have a 10% chance of being (Un)Lucky Strikes, adding a large portion of LUK as extra stat damage for calculations.
- Lucky Breaks: Player-exclusive mechanic. Every turn, most detrimental statuses have a (LUK/50)% chance of "inverting", replacing that status with their positive equivalent with a fixed power, regardless of how strong (or weak) the removed stus was.

Initiative: A modifier that is added on top of the initial roll to see who goes first. The Initiative bonus is derived from a combination of total Mainstats and LUK (proportionally, every 5 points of LUK is worth 10 points of any one Mainstat).

If the total difference of this value is ever over 100, whoever has the larger bonus will always go first.
Assuming both player and monster have the same total Initiative modifier, the chance of either going first is 50%.

BtH: Bonus to Hit. A direct numerical modifier to accuracy. All things have some sort of built-in BtH, which is further scaled by stat investment.

Assumed Hitrate: Assuming no other modifiers to accuracy and "expected" stat investment for players for their level, the average hitrate for both players and monsters is 85%.
BtH lean: A specific type of BtH modifier. All items and monsters have some sort of BtH lean. In terms of gameplay, BtH leans provides varying amounts of (in)accuracy in exchange for damage. An accurate (i.e. >0) lean results in greater accuracy, but reduced damage, while an inaccurate (i.e. <0) lean results in greater damage but reduced accuracy. Mathematically, the average damage will always be the same regardless of BtH lean, ignoring outside modifiers to hitrate. Because of this, BtH lean modifiers on items are considered "free" effects that do not require to be paid for in any way.
- Berserk: A special status that provides a negative BtH lean modifier with appropriate damage compensation. Multiple sources of Berserk stack. (i.e. two -15 Berserks will lower overall BtH by -30 and provide the appropriate damage compensation, contrary to the tooltip).
Auto-Hit: Certain items bypass accuracy entirely and never miss. By ignoring accuracy, they instead take a 0.85x penalty to emulate the "expected average" damage.
- Note: Auto-Hit's penalty has been reduced multiple times due to changing standards. Auto-Hit items between 2022 and Spring 2024 deal 0.8x damage (LUK was part of the hit formula ), while any items before 2022 instead deal 0.65x damage (DEX and LUK were part of the hit formula).

Elements: AQ has 10 elements, split into two categories:

8 Standard Elements (Fire/Water/Wind/Ice/Earth/Energy/Light/Darkness).
2 Nonstandard Elements (Harm/Void).
- Harm is effectively "neutral" damage, as most monsters have 100% Harm resistance. In practice however this is actually 90% resistance, as Harm damage always takes a 0.9x damage penalty unless paid for in some way.
- Void is an extremely rare element, split into two types:
  - "True" Void is the most powerful element in the game, as monsters always have 200% Void resistance (i.e. takes "double" damage) outside of thematic or lore reasons. Player sources of True Void are few and far between, and all require hopping through hoops to access, either only triggered against specific enemies, or requiring impractical amounts of setup on a battle-by-battle basis.
  - "Fake" (or Flavour) Void is reserved for items that should be dealing Void damage for thematic or lore reasons, but shouldn't be doing "True" Void due to balance. In gameplay terms, it is identical to Harm, barring modified Void and/or Harm resistance.
There are also a number of non-standard "Elements" represented by a White "?" symbol that are rarely applied. These include Neutral, Death, Purple, Snuggles, and Holy. These "elements" are used exclusively for thematic or lore reasons, such as Power Word Die being Death element.

MRM: Melee/Ranged/Magic. The three possible damage types anything can do (separate from element).

Melee %: The basic mechanics of AQ are calculated and standardised relative to the value of a standard Melee attack. Values within these calculations are commonly communicated on the Melee% (synonymous with %Melee) metric, referring to the percentage of a standard Melee attack. As a general rule of thumb:

Player actions are valued at 100% Melee.
- Melee/Ranged Weapon damage (i.e. by pressing the attack button) is valued at 100% Melee, while Magic Weapon damage is valued at 75% Melee.
Spells/Skills are valued at 200% Melee.
- Efficient Spells/Skills are valued at 125% Melee (Pays -75% Melee in cost to deal -37.5% damage).
  - Note: Older Efficient spells were instead valued at 150% Melee (Pay -50% Melee in cost and deals -25% damage).
- Overcharged Spells/Skills are valued at 250% Melee (Pays +50% Melee in cost to deal +25% damage).
  - Note: Older Overcharged spells were instead valued at ~241.66% Melee (Pay 4/3x cost and deals +20.83% damage).
- "Burst" Spells (Destruction Burst, Warmaster's Burst, $35 Token Package Spells) are valued at 300% Melee (pays +100% Melee in cost in HP to deal +50% damage).
- Counter-intuitively, these values are achieved by using an additive reduction to damage (IE in the same step as a damage booster such as Poelala), making damage boosters have a disproportionately stronger effect with efficient, and disproportionately weaker wtih overcharged.
Pets are valued at 40% Melee.
Guests are valued at 45% Melee.
- With CHA investment however, Guests are instead valued at 60% Melee.
Monster actions are valued at 140% Melee.

