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Friday, November 7th Design Notes: Arena at the Edge of Time: A.A.R.G.H. Update & EPL!

 
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11/7/2025 22:50:41   
Laeon val Observis
Member
 

quote:


Friday, November 7, 2025
Arena at the Edge of Time: A.A.R.G.H. Update & EPL!
Hey there, heroes!

This week, the A.A.R.G.H. system at the Arena at the Edge of Time has been updated with new rewards and challenges added! Also, Evolved PumpkinLord has been reworked!


New challenges have been added to the A.A.R.G.H. system, and Series 5 cosmetic items are now available for Timewarped Medals!

The following challenges have been added to A.A.R.G.H.:
  • Danyel
  • Baltael
  • Sparkle Boy
  • Crane Master
  • V-Hunter EX13
  • ShadowSlayer E
  • Chronomancer
  • Chronocorruptor
  • Suntouched Viper
  • Suntouched Eggs
  • Eirn
  • Yashta
  • Deimos Mortis(Rare)
  • ChronoZ
  • Timekiller
  • The Pupa
  • The Weftdrifter
  • Acatriel
  • Kartherax
Evolved PumpkinLord has been reworked! The old Evolved PumpkinLord will become PumpkinLord, while the new version will replace Evolved PumpkinLord! The Pumpkin Chest house item is also now available from the House Utility Items shop in the Book of Lore for 20,000 gold, allowing you to access and train both versions of PumpkinLord year-round. While during Mogloween, you can still train the classes with candy at the Cauldron Sisters, you can also use Moonglow to unlock 2 skills at a time. (Moonglow may also be more available in the future, since right now it's only accessible as a drop from The Pumpkin Patch). You can check out the details on the rework below!



Also this week, a new seasonal cosmetic item is available!


This mysterious dagger can be clicked to hide its gem-cut blade. The Ruby Gleam dagger can be purchased for 400 Dragon Coins from the Elemental Gleam seasonal shop in the Book of Lore!

Also, other previous years' November seasonal shops have returned!



The new Evolved PumpkinLord class lets you celebrate Mogloween every battle! Collect Candy with each hit you land on your foes, and once you have 5, you can consume them all to trick your foes with empowered skills! However, empowered skills don't collect candy, so you have to be careful how you spend it! You also start each battle with 3 out of 5 candy, letting you get a head start at the beginning of battles.

