EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

July 30, 2026

Boss Leaderboard Update

The centerpiece of this update is a major expansion upon the Boss leaderboard from last week. This update will feature 4 new leaderboards:

• Faction All-Time
• Faction Daily
• Streaks
• Best Times

The new Faction Boss Breaker achievement will be given to the Faction that wins the daily Boss Bounty. This award is obtained by the Faction with the most daily boss kills as an aggregate of all its members. In the case of a tie, the Faction with the highest Influence will win.

The new Streak Tracker leaderboard will record the number of days in a row an individual wins the Boss Breaker achievement. The leaderboard will display the longest streak and current streak. Winning the Boss Breaker achievement 5 days in a row will count as a streak. Every 5 days after that will update the achievement. This leaderboard will be blank as of this update until enough streak data has been collected.

The Best Times leaderboard will records the best all-time completion times for each boss, including the round number and actual time. This board will be unpopulated at first since we just added the appropriate boss tracking in this update!

Winners of the new achievements will receive in-game mail at the end of each day.

AI Adjustment

After the AI update last week, some found our smarter NPCs a bit too smart, always choosing the perfect strategy to negate your defenses and resist your best attacks. To address that, we've created multiple AI profiles designed to fine tune intelligence for each NPC. Now some NPCs will be closer to the "classic" NPC AI, particularly Legendary and Nightmare bosses (already quite challenging), in which the NPCs randomly roll a skill/attack.

TheAlonzoHarris Shop

TheAlonzoHarris Shop has updated with the following CC items:

• Sea King's Wrath CC
• Sea King's Terror CC

Bug Fixes / UX Improvements

• NPC drops with drop rates now shown on the NPC's stats panel.
• Clicking the names on the Faction and individual leaderboards in the Boss Slayer leaderboard will jump to the Faction page or character page respectively.
• Boss Slayer leaderboard button added to the main interface.
• The end of battle screen will now count war drops you've banked towards your total cap. Previously, this appeared as a bug if you had already maxed out your war items but they were banked. You would never get a drop because the server saw the items, but the client would not until you unbanked the items. A helpful note will alert you if you have banked war items.

Tags: Nightwraith

July 24, 2026

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

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

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

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

June 26, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with a new All-Time Boss Leaderboard! Jump to the Slayer and discover who the greatest boss breakers on Delta V truly are!

Delta V's Greatest Hunters

Whenever we release a new boss, I'll have several people ping me repeatedly trying to figure out who the first people to defeat it were or if anyone was able to defeat the latest monster at all. No more! For your information and my sanify, I've introduced a new Boss leaderboard available at the Slayer NPC in the Barrens. With several exciting new bosses on the horizon, this feature was more necessary than ever. The new board shows daily and all-time defeat amounts. There are no rewards currently for the daily boards, but all the architecture is in place to expand this feature into something very cool and exciting. Maybe a daily boss bounty to see who could defeat a certain bost the most in one day? Or extra rewards for the first person to defeat an hourly boss? The possibilities are endless!

Mission Reward Boost

Missions offering Arcade Token rewards have been increased to a minimum of 10!

TheAlonzoHarris Shop

TheAlonzoHarris' Shop has been updated with the last of the color-custom Darkeater gear. Put your Balance Tokens to good use and complete your collection!

• Darkeater Consumer CC P
• Darkeater Consumer CC E
• Darkeater Devourer CC P
• Darkeater Devourer CC P

Critical Reconsideration

I had several players bring to my attention that our latest attempts to address critical damage were well-intentioned, but overly complex and confusing, and I agree. I got caught up chasing windmills and trying to be too clever guarding against overly-specific interactions. Thus, the ultimate solution is to simply base all crit calculations on the pre-boosted damage. This accomplishes the initial goal mitigating extreme damage stacking just fine and is easy to understand. As a final guard, these is still a max cap on critical defense ignore of 50.

