Most skills have received new attribute formulas. Attack skill formulas are now based on a single primary attribute, but attacks with those skills also gain a minor attack-skill bonus from a secondary attribute (+1% per 20 points). All skills receive a bonus effect when specialized. Credit costs below are listed as train / specialize.

Combat has been rebalanced from the ground up: skill formulas, attack height bonuses, defense (evades/blocks), threat, stealth, the magic system, and a new Combat Focus / advanced ability layer on top of the base skills. See the Character page for per-skill formulas and specialization bonuses.

Vitals regeneration is based on a % of your maximum of that vital, with diminishing returns as a player's max vital increases.

Power/Accuracy bars give large combat bonuses when set to a high setting, but cost much more stamina. The base stamina cost is determined by the tier and speed of the weapon used — high power/accuracy attacks can only be used sparingly.

• Min power = -50% damage.
• Max power = roughly +100% damage (scales with weapon animation length).
• Equipment with cast-on-strike spells have scaled proc chances depending on power/accuracy bar setting (double chance at full power/accuracy).

Different bonuses are granted for each attack height. Bonuses are increased to +20% if the weapon skill is specialized.

Evades

Defenses can no longer allow you to evade or resist all enemy attacks. On a successful evade/resist roll, there's an equal chance the result becomes a full evade, a glancing blow, or no evade.

• Full evade = no damage taken.
• Glancing blow = 50% damage taken (some items/abilities may alter this amount).
• No evade = full damage taken.

Blocks

Players with a specialized defense skill and an equipped shield have a chance to fully block an attack or spell. Block chance ranges from 10%–20%, depending on the shield's armor/ward level and the enemy's attack skill.

Melee swarm damage reduction

Players with a melee weapon equipped gain a damage reduction bonus when more than one enemy is in melee range — 10% damage reduction multiplicatively, per nearby enemy beyond the first.

Combat mode penalties

Run skill is reduced by 50%.

Peace mode penalties

• Cannot evade.
• Cannot block.
• Always receive critical hits.

Healing kits

• Healing kits never fail, but have an increased stamina cost and a reworked heal-amount formula.
• Stamina and Mana kits have been added, with 30s shared cooldowns.
• All kit types provide a restoration-over-time effect when used.

Threat

Monsters decide who to attack based on which enemy they determine to be the highest threat. Various actions during combat affect a player's threat level.

Stealth

A Stealth ability toggle can be used to attempt to hide from nearby enemies. Requires a skill check using the player's Thievery skill vs. the enemy's Perception skill.

School & spell changes

• Creature Magic and Item Magic have been removed as player-castable schools.
• New skill, Portal Magic, allows casting portal and recall spells — see the Character page.
• Life Magic: Protection, Vuln, and Regeneration spells removed as player-castable (accessible through Sigil Scarabs instead). Restoration spells can now crit. Vuln spells increase damage by 21–27% based on spell level; Prot spells increase damage resistance by 25% at every level, with higher levels extending buff/debuff duration. Specializing grants access to Fellowship spells and some Void spells.
• War Magic: damage scales with Self instead of the War skill, using a formula similar to melee/missile scaling. Blasts and Volleys now have level 1 and 2 versions. Blasts aim toward additional nearby enemies instead of firing at fixed angles. Volleys can now pierce and strike up to 3 additional targets.
• Durations: all buffs last 10s + 1s per spell level. All debuffs last 10s + 2s per spell level (reducible by the target's Ward Level).

Mana Conversion

• Maximum mana cost reduction from Mana Conversion is 50%; minimum reduction is half of a character's current max.

Arcane Lore

• Arcane Lore activation requirements are generally much higher, scaling with an item's tier, spell count, and spell levels — items only carry an activation requirement once they have more than 1 spell per wield-slot (or a proc spell). This effectively requires at least 100 innate points in Focus and/or Self to use gear with more than 1 spell per slot at your tier. Quest items may ignore this rule.

Proc spells

Cast-on-strike spells can appear on weapons.

• Proc spells use the wielder's magic skill plus 10% of the weapon's Spellcraft (or half of Lore skill added to Spellcraft, if Arcane Lore is specialized).
• Proc spells gain a damage multiplier equal to 1% of the weapon's Spellcraft (300 Spellcraft = x3 damage).

