EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

November 06, 2026

Hollowborn Oni Slayer

Snork just received a new stash of epic Hollowborn Oni Slayer seasonal weapons! 

• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Wakizashi P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Wakizashi E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Katana P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Katana E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Naginata P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Naginata E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Claws P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Claws E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Axe P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Axe E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Staff P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Staff E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Scythe P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Scythe E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Slasher P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Slasher E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Orb P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Orb E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Cleaver P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Cleaver E
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Bow P
• Hollowborn Oni Slayer Bow E

Epic Vault Keeper

We're pleased to introduce a new feature that allows players to transfer certain items between other characters on the same account. This feature should be familiar to those of you with AdventureQuest Classic accounts as they have had a vault feature for quite some time.

As of this update, all characters now have  a Basic Vault item for their homes. This home item grants access to the Vault feature. You can buy slots to add items to your Vault. The first slot unlock is 1250 Varium, since this is the most important and unlocks the feature, and the rest are 295 Varium, up to a maximum of 50 slots. Vault slots can be purchased by any character on an account, and they carry over across all characters so only one character on an account needs to buy them.

You can add any item except Ultra Rare items, basic items, and mission/miscellaneous items. This maintains the special rarity of certain items and prevents soft-lock scenarios in which character B uses character A's mission item to complete a mission, preventing character A from ever completing that mission.

You can withdraw items from the Vault with any character on your account. Withdrawing an item resets an item's level to 1. It will be unlocked to whichever level the purchasing player upgraded it to. This means if a level 40 character adds an item to the Vault that is withdrawn by a level 30 character, the level 30 can retrain the item for 100 Credits. If a level 30 adds a level 30 item that is withdrawn by a level 40 character, the item will be unlocked up to level 30. The level 40 will need to by the last 10 levels to fully upgrade the item.

Varium spent on an item will return to whoever spent the Varium initially. If character A buys an item for 1000 Varium and character B withdraws the item from the Vault, upgrades the item for 100 Varium, and sells the item, character A will receive 35% of the purchase amount while character B receives 35% of the upgrade amount.

If you spent Varium on the item (upgrading or purchasing), that item will be available in the buyback shops of the character's who purchased it. However, only one character can have the item at a time. For example, if character A buys an item with Variuma and character B upgrades the item with Varium and sell it, that item will be in the buyback shops of characters A and B. However, if character A buys the item through the buyback shop, the item will disappear from character B's buyback shop.

The character who sells the item gets the Credit amount spent on the item.

There is a 24-hour cooldown on transferring items between characters. If character A depots and item and character B withdraws it, that item cannot be withdrawn by another character for 24 hours. If character A deposits and item, that character can still withdraw the item with no time limit. In that respect, it acts like an extended bank.

Vault-stored items do not count towards rarity score.

***You cannot transfer items to other accounts. ***

Gifting 2026

EpicDuel's Gifting 2026 event will go LIVE Monday, December 7 and runs for 36 days, ending Monday, January 11. Read this thorough post for more information!

Balance Changes

Critical Damage Bug:

Observant players noticed a bug in Critical damage calculations in which the server subtracted defense, raised anything below the minimum (30) up to 30, and only then added the 30% of defense that crits ignore. This meant that a weak attack against high defense got lifted to 30 first and then received 30% of the target's defense on top. So the more defense the target had, the harder the crit hit.

Damage before the minimum is saved (just after defense is subtracted) so the new damage values hold the value before the minimum is applied, so it can be below 30 or even negative.

Scenarios in which this would apply were crits where the attack would have dropped below the damage minimum. Crits in which the minimum didn't kick in were unaffected.

These are simulated values to show the difference in damage before and after the calculation change (400 base damage, 30 damage minimum, level-40 attacker):

• Up to 350 defense nothing changes, because the attack never drops below the minimum there.
• 400 and above is where the fix applies. Crit damage now falls as defense rises, then bottoms out at 86 (the 30 minimum plus the 56 crit bonus).
• The floor depends on the attacker's level. It's 30 + 30 + floor(level / 1.5), so 86 is for a level-40 attacker; a level-30 attacker's floor would be 80, for example.
• Defense-ignore passives change the slope. The math assumes the default 30% of defense ignored. Passives that change that percentage make the line steeper or flatter, but it still drops as defense rises.

Other Changes:

• Minotaur Rage: 100% dmg; 30% def ignore for 2 rounds
• SteamTech Blast: 120% dmg -> 115%
• (UA) Parasite: 100EP initial drain; 60 EP Drain per round at level 10; Gain 150% of Energy Drain; No minimum Energy gain

Tags: Nightwraith

October 31, 2026

ELO Explainer

Since we introduced ELO in the most recent update, we've stirred a lot of curiousity in how it works. As of this update, 1v1 and 2v2 ELO ratings should display in the in-game character pages.

Starting Rating, Floor and Peak:

• Starting (new player) rating: 800
• Floor: Technically no floor; enough losses can take a player below 0.
• Peak: There is no cap. A rating can climb as high as the results take it, but the "no gain for punching down" rule means the top is limited by strength of opponent.

Gaining or Losing 0 ELO:

• Can you gain 0 for beating a much lower-rated opponen? Yes. The pure math never gives exactly 0. 
• The favorite's gain is K × (1 − E), which shrinks toward 0 without reaching it: Stored ratings keep 2 decimals, so a gain only rounds to 0.00 at a gap of about 1,450 points.
• Ratings are shown as whole numbers, so a gain under 0.5 looks like no change once the gap passes about 640 points (1v1, K=20). The decimals still add up behind the scenes.
• Anti-farm rules force 0 in these cases:The 400-point rule: if you're 400+ points above your opponent (team averages in 2v2), you gain nothing. The pure math would have given you about +1.8.
• New accounts: you're established and the other side has a player still in their first 15 games.
• Dummmies (feeders): the loser was flagged as a dummy (feeder) in the last 30 days.

Can you lose ELO by losing to a much higher-rated opponent?

• Almost never.  The 400-point rule only blocks the winner's gain. The underdog still loses their small amount: about −1.8 at a 400 gap and −0.6 at 600. In whole numbers that looks like 0 past about 640  points, the same rounding as above.The one real 0-loss case is the new-account rule: an established player beaten by a player still in their first 15 games loses nothing (both in 1v1 and 2v2).
• This one-sidedness is deliberate: farming a much weaker account gives nothing, but the weaker account still loses a little. It's also part of why the average sits below the starting rating.
• The same rules apply to 2v2 with K = 16 and the team averages. Players in their first 15 games use K = 40, so their swings are twice as big.

Automod Explained

By now enough of you have seen the Automod messages in game that they merit a more detailed explanation. Automod is an automated message that asks 1 of many randomly generated questions to verify the player is actually controlled by a human and not an automated 3rd party program. These questions are translated based on your language in Settings. It typically triggers after a number of battles in any mode, but also checks for total time online outside of battle to target fame botters (now VERY important since fame can be given hourly).

Automod DOES NOT AND CANNOT BAN. If you receive a punishment, it's because your case was reviewed and met the criteria for punishment by an actual human moderator. Flubbing a question a couple times or leaving your session open while you get a snack is not nearly enough to meet the criteria for a ban. 