The Creeping Roots/Draining Roots combo has also been revamped. Creeping Roots will still attempt to stun on hit, but it will also now afflict a small -Boost effect for Draining Roots to check for. This will allow the combo to work even against enemies that resist Immobility effects. The Draining Roots effect now also gains duration based on how many turns your Creeping Roots have been allowed to grow. Every second turn spent waiting before using Draining Roots will extend its effect's durations by 1. However, don't wait too long or Creeping Roots will fall off before you get a chance to act!
  • Attack
    • 1 hit x 140% damage
    • Recover 15 MP
  • Thorny Bulwark
    • 25 MP, 7 CD
    • Self: +180 Avoidance for 2 turns. Once per turn, retaliates 100% weapon damage against last targeted foe, ignoring resistances.
    • Empowered: +200 Avoidance for 3 turns. Once per turn, retaliates 150% weapon damage against last targeted foe, ignoring resistances.
  • Vine Whip
    • 1 hit x 200% nature damage, 20 MP, 2 CD
    • Target: (On hit) -30 Avd/Def for 3 turns. This attack has +30 Bonus.
    • Empowered: Target: (On hit) -50 Avd/Def for 7 turns. This attack has +50 Bonus.
  • Health Candy
    • 30 MP, 9 CD
    • Self: Heal 20% max HP
    • Empowered: Self: Heal 20% max HP and reduce all skill cooldowns by 1.
  • Sling Thorns
    • 1 hit x 150% Nature damage to all targets, 25 MP, 1 CD
    • Candy collection capped at 3.
    • Empowered: 1 hit x 200% Nature damage to all targets, This attack has +100 Bonus.
  • Bramble Shield
    • 30 MP, 7 CD
    • Self: +10% Direct Damage Reduction for 5 turns. When hit, apply 50% Nature DoT, -10 Boost/All res to foe for 1 turn.
    • Empowered: Self: +15% Direct Damage Reduction for 5 turns. When hit, apply 75% Nature DoT, -15 Boost/All res to foe for 1 turn.
  • Creeping Roots
    • 2 hits x 75% Nature damage (150%), 30 MP, 12 CD
    • Self: (On hit) Heal 2% max HP per hit, Target: (On hit) Stun for 3 turns, and -10 Boost for 3 turns.
    • Empowered: Self: (On hit) Heal 3% max HP per hit, Target: (On hit) Stun for 3 turns, and -10 Boost for 7 turns.
    • The -10 Boost effect improves the Draining Roots effects when combo'd.
  • Cleaving Thorn
    • 2 hits x 125% Nature damage (250%), 30 MP, 9 CD
    • This attack has +200 Crit.
    • Empowered: 3 his x 125% Nature damage (375%), This attack has +200 Crit.
  • Pumpkin Bumb
    • 1 hit x 200% Fire damage, 20 MP, 5 CD
    • Target: (On hit) 50% Fire DoT for 4 turns.
    • Empowered: Target: (On hit) 100% Fire DoT for 4 turns.
  • Midnight Blade
    • 1 hit x 180% Nature damage, 25 MP, 3 CD
    • Self: +50 Bonus for 4 turns. This attack has +100 Bonus.
    • Empowered: Self: +60 Bonus for 6 turns. Skills and effects are not element-locked while this effect is active. This attack has +100 Bonus.
  • Mana Candy
    • 9 CD
    • Self: Recover 20% max MP
    • Empowered: Self: Recover 20% max MP and reduce all skill cooldowns by 1.
  • Thorn Cyclone
    • 2 hits x 100% Nature damage to all targets (200%), 30 MP, 3 CD
    • Candy collection capped at 3.
    • Empowered: This Attack has +200 Crit.
  • Sinister Scythe
    • 3 hits x 60% Nature damage (180%), 50 MP, 4 CD
    • Target: (On hit) -100 Bonus, -20 Boost for 1 turn.
    • Empowered: 3 hits x 150% Nature damage (450%), no (On hit) effect.
  • Draining Roots
    • 2 hits x 75% Nature damage (150%), 30 MP, 6 CD
    • Self: +20 Boost, +15% all damage reduction, -15 Health for 3 turns. (On hit), Heal 2% max HP per hit. Target: (On hit) -20 Boost/All, -5 Nature, +30 Health for 3 turns.
    • Empowered: Self: +20 Boost, +15% all damage reduction, -15 Health for 3 turns. (On hit), Heal 3% max HP per hit. Target: (On hit) -20 Boost/All, -5 Nature, +70 Health for 3 turns.
    • With Creeping Roots: Self: +40 Boost, +30% all damage reduction, -30 Health for 3+ turns. (On hit), Heal 2% max HP per hit. Target: (On hit) -40 Boost/All, -10 Nature, +60 Health for 3 turns.
    • Empowered, with Creeping Roots: Self: +40 Boost, +30% all damage reduction, -30 Health for 3+ turns. (On hit), Heal 3% max HP per hit. Target: (On hit) -40 Boost/All, -10 Nature, +100 Health for 3 turns.
  • Endless Night
    • 3 hits x 100% damage (300%), 50 MP, 10 CD
    • This attack automatically collects 5 Candy.
    • Empowered: Self: Gain stacking +10 Bonus/Boost/STR/DEX/INT (max +100) for the rest of the battle. (Does not gain any candy)
With low hitcounts, you'll have to think carefully how best to earn Candy in each situation, and with powerful empowered effects, choosing the right skill to empower and when, is an important part of Evolved PumpkinLord strategy.

As always, we'd like to hear your feedback, and changes/adjustments may apply.

Finally, a few bug fixes:
  • A rounding error has been fixed, where DoT or HoT effects would sometimes not round properly when affecting resisted (or negatively resisted) elements. (Minimal impact, +/- 1)
  • Bart's Potion Vendor 2000 can no longer be used if you're a house guest.
  • Fixed an issue with the quest "Croftward Bound" where your name would be changed to "undefined" until relog.
  • A bunch of (if not all) temporary class base weapons are now classified as "Scythe", letting them use any main stat.


And that's all for this week!



< Message edited by Laeon val Observis -- 11/7/2025 22:52:48 >
DF AQW  Post #: 1
11/8/2025 7:13:22   
ProbablyCallum
Member

Another addition to the list of inn viable classes is really nice and always appreciated and I really dont want to be mean and negative but the rework is kind of a real letdown presentationwise. Soulweaver was already absolutely loaded animationwise pre rework and it got every single b1 tomix animation ported over as well for its rework. This kind of stands in stark contrast to the class with 2 identical shield animations, 2 roots moves with the only difference being the final portion of the animation and 2 animations that are just the class wiggling its hands (candy) getting none of the soulweaver recycled animations treatment when epl was in a far direr need of it. I think its quite a shame that none of the og pumpkinlord moves like the thorn punch, the different shield animation where the shield originates from the body instead of the ground and the less deformed pumpkins from plord's eternal knight made it in given the fact that a class as fat on animations as soulweaver got even more recycled ones. Having the regular pumpkins for unempowered night and the more hideous deformed ones for the empowered permabuff seems like a great idea that'd improve the presentation, or having the original shield anim on one of the 2 shields to add more variety, or even just including the thorn punch anywhere preferably in the place of one of the 2 hand wiggling animations. All of these seem like no brainers but the improvement to presentation that was such a huge part of the soulweaver rework seems entirely absent
DF  Post #: 2
11/11/2025 12:13:03   
Deurzz
Member
 