Sigil Scarabs provide access to some spells that are no longer player-castable directly — see the full Sigil Trinkets catalog on the Items page.

A new item type equippable in the trinket slot. Each Combat Focus comes with a set of creature buffs themed around one of six template classes, obtainable from an NPC in the academy dungeons and starter towns. Players can swap out one attribute and three skills on each Combat Focus they possess.

Combat masters residing around Osteth teach players advanced abilities — 18 in total, with each base Combat Focus having access to 7 of them. Exact effects are still being finalized.

AbilityFocus requiredLocation

Phalanx Academy Vendor

Use this item to move into a defensive stance, and use again to lower your guard. While active, you can block and parry attacks of all angles, you have up to 50% chance to convert full hits you receive into partial hits, and up to 50% chance to convert partial hits into blocks.

Chance per shield type:

• Covenant: 50%
• Tower: 45%
• Large: 40%
• Standard: 35%
• Small/Buckler: 30%
• Two-Handed Weapon: 25%

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Phalanx is active.

Provoke Glenden Wood

Activate to instantly increase your threat towards nearby enemies substantially. While active, you take 15% less damage and attacks of at least 50% power produce double threat from damage against your targets.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks consume 25% more stamina and mana while Provoke is active.

Riposte Arwic

Use to have a 100% increased chance to parry and block incoming attacks for 10 seconds. You follow up parried and blocked attacks against your current target with a riposte if the enemy is in close range.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Riposte is active.

Weapon Master Academy Vendor

Use to gain a different effect depending on the weapon type you're wielding.

• Axe/Dagger: Your next attack of at least 50% power causes your target to bleed over 20 seconds.
• Mace/Staff/Club: Your next attack of at least 50% power dazes your target, lowering their attack skill, for 20 seconds.
• Unarmed/Shouken: Your next attack of at least 50% power unbalances your target, lowering their defense, for 20 seconds.
• Spear/Javelin/Dart: Your attacks strike enemies within a frontal cone and can hit enemies behind your target, for 10 seconds.
• Sword: Your attacks are 25% faster, for 10 seconds.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina while Weapon Master is active.

Relentless Arwic

Use to move into a Relentless stance, producing adrenaline from low power attacks. Stamina regeneration is increased by up to 100% and damage dealt is reduced by up to 10%, depending on your adrenaline level while Relentless is active. Use again while in Relentless stance to activate Tenacity. Tenacity reduces the cost of your attacks by up to 100%, depending on your adrenaline level, for 10 seconds. If used while Fury stance is active, Fury will deactivate and Relentless will activate, and half of adrenaline will be lost.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Fury Glenden Wood

Use to move into a Fury stance, producing adrenaline from high power attacks. Damage dealt is increased by up to 25% and you have a chance to injure yourself while attacking, depending on your adrenaline level while Fury is active. Use again while in Fury stance to activate Enrage. Enrage increases damage dealt from your attacks by up to 100%, depending on your adrenaline level, for 10 seconds. If used while Relentless stance is active, Relentless will deactivate and Fury will activate, and half of ardenaline will be lost.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Fury is active.

Multishot Academy Vendor

Use to fire up to three projectiles at different targets when attacking with at least 50% accuracy, for 10 seconds.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Multishot is active.

Steady Strike Tou-tou

Use to gain 25% attack skill and 25% damage but 10% reduced attack speed, for 10 seconds.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Steady Shot is active.

Evasive Stance Sawato

Use this item to move into an evasive stance, and use again to drop from the stance. While active, your chances to evade and resist attacks are Lucky.

Cooldown

20 seconds. Only triggers if you drop out of Evasive Stance from running out of stamina.

Cost

Stamina costs of your attacks are increased, scaling against your Run or Jump skill. If Run or Jump is specialized, the lowest possible stamina penalty is +25%, otherwise it is +50%.

Vanish Academy Vendor

Use this item to attempt to vanish from sight. If you succeed, for the next five seconds no enemies can target you or break your stealth.

Skill Check

Thievery vs Perception, for each nearby enemy that is focused on you. Enemies you succeed against will lose focus of you. You must succeed against all enemies to move into stealth.

