ZENONIA 1: RPG Mechanic Guide

This guide explains what stats do, classes focus on, and general tips for character builds so you can make informed decisions. As the game is relatively simple, this guide is somewhat short. I played this game extensively when younger on the Nintendo Dual Screen but am verifying info and will continue updating the guide as I go through it on my own again.

Contrary to popular belief, all classes benefit from every stat and you will notice if you choose to not increase a stat at all but the game can be finished with just about any stat distribution.

Strength: Increases Attack by 3-3, increases carry weight by 14.

Constitution: Increases Health by 30 points.

Dexterity: Increases Evasion by 0.15%, Increases Crit rate by 0.20%. Hit Rate under testing, Might decrease skill cooldown.

Stamina: Increases SP by 20, increases max hunger by 1.

Defense: derived from armor. A bit hard to test because of damage variance but it seems that defense is subtracted from the damage rating of the enemy attack which would fit with the linear scaling of the game. So if you have 30 defense, you take 30 less damage every attack.

Elemental Damage and Defense: a little bit too difficult to test at the moment. If it simply adds to attack and defense, it is largely pointless; if it percentage, it is incredible. I will try to test this at some point and give an update however.

A note on the nature of scaling: Zenonia largely uses linear scaling for stats. This has some interesting effects. Constitution gains diminishing returns in terms of effective gains. At low levels, 10 points in Con may double your health bar but late game, 10 points may only be a 10% increase. Defense is a Constitution amplifier, with defense exponentially increasing how many hits your HP bar can take. At high defense, tanking high enemy attack rating, constitution remains as effective as it was at low levels; but when you have greatly surpassed the enemy’s attacks, or if you have relative low armor, points in constitution rapidly becomes less effective the more points have already been invested.

Strength is similar; at higher levels the attack boost strength provides becomes diminished by the base damage of weapons, although the linear damage calculation and enemy defenses helps mitigate this, keeping it relevant even in late game but only while you haven’t greatly surpassed an enemies defense stat. Accuracy and crit rate and crit modifier act as percent boosts to effective damage per attack. I believe criticals double final damage but this needs more testing.
If you want to calculate whether strength or dexterity increases effective damage more, I won’t have answers without knowing enemy defenses. Against an enemy with no defense, a point of dexterity increases damage by (current crit rate + .20)/(current crit rate) * (old chance to miss/new chance to miss). I think if your attacks are landing for more than 1500 that dexterity is always more effective.

Stamina becomes less effective only when the SP regen is such that you outregen the cost of your active abilities. This is difficult to have happen, especially since actives increase in cost the more they are levelled up. You need to spend less stamina the more damage you deal however so its best to keep this as a secondary but still important stat.

Evasion is unique in that it gets exponentially better. Points invested in DEX increase evasion linearly but the jump from 0% eavsion to 1% is a 1% decrease in effective damage taken; the jump from 98% to 99% is a 50% reduction in effective damage taken. I do not know if enemies have an accuracy stat that mitigates evasion but because of how it scales, it’s best to either ignore it or maximize it.
If someone could datamine enemy stats, player stats could be min-maxed around enemy attack and defense. As it stands though, the systems of Zenonia are geared towards keeping every stat relevant: punishing neglecting a stat completely and reducing the efficiency of maximizing only one.

What should my stat distribution look like? well, that’s the fun of RPG’s, trying a new playthrough with a different strategy. I’d recommend for new or casual players to put at least one point into stamina every other level, and that generally, maximum hp is overpowered in nearly every rpg. Dexterity can be really good and is why assassin is a bit more complex than other classes but it requires a much higher investment to be worth it than attack or constitution. I’d also recommend buffing a class’s strengths rather than trying to sure-up weaknesses.

Equipment stats: lowest damage, most damage consistency. Medium Armor.
A class that focuses on magic and the only that can heal from skills.
Passives lower enemy attack, increase skill effectiveness, increase strength and make constitution more effective.
Actives Heal HP, cause knockdown, bleed, hamper enemies and increase elemental effectiveness. An all-rounder.
The percentage based healing and decent armor make constitution more effective. Recommended to increase stamina investment for this class.

Skills list will be added later

Equipment stats: highest Damage, least damage consistency, Best Armor.
Large sword increases attack range.
Passives increase effectiveness of stamina and strength. Unfortunately has passives that increase crit rate, which is pointless if berserk is active.
Actives deal knockdown to keep enemies at bay, and cause bleed for extra damage. Has one paralysing move. Can increase defense temporarily and go into a berserk to make all attacks auto crit.
The high defense makes constitution more effective for the warrior than other classes, it also makes evasion a bit redundant. If you choose to use berserk, the effectiveness of dexterity is minimized greatly; you can choose instead to forgo berserk and get the dexterity passives but this is more skill point costly and lowers maximum damage potential if points are given to dexterity instead of strength.

Skills list will be added

Equipment stats: medium damage, medium damage consistency, Least effective armor.
Able to move faster, allowing the avoidance of some short range, slow enemy attacks.
Passives increase dexterity and stamina effectiveness.
One of the passives allows dexterity to partially replace strength as your damage stat. Replacing strength in this way will have damage increase at only 2 per point instead of strength’s 3 but will help maximize evasion, accuracy, and criticals. Ultimately, whether you want to replace strength with DEX fully is dependent on whether you want to have to manage your inventory more often. Personally, I don’t mind buying only 50 potions at a time instead of 200 and using the extra evasion
The less effective armor of the Assassin decreases the effectiveness of constitution compared to other classes and makes evasion a bit more useful. Unfornately, since I do not have access to enemy accuracy stats, I cannot do the math needed to see which is better. Evasion, of course, is more random than constitution; even with 99% evasion, you can be unlucky and hit several times in a row, dying from a low constitution. I have however, beat the game not increasing constitution.
Active skills stun enemies, allowing you to wail on them, or allow you to better avoid or run away from enemies.

Skills list will be added

I’m currently playing through the game to see how many of the choices matter. Will update shortly.

will update shortly

I think the mobile version had in-app purchases for cheat items but I’m not entirely sure. On the DSI version of the game, these instead cost exorbitant amounts of gold but were well worth it. This version instead uses achievement points. Achievements carry between saves but you do get the points again for each new character. I’ll add the final tally once I get all achievements. With these items no longer being infinitely grindable, and the transient nature of the boosts most of them provide, all but the oblivion feather are pointless. The stat and skill reset items can be worth it if you really feel you need a stat reset, typically towards the end of the game to move STR or Con to DEX or vice-versa dependent on character class. You can honestly ignore these items for the most part but feel free to spend points if you feel you are stuck. The tactical use of a limited number of special enhancements or XP boosts may provide some richness when speedrunning however.

I need more money: kill the strongest enemy that you can fight with no risk of death and that you don’t need potions to heal back from.

I die too quickly: bring potions, they are relatively cheap and 99 can be bought after minimal grinding.

I need more XP: find the strongest enemy that you can consistently kill without dropping below 35% health. Bring 99 potions and heal back after every kill. Be aware that monsters can crit or can get lucky with their damage rolls so you’ll want to be able to survive a couple maximized hits.

I need better equipment: Monsters drop equipment at or below their own level. It’s never a waste to buy a new weapon. Buying normal armor is worth it if you are behind on defense but monster drops are usually enough. Accessories do not increase in stats enough to be worth buying. The shady merchant generally isn’t worth it unless you’re willing to savescum.