An Automod message DOES NOT mean you've broken any rules. Simply receiving a message is not a punishment or an indication you have been flagged as a cheater. It's simply a friendly check to see if there's an actually a human behind the keyboard or touchscreen. If you're a legit player, you have nothing to fear from this. If you're using a 3rd party program to play, you should be very, very concerned. Not just because of bans: many of these programs contain malware like keyloggers that can feed your info directly to program's creator. 

Some people have also noticed they cannot earn rewards for battle for some reason. This feature has been disabled as this was due to automation limiting battle rewards for players with "suspicious" dueling patterns. This was too vague and had too much potential to punish players erroneously.

There has also been concern that remote reporting using /report is being abused. Based on all we've seen, it has not. Reports with no context or supporting evidence are never enough to warrant a punishment. Also, EpicDuel already has many safeguards against mass reporting, including limiting visibility of reports from players found to be abusing the system. Once again, punishments are not issued automatically: Every mute/ban/reset is only issued after a human review.

Tags: Nightwraith

October 31, 2026

Oni Slayer Weapons on Snork

Snork just received a new stash of epic Oni Slayer seasonal weapons! 

• Oni Slayer Demon Wakizashi
• Oni Slayer Spirit Wakizashi
• Oni Slayer Demon Katana
• Oni Slayer Spirit Katana
• Oni Slayer Demon Naginata
• Oni Slayer Spirit Naginata
• Oni Slayer Demon Claws
• Oni Slayer Spirit Claws
• Oni Slayer Demon Axe
• Oni Slayer Spirit Axe
• Oni Slayer Demon Staff
• Oni Slayer Spirit Staff
• Oni Slayer Demon Scythe
• Oni Slayer Spirit Scythe
• Oni Slayer Demon Slasher
• Oni Slayer Spirit Slasher
• Oni Slayer Demon Orb
• Oni Slayer Spirit Orb
• Oni Slayer Demon Cleaver
• Oni Slayer Spirit Cleaver
• Oni Slayer Demon Bow
• Oni Slayer Spirit Bow
• Hollowborne Morph
• Hollowborne Morph CC

Also, the Balance Token Ghoulzookas will be available until November 2nd so you have one more weekend to get them!

Gifting 2026

EpicDuel's Gifting 2026 event will go LIVE Monday, December 7 and runs for 36 days, ending Monday, January 11. Read this thorough post for more information!

Hourly Fame

It seems that one of the cruelest things a dev can do is make an achievement out of reach, such as the top Fame achievement. Though this wouldn't be an insurmountable bar at EpicDuel's peak, it's a bit too steep to climb at the current population. To address that, Fame can now be given hourly instead of daily! Fame is counted per-player and resets an hour after fame is given. That means if you Fame someone at 1:50 PM, you can fame them again at 2:50 PM.

Epic Elo

It's long overdue that a competitive PvP game introduce a meaningful ranking systems, eh? Wins have always been a prominent way to measure success in EpicDuel, but wins alone don’t tell the whole story. Under the current system, beating a top player and beating a brand-new account count exactly the same. To truly measure a player's dueling prowess, we’ve added ELO Ratings for 1v1 and 2v2. They measure how strong the opponents you beat are, not just how many times you won.

What is ELO?

ELO is a rating system first made for chess and now used in many competitive games. Every player has a rating. When you battle, the system first works out how likely you were to win, based on the gap between your rating and your opponent’s:

Expected Score = 1 / (1 + 10^((Opponent’s Rating − Your Rating) / 400))

If you and your opponent are rated the same, you’re expected to win 50% of the time. If your opponent is rated 200 points higher, you’re expected to win about 24% of the time.

After the battle, your rating moves based on how the result compared to that expectation:

Rating Change = K × (Result − Expected Score)

Result is 1 for a win and 0 for a loss. K controls how big each step is.

An example: You’re rated 1000 and face an opponent rated 1200. Your expected score is about 0.24. For an established player, K is about 20.

You win: 20 × (1 − 0.24) = +15 for the upset.
You lose: 20 × (0 − 0.24) = −5, since you were expected to lose.

Flip it around. If the 1200-rated player beats you, they gain only about 5 points, because that win was expected. Beating stronger players earns a lot; beating much weaker players earns very little. That’s what makes ELO a much better measure of skill than wins alone.

What else goes into your rating?

1v1 and 2v2 are rated separately. Being great at one says nothing about the other.
In 2v2, your team’s rating is the average of both partners. Your team’s chance of winning is worked out from that, and both partners gain or lose based on the result.
Placement battles: your first few rated battles in each mode move your rating in bigger steps, so you reach your true level quickly.
Runs count as losses. Leaving a battle early counts as a loss for your side, same as it always has.
Only 1v1 and 2v2 auto battles are rated. Juggernaut, challenges and battles involving NPCs don’t affect your rating.
Inactivity: if you stop playing a mode for a while, your rating slowly drifts down until you return. The leaderboard reflects who’s strong now, not who was strong months ago.

Ratings update every hour.

Fair play

ELO naturally limits farming: easy wins earn almost nothing. On top of that, we’ve added several protections:

• Weaker opponents: wins against them, or against brand-new accounts, count for little or nothing.
• Repeat opponents: wins earn less and less each time you battle them.
• Flagged accounts: accounts our systems flag for win-trading don’t feed anyone’s rating.

The short and simple version: the only reliable way to raise your ELO is to beat strong players.

The Leaderboards

You’ll find 1v1 ELO Rating and 2v2 ELO Rating in the All-Time section of the Leaderboards. To appear on a board you need 50 rated battles in that mode, and you must have played it within the last 30 days. If you qualify but aren’t in the top 20, your own rank is shown at the bottom of the board.

Ratings were calculated from existing battle history, so your rating already reflects the battles you’ve fought in recent months.

We’re excited for ELO to give real recognition to players who rise to the challenge. It also gives us a strong base for future features that might use ELO for placement and balance (i.e. REAL Tournaments).

ELO rating parameters are subject to change and may shift as we change the criteria over time. When that happens all current ratings will be cleared with recalculated ratings added. When this happens, we'll announce it so nobody panics if their score jumps up or down a few hundred points.

Varium Shop

We've updated a few things in the Varium shop for your convenience and clarity.

• All packages have names. The confirmation screen will now ask if you wish to purchase the specific "Package Name" rather than a generic point value.
• When cycling the large Varium packages, the details panel now resets as you page through so you'll never purchase the wrong package by accident.
• Scroll bar added to the details panel. This now makes it obvious that there's more to a package since not everyone uses a mousewheel.

Tags: Nightwraith

October 27, 2026

Gifting 2026 Announcement

It’s that time of year again! The Gifting 2026 event will go LIVE Monday, December 7 and runs for 36 days, ending Monday, January 11. This year brings big changes to the rewards, so please read the rules carefully if you’re thinking of participating. If this year’s rewards aren’t to your liking, you’re welcome to sit this one out.