Melee % Values at 150: Standard % Melee costs at Level 150 are paid to increase the damage of standard weapon attacks to bring them up to skill level (200% Melee). This means Warriors/Rangers, with weapon attacks valued at 100% Melee, pay 100% Melee in resources. As Mage weapon attacks are worth less (75% melee), they pay 125% Melee instead. Within this context, standard resource costs at Level 150 are as follows:

HP: 348 / 435
- Note: HP costs standards were updated long ago. Items with an HP cost released before this change that haven't been updated instead value 100% Melee in HP as 151.
SP: 392 / 490
MP: 653
- Note: Warriors/Rangers don't gain access to MP. MP uses Magic costs.

Melee % Normalization: Due to the fact that Spells, Skills and player Magic damage aren't actually valued at 100% Melee, anything that provides a damage boost not explicitly stated in Melee % must be modified accordingly:

Boosts to Magic weapon damage receives a 4/3x multiplier.
Spells/Spell-Type Skills receive a 1/2x multiplier.
- In practice, this is applied primarily to generic damage boosts or bonus BtH. For example, if an item gives +20% damage and +10 BtH to all player damage, they will be normalized to the following values:
  - +33% damage and +13 BtH for Magic weapon damage.
  - +10% damage and +5 BtH for Spells/Skills.
Colloquially this is also known as Mage Level Boosts, as this normalization most often affects Mages.

Mastercraft: MC. Mastercraft is a bonus most modern items have, providing a little extra to the item. In gameplay terms, a MC'd item costs 5% more gold (if they cost gold), and provides a 5% increase in power relative to the item's base power (i.e. Pet MC provides 2% Melee, Guest MC provides 3% Melee, Magic MC provides 3.75% Melee, Spell MC provides 10% Melee, and Melee/Ranged/Armour/Shield MC provides 5% Melee).

Flavour Effects: Certain items can receive additional bonuses by paying an equal amount of something else, such as Bloodblades paying 15% Melee in HP to deal +15% Melee worth of damage. These are called flavour effects, and technically have limit on how much can be paid.

Commonly used Modifiers: In the context of item effects, there's a common set of modifiers that can be keyworded:

Auto-Hit: 0.85x (This penalty is generally applied to "passive" effects that don't require hits, such as Bun-Banneret's Defense Boost).
Always-Useful: 0.9x (Applies if something is never a "bad" option to use; Harm damage and healing receive the Always-Useful Penalty unless otherwise paid for in different ways).
Omni: 0.6x (Applies if whatever effect is being provided is always optimal; Deathless Knight has an Omni penalty due to following the player's weapon element, while Dunamis, Therdna and Poelala all receive an Omni penalty due to providing a generic boost to all Melee/Ranged/Magic damage respectively).
- Note: It is functionally impossible to "intuitively" know whether to apply Always-Useful or Omni due to years of improper implementation; Dunamis/Therdna/Poelala each have the Omni penalty for boosting all damage of a specific type (Melee/Ranged/Magic respectively), yet Invincible Star/Heart only has the Always-Useful penalty despite reducing all damage received (including Harm and Void) with its provided EleShield effect.
Outlevel Formula: This is reserved for effects that provide a fixed boost in power regardless of the item's level (EG Dunamis/Therdna/Poelala); the final value is modified based on the relative difference in the item's power level and the player's actual character level; the higher the player's level is relative to the item's power level, the weaker the effect, and vice-versa. Because of this interaction, items with an outlevel formula are actually 1.029x stronger at 150, due to their actual power level being 153.

Trigger: Certain items (such as the various Dragon Blades) have triggers, granting additional power when certain circumstances are met. Triggers work in the following ways:

The item's base power is reduced by a certain amount, typically in intervals of 5%, known as a downtrigger.
When an item's trigger is met, twice the downtrigger is added back in some way, typically damage (EG a weapon that deals +10% damage vs dragons deals -5% damage vs nondragons as their downtrigger).
- If the trigger can be player-controlled however, it is only worth 1.5x the amount paid (EG Macka-lot Buckler pays MC (5% Melee) to have a trigger-based damage reduction (normally -(10/1.4)% damage taken). But because the effect is determined by something the player can freely manipulate (in this case, their CHA stat), it is reduced to reducing damage by (7.5/1.4)%.)

