Update 26.8 Overview

A guide to the gameplay changes in Update 26.8

Obligatory Legal Notice: As part of the Kabam Creator Program I was given access to a preview build of the update before it went live which is where the below images were taken.

The pictures shown were obtained from an early build, not indicative of the release version, and subject to change.

Rei Note: Apologies in advance for this being on the thinner side, the scatterbrain is real right now. No Rei Ruminates because of that.

Introduction

Welcome to 26.8 – home of the new worker, a new royal merchant perk, some minor changes to the Tomb of Titans, the next community event, another content pass and another login calendar.

Ripley the Reaper

Update 26.8 brings us the newest premium worker Ripley the Reaper. He requires you to be at least level 37 to purchase:

Coming in at the same price as Zephyr on launch Ripley brings us Scythes (a new weapon line) and Masks (a new armour line with a new attribute.)

His effect allows your heroes to start resting the moment the quest completes even if you’re not online to claim it. Handy for overnight questing.

He is located on the beach just east of Sondra and Roxanne and like the other premium workers he is a T1 building.

New Item Line: Scythes

Scythes are a new weapon line that start at Tier 6. Let’s look at the stats for the Tier 16 Scythe:

The standout feature for Scythes is that they are the strongest weapon line in the game, taking the crown from Instruments. They have their own weapon skill (Scythe Master) and are classed as a Warlord weapon.

Scythes can be equipped by the following classes:

• Soldier/Mercenary
• Barbarian/Chieftain
• Berserker/Jarl
• Dark Knight/Death Knight
• Ninja/Sensei
• Cleric/Bishop
• Sorcerer/Warlock

New Item Line: Masks

Masks are a lot more exciting to talk about :D Like Scythes they also start at Tier 6. Let’s look at the T16 one:

Masks are a new armour piece for the head slot on the classes that can equip them and they all come with a brand new stat: Mana Shield (if you’re thinking that’s already a skill name the skill has been renamed to Magic Shield.)

Mana Shield can be thought of as a second health bar which the enemy has to go through first to be able to hit your hero’s actual health. The cool part is that if, after being hit, your hero manages to go 3 rounds without taking damage then the shield will restore to full meaning the enemy has to go through it again as you can see here:

It’s worth noting that Mana Shield isn’t affected by some things – it’s not affected by the raw stats enchants add (but some spirit effects will affect it) and the starforge + transcension tracks for the masks do not have buffs for it – they instead add other stats or crafting related things such as multicraft chance.

However, most things that affect health will also now buff Mana Shield as well. To give some examples of what does increase it (not a complete list it’d take up most of this post):

• Titan/Bahamut Spirits (the effects, not raw stats as mentioned above)
• Warlord/Impervious/Extra Plating
• Torc of Peace
• Chieftain/Death Knight/Bishop Innates

Masks can be equipped by the following classes:

• Barbarian/Chieftain
• Dark Knight/Death Knight
• Thief/Trickster
• Ninja/Sensei
• Dancer/Acrobat
• Velite/Praetorian 💖
• Mage/Archmage
• Cleric/Bishop
• Spellblade/Spellknight
• Geomancer/Astramancer
• Chronomancer/Fateweaver

Autocrafting Machine

Rei Note: Yes, this machine is incredibly strong/pay to win and yes, we did tell them this during the beta.

Royal Merchants get access to a new perk with this update – the Autocrafting Machine which can be found under the indoor decorations category. Once placed it looks like this:

Clicking on the refill button will bring up the crafting interface for the machine:

And then clicking any of the + slots will bring up the normal crafting interface for you to queue crafts for the machine. Note that these do not cost any resources at all, only components:

Once you’ve queued your crafts (or craft, doesn’t have to be a full set) the machine will get to work on crafting the items 1 at a time. You can view the remaining time from the machine interface:

In an attempt to pre-empt possible questions:

• Yes, the machine crafts whilst you are offline as well.
• The crafts are exactly like standard crafts – they can be multicrafts, quality crafts, count for blueprint progression, the relevant workers gain XP and so on.
• The amount of crafting slots your machine has is based on how long you’ve been subscribed to Royal Merchant:
  • 1 Month: 3 slots
  • 3 Months: 5 slots
  • 6 Months: 8 slots
  • 12+ Months: 12 slots
• If your RM runs out the machine is confiscated but you can claim your final crafts from it.
• You can’t remove something from the queue, once you’ve queued it you’ve committed.
• Yes, Crafter’s Trick works with it giving you a chance for a literal free craft.

Rei Note: What makes the machine particularly overpowered in my opinion is that these crafts can also be energy rushed at the standard rush cost. This is pretty wild as it opens up some incredibly silly doors, for example:

• You can forego dismantle crafting, just use the machine to craft and keep rushing them.
• Tie up your main crafting slots with fuses.
• Put away all your bins and run a max energy build.

The only downside I could see was you could blow through your components pretty quick but still being able to just ignore resources is wild.

Solar Eclipse Community Event

Rei Note: Will this be the community event that is balanced and not ridiculously under/over tuned?

Solar Eclipse is the next community event and runs from 13th August until 27th August.

And in return for doing all that here’s the reward track we’ll be getting:

And this is the new spirit we unlock if/when we clear it:

Soular Harmony Content Pass

Running from 19th August until 1st September it’s the obligatory content pass.

Blueprints

Eclipsed Pair

Aperture Catalyst

Reward Track

Tasks

Soular Flair Login Calendar

Running from 28th August to 7th September is another login calendar.

Tomb of Titan Tweaks

Because an update isn’t complete without adjustments to the tomb here’s what’s changed this time around:

First up Key to Success works in there now. Previously this talent did nothing which was unusual given it works in the tower and LCoG so this is a great change.

The other change is to Necrotic Aura:

• It no longer deletes half of the mobs health after the first turn (this was caused by it calculating stat buffs in an incorrect order.)
• What it is meant to do now is the following (alongside what it already did, quoting Kabam here):
  • Necrotic aura will make the boss heal each round based on how much health it steals from the party. It will steal 20% of their max health.

There are some other modifiers that are on their radar as well in terms of needing a buff to be relevant/potential nerf to tone them down a bit but no others were changed in this update.

Tomb Spirit received no changes in this update.

Miscellaneous Tweaks

• Stats added by transcending an item are now affected by the item’s quality. This wasn’t the case before which made them kinda ick/sad sometimes, now it’s significantly cooler.
• They fixed the surcharge modifiers for the Transcension track so the milestones will be swapped back to what they should have been. This fix also includes the ones in the Starforge track (RIP)
• Naya should stop offering the same thing repeatedly. For real this time.

And that about covers it. Go forth and make scythes and abuse the autocraft machine.

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