Tl;dr EPL is okay-ish in power level, can probably clear the entire inn with some effort.
The issue is it requires way more effort/planning than other defensive classes to reach a similar-ish/slightly lower power level.
A lot of its power is hidden in not-so-obvious synergies instead of the more obvious roots combo, which feels like it would've been the main combo to play around.
Furthermore, a lot of skills & empowerments just feel like filler without identity to ensure the class has 14 skills with 14 empowerments.


1.
EPL is a defensive class that requires a lot of planning to actually get to the level a lot of other defensive classes can reach with "vibe gameplay", as their tools are much simpler to use.
Generally speaking, I'd say defensive classes can "vibe" more in harder challenges due to a myriad of simple to use tools that can bail them out of most situation, whereas offensive classes are the ones to minmax/spreadsheet around, and EPL kind of breaks this trend.
EPL kind of lacks this on-demand "Panic"-button to save them - it doesn't have great on demand defensives like Paladin/BDL, the roots-combo requires several turns of planning to get the defensive buff, and its shielding requires a lot of commitment/planning in contrast to Pirate/Ninja.

2.
Funnily though, its shield (eBulwark) is probably the strongest/best feeling skill to use atm - together with cd manipulation on empowerments it is crazy flexible, and can function as either a 3/7cd, 3/6cd, or 2/5cd shield that also does damage!
To use it well however, it requires a large amount of commitment from empowerments & planning - if you don't pre-plan a large amount of turns, and don't actually make use of the cd reduction, it is essentially a wasted empowerment.
Compare this to Pirate/Ninja, who can either choose to just loop shields or save a shield for emergencies without any commitment.
Due to the commitment of empowerments for this strategy, and the fact that right now this strategy is imo better for 2 of the hardest challenges (Swan Song Extreme & Jaania Extreme), you end up barely interacting with the mechanic of eCreep -> Stall -> Long buffed Draining roots.
This was kind of expected for SSEX, since one of the main threats (Darkon) purges the debuffs since they're tied to -all, but it's crazy that this strategy also worked better than the root combo in Jaania Extreme, a solo fight where normally debuff spam should shine!

3.
Currently, most of the regular skills & empowerments feel weak, and they don't feel like they add much to the class, in contrast to BDL, where I really enjoy playing around the empowerments, and every button has its own function.
One of the only empowerments that actually feels strong right now, (e)Bulwark, gives you +1 turn of safety (huge on a class with 2 skills with small chip healing, and a skill that benefits supplementary healing!), and +250 damage. Compare this to the 2nd best offensive empowerment eCleave, which only gains about 500 damage when used during a buffed Draining Roots!
When eCleave is used during an off-rotation, it only adds 250 damage compared to regular cleave! And almost every other offensive empowerment is weaker than eCleave, except for eScythe.
I think eScythe is fine, a defensive trade-off for a larger offensive increase, which is about ~1k damage during the offensive rotation.
eHealth and eMana have strong empowerments, but I've already touched on those before, they're just hard to use well.
eCreep feels like it should be central to the class, but currently it makes your off-rotation feel very weak - if you use this, you likely can't abuse eBulwark, and then you are a sitting duck for several turns while waiting to use Draining Roots.
eDrain seems alright, a niche addition on a button the class will want to press a lot is fine - if this was a very strong addition, it'd be a bit too centralizing.
Every other empowerment not mentioned just feels too weak or niche.

4.
For regular skills, there seems a lot of redundancy/weird skills in the class.
- 2 multis, when 1 is very much inferior (Sling is just a significantly weaker Cyclone)
- 2 skills that both provide fairly small benefits to hitting enemies (Vine & Midnight, -avd/bpd is pretty much comparable to +bonus)
- Bramble Shield just feels incredibly weak atm
- Mana Candy kind of feels forced into the class by having high MP costs while its skills are not significantly strong to justify the extra downtime to recover mana (compared to say, BSW)
- Unempowered scythe feels a bit clunky to use. Having a 1T -bonus AND -boost feels antithetical; you will never make proper use of both. If you plan around the blind, chances are you're trying to avoid a nasty debuff/nuke that will likely still result in a reset if you get hit, so the -20 boost feels weird.
Skills off the top of my head that do debuff both are long lasting (eShadow on SH, Cannon on Pirate), to essentially just provide 2 different sources of damage reduction.


