 | July 24, 2026 Nightmare Boss Breaker
Nightmare CactusChan drops
Challenge Nightmare CactusChan in the Wasteland desert for a chance to receive new Nightmare drops based on CactusChan's previous Gifting prizes!
- Nightmare Cactus Crusher P - 10%
- Nightmare Cactus Crusher E - 10%
- Nightmare Cactus Conflagrator - 2%
- Nightmare Cactus Corrupter - 2%
- Nightmare Pachycereus Pringlei - 3%
- Nightmare Stenocereus Thurberi - 3%
- Nightmare Malediction - 5%
- Nightmare Anathema - 5%
Remember, to battle Nightmare CactusChan, you'll first have to progress in the mission chain Nightmare in the Desert!
Daily Boss Bounties
View the Boss Slayer Leaders on Slayer in the Barrens for the latest daily boss bounty! Defeat the selected boss the most for the day to receive the Boss Breaker achievement! New boss bounties are selected at the end of the day when the leaderboards reset. To recognize boss duo teams, we will award achievements to the top daily boss battlers in the event of a tie.
The first daily bounty will be, appropriately enough, Nightmare CactusChan!
Battlepass Enhancements
In preparation of the upcoming Technomancer Battlepass, we've added some polish and perks to the Battlepass systems.
- Battlepass Enhanced button shows Varium price.
- Enhanced pass grants 20% more Battlepass XP. During Power Hour, this increases to 40%.
- Battlepass rewards now show a description of Robot/Core abilities.
- Challenges will display increased XP.
- Challenge progress/completion notifications are queued so when you progress multiple challenges, you will see each popup in a queue. A max of 5 popups will display, with additional popups appearing as the visible ones are closed or disappear on their own.
- Challenge popups now show whether it's a daily or weekly challenge.
- Completed challenges receive a unique popup animation.
NPC AI Overhaul
EpicDuel's NPCs were due for an upgrade. Maybe few of the current players remember, but NPC's were basically lobotomized in the Omega update. NPC AI was one of the last features to be carried over and it was drastically simplified in the transition. Before, NPC's had much greater battle context and complex assessments for the ideal skills vs ideal targets. To catch up with 2026, we've performed a major overhaul of NPC AI. We may need to adjust this further as we get more battle feedback (there are over 200 NPCs so sorting out all the potential quirks in one week is impossible), but it should make NPCs more compelling opponents and more intelligent partners.
- RNG Rewrite
Before: NPCs picked what to do using a mix of random chance and random shuffling. Even when one option was clearly better, there was a real chance the AI would pick something worse just because RNG said so. Healing only kicked in at a flat 30% HP.
After: NPCs now weigh every possible move, basic attack, skills, healing, shielding, on the same scale based on how much good each one would actually do in the moment. Whichever option scores highest wins. No more coin-flips between an obviously good move and an obviously bad one.
- Optimization
We also cut out a bunch of duplicate, unnecessary calculations the AI was running behind the scenes. This doesn't change how NPCs behave, but it does make the server work less hard to get there. A necessary change for more complex AI behavior.
- Smarter Targeting
Before: if an NPC had a single-target skill, it almost always aimed at the same "default" enemy, even if another enemy was an easier target.
After: the AI now checks every enemy individually for single-target skills and can go after whoever's most vulnerable, instead of always picking the same target out of habit. (This doesn't apply to AOE skills.)
- Heal Plz
If a partner drops below 25% HP, the AI will prioritize healing them, even if it normally wouldn't bother at that point in a fight, unless the enemy is also nearly dead (under 20% HP), in which case the NPC will go for the killing blow. Basically: heal when the fight's still close, but always take the kill when possible.
- Finish Him!
Before: the AI only recognized a "finishing move" opportunity based on percentages: if an enemy was below 20% of its own max HP. That meant some low-HP enemies who were actually one hit away from dying didn't get flagged as finishable, and the AI would sometimes heal instead of just ending the fight.
After: the AI now directly compares how much damage a move would deal against the enemy's actual remaining HP. If a move would likely kill, it gets a big score boost that beats out healing or anything else so NPCs are much better at recognizing "I can end this right now."
TL;DR: NPC enemies and allies used to make randomized choices based on battle condition (current HP/Energy, cooldowns). Now they compare their options directly, recognize real kill opportunities, manage their resources better, and make smarter calls about when to heal versus when to attack in both 1v1 and 2v2 fights.
Quality of Life
- War Leaderboards now allow you to click through to the character page or Faction page of the leaders.
- Factions will allow you to click through to the character page of members.
- Added "Shop" identifier to NPCs on the Map interface that have an available shop
- Inventory and Merchant interfaces now show if items have cores equipped with colors and icons.
- Favorited or Locked items now have icons to indicate status rather than (*) or (x).
- Rearranged Settings options for improved organization.
Thank you for your patience as we work diligently to improve the EpicDuel experience!
Balance
- Overload and Overload (EA) cooldown increased to 2 as an unblockable skill, especially one with stun, is too powerful to leave with 1 cooldown.
Tags: Nightwraith |
| July 17, 2026 Nightmare in the Desert
Nightmare in the Desert
Visit CactusChan in the Wasteland outskirts to accept his list of requests to summon his fierce Nightmare form and send that sadistic succulent back to the shadow realm!
