Emps-World => Update Notes => Topic started by: Thomy on July 03, 2026, 06:47:13 am
Title: Updates July 3rd - Nex, the Cursed with new Prayers & Combat Rebalancing
Post by: Thomy on July 03, 2026, 06:47:13 am
Hello everyone!
Get ready to face Nex, the Cursed, a formidable new hardmode boss designed to challenge even experienced players. Her drops unlock powerful new Prayers called Curses, offering stronger combat boosts. Additionally, combat damage calculations have been rebalanced to better account for accuracy and defence bonuses.
Nex, the Cursed After killing Nex at least once you can now face her in the hardmode version. This fight offers additional rewards but requires high effort and a good team to survive. New mechanics are introduced that can oneshot you if not countered accordingly. It is highly recommended you don't try this out on your hcim! Nex and her hardmode version can now drop Ancient ore, which is much more common in the hardmode. When smelting the ore into an Ancient bar you can smith Ancient arrows, Ancient bolts, Ancient thread, Torva, Pernix and Virtus equipment. Crafting Necator armour now needs one Ancient thread each - that makes Nex an absolute kill requirement for Necator equipment. (https://emps-world.net/img/updates/nex-hm.22576.jpg) Archdemons Kal'Ger, Har'Lakk and Yk'Lagor are the hardmode versions which will release in the next patch one by one each. Our plan is to release them in 2 week cycles. You can expect similar difficulty as with the Nex hardmode. We've decided that releasing a new boss every 1-2 weeks and finetuning them individually is better than releasing it all at once. Ancient thread will be needed to forge Archdemon weaponry, so feel free to already farm some Ancient ore.
Ancient Curses The hardmode version of Nex doesn't only offer a new challenge but also new Prayers called Curses. These offer stronger unique combat boosts and require higher Prayer levels. You obtain Ancient curse pages frequently from Nex hardmode kills which gradually unlock more Curses. The last three Curses are going to be added to the Archdemon drop tables in future patches.
Combat Boosts Balance The interaction between level boosts and prayers, void knight armour, and combat auras has changed from multiplicative to additive. These unlocks now grant a flat level bonus based on level 99 stats, instead of scaling with your current boosted level. This makes combat mechanics easier to understand and your damage output more predictable.
Skills below level 99 will receive stronger bonuses than before, while boosts above 99 are now effectively capped. Lower and mid-level players will find unlocks significantly more rewarding, while the strongest endgame setups will experience a slight reduction in damage. This prevents exponential scaling and creates room to balance future combat upgrades.
Combat potion formulas have also been reworked to ensure a fair progression ladder. The new linear percentage steps mean that potion tiers scale more consistently across all levels, keeping early game growth impactful while flattening late game stat inflation. The new underlying formulas are structured as follows:
Overload Potion: Grants an extra +2 over Extremes, boosting cleanly to 120. The overload stat refresh tick is every 4 seconds for 25% of the total boost.
The idea here is once again to have a more reasonable and balanced stat boost throughout potion tiers. The boss Hiscores have also been reset with the rebalancing to offer fair competition once again.
Combat Accuracy Calculation We're changing how accuracy works in combat to reduce unnecessary randomness and improve consistency. The aim is to keep your overall DPS (damage per second) the same but make it more predictable. Previously, attacks used two separate rolls:
A damage roll between 1 and your max hit.
An accuracy roll that negates damage entirely.
This meant low accuracy created extra randomness, since even a high damage roll could still miss completely. With this update, damage will now scale your accuracy instead of determining whether you hit or miss. Let's take the following example: Max hit of 50 with 80% accuracy:
Old system:
Damage roll between 1-50
20% chance to miss entirely
New system:
Effective max hit becomes 40 (50 * 0.80)
Damage Roll between 1-40
Hits always deal damage
Accuracy bonuses from gear, potions, prayers, and other effects will be more valuable going forward. You feel their impact sooner with less randomness in the calculations. Moreover, the damage blocker mechanic (1% of your highest defence bonus) has been removed. The flat damage blocker of various items (e.g. Chrysos) have been reduced significantly. Damage blockers are applied after the accuracy damage reduction and the old bonuses were too strong in the new accuracy system. The splashing mechanic for spells has been reworked as well. The application of spell effects is still determined by an accuracy roll. When splashing you deal damage to your enemy but the spell effect is not applied. You gain half of the spell's cast experience when splashing, which allows you to immediately identify splashes before the projectile hits your enemy. Spells without any effects can no longer splash. We've also removed the PvP damage blockers with this patch and transformed them into PvP accuracy. Meaning a full set of Dharok no longer blocks 14% of damage but increases your accuracy by 14%. You can see the PvP accuracy modifiers in your equipment screen marked with a *.
Ranged Ammunition QoL You no longer need to have a Ranged weapon equipped with a higher level requirement than your ammunition. The game now scales the ammunition down to your weapon's level. It's possible that not all combinations of weapons with ammunitions are perfectly scaled. The damage changes should all be within +/- one max hit. Ancient arrows and bolts have been made level 99 Ranged ammunition. Archdemon weaponry will be able to use more of their bonuses but the damage bonuses for Demon weaponry remain the same. Promethium arrows have been moved to level 85 Ranged to fill the gap between Barrow and Ancient arrows.
Changelog:
An issue has been fixed where you'd receive Magic experience twice when using a teleport spell. Experience gains are now also properly grouped together per game tick to prevent visual clutter when casting Barrage spells.