5.
I don't know the exact design philosophy behind the class, and this is from the perspective of a player, so take the following with a grain of salt.
If the design was to make a defensive class that is somewhat vibey, mostly reliant on the roots combo with some other auxiliary defensives, and to tackle the feedback above, I'd change some skills in the following direction:
5.1 Change Bramble into a 1T buff that gives a 1T debuff that are significantly stronger - provides a secondary "Panic" button by changing it into a pseudo-2T shield that has synergy with Draining Roots (Panic button to make the class a bit easier to play, 1.& 4.)
5.2 Change Scythe, Whip & Midnight - Split Scythe into either -boost or -bonus (dealer's choice), add the other effect to Whip, to make a secondary defensive skill that provides -Crit and 1 of -Bonus/Boost, and buff Midnight to provide a stronger +Bonus. (Better skill identity, 4.)
5.3 Change 1 of Sling/Cyclone - maybe make it another chip healing skill? Not too much inspiration atm for this. (4.)
5.4 Overall numbers buff to most of the empowerments (Most feel niche/useless) (2. & 3. & 4.)
5.5 Remove power from eBulwark/eHealth/eMana synergy - increase eBulwark cd, change the -cd on eHealth since it is already a strong base skill, keep a strong empowerment on eMana since the button by itself is weak (compared to just clicking MP Pot) so the empowerment should be strong to make it worthwhile to press. (Removes power from a fairly random interaction to open up space for next point, 2., 3.)
5.6 Move power from 5.5 over to its more obvious main synergy - Creeping/Draining roots (Easier to play by moving power from random strong synergy to one of its main mechanics, 1. & 3.)

If the goal was to make a shield spammer class a la Pirate/Ninja that just requires more spreadsheeting/planning, disregard points 5.5/5.6 probably, the rest likely still stands.
Post #: 3
11/12/2025 7:06:39   
Bluu
Member

I haven't tested the class much in all honesty but I do agree with ProbablyCallum and Deurzz in their opinions entirely. Despite the rework, EPL nevertheless feels incomplete and unpolished, and that should absolutely not be the case for such an old and iconic class of the game. This class has been for ages the thing that NDAs waited until October to be able to use to beat a hard boss. It sounds stupid as all hell but this game actually helped keep the game alive the way I'd always log into it every October just to be able to use it and play the events associated with it, eventually save up enough gold to buy the items to save it when I got a DA, etc. It deserves a lot better in the animation department. I don't want to poop on the class because I appreciate the effort being put into it, but it deserves more respect.

That being said, I am extremely unhappy about the AARGH changes. I didn't expect anything different, and I am disappointed to get what I thought I would. Most of the bosses in the new selection are bosses that are either too bulky (>14k HP) or too annoying (bruh Crane Master? Deimos Mortis?) to reasonably deal with whilst playing AARGH. All this release did is add a bunch of bosses to flee from and waste gold rerolling. I'm sorry for being negative but this AARGH update is legitimately an anti-release in how it genuinely took away from the game and made it worse. I would highly recommend adjusting the stats of some of these bosses if AARGH is still intended to be something to farm and not just a cancerous RNG/rerollfest. I have never ever hesitated in my positivity in praising the good releases over the past year but I think it's extremely evident to the developers at this point that all the long-time players are disappointed and disengaged with the game. Matter of fact, I'll make a forum post about it soon because I have a lot to talk about, and it won't be pretty.

< Message edited by Bluu -- 11/12/2025 8:55:18 >
Post #: 4
11/12/2025 8:14:39   
ProbablyCallum
Member

quote:

5.3 Change 1 of Sling/Cyclone - maybe make it another chip healing skill? Not too much inspiration atm for this. (4.)

I was thinking a lot about this. Not only does it do less damage but the use case of getting 3 candy is so tiny compared to cyclone given inn fights where there are 3+ enemies are so much rarer than ones with 2. On top of that you always would want to prioritise cyclone over sling in those fights given that it does more damage and has higher hitcount for proccing whatever onhit you're using so you're only going to use it is when cyclone is on cooldown but not the turn immediately after because you've already gotten your 3 candy from that and would need to spend it first and also be in a fight where you can afford to use 2 filler skills in such quick succession. So many things need to align to make sling an attractive option its insane, I think the ideal answer would be something like making sling a single target that leaves a thorn wedge debuff that doesnt do anything with a duration of two turns that gets consumed when hit by the player for a single turn dot and harvests candy equal the turns the thorn was in the target. Would be an alright filler skill if you used it to consume next turn since 2 candy is pretty much the standard for good filler skill and there'd also be the option to shoot a thorn into something before using a turn to shield or do some other nonoffensive skill and letting it cook a turn before harvesting for +2 from the thorn instead, the dot could also get stronger based on duration ig, maybe 100% for one turn and 150% for 2.

