Introduction[]
Back by popular demand, this time I’ll be taking you through the basics of accuracy. To be honest, a big part of why it’s taken so long for me to write this post is that I wanted to wait until after the stat revamp. However, with Frostval fast approaching, it feels like the next update might not be until next year. I’ll update this post with the necessary changes if and when that update finally comes.
A lot of what I’ll be discussing was originally calculated by Jeanne, Queen of Arcs, so a massive thank you to them!
Visit the Content Hub for other parts of this series
Calculating Player Accuracy[]
This section describes how to calculate the accuracy of your attack. You can calculate your accuracy using the formulae below:
Chance to hit: (100 + Player Accuracy – Monster Blocking ) / 100 Player Accuracy: Weapon BTH + Armour BTH + Stat BTH OR Spell BTH + Stat BTH Monster Blocking: Monster MRM + Monster Stat blocking
Each player gains a certain amount of BTH (or ‘bonus to hit’) from their weapon and armour (or spell), as well as from their stats. Monsters gain the ability to block from their Melee/Magic/Ranged Defenses, as well as their stats.
I’ll show you how to calculate the standard accuracy for a Level 150 player. To keep things simple, they’ll be using the same assumptions as in my post on Damage. This means they’ll be using a Pyromancer Bloodblade in the Pyromancer Bloodmage armour. Our monster will be entirely standard (average MRM defences, a standard stat build of 275 STR, 250 DEX and 225 LUK).
Player Accuracy[]
Weapon BTH refers to the base amount of accuracy attached to a weapon. Like Weapon Base and Random, you can find this value on the Weapon encyclopedia entry, as well as in-game. For a level 150 pyromancer bloodblade, this value is 19. Similarly, we can also find Armour BTH on the respective encyclopedia page. This also turns out to be 19. Please also note that, as of the 2024 stat update, the player doesn't get any additional bth from LUK.:
Player Accuracy: 19 + 19 + Stat BTH
Stat BTH is a little more complicated and varies depending on the type of attack:
Melee: STR*4/25 Ranged: DEX*4/25 Magic: INT*4/25 Pets & Guests: CHA*3/40 + [MainStat]*3/40
As in our previous example in the Damage thread, we’ll assume our player has 250 INT (with the above, MainStat should be treated as the highest of STR, DEX and INT):
Stat BTH: 250 * 4/25 = 40
When we plug this in:
Player Accuracy = 19 + 19 + 40 = 78 BTH
Monster Blocking[]
To calculate the second part of our formula, we need to know how likely it is our monster will block the attack. The first part of this calculation is its Melee/Ranged/Magic Defense. For an average monster level 111 or higher, we calculate this as:
Enemy MRM: FLOOR( Level / 4 + 55) FLOOR(150/4 + 55) = 92
(Due to rounding, we see both 92 and 93 appear in-game!). Finally, we combined player accuracy and monster blocking to get our chance to hit:
Chance to hit = (100 + 83 – 92 ) / 100 = 0.86
This means the player will land this attack 86% of the time (we assume 85% accuracy so it's slightly out).
Please note that, as of the 2024 stat update, player and monster accuracy cannot drop below 5%.
BTH leans and Berserk[]
The player is assumed to land attacks 85% of the time. However, AQ has a variety of ways to change this. Certain items, like the Eternal Twilight’s Regalia will make some attacks miss regardless of how much accuracy they have. Others, like Divine Kusanagi Sword will automatically hit. These effects bypass the standard accuracy check, meaning they’ll either hit or miss regardless of the situation (in case you’re interested, automiss trumps autohit!).
Other items have Accuracy leans. They might be more accurate but deal less damage as a result. Alternatively, they might miss more often, but hit a lot harder. The standard rule with these items is they provide + [x] to your BTH, but deal *85/(85 + [x]) as a result.
The Berserk status effect acts exactly like one of these BTH leans. For example, if the player had a Berserk effect of -15 bth, they would also be dealing *85/(85 -15) = *1.21 damage. You can see exactly this with the Level 150 version of Grakma Warhorn.
Reliable Information[]
I enjoy writing these blog posts because it provides the reader with the information they need to improve their gameplay. It might help them make decisions on which equipment to use, or how to best adapt to fight a boss battle. If nothing helps, perhaps it satisfies their curiosity as to how the game works. With that in mind, I felt it important to briefly highlight the importance of finding and listening to reliable information.
There are a large number of AQ resources on the internet. The calculations produced by Jeanne in this post are very reliable – you can find these formulae in official documentation and Jeanne knows the game mechanics inside out. However, not all of the information sources available to you are as accurate or reliable. It's sometimes incredibly difficult to tell the difference. Even when writing this post, linking the official master list of game formulae isn't fully accurate - some of the formulae are outdated! Moreover, it would be impractical and hypocritical of me to break down every source of information related to AQ within even a series of posts. Why should you believe my analysis over another?
What I can do is provide you with a few pieces of advice around distinguishing good from the bad. Firstly, opinion posts and videos can be a great way to find out what items are practically useful. This can be extremely important; an item might be mathematically balanced but terribly impractical to use. However, you should never forget that these sources of information are only opinions. What one considers trash, another may consider treasure. Make sure you take in a variety of views when formulating your opinions. It's better to keep your mind open than fall into an echo chamber. T
Second, AQ's community contains a number of players that have strongly-held views (myself included!). When you engage with these opinions and arguments, it's a really good idea to test them. Good arguments should be able to stand up to scrutiny - can they point towards official supporting documentation? Does their math make sense? A viewpoint isn't good simply because it's popular.
Thirdly, as you might have realised by now, there's a huge number of interacting mechanics under the surface of AQ. These mechanics are extremely difficult to identify just through in-game experience. For example, very few people realised that the Mark of Wrath armour had a skill that was dealing twice as much damage as it should have on release. Put simply, while you can play AQ just fine without detailed knowledge of the underlying game mechanics, it's very difficult to understand what's really happening just from observing in-game.
It's going to be difficult at first to tell good ideas from the bad. However, you'll get much better at it as you become more familiar with the game mechanics.
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