You can no longer accidentally get a skull from a player who attacks you first. An issue has been fixed where skull timers would not properly refresh after coming from a previous fight. The skull timer has also been increased from 10 to 30 minutes. The Emps Pker in Edgeville now also has an option for you to get a skull.
Overload potions now apply their effect once every 15 seconds instead of a lower stat restore every 5 seconds.
The upgraded elite void knight armour from Invention has been renamed to Superior void. The duplicate names for elite and now superior were confusing. The stat bonuses for void sets have also been adjusted. The void bonus is now a flat level boost instead of a multiplied level boost.
The internal system for prayers has been overhauled. You'll now also find all available Prayers in the skilling interface with their drain rates.
A bug was fixed where Vanstrom Klause could clip into walls under very rare conditions.
The Small obelisk in your house can now be used to restore Summoning points.
The click boxes for Shantay pass gate & rifts in abyss have been updated.
Double hits once again appear properly next to each other.
The buy-all option in minigame shops is now working correctly.
The camera movement keys can be used once again to move around on the worldmap viewer.
Slayer partners now both need to meet the Slayer master level requirement for new task assignments.
The drop rates for Necator hides have been adjusted. The hide drop on Slayer task now requires you to meet the Slayer level requirement of a monster's superior version. That check also requires the completion of the Superior Creatures quest (and enabled superior spawns) in order to receive any Necator hides drops.
Necator and Nightveil's defensive bonuses have been changed to match that of level 70 gear instead of level 80 gear. This change won't take away any power from the gear but matches the level 70 defence requirement better.
The model textures for Necator equipment have been modernized.
Chalkos, Sidero, Atsali and Chrysos equipment now have a negative PvP damage modifier. While you can't go below 0% it effectively renders all PvP damage modifiers useless. Tank armours were created for tanking PvM bosses and not becoming an invincible target in the wilderness.
The transition function for particles has been improved to get them a more natural trajectory.
Poison damage received from attacks (continuous poison damage tick excluded) now reduce your poison immunity timer. The idea behind this change is that mechanics shouldn't completely be bypassed by drinking a potion. Similar to how auras also lose charges by the amount of poison damage.
An issue was fixed where the protection prayer damage reduction for monsters wasn't correctly applied.
Protection prayers now block 75% of monster damage (down from 80%) and fully block monster damage blow 30 (down from 40). Prayer aura bonuses are now applied multiplicatively instead of additively. The Prayer aura IV now blocks 86% of monster damage instead of 95%. The +15% modifier from the Prayer aura IV is now also applied to the flat monster damage. That brings the full monster damage block up from 30 to 34. It shouldn't be possible to fully skip any current and future boss mechanics by just wearing a single item.
Various issues with the boss fight mechanics of Har'lakk have been fixed. The melee leap is now correctly stunning targets again for a short time when not protecting melee or running away. The poison arrow now correctly applies the poison dot on the coordinate where the poison smoke rises. Har'lakk now also announces some of his special attacks and his minions received proper animation sounds.
The sounds for damage spells and attacks in the fight against Yk'Lagor have been improved. The leap attack now always deals damage and can no longer be outrun.
Various boss mechanics that cannot be blocked by protection prayers no longer show a misleading damage type.
A bug in the camera rotation code was fixed which no longer makes it rotate faster than it should on very high fps rates. The camera rotation speed is now always the same.
Spirit weed seeds can now be stolen from Farmers.
The Smithing skilling interface now shows all bars and additional items required for smithing. Tank armour is now upgraded from Chalkos instead of smithed from scratch. That means in order to create a Chrysos cuirass you begin smithing a Chalkos cuirass. Then upgrade it to Sidero cuirass, Atsali cuirass and finally Chrysos cuirass. While I understand this may be a little bit annoying the creation path ensures lower level bars keep their value and tank armour is a gradual upgrade on your account. Tank equipment you already own is unaffected by this change and doesn't have to be re-created.
The armour repair stand in your house now offers the option to completely degrade an item.
The accuracy for light and particle emitters has been improved. The emitter location is now also considering animation interpolations.
Animations for Jad healers have been fixed.
Animation colors for hardmode Fight Caves have been fixed.
The Pyrefiend can now smelt Iron bars and won't tell you that you are missing coals.
The stair to exit Yk'lagor cave no longer requires level 90 Agility. Switching instances won't require you to walk there again.
Deflected hits received their own hit splat icon. That includes new deflect damage from shields, ring of recoil, taste vengeance, etc.
Certain bleeds no longer have a fixed combat type attached to them. Bleed damage is now always considered neutral damage and can no longer be reduced by protection prayers. Damage blockers now also reduce individual bleed damage ticks.
The entrance areas of Har'Lakk and Yk'Lagor now contain bank chests.
The default attack speed of Yk'Lagor has been decreased from 5 to 6. That makes the fight a bit easier but fixes a problem where position gets out of sync when too many combat animations block the demon from walking. All demon bosses (including their hardmodes) now share the same attack speed of 6 ticks.
More items from holiday events and minigames can now be deconstructed with Invention.
I'm now finetuning the three demon boss hardmodes and will release them shortly. You can expect a new demon boss release roughly every 2 weeks starting today! They will drop materials to upgrade your Demon weaponry (level 85) to Archdemon weaponry (level 92). The weapon upgrades come with a metallic look and a glow effect. Check our Discