EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

April 25, 2025

This latest update will introduce many more balance changes, rollbacks, and Legendary reward bonuses! Plus, there is a major change to Simulation mode.

Balance Changes

•  General:
  • Increased super war item drop rate for 1v1 from 20% to 50%
  • Focus damage: Reverted back to +40 robot damage per focus level

• Mercenary:
  • Reactive Armor: Replaced with new skill, Deadly Precision: Increase auxiliary damage by a percentage of the weapon's damage bonus (min. 10%, max. 25%)

• Cyber Hunter:
  • Plasma Grenade: +1 damage per 0.3 --> 0.32 Technology

• Cores: Changed cooldowns on the following aux cores after use of normal aux from 4 to 3 turns:
  • Cold Ignition
  • Convergent Exsanguination
  • Sea King's Corruption
  • Skull Smasher

• Cores: Changed cooldowns on the following gun cores after use of normal sidearm from 3 to 2 turns:
  • Skull Cracker
  • Sea King's Venom
  • Corrosive Shot
  • Core Corruption
  • Darkeater's Insanity
  • Exsanguinating Spear
  • Blood Shot
  • Piercing Shot
  • Energy Shot
  • Pacify

• Blood Mage:
  • Fireball: Remove Technology requirement
  • Red Vision: Requires 24 --> 16 Dexterity at level 1, +2 per level

• Tactical Mercenary:
  • Reroute: -2% to all values; add effect that boosts auxiliary damage by a percentage of weapon bonus
  • Barbed Grenade: Scales with Dexterity --> Technology; scaling value 0.28 --> 0.32; removed stun chance
  • Annihilation: +1 damage per 0.3 --> 0.32 Technology

• Robots:
  • Necrosis: 2.5 --> 1.8 def/res reduction per target level (max debuff 130 --> 100); 85% --> 100% damage
  • Azrael's Affliction P/E: User gains 100% --> 50% of poison as HP
  • Azrael's Affliction P/E (NPC): 200 --> 500 max poison per tick; user gains 100% --> 40% of poison as HP
  • Deltamancer Disintegration P/E: Remove stun; add effect that grants user 20% of target's current energy (no energy drain, just gain)
  • Minotaur's Rage P/E: Removable --> Not removable by Cleanse/Saevussax Heart/Forbidden Pact

• Bug Fixes/QoL:
  • Destruction (aux) gives +6 str instead of +3
  • Limited-use stat cores no longer drop from PvP victories or daily rewards

Simulation Mode Changes

Simulation mode was a battle mode introduced years ago as a way for struggling players to climb their way back to victory after a nasty losing streak, earning Credits and experience through relatively easy NPC battles to gain much needed levels and Credits without hurting their win/loss ratio. This mode, however, was unlimited, and it was possible to battle infinitely. The buff to battle rewards awhile ago made it very lucrative to camp out in Simulation mode to the exclusion of all others. This was not the intention of this mode. AE has plenty of other games where you can stop AI-controlled enemies for fun and profit, but when presented with hard, unpredictable PvP battles or easy, predictable PvE battles, gamers will often choose the path of least resistance.

To address this, we've implemented a daily limit to Simulation victories. This limit will work in a similar way to NPC and Juggernaut battles. You will earn rewards for 300 victories, but after that, the rewards will stop entirely. This might seem like a huge nerf to rewards, but 300 NPC wins + 300 Simulation wins + 300 Juggernaut wins can still earn one a decent daily haul.

Legendary Rank-Up Rewards

As a final addition to this week's update, you will receive a bonus of 20,000 Credits for every new Legendary Rank obtained. Much like level-up rewards, you will receive this in your mailbox. Unfortunately, this rewards is not retroactive.

Tags: Nightwraith

April 18, 2025

EpicDuel is now live with a major update to the Name Change functionality! Plus, a sprinkling of balance changes and quality of life improvements for good measure!

Name Change

This has been on the to-do list for quite awhile, but we were finally able to implement it! The Name Change interface now displays all your previously owned names, including your current name. You can use your mouse wheel to scroll the list if it's too long. You might surprised by how many aliases you've purchased throughout the years!

The best part of this update is that changing your name to a previously owned name is now FREE! To start, there is a five day cooldown to prevent abuse and confusion from frequent name changes.

Since name change to an previously owned name is now free, the price for a new name has been increased to 2500. This is to account for the increased value in a name -- you keep it forever and can always change back to it for FREE. For the longest time people assumed that if you changed your name, someone else could purchase your old one. That was never the case. People never knew because of the lack of a functional name log! Plus, Varium is easier to obtain now through free methods. Even new characters start with Varium. The relatively low price of 1,100 made it easy to name camp. People can still technically name camp, but it will be much harder, and more expensive!

It's possible we could expand this feature in the future to allow other players to view the most recent names of their friends or even sell back old names they don't want to use anymore.

Balance Changes

• Artillery Strike: +30 damage to all levels
• Concentration: The +40 HP gain stacks with lifesteal effects
• Proton Cannon: HP gain is no longer being affected by Legendary points
• Blood Shield: 5 → 4 turn Cooldown
• Brace (Stunned): New version created to allow more granular control of different Brace applications and to add visual clarity.

Quality of Life

• Style Change Interface: Input the number of the style you want and press "enter" to jump directly to it.
• Custom Color disabler toggle: All CC items will display default colors when enabled. Normally, the game iterates through every single piece of equipment you have, searching through the 100s of Flash symbols that compose them to find any pieces with CC tags applied. This setting will bypass that check and can offer a performance boost. This may lead to some janky results, but low performance modes aren't made for the game to look pretty -- they're made to help the game run faster! Maybe I should make a "Potato" mode that sets everything to its default setting? Think of the glorious frames-per-second!

Tags: Nightwraith

April 11, 2025

EpicDuel is back with a truly EPIC balance update covering everything from damage ranges to core balance. If that's not enough, we even threw in some bug fixes and quality-of-life changes for good measure!

Balance Changes

General 

• x30 cores: Reverted all to the same values as their permanent versions. Removed all from shops except the following:
  • Absolution (armor) x30
  • Destruction (armor) x30
  • Domination (armor) x30
  • Fortitude (armor) x30
  • Infinity (armor) x30
  • Supremacy (armor) x30
  • Vigor (armor) x30
• Damage ranges reduced by slighting increasing the lower values (Divisors) and reducing the range multiplier. Divisor changes:
  • Resistance = 0.29, 0.39, 0.48, 0.48
  • Defense = 0.29, 0.39, 0.48, 0.48
  • Bot Damage = 0.39, 0.48, 0.58, 0.58
  • Primary Damage = 0.44, 0.56, 0.62, 0.82
  • Auxiliary Damage = 0.37, 0.56, 0.64, 0.81
  • Gun Damage = 0.37, 0.64, 0.64, 0.84
  • Reduce the multiplier that determines maximum damage/defense from 1.2 to 1.1
• Improved robot damage bonus for lower focus levels:
  • Focus 1: +90 robot damage
  • Focus 2: +120 robot damage
  • Focus 3: +150 robot damage
  • Focus 4: +180 robot damage
  • Focus 5: +210 robot damage
  • Focus 6: +240 robot damage 

All Classes

• Field Medic: Requires +3 → +2 Technology per level

Bounty Hunter:

• Shadow Arts: Removed Dexterity boost
• Venom Strike: 4 → 3 turn cooldown; remove support scaling: Flat 80 poison damage at level 1, +10 per level

Mercenary:

• Hybrid Armor: Removed highest stat boost; Add effect that converts 7% of all outgoing damage to user’s Energy; +2% def/res boost to all levels
• Bunker Buster: +20 damage to all levels
• Surgical Strike: +20 damage to all levels

Tech Mage:

• Concentration: Removed damage reduction; added effect that grants user flat +40 HP for every outgoing attack
• Deadly Aim: Removed Support boost
• Assimilation: Removed Strength scaling: Flat -110 Energy at level 1, +10 per level
• Overload: Improves with Support → Dexterity; 2 → 1 turn cooldown
• Plasma Rain: Improves with Dexterity → Support

Cyber Hunter:

• Plasma Grenade: Add 20% lifesteal
• Proton Cannon: 25% lifesteal → Flat +100 HP gain; 20% energy drain → Flat -100 Energy
• Venom Strike: Removed Support scaling: Flat 80 poison damage at level 1, +10 per level

Tactical Mercenary:

• Tactical Grenade: Removed Support scaling: Flat -110 Energy at level 1, +10 per level; 150 → 170 Energy gain
• Mineral Armor: Remove highest stat buff
• Barbed Grenade: +30 damage to all levels
• Suppressing Fire: +30 damage to all levels
• Annihilation: +30 damage to all levels
• Field Commander: Removed Support scaling: Flat +40 Support boost at level 1, +3 per level; removed increased Rage gain; added effect that grants lifesteal based on 50% of Support boost
• Toxic Grenade: +20 Energy cost; 85% → 100% damage; remove Strength scaling: Flat 80 poison damage at level 1, +10 per level

 Blood Mage:

• Fireball: Removed stun chance; add 15% def/res debuff for 2 turns; +1 damage per 0.32 → 0.3 Strength
• Red Vision: Removed Strength boost
• Blood Shield: 5 → 4 turn duration; 90 → 75 Energy gain; remove Technology boost; remove Support scaling: Static resistance increase values 40%, 43%, 46%, 48%, 50%, 52%, 54%, 56%, 58%, 60%
• Blood Instinct: +1 Dexterity per 3 → 5 Technology; 90 → 75 Energy gain 

Cores:

• Mega Stun Blast: 25% → 20% stun chance
• Paralysis Coating: 25% → 15% stun/crit chance; 15% → 20% defense ignore
• Screaming Soul Spears: 85% → 100% damage; 3 → 2 turn duration
• Ballistic Shield: 13% → 6% deflection chance increase
• Deflection Shield: 13% → 8% deflection chance increase
• Ninja Reflexes: 13% → 8% block chance increase
• Lucky Strike: Multiplicative instead of additive
• Lucky Strike/Aim Assist/Laser Sights/Super Scope: Effects apply to all attacks instead of only basic attacks
• Primary/Gun/Auxiliary Mastery: Remove crit chance increase; +10% weapon damage on basic attacks → Flat +25 weapon damage for all attacks

Robots:

• Azrael’s Affliction P/E: 30% → 20% of current HP as life-stealing poison
• Infernal Overload P/E: 95% → 85% initial damage; 130% → 125% max damage; peaks at round 9
• Asgard’s Fury P/E: 4 → 3 turn cooldown
• Dino Fire P/E/PxE/ExP: 4 → 3 turn cooldown; 10% → 8% of target’s max HP as damage bonus
• Rusted Dino Fire P/E/PxE/ExP: 4 → 3 turn cooldown
• Dragonblade Familiar Drill P/E: 4 → 3 turn cooldown; 20% → 17% of damage to HP and Energy
• Flesh Demigod Judgement P/E: 4 → 3 turn cooldown; 25% → 15% lifesteal
• Infernal/Plasma Super Beam: 91% → 97% initial damage
• Shadowlord’s Severance: P/E: 4 → 3 turn cooldown; 35% → 30% defense ignore 

Bug fixes / Changes:

• Description for Darkeater’s Impaler reads 3 turns instead of 2.
• Descriptions for Ninja Reflexes and Deflection Shield read 50% max block/deflection chance instead of 30%.
• Description for Dualism reads 100% damage instead of 110% (105% AOE).
• Azrael’s Annihilation is sometimes applying the debuff to the user for 2 turns instead of 1. The skill is now tracked via turns instead of rounds so in a 1v1 each player has a chance to react or retaliate. This also helps balance the skill in Juggernaut and 2v2 since the debuff will expire before a character can be attacked twice. This was a unique problem because it was the first skill ever to apply a debuff to both the target and attacker in the same turn.
• Azrael's Doombringer Beauty P/E (NPC): NPC version with a maximum HP drain/gain of 200 and 6 turn cooldown. Added to level 56 and 57 of the Basic Battlepass. Those who already claimed those levels of prizes will receive the bot manually.
• All seasonal robots will now have a permanently available version for Varium-only while the seasonally available one will have a Credit option.
  • Baby Yeti
  • Dark Yeti
  • Ballistic Bunny Bot
  • Electro Bunny Bot
  • Botanical Hazard
  • Dark Botanical Hazard
  • Blood Hawk P
  • Blood Hawk E
  • Lionhart's Avatar P
  • Lionhart's Avatar E
  • Kartherax's Darkspawn P
  • Kartherax's Darkspawn E
  • Cyber Yeti P
  • Cyber Yeti E
  • Monkakazi P
  • Monkakazi E
  • Pirate Bot P
  • Pirate Bot E
  • Phantasm Droid P
  • Phantasm Droid E
  • Cyber Shark P
  • Cyber Shark E

Tags: Nightwraith

April 04, 2025

The Azrael's Doombringer Showcase Battlepass is NOW LIVE! Login now to earn the latest collection of Azrael-themed weapons, armors, morphs, bots, and more crafted with care by Acatriel and Bido!