Below are several scenarios to demonstrate how the new formula works:

Scenario 1 — 115% damage, 30% defense ignore, Massive Strike

• gross damage = 596
• damage = (596 × 1.15) - 220 = 686 - 220 = 466
• ignore % = (30 + 15) = 45
• crit adjusted def = (0.55 × 220) = 121
• damage post crit = 596 - 121 = 475
• crit damage increase = 475 - 466 = 9
• critMinIncrease = 56
• 9 < 56 → final damage = 466 + 56 = 522

Scenario 2 — 115% damage, 30% defense ignore, Massive Strike + Rage

• gross damage = 596
• defense after rage = 220 - (0.4233 × 220) = 220 - 93 = 127
• damage = 686 - 127 = 559
• ignore % = 45
• crit adjusted def = (0.55 × 127) = 70
• damage post crit = 596 - 70 = 526
• crit damage increase = 526 - 559 = -33
• -33 < 56 → final damage = 559 + 56 = 615

Scenario 3 — 130% damage, no defense ignore, no Rage

• gross damage = 700
• damage = (700 × 1.30) - 300 = 910 - 300 = 610
• ignore % = (30) = 30
• crit adjusted def = (0.70 × 300) = 210
• damage post crit = 700 - 210 = 490
• crit damage increase = 490 - 610 = -120
• -120 < 56 → final damage = 610 + 56 = 666

Scenario 4 — No damage % increase, 20% defense ignore, Rage 30%, Massive Strike

• gross damage = 700
• defense = (0.80 × 300) = 240
• defense after rage = 240 - (0.30 × 240) = 168
• damage = 700 - 168 = 532
• ignore % = (30 + 15) = 45
• crit adjusted def = (0.55 × 168) = 92
• damage post crit = 700 - 92 = 608
• crit damage increase = 608 - 532 = 76
• 76 > 56 → final damage = 608

Scenario 5 — No damage % increase, no defense ignore, no rage (baseline crit)

• gross damage = 700
• damage = 700 - 300 = 400
• ignore % = (30) = 30
• crit adjusted def = (0.70 × 300) = 210
• damage post crit = 700 - 210 = 490
• crit damage increase = 490 - 400 = 90
• 90 > 56 → final damage = 490

Hopefully this is the last update to this formula.

Tags: Nightwraith

June 22, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with a suprirse Monday release with a small calculation adjustment to Critical damage and 2v2 automatch limits.

2v2 Automatch Limit

To prevent exploitation of predictable 2v2 automatches, we're limiting the hourly automatch to 10. This applies to linked and unlinked matches.

Critical Calculation Adjustment

After reviewing the calculation adjustments from last week, I determined that the battle engine was implementing a superfluous cap for defense ignore since the skill-driven defense ignore is already happening outside crit defense ignore calculations. The 50% cap for crit defense ignore is still in place to be consistent with max Rage defense ignore. The difference is small but noticeable, but better for consistency. Here are 2 examples to demonstrate the new calculations:

Scenario 1 — Adaptive Offense (50% defense ignore, crit)

gross damage = 700
defense = (0.50 × 300) = 150 (skill-driven) defense ignore applied)
damage (normal) = 700 - 150 = 550

// Crit calc (no applied defense ignore):
ignore % = (30 + 0) = 30
adj ignore % = 0.30
crit adjusted def = (0.70 × 150) = 105
damage post crit = 700 - 105 = 595

// Guard check:
damage post crit (595) > damage (550) → guard does NOT trigger
crit damage increase = 595 - 550 = 45
crit min increase = 56
45 < 56 → final damage = 550 + 56 = 606


Scenario 2 — Fire Rain (20% defense ignore, Rage 30%, crit, Massive Strike)

gross damage = 700
defense = (0.80 × 300) = 240 (skill-driven) defense ignore applied)
defense after Rage = 240 - Math.round(0.30 × 240) = 240 - 72 = 168
damage (normal) = 700 - 168 = 532

// Crit calc (no applied defense ignore):
ignore %= (30 + 15) = 45
adj ignore % = 0.45
crit adjusted def = Math.round(0.55 × 168) = 92
damage post crit = 700 - 92 = 608

// Guard check:
damage post crit (608) > damage (532) → guard does NOT trigger
crit damage increase = 608 - 532 = 76
crit min increase = 56
76 > 56 → final damage = 608

Again, the difference is small, but the purpose is the same -- limit the impact of stacked critical boosting skills. 