Cooldown

30 seconds.

Cost

Stamina, equal to the average enemy level + 1/10th of each enemy level.

Backstab Tufa

Use to increase sneak attack damage by 25% (additively) while within a moderate distance from your target, for 10 seconds. If you are attacking from stealth, your attack deals x2 to x3 damage, depending on how close you are to your target.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Backstab is active.

Smokescreen Tou-tou

Activate to instantly decrease your threat towards nearby enemies substantially. While active, you have 10% increased evade chance and attacks of at least 50% power produce half threat from damage against your targets.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Smokescreen is active.

Overload Academy Vendor

Use to move into an Overload stance, infusing extra mana into your spells, producing mana charge. Spell effectiveness is increased by up to 25% and mana costs are increased by up to 100%, depending on your mana charge level. Use again while in Overload stance to activate Overload Discharge. Overload Discharge increases spell effectiveness by up to 100%, for 10 seconds. If used while Battery stance is active, Battery will deactivate and Overload will activate, and half of mana charge will be lost.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Overload is active.

Mana Barrier Tufa

Use this item to shield yourself with mana, and use again to lower the shield. While active, 25% of incoming damage is lost as mana instead.

Cooldown

20 seconds. Only triggers if Mana Barrier is broken from running out of mana.

Cost

The amount of mana lost scales with Mana Conversion skill. If Mana Conversion is specialized, the lowest possible mana penalty is +25%, otherwise it is +50%.

Battery Sawato

Use to move into an Battery stance, siphoning mana from your spells, producing mana charge. Mana costs are reduced by up to 50% and spell effectiveness is reduced by up to 10%, depending on your mana charge level. Use again while in Battery stance to activate Battery Discharge. Battery Discharge reduces mana cost by up to 100%, for 10 seconds. If used while Overload stance is active, Overload will deactivate and Battery will activate, and half of mana charge will be lost.

Enchanted Blade Academy Vendor

Use this ability to power up your equipped melee weapon, unleashing a spell on your next attacked target. The chosen spell will either be War Bolt or Heal Self, depending on the school of your weapon's cast-on-strike spell. If your weapon does not have a cast-on-strike spell, or if the wielder does not have the associated magic skill trained, Enchanted Blade will do nothing. The spell level is determined by your magic skill and your equipped weapon's spellcraft.

Cooldown

10 seconds.

Cost

Mana cost is equal to double the cost of the spell.

Aegis Al-Arqas

Use to cast a protection spell on yourself based on the element of the last damage you received, for 10 seconds. The potency of the spell depends on your weapon's spellcraft.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Aegis is active.

Reflect Al-Arqas

Use to increase your effective magic defense by 50%, for 10 seconds. While active, if you resist or partially resist a projectile spell, it is reflected back to the caster. If you have Magic Defense specialized, you automatically reflect the first spell that hits you, regardless of if you resisted it or not.

Cooldown

20 seconds.

Cost

Your attacks cost 25% more stamina and mana while Reflect is active.

Crafting skills don't require skill credits to train. Instead, each player character can learn up to two crafting skills by speaking with the respective skill masters.

Tinkering and imbuing are fueled by salvage, bags of material (metal, cloth, wood, hide, or gems) obtained by salvaging items. Each bag has its own Workmanship rating and stacks up to 1000 units per bag.

• Gaining salvage: Salvaging an item yields 1 + half its Workmanship in units of that material, with a 50% chance at one extra unit if the item's Workmanship is odd. A Workmanship 6 item nets 4 units; a Workmanship 7 item nets 4 or 5. Higher-Workmanship items produce more salvage, and that salvage carries the same Workmanship as the item it came from.
• You don't need a full bag per tink. Each tinkering or imbuing attempt only consumes an amount of salvage equal to the target item's Workmanship (scaled up by armor slots for armor) — not a full 100-unit bag. See the Tinkering Calculator for exact costs. A single bag can cover many attempts.
• Combining bags: Use one salvage bag on another bag of the same material and Workmanship to merge them into a single bag, up to the 1000-unit cap.
• Salvage Crate: If you're carrying a Salvage Crate pack, salvage produced from salvaging items is sorted directly into it instead of your main inventory — see Social & Trade for the full list of specialty packs.
• Workmanship is unique per bag. Salvage of the same material but different Workmanship never merges — a Workmanship 3 Iron bag and a Workmanship 6 Iron bag cannot be combined. However, salvage can be Refined, increasing its workmanship at the cost of some units (see below).

