History YMMV / AdventureQuest

* GameBreaker: Essence Orb misc allows you to trade HP for SP. SP were originally a limited resource that can be used for various purposes, such as misc upkeep, and armor skills that recharges overtime making them harder to spam to your heart content. Essence Orb broke that notion, by allowing you to have as many SP poll as your HP allows. This particularly had a ridiculous implication with quick-cast SP skills since its entirely possible to reattempt their casting so long as you have enough HP to spare.

** Ryn the Undying is one for most players due to his complex system of attacks. His default attack is randomly chosen between Fire and Dark elements, making resistance against both hard. He also uses special attacks depending on if he has MP and SP and if he had inflicted a {{Standard Status Effect|s}} on the player character, so the player needs to watch every piece of information on the screen to make sure what attack he'll use next. Then there's the fact his special attack has a chance of downright killing any player character that isn't a pure human, but the game never tells the player ''why'' he can OHKO the player character. Unlike most other bosses of this difficulty, defeating him is required to unlock more Celestial Haven quests. Overall, he's GuideDangIt in boss form.

** Armors with the "Fully Offensive" lean deal 25% more damage at cost of taking 25% more damage back, and "0 proc" weapons generally have inherently higher damage to compensate for the lack of special attacks (procs). These two types of equipment are combined to maximize overall damage per turn. This setup is popular for two reasons: 1. it is much easier to collect equipment with these attributes than those with more defensive abilities, and 2. this type of equipment makes it easy to outdamage monsters. This setup is so popular that at one point, the character build guide on the official forums listed nothing but high-end "0 proc" weapons and Fully Offensive-lean armors and listed everything else as an afterthought.

* GoodBadBugs: During the "Divide by Zero" war, the monster pool was abnormally strong, leading to waves of monsters that were 30 levels above the character's level. This also meant farming was made easier, but slowed war progress.
* ''VideoGame/AdventureQuest'':

** Armors with the "Fully Offensive" lean deal 25% more damage at cost of taking 25% more damage back, and "0 proc" weapons generally have inherently higher damage to compensate for the lack of special attacks (procs). This is combined to maximize overall damage per turn. This is popular for two reasons: 1. it is much easier to collect equipment with these attributes than those with more defensive abilities, and 2. this type of equipment makes it easy to outdamage monsters. This build is so popular that at one point, the character build guide on the official forums listed nothing but high-end "0 proc" weapons and Fully Offensive-lean armors and listed everything else as an afterthought.

** Armors with the "Fully Offensive" lean have a 1.25x multiplier for their normal attack damage at cost of taking 25% more damage, and "0 proc" weapons generally have inherently higher damage to compensate for the lack of special attacks (procs). This is combined to maximize overall damage per turn. This is popular for two reasons: 1. it is much easier to collect equipment with these attributes than those with more defensive abilities, and 2. this type of equipment makes it easy to outdamage monsters. This build is so popular that at one point, the character build guide on the official forums listed nothing but high-end "0 proc" weapons and Fully Offensive-lean armors and listed everything else as an afterthought.

** The most notorious example in ''[=AdventureQuest=]'' as a whole is the Fully Offensive Armor with 0 proc Weapon build. Fully Offensive Armor have a 1.25 multiplier for their normal attack damage at cost of taking 25% more damage, and 0 proc Weapons, with very few exception had an inherently higher damage compared to its proc counterparts. This is combined to get the highest overall damage per turn possible. This is popular for 2 reason, first is the ease of access for equipment of this build with tons of Mastercrafted options for Weapons and Armors on almost every elements. Second is the relative lack of monster damage that makes the build damage oriented approach favorable to its alternatives. This build is so popular, that at one point the character build guide on the forum is filled with the high end 0 procs and fully offensive armors and everything else as an afterthought.
** Pendant of the Galin is a miscellaneous item with a special effect to randomly decrease Elemental Damage you take alongside a sizable boost to Bonus to Hit, a massive boost to Endurance, and a nice Charisma bonus. While its not the best Misc for every situation, it provides a nice mix of offense and durability which turns it into one of the most used misc in the game.