Tags: Nightwraith

June 19, 2026

EpicDuel is live with new rares, new quality-of-life features, and a major change to damage calculations!

Quality of Life / Other Changes

We've made some significant changes to the Inventory and Finder interfaces to make sorting and finding items easier than ever. 

• Favorite and Mutating Weapon filter buttons added to Inventory interface.
• Mission/Miscellaneous items are now searchable in the item finder.
• Finder now shows core type and core description on rollover.
• Finder now shows bot thumbnails with skill descriptions on rollover. Ideally all categories will soon show an item thumbnail to preview items before jumping to the shop.
• Data cleanup to hide deprecated items that can no longer be acquired. Data cleanup is ongoing to properly tag items based on rarity and method of acquisition. There were and likely are still many items that are available in shops that are incorrectly tagged and thus hidden from the Finder.
• Spreadfire core added to Dage the Evil.
• Spreadfire (Aux) core added to Alydroid. 

Faction Alts Removed

As stated in a previous post, all alts in Factions have been removed. For the purposes of this update, an alt is another character that is on the same account that is a member of the same faction. If you had 5 alts in an account (including your main), then 4 will be removed, leaving the account with the lowest character Id (first created). This has been a rule for a long time, but only recently have we had the means to enforce it directly and dramatically. Attempts to get around this rule will be harshly enforced against the player and faction involved.

TheAlonzoHarris' Shop

TheAlonzoHarris' Shop has been updated with the following items:

• Darkeater Breaker CC P
• Darkeater Breaker CC E
• Darkeater Annihilator CC P
• Darkeater Annihilator CC E

Critical Strike & Rage Interaction Update

Due to ongoing complains about high damage from certain skill combinations, we've made several adjustments to how critical strikes interact with other damage mechanics to reduce their upper limits from their present extremes. These extremes became especially pronounced after new skills were introduced that guarantee critical damage. However, rather than a targeted nerf to the force-crit skills, we opted to reduce the overall impact of crit/defense ignore stacking with some mechanical changes.

Defense Ignore Cap:

Critical strikes now have a maximum combined defense ignore of 50% across all sources. Previously, equipping cores and skills that each independently stripped defense could stack beyond this threshold. The 50% cap applies to the sum of the base crit ignore (30%), passive core bonuses (Massive Strike), and active skill defense ignore (Icy Overkill) combined.

Damage Percent Adjustment:

Skills that deal bonus damage via a percentage modifier (such as 115% damage skills) will no longer have that bonus reflected in the critical strike damage ceiling. The crit calculation now uses the base damage value before percentage bonuses are applied, meaning crit and damage percentage bonuses each do their own independent work rather than amplifying each other.

Rage and Critical Strike Interaction:

Critical strikes and Rage attacks will now be evaluated independently. When a Rage attack already deals more damage than a critical strike would produce, the Rage damage is preserved without an additional critical bonus on top. When a critical strike would deal more damage than the Rage attack, the critical damage is used instead. Whichever is stronger wins, but they no longer combine to push damage beyond their individual limits. A critical Rage used to be an unexpected bonus, but predictable crits made this combination too powerful.

I fell asleep. What does this all mean?

Stacking crit-boosting cores with defense ignoring skills will be less effective, especially when combined with Rage.

Formula:

For the Wiki folks those who love to deep dive into the formulas, here is a detailed breakdown of damage before and after this change.

Scenario: An attack does 115% damage with 30% defense ignore. This attack crits on a Rage. A passive boosts critical defense ignore by 15% (additive).

