Note: This guide is updated frequently, for the newest updates check out my changelog at
the bottom of this guide

Who is this for?

This is going to be an in depth guide for people that want to gain as much XP as possible
in the shortest amount of time. If you want to be in the top 100 list one day or just want
to get to a specific level quickly you will find this guide extremely helpful.

I have divided this into sections so it can be easier to read and reference. Moreover I am
not going to include any rares since most people do not have them, instead this is going
to be a Howto for the general population and not a select few that were lucky enough to
win things in contests or have been playing the game since the beginning. However I have
included in the character development section in parenthesis all the equipment that are
rare but are better than what is offered in Yulgar's shop. 

In conclusion always remember that this post is my personal opinion. I could be wrong or
actually not be aware of something. I will update this as regularly as I can with new
information I discover or other people's advice. Nevertheless do not take everything I say
as correct. Use your head and decide for yourself.

Acronyms used: (full list) 

BTH or B2H = Bonus to Hit, a bonus to your percentage of successful attacks
CHA = Charisma, the stat attribute
CW = Canine Warrior
DEX = Dexterity, the stat attribute
DS = Dragon Slayer class
END = Endurance, the stat attribute
Gph = Gold income per hour 
HP = Hit points, some people refer to it as Health points
IK = Ice Katana
INT = Intellect, the stat attribute
LUK = Luck, the stat attribute
Lvl = Level
MP = Mana points, some people refer to it as Magic points
RA = Random adventure, the button by Twilly on the tree
SI = Solar Incenerator (spell)
STR = Strength, the stat attribute
UGA = Ultimate Guardian Armor, the customizable armor automatically given to guardians
WWF = Werewolf form, armor
XP = Experience
XPph = XP gain per hour

To be or not to be? (a guardian) 

First of all if you are planning on playing this game like an addict or already are, you
might as well support the game. If that is not good enough or all the extra freebies
offered to you by being a guardian look at it this way.

- You will be able to play during guardian swims in effect increasing your XPph
- Ability to travel helping you with Gph
- Two potions per type, not dieing and actually defeating a monster increases you XPph as
well
- Guardian Blade, a good weapon early on, increasing your dmg per hit. BoA will also help
you in this
- UGA, a good armor for newbie characters
- Lvl 10 for classes, higher level in a class makes you stronger, faster, smarter...

If for financial reasons you cannot afford being a guardian, keep reading this guide it
will still help you. Also read Icewraith's guide which is geared towards Adventurers.

Getting XP quickly - Rules of Thumb (Rules mostly for newbies or people that lack common
sense)

Playing AQ ten hours a day will certainly allow you to level up quickly however the secret
is maximizing your XPph. Its better to play two hours and makes 50k XPph, than play ten
hours and make 10k XPph. Same amount of XP, however its a lot more efficient. Then if you
actually do play 10 hours a day you can make 500k in XP. This is just an example, however
you should understand that the key to leveling up quickly is not based solely on how many
hours you spend playing the game but in how efficiently you gain XP. 

When you play AQ try not to multi-task too much. People tend to have the tendency to do
fifty things at once, as a side effect they do not do anything exceptionally well. From
personal experience you can play AQ and check out the forums or chat, but doing things
that are involved like watching TV will side track you, causing mistakes such as not
noticing when your character has low health, attacking with the wrong weapon equipped etc.

Dieing is also something that should be avoided. Its not death itself that is bad, but the
consequences, all that time you spent trying to defeat a monster that killed you was
wasted. In other words dieing decreases your XPph. Of course there is no way to never die,
it will happen, but being smart about it helps. If you fight a monster and it kills you
each time you encounter it just cancel the fight. Its better to waste a couple of second
clicking on the cancel button than attempting to defeat a monster by using potions etc and
then end up dieing.

Also a monster having really high XP does not necessarily mean that will help your XPph.
For example, Trigoras the Dragon offers 2800XP, which sounds awesome, if it takes you 10
minutes to defeat him, and on the other hand by killing 1000XP monsters you can kill three
of them in five minutes, its better to cancel the fight. Remember time is of the essence,
wasting time on monsters, healing repeatedly and barely making it does not help you. Its
better to get done with someone quickly and move on. Of course going the opposite way is
also bad, that is killing things with really low XP. Sure you might be able to kill one
zard every 30 seconds, but is it really worth it? You end up spending more time waiting
for things to load than actually getting XP. 

Another good rule is offense before defense. If a monster is dead you get the XP, by
playing around with it, healing once, attacking and then healing again slows you down. Its
better to take it out and gain the XP than waste your time try to barely kill it. This is
tied in with the above paragraph. Keep track of the monsters you can kill and the ones you
have difficulty with. Cancel your fights with the monsters that give you trouble. Do not
worry, if you level up a couple of times you will be able to defeat them then. This rule
also applies when deciding what to buy, be it equipment weapon vs armor/shield or spells,
healing vs offensive spells. The only "exception" is when trying to buy a double
hit armor. Obviously its better to get a double hit armor (increasing your offensive
capability) than buying a weapon.