Master Policy

As with last year (and all years) final word on all rules and regulations for Gifting is Nightwraith. If something isn’t explicitly covered here, Nightwraith has final say to approve or deny any request. These rules apply only to the 2026 season. They are not retroactive and they override rules from previous seasons. If someone could do or get something in a previous year, it doesn’t matter, because only these rules apply.

What Is Gifting?

If you're new to EpicDuel or been away for a year or ten, here's a quick guide to EpicDuel Gifting in 2026. Gifting is a yearly event in EpicDuel, typically running from December to January, in which players can spend Varium to give gifts to other players in the same room. These gifts can be Credits, Arcade Tokens, or rare drops like Omega Wolf Shards! In more recent years, we added the ability to build up streaks from consecutive gifts given, which builds up a chance for a "Global Gift" that sends a gift to every player on the server! You can give a Gift by pressing the big button at the bottom middle of the big Gifting menu or type "/buygift325varium" in chat.

These Gifting Scores are tracked on a leaderboard. At the end of Gifting, players will receive special prizes based on their final scores. Players can also receive special items based on their daily scores, such as the coveted Secret and Silver Secret Packages. 

No Varium? No problem! You can still receive gifts for free! Many players end intense Gifting sessions with thousands of Arcade Tokens and millions of Credits! You just have to be in the right place at the right time so keep an eye on where players congregate! Also, remember to login daily to click the big CLAIM PRIZE button on the Gifting bar! These daily prizes include Credits, rare items, and even Varium!

Level Requirement

Last year, to combat bot farms designed to inflate Gifting scores, we introduced a level requirement to receive gifts.This year, we've upgraded that system to make the new minimum level to receive gifts 25. Likewise, players below this level will not be counted towards the Gifter's score. I wish I didn't have to add measures like these that could dissuade new players from participating, that Gifting could be open and easy for everyone, but every year bad actors take it upon themselves as a personal challenge to ruin the experience.

What's a Gifting Streak?

Give consecutive gifts to build up a Gifting Streak! Each streak tier awards a new achievement and an increased chance of a Global Gift: a gift that everyone on the server receives at the same time! Global Gifts offer a huge boost to Gifting scores.

Streak tiers and Global Gift chances are as follows:

Tier 11: 75%
Tier 10: 60%
Tier 9: 50%
Tier 8: 40%
Tier 7: 30%
Tier 6: 25%
Tier 5: 20%
Tier 4: 15%
Tier 3: 10%
Tier 2: 5%
Tier 1: 0%

A NEW addition to streaks is a visible streak timer. Now you can see exactly how much time is left in your Gifting streak so you won't accidentally send a Global Gift if you were shooting for a specific meme score (no, I will not manually adjust your score).

How Do I Open Gifts?

Gifts remain separate from player mail, with a button inside the mail interface to open them, to keep login lag down. Gifts are limited to Credits, Arcade Tokens, and item drops like Omega Wolf Shards. Holiday items formerly in the prize pool are available at various NPCs in Frystland. 

You can open all your gifts by clicking the "Open Gifts" button from your mail interface or typing "/openallgifts". You may need to do this several times as the command only opens 1000 gifts at a time and gift amounts can reach the millions by the end.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REWARDS!!!

Of all the aspects of Gifting, this area received the most changes from last year, so please read carefully! We have a lot of exciting developments on the horizon for EpicDuel in 2027, and cannot afford to extend the workload of Gifting prizes into the new year, especially since there are still Gifter rewards in progress from last year.  If you review the prizes, and they don't seem exciting, please don't Gift under the assumption that you can negotiate yourself a better prize afterwards, or you'll be gravely disappointed.

The End of Custom Rewards

Last year we announced that Gifting 2025 would be the last event with custom prizes, and we’re committing to that: There will be no custom prizes this year. We know this will be controversial, even though we made it clear that we cannot justify the development time custom items demand, and that time would be better spent improving EpicDuel for everyone, especially with so much exciting developments on the horizon.

What will we offering instead of custom items?

Epic Legacy Tokens

Instead of custom rewards, every Gifter earns Epic Legacy Tokens based on their final score:

• You receive 1 Epic Legacy Token for every 500,000 gifts given.
• Tokens will be awarded as soon as Gifting concludes.
• There is no partial credit. A score of 1,200,000 earns 2 Tokens.
• Anyone who reaches 500,000 gifts can earn a Token, not just the top 15.
• Tokens are spent at a Rare Shop that stocks the rarest items in EpicDuel’s history, such as Alpha gear, Beta Gear, and, of course, Founder Armor. There may even be some never-before-seen prizes!
• Many weapons in the shop will priced 1 item per Token, so getting the Physical and Energy versions of a particular rare will cost 2 Tokens in many cases. Most armors will cost  2 Tokens. Founder Armor will be available for 4 Tokens.
• We are still compiling a list of rares to include in the shop and will publish a more complete list as Gifting approaches. We may also add to the list after Gifting starts based on player requests.
• Tokens do not expire so the shop will be available for the rest of the year.

In addition to reducing the development overhead at the end of Gifting, this change also reduces the heat of the daily and overall races, without eliminating the competitiveness completely. Your reward depends on your own total, so there’s no risk of being sniped at the last minute by another Gifter. Daily rewards and final placement still offer extra rewards, but there is not as much of a disparity as before. Another benefit of this system is that the rewards will be instant: no more months (or years) of waiting for rewards!

Secret / Silver Secret Packages

Secret Packages are awarded to the person who has the highest score at the end of a day during Gifting. We've expanded this to also reward Secret Packages to players who score over 500,000 in a day. Silver Secret Packages are awarded to those who place in the top 5 each day and/or achieve a score of over 15,000. These packages open after Gifting ends to become a set of new rare items! 

This year, since packages cannot be shared, we created a new incentive for earning extra packages. Special Gifting NPCs will be added that will allow you to redeem extra Secret or Silver Secret packages for the package items from previous years! For example, you can exchange a Secret Package from this year for the Secret Package contents from 2020! You will need to retain at least one Secret or Silver Secret Package if you want the 2026 prizes be careful when selecting which packages you wish to exchange. 

Top 15 Secret and Silver Secret Package Bonus

Although the top 15 rewards are different from past Gifting events, we will still offer some compelling bonuses for top 15. Additional Secret Packages, Silver Secret Packages, and Epic Legacy Tokens will be awarded based on placement in the top 15 at the end of the event:

1st = 5 Secret / 10 Silver Secret Packages + 4 Epic Legacy Tokens
2–5 = 4 Secret / 6 Silver Secret Packages + 3 Epic Legacy Tokens
6–10 = 3 Secret / 4 Silver Secret Packages + 2 Epic Legacy Tokens
11–15 = 2 Secret / 2 Silver Secret Packages + 1 Epic Legacy Token

Again, packages cannot be shared, but they can be converted into the package items from previous years at a designated Gifting NPC. 

Good Standing

You are only eligible for a prize if your account is in good standing. If you are permanently banned during or after Gifting, you will not receive your prizes, even on your alternate accounts. Account sharing, cheating, or trying to pre-sell prizes outside the game may also negate eligibility.

