EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

March 20, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with new Nulgath limited rares and a restocked Epic Rare shop!

Nulgath Reinforced

Nulgath has been stocked with even more delightfully devious limited rares! Will you collect them all?

• Archfiend Overlord Sword P
• Archfiend Overlord Sword E
• Archfiend Overlord Slayer P
• Archfiend Overlord Slayer E
• Archfiend Overlord Greatsword P
• Archfiend Overlord Greatsword E
• Archfiend Overlord Greatsword CC P
• Archfiend Overlord Greatsword CC E
• Archfiend Overlord Arsenal P
• Archfiend Overlord Arsenal E
• Archfiend Overlord Greatbow P
• Archfiend Overlord Greatbow E
• Archfiend Overlord Greatspear P
• Archfiend Overlord Greatspear E

TheAlonzoHarris Shop Update

TheAlonzoHarri's Epic Rare shop has been stocked with new and returning Epic Rares! Some of these are only available for a limited time. Have you been keeping up with your weekly missions?

• Zeus's Legacy - 25000 Varium - Available this weekend
• Accomplishment's Pirate Rep. - 10000 Varium / 10 Tokens - Available this weekend
• Itachi's Pride - Returning for the weekend
• Cyber Frogzard - 10000 Varium / 10 Tokens
• Brazilian Bunnyzooka P - 10000 Varium / No Tokens
• Brazilian Bunnyzooka E - 10000 Varium / No Tokens
• CC Hellfire Havoc Harrower P - 10000 Varium / 10 Tokens
• CC Hellfire Havoc Harrower E - 10000 Varium / 10 Tokens

Coming Attractions

I am pleased to share with you a preview of the next Battlepass which will have an ancient Egypt theme! It's already shaping up to be one of the best-looking yet.

Tags: Nightwraith

March 13, 2026

New Nulgath Weapons

New seasonal and limited rares have been added to Nulgath!

• Ancient Archfiend Sword P
• Ancient Archfiend Sword E
• Ancient Archfiend Greatsword P
• Ancient Archfiend Greatsword E
• Ancient Archfiend Spear P
• Ancient Archfiend Spear E
• Ancient Archfiend Arsenal P
• Ancient Archfiend Arsenal E

New Dage the Evil Items

New seasonal and limited rares have been added to Dage the Evil!

• Primal Legion Sickle P
• Primal Legion Sickle E
• Primal Legion Spear P
• Primal Legion Spear E
• Primal Legion Scythe P
• Primal Legion Scythe E
• Primal Legion Katana P
• Primal Legion Katana E
• Primal Legion Sword P
• Primal Legion Sword E
• Primal Legion Greatsword P
• Primal Legion Greatsword E
• Primal Legion Longsword P
• Primal Legion Longsword E
• Primal Legion Bow P
• Primal Legion Bow E
• Primal Legion Arsenal P
• Primal Legion Arsenal E
• Primal Legion Greatsword CC P
• Primal Legion Greatsword CC E
• Primal Legion Dagger P
• Primal Legion Dagger E

New Nightmare Cores Shops

Special VendBots containing anti-Nightmare cores have been added to several NPCs that offer Nightmare battles. Remember, you will need to defeat their Nightmare form at least once to unlock the shop!

• Nightmare Pumpkin Lord (appears after mission is triggered)
• Nightmare Dage the Evil
• Nightmare Acatriel
• Nightmare Azrael

Friday the 13th Again?

Seems like it was already Friday the 13th just last month. Weird! The Friday the 13th rares are available again along with a new achievement: Dage's Friday The 13th 2026.

TheAlonzoHarris' Shop Restocked

TheAlonzoHarris' shop has been restocked with new and returning Epic Rares! Some are only available for a limited time so you'd better hurry!

• Itachi's Pride (appearing for this weekend)
• Boreas
• Purgatory
• Sharingan
• Rinnegan
• Izanagi (appearing for this weekend)
• Izanami (appearing for this weekend)
• Polyxenes Replica (returning for this weekend)
• Zelicaon Replica (returning for this weekend)
• Butterfly Blessing (returning for this weekend)
• Butterfly Boost (returning for this weekend)

Progress Report

We're still hard at work on this year's Gifter rewards and so far we are more than halfway done! That's better progress than last year, but not as far ahead as we'd like. I hope to improve our efforts to deliver these items in a timely manner so we can resume development on new features and improvements. We have also made some progress on the next Battlepass so there won't be such a long wait for the next one.