Moreover try to maximize your damage potential with each monster you fight. Hit them were
they are weak, the higher their Defense Modifier % the better. However try to keep in mind
their defenses as well. If the monster is weak to Light and Energy, and you have a good
energy melee weapon, and a good light magic weapon and its magic is higher than its melee
defense its better to attack it with a melee attack.

Stats (formulas) (calculator) 

A topic of great debate, ask the question of how you should spend your stat points and you
will receive five different answers and ten different theories behind them. The problem
stems from having a limited amount of points you can use. 

This is how the system works, 5 points are awarded per level until reaching level 100.
Which means that a total of 500 stat points is rewarded. There are six different stats,
STR, DEX, INT, END, CHA, LUK. The maximum points allocated for each stat is 150. 

Usually players that want to be a warrior put their points in STR, mages in INT etc. If
you wish to maximize your damage potential however, playing a specific type of character
will hurt you in the long run. 

Short version 
STR 150, DEX 100, INT 150, END 100, CHA 0, LUK 0

Long version
The problem with being a hybrid is that some stats will have to suffer in order to be able
to use both magic and melee weapons. My original build was STR/DEX/INT 145, END 65.
However I realized that its more advantageous to have a bit more END so you can survive
multiple battles. In order to raise END something had to be lowered, since STR and INT
both contribute in the BTH and the damage DEX has to be lowered. Your blocking rate will
be a bit lower however the +35 END will more than cover that.

Following below I will give the advantages of the hybrid build. Feel free to tweak your
stats a bit as you see fit. If you come up with a good combination please let me know.

STR and INT

The two most important stats for the ultimate leveling machine are STR and INT, both of
them determine your damage modifier and BTH. This can be determined as follows

Melee Damage: STR/8
Magic Damage: INT/8
In other words for STR 150, INT 150 we get a damage bonus of (150 / 8) = 18.75. For
example lets say you attack using the BoA (dmg 4-31), its a melee weapon which means the
STR bonus is taken into account. On average with BoA and STR 0, damage done per hit will
be [(4+31)/2] + (0/8) = 17.5 + 0 = 17.5. With STR 150, then the formula is as follows
[(4+31)/2] + (150/8)/2 = 17.5 + 9.375 = 26.88. That is more 1.5 your damage potential.
Which means that your XPph becomes 1.5 quicker by raising your STR. The same thing applies
for magic weapon/spell attacks with INT 150.

This added damage bonus due to stats gets amplified even more when attacking against high
defense modifiers. Lets say you are fighting a Vorpalzard with Earth 200% by using the
BoA. STR 0 will allow you to do 200% * 17.5 = 35, STR 150, 200% * 26.88 = 53.75. The
numbers speak for themselves.

Note: In case you are wondering what the [(4+31)/2] means. When calculating how much
damage a weapon can potentially do we need to take the average per hit. In this specific
example you might get lucky and do 31 points of damage twice in a row, but then you might
be unlucky and do 4 points of damage twice in a row. Nevertheless if we want to get a
valid idea of how much damage a weapon will do in 100 hits, or maybe 1000 hits the luck
factor is eliminated and it just becomes a statistical problem. (4+31)/2 is the average
damage done by BoA. 

To make another example lets say we have a magic weapon, Big 100K that does 7 to 27 points
of damage, the average hit would be (7+27)/2 = 17. This is why its important for weapons
to have high basic damage (the first number) Lets compare the UIK vs the Big 100K. The UIK
has a 5 to 29 points of damage potential, making it (5+29)/2 = 17. Even though it seems
that a max of 29 points is better than a max of 27, in reality on average they do the same
amount of damage per hit (both of them 17). So whenever you are thinking about buying a
new weapon just take the average of each weapon and see which gives you the highest
average. That makes it better, of course specials and frequency should also be taken into
account when deciding what to buy.

Bonus to Hit and DEX

If doubling your damage is not enough BTH just adds the cherry on top.