No Ties

There will be no ties. If scores are tied, the tie is broken in favor of the first person to reach the score, as determined by receipt logs.

Score Tier Prizes

As in previous years, score-based tier prizes unlock at the end of Gifting. The tiers will be 10,000 / 100,000 / 250,000. This Year the theme will be the Delta Demigod Collection!  

Faction Prize

Like last year, we will track the Gifting contributions of entire Factions. The Faction with the highest total Gifting score receives 1 Epic Legacy Token for every member who joined that Faction before this post going live on October 27, 2026. The Faction must have at least 100,000 Faction Influence to be eligible. Anyone who joins a Faction on or after this post going lvie October 27, 2026 is not eligible. This rule exists to prevent the selling of Faction slots.

To add some incentive for Factions to participate in Gifting aside from the leading Faction, we're offering incentives for the 2nd and 3rd place factions. We will also try to add a place to display top Factions on the Gifting leaderboard before the end of Gifting.

1st Place - All eligible members receive 1 Secret Package and 1 Silver Secret Package + 1 Epic Legacy Token
2nd Place - All eligible members receive 1 Secret Package
3rd Place - All eligible members receive 1 Silver Secret Package

Daily Gift Leader Bonus

The player with the most Daily Gift Leader achievements at the end of the event receives a bonus Epic Legacy Token. If two or more players tie, the winner is the player with the highest combined score across the days they earned those achievements. For example, if Player 1 and Player 2 each have 4 Daily Gift Leader achievements, but Player 1 scored 500,000 on each of those days and Player 2 scored 100,000, Player 1 receives the bonus Token.

No Prize Sharing

Prize sharing is removed this year. Tokens and Packages cannot be shared or transferred. This completely closes the market for selling or pre-selling rewards outside the game.

Daily Gift Legend Achievements

Some of the most esoteric achievements go to players who finish in the top 15 and also win top Daily Gifter across multiple years. Players who won top Daily Gifter in multiple seasons between 2018 and 2026 are eligible for these special achievements:

• Daily Gift Mythic Legend: Won top Daily Gifter in 8 Gifting seasons between 2018–2026.
• Daily Gift Mythic Epic Legend 2026: Placed top 15 in 2026 and won top Daily Gifter in 8 Gifting seasons.
• Daily Gift Cosmic Epic Legend 2026: Placed top 15 in 2026 and won top Daily Gifter in 7 Gifting seasons.
• Daily Gift Eternal Epic Legend 2026: Placed top 15 in 2026 and won top Daily Gifter in 6 Gifting seasons.
• Daily Gift Ultimate Epic Legend 2026: Placed top 15 in 2026 and won top Daily Gifter in 5 Gifting seasons.
• Daily Gift Supreme Epic Legend 2026: Placed top 15 in 2026 and won top Daily Gifter in 4 Gifting seasons.
• Daily Gift Epic Legend 2026: Placed top 15 in 2026 and won top Daily Gifter in 3 Gifting seasons.
• Daily Gift Epic Champion 2026: Placed top 15 in 2026 and won top Daily Gifter in 2 Gifting seasons.

New Epic Supporter Achievements

Special Gifting variants of the Epic Supporter achievements will be introduced in late November and will replace the current Epic Supporter achievements for the duration of Gifting.

Fameall

Did you know there is a way to get Fame FAST? Type /fameall into the public chat field to fame all eligible players on your screen!

Gifting Concierge

Even though this year's changes should limit the problem of sniping, we'll still rely on the help of our steadfast Gifting concierge to keep Gifting events from conflicting with each other. If you’re interested in hosting a major Gifting event, get in touch with Smoking Shadow:

In-game: Smoking Shadow
Discord: mihawk98
Twitter: Mihawkplayss

Tis the Season to Be Wary

Gifting is a joyful time, but it also brings out scammers. Don’t risk your EpicDuel account or your bank account for a stranger promising great rewards or free Varium. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

EXPERIMENTAL, NEW, FASTER LAUNCHER! 

This year, the best way to experience Gifting will be on the brand-new Ruffle Launcher! It's still in the testing phase, but by the time Gifting arrives, it'll make the Gifting experience infinitely better than the current slideshow most players experience in the crowded rooms. We encourage users with older computers & devices to help us test. Check this page daily for the latest updates! 

Tags: Nightwraith

October 23, 2026

Surprise! Ghoulish delights arrive early on Delta V with a NEW Grand Ghoulmaster Promo Package, featuring brand new 2026 Ghoulzookas! Every time we iterate on the concept, we face a huge challenge to outdo the previous generations, and I personally think this latest stacks up pretty well. Plus, since we had so many good ideas for spooky, spectral robots, this package will feature 4 bots! Take a look at all this new promo offers!

Weapons

• Ghoul Cannon 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2026
• Ghoul Revolver
• Spectral Revolver

Robots

• Ghoulmaster Phantom P
  • Ghoulmaster Cannon P: Blast target with hand cannons and fiery pumpkin seeds for 10% Energy drain.
  • Ghoulmaster Possession P: Infest with dark spirits, forcing target to use a random skill on next turn.
• Ghoulmaster Phantom E
  • Ghoulmaster Cannon E: Blast target with hand cannons and fiery pumpkin seeds for 10% Energy drain.
  • Ghoulmaster Possession E: Infest with dark spirits, forcing target to use a random skill.
• Ghoulmaster Wraith P
  • Ghoulmaster Swipe P: Slash with blazing ethereal daggers for 10% Energy drain.
  • Ghoulmaster Immolation P: Incinerate target's Energy, reducing it, and your own, to 0 for 3 turns. Energy removed by this skill returns after 3 turns.
• Ghoulmaster Wraith E
  • Ghoulmaster Swipe E: Slash with blazing ethereal daggers for 10% Energy drain.
  • Ghoulmaster Immolation E: Incinerate target's Energy, reducing it, and your own, to 0 for 3 turns. Energy removed by this skill returns after 3 turns.

Cores

• Blood Echo (Primary): Reverse damage of most recent attack based on current Rage. Does not recover poison damage or EP damage.

• Phantasm Shroud (Armor): Gain 500 EP. Damage reroutes to Energy pool for 3 turns. Excess dmg. inflicted on HP. Health regen skills like Blood Lust do not work against players using this ability. Only poisons are skill able to reduce HP. EP regen like Concentration only trigger when damage hits HP while ability is active.

• Haunted Shot (Sidearm): Causes target to take dmg. from Energy spent for 3 turns. Applies after heals.

• Ectoplasmic Explosion (Auxiliary): Infest target. Use again to detonate target's Energy based on aux. dmg., increasing 10% each turn (max 5/70%).

Both the 15,000 Varium and the Gear-Only Grand Ghoulmaster packages also contain rare achievement: Grand Ghoulmaster! We hope you enjoy these latest additions to EpicDuel's ever-growing epic arsenal!

