Bravery Bonus

Bravery bonus increases your experience for running quests on higher difficulty. It was introduced in Update 11 and overhauled in Update 42 Patch 4, in order to encourage players to run a larger variety of quests on harder difficulty.

Overview
Once per life, you can get extra experience equal to 100% of elite XP as your bravery bonus.
 * If you run on elite or reaper difficulty, you receive full 100%.
 * If you run on hard difficulty, you receive 50%. If you run the quest later on elite, you receive the remaining 50%.
 * Even if you run on hard first, you bravery bonus is still calculated using elite XP.

Bravery bonus is tracked separately across Heroic and Epic difficulties. This means that if you play a dungeon on Heroic Elite, you will be able to acquire the Epic Elite Bravery Bonus if you play that same dungeon again in Epic levels.

Level range
In order to be eligible for the full bravery bonus, your character must be no more than:


 * 2 levels above the base quest level (in heroics), or
 * 4 levels above the base quest level (in epics)

If you have an over-level player in your group (more than the range above), Bravery Bonus is halved.

These level restrictions are applied during the first run of the quest only. If you split the bravery bonus by running first on Hard and then on Elite, the second (Elite) run will grant the +50% bonus even if you are over level (provided you are not so far over level that all XP is reduced to zero).

Reaper XP
Bravery bonus does not increase Reaper experience.

Bravery streak
The game keeps totals of how many dungeons have you completed on hard and elite. The numbers have no gameplay effect. The streaks cannot be broken, however they only increase while you are within the level range as written above.

Older information
The Bravery bonus and Streak bonus are a special kind of experience point bonus added to the game in Update 11

These bonuses only apply for the first completion of a quest, on top of the first time completion bonus. However, these can only be awarded once per a quest, unlike the first time difficulty bonus which can be awarded multiple times per a quest. Running the same quest additional times will not give these bonuses again or affect the bravery streak. After the first run, you may run the quest on any difficulty and it will not break your bravery streak.

Players often abbreviate these together as BB or Streak on LFM panels. For example, "elite for BB" or "for elite Streak" and such.

Prerequisites
In order for the bravery bonus to apply, all of the following conditions must be met:
 * It must be the first completion of the quest for that character. True Reincarnation resets your completion status of all quests.
 * You must run the quest on Hard or higher difficulty.
 * Running the quest on Hard makes you eligible for "Hard Streak"
 * Running the quest on Elite or Reaper makes you eligible for both "Hard Streak" and "Elite Streak"
 * For non-epic quests (base level 19 or lower) the highest character level in the party cannot be greater than 2 levels above the base level of the quest.
 * For Epic (base level 20) quests;
 * The spread between quest level and character level is increased by one, so the highest character level in the party cannot be greater than 3 levels above the base level of the quest.
 * This means a lvl 20 epic quest (Phiarlan Chain for example) will allow bravery bonus for groups where no character is above lvl 23.
 * For Epic (base level 21 and higher) quests;
 * The spread between quest level and character level is increased by two, so the highest character level in the party cannot be greater than 4 levels above the base level of the quest.
 * This means a lvl 21 epic quest will allow bravery bonus for groups where no character is above lvl 25.

Pausing bravery bonus
As of Update 27, there is a "Bravery Marshall", an NPC in the Hall of Heroes (Kranston Bell) and on Guild Airships (usually near the "Buff Bar"), that allows a character to temporarily "pause" or suspend their Bravery Bonus. This is a toggle, and will remain in effect until toggled again by speaking to the NPC. The Bravery Bonus will not reset nor increment while paused.

Note: Reincarnating a character might reactivate a paused Bravery Bonus. Check your bravery status with the Bravery Marshal.

XP calculation

 * Bravery bonus - This bonus is a flat +10% on Hard, +20% on Elite, and +30% on Reaper, and is applied for being brave enough to do a quest for the first time and choosing a harder than normal difficulty.
 * Streak bonus - This bonus is +5% on Hard and +10% on Elite or Reaper
 * Streak bonus stacks with itself up to 5 times, to a maximum of +25% for Hard, and +50% for Elite and Reaper.

The bravery and streak bonuses stack with each other, but also stack with the standard "first time" bonus. Together, these bonuses can provide up to +75% on Hard, +150% on Elite, and +200% on Reaper when the maximum streak is obtained.


 * Hard (75%) = First time bonus (40%) + Bravery (10%) + Streak (25%)
 * Elite (150%) = First time bonus (80%) + Bravery (20%) + Streak (50%)
 * Reaper (200%) = First time bonus (120%) + Bravery (30%) + Streak (50%)

When determining which streak bonus (Hard or Elite) will be applied, the higher number of the two streak bonuses takes precedence.

For example:
 * You are running a standard CR10 quest on Elite (Effective quest CR is thus 12)
 * Your character is lvl 12
 * This is your first time running the quest
 * Your current Hard streak is 5 (+25%)
 * Your current Elite streak is 1 (+10%)

→ Your final XP calculation will be: First time bonus on Elite (80%) + Bravery on Elite (20%) + Streak on Hard (25%)

What breaks Streaks and what doesn't
All streaks are broken when both the following are true:
 * You are running a quest for the first time
 * The quest difficulty is Casual or Normal (breaks both Hard and Elite streak) or Hard (breaks Elite streak)

Exception:
 * Your streak will not be broken if you personally would qualify for breaking your bravery streak, but someone else in the party is over level which prevents you from qualifying. Thus you can do at-level quest on normal or hard the first time without breaking it, simply by inviting an over-level character. Your streak will be paused and not applied, but not broken.

For example:
 * You run The Shroud (CR17) on normal at level 17.
 * If everyone else was level 19 or lower, your streak would be broken.
 * If you have a level 20 in the group, no one qualifies anymore and thus it will neither break your streak nor extend it.

Note:
 * You can verify whether or not your streak will progress or be broken by examining the XP report. Be sure to examine it after all party members are in the dungeon, as it could change based on who's inside.

Solo-only quests
Running solo-only quests doesn't affect your streak in any way.

Devil Assault
Running Devil Assault no longer affects your bravery streak in any way, as of Update 11.1.

Level 20+ quests
Level 20 quests are treated as level 21 quests for XP purposes only. Level 21+ quests are treated as 2 levels higher for XP purposes only.

Special Cases

 * Challenges don't have a classic difficulty selector (N/H/E), and therefore they don't benefit from or affect Bravery Bonus in any way.
 * Wilderness Areas don't count as quests, and therefore don't interact with Bravery Bonus in any way either.