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.

**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 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, alongside providing a general boost to all weapon damage.
* **Dexterity**: DEX. Scales Ranged damage and accuracy, alongside Pet/Guest accuracy and blocking.
* **Intelligence**: INT. Scales Magic damage and accuracy alongside 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.
* **Luck**: LUK. Scales blocking, accuracy for all forms of damage, affects the chance of inflicting (most) statuses, and enables Lucky Strikes.
	+ **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.

**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 Mainstat).

**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 **full** stat investment (Mainstat/LUK or DEX/CHA/LUK for Pets/Guests), the assumed 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 the BtH modifier **additively**, while applying the damage compensation **multiplicatively** (i.e. two -15 Berserks will lower overall BtH by -30, but their damage compensation is applied individually as two separate multipliers).
* **Auto-Hit**: Certain items bypass accuracy entirely and never miss. By ignoring accuracy, they instead take a 0.8x penalty to emulate the "average" damage.
	+ Contrary to what is assumed for hitrate, the damage penalty of Auto-Hit assumes **no** investment into LUK.
	+ Counterintuitively, BtH leans **still apply** if something Auto-Hits, turning any amount of inaccuracy into free damage.
	+ **Note**: Auto-Hit's penalty was reduced to its current value in 2022 due to DEX no longer factoring into all accuracy. Auto-Hit items that have yet to be updated instead deal 0.65x damage.

**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.
	+ Void is an extremely rare element, due to anything dealing Void damage effectively dealing "double" damage, as most monsters have 200% Void resistance.
		- There is also "flavour" Void, which is Void element, but deals "normal" damage as if it was Harm. This is reserved exclusively for items that should deal Void due to thematic/lore reasons, but shouldn't be dealing "true" Void ingame due to balancing reasons.
* 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 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).
* Pets are valued at 40% Melee.
* Guests are 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 damage receive a 4/3x multiplier.
* Spells/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 damage.
		- +10% damage and +5 BtH for Spells/Skills.
* Colloquially this is also known as **Mage Level Boosts**, as this normalization primarily 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 Mastercraft-level bonuses by paying an equal amount of something else, such as Bloodblades paying 15% Melee in HP for 15% Melee worth of damage. These are called flavour effects.

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

* **Auto-Hit**: 0.85x (Distinct from the above mentioned Auto-Hit penalty for hits. 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 that doesn't scale off of resistance receive the Always-Useful Penalty).
* **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 with its EleShield.

**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 an item that deals 1.1x damage to dragons pays for this effect by dealing 0.95x damage vs nondragons).
	+ The only exception to this is if the trigger can be player-controlled, such as the damage reduction from Macka-Lot Buckler being dependent entirely on the player's Charisma. In this case, the trigger is only worth 1.5x the amount paid (EG an item that has a 0.95x downtrigger will only do 1.075x damage if the trigger is player-controlled).

**Armour Lean**: Every (modern) armour has a built-in armour lean, multiplying both outgoing and incoming damage:

* **Fully Offensive (FO)**: 1.25x.
* **Neutral**: No change.
* **Fully Defensive**: 0.8x.
* **Spellcaster**: Neutral outgoing damage, 1.25x incoming damage, but spells deal 1.375x damage.
* There are also Mid Offensive (1.125x) and Mid Defensive (0.9x) leans, but these have effectively been phased out of modern 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, there are certain weapons (such as (Mystic) Caissa) that instead use their 0-Proc bonus for an effect.
	+ **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 multiplier in damage. However, certain 100-Proc weapons can have weapon specials, colloquially being referred to as having a "true" special. In this scenario, the 1.1x multiplier does not apply.

**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).
* An item's actual gold cost is raised proportionally to what it compresses; the more they compress, the more they cost to purchase.

**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, all boost values that apply to it are halved.
* **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, being a "hybrid" of the other two types. These skills do not benefit from weapon effects, but also do not take a 1/2x penalty on any boosters.

**EleComp**: Elemental Compensation. A multiplier that is provided as compensation to armour skills (and some shield skills), 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 (EG a Darkness armour with poor Light resistances and low MRM using a Darkness skill will receive a much larger bonus than a Light armour with okay Darkness resistances and high MRM using a Light skill). The exact method of calculating EleComp is incredibly complex and far beyond the scope of this page.

* EleComp is applied in one of two ways:
	+ Skill/Spell damage (EG Bloodmages' built-in Spells feeds EleComp into damage).
		- Additionally, if they come with a status, EleComp is also applied to the status' power (EG FD GPS armours apply EleComp to their Burn/Poison).
	+ Reducing cost (EG Torontosaurus Rex's built-in skill uses EleComp to reduce the SP cost).
		- As a rule of thumb, Spell-Type/Normal Attack skills uses EleComp to increase damage dealt, while weapon-based skills uses EleComp to reduce resource cost. Anything that doesn't follow this standard are exceptions, rather than the norm.

**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.)