NEW! Download the Experimental Artix Games Launcher (Modified Ruffle)

The latest version of Artix Entertainment's Ruffle launcher is now available! Play EpicDuel at a framerate never thought possible! I haven't seen the game this smooth since the early days when the art was much simpler. Now you can really enjoy the detail and smoothless of the animations like few have seen! Try the Ruffle Launcher now!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 16, 2026

Pirates of Doom

It's been awhile since our last Arcade game, yeah? This was intended to launch in September but some other issues got in the way and it was tabled for a bit. I didn't want to wait a whole year to release it so Pirates of Doom is now available at all ArcadeBots across Delta V!

• Gold Tier
  • DoomTech Pirate Arsenal P
  • DoomTech Pirate Arsenal E
  • DoomTech Pirate Moglin
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Moglin
• Silver Tier
  • DoomTech Pirate Cannon P
  • DoomTech Pirate Cannon E
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Cannon P
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Cannon E
• Bronze Tier
  • DoomTech Pirate Rapier P
  • DoomTech Pirate Rapier E
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Rapier P
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Rapier E
  • DoomTech Pirate Cutlass P
  • DoomTech Pirate Cutlass E
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Cutlass P
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Cutlass E
  • DoomTech Pirate Blunderbuss P
  • DoomTech Pirate Blunderbuss E
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Blunderbuss P
  • Shadowscythe Pirate Blunderbuss E

New Home Items

• DoomTech Pirate Rune Rug
• Shadowscythe Pirate Rune Rug
• DoomTech Pirate Wall Runes
• Shadowscythe Pirate Wall Runes
• Sepulchure Statue Right
• Sepulchure Statue Left 

More Alpha-Omega Valkyrie Items

We've just rolled out more long awaited rewards from the 2024 Gifting event! If you qualified, check your inventory for a pleasant surprise!

• 50,000 Gift Score
  • Alpha-Omega Valkyrie Slayer P
  • Alpha-Omega Valkyrie Slayer E
• 75,000 Gift Score
  • Alpha-Omega Valkyrie Bow P
  • Alpha-Omega Valkyrie Bow E
• 175,000 Gift Score
  • Alpha-Omega Valkyrie Scythe P
  • Alpha-Omega Valkyrie Scythe E
• 275,000 Gift Score
  • Alpha-Omega Valkyrie Spear P
  • Alpha-Omega Valkyie Spear E
• 450,000 Gift Score
  • Void Frostbane P
  • Void Frostbane E
• 700,000 Gift Score
  • Cosmic Frostbane P
  • Cosmic Frostbane E

Balance Changes

• Cores:
  • Ares’ Revenge: 90 energy → 0
  • Infernal Fortitude (Armor): 3 → 4 turns
  • Frost Shards: 100 energy → 80
  • Malware: 85% → 100 dmg
  • Overclock: + 100 HP heal on use
• Robots:
  
  • Anubis Incantation: Basic attack 100% → 85% dmg
  • Botanical Borg/Shadowlords Avatar: Special ignores 27% → 30% defense
  • Botanical Hazard: Basic attack ignores 15% defense
  • Minotaur: Initial special attack ignores defense + Special Duration 2 → 3 turns, 30 → 25% def ignore and reduction
  • Monkakazi: Basic attack 105% → 100% + 15% defense ignore; Special Uses 1 → 2 times; 3 turn cooldown
  • Ultra Corsair Bot: Normal attack: 25% crit chance → 10% crit chance + 10% defense ignore; Special attack: 70% → 80% dmg
• Skills:
  
  • (UA) Reroute: +30 → +50 sidearm dmg
  • (UA) Energy Parasite: 75 EP initial drain; at max level, drain 45 EP subsequently per 3 turns; 1.5x EP gain → 2x.

EXPERIMENTAL, NEW, FASTER LAUNCHER! 

We just unveiled a new official new version of Artix Entertainment's Launcher that allows you to play all of our Flash games FASTER than ever before on your Android mobile device, or Windows/Mac/Linux Computer. Updates are going to be fast and furious as we begin the journey that will take all of your favorite, original, Artix Entertainment games to Steam and the App Stores. We encourage users with older computers & devices to help us test. Check this page daily for the latest updates!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 09, 2026

EpicDuel is back online with new features, new balance changes, and more!

Boss Buddies

Bosses that you are forced to fight with an NPC ally after meeting mission requirements now allow you to challenge solo.

• Dravax the Harbinger
• Saeva Lionhart
• The Endless
• Alydriah
• Edgar Boothe
• Kartherax
• Chairman Platinum

This update also shifted hundreds of lines of reduntant boss code into server-driven functions. This is a good thing because previously, if we wanted to add a new boss, it had to be added to a number of places in the server and client code, bloating the code needlessly.

Balance Changes

• Cores:
  
  • Deep Plague: Triggered by clicking on core slot after application instead of basic strike. Max dmg → 140% 
  • Botanical Wrath: Costs 100 → 80 Energy
  • Radiation Burn: 15% chance → 35% chance to reduce melee attacker's def/res by 15%
  • Darkeater's Overcharge: Spend 110 HP to mini rage & destroy target's armor for 1 → 2 turns
  • Botanical Infestation: Costs 90 → 0 Energy; Reset target's Rage and restores 40% -> 50% HP from damage
  • Astral Projection: 50% → 60% dmg stolen to Energy
  • Frost Aura: Buff Aura to -40 energy reduction ?????????
  • Wolf's Fury: Uses: 1 → 2; 3 turn cooldown
  • Frozen Fist: Deal 105% primary damage increasing by 5% per round, 140% max
  • Phase Shift (Primary/Gun/Aux): Inflict 100% → 105% damage of the opposite type; Uses: Unlimited + 2 turns cooldown(Gun and Primary), 3 turns(Auxiliary)
  • Screaming Soul Spears: 2 → 3 turns; 80 → 100 energy cost
  • Hatchling Rush: Attack same as primary damage type for 100% lowering all healing effects by 20% → 30%. Hatching Rush P/E and Minor Hatchling Rush P/E consolidated.
• Robots:
  
  • Botanical Borg: Special's Defense ignore 25% → 27%
  • Lionhart's Avatar: Special grants 60% → 100% Rage to all allies
  • Technomancer Hexabot: Special increases effectiveness of poison by 25% → 50% for 3 turns 
• Skills:
  
  • UA Energy Shield(Tactial Mercenary): Removed Energy Drain, increases Deflection Chance by 15%

Bug Fixes/Changes

• Cyber Yeti P/E: Skills were not properly set into cooldown.
• Nightmare CactusChan: Charon's Obol could deflect High Noon damage for a quick skill. This has been fixed. Best Times from players who took advantage of this will be reset. Also, Delirium would not be blocked be Charon's Obol as it wasn't setup as a debuff. This would cause the affected player to timeout if they tried to use a skill. It is now labeled as a debuff.
• Charon's Obol: Max reflected damage capped at 1000.
• All damage-reflecting skills capped at 1000 to pre-empt possible future interactions like this.
• Azrael's Will: Set as debuff (blocked by Charon's Obol).
• Text in PMs and Faction Chat can be highlighted and copied/pasted.
• Your character's language preference in Settings is now saved, even after you clear your cache.