BTH for Melee: STR/16 + DEX/16 + LUK/20
BTH for Magic: INT/16 + DEX/16 + LUK/20
BTH basically deals with raising your chances of hitting a monster with each attack. This
is yet another important thing to keep in mind. Lets pretend that you are attacking the
Djinni with a Melee defense of 25. What that basically means that your chances of hitting
Djinni is BTH = (100 - 25) % = 75% (note: his defense stat actually changes things but I
will rather keep this simple) So if you attack Djinni 100 times, 75 of those time you will
actually hit, and 25 times you will be blocked. However if you have STR 150, DEX 150, then


BTH = 100 + (150/16) + (150/16) + (0/20) - 25 = 100 + 9.375 + 9.375 + 0 - 25 = 118.75 - 25
= 93.75%

Attacking Djinni 100 times, 93.75 times you will actually hit, compared to 75 that it was
before. This is yet another thing that will help raise you XPph. Lets say you are
attacking Fire Gloop with the BoA, Melee def. 30, Earth 100%. With STR 0, DEX 0 attacking
the Fire Gloop you will do 17.5 dmg per hit and hit 7 out of 10 times. Attacking it 10
times on average will give you 17.5 * 7 = 122.5. On the other hand with STR 150, DEX 150,
you will do 26.88 dmg, and hit 9.375 (+5% bth from BoA) times out of 10. Attacking it 10
times on average will give you 26.88 * 9.375 = 251.95. That is more than twice as much
damage as you would normally do! 

END

On to another important stat END. It determines you HP, which is your life basically.
Obviously the more HP you have the harder it is to die. 

HP = 100 + [5 * Lvl * (1 + END/100)] + END (hp calculator)

Based on this formula the following things should be noted, two things determine your HP,
your Lvl and your END. 

Lvl 100, with END 0 vs END 150
HP = 100 + [5 * 100 * (1 + 0/100) + 0 = 100 + 500 = 600 
HP = 100 + [5 * 100 * (1 + 150/100) + 150 = 100 + 1250 + 150 = 1500
I doubt I need to elaborate further if END points are worth it or not.

CHA

Most people like having pets, be it the role playing aspect of it or because they just
look cool (light vampdragon anyone?). For controlling pets a CHA 20 will do the trick for
most of them, with some exceptions like Nimbo, Ice Cat and some others. 

Keeping XPph maximizing in mind pets are not as useful as they might appear. There is the
inherent problem with them, time wasters! Here is the breakdown, when a battle is being
loaded it takes more time because the pet must be loaded. Even if I pretend that its a
negligible difference its still there. Moreover pets usually do one type of elemental
damage, there is always the chance that your pet will be attacking an monster defense
modifier that is low or even negative (which heals the monster). That makes its attack
even weaker than they already are or useless (except if you like healing monsters Also a
pet takes about the same amount of time doing an attack as your char, if not more. The
problem is that a pet almost always does a lot less damage than your character. 

Basically in a round you attack, your pet attacks, the monster attacks. That makes it
three moves in a round. Lets say a fight lasts 10 rounds, which makes it 30 moves. On the
other hand if you did not have a pet a round would take two moves. Which means for the
same amount of time that it takes to complete 10 rounds (30 moves), without a pet you will
have completed 15 rounds.

You might say "But the pet damages the monster!". That is true, but looking at
it damage point wise its better to attack 15 times, than attack 10 and your pet to attack
another 10. Continuing to use the Fire Gloop as an example: 

Pet used: vampdragon is a popular choice and does damage of 4 to 16, for simplicity lets
pretend that Fire Gloop has Fire 100%...which it does not, one more way to prove my point,
nevertheless for giving pets a fair chance lets pretend that it has Fire 100%. Average
vampdragon damage would be (4+16)/2 = 10, attacking its BTH would be 70%. 10 round damage
would be, 10 * 7 = 70 

STR 150, DEX 150, no pet, 15 rounds, attacking with BoA 
(10 rounds is 251.95 dmg as calculated in BTH section) 
15 rounds = 251.95 * 1.5 = 377.93

STR 150, DEX 150, vampdragon, 10 rounds, attacking with BoA
10 rounds with BoA = 251.95
10 rounds with vampdragon = 70
10 rounds = 251.95 + 70 = 321.95

Statistically speaking you do 50HP less damage every 10 rounds, how much is that in an
hour? Ten hours? A month? You get the point.

CHA is also used for pixie. Summon Pixie is a spell that summons a pixie (kind of
obvious). What's unique about this pixie is that she can either attack or heal you. The
healing amount is 10% of damage taken, max healing is CHA + 10 for a maximum of 75HP.
Which means CHA 65 is the maximum stat points that should be allocated. 

There is a big pixie fixation right now and almost everyone is using it. That makes you
want to use it as well right? Do not waste your points on her. Even if having a pet was
worth it time wise spending 65 out of your 500 points on her is not a good choice. It is
generally agreed that the pixie will heal 1 out of 3 times. 75HP healed sounds kind of
nice right? Well since pixie heals up to 10% of damage taken that means you have already
lost 750HP from damage. Do you really think that after losing 750HP, 75HP heal will help
you much? For easy monsters she will just slow you down like any other pet. For hard to
beat monsters she will help you out and maybe even help you win the battle. However by the
time you beat the monster you could have beat two monsters with lower XP, but both of them
combined giving you a hight XPph gain. Also keep in mind that spending stat points is
limited. It basically comes down to this, CHA or END? END wins, because its always there,
you do not have to depend on the pixie hoping that she heals you. Having more HP is like
having a heal only its always there from the beginning of the battle.