Defeating Nightmare CactusChan will yield the following new achievements:
- Nightmare Cactus Conqueror
- Nightmare Cactus Slayer
After we launch a new boss, people frequently ping me to ask who, if anyone, defeated it first. Now there will be no more wondering since we have a Boss Slayer Leaderboard at the Slayer and a new Nightmare boss announcement system! Now, all players will be alerted whenever someone defeats a Nightmare boss. This feature can be disabled by unchecking the "Show Boss Updates" option from the Settings menu.
TheAlonzoHarris' Shop Update
TheAlonzoHarris' shop has been updated with the following Sea King items!
- Sea King's Disruptor CC P
- Sea King's Disruptor CC E
- Sea King's Disintegrator CC P
- Sea King's Disintegrator CC E
One in a Million
The next One in a Million achievement has been awarded to xAshx who won a very lucky Juggernaut match.
Next Week
EpicDuel will enhance the Boss Leaderboard with daily boss bounties (earn the most daily defeats of a random boss). Also, NPCs will receive a general upgrade to their AI routines to make them better allies and more threatening opponents! Tags: Nightwraith |
| July 10, 2026 Technomancer Battlepass Preview
This week has been mainly focused on preparation for some very epic releases on the horizon, including a nightmarish rematch against CactusChan!
Passive Queue Adjustment
The new passive queues' 1v1 matching system has been adjusted slightly. It was giving lower level opponents NPC matches before attempting to find a real human match.
TheAlonzoHarris' Shop Update
TheAlonzoHarris' shop has been updated with new CC versions of fan-favorite seasonal rares. This time we're focusing on the Sea King set!
- Sea King's Executioner CC P
- Sea King's Executioner CC E
- Sea King's Star Saber CC P
- Sea King's Star Saber CC E
Seasonal Rares Leaving
Next week on July 16th, all the seasonal rares that were added to the shops last month will be reset to their normal schedule.
Gift Cleanup
Next week Thursday July 16th, the last of the remaining Gifting gifts will be deleted.
Coming Soon!
Prepare yourselves for a rematch against CactusChan! You'll need a friend for this one.
Also, development of the new Technomancer Battlepass is underway!
HeroMart Summer Sale
2026 Summer Mix & Match Buy 3, Get 4th Item FREE Deal! Ends 2026-07-26 11:59 PM EST. Build your own bundle and score big this summer! For a limited time, when you buy any 3 eligible items, you’ll get a 4th item FREE no codes, no hassle. (Bundles do not qualify since they already include a bulk discount) Add 4 qualifying items to your cart, and the discount applies automatically at checkout. & Don’t forget to use your AQW Infinity Kickstarter Thank You Deal! Save 15% with code KICKSTARTER15 at checkout.
Follow this link to learn more!
Tags: Nightwraith |
| July 06, 2026 EpicDuel Searching for a Battle
Passive Queuing System
This is the most significant change to one of EpicDuel's bedrock systems in a long time. Now, instead of joining a formless void while waiting for battle, you can still move around freely and chat with your friends until a match is found. Certain actions like retraining, changing class, challenging an NPC, and unequipping items will end your queue.
To achieve this, some changes to matchmaking were made, particularly in 2v2, where matchmaking was already very complex. To accomodate this complexity, you will now see "Balancing Teams" text indicating that 4 eligible players have been found based on basic level criteria, but the match is not quite ready to start yet. Sometimes the system will determine that the eligible players are not actually eligible due to previously matching too many times, faction affiliation, or other reasons and the search will continue. The match will stall start after ~45 seconds of no matches if not enough players are found passing all criteria and NPCs will be used to fill the slots as before.
Balance
In to mitigate first strike advantage in 2v2, the starting Brace Bonus has been extended to 3 rounds. The starting Rage bonus has also been increased to 30% in 2v2.
We've reimplemented cost scaling for AOE skills and cores starting a 20% at level 1. However, instead of being a flat cost increase for all levels, the cost increase actually diminishes with more investment, eventually stopping at 7% at level 10.
Sample AOE Skill Cost Progression:
Level 1-target Multiplier 2-target cost
1 100 1.200 120
2 120 1.186 142
3 140 1.171 164
4 160 1.157 185
5 180 1.143 206
6 200 1.129 226
7 220 1.114 245
8 240 1.100 264
9 260 1.086 282
10 280 1.070 300
To further address the overpowered nature of free AOE cores, an Energy cost of 100 added to:
- Dualism
- Revolver Revolution
- Ultra Obliteration
NPC versions of those 3 skills added to high-level 2v2 NPCs:
- Nightwraith (40)
- Titan (40)
- Big Tuna (38)
- Charfade (40)
- Bido (40)
- Brachylagus (40)
- Rabblefroth (40)
- Exile Soldier (39)
- Legion Soldier (39)
- Transcendence (38)
- Immanence (38)
- Deuce (40)
- Necronaut Clemek (39)
- Necronaut Paz (39)
- Acatriel (40)
- Big Tuna (40)
- Necronaut Clemek (40)
- Necronaut Paz (40)
Buddy Status
Your buddy list with now update with 3 more user statuses including AFK (away from the keyboard), DND (do not disturb), and in-battle. DND will supercede these other statuses.
Also, when unlinking from an ally, your ally will also see a message indicating the link was broken. Tags: Nightwraith |