Epic Downtime

Last night EpicDuel was down for about 9 hours, starting after the midnight restart. In some ways, this takes me back to the bad old times. EpicDuel used to crash at least once daily, even before the AE-fueled player influx. Titan and I would wake up every day (when we remembered to sleep) not knowing if the servers would still be alive or not. It was a bad time then, but it's even worse now that my ancient, decaying body is not as resilient to sleep deprivation as it used to be. 

In this case, the problem was a pesky daily job that was stuck. EpicDuel has a list of jobs it runs every day like awarding daily achievements, resetting the daily leaderboards, choosing a new NPC bounty, etc... If any part of the job gets stuck, the process locks up and the game can't sustain regular play. I identified the problem, but couldn't do anything about it (I'm a game lead, but the council does not grant me the rank of network admin). As of this writing, the problem seems to be resolved, and I've added new failsafes that should prevent something like this from happening in the future. For the sake of my sanity, I certainly hope so!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 05, 2026

Waiting for Battle Fix

After careful investigation into complaints of long and/or inconsistent queue times, we believe we found a solution: Every time someone new joined the queue, it would shift the queue counter for those already in it. This means that under higher server traffic, queue times would be higher for seemingly no reason. This bug was difficult to recreate in a dev environment with much less traffic, meaning it took quite a while to isolate and diagnose the cause. This update is designed to fix the maximum the queue times for 1v1, 2v2, and Juggernaut battles so it should never take longer than a minute to find a battle at most.

Balance Changes

• (DA) Smokescreen: Scaling 3.3 -> 4.0 (at 140 tech with this change Smoke value goes from 57 -> 50)
• (UA) Smokescreen: Scaling 7.5 -> 9.3 (at 140 tech with this change Smoke value goes from 23 -> 20); +1 dex/def for every skill point allocated
• Plasma Rain: Additional dmg 7% of max HP-> 5% of max HP
• Artillery Strike: Additional dmg 7% of max HP-> 5% of max HP
• Double Strike / (PA) Double Strike: Reintroduced Dex scaling; 1% damage per 6 Dexterity.
• (EA) Double Strike: 1% damage per 9 Dexterity.
• UA Bunker Buster: Lifesteal 20% -> 25%
• Char's Revenge: Adds +100 damage to regular Primary attacks against the Dragonoid Brain. This skill was actually no working at all, but functionality was restored for this update.

Another One (in a Million)

Our battle log highlighted another winning of the One-in-a-Million achievement. This time it's a 1v1 match of Photo vs Fairy Bread with Fairy Bread emerging victorious! All participants in a one-in-a-million battle are highlighted, not just the winners!

Tags: Nightwraith

October 02, 2026

Added to Thalyssa

• SteamTech Arsenal P
• SteamTech Arsenal E
• SteamTech Bazooka P
• SteamTech Bazooka E
• SteamTech Artillery P
  • SteamTech Cannon P: Rain down physical attacks from a hovering airship; 20% defense ignore.
  • SteamTech Blast P: Deal more damage based on how much EP you have left, up to 120% for 0 EP.
• SteamTech Artillery E
  • SteamTech Cannon E: Rain down energy attacks from a hovering airship; 20% defense ignore.
  • SteamTech Blast E: Deal more damage based on how much EP you have left, up to 120% for 0 EP.

Added to Alonzo Harris

New!

• Ghoul Cannon 2018 CC 2026
• Ghoul Cannon 2018 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2018 CC 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2018 2026

Returning!

• Stun Cannon CC 2026
• Stun Blaster CC 2026
• Stun Cannon 2026
• Stun Blaster 2026
• Ghoul Cannon 2019 CC 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2019 CC 2026
• Ghoul Cannon 2019 2026
• Spectral Blaster 2019 2026

Balance Changes

• Revenant's Wall (Armor): Increase Resistance by 65% for 3 -> 4 turns.
• Hardened Armor: Damage Reduction 35% -> 30%; Added 30% damage reflection.
• Anubis Incantation: Warmup 1 -> 0; Detonates for 67% of targets current energy
• Energy Harvest
  Deal 85% -> 100% damage, stealing 20% HP and 50% Energy, disabling melee attacks for 1 turn.
• Hunters' Eradication: Remove target's armor (1 turn), target's sidearm (2 turns) and auxiliary (3 turns).
• Saw Strike P/E: Rip through 25% -> 30% of your target's defense with a 20% crit chance.
• Underclock: Attack for 85% -> 100% damage and increase target's cooldowns by 1.
• Whiteout: Deals 100% -> 110% damage
• Titan's Shroud / Titan's Shroud (NPC) / Force's Shroud: Now only increases the chance you will block an incoming attack and no longer affects your opponent's chance to block your attack. Removed Damage Reflection.

Critical Change

Critical strike formula reverted to remove to the defense-ignore cap, but reverting entirely to the formula earlier in the year is not idea as it contained many blind spots that produced inaccurate results. People were mostly used to the old formula since it was in use for so long that nobody thought anything of it. I'll share some simulated scenarios below to clarify the differences between the old and new formulas.

Classic early 2026 formula: damagePostCrit = grossDamage − critAdjustedDefense, no clamp on ignorePercent.
Current new formula: damagePostCrit = damage + defenseIgnored, ignorePercent clamped to 0–100.

Simulated Scenarios: grossDamage = 1000, target Defense = 500, base ignorePercent = 30% (no crit-ignore gear unless noted), attacker level = 40 → critMinIncrease = 56.

Results:

1. Identical. In most cases, you will never notice the change (100% damage, nothing else going on).
2. This is the NPC Defense core bug that was fixed by the new formula. The core is worth 400 damage reduction on a normal hit (500→100), but Classic's crit comes out exactly the same as #1's (650), totally ignoring the core. Current correctly shows a 400-point difference (650→250), matching the core's actual value.
3. / 4. — Classic's crit damage is the same 650 in every scenario, regardless of the skill's own damage%. Classic's crit output never changes unless grossDamage or Defense change. It's blind to everything else in the pipeline. Current scales appropriately: a 130%-damage skill crits harder (950) than a 70%-damage skill (350), proportional to their actual power.
5. Combining the core and a 130% skill, Classic still lands on 650 (same constant as every other scenario) as it ignores both modifiers. Current shows 550, correctly reflecting both.
6. With enough crit-ignore gear stacked to push raw ignorePercent to 120%, Classic's critAdjustedDefense goes negative ((1-1.2)×500 = -100), which flips the subtraction into an addition, and the crit does more than full gross damage (1100, exceeding the 1000 raw hit entirely). Current's clamp caps ignorePercent at 100%, so the worst case is "crit ignores all Defense" (1000). It can never exceed the hit's own gross damage.

Net Result: Classic's crit number is structurally disconnected from key elements that comprise a hit's damage, and only reacts to grossDamage and Defense. The current formula's crit number tracks the actual hit including modifiers. Classic may have "felt" correct due to familiarity, but by ignoring key modifiers it was actually inaccurate.