Good luck and happy dueling to reach level 60 of EpicDuel's latest Battlepass season!

So you all know what you're getting into with the new bots available in this season, the skill descriptions are listed below:

• Azrael's Doombringer Beast P:
  • Azrael's Beast Bash P: Physical overhead smash with a 25% crit chance.
  • Azrael's Annihilation P: Mutually massively reduce defense and healing for 1 turn. 1 turn warmup. This is the first skill to apply a debuff to both the attacker and the target.

• Azrael's Doombringer Beast E:
  • Azrael's Beast Bash E: Energy overhead smash with a 25% crit chance.
  • Azrael's Annihilation E: Mutually massively reduce defense and healing for 1 turn. 1 turn warmup. This is the first skill to apply a debuff to both the attacker and the target. 

• Azrael's Doombringer Beauty P:
  • Azrael's Assault P: A vicious physical onslaught ignoring 15% defense.
  • Azrael's Affliction P: 85% dmg. and inflict life-stealing poison for 30% HP over 2 rounds. Maximum 500 / Minimum 50 HP steal. Can be cured with Medic.

• Azrael's Doombringer Beauty E:
  • Azrael's Assault E: A vicious energy onslaught ignoring 15% defense.
  • Azrael's Affliction E: 85% dmg. and inflict life-stealing poison for 30% HP over 2 rounds. Maximum 500 / Minimum 50 HP steal. Can be cured with Medic.

Balance Changes

• First turn: All players except the one with first strike will have Brace applied.
• Shadow Arts: 7% --> Flat +25 robot damage buff.
• Energy Shield (Tactical Mercenary): Increases by 20 points per level rather than 2 or 1.
• Nanotech Armor: Replaced with new skill, Cyber Armor --> Increase defenses based on a percentage of armor points (43% at level 1, +3% per level for max. of 70%)
• Adaptive Offense: Removed energy drain 
• Captain's Charge: 3 --> 2 turn duration.
• Mastery cores: Only basic attacks deal +10% damage.
• Factions: To combat alting, going forward Faction recruits must be level 40 or higher. Current members of factions can still be under level 40, but all new members must be at least level 40.

Tags: Nightwraith

March 21, 2025

EpicDuel is back with some incredible new Gifter rewards and a light helping of balance changes and bug fixes. Plus, there is a special announcement and explanation concerning the upcoming Battlepass progress.

Balance Change and Fixes:

• Skill/Core Changes
  • Jack Frost Fury P/E: 25% robot damage as MP poison --> Flat -50 MP for 2 turns; keeps initial energy drain based on damage; Can't stack with other MP poison effects
  • Darkeater's Impaler: 3 --> 2 turn duration; 85% --> 100% damage
  • Minotaur's Rage P/E: 25% --> 30% defense reduction; removed stun chance
  • Icy Overkill (gun and aux): 110% --> 100% damage
  • Revolver Revolution: Animation updated to use existing sidearm instead of revolver
  • Bot summon animations: Hide sidearm and auxiliary to improve performance while bot and skill animations play.
• Bug fixes:
  • Primary/Gun/Auxiliary Mastery are not correctly adding +10% damage on normal attacks
  • Vigor x30 (aux): Visual bug displaying +7 Dexterity and +7 Support 
  • NPCs will use Brace sometimes when they cannot use an action instead of freezing and timing out
  • 16 Year Alpha Achievement text error

There is also a known issue in which NPCs can still target users with Lionhart's Shield active. This is mainly seen in 2v2. As a failsafe, the shield has extreme damage reduction forcing the minimum damage values (30-50 depending on attack type). This will have to be the case until an ideal solution is found.