Refining salvage

Salvage can be refined one Workmanship tier higher (+1) at a time, consuming units of the lower-Workmanship bag to produce units of the higher one. The cost is X units of the lower bag per unit gained, where X is the Workmanship of the bag you're refining into.

All salvage types

Jewelcrafters can carve lootgen gems into jewels, which can be placed in weapons, armor, and jewelry sockets for a special effect.

Sockets

Jewels

Crafting skills can't be leveled with unassigned XP. Instead, performing crafts with each skill grants XP directly toward its next rank. To receive XP for a craft, a player's skill must be no greater than 50 points above the difficulty of the crafting recipe.

The formula for XP received is:

AwardedXp = CostOfCurrentRank × ProgressMod × DifficultyMod × ArmorSlots

• Cost of current rank — the total cost to level up your current crafting skill to the next rank.
• Progress mod — a value from 0.5 to 0.01, depending on how close your crafting skill level is to 200.
• Difficulty mod — a value from 0.0 to 2.0, depending on the relative difficulty of the recipe: 0.0 for a craft at least 50 less difficulty than your current skill, up to 2.0 for a craft at least 50 more difficult than your current skill.
• Armor slots — the number of armor slots your target item contains. Defaults to 1.0 for all crafts that don't target armor.

Each heritage's capital town is the social and economic center of that community. Every town contains a portal to its heritage's capital, each capital contains portals to all towns of the same heritage as well as the other capitals, and starter towns are portalled to each other and their own capital. See the World page for the full portal network layout.

An asynchronous trade market centered in Hebian-To, entirely within the client UI — players can list items for sale and purchase from other players' listings without both parties needing to be online at the same time. Purchase items from one of 8 Market Vendors in-game, or browse the same listings on the Market page. Listing an item or managing your own listings goes through the Market Broker instead.

• Speak to the Market Broker, in Hebian-To, for information on the market, your current listings, and payouts.
• To list: Hand the Market Broker an item, then tell her the price (in Pyreals) you'd like to list it for.
• View your listings: Tell the Market Broker "listings".
• Cancel a listing: Tell the Market Broker "cancel <listing #>".
• Claim payouts: Tell the Market Broker "claim payouts".

Loyalty and Leadership no longer use skill credits to train — see the Character page for their formulas. Instead, both are earned automatically through play:

No more pyramid schemes. Rank is now determined by two parts: Follower Points and a Leadership skill.

Each individual player (account) counts as up to 1 follower point for the purposes of determining rank, with contributions spread across all characters on that account. An individual character's Rank Contribution is based on their level relative to the other characters on their own account.

To calculate unique follower rank, sum the Rank Contribution of all active unique followers beneath a player in the chain, against the following thresholds:

A player therefore needs 50 unique account followers and 200 Leadership skill to reach the maximum rank of 10. Certain ranks unlock unique benefits — TBD.

Dereth is home to many towns, both independent and aligned with one of the three heritages. They serve as crucial quest hubs for player progression.

Restored classic towns

Classic Restorations include Arwic, Tou-Tou, Yanshi, Glenden Wood, Dryreach, and more — see the full directory below for the complete list by heritage or level tier.

Most quests have been rebalanced to be in line with the progression of the new world design.

Temporarily removed

Some quests have been temporarily removed.

Most simple dungeons have been rebalanced and may contain quest-timed chests. Many dungeons have been reimagined into moderately difficult small-group experiences for 3+ players (Capstones), which scale in difficulty when more than 3 players are present.

Players can activate a Shard of Shrouding to gain access to certain lower-level dungeons, though their offensive and defensive stats will be scaled down to the enemy's level. Some fellowship dungeons can support up to 10 simultaneous instances, if multiple groups are utilizing that content at the same time.

All monsters have been completely rebalanced and tweaked, with many new types added.