< Message edited by ProbablyCallum -- 11/12/2025 8:15:00 >
DF  Post #: 5
11/12/2025 15:41:56   
GodJank
Member
 

quote:

Change Scythe, Whip & Midnight - Split Scythe into either -boost or -bonus (dealer's choice), add the other effect to Whip

Adding -Boost to Whip would probably have more synergy than -Bonus, and would probably end up being a bit stronger. Beyond that, I have literally nothing to say that Deurzz hasn't said; he hit the nail on the head.

In general, I don't really see a reason to pick EPL unless you really like the class. It isn't defensive enough to compete with Paladin or Pirate, and it isn't offensive enough to compete with SoulWeaver or ShadowHunter. It feels like a very middling ''can do everything'' class, which isn't very interesting. I have a pretty big gripe with one skill in particular; Endless Night, which has really good utility in immediately collecting candy, and it costs a ton of mana. But then it also gives you permanent stats, which is pretty huge, but empowering Night takes away a really huge skill. I don't know how strong this would end up being in the long run, but I would like to see eNight *not* consuming candy, just to let it play a bit more aggressively and allow it to use Candy for better skills.

Until it gets a pseudo-rework/buffs, I'm probably not gonna be touching this class unless we get a war; it's pretty good on that front at least.
Post #: 6
11/12/2025 19:48:19   
TFS
Helpful!


My opinions on EPL are pretty much the same as Deurzz's
-Widget doesn't make a lot of visual sense, nor does the skill button order
-It would've been cool if the two animations unique to the old version of regular PumpkinLord had been preserved in some way, eCleave animation also seems bugged or at least looks weird
-The number of redundant skills (two multis, MP heal, Whip/Blade basically being one effect with halved potency split across two skills/cast turns) seem like a strange allocation of design space
-Bramble Shield specifically has a pointlessly weak defensive effect, and casting it for its offensive effect during the burst rotation means you waste a whole turn of +boost -res not actually attacking - this is a total dud skill that also seems like a misallocation of design space
-Almost all of the empowerment effects seem too weak or niche to justify the five candy cost; the incredibly strong shield, and eDrain into eCleave/eScythe for burst phase are the instances where you'll actually use it
-eCreep into eDrain seems like the 'intended' way to play the class, but the way Hitcount/Candy vs effect durations are tuned make this extremely clunky to actually play - you don't do anything on your off rotation and lost a turn of shield that would be covering your healing moves
-eNight has a cool effect but is not something you will ever actually press in a real fight; costs 10 turns and 10 candy (that's a lot of shield downtime!) for one stack, but you need multiple stack before it starts mattering
-eBlade just straight-up nerfs the player due to how few enemies resist Nature but how many enemies resist the elements of the most powerful weapons. If you press it after Drain it even punishes you by forcing you to equip the Yalla axe
-The huge MP costs across the board are just obnoxious. The reason the class is like this is because Ash didn't want players to use it over regular PL until they were high level, but I don't think I need to spell out the 5-6 reasons it was stupid even back then, and now made completely pointless due to the two classes now having different skillsets. The fact that there's even a dedicated MP heal button was made pointless by the Potion revamp almost a decade ago, as now you'll just drink an MP potion if you want MP and it will give you even more MP than the MP heal skill will. The punchline to all of this is that the amount of MP restored was actually NERFED in this update, because having an entire skill dedicated to restoring less MP than your MP potion wasn't a sufficiently pointless design relic already lol

I do quite like the class's animations though, disagree with some of the above posts critiquing them

< Message edited by TFS -- 11/12/2025 20:08:25 >
DF  Post #: 7
11/13/2025 9:39:49   
GodJank
Member
 

quote:

-eBlade just straight-up nerfs the player due to how few enemies resist Nature


I think the intended effect was to remove elelocks so you could use the Ice or Metal weapons, but the effect feels clunky and Draining Roots still inflicts -Nature anyways, so you're still incentivized to use Jade Cleaver regardless. EPL's rework feels a bit rushed, so I definitely think it's due for some supplementary changes and buffs.

Looking forward to the potential changes tomorrow.
Post #: 8
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