Before:

Gross damage = (596 × 1.15) = 686
Defense = (0.70 × 337) = 235
Defense after Rage = 235 - (0.4233 × 235) = 235 - 99 = 136
Damage = 686 - 136 = 550
Defense ignore = 30 + 15 = 45 (uncapped)
Crit adjusted defense = (0.55 × 136) = 75
Damage post Crit = 686 - 75 = 611
Crit dmg. increase = 611 - 550 = 61
Min. Crit increase = 30 + 26 = 56
(61 > 56, use Damage post Crit)
Final damage = 611 

After:

Gross damage = 596 (pre-damage percent)
Defense = (0.70 × 337) = 235
Defense after Rage = 235 - (0.4233 × 235) = 235 - 99 = 136
Damage = (596 × 1.15) - 136 = 686 - 136 = 550
Defense ignore = (30 + 15) = 45
Defense ignore  = (45 + 30) = (capped at 50)
Defense ignore cap = 0.50
Crit adjusted defense = (0.50 × 136) = 68
Damage post Crit = 596 - 68 = 528

Rage comparison:
Damage post Crit (528) <= damage (550) → 550
(Higher damage is chosen, rather than stacking)
Final damage = 550

Coming Soon

We've got some amazing content in the works for release this Summer including new epic boss battles, new mission, npc AI enhancements, and more quality-of-life features!

Tags: Nightwraith

June 11, 2026

EpicDuel is live with new item, new achievements, and some important announcements regarding Faction rules and enforcement.

TheAlonzoHarris Shop Update

TheAlonzoHarris' shop has been updated with color-custom Darkeater gear and a special Undead Legion surprise!

• Darkeater Katana CC P
• Darkeater Katana CC E
• Darkeater Greatsword CC P
• Darkeater Greatsword CC E
• Darkeater Star Saber CC P
• Darkeater Star Saber CC E
• Legion Necrophoenix Scythe CC P
• Legion Necrophoenix Scythe CC E

Epic Legendary Shop Update

Two new mounts have been added to the Epic Legendary Shop in Titan's Peak.

• Golen War Horse Mount
• Derpy War Horse Mount

War Shop Update

War Prizes Godeater CC (WS) and Voideater CC (WS) have been added to Morzyd the Scavenger.

New Achievements

New Achievements World Cup 2026 and Emancipation Day are available from the seasonal Achievement shop!

Faction Alts

Having multiple characters from the same account in the same Faction has been against the rules for a long time. To encourage compliance, we've send an in-game mail to all members of factions who have multiple member characters from the same account. These accounts in violation will be purged from the faction rolls on June 18th. This means, if you have multiple characters from your account in the same faction, all but one of those characters will be allowed to remain. The character chosen to remain by the automated system will be either the Faction founder or the character with the lowest ID (first created). You can avoid this consequence by removing all but one of your owned characters from the Faction.

To clarify, your characters will not be deleted from your account, they will just be removed from the Faction. A Faction is a group of players organized to fight for one of the two alignments: Legion or Exile. There's no rule against having multiple characters in the same alignment as long as they are in different Factions. We've had some folks write in confused about these terms.

Again, this has been a rule for a very long time so "I didn't know!" is not a valid excuse. If you are in violation, you have until June 18th to take corrective action before we do it for you.

Attempts to circumvent these restrictions will be met with harsh punishment.

Faction Punishment

I really didn't want the moderation to escalate to collective punishment, but the continued coordinated cheating could not be ignored. Punishing individual players is less effective when they can just be rotated out as they're caught and banned, but Faction punishment will encourage better adherence to the rules and hold Founders accountable.

For the Faction Founders, members of your Faction who are found cheating will incur the following penalties:

• Removal of all daily Influence and wins from whatever battle mode the player was punished for (1v1,2v2,Jugg).
• The player loses personal daily Influence and wins for the battle mode they used to cheat.
• In-game mail will be sent to the punished player and Faction Founder to let them know about the infraction.
• If a Faction has member using alts, and the alts are removed by a mod, the faction will lose the total influence the player contributed over the lifetime of their membership. This total will also be deducted from the daily overall influence.

Hopefully this will encourage Faction Founders to choose their recruits responsibly and encourage fair competition amongst their members. Founders that continue to violate the rules may face additional punishment, including complete destruction of their Faction.

Finally, from now on, players that have their wins reset in any battle mode will also lose Domination achievements in the relevant battle mode, including Total Domination and War Hero achievements.

Announcements like these always have a chilling effect on the community as people rush to tell me these new measures are too severe, and we should reconsider lest these strict rules cause players to quit. Consider that if you're not breaking the rules, you have nothing to fear. If you suspect your members are cheating or encouraging others to cheat, they are a toxic liability that can crush your Faction's record and reputation permanently.