Tags: Nightwraith

March 06, 2026

This week’s update introduces new Nulgath seasonal rares, new missions, and the debut of Achievement-Locked Shops. This update also includes several balance adjustments to core mechanics, skills, and cores, and restocks TheAlonzoHarris’ Epic Rare shop.

Nulgath Restocked

Finally, the Nulgath rares have been released! Visit the Archfiend himself to check out his stock on new seasonal rares!

• Archfiend Overseer P
• Archfiend Overseer E
• Archfiend Toxic Blade P
• Archfiend Toxic Blade E
• Archfiend Archdemon P
• Archfiend Archdemon E
• Archfiend Toxic Battleaxe P
• Archfiend Toxic Battleaxe E
• Archfiend Archdemon Claws P
• Archfiend Archdemon Claws E
• Archfiend Archdemon Axe P
• Archfiend Archdemon Axe E
• Archfiend Archdemon Staff P
• Archfiend Archdemon Staff E
• Archfiend Archdemon Dagger P
• Archfiend Archdemon Dagger E

We didn't get to the Dage the Evil seasonal rares this week, but the plan is to release the rest next week.

Balance Changes

• General:
  • Base Block chance reduced to 2% from 5%
  • Base Deflect chance reduced to 4% from 7%
• Cores:
  • Omega Override: Increase to 3 turns from 2. Reduce from 50 of highest stat to 40.
    (40 to 30 on Minor)
  • Azrael’s Augment E/P: +13 stats for 2 turns from 1
• Skills:
  • Plasma Bolt (All): Level 1 to 285 from 165. Level 10 is 420 (15 per level instead of 20).
    Improves at a rate of 0.4 per tech up from 0.32.
    Improves at every level above 20 by 0.3 tech (No difference).
    Weakens at every level below 20 by 0.3 tech down from 0.8.
  • (UA) Plasma Bolt: 15% Lifesteal --> 25% Lifesteal.
  • (EA) Proton Cannon: 200 HP gain/200 Energy drain --> 200 HP gain/100 Energy drain
  • (UA 2) Cyber Edge: 40% Rage Gain --> 25% Rage Gain
  • Maul/(UA 2) Maul: Defense ignored at level 1 increased to 25% from 19%
  • (UA 1) Maul: Rage reduction increased at level 1 to 50% from 19%  

TheAlonzoHarris Restocked

So far TheAlonzoHarris' shop has been a big hit, allowing Gifters from previous Gifting Events to offer their rewards to the dueling public. Some of these rares have been so rarely seen that some barely knew they existed until now!

• Exempt's Inferno (Bot)
• Zelicaon Replica
• Polyxenes Replica
• Toji
• Ghost Cannon
• Spirit Reaper
• Cosmic Knight
• Dillbrazd's Delta Knight Armor
• Balance Token - Can be purchased for Varium (for those too impatient to wait for the next Weekly mission)

Additionally, some rare hairstyles have finally been unlocked for the public:

• 323
• 333
• 466
• 895
• 899
• 952
• 954

What new Epic rares are on the horizon? You'll have to stick around to find out!

New Missions

The new mission chain Frogzard's Ferocity is available at Endless M4tr1x. Complete them to claim the prize generously offered by the Gifter Caddeus. These missions will remain in-game until next month.

Achievement Locked Shops

This update adds a new feature that allows unlocking special shops by earning Achievements. Our first implementation is for our many Nightmare boss NPCs. Defeating these bosses once will unlock at shop on their NPC (or nearby vendor) that make defeating the Nightmare Bosses much less stressful. We are rolling out only a few this time to make sure they're working correctly. We will do a full rollout next week.

These are the NPCs in this update with achievement-locked shops:

• Nightmare Kartherax
• Nightmare Captain Shoggoth
• Nightmare Nightwraith
• Nightmare Charfade
• Black Abyss Spider
• Adjudicator
• Luthiel
• Azrael's Guardian

Faction Restrictions

To improve fairness in Faction competitions, other characters on the same account cannot join the same Faction.