Other Changes

• Battle engine now supports limits for core uses beyond 1. Skill button tooltips will also show remaining uses for skills with multiple uses in battle.
• Rage start bonus: 30% in 2v2 → 35%, 20% in all other modes → 25%,
• NPC Rage enabled only for 1v1 and 2v2 battles. To prevent change from overpowering NPCs, their Rage rates will be 50% less than human rates. This change was made because NPCs have extremely low win rates against humans in 1v1 and 2v2 (only 5% in 2v2) and even worse outcomes with a human partner in a 2v2 with 2 humans vs 1 human, 1 NPC. This change should help human players who pair with NPC partners as well as making battles less predictable.
• Formula information including base values, max values, and divisors added for Block, Deflection, Critical, and Stun tool tips.

Tags: Nightwraith

September 29, 2026

When one bug is fixed, more will take its place. When I fixed Lotus Petal, I added extra measures to make sure cooldowns were more strictly enforced. Because some robots like Gamma Bot and Mini Rex have variations that reuse data from other bots, an unforseen consequence of this fix was that cooldowns would fail to trigger for those bots. For example, when you click a skill for Infernal Android PxE, the game thinks a skill for Infernal Android P should be in cooldown. Since that button isn't in your inferface due to you not currently using that bot, the cooldown cannot trigger.

I've combed through the hundreds of robot skill entries and I believe I've fixed all the problematic bots. I'm sorry this happened, but this is simply and inevitability with such a broad change to an integral system like cooldowns, and there is simply no way to test all 200+ robots in the game at a pace quick enough to surface these bugs before an update.

Additional Fixes

• Tactical Reload / Tactical Reload (Auxiliary): Expected behavior restored. This was broken for the same reason the bots were broken. These skills are exceptions to normal cooldown rules so they had to be accounted for.
• Brace: Cooldown removed. This cooldown appeared as part of the broad cooldown change. Again, this was because Brace was always an exception to rules and standardization "broke" it's normal behavior.
• Retrain/Level Up UI: The + and - buttons have been realigned with the corresponding stats. When I rearranged the UI, I didn't account for the necessary scale change to the buttons. Generally, the game's UI just needs more breathing room, but that's a broader change for another time.

Added to Kraggor

When testing the robots, I noticed that the Pyro Fly and variants were not sold anywhere due to being seasonal. Since robots have direct impact on balance, they should not be so restricted. Therefore, I added non-rare versions of the Pyro Fly bots to Kraggor, following the same precedent set with the Yeti bots.

• Pyro Fly
• Plasma Fly
• Infernal Fly
• Magma Fly

Tags: Nightwraith

September 28, 2026

Balance Change

Tremor Blast/Techstalker Tremor/Telekinesis/Saevussax Evisceration/SteamTech Grenade:

• Descriptions updated for displayed duration to match actual duration.
• These skills will reduce the chances of the afflicted player to block incoming attacks to 0%, and the chance that they will be blocked by anyone they attack to 30%.

These skill were granting 100% chance the person debuffed by them would be blocked. This was found to be too powerful, but these skills have worked this way for quite some time. Often we'll change a skill as a bullet point in a balance update, but because the skill isn't in the current meta, it will be ignored until someone finally tries it out and learns it's actually the most OP thing ever. That seems to be the case here, but I didn't want to update without a better solution to a larger problem with similar skills.

We've always faced a challenge with probability-altering skills as the impact is hard to *feel* over the course of a duel unless they're incredibly strong. Probability being what it is, even a large boost might not yield the expected results due to repeated bad rolls. Also, multiplicative passives tend to be much less impactful for evenly-matched players. If your block chance is 2%, then a 50% multiplicative boost is only +1. Additive boosts can be more impactful across all matchups, but risk being overpowered.

To finally address this, after 17+ years, I've added Block/Deflection/Stun chances to the stats page.

Probability Display

I've added the ability to finally see probabilities in the stats page. Block/Deflection/Crit/Stun will display the offensive values (i.e. chance that your target will block you).

Stats page now display's the player's Block chance for each opponent.

Stats page now display's the player's Deflection chance for each opponent.

Stats page now display's the player's Critical chance for each opponent.

Stats page now display's the player's base Stun chance for each opponent.

To view your own chance to block an attack, deflect, etc... view the stats page of your opponent(s).

I'm not 100% happy with the current implementation, but I wanted to get this feature in to enable transparency as quickly as possible. The current presentation will likely change once I settle on a more intuitive solution.

Other Changes

Tired of tracking cooldowns of everyone in battle in your own head? Well, you can put that scrap paper away and relax a little bit because cooldowns and warmups are now visible on the stats page of all human characters in battle.

Finally, Azrael's Borg Heart Attack and other skills that diminish buffs now affects Lotus Petal.

Tags: Nightwraith

September 25, 2026

This week the seas were rougher than usual on Delta V as we battled and finally defeated the pesky Lotus Petal bug! It turns out, this bug didn't have much to do with the skill at all! In fact, the cooldown error was due to viewing an NPC's, or another player's stats page. That caused the game to mistakenly target one the NPC's skill buttons for cooldown instead of yours so the skill put into cooldown by Lotus Petal would never go into cooldown. The self-correction would also fail because the game was trying to correct a button you didn't have. With this bug fixed, we'll leave traces in for another week to make sure the bug is 100% fixed (sometimes fixing a bug creates another one...or 2...or 20).

Even with all that, we were still able to release some fresh content for ye land lubbers!

Thalyssa's Bounty

Visit Thalyssa in the West Naval Yard for the latest Talk Like a Pirate Day gear!

• SteamTech Tank
• SteamTech Tank CC
• SteamTech Airship
• SteamTech Airship CC
• SteamTech Sword P
• SteamTech Sword E
• SteamTech Blaster P
• SteamTech Blaster E
• SteamTech Grenade P x25: Grenade that confuses target, lowering Crit, Block, and Deflection chance for 4 turns.
• SteamTech Grenade E x25: Grenade that confuses target, lowering Crit, Block, and Deflection chance for 4 turns.

Next week will be the grand finale of our Talk Like a Pirate gear, and we saved the best for last!

Added to The Challenger

Missed the Battlepass? You're in luck, because The Challenger has added Anubis to his collection. You have another chance to get one of the best anti-NPC bots available! 

• Anubis Incarnation P
• Anubis Incarnation E

Bug Fixes/Changes

• Skills set into cooldown by Lotus Petal would sometimes not enter cooldown state.
• PMs no longer hidden behind the NPC boss leaderboard
• NPC skill buttons still showing in your Inventory after you die
• NPC skill tooltips no longer use your stats and buffs to reflect skill values.
• Not a bug, but we added a message whenever you equip a core to an item notifying you that equipping a core removes its sellback value. This should clear up confusion when people try to sell back a core after equipping it and notice it has no sellback value.

Tags: Nightwraith

September 21, 2026

Lotus Petal Debugging

This is a persistent one, isn't it? The interesting thing about this particular bug is that it may have been present for awhile in other skills that force a random skill into cooldown, but because they're not often used, the bug rarely has a change to occur.

We've added more tracking to get to the bottom of the rare but persistent Lotus Petal bug. Now, if you get the dreaded Cooldown Validation bug after using Lotus Petal, you should see a debug trace in your battle log. That should provide important information that can help us determine exactly what is going wrong in the code and where to look for it. There's also a change some of my changes have fixed the bug fully, but we'll keep the debug messages in for now until we're 100% confident in bug resolution.

