The compendium of confusing descriptions: A proper explanation of how things work.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Section 1: Items
3. Section 2: Skills
4. Section 3: Other
5. Conclusion

Introduction

Hi there. This document is not intended to replace any item databases and is far from being accurate. I will often refer to other databases such as RMS (ratemyserver.net), ROE (ROempire.com) and various other websites. If you are looking for the description of an item and what it does you would be better suited to going to those websites. If the description confuses you and you are uncertain as to what it does then come here and find out.

This document is by no means complete. There are quite a lot of items, skills and other things in the RO databases that have confusing or nonexistent descriptions. If I do not have an item, please feel free to notify me and I will include it in the next version.

Everything listed in this document will be posted with it’s RMS description for reference and easy explanations/corrections in the following format:

<item/skill/other name>: <RMS Description>

<explanation>

Enjoy!

Section 1: Items

A note about healing items: please PLEASE note that healing items of ALL sorts are effected by the user’s vit for hp items and int for sp items. The higher the vit/int the higher the amount is healed. This is ALSO effected by increased hp/sp regeneration. This means that someone with 120 vit will get a lot more benefit out of a white potion then a player with just 50 vit.

Also note that a great deal of the items here are labeled prior to second classes being included without having been changed yet. This leads to some inconsistencies between the amounts indicated and the amounts actually recovered by said items.

Royal Jelly: Highly nutritious jelly secreted by honeybees. Used to feed bee larva and future queen bees. Cures every abnormal status; Recovers 250 HP.

This item ALSO recovers approximately 50 to 150 sp on use, though it is not mentioned in the item’s description. All other facets appear to be acting as described. In addition to recovering 50 to 150 sp on use, it also cures ALL ailments that do not prevent item use. For example, silence, curse and poison.

Potato: A tuber that can be fried, baked, boiled, mashed, even eaten.
Recovers a small amount of HP.

Please note that this item also stuns by a small chance (approximately 1%).

Ice Cream: Deliciously frosty ice cream that can cause brain freeze if you eat too much too quickly. Recovers a suitable amount of HP.

Please note that this item also freezes by a small chance (approximately 1%).

Cursed Water: A bottle of cursed water.

When used this item acts like the reverse of the skill “aspersio” and grants the user an elemental endow for the same duration. The difference is that your element is dark. The effect can be canceled the same way as aspersio or any other endow (by unequipping your weapon, by dying, by being dispelled, etc.)

Poison bottle: A skeleton shaped bottle which contains deadly poison.

Created by the assassin cross skill “create deadly poison”. If used by an assassin cross it will endow the user with an attack speed boost higher then that of a berserk potion, but also poison them with a high calibre poison. Use by any other class (Including assassin) will cause instant death. It is also used in the assassin cross skill “Enchant Deadly Poison”

Amulet: A forbidden talisman that can reanimate the dead, resulting in a walking corpse or undead zombie.

Originally, this item was meant to randomly summon a zombie or weak undead monster similar to a dead branch anywhere from a measly skeleton or zombie to a zombie master or skeleton general. However, for reasons unknown, gravity stripped it of it’s code.

Concentration Potion: A potent medicine that stimulates concentration. Temporarily increases Attack Speed.
Awakening Potion: A special tonic that combats the effects of drowsiness. Temporarily increases Attack Speed.
Berserk Potion: Remarkably powerful medicine that stimulates circulation and amplifies quickness. Temporarily increases Attack Speed.

Keep in mind that these potions do NOT directly increase your aspd by any value. Instead they reduce the cooldown between attacks, which is calculated as follows: ASpd = [200 - SpeedMods * (WeaponDelay - ([WeaponDelay*Agi/25] + [WeaponDelay*Dex/100])/10)] Most servers have the maximum attack speed capped to 190 to 199. 200 attack speed is possible via GM power but causes 200 attacks per second rather then per minute. This value is rounded up to the nearest whole number (the slower aspd).

A note about set gear: For any set gear to be active, you must have EVERY SINGLE COMPONENT of the set equipped at the same time. This means that for all intensive purposes you shouldn’t be able to equip more then 2 gear sets and/or 1 card set at a time.