Tags: Nightwraith

June 08, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with a minor maintenance update in preparation for the start of the new war system. There were a couple bugs such as the ability to sell Super Items required a reboot to fix.

Quality of Life

Despite this not being a major update, we've included a small improvement that will present the option to sell one of an item or all if you have duplictates.

Faction Alts

Having multiple characters from the same account in the same Faction has been against the rules for a long time. To encourage compliance, we've send an in-game mail to all members of factions who have multiple member characters from the same account. These accounts will be purged from the faction rolls on June 18th. This means, if you have multiple characters from your account in the same faction, all but one of those characters will be allowed to remain.

Again, this has been a rule for a very long time so "I didn't know!" is not a valid excuse. If you are in violation, you have until June 18th to take corrective action before we do it for you.

Attempts to circumvent these restrictions will be met with harsh punishment.

Tags: Nightwraith

June 03, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with returning rares, new leaderboards, and a major change to the War system! I know a Wednesday update is unusual, but the unusual nature of this update meant we had to wait for the War to end before publishing the changes. It is also preferable to find and patch bugs on a weekday rather than a weekend, just in case such a fix is needed.

To expedite the process of experiencing the new War changes, the next War will being Monday June 8 at noon!

Battlepass Items Available at The Challenger

Since the last 2 Battlepasses are now firmly in the past, their most valuable and PvP-relevant components are now available at The Challenger NPC.

• Hephael's Avatar P
• Hephael's Avatar E
• Azrael's Viceregent Shadow ExP
• Azrael's Viceregent Shadow PxE
• Azrael's Viceregent Shadow E
• Azrael's Viceregent Shadow P
• Hephael's Frenzy
• Twilight Shield
• Twilight Strike
• Twilight Aim
• Twilight Blast

For those who missed out on the Battlepass styles, 901 - 908 and 956 - 964 are now available!

Seasonal Rares Return!

Since we're nearly about the halfway point of 2026, we've returned the Seasonal Rares! This is a bit earlier than usual, but probably more accurate since our other mass seasonal restock happens in November. Grab the rares while you can before they leave in July!

TheAlonzoHarris Shop

TheAlonzoHarris' shop has been updated with returning rares, for this weekend only!

• Zelicaon Replica
• Polyxenes Replica

War Battle Mode Separation

To reduce incentives to cheat while increasing the incentives and recognition in each individual battle mode, we have split the War system into 3. From now on, 1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut battles will drop their own War drops. Each of these drops will be tracked independently, so you can have up to 20 of each battle mode's items (60 War items total).

All currently-owned War drop items will be converted to 1v1 War drops.

As these War drops are used, they will increase the Influence in each respective battle mode for the War. This Influence will still count towards the overall war progress and Faction Influence, but it will also be tracked on 1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut Influence leaderboards, each with their own individual and Faction rewards. The maps have been updated with new flags to show the leading flags and player portraits in these battle modes.

1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut Super War items can be purchased from the regional Ammo Depots.

To expedite the process of experiencing the new War changes, the next War will being Monday June 8 at noon!

New Achievements added

To accommodate the new War Influence categories, we've added new achievements that will be obtainable when the next War goes live:

• World Domination 1v1: Awarded to factions with the most 1v1 Influence at the end of the day.
• World Domination 2v2: Awarded to factions with the most 2v2 Influence at the end of the day.
• World Domination Jugg.: Awarded to factions with the most Jugg. Influence at the end of the day.
• Total Domination: Awarded to factions with the most daily Influence in all PvP modes.
• War Hero 1v1: Awarded for having the most 1v1 Influence in a day.
• War Hero 2v2: Awarded for having the most 2v2 Influence in a day.
• War Hero Juggernaut: Awarded for having the most Juggernaut Influence in a day.
• Total War Hero: Awarded for having the most Influence in all PvP modes in a day.