LUK

The black sheep of stats. LUK helps in BTH, Blocking, Treasure Chests. That sounds like
its a lot, unfortunately its always LUK/20, for LUK 150 we get 150/20 = 7.5. 

Attacking a Fire Gloop with a BoA we get the following

STR 150, DEX 150, LUK 150
BTH = 100 + 150/16 + 150/16 + 150/20 - 30 = 96.25 (add +5% from BoA, BTH 100%, since you
can't go higher than that)

In other words you hit 10 for 10, damage done in 10 rounds Dmg = 26.88 * 10 = 268.8

STR 150, DEX 150 we got Dmg = 251.91

Its a small difference, LUK helps a bit more with monsters that have 40+ defense because
then you utilize the +7.5%, instead of only 3.75% as in the above example. 

LUK also helps in blocking % Block = DEX/10 + LUK /20

DEX 150
% Block = 150/10 = 15%

DEX 150, LUK 150
% Block = 150/10 + 150/20 = 22.5%

Blocking directly deals with how much damage you take from a monster. Lets assume that a
monster does 40 damage per round. In 10 rounds we will get

DEX 150, no armor (for simplification purposes)
total dmg = 40 * 8.5 = 340

DEX 150, LUK 150
total dmg = 40 * 7.75 = 310

Spending stat points

Choices, choices, choices. 500 points, 5 different stats worth spending points in, 100
points in each sounds appealing. However this guide is all about maximizing we have to use
the stats as appropriately as we can. In order of significance we get STR/INT, DEX, END,
LUK. Going from attack to defense. 

Out of the list of 5, LUK has to be taken out since its not as useful as the other four.
Its nice to deal more damage and block a bit more, but I believe its more important to
spend the points in Endurance instead. STR, INT have to be maximized, leaving us only with
200 points.

The best way to spend the remaining points is to have both DEX and END 100. You sacrifice
some of your BTH however your high END will help you live longer in places that require
you to face multiple monster in the row.

STR 150
DEX 100
INT 150
END 100
CHA 0
LUK 0

Character Evolution Short version
At level 100 this is how your char should look like (NOTE: items in parenthesis are better
but are considered rare)

Weapons
BoA (pic)
Ice Katana (Ultra Ice Katana) (pic) (pic)
Storm Sword (pic)
Fire Lord's Axe (DragonHand) (pic) (pic)
Big 100K (Necrostaff / Blundrut Blade [not the temp]) (pic) (Necrostaff) (Blundrut)
Golden Axe (pic)
Ionic Slasher (pic)
Seaslayer (pic)

Armors
Golden Plate (pic)
Canine Warrior (Werewolf Form) (pic) (pic)
DragonSlayer (pic)
Vampire Slayer

Shields
Golden Shield 
(pic)
Invisible Shield (no pic...its Invisible ;)
(Pathos) (pic)
(Ethos) (pic)

Spells
Heal wounds (pic)
Earth Rage (pic)
Algostorm (pic)
Darkness Dragon Ambush (pic)
Sunburst (pic)
Solar Incinerator (pic)
Purity Portal (pic)
Invisible Blast (pic)

Stats
STR: 150
DEX: 100
INT: 150
END: 100
CHA: 0
LUK: 0

Pets
None

Long version
Making mistakes early tend to cost you on the higher levels. Spending points on the wrong
stats (a victim of this as well), buying useless equipment only to sell them five levels
later. Worry no more, this will take you step by step, level by level to the top.

Gold is important so make sure you use it wisely. Hopefully this will serve as a good
guide for things to not buy. If something new comes out and you wonder if its better than
what you have do the following. Check out the forums and get its stats, dmg special.
Compare the average dmg done by the new weapon/spell/whatever with what you have. If you
still think its better look ahead, if in a few levels you are going to substitute your
weapon anyway with something more powerful than either of your two options then do not buy
it. Its not going to be the end of the world if you buy a weapon only to find out that its
not as good as you thought, but do not be impulsive, buying anything that's new because
its new. The same thing should apply with rares. If its going to be rare but its something
you are going to use buy it. If its useless who cares. Not all rares are amazing, but
there are definitely a lot of rares that are worth having (Dragonhand, UIK to name a few).