** The most notorious example in Adventure Quest as a whole is the Fully Offensive Armor with 0 proc Weapon build. Fully Offensive Armor have a 1.25 multiplier for their normal attack damage at cost of taking 25% more damage, and 0 proc Weapons, with very few exception had an inherently higher damage compared to its proc counterparts. This is combined to get the highest overall damage per turn possible. This is popular for 2 reason, first is the ease of access for equipment of this build with tons of Mastercrafted options for Weapons and Armors on almost every elements. Second is the relative lack of monster damage that makes the build damage oriented approach favorable to its alternatives. This build is so popular, that at one point the character build guide on the forum is filled with the high end 0 procs and fully offensive atmors and everything else as an afterthought.
** Pendant of the Galin is a misc with a special effect to randomly decrease Elemental Damage you take alongside a sizable boost to Bonus to Hit, a massive boost to Endurance, and a nice Charisma bonus. While its not the best Misc for every situation, it provides a nice mix of offense and durability which turns it into one of the most used misc in the game.

** Pendant of the Galin is a misc with a special effect to randomly decrease Elemental Damage you take alongside a sizable boost to BtH, a massive boost to Endurance, and a nice Charisma bonus. While its not the best Misc for every situation, it provides a nice mix of offense and durability which turns it into one of the most used misc in the game.

** Gogg, the most well-known example of this game's GlassCannon, as it hits like a truck but dies really quickly. There are many deadlier variant, such as Armegoggon. Then Shadow Gogg came with his random chance to inflict Celebrity (allowing it to act for another turn). Be thankful that Shadow Gogg only hits with Light and Dark, unlike the regular Gogg, which will use Ice-, Water-, and Energy-element attacks.

* SequelDisplacement: Due to the original game being unrefined at best, other ArtixEntertainment games have eclipsed the original ''[=AdventureQuest=]'' in popularity. However, many of the characters prevalent in the other games stem from the original game.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: As in-game wars are considered {{Timed Mission}}s, players considered "warmongers" try to rack up the most kills in the least amount of time. This means maximizing damage per turn, minimizing the number of turns taken per battle, preventing pets from taking their turn, running away from monsters with high Endurance, and using equipment with short animations. This led to the build called the [=PoeMage=], where a player uses "nuke" spells (usually requiring CastFromHitPoints or being locked in a defensively-poor armor) while a Poelala pet and guest boosts their damage.

* BrokenBase: The Paladin vs Necromancer War caused massive debates on whether the consequences were fair.

* BrokenBase:
** The Paladin vs Necromancer War caused massive debates on whether the consequences were fair.
* ContinuityLockout: Since AQ is the [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness first game]] in a long list of ''other'' [[Creator/ArtixEntertainment AE games]], new players uncertain about how ''VideoGame/DragonFable''[='=]s shared [[AnotherSideAnotherStory timeline]] (or even how [[VideoGame/AdventureQuestWorlds AQWorlds]]) had fitted into the whole ''timeline'' of events, require some [[ViewersAreGeniuses thought]] about the whole storyline... This can be [[MindScrew very confusing]] for people.
** The fact that quite a bit of the back story can only be found at [[AllThereInTheManual the forums]] certainly doesn't help.

* GoodBadBug:
** During the "Divide by Zero" war, the monster pool was abnormally strong, leading to waves of monsters that were 30 levels above the character's level. This also meant farming was made easier, but slowed war progress.

%% ZCE: * MagnificentBastard: Drakath (now a dragon)

* ThatOneBoss: The "Unbeatable" and Void monsters are mostly designed as these.
** Shadow Storm. The way it works is, it starts the battle with a powerful two-hit SP attack that randomly hit with light or darkness element, and it spent the next four turn to recharge its SP and HP until it can use its SP attack. Rinse, and repeat. Its SP attack also have an effect to reduce the player character's damage output, and you have 25% chance to get stunned and do nothing. It actually have quite a low starting HP, but it has a much higher maximum HP which means it can regenerate itself until it has three times its starting HP if your offensive power is unable to compete with its massive HP regeneration.
*** Shadow Storm was even worse. In its original version, because of a programming mistake which caused its damage output to be doubled, enough to outright one shot a fragile character if they are caught in the wrong armor set up. This bug has been fixed, and the Shadow Storm has been re-adjusted since the damage fix.
*** And All of this was before the patch 39. Imagine fighting the original Shadow Storm right now....