New Leaderboard categories added:

• All-time Faction 1v1 Wins
• All-time Faction 2v2 Wins
• All-time Faction Juggernaut Wins
• All-Time 1v1 World Dominations (Empty until the next War)
• All-Time 2v2 World Dominations (Empty until the next War)
• All-Time Juggernaut World Dominations (Empty until the next War)
• All-Time Total World Dominations (Empty until the next War)

Fixes / Changes:

• War drop counter at the end of battle now displays the war item count for each region. The counter will also include the drop from the current battle in the count.
• Legendary NPC Crusher and NPC Armor boosts now work in Juggernaut mode.

Tags: Nightwraith

May 29, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with a colossal cache of returning rare star sabers to end the month of May! Plus, Power Weekend is once again activated!

Epic Star Saber Restock

TheAlonzoHarris has been stocked with the remaining rare star sabers. If you didn't find something to catch your eye in previous updates, you'll definitely find something in this massive cache of weapons!

• Flesh Demigod Star Saber P 2026
• Flesh Demigod Star Saber E 2026
• Darkeater Star Saber P 2026
• Darkeater Star Saber E 2026
• Infernal Samurai Star Saber P 2026
• Infernal Samurai Star Saber E 2026
• Frost Revenant Star Saber P 2026
• Frost Revenant Star Saber E 2026
• Honor Guard Star Saber P 2026
• Honor Guard Star Saber E 2026
• Paladin Chronomancer Star Saber P 2026
• Paladin Chronomancer Star Saber E 2026
• Sanguinomancer Star Saber P 2026
• Sanguinomancer Star Saber E 2026
• Apocryphal Demigod Star Saber P 2026
• Apocryphal Demigod Star Saber E 2026
• Cosmic Eviscerator Star Saber P 2026
• Cosmic Eviscerator Star Saber E 2026
• Necrotek Star Saber P 2026
• Necrotek Star Saber E 2026
• Azrael's Scorn Star Saber P 2026
• Azrael's Scorn Star Saber E 2026
• Nightmare Hunter's Star Saber P 2026
• Nightmare Hunter's Star Saber E 2026
• Chrono Knight Star Saber P 2026
• Chrono Knight Star Saber E 2026
• Pandora's Fate Star Saber P 2026
• Pandora's Fate Star Saber E 2026
• Darkwraith Star Saber P 2026
• Darkwraith Star Saber E 2026
• Bido's Toxic Star Saber P 2026
• Bido's Toxic Star Saber E 2026
• Botanical Knight Star Saber P 2026
• Botanical Knight Star Saber E 2026
• Botanical Herald Star Saber P 2026
• Botanical Herald Star Saber E 2026
• Infernal Slayer Star Saber P 2026
• Infernal Slayer Star Saber E 2026
• Darkwraith Dual Star Saber P 2026
• Darkwraith Dual Star Saber E 2026
• Outland Warchief Star Saber P 2026
• Outland Warchief Star Saber E 2026
• Divinity Star Saber P 2026
• Divinity Star Saber E 2026
• Wrath Blade Star Saber P 2026
• Wrath Blade Star Saber E 2026
• Sea King's Star Saber P 2026
• Sea King's Star Saber E 2026
• Living Sin Star Saber P 2026
• Living Sin Star Saber E 2026
• Darkwraith Star Saber CC P 2026
• Darkwraith Star Saber CC E 2026
• Celtic Hunter Star Saber P 2026
• Celtic Hunter Star Saber E 2026
• Infernal Fantasy Star Saber P 2026
• Infernal Fantasy Star Saber E 2026
• Black Abyss Star Saber P 2026
• Black Abyss Star Saber E 2026
• Abyss Acolyte Star Saber P 2026
• Abyss Acolyte Star Saber E 2026
• Dage's Desolation Star Saber P 2026
• Dage's Desolation Star Saber E 2026
• Infernal Overfiend Star Saber P 2026
• Infernal Overfiend Star Saber E 2026
• Lionhart Star Saber P 2026
• Lionhart Star Saber E 2026
• Biotic Star Saber P 2026
• Biotic Star Saber E 2026
• Overfiend Star Saber P 2026
• Overfiend Star Saber E 2026
• Titan's Triumph Star Saber P 2026
• Titan's Triumph Star Saber E 2026
• Tyrant Titan Star Saber P 2026
• Tyrant Titan Star Saber E 2026
• Nightwraith's Avatar Star Saber P 2026
• Nightwraith's Avatar Star Saber E 2026
• Legion Overfiend Star Saber P 2026
• Legion Overfiend Star Saber E 2026
• Ancient Doom Star Saber P 2026
• Ancient Doom Star Saber E 2026
• Voidborn Star Saber P 2026
• Voidborn Star Saber E 2026
• Voidborn Star Saber CC P 2026
• Voidborn Star Saber CC E 2026