Please use the Artix Bug Tracker to report issues so we can fully document and fix them. Social media and Discord or the "pass along to NW" method are decentralized and inefficient as critical information is often lost along the way.

Personal High Score Boards

We've completed the process of adding Personal High Scores to the Fame, Code Redeems, Rating, and Rank leaderboards. We've also added a bit more room to the rank fields that were being cutoff.

Report

One weakness of our in-game reporting system is that you must be in the same room as the person you're reporting. This means it's very difficult to report someone in a crowded room or if you miss your chance in battle. You can now report players using slash commands. Type "/report character name" to open the popup to file a report.

Tags: Nightwraith

September 18, 2026

Personal Best

The biggest change of this update is that most leaderboards will now display your own personal best score depending on category. Your name will show on the leaderboard highlighted in gold, even if you're not in the top 20. Places below 20 will show your actual rank relative to all other players. This change covers all Boss Breaker Boards, War Boards, and most of the all-time and daily boards. The rest will be completed next week.

One quirk to be aware of is because the all-time boards are on a delay and your personal high score is displayed live, the information may be desynchronized until the all-time boards update.

Ishmael Resupplied

The following items have been added to Ishmael! Since the Gamma Pirate gear is no longer available as a promo, the cores and robots have been added for purchase! We wouldn't want people to miss out on the awesome mimic special of the Gamma Pirate Parrot!

• Gamma Pirate Parrot Morph
• Gamma Pirate Parrot Morph CC
• Gamma Pirate Parrot 2026 P
• Gamma Pirate Parrot 2026 E
• Gamma Guts
• Gamma Brand
• Gamma Rage (Sidearm)
• Gamma Rage (Auxiliary)
• Gamma Rage (Primary)

Balance Changes

• Static Charge: Now usable even when you have full Energy
• Overload: Cooldown 2 → 1
• Frenzy: 0 Energy across augments
• Charon's Obol: When spared and you survive with 1 HP and reflect any excess damage from the attack that triggered the spare buff back to opponent. For example, if you have 100 HP, and your attacker hits you for 800 damage, you will be spared, but your attacker will take a reflected 700 damage! This damage is not fatal to the attacker (leaves them with 1 HP, consistent with other damage-reflecting abilities), but can really turn the tide of battle. 
• Shade Snare: Strike for 100% dmg; draining 25% energy for all attacks for 2 turns.(Every attack drains energy and not just melee attacks with the above change). Reduced snare energy cost from 80 → 50
• Infernal Binding: Reduced Energy cost from 100 → 60
• Bug Fixes:
  • Gamma Parrot's special copies Permafrost debuff
  • Permafrost and Tentacle Prison now labelled as Debuffs.
  • Charon's Obol no longer blocks Energy Parasite as Energy Parasite is not classified as a debuff.
  • We're still investigating a cooldown validation bug linked to Lotus Petal. While we gather more info, cooldown desynchs are now able to be corrected after 1 failed attempt.

Tags: Nightwraith

September 15, 2026

The Dead Speak

Over the weekend there were several reports of players with 0 HP who were still able to attack. "Zombie players" is not new to EpicDuel. Similar bugs have been popping up since the early days, but they've been extremely rare to nonexistent for awhile. It may be that alterations to the dead/alive checks made to accomodate skills that produce a killing poison or cheat death opened up some potential failure points. This patch adds additional safeguards to make sure that dead players stay dead.

If you notice something like this happen to yourself or someone else in battle, please report the bug, including as many specifics as you can recall (i.e. skills used, stuns, turn order, etc...). Even if you're not cheating by using 3rd party tools, abusing an exploit to gain an unfair advantage can still earn you a ban, especially if you do so repeatedly.

Critical Damage Adjustment

This bug was first uncovered through reports that Boss NPC Guard cores were not being factored in when the boss scored a crit against you. Further investigation led to discover a larger problem with critical damage calculations.

The Bug: When you land a critical hit, part of the damage math was being recalculated "from scratch" instead of building on top of the hit that was already happening. This meant that certain damage-reducing effects like the defensive Nightmare Boss Guard cores were getting wiped out the moment a crit landed. Those defensive bonuses worked fine on regular hits, but were ignored whenever the NPC enemy crit you. This was probably affecting other defense-boosting cores/skills but due to the relatively rare occurrence and complexity of calculation, no bug was ever reported. This bug was introduced when we made changes to the critical damage calculations months ago.

The Fix: Since the bug was introduced by the critical damage calculation changes, specifically separating the damage percent modifiers from critical damage, the best way to fix this was to revert most of the changes to the formula. Crits now correctly build on top of your normal (non-crit) damage calculation, adding only the extra damage a crit is supposed to add (from partially ignoring Defense/Resistance), instead of throwing away everything else that was already factored in. Any Defense bonuses, damage reductions, or skill-specific damage adjustments that applied to the hit will now still be there even if it crits.

Formulas

Old:

crit rebuilt from Gross Damage, dropping any adjustment made to damage along the way:
Damage Post Crit = Gross Damage − Crit Adjusted Defense
Crit Bonus = Damage Post Crit − Damage
Final = (Crit Bonus < Crit Min Increase) ? Damage + Crit Min Increase : Damage Post Crit

New:

crit builds on the fully-resolved damage, adding only the extra defense the crit ignores:
Defense Ignored = Defense − Crit Adjusted Defense
Damage Post Crit = Damage + Defense Ignored
Final = (Defense Ignored < Crit Min Increase) ? Damage + Crit Min Increase : Damage Post Crit

Examples:

Gross Damage = 1000, Defense = 500, Crit Ignores 30% Defense (default, under the 50% cap) → Crit Adjusted Defense = (0.70 × 500) = 350,
Defense Ignored = 150. Crit Min Increase = 56 (level 40).

Scenario A: Damage Percent = 100

damage = 1000 − 500 = 500

Old Formula:

Damage Post Crit: 1000 − 350 = 650
Final Crit Damage: 650

New Formula:

Damage Post Crit: 500 + 150 = 650
Final Crit Damage: 650 

Result: Identical. With 100% Damage, both formulas have the same result.

Scenario B: Damage Percent = 130

Damage = (1.30 × 1000) − 500 = 800

Old Formula:

Damage Post Crit: 1000 − 350 = 650
vs. damage(800): 650 − 800 = −150 → below floor
Final Crit Damage: floor kicks in: 800 + 56 = 856

New Formula:

Damage Post Crit: 800 + 150 = 950
vs. damage(800): 950 ≥ floor
Final Crit Damage: 950

Under the new formula, the skill's 130% bonus now fully and consistently carries into its crit damage (950 vs. the old 856). A skill's own Damage Percent is active across normal and crit hits, and scaling risk is controlled separately via the CRIT_TOTAL_IGNORE_MAX cap rather than by selectively dropping modifiers on crit which create needless complexity. This change does making critical hits more powerful for skills with increased Damage Percent, which is why we changed the formula in the first place, but excluding those values had unintended consequences that needed to be resolved.

Tags: Nightwraith