Padded Armor+Armor Charm Set: [+ Padded Armor] DEF + 5 Maximum HP + 150

This does NOT stack. While wearing two armor charms you only gain the effect of the second armor charm as if you were not wearing the full set.  You would, therefore, have one full set bonus from the padded/armor charm combo and then +1 further def and 50 further hp ONLY from the second charm.

Cramp Card + Tarou Card set: [+Tarou] Str + 3

This normally does NOT stack, HOWEVER, if you should wear two of EACH type of card, the bonus DOES stack as it counts each couple as a separate set. Yes, you can achieve the bonus if you have two slotted headgears on at once.

Owl Duke Card + Owl Baron Card

Please note that the descriptions for these cards are actually incorrect. Both effects activate when you ATTACK not when you get hit.

Dual Dagger Assassins and Assassin Crosses:

When using two weapons, the off hand weapon’s card effects and elements stack onto the main hand’s card effects and weapons. This means that if (for example) you have a Damascus[2] with no cards on main hand and a quad hydra main gauche in the off hand, then you will have the hydra bonus on your Damascus (main hand) damage, and the offhand will remain the same (low) value. Assassins and assassin crosses built like this are essentially assumed to be wearing a single weapon with extra slots in it. (thus the reason for there being multiple slot weapons in the offhand instead of high atk weapons)

Section 2: Skills

Pneuma: Creates a 3×3 cell cloud (although the animation only appears to cover the center cell!) around the target cell that blocks all ranged Physical attacks. This means that it also blocks the bow attacks of players, so take care not to prevent any Hunters or Bow Thieves in the party from being able to do damage! Monsters count as being “ranged” if their attack has a range of 4 or more cells. Pneuma cannot be cast if it is targeted to overlap an already existing Pneuma area or a Safety Wall cell. Does not block splash damage or negate the Flee reducing effects of having multiple targets attacking you. Do note that although you can see the animation on top of a Land Protector, Pneuma will have no effect.

It creates an area that is immune to all ranged physical attack. This includes any skill with the descriptor of “ranged physical”, any skill that has a physical attack but 2 or more cells of range or attacks from more then 2 cells of range. The skill blocks these instances regardless of the actual distance from the target, so a bow user is ALWAYS blocked by Pneuma even if the attacker goes into melee range and starts shooting at point blank. AoE skills and the like (even arrow shower) bypass this effect.

This skill does NOT block status effect armor or weapons from effecting either the target or attacker. A pneuma’d target with stone curse armor can STILL stone curse a ranged attacker and a ranged attacker with a stun weapon can still stun the player in Pneuma.

Note: knockback skills (even when ranged) will still knock you back, regardless of whether it hits or not, (e.g. charge arrow will do no damage but still push you back).

Pneuma does not have a limit to the number of hits, just a time limit.

Pneuma blocks instances of Safety wall inside it’s area of effect and cause the “skill has failed” message on the caster who was using Safety wall. It is impossible to cast pneuma anywhere that has a safety wall within a 3×3 area around it. You ALSO cannot cast two instances of Pneuma such that the two of them overlap.

Note that you can block pneuma with an instance of Magnus Excorscesmus from a priest.  A useful fact when defending a castle during WoE.

Pneuma will block any attack that has a range of 3 cells or longer.  This includes but is not limited to: Soul Breaker/Destroyer, Spiral Pierce (spears are 2 cell, spiral adds one cell), Asura Strike with a long mace (3 cells exactly), Final Strike

Phew that was a long one, sorry.

Finger Offensive: Throws Spirit Spheres at enemy. Skill level affects number of spheres that can be thrown, damage is 125%+25*used SkillLV% ATK using the element of your current weapon. Number of thrown Spirits equals to used SkillLV and may miss depending on normal hit probabilities. It has uninterruptible cast but Pneuma will block this skill.

This description fails to mention that the damage dealt is 125%+25*skillLV% PER SPHERE THROWN. So lvl 5 Finger Offensive will actually deal 1250% damage (250% * 5 spheres).

Occult Impaction: Strong ranged Physical attack. The more defense the target has the more damage this skill will do. It never misses and uses up 1 Spirit Sphere. Damage is [ATK x (1 + SkillLV*0.75) x (Enemy Armor+Enemy VIT)/50] x Card Effect. Uses up one Spirit Sphere.