Tags: Nightwraith

March 03, 2026

Join us and become a part of history

Back the AdventureQuestWorlds: Infinity Kickstarter. See the rewards, watch the trailer video, and see if we are able to hit our insane funding goal!

Become a Founder in the next evolution of AdventureQuest Worlds!

Tags: Alina

February 27, 2026

EpicDuel is LIVE with new balance changes, achievements, and quality-of-life improvements!

Balance Changes

Skills:

• (UA 1) Mania: -3% HP/MP/Rage gain to all levels
• (UA 1) Terrify: +5 --> +10 Energy cost per level; -3 stat debuff to all levels
• Fire Rain: 7% --> 5% of target's max HP as bonus damage
• Frenzy (all augments): +15 --> +5 Energy cost per level
• Suppressing Fire: 7% --> 5% of target's max HP as bonus damage
• Barbed Grenade: 10% --> 15% defense ignore
• (PA) Barbed Grenade: 10% --> 15% defense ignore
• (EA) Barbed Grenade: +1 damage per 0.29 --> 0.31 Technology
• Tactical Grenade (all augments): -20 Energy gain to all levels
• (UA) Annihilation: +1 damage per 0.32 --> 0.34 Technology
• Field Commander: +3 --> +2 Support per level
• (DA) Field Commander: +4 --> +3 Support per level
• Kernel Panic (all augments): +15 energy cost to all levels
• Static Charge: Reverted to allow user to gain full amount of Energy, regardless of target's current Energy
• (UA) Smoke Screen: 1 Dexterity per 6.9 --> 7.5 Technology
• Hybrid Armor: 7% --> 10% damage to user's Energy
• (EA) Hybrid Armor: 12% --> 15% damage to user's Energy
• (UA) Hybrid Armor: Added 15 Def/Res per level (+50 at max level)
• (UA 1) Deadly Precision: Sidearm --> Primary & Sidearm damage boost; 3% boost at level 1, 8% at max level

Cores:

• Feast of Flesh: Removed bonus crit chance
• Infernal Offering: 80 --> 100 HP cost
• Infernal Overload: +5% --> +10% damage per round (max. 125% at round 5)
• Revenant's Wall/Infernal Fortitude: Removeable --> Not removeable

Bug fixes:

• Azrael's Chimera Curse still does 85% damage instead of 100%

New Achievements

At visit the Achievement shop to get the Year of the Fire Horse and the Seventeen Year Alpha achievements!

Going Potato Mode

Now available in Settings, choose "Potato (Low Detail) Mode" to render all other characters as basic, flat, grey player models. This should be a huge boost to performance in Battle where gear with complex animations and detailed artwork can still drag framerates to a crawl.

Arcade Token Overdraft

We identified and fixed an issue where Arcade Tokens were unintentionally capped at 100,000. In rare cases, players exceeding this amount may have had their balance reset to the cap. The issue has now been resolved.

As compensation and a reward for your for your dedication and patience, players who maintained high Arcade Token balances (over 50,000) will receive a one-time bonus of 40,000 Arcade Tokens.

Additionally, as an early Player Appreciation reward, we would like to gift all players who have at least 1 Arcade Token, an extra 5,000 Arcade Tokens!

This Arcade Token award will be distributed by the time you read this post!

Next Week!

Next week, in addition to more rewards being distributed to this year's Gifters, we will be introducing new Nulgath and Dage the Evil seasonal rares for everyone!

AQW: Infinity Kickstarter Starts Next Tuesday!

The funding goal & reward tiers for the AQWorlds: Infinity Kickstarter has  officially been announced.  Join us next week on Tuesday (March 3rd, 2026) at noon (12:00pm EST). Bring popcorn and watch as our video game community attempts to break a world record.

Needless to say, the team has been burning the midnight oil on both the game development and also preparing the Kickstarter. Artix just updated the game's  Progress Update with the latest report.