In Progress: War Revamp

I am currently in the process of separating the War system into 3 battle modes: 1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut. This will entail separate war drops for each battle mode. Those drops will increase influence for the respective battle mode while contributing to the overall progress in the War. The intention is to prevent one battle mode from dominating the War rewards while giving more players and Factions chances for recognition for their efforts.

The good news is that the changes are almost complete and ready to launch! The bad news is we cannot launch the changes while a War is still active so this update will probably go live next week after the current war is complete.

War Weekend

Since the major part of this update is delayed until next week, we're activating Power Weekend once again!

Tags: Nightwraith

May 21, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with an unexpectedly early release! Login now to check out new rares and some significant quality of life improvements!

TheAlonzoHarris' Shop Update

Visit TheAlonzoHarris in Titan's Peak to browse his expanded inventory!

• Alonzo’s Rage
  • Crimson Son P: Physical strike for 15% defense ignore.
  • Blood Bend E: 110% Energy damage, removing all buff effects on an enemy.
• Labelleium’s Beauty
  • Crimson Son E: Energy attack for 15% defense ignore.
  • Blood Bend P: 110% Physicaldamage, removing all buff effects on an enemy.
• Techstalker Railgun CC P
• Techstalker Railgun CC E
• Diamond Star Saber P 2026
• Diamond Star Saber E 2026
• Legendary Star Saber P 2026
• Legendary Star Saber E 2026
• Legion Star Saber P 2026
• Legion Star Saber E 2026
• Exile Star Saber P 2026
• Exile Star Saber E 2026
• Draconic Star Saber P 2026
• Draconic Star Saber E 2026
• Dragonoid Star Saber P 2026
• Dragonoid Star Saber E 2026
• Cosmic Star Saber P 2026
• Cosmic Star Saber E 2026
• Necrotic Star Saber P 2026
• Necrotic Star Saber E 2026
• Royal Star Saber P 2026
• Royal Star Saber E 2026
• Azrael Star Saber P 2026
• Azrael Star Saber E 2026
• Mech Star Saber P 2026
• Mech Star Saber E 2026
• Dage Star Saber P 2026
• Dage Star Saber E 2026
• SepulStar Saber P 2026
• SepulStar Saber E 2026
• Frozen Star Saber P 2026
• Frozen Star Saber E 2026
• Legion Draconic Star Saber P 2026
• Legion Draconic Star Saber E 2026

Changes

• Notification when your ally is ready for a 2v2 or 2v1 battle + a button to jump to the NPC.
• New attack animation for bow and book-type weapons. Not all tomes have been converted to this new animation.
• Finder has new filters for active cores and passive cores and mutating weapons.
• Weapons in finder are color-coded for damage type
• Robot abilities should now be purged from showing in the finder

Progress Report

It's been a minute since last checking on the progress of our mid-term goals so let's dive in!

Finder Overhaul:

With this week's minor changes to the Item Finder, we've opened up the possibility of evolving it into a better central hub for information on all of EpicDuel's available items. It's no surprise to veteran EpicDuelists that the Item Finder is plagued by bad data: items that should be hidden, placeholders items, and miscategorized items. It's long overdue for a proper audit.

Also, you'd be surprised how many people login to EpicDuel and have no idea what to buy or where to find it. The Wiki is helpful, but it takes time to keep the thousands of item entries up to date. Why not have that information available in-game immediately? This would be particularly useful when searching for cores and robots, which can have a major impact on combat performance.