Battlepass and Gifting Rewards Update

Remember when we mentioned in an earlier DN post that the next Battlepass would be ready in March. Well, it's almost April, and still no Battlepass. What's the deal? We knew Gifting rewards would take up a big chunk of the year, but we had no idea until the event ended that we would still owe so many rewards. Lodrian and I have been working constantly for the last 2 months to complete the rewards as efficiently as possible, and while we've made good progress getting the list down to a more manageable level, there are still about 20 more to go.

I thought initially that I could work on rewards during the "day shift" and the Battlepass content on the "night shift." That clearly didn't go as intended and both shifts were devoted to Gifting rewards. I know it seems like these things are taking forever, but please keep in mind it's just Lodrian and I making all the content you see in game, with occasional help from Tomcat and Bido. Even with others helping with content production, old crusty Nightwraith is still the only one who can implement the items in-game. EpicDuel's artists work hard and are very efficient with their time, but the fact remains that I'm THE bottleneck to anything new being added to the game. With that consideration, I will be shifting to focus on the Battlepass almost exclusively until its launch, after which I will shift back to rewards.

I understand that this decision has the potential to upset both Gifters who were expecting their rewards soon AND everyone else in the community who expected a new Battlepass (or any new content, really) soon than later, but it has to be done for the overall health of the game unless folks are willing to wait until Summer for the next Battlepass.

As always, thank you for your patience and understanding. I hope to have the new Battlepass ready as soon as I can before returning in earnest to the Gifting rewards. I wish I could do both at the same time, but we are all confined by the physical bounds of this reality.

NEW Undead Legion Heromart Bundle

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"If you already own the poster and don't want the bundle to include it use code DAGETHRONEPSTOWNER to receive a discount, you must enter this code at checkout using the same account that the original poster was purchased."

*NOTE: HeroMart Bundles are the best value. You get all the physical products plus digital in-game items and exclusive badges and titles.

This Bundle includes the following rewards in EpicDuel:

• Achievement - Keeper of Underworld
• Weapon - Letum Codex Blade P
• Weapon - Letum Codex Blade E

That's just a taste of the rewards included across AE's main games!

Visit HEROMART now to get this pre-order while you still can!

Tags: Nightwraith

March 14, 2025

The most recent balance update made some big waves! This week we made further adjustments while reverting some changes from the previous update.

Balance changes:

• Reverted Primary damage scaling: 0.41 --> 0.46, 0.52 --> 0.58, 0.58 --> 0.65, 0.75 --> 0.85
• Focus: +1% stat bonus for Focus 1/2, +2% for Focus 3/4, +3% for Focus 5/6
• Double Strike: Improves with Strength --> Dexterity
• Maul: Removed healing reduction
• Overload: +15 --> +20 energy cost per level
• Smokescreen: -5 dexterity reduction for all levels after the first
  • OLD VALUES: 4 7 10 12 14 16 18 19 20 21
  • NEW VALUES: 1 2 5 7 9 11 13 14 15 16
• Proton Cannon: Unaffected --> Affected by Achilles' Phalanx/Color Blast/Consecrated Ground
• Supremacy (Primary) x30: +4 Strength, +3 Dexterity, +3 Technology, +3 Support --> +5 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Technology, +2 Support
• Supremacy (Sidearm) x30: +3 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +3 Technology, +3 Support --> +2 Strength, +5 Dexterity, +2 Technology, +2 Support
• Supremacy (Auxiliary)x 30: +3 Strength, +3 Dexterity, +3 Technology, +4 Support --> +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Technology, +5 Support
• Eternal Enhance: +3 --> +4 to all stats
• Radiation Burn: 35% --> 15% activation chance

Bug fixes

• Vigor (Armor): Properly set to +6 Dexterity and +6 Support
• Techstalker Bot E: Damage type properly set to Energy
• Malfunction can now stack with other tech debuffs aside from itself
• Debuffs applied by NPCs while the debuff is already active will no longer double stack

Gifting Rewards Update

While a few new custom hairstyles and items went out this week, one new prize is being offered generously by CactusChan: His custom CacBot 9001s are now available at Valestra for all to purchase!

New Achievement

The Fifteen Year Alpha achievement has gone rare permanently to make way for the new Sixteen Year Alpha achievement, celebrating over 16 years of EpicDuel!

Tags: Nightwraith