** Shadow Storm is one, which is a big reason for its status as a BaseBreaker. The way it works is, it starts the battle with a powerful two-hit SP attack that randomly hit with light or darkness element, and it spent the next four turn to recharge its SP and HP until it can use its SP attack. Rinse, and repeat. Its SP attack also have an effect to reduce the player character's damage output, and you have 25% chance to get stunned and do nothing. It actually have quite a low starting HP, but it has a much higher maximum HP which means it can regenerate itself until it has three times its starting HP if your offensive power is unable to compete with its massive HP regeneration.

* BaseBreaker:
** Due to it originally being bugged to deal twice as much damage and requiring two other tough bosses to be defeated in the same game session, players tended to be frustrated by the long trek needed for each attempt to battle Shadow Storm.
** The Necromancer Vs. Paladin war was one of the greatest {{Base Breaker}}s in recent years. To the point of it having made the writer of the event swear off writing multisided wars at the end. That is until he wrote up a four sided faction war that has just about as strong opinions for each side...
** Engine 39 also was a rather big one, due to heavy changes in the {{Metagame}}, ending in the staff member behind most of numerical changes fired and another who worked on making it work to resign a short time later.

** Weekly releases tend to have a few hiccups before a patch later in the day, such as the 2015 Giftbox armor bugged to deal 100% damage for two hits rather than 50% damage each. Banshee Form armor was a bug that lied unnoticed for ''months''. Banshee Form, on paper, was an inferior Darkness-element armor compared to others, but it was bugged in implementation to deal twice as much damage as other armors of the level. People who actually used Banshee Form would have a much easier time clearing the game before it was patched.

* GoodBadBug: During the "Divide by Zero" war, the monster pool was abnormally strong, leading to waves of monsters that were 30 levels above the character's level. This also meant farming was made easier, but slowed war progress.

* ViewersAreGeniuses: The [[YourHeadAsplode Devourer Saga]] is enough to induce a few headaches, as well as the constant [[ShoutOut references]] to other TV-shows and the HurricaneOfPuns help slightly.

** Zards are everywhere, and among them comes the most annoying zard: The TerrorZard. -200 resist on all 8 elements, meaning you can only use Void and Harm on him. If you didn't bring Horo-show Void Vanquisher or any other void/harm weapons, good luck raging as the TerrorZard bites you all the way to Death's domain. Good thing is, he only appears in a few quest (Weapon of Salvation quests, "Frostval in July",...)

** Sneaks (A type of snake) are probably the most common, but they're getting edged out of their position as "King of all monsters that make players tear their hair out." The most obnoxious thing about them is that they're very, very difficult to hit with anything except a ranged attack unless your character has high dexterity. However, some more-recently-introduced monsters are just as hard to hit or worse, and they don't have the ranged weapon weakness. And since status effects were introduced fairly late, monsters that use them are really, really obnoxious. And then, we have the Ancient Sneak from "Play the Harpie" quest...
** Mighty Shadow Hydra have the ability to stack bleeding status effect which inflicts harm based damage whenever it hits you with its attack, and all of its resistances are lower than 100%. Bring it down to half health, and it summons its second head, increasing its damage output and bleeding, to the point that it can deal somewhere around 500 damage per turn. Put simply, you need to handle it quickly before its damage output snowballed out of control.

** Shadow Storm is one, which is a big reason for its status as a BaseBreaker. The way it works is, it starts the battle with a powerful two-hit SP attack that randomly hit with light or darkness element, and it spent the next four turn to recharge its SP and HP until it can use its SP attack. Rinse, and repeat. Its SP attack also have an effect to reduce your damage output, and you have 25% chance to get stunned and do nothing. It actually have quite a low starting HP, but it has a much higher maximum HP which means it can regenerate itself until it has three times its starting HP if your offensive power is unable to compete with its massive HP regeneration.

** The boss of third Frostval 2015 quest, Ancient Fruitcake Zard. He can paralyze you over and over again with his bite attack. Your only hope? Your water resistance is low enough so you have a turn to drink your potion or your pet, guest deal enough damage to him.