Armour Lean: Every (modern) armour has a built-in armour lean, multiplicatively modifying damage dealt and taken.

Fully Offensive (FO): 1.25x.
- Spellcaster: A derivative of Fully-Offensive. 1.0x outgoing damage, 1.25x incoming damage, and Spells deal 1.375x damage.
Neutral: 1.0x.
Fully Defensive: 0.8x.
- Warrior Lean: Melee weapons will always deal at least neutral damage (1.0x) in FD armours.

Base/Random: The damage range of an item.

BR Lean: Everything in AQ has some sort of Base/Random Lean, slanting their damage range to either be stable (high base) or unstable (high random), changing damage variance while retaining the same average damage.

Proc Rate: In the context of weapons, their Proc rate determines the likelihood of their special occurring instead of an armour attack, dealing increased damage. The higher the Proc rate, the less damage a special will do. Additionally, weapon specials ignores an armour's Lean when calculating damage.

Note: The damage of weapon specials have been increased numerous times over the years. When looking at Info-Subs, the damage of a modern 20-Proc weapon special is ~1650%, while the damage of an outdated 20-Proc is 1435%.
0-Proc: The vast majority of weapons do not have a special, and are referred to as 0-Proc weapons. In lieu of having a special that deals increased damage, 0-Proc weapons instead receive a +9% bonus, generally to damage. However, more modern weapons (such as (Mystic) Caissa) have started to use their 0-Proc bonus for effects rather than damage.
- Note: 0-Proc's damage was updated long ago. Extremely old 0-Proc weapons instead receive a 1.09x multiplier to their damage.
100-Proc: Some weapons have a 100% Proc rate, dealing "standard" damage (i.e. the same damage if using a Neutral armour). Mechanically, 100-Proc weapons are treated as 0-Proc weapons, receiving a 1.1x damage multiplier. However, 100-Procs can still have a proc-based special, colloquially referred to as a "true" special. In this situation, the 1.1x damage multiplier no longer applies.

Compression: Certain items can "compress" multiple items into one slot. Typically, this is elemental compression (non-armours), or skill(s) (armours). In gameplay terms, compression is paid for in two ways:

The act of compression itself is valued at 5% of an item's power (i.e. it can be paid for with Mastercraft, which is how it's typically paid).
If the item cost gold, the total gold cost accounts for the gold cost of each thing that is compressed, massively inflating the price of said item (EG War's Legacy is the single most expensive armour in the game for coming with three skills).

Skills: Certain items come with built-in skills, paying resources (usually SP) to deal greatly increased damage. Skills are worth 5% of an item's power (i.e. if present, Mastercraft is used to compress them). Skills come in three flavours:

Spell-Type: Is treated as a Spell. As such, receives boost normalization.
Weapon-based: Is treated as a normal attack from the armour. Does not receive boost normalization. Additionally benefits from effects of the currently equipped weapon, if any.
Normal Attack: An outdated standard for skills that no longer appear on moderns items. Functionally, they are Weapon-based skills that do not receive any effects from equipped weapons.

EleComp: Elemental Compensation. A multiplier that is provided as compensation to armours (and some shields), whose value is based on how poorly of a matchup an element is relative to the armour's stats. The worse the matchup, the greater the bonus. The exact method of calculating EleComp is incredibly complex and far beyond the scope of this page.

EleComp acts as a final multiplier, and is applied in one of two ways:
- Increasing damage dealt (EG Bloodmages' built-in Spells feeds EleComp into damage).
  - Additionally, if they come with a status, EleComp can also applied to the status' power (EG GPS vGGd-BIO uses EleComp to multiply the power of the Poison it inflicts).
- Reducing resource cost (EG Torontosaurus Rex's built-in skill uses EleComp to reduce the SP cost).
- As a rule of thumb, Spell-Type skills/Elelocks uses EleComp to increase damage dealt, while weapon-based skills uses EleComp to reduce resource cost. Anything that doesn't follow these standards are exceptions, rather than the norm (EG Santa Avenger has a Weapon-based skill with EleComp to damage while Knightmare Plate has a Spell-Type skill with EleComp to cost).
- Normal Attack Skills all receive EleComp to damage, using an older formula to have much higher EleComp than what is achievable on modern items.