Battle Mode War Separation:

This is admittedly taking longer than anticipated. It involves not only splitting the drop type into 3 types for super and basic war drops and also splitting up the tracking and leaderboard functionality. Any one of these tasks would be challenging, but doable, but altogether they combine to form a major task with numerous dependencies. Timing is also important, as we don't want to introduce this change into a war that is already in-progress. TLDR: we're working on it, but it's more difficult than anticipated.

Gifting:

Gifting items are still in progress. Every week we make at least some progress, but it often seems like the longer we work on the rewards, the further we get from finishing them. Just know if you haven't received your item yet: we haven't forgotten you, and we appreciate your patience.

One in a Million Restored

Power Weekend

Since this is a long weekend for many, we're activating Power Weekend until the end of Monday May 25th!

Tags: Nightwraith

May 15, 2026

The Anubis Zealot Showcase Battlepass is NOW LIVE! Login now to earn the latest collection of weapons, armors, morphs, bots, and more based on the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife.

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

• Anubis Incarnation P:
  • Anubis Incarnation Slash P: Physical slash marking target so next attack will be Critical for 1 turn.
  • Anubis Incantation P: The 3rd tick of this lethal, incurable poison detonates for the target's current Energy (1000 max). Can be Cleansed. (Poison cannot be cured by Field Medic. It can only be cleansed. It can kill the target on the final tick)
• Anubis Incarnation E:
  • Anubis Incarnation Slash E: Energy slash marking target so next attack will be Critical for 1 turn.
  • Anubis Incantation E: The 3rd tick of this lethal, incurable poison detonates for the target's current Energy (1000 max). Can be Cleansed. (Poison cannot be cured by Field Medic. It can only be cleansed. It can kill the target on the final tick)

TheAlonzoHarris Shop Update

New color custom Techstalker weapons have been added to TheAlonzoHarris' shop!

• Techstalker Repeater P CC
• Techstalker Repeater E CC

Changes

• NPC Crusher (Legendary NPC Damage boost) restricted to NPC battlemodes. It will no longer boost damage against NPC opponents in 1v1, 2v2, or Juggernaut. This is consistent with NPC Armor, which doesn't work in PvP modes.

Tags: Nightwraith

May 08, 2026

EpicDuel is online with new rares, bug fixes, and essential quality-of-life additions to make your EpicDuel experience as pleasant as possible!

TheAlonzoHarris Shop Update

• Techstalker Terminator CC P
• Techstalker Terminator CC E
• Infernal Slayer Star Saber CC P
• Infernal Slayer Star Saber CC E
• Infernal Guardian Slayer CC P
• Infernal Guardian Slayer CC E
• Infernal Guardian Greatsword CC P
• Infernal Guardian Greatsword CC E
• Artix Star Saber 2026 P
• Artix Star Saber 2026 E
• Alpha Star Saber P 2026
• Alpha Star Saber E 2026
• Beta Star Saber P 2026
• Beta Star Saber E 2026
• Gamma Star Saber P 2026
• Gamma Star Saber E 2026
• Delta Star Saber P 2026
• Delta Star Saber E 2026
• Omega Star Saber P 2026
• Omega Star Saber E 2026

More rares will be added to the shop next week! Be sure to stop by every week to check out the latest inventory update!

Battle UI Overhaul

As an ongoing effort to improve user experience of EpicDuel, we've added the following features:

• Check boxes replaced with toggle buttons.
• Skill trees now indicate the damage type of a skill with a green or blue frame where applicable.
• Notification popup when limited use cores expire.
• NPCs now display a complete skill list when you view the NPC's vital's page.
• New Battle Log: A running display of all major battle actions.

Anubis Zealot Battlepass

The Anubis Zealot Battlepass is coming next week so time is running out to collect the last few ranks of Azrael's Viceregent Showcase!

Fixes / Changes

• Battle freeze in the event of a draw.
• Credits/Experience no longer rewarded for a draw condition in a Challenge battle.
• Bonebreaker achievement tier number corrected.
• Removed drops from CactusChan boss fight.
• Removed Legion PumpkinLord items from PvP drop pool.
• Removed April Fool's items from PvP drop pool.

Tags: Nightwraith