THIS SKILL IS NOT RANGED PHYSICAL! It is melee with a 2 cell cast range. It is also effected by vit and def, though the description does not adequately explain how. This skill is FORCED NEUTRAL, meaning it is ALWAYS neutral, regardless of your weapon element.

Asura Strike: Usable only when Fury is active. Uses all SP to do massive damage to the target, HP/SP will not regenerate naturally for 5 minutes after Asura Strike is used. Cancels Fury after use and requires all remaining Spirit Spheres (that is all 5 if cast independently). Damage is [(Weapon ATK+Base ATK) x (8 + SP/10) + 250 + (SkillLV*150)]*Card Effects. Can be used while catching someone using LV 5 Blade Stop or with no Cast Time at the end of a combo attack (Raging Trifecta Blow -> Raging Quadruple Blow -> Raging Thrust -> [Tiger Knuckle Fist and/or Chain Crush Combo ->] Asura Strike) but the Fury and sphere requirements remain in both cases (usable with the 4 spheres remaining after activating Blade Stop/Raging Thrust). Increasing the Asura Strike skill level has a relatively small effect on total damage compared to increasing SP, INT or STR.
Warning: Skill CAN BE INTERRUPTED.

Very long winded. Simply put each 10sp = +100% atk. The +1000 atk is added AFTER the multiplication. This skill is also forced Neutral.

Trap Skills: <too many to describe, so I’ll link to them instead>
Ankle snare: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=skill_db&sk_name=ankle+snare&sk _search=Search
Shockwave Trap: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=skill_db&sk_name=shockwave&sk_s earch=Search
Claymore Trap: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=skill_db&sk_name=claymore&sk_se arch=Search
Talkie Box: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=skill_db&sk_name=talkie&sk_sear ch=Search
Sandman: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=skill_db&sk_name=sandman&sk_sea rch=Search
Blast Mine: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=skill_db&sk_name=blast+mine&sk_ search=Search

*ahem* none of these descriptions mentions an upper limit to the number of traps you can plant. The upper limit is approximately 30 for ankle snare (verified) and assumed to be the same for all other traps (untested).

When used in certain places traps do not show up, yet work just the same. Rothenburg castle’s emperium chamber is one such example.

All the descriptions state that any hide revealing skill will reveal the traps. Only detecting seems to work on the eAthena code.

Water Ball:

Hits the target up to LV*LV-1 times with a Water elemental attack (100+30*SkillLV% MATK). You must stand on water or on a Deluge (Sage skill) cell to successfully use this spell. The damage for each hit is calculated individually and the damage numbers do not show as adding up, also casting Lex Aeterna (Priest Skill) on the target will only affect the first hit. This is the strongest single target spell in-game. The number of water balls that you are actually able cast also depends on the amount of water you are standing in. In any given X by X grid, the game determines that you are surrounded by (X*X)-1 cells. So, at level 4/5 Waterball, you can cast up to (5*5)-1, or 24 water balls. However, if you’re only standing in a 3×3 pool, you will only cast 8 water balls. If you’re standing in a freaky grid (like a partially-used Deluge), the number of balls cast is equal to the number of water-occupied cells in your grid.

Waterball higher then level 5 was previously able to be learned by rogues and stalkers by baiting Ktullanax (the MVP in Ice Dungeon 3), however a recent SVN change removed this.  Each hit from water ball is calculated for damage SEPERATELY.  This means that for the purposes of Lex Aeturna, only the first hit of water ball would be doubled.  Alternately, this leads to some odd damage calculations.

Note that monsters can use water ball without any water.  Note that both Deluge (sage) and Water Escape Technique (ninja) can be used for Water Ball.  Note that Water Escape Technique does NOT vanish when used for Water Ball in WoE only.

Magnetic Earth/Land Protector:

Shields an area from all area spells. Any skills that target the ground do not deal damage or do their effect. Skills such as Storm Gust, Hammer Fall, Fire Wall, etc. will do nothing. Also removes any area spells already placed in the area. Requires 1 Yellow Gemstone and 1 Blue Gemstone to use.

Please keep in mind that offensive skills like Hammerfall, Storm Gust, etc. will still show their animation, they just won’t have any effect.  Any skills that overlap the edges of Land Protector will effect anyone that so much as sticks a toe outside the border of it’s range.  For obvious reasons this skill also removes land based skills like Deluge or Water Escape Technique.