The best way to get XP is by doing Random Adventures. The reasoning behind this is simple,
all the monster you face are pretty much monsters you can defeat. You can go all out with
them and barely survive the fight, however right when you are done you can get healed and
replenish your potions by going to the tower. Quests tend to have issues for the most
part. First of all in order to survive a series of battles you will either have to be a
higher levels than the monsters you are facing (giving you less XP than you could be
making with RAs). Second of all if they are giving good XP it usually means that you will
be close to dieing, having to hunt for extra potions or fights that take really long. In
other words quests end up wasting your time more than anything. (check out Final Words of
Wisdom section for a bit more info)

Level 0 to 30 - Kindergarden

These are the easy levels to go through, you might as well enjoy them because leveling up
gets harder and harder. Do not try doing the quests, you will keep dieing, especially
really early on. Random Adventures are your friend. Keep on clicking on RA and defeating
monster. Your Guardian Blade, Guardian Armor, and Guardian shield (You need to go in the
tower to get this it does get equipped automatically) is all you need. Having two potions
as a guardian also helps, usually a potion will almost put you back to your original
health. A thing to keep in mind is that your Guardian Blade is Element X which means it
does different kinds of elemental damage, sometimes it might even heal the monster you are
fighting. Thankfully at this point the monster do not have negative big negative element
weakness (ex. Fire -100%)

Since you do not need to buy any weapons spend all your gold raising your STR, DEX, END.
You will not able to raise your stats too much however that small little difference will
help you be a lot more lethal in your encounters. 

Gold Hunt
RA should do just fine

Weapons
None, use the GB

Armor
Lvl 30 - Breakneck Robe - 1111 gold - melee/range/magic def 27
This will allow you to do 150% than normal by doing two attacks a round. You will see a
tremendous difference immediately. You lose 2HP per attack, but its pretty much
insignificant. In any case by Lvl 30 your END is up anyway so it will more than cover the
2HP per hit loss.

Shields
Lvl 25 - Glave Shield - .6K gold
This shield will help you out a lot, it raises you Melee, Range and Magic defense by 7
making you harder to hit and also lowers your elemental defenses by 7. 

Spells
Lvl 25 - Shadowbat Swarm - 1K gold - 20 to 64 dmg
What can I say, using this spells is like cheating. At level 25 the damage it does is
MASSIVE. Its animation is kind of slow, but who cares. This spell rules. Its so good that
you will not have to buy a darkness weapon until Lvl 70, and a darkness spell until Lvl
75. 

Level 31 to 49 - Elementary

Now is when we start getting in business. You understand the mechanics of the game
(hopefully started reading the forums/this guide as well). This is the point that you
start buying weapons. Ideally you want a weapon of every type in your arsenal, allowing
you to hit monsters were they are weakest (highest %). Do not overdo it though because you
will end up wasting gold that you could use later on for buying something more powerful.

Keep raising your STR, DEX and END, they will be a bit more expensive but they are money
well spent. Do not sweat it if it seems like a lot of gold to raise to the next level (to
calculate costs its (current STR * current STR) gold, substitute STR with whatever stat
you are trying to raise). Make sureyou save enough money for buying equipment though. At
this point your equipment will help you more than raising your stats so concentrate on
buying.

Gold hunt
If you find yourself struggling for money attempt to go traveling to Smoke Mountain,
Northlands or Crystal Reef. When you travel at the end you always get a chest with gold
making it a good income potential. However be aware that raising your Gph tends to lower
you XPph. The higher level you become the bigger the difference between Gph and XPph. Gold
is nice to have, however its better to level up since the higher the level the more gold
monsters tend to give making it all the easier to acquire items. 

Weapons
Lvl X - Blade of Awe - Free - 4 to 31 dmg +5% BTH - melee
Best way of getting the weapon is traveling. Go to Somewhere (that's actually the name of
the place) you have a 25% chance of finding a BoA piece. Do it 20 times and you will have
all the pieces, plus you will get some gold which will not hurt you any. Make sure you
possess some if not all of the weapons I have mentioned in this section because it
substitutes the Guardian Blade so you do not want to end up having only one element type
to attack.

Lvl 35 - Angelic Scepter - 5k gold - 6 to 21 dmg +1% BTH - magic
Its looks kind of ugly but you might as well get used to it. You will be using this until
you can buy the Golden Axe. It does its job nevertheless.

Lvl 40 - Storm Sword - 8K gold - 3 to 22 dmg +2% BTH - melee
The best Wind weapon in the game. Does a decent amount of damage and its special is pretty
good as well. Eye of the Sphinx is another good magic weapon. The average damage
difference between the two is only .5 per hit. Its your call.

Lvl 48 - Flame Hatchet - 3K gold - 6 to 18 dmg +4% BTH - melee 
Really good fire weapon and it will become your trusty aid. It will serve you well till
Lvl 70, where you are going to buy its daddy.

Armors 
None, you have Breakneck Robe that is all you need. Attempt to beat the Willow Creek
quest. Get the Werewolf Form armor, this should be your ritual before you start doing RAs
every time you login. WWF is a 3 hit armor, doing a total of 180% total damage. Do not
sell Breakneck though because it will help you defeating the Willow Creek quest. This
might become a bit boring, but it will definitely help you progress faster. Do not worry
at level 65 you will get the Canine Warrior form and you will never have to get WWF again.

Shields
Lvl 40 - Invisible Shield - .5K gold - Melee 0/Range 0/Magic 20
In case of spell caster break glass. This shield will make you 20% harder to hit with a
magic attack. Its good!

Spells
Lvl 40 - Summon Skull - 1K gold - 10 to 28 dmg
This is a spell that costs 20MP per round and it works like a guest. Even though I am
against using pets or guests Summon Skull is the exception to the rule. Its attack is
extremely quick and it does about 20 dmg per hit. Since you are not using your MP for
anything you might as well use it for this. At around Lvl 65 it will stop being as useful
you can either sell it or keep it. Its your call. Careful when attacking strong fire
monsters because you will end up healing them and wasting a turn casting it away. 

Level 50 to 69 - Middle school

The buying spree does not end here, its just starting. Buy, buy, buy. Most of the things
you buy will stay with you for the rest of the game. As always concentrate in buying the
weapons first and then everything else. You will also acquire some pretty useful spells.
This period will go a bit slowly because there are so many things to buy and the Lvl
gaining starts to slow down significantly. The good news is that you are no longer a
newbie. 

Continue trying to raise your STR, DEX, and END. Start raising your INT, because it will
become one of the most important stats. Since INT is going to be easier to raise
(cheaper), try raising your INT twice, then your STR and DEX once. 

Gold Hunt
Again if you need money try traveling and put that IK in good use! Smoke Mountain and
Northlands are two of the best places to gain gold due to the powerful weapons you now
possess. At about level 60 attempt Golems Galore at the guardian tower. It will allow you
to yield about 20K per hour.

Weapons
Lvl 50 - Ice Katana - 11.5K gold - 5 to 21 dmg +5BTH - melee
The best Ice weapon in the game. Good attack but amazing special, makes Fire 200%. It
works well as a combo with Summon Skull and/or Flame Hatchet.

Lvl 53 - Seaslayer - 6K gold - 6 to 22 dmg +2% BTH - melee
It might be tempting to buy Mr. Soaker but trust me, its not worth it. Multi-hit armors
will allow you to do a lot more damage. Besides it sounds cool.

Lvl 55 - Ionic Slasher - 5K gold - 7 to 24 dmg +10% BTH - melee The best Energy weapon in
the game. Amazing damage potential and very cheaply priced. To top everything off really
good BTH as well. What more can you ask for? Buy it now! (You might want to buy this
before you buy Seaslayer)

Armors
Lvl 65 - Canine Warrior - 12K gold - Melee 30/Range 30/Magic 25 You can finally stop doing
the Willow Creek quest. This armor does less damage than WWF, however it has better
defenses, and its not temporary so you do not have to keep doing the WC over and over
again. Also the attack animation is a bit faster than WWF. If you have grown really
attached to your WWF do not bother buying this. Even though if you have money you might as
well buy it anyway so you can go through the WC quest faster.

Lvl 45 - Invisibility Cloak - 2k gold - Melee 40/Range 40/ Magic 10 
Awesome Melee and Range defence. Use it when casting spells while fighting Melee/Range
attack monsters. You should buy this but do not rush, buy everything else first.

Lvl 50 - Vampire Form - 8K - Melee 40/Range 20/Magic 40
Awesome Melee and Magic defense. Use it when casting spells while fighting Melee/Magic
attack monsters. You should buy this but do not rush, buy everything else first

Shields
Lvl 65 - Gyrate Shield - 4K gold - Melee 10/Range 10/Magic 10
Time to put your trusty Glave shield away. Gyrate is what Glave shield was and more giving
you a +10% for any type of attack. 

Spells
Lvl 50 - Heal Wounds - 10K gold - 100 + 10% HP heal
This step costs 300MP so its not as useful as you might think. However it heals 100, plus
10% of your health. 1 out of ten times it heals you 4 times as much.

Lvl 50 - Earth Rage - 2.8K gold - 20 to 120 +5/+15% BTH
The best earth spell. You got to respect a spell when a giant tree falls from the sky
hitting the monster. Amusement value aside this is a nice and powerfull spell. 

Lvl 50 - Algostorm - 2.8k - 30 to 105 dmg + 10% BTH
The best ice spell. Ice was one of the elements that mages were weak at, thankfully this
spells more than covers your ice needs. There are certain situations that you will be
better off using the IK (ex. When you want something to stop attacking you because it can
kill you) however for the general ice beating needs Algostorm will prove a reliable spell
to have.

Lvl 68 - Darkness Dragon Ambush - 3.2k - 24 to 99 dmg + 13% BTH
The best darkness spell. Time to sell Shadowbat Swarm. This spell is faster and does more
damage. 

Level 70+ - College

Congratulations, you are now considered a hardcore AQ player. Hopefully by now this guide
makes a lot more sense. Leveling takes even longer, however the higher the level the more
godlike you seem. You have probably even managed to acquire some rares that are helpful. 

If you find yourself needing gold, which you will, since buying the Golden set alone costs
2M gold check out the Gold Hunt section. If its not obvious try to start saving money for
the Golden set after you have bought everything else and maximized all of your stats. 

After acquiring the Golden Set you will be ready to tackle The Pit. Your XPph will
increase the more longer you fight in The Pit. If you find yourself playing AQ in small
bursts of time then it will be better to keep doing RAs since The Pit requires some
building up until you can start fighting harder monsters.

Another good source for XP and gold is the Wrath of Carnax. The monsters there are
guaranteed to be at least 1000XP/450 gold. Fighting the Entromorph should also be an easy
fight. Carnax will probably be hard in the begining but on the higher levels you will be
able to take him down. Use IK to freeze him, then DS ability, Fire Dragon. Hopefully that
will bring him down to 1500HP and help you take him down.

For RAs you should primarily rely on spells. If you have not noticed yet spells do the
most damage in the game. Their limiting factor is your MP, so keep raising your INT until
you hit 150. In an RA you will almost never run out, if you do after a couple of hits no
matter what monster you are fighting it will go down. (exceptions do exist, like Trigoras
the Dragon about 4000HP) To get a good idea of which spell is more powerful and what to
use for what situation check out this guide.

Gold Hunt
For pure gold hunting Golems Galore still gives really good Gph. Also try out Dragons
Revenge, the gold is pretty good and you raise your XP at the same time. Golems Galore
becomes a bit harder at lvl 85+ because you can no longer get heals which then makes
Dragons Revenge an even better alternative. Also note that depending on your PC the arena
might be too laggy to actually be worth it. You can also keep travelling but at lvl 92+
the gold gains start dropping because of the number of fights that have to be completed. 

Weapons
Lvl 70 - Fire Lord's Axe - 22K gold - 8 to 24 dmg - melee
The best Fire weapon in the game. If you liked the Flame Hatchet, meet its daddy.

Lvl 70 - Big 100K - 100K gold - 7 to 27 dmg +10% BTH - magic
The best Dark weapon in the game. Soulcarver is a good substitute if you do not feel like
making 100K, however its a good weapon to have. It also does light attacks with monsters
that have the word "Undead" or "Zombie" in their name. 

Lvl 75 - Golden Axe - 700K - 8 to 30 dmg - melee
The best Light weapon in the game. Extremely expensive but you will make the money
required with time. It will give you something to look forward to while you are leveling
up in the high levels. This should be the last item you buy for your Golden Set.

Armors
Lvl 75 - Golden Armor - 1M gold - Melee 45/Range 45/Magic 45
Once you get this armor you do not need any other defensive armor. Its has excellent
defenses making you a lot harder to hit and your elemental defenses are lowered by a lot.
This should be the first Golden set item you buy. Its drawbacks are its price and that it
does not do as much damage as WWF or CW, but you are mostly doing spells at this point. If
you run out of MP, change to CW and kick some butt :)

Shield
Lvl 75 - Golden Shield - 300K gold - Melee 15/Range 15/Magic 15
The best shield in the game. Adding +12% in each of your defenses and lowering your
elemental resistances by -15%. This should be the second Golden set item you buy. Gyrate
becomes obsolete so sell it. Keep the Invisible shield since its giving you an extra 5%
magic resistance.

Spells
Lvl 70 - Solar Incenerator - 3K gold - 30 to 110 dmg + 25% BTH
The best fire spell known to mages, the description says it all. If you want to set things
on fire use it. 

Lvl 70 - Purity Portal - 3K gold - 40 to 130 dmg + 20% BTH
The best energy spell, also does the largest amount of damage. When in doubt use Purity
Portal. Personally I feel that this is the best spell in the game.

Lvl 70 - Sunburst - 3K gold - 40 to 110 dmg + 5% BTH
The best light spell. Nice, powerful, pretty quick animation. Its the second best spell in
the game after Purity Portal because of its nice base damage. 

Lvl 75 - Invisible Blast - 3K gold - 30 to 120 dmg + 25% BTH
The best wind spell. Kind of slow animations but poweful attack.

