Stats and leveling

Checklist

• Spend stat points in the Status window, opened with C.
• A stat point can't be taken back once it's spent.
• Each Martial Path has its own level, stats and stat points.
• Monsters six or more levels below you give no EXP.
• The level cap is 99.

The four stats

Each level also adds 5 to your max HP, MP and AP, so a new character at level 1 has 125 HP, 125 MP and 245 AP before any gear. Stats on your gear count the same as points you've spent, except that the STR and AGI on unique items don't raise your attack, even though they still count for everything else.

None of the stats changes how often you hit or dodge, or how fast you attack and move. Dodging comes from a few skills, such as the Bow's Bai Bu and the Dart's Yin An, and from pets, and resistance to the five elements comes only from gear, sets and abilities.

Defence and AP

When something hits you, your AP takes its share of the damage first, which is half of a normal attack and 70% of a skill, and the rest goes on towards your HP. Once your AP has run out, the whole hit goes to your HP.

Your defence then cuts the part that reaches your HP, by a share that depends on the attacker's level:

Damage cut = (defence × 2 + 50) ÷ (attacker level × 20 + 150), never more than 90%.

The elemental part of a hit is cut by your resistance to its element instead of your defence, by up to 70%. A monster's critical hit on you does 1.5 times the damage.

Your HP, AP and MP come back by themselves every 5 seconds, and much faster while you meditate. Every level-up and every 20% mark on your EXP bar also fills them right up.

Resting

How the numbers work

Attack

STR for the close-range weapons and AGI for Bow and Dart go into the same formula, where W is your weapon's attack and S is the stat:

Attack = (W × (S + 200) ÷ 200 × (S + 1000) ÷ 500 + S) × 0.74, plus 1 for each of your first 25 points above 12.

Because the stat multiplies your weapon's attack, each point adds more with a stronger weapon and at higher stat values. The per point columns are the average over the next 10 points:

Critical hits

A critical hit does 2.25 times the damage. Your critical value is STR ÷ 4 plus AGI ÷ 6, each rounded down, plus any critical on your gear, and your chance against a monster comes from its level:

Critical chance = (critical + 20) ÷ (monster level × 20 + 300), rounded down to a whole percent and capped at 20%.

Skills with a critical chance of their own, such as the Katana skills, and unique items add theirs on top, and they can take you past 20%. The higher the monster's level, the lower your chance, as the table shows for a character whose other stat is still at 12:

Elemental skills

The elemental part of a skill comes from your level and your INT. For each hit the game picks a value between your level and your level plus 10, multiplies it by the skill's rate and by (INT + 200) ÷ 100, and then adds INT ÷ 5 and 1 for each of your first 25 points of INT above 12. The skill's own flat damage is added after that, and any bonus you have to that element raises the total.

Each point of INT therefore adds about 0.47% to the level part at the starting INT of 12, a little less with every point after that, on top of the flat INT ÷ 5. Elemental critical hits also do 2.25 times the damage, and they use INT ÷ 4 as the critical value in the same chance formula, so their chances match the STR column above.

Earning stat points

You don't have to wait for a level-up to get stat points, since you get one each time your EXP bar passes 20%, 40%, 60% and 80%, and then two more when you level up. From the level-up into level 71 onwards, each level-up gives four instead of two:

The points come once for each level on each Martial Path, so if a death costs a path a level and it earns that level again, it doesn't get the points a second time. At level 99 the EXP bar keeps filling and its four marks still give a point each, which makes 650 points in all for a path that reaches the cap.

Spending stat points

Open the Status window with C. While you have points to spend, a + button shows next to each stat, and every click puts one point into that stat straight away, without asking you to confirm. A point can't be taken back once it's spent, and any points you haven't spent yet stay on that path until you use them. The window also shows your attack, critical, defence, HP, MP, AP and resistances, so you can see what each point changes.

Only the stat your weapon uses raises its attack, so STR adds nothing to the attack of a Bow or Dart and AGI adds nothing to the close-range weapons, although both of them still add critical and AP whatever you're holding. CON gives the same HP and defence with any weapon, and INT adds to the elemental part of skills along with MP and AP, so it counts for more the more element skills you use.

Leveling up

EXP comes mostly from monsters, and also from quests and raids, and the level cap is 99. The EXP each level needs climbs steeply the higher you go:

A monster at your own level gives its full EXP, a higher one gives up to 50% more, and a lower one gives less, down to nothing at all once it's six or more levels below you. How much of the monster's HP you took off yourself counts as well, and you have to be alive, on the same channel and close by when it dies. Basic System has the full table and the damage steps under Drops and EXP.

In a party, the damage of all the members counts together, and the level of the highest member is the one compared with the monster's. The party as a whole earns more than one player would, from 133% of the monster's EXP with two members up to 189% with seven, and each member's share depends on their level compared with the party's average. Members get their share as long as they're alive and on the same channel, however far away they are.

Quests give a fixed amount of EXP. In a raid, the boss gives its EXP in full to everyone who hit it, without any event or amulet bonus:

The raid chests also hold amulets that raise the EXP you get from monsters. The Training Arena raid's chest always has a Traveller Amulet (5hour), which adds 20% for five hours of play, and the Dragon Vein raid's chest always has a Powerful Traveller Amulet, which adds 50% for three hours of play.

Drops and EXP

Changing your build

Stat points stay where you put them, so trying a different build on the same character is done with Martial Path. Each character has four paths, and each one keeps its own level, EXP, stats, unspent points and worn gear, while your skills, skill points, abilities, inventory and money are shared by all of them. A new path starts at level 1 with 12 in every stat, and you switch between paths with Switch Path in the Status window.

A path that's behind your others also gets more EXP from monsters. The game ranks your paths by level, and going down that ranking, the rate goes up a step at every path that's at least 3 levels behind the one above it, or sits right below a path at the level cap, from the normal rate to 1.5, 2 and then 3 times as much. With paths at levels 40, 30, 20 and 10, for example, the one at 30 gets 1.5 times the EXP, the one at 20 twice as much and the one at 10 three times as much, while a path within 2 levels of the one above it gets the same rate as that path

Read the Martial Path guide