Animal parts

Non-humanoid enemies no longer drop equipment loot — instead, they drop special "animal parts" that can be used in crafting recipes or exchanged at certain NPCs for a variety of items.

• Meat: can be used as currency at Cooks.
• Hide: can be used as currency at Leather Crafters.
• Bones: can be used as currency at Ivory Crafters.
• Trophies: can be traded to a Trophy Collector for pyreals or a Trophy Smith for items, and are also used in Alchemy and Cooking recipes.

An in-game UI that grants access to account-wide storage, located in each of the capital towns.

New special packs contain a large amount of space and reduce burden of their contents by 25-75%, depending on the quality of the bag:

Quiver

For arrows and fletching supplies. Holds up to 30 items.

25%

50%

75%

Spell Comp Pouch

For spell components. Holds up to 102 items.

25%

50%

75%

Salvage Crate

For bags of salvage. Holds up to 102 items.

25%

50%

75%

Trophy Bag

For monster trophies. Holds up to 60 items.

50%

Loot has been heavily rebalanced across 7 tiers.

Every weapon type carries an implicit subtype bonus:

• Biting Strike: Axe, Dagger, Bow, Throwing Axe/Dagger, Scepter.
• Crushing Blow: Mace, Staff, Atlatl, Throwing Club/Shuriken, Wand/Baton.
• Armor Cleaving: Spear, Crossbow, Throwing Dart/Javelin, Orb (Ward Cleaving).
• Stamina Cost Reduction: Sword, Unarmed.
• Improved Defense Mods:: Casting Staff

Melee

Missile

Missile damage is Ammo Dam (a flat value carried by the arrow/bolt/dart, shared across a whole launcher class) multiplied by the launcher's own Damage Mod range. Thrown weapons are covered under Melee above — mechanically they're mutated the same way as melee weapons.

Caster

Elemental casters can be found at all loot tiers. Casters can roll with either a War or Life trained requirement:

• War: full elemental damage bonus, plus a restoration bonus equal to a quarter of the damage bonus.
• Life: the elemental damage bonus is halved, and the restoration bonus matches that same halved amount.

Tier 0 casters don't roll the elemental damage bonus above — instead they roll a separate damage penalty ranging -50% to +0%.

Each armor type has been assigned a weight class of Heavy, Light, or Cloth.

Note on Ward: a new stat that works the same way armor does, but against magical damage. All ward amounts on a player's armor combine into an overall Ward Level, which also reduces the duration and effectiveness of debuffs on the player.

Heavy

Wield req: base Strength

Skill mods: Attack skill, Physical Defense, Magic Defense, Two-Handed Combat, Shield, Perception, Deception, Health Regeneration

Shields

Light

Wield req: base Coordination

Skill mods: Attack skill, Dual Wield, Shield, Run, Thievery, Perception, Deception, Stamina Regeneration

Shields

Cloth

Wield req: base Self

Skill mods: War Magic, Life Magic, Magic Defense, Mana Conversion, Perception, Deception, Mana Regeneration

Sigil Trinkets are lootgen items with build-defining effects. They're equipped in the sigil slots (aetheria) and must match the color of the slot. Each slot unlocks at certain levels (10, 50, and a further TBD level). Sigil Trinkets have limited uses and must be recharged occasionally at active Menhir Rings around the world. Each Menhir Ring has a strength level (blue, yellow, red) and can only recharge trinkets of matching strength or lower — certain Menhir Rings can also imbue an equipped sigil trinket with a bonus stat.

Workmanship is now determined by the stat rolls of an item — if an item has higher workmanship than another, it likely has better stat rolls as well. High workmanship items are extremely rare.

Imbue scaling has been adjusted. Half of the bonus effect is applied by default (at 1 skill); the other half is received depending on weapon skill level, from 1 to 500 skill.

Different types of enemies drop different types of loot:

• Magical enemies drop more cloth armor, wands, and scrolls.
• Tough enemies drop more heavy armor, martial weapons, and thrown weapons.
• Agile enemies drop more light armor, daggers, staves, UAs, and bows.
• Animal enemies only drop meat, bones, and hide (high quality at higher tiers) — see the World page for the "animal parts" crafting/exchange system.