Soul Breaker:

Attack that causes severe damage, because the target is required to have high DEF to be able to withstand this. Damage calculation is a little complicated:
Final Damage = Soul Breaker Base Damage / Enemy DEF + Soul Breaker Base Damage
This formula may not be totally accurate.
The Element of the attack corresponds to your normal attack element.

This is a somewhat complicated skill to explain. The damage from Soul breaker is calculated in two parts. An Int part: (INT*5*SkillLv + Random(500~1000)), and an atk portion: ((ATK*SkillLv)*(100-Enemy DEF) – Enemy VIT) (Elemental Modifier).

PLEASE NOTE: that the int portion is:
1) unmissable
2) unmodified by weapon element
3) of a unique element (for skills): “non-elemental” which is NOT neutral and therefore not reduced by ghostring, but IS reduced by raydric and Vali’s Manteau due to the way they are coded.
4) modified by your INT not your MATK (and therefore bypasses mdef)
5) NOT modified in ANY way by +% cards (like hydra or skeleton worker)
6) not effected by masquerade item

PLEASE NOTE: that the atk portion is:
1) MISSABLE, you CAN miss this portion.
2) modified by weapon element
3) is effected by your target’s def and flee.
4) NOT modified in ANY way by +% cards (like hydra or skeleton worker) but IS modified by +atk cards (like andre or zipper bear)
5) applies the def bypass or reversing effects of whatever weapon you have equipped (like ice pick)
6) not effected by masquerade item

This skill is exceedingly picky and most databases do not have a 100% accurate explanation of this skill. I dug up most of this information on various forums and from iroWiki.org which seems to be the most accurate in this case.

While the skill never misses due to the unmissable feature on the magical portion of the damage, soul breaker still does a widely varied damage due to the physical portion which CAN miss.  When the physical portion misses the magical portion is the only part that deals damage and it appears that soul breaker has done half damage.

Linker Spirit Skills:

SUPER NOVICE
– Super Novices above LV 90 will be temporarily able to equip ALL Upper/Middle/Lower headgears.
– Super Novices above LV 90 have 1% chance to ‘erase’ the death record – which means, the last 1% EXP loss will be recovered and one death will be removed from your record.
– Super Novices above LV 96 will be temporarily able to equip all LV 4 Daggers, 1H Swords, Axes, Maces, and Staffs.
(all “temporary” mentions here are NOT removed when the link wears off. Death record erasure does indeed work with eAthena code, however it is uncertain as to what SVN this started at) Just a note: when a supernovice reaches max job lvl without dying once, they receive a +10 to all stats bonus that lasts until they next die. This can be re-gained via the death record recovery.

KNIGHT
Allows those who have Two-Hand Quicken LV 10 to use One-Hand Quicken for the skill’s duration.

One Hand Quicken: Decreases weapon swing delay with one-handed swords by 30%. Cancels the effect of any ASPD Potion when used, however you may use any such potion AFTER casting. This skill only works with One-Hand Sword class weapons and the effect cancels when switching to any other type.

CRUSADER
Makes their Shield Boomerang never miss, do double the damage, and halving its after cast delay.

WIZARD
Allows them to cast all Gemstone requiring Skills without using them up (however, it still requires the Wizard to have at least one of the respective Gemstone) for the skill’s duration. When the Wizard has a “Crystal Fragment” while under this skill’s effect, the item will be used, and any spells that were reflected back to you via Kaite or card effects will simply disappear instead of hitting you.

SAGE
Allows their Auto Spell Skill to always produce LV 10 Bolts if the Sage has learned that much in the Bolt Skill.

HUNTER
– If Double Strafing is LV 10, a new skill, Beast Strafing, will be available.
– Effectiveness of Beast Bane is increased by Hunters/Snipers STR.

Beast Strafing: If the target is a Beast-type and you used Double Strafing, you can use this skill to do extra Double Strafing on the target. Only usable right after using Double Strafing, and its power is heavily affected by STR.

(i.e. use Double Strafe then follow it immediately with beast strafing as if you were using a combo skill from a monk. The damage for beast strafing is higher with str rather then dex so that means full dex but no str would make beast strafing do comparatively low damage. Also, it only works on beast types, making it useless for at least 75% of the game as there aren’t that many beast types out there)

BARD AND DANCER
– All singing/dancing skills affect the Bard/Dancer him/herself.
– While singing/dancing the walking speed is increased.
– A Whistle and Humming linked.
– Assassin Cross of Sunset and Please Don’t Forget Me linked.
– A Poem of Bragi and Fortune’s Kiss linked.
– The Apple of Idun and Service for You linked.

Linked means, if X skill is mastered, then Y skill can be used too while in “Spirit” mode.

(you don’t need lvl 10 on each dance/song to learn the linked version, you will just be limited to the level of the linked song on the new song. I.E. lvl 7 bragi will grant lvl 7 fortune’s kiss and vice versa)

BLACKSMITH
Allows them to use Full Adrenaline Rush if they have Adrenaline Rush LV5 for the skill’s duration.

Full Adrenaline Rush: Decreases character’s attack delay with all weapons by 30%. Decrease nearby party members attack delay with all weapons except ranged by 20%. These two effects are supposed to stack with each other when used by more than one Smith in a party. Does not stack with other skills that directly increase ASPD.

(Full Adrenaline Rush does not stack with Adrenaline Rush or any other aspd boosting skill, such as a quicken, but does stack with aspd potions. By default Full Adrenaline Rush does not effect bare fist or fist type weapons, bow type weapons or rod type weapons)

The Full Adrenaline Rush buff icon DOES stack with the Adrenaline Rush Icon but does NOT stack.  Adrenaline rush (in this instance) has no effect.

ALCHEMIST
– Increases effectiveness of Potion Pitcher by Soul Linker’s BaseLV% (if the Soul Linker is BaseLV 68, Potion Pitcher heals +68%.
– Allows usage of Berserk Pitcher skill. (gives berserk potion effect on targeted party member at the cost of 2 berserk potions. Must meet level requirement)
– Alchemists having Pharmacy LV 10 are allowed to use Twilight Alchemy I.
– If there is a Super Novice in the party the Alchemist is further allowed to use Twilight Alchemy II.
– If there is a Taekwon in the party the Alchemist is further allowed to use Twilight Alchemy III.
– alchemist in question will still be able to SEE said skills but will not be able to use them

Twilight Alchemy I: Make 200 attempts to create a White Potion every 0.005 seconds. This skill has the same success rate as the Pharmacy skill. If there are not enough ingredients to create all 200 at once, the skill will fail. Check the Potion Creation Guide for the necessary ingredients.

Twilight Alchemy II: Make 200 attempts to create a Condensed White Potion every 0.005 seconds. This skill has the same success rate as the Pharmacy skill. If there are not enough ingredients to create all 200 at once, the skill will fail. Check the Condensed Potion Creation Guide for the necessary ingredients.

Twilight Alchemy III: Creates 100 Alcohol, 50 Acid Bottle and 50 Bottle Grenade. Each cast requires 50 Fabric, 50 Empty Bottle and enough materials to craft the produced items. If there are not enough ingredients to create them all at once, the skill will fail. Check the Alcohol Creation Guide, Acid Bottle Creation Guide and Bottle Grenade Creation Guide for the necessary ingredients.

Note that the required party members MUST be online AND present on the same map for the skill to work.

ASSASSIN
Boosts their Sonic Blow by doubling its damage and halving the Cool Down for the skill’s duration. However, the bonuses are reduced to +25% bonus damage and no Cool Down bonus when in Siege Mode (WoE)

ROGUE
– Dispell no longer removes your buffs.
– Potions created by someone who is high on the alchemist rank have their effect increased.
– STR bonus from Tunnel Drive will last 5 minutes and walking speed will also increase.

PRIEST
Boosts the power of Holy Light by +400% but also increasing its SP Cost by +400% for the skill’s duration.

(5x damage for 5x cost)

MONK
– The Raging Thrust attack becomes a 5×5 cell splash attack.
– SP Cost of combo skills is decreased.
– Allow SP regeneration in Fury state.

(thrust splash is actually 3×3, sp of combo skills do not get reduced on unmodified eAthena source code)

SOUL LINKER
Allows them to use “Ka- Type” skills on any other class, for the skill’s duration.

(it is NOT possible to link yourself)

Note that you can use Ka- type skills on your husband/wife without a link.

STAR GLADIATOR
Allows the usage of the “Union of the Sun, Moon and Stars” skill.

Union of the Sun, Moon and Stars: Your movement speed is increased and all your attacks never miss and ignore DEF, but you loose 2% of your HP every time you attack a monster and 8% HP every time you attack a player, also if you attack a player when you only have 20% HP left, you will be killed instantly afterwards.

(union effects not verified. Unmissable, ignoring def and hp loss have not been verified. You do, however lose hp on striking. The percents lost were not verified)

Note that One Hand Quicken and Full Adrenaline Rush do not fade when the link does and persist until the end of their duration.

Phew, that one was also a long one.

Section 3: Other

PVP. For all intensive purposes, any player character is assumed to be (by default) demi-human, medium, neutral creatures. Thus, any card that effects demi-human, medium or neutral creatures will effect a player. The only exceptions to this rule is baby characters which count as demi-human, small, neutral creatures on some servers and (if it’s activated this way) anyone on a peco who count as demi-human, large, neutral creatures on some servers. This is a setting that can be modified in the server conf files.

Beret/Feather Beret/PooPoo hat:
10% reduction from demi-human, that means ALL damage, be it magical, physical or whatever else there is. If it comes from a player, this reduces it.

Card Damage effects:

Cards of the same type will increase damage additively. For example, if you have two hydra cards (+20% vs demi-human) you will do 140% of your atk on a demi-human. Different cards increase damage multiplicatively. For Example, if you have a hydra card (20% vs demi-human) and a skeleton worker card (15% vs medium and +5 atk) you will do 120% * 115% +5 atk on the player or 138%+5 atk (+38% from the two cards and the +5 from the skeleton worker).  Therefore, mixing cards makes for better overall damage boost.

Order of defense calculations:

So far as I know, defense calculations for physical attacks are as follows: Element Type->Def->Racial Resists -> elemental resists ->Vit Def.

And Magical attacks are calculated by: Element Type->Mdef->Racial resists-> Elemental resists-> int mdef.

Defense types:

Hard def/mdef. The first number in your stat window (alt-a) after def. This is hard def and mdef. They reduce damage taken from physical and magical attacks respectively by that number PERCENT. So if you have 20 hard def you reduce 20% of the physical damage you take. This is calculated on a per hit basis, so multiple hit attacks can act a little funny for these calculations. Please be aware that skills or items that “pierce”, “ignore”, or “reverse” def disregard this number somewhat.

Vit Def and Int mdef. The +## after your hard def and mdef? Those are vit def and int mdef and are sometimes known as soft def and mdef. After hard def and mdef are calculated the damage you take is further reduced by these numbers. Unlike hard def and mdef these numbers are a FLAT RATE reduction and are tied directly to your total vit and int. for EACH HIT you will take <base vit + vit bonus> less physical damage and <base int + int bonus> less magical damage.  Again, this is calculated on a per-hit basis.

Resists:

Racial resists resist all damage regardless of element, or type from one particular race. For example, a thara frog card will resist 30% from demi-human, that means, whenever a demi-human or player tries to hurt you, you take 30% LESS damage.

Elemental Resists:

Similar to race but this time restricted to element. You take that percent less damage from the specified element (Raydric card, for example will reduce neutral damage)

Card Proc Effects:

As a number of you are aware of, there are a number of cards that proc effects at a certain chance per normal attack. These effects DO stack, HOWEVER there’s a catch. The card effects don’t add to each other due to a quirk in the way the effects are calculated.

Take the metaling card for example. It provides a weapon with a 5% chance of casting lvl 1 strip weapon on the target per attack. Two should theoretically provide a 10% chance, right? Not so. It’s actually 5% * 2 chances, which while it looks the same, it’s not. It’s two separate chances to proc the effect rather then adding together to make one bigger chance.

Therefore, 2 metalling cards is not a 10% chance but rather, a 5% +5% – the chances of both cards proccing at once. The RNG doesn’t take into account the effect of two proc cards hitting at the same time, and therefore counts as if only one had procced. Meaning, there is a lower then 10% success rate for two metalling cards.

I’m sorry that this isn’t very clear so I will use some math and numbers to make it easier to understand.