Tags: Nightwraith

February 20, 2026

TheAlonzoHarrris Reaches Titan's Peak

There's a new power to rival Titan on his home turf: TheAlonzoHarris! This new NPC is inspired by the Gifter and EpicDuel Streamer of the same name. By collecting the power of Delta V's epic legacy, he is offering a new shop featuring select Epic and Ultra Rare items from Gifting's past! This shop will rotate periodically so don't wait too long to make a decision if you see an item that catches your eye as some are set to disappear after this weekend! All of these items have Varium price, but many are also available for the new EpicDuel currency: Balance Tokens.

Weekly Missions and Balance Tokens

This update is introducing a new mission category: Weekly Missions. Starting today, we will introduce one mission a week that will remain available for completion until the next Friday. At that point, all progress will be reset, similar to Daily Missions. Each Weekly Mission group will offer the chance to earn a fresh Balance Token that can be used to purchase some of the rare items available in TheAlonzoHarris' shop!

The current roster of Weekly Missions includes:

• Balance of Bounties
• Balance of Time
• Balance of Shadow
• Balance of Power
• Balance of Death
• Balance of Courage

The in-game Mission interface will show the time remaining until the next Weekly Mission activates. The requirements should be reasonable to complete in a week, but that doesn't mean you should wait until the last minute! There will also be a new Weekly Mission Achievement that will track the number of completed Weekly Missions.

To give yourself a head start towards a rare item, you can get your first Balance Token with the Prizecode: BALANCE

Balance Changes

Skills:

• Intimidate: -3 Strength reduced to all levels; added scaling of +1 Strength reduced per 6 Support
• (UA 1) Intimidate: 4 --> 3 turn duration; added scaling of +1 all stats reduced per 10 Support
• (UA 2) Intimidate: -7 Strength/Rage % reduction to all levels; added scaling of +1 Strength/Rage & reduction per 6 Support
• Terrify: -9 Strength reduced to all levels; added scaling of +1 Strength reduced per 6 Support
• (UA 1) Terrify: 4 --> 3 turn duration; -2 all stats reduced to all levels; added scaling of +1 all stats reduced per 10 Support
• (UA 2) Terrify: -9 Strength reduced to all levels; added scaling of +1 Strength reduced per 6 Support
• Artillery Strike, Fire Rain, Plasma Rain, Suppressing Fire (original skills only): Removed 20% defense ignore; added bonus damage based on 7% of target's maximum HP (max. 250 damage)
• (UA) Energy Parasite: Energy gain is now based on the Energy drain so when the target has 0 Energy, the gain is capped at 50

Cores:

• Chairman's Fury P/E: 125% --> 120% damage
• Botanical Wrath: 30% --> 40% of primary damage as poison
• Gamma Brand: Added +150 HP on effect activation (stacks with lifesteal)
• Azrael's Chimera Curse P/E: 85% --> 100% damage

New Rare Categories

If you didn't know, we are working on auditing the information currently available on the EpicDuel Wiki. To help clearly categorize certain items we are introducing new rare categories and colors. These new categories have the same rare score multiplier as Ultra Rare. 

• Heromart Rare -- Heromart exclusive items
• Epic Rare -- Extremely rare items custom made for Gifters and Staff.

Updated color coding:

• Seasonal Rare - Green
• Limited Rare - Light Green
• Rare - Blue
• Ultra Rare - Orange
• Legendary - Light Blue
• Battlepass Rare - Yellow
• War Rare - Red
• Heromart Rare - Orange
• Epic Rare - Light Purple

We've already done a first pass on recategorizing the rares, but since there are so many items yet to review, there may be some oversights that we will correct over time.

Other Changes / Fixes

Added to Morzyd:

• Fortune Light Cycle (WS)
• Overlord Chopper (WS)

Battlepass Challenge Changes:

• Class Change Coupon challenge split into 2 types: with and without Coupons
• Gear Retrain Coupons: Renamed to Gear Upgrade Coupons
• Gear Retrain Challenges split into a Gear Upgrade with Coupons and without Coupons
• Coupons can no longer be used for a gear retrain
• Gear Retrain challenge no longer needs Coupons (100 Credits)

Bug Fixes:

• Laser Sights not working working with Tactical Reload as Tactical Reload was not properly identified as a Sidearm skill.

Tags: Nightwraith