Quickcast: If an item is considered quickcast, it does not take up the player's turn to use. To pay for this, the following penalties are applied:

The Melee % of a player's action is ignored (i.e. the total Melee % is equal to whatever the cost is to use).
Lucky Strikes are disabled.
EleComp is not applied.
Additionally, (modern) quickcast effects have some sort of cooldown before they can be used again (Invincible Star/Heart), or have a cap on how often they can be used in once turn (ZFinity Gauntlets) to prevent abuse.

Set Bonus: A boost provided to the player as compensation for using a set. A set requires at least two pieces to receive any form of bonus. Colloquially a 3-piece Weapon/Armour/Shield set (such as a Mastercraft set from Warlic's shop) is referred to as a Full Set Bonus (FSB). For each piece past the first piece, a Set Bonus provides 5% Melee worth of effects (i.e. a normal FSB is worth 10% Melee).

Potence: In the context of status infliction, Potence is an additive modifier to the save roll, making it easier to inflict (or resist). Within the context of implementation, Potence has the following valuations per 5% Melee:

All (Omni): +5.
Singular Status(es): +20.
Note: Due to quirks in how it's implemented, Backlash is unaffected by Omni Potence; only explicit Backlash Potence works.

Potence Rules: Non-Omni Potence has additional rules that determine how much they get to provide:

If an item provides Potence and cannot inflict the status they are boosting, they receive full bonuses (EG Umazen Aspis gives +20 Paralyze Potence because it cannot inflict Paralyze by itself).
If an item provides Potence and is able to inflict the status they are boosting, whatever Potence they provide is halved (EG Doomlight shields only give +10 Backlash Potence because the shield itself also provides Backlash).

GGB: Golden Giftbox. Functionally AQ's equivalent of lootboxes. Split into three rarities:

Common (C).
Rare (R) (not to confused with an item being Rare).
UltraRare (UR).

Holidays/Events[]

AQ has various holidays and events, the former generally coinciding with their real-life counterparts.

Major[]

These are the major holidays and events, having large releases (and in the case of holidays, being celebrated in-universe):

Snugglefest: Valentine's Day.
GGB Crossover Extravaganza: February.
Blarney: St. Patrick's Day.
Dage GGB Crossover Extravaganza: March.
April Fool's Day: April Fool's Day.
Grenwog: Easter.
Rainbow Path Festival: Pride Month.
Harvest Festival: American Thanksgiving.
Frostvale: All of December (encompasses both Christmas and New Year's).

Minor[]

These holidays technically don't have an in-universe analogue, but have dedicated releases to them nonetheless, albeit not large enough to be considered major:

Thursday the 12th: Friday the 13th.
May 4th: May 4th.
Cinco de Mayo: Early May.
Mother's Day: Mid-May.
American Memorial Day: End of May.
Father's Day: Mid-late June.
Canada/Anerican Independence Day: First week of July.
Shark Week: Mid-July.
Talk Like a Pirate Day: Talk like a Pirate Day.

Equipment Abbreviations[]

Angry Lemon - Angra Linnorm

AoS - Angel of Souls

AoA - Armour of Awe. Note there are plenty of "of Awe" items, each of which can be abbreviated in a similar fashion

BoA - Blade of Awe

BC - Blood Contract

Celtic - Refers to the Celtic Wheel shield, or more generally, the water shields of all levels from the Celtic MC set. It's loved for its ability to toggle to boost INT.

CIT - Chieftain's Ironthorn

CR72 - CR72. Extremely potent panic inflicting pet and guest.

Cutlass - Generally refers to the Arcane Cutlasses, a series of UR GGB weapons which boost spell damage by 30% for their respective elements.

D-aura - Dragonslayer Aura

DB - Dragon Blade

DBurst - Destruction Burst

EOC - Essence Of Carnage

FaTS - Fat and Tacky Santa

FBZ - Fireball Z

FGM - Fairy Godmother

Gauntlets - Refers to the Zfinity Gauntlet Misc items. Does not include the Murderator Gauntlet, which doesn't belong to the series

Grakma - A monster, but generally refers to the Grakma Harbinger misc, which can apply berserk to the player. It also can summon a guest, and gives 35% CHA and 50% fire resistance.

Poe - Poelala

PVF - Predatory Vampire Form

PWD - Powerword Die

SWF - Savage Werewolf Form

UDSoE - Ultimate Dragon Scythe of Elements

WKZ - White Knight Z

WOS - Warlic's Oblivion Sphere (has been updated. Lvl 150 version gives +50 INT and LUK instead of +45.)