Classes

Dragon Slayer Try to master this class at a low level, before hitting level 25. Your STR,
DEX and END will be high enough that you will be able to go through it pretty easy. Some
of the dragons might be a bit hard for you, do not despair just try again and hope for a
younger, weaker dragon. Lvl 1 DS is the hardest, after that the dragons are a lot easier
to deal with. Do not get frustrated with the Stat rolls. Think of it as RAing only with a
nice bonus added at the end. 

Imagine the DS armor as an airstrike button. Do not go around RAing with it, instead use
it whenever you need the big guns to help you out. Whenever you end up meeting a dragon in
RA you should use Poison Dragon, then alternate between Freeze Dragonkind and SI or
whatever good fire weapon you have available at your level. Call Forth the Fire Dragon
gets charged after 90 attacks with the DS armor. Whenever it gets charged up it should be
used. It does 33% damage so the best time to use it is in your first attack against a
dragon, allowing you to do maximum damage. You can also use Call Forth the Fire Dragon on
normal monsters by using the IK first to freeze them, allowing you do 200% Fire damage to
them.

Vampire Slayer

Try to master this class at around level 60. This class is a bit harder to master than the
DS class, if you find yourself unable to complete it try leveling up a bit and try again. 

Even though this class is harder to attain than the DS class I believe that its not as
usefull since you tend to encounter a lot more dragons than Undead related things. However
since there are extra armor slots you might as well take advantage of it. A passive
usefull ability is Hunter's Eye, you automatically receive a +10% BTH in any attack done
against Undead, Werewolves or Vampires. Use this armor when doing spells allowing you to
hit more effectively. Think of this, in order to get a +10% BTH by raising your DEX you
will have to raise it 80 points. The second really good ability is Turn Undead when your
INT is high, even though the damage per hit might not seem that impressive if you add the
random stat damage to it for six hits it becomes more potent than SB. 

Final Words of Wisdom

Try to remember that AQ is a game! That means you should try having fun. If you get bored
doing the same thing over and over again mix it up a bit. Try out a quest, do something
silly for a change. Its alright, you might make a bit less XP but its better to have fun a
raise in levels a bit slower than burn out by Lvl 60.

Also AQ is addictive (if you have not noticed already) do not make it your primary thing
in life. Making it to Level 100 in a month might give you some bragging rights, but is it
really worth putting aside your life for a game?

That's it, I hope you had fun reading it. I certainly had fun writing it. Comment,
suggestions, hate is welcomed.

Battle On!

Reccomended Reading
- Player9's guide in Making an Uber Character (here)
- Icewraith's Fast leveling guide for Adventurers (here)
- Hero of the Winds Official Guide to Riches(here)
- Anarserke's website 
- Olestas spell and specials guide (here)

Changelog
1.5.3
- Added links to Blundrut Blade and Necrostaff
- Changelog will now have version number next to the changes for people to be able to tell
what has been updated lately
- Added note on top talking about the changelog for frequent readers
- Bolded Reccomended Reading, Changelog, To Do and Special Thanks for better readability
- Fixed left over error in College section, INT 145 -> INT 150
1.5.4 
- Changed look a bit to increase readability, used size 3 titles for the level sections in
order for people revisiting to be able to find their section faster. 
- Used bold for equipment and gold hunt sections within each level section for readability
purposes as well.
1.5.5 
- Centered banner image
- Changed look of changelog, deleted older changelog, version numbers are now grouping
things together instead of repeating over and over for every change made
- Added IK and CftFD trick in DS class for non-dragon monsters
- Added Vampire Slayer class and and abilities
- Added DragonSlayer and Vampire Slayer armor in Short Version + DS pic
- Changed the order that the golden set should be bought
- Fixed syntax error when talking about taking down Carnax with IK + CftFD
- Made Anaserke's website link follow the same look as all the other links
1.5.6
- Fixed END 65 comment at lvl 50 since now the aim is for END 100
- Added Sp3tt's guide link in recommened reading
- Added Sp3tt's guide link at lvl 70 for checking out which spells do the most damage
- Updated DS level to go for it (icewraith)
- Updated VS level to go for it (icewraith)
- Updated lvl 70 gold hunt section (icewraith)
- Reworded lvl 70 gold hunt section
- Reworded lvl 70 second paragraph

To Do:
- CHA update for Upgrade 29
- Stat revamp? Maybe STR 150, DEX 150, INT 150, END 50 is a better build due to the golden
plate. Do more research Special Thanks
- Artix for creating the game
- AQ staff for putting their time into this game
- AQ mods for being so patient and helpful
- Wyatt for introducing me to AQ
- Player9, Hero of the Winds, Anarserke, Olestas, Icewraith, Taoh
- Skehemet and szehan72 for helping me have an awesome sig<table
class="table_ch"></table>