Say you attack 100 times. That means strip weapon would proc on average 5 times. If you had 2 metaling cards, and attacked 100 times, you would get 5 procs + 5 procs – times when both procced. In all reality, approximately:
10/100 – (5/100*5/100)
= 0.1 – 0.0025
= 9.75 times in 100 strikes
= 9.75% chance

The chances further deteriorate with more cards. 3 cards procs at:

15/100 – [(5/100*5/100)*2] – (5/100*5/100*5/100)
= 0.15-(0.005+0.000125)
= 14.4875 times in 100 strikes
= 14.4875% of the time

The multiplied function is because there are now two sets of pairs that can proc together, the one function with three is because there is now a set of 3 cards that can proc all at once and must be disregarded for duplicating previous results.

Four cards is even worse, at:
20/100 – (5/100*5/100)*6 – (5/100*5/100*5/100)*4 –
(5/100*5/100*5/100*5/100)
= 0.20 – (0.015 + 0.0005 + 0.00000625 )
= 18.449375 times in 100 strikes
= 18.449375% chance

There are now 6 different pairs that must be disregarded, but even worse there are now 4 sets of three that must ALSO be disregarded and to top it all off there is now a set of 4 (all four proccing simultaneously) that must be further disregarded.

While each additional card, DOES improve the chances of the effect proccing, it does NOT add to the percent statically. It does not, however, make enough difference to change the simple statement “more is better”.

Equip Swapping:

this applies mostly to gear that provide uninteruptable cast but longer cast times. Gears like Phen carded items or orlean’s uniform or the like but can also apply to other gear depending on the situation.

To equip swap means to change your current equipment mid cast or mid battle, allowing you to keep some benefits while bypassing some penalties. This can also be done for weapons and such for various effects.

First, the system of how the game applies this. When you swap an item for another with a hotkey, it will automatically replace the hotkey with the next item of the SAME TYPE. So for example, if you have all 4 elemental damascus and use a hotkey, pressing the hotkey will take off your current one, put on the one on your hotkey and swap the hotkey to the NEXT damascus in your inventory. Top to bottom, left to right.

Second, using hotkeys or double clicks will only ever replace the acc in your left slot and will never effect your right slot unless you manually remove it first. This rule also applies to left hand equipment for Dual Dagger Assassins and assassin crosses.

Now, here’s an interesting little tidbit. Gears like phen and orlean’s can take effect after a skill has begun it’s cast. Example. My wizard casts Storm Gust but has horrendous dex and therefore casts it really slowly lets say it takes 10 seconds to cast. I can put on a phen or an orleans but that expands the casting time significantly. However, I can swap equipments WHILE CASTING, to maintain my 10 second cast time and still gaining uninteruptable casting as long as I can switch before I get hit.

The reason this works, is because phen and orlean’s only effect the cast times of spells and skills started AFTER it has been equipped but provides the uninterruptible portion immediately. I can cast fast, AND not be interrupted if some stray shot nails me while I am casting.

This is just one example of how equip switching works, and I certainly don’t claim to be an expert at doing it (frankly I have trouble with 2 or more items), but I’m sure you would have an excellent time if you practice with it a bit.

Joker:

A note about the monster “joker” Normally they aren’t very common but they are around. They have a skill called “Element Change” which allows them to randomly change their base element. So while all the various database sites with all the information on the monster state that Joker is a neutral elemental character, he could well be any other element. This generally happens when he is being attacked. He will cast a spell that is uninteruptable and then show the fist or “v” emote, indicating that his element has changed. Be wary, his element is 100% random so you might find yourself suddenly facing a ghost element Joker.

Conclusion

Well that’s my compendium. It’s short compared to the item and skill databases isn’t it? That’s because it’s not a database. Yep, you heard me, I’m not going to go over all ten thousand items in the database here to clarify what they all mean.

If you find a skill or item or something else that I didn’t explain here, and you find to be somewhat confusing, please feel free to let me know and I’ll add it in and credit you for doing so.

Please note that I am NOT 100% certain of every minor bug so if something here doesn’t gel with a server’s custom modifications, well, I’m not responsible.

Also, I have verified everything here that I could except what has been flagged with “unverified” or “untested”. Therefore, please don’t post anything shouting at me for such flagged information being incorrect, I tested this quite laboriously in my free time.

If there are any formatting issues, also let me know as i wrote this using Microsoft Office Word 2003 and it may not transfer cleanly

Filed under: How to ..., Other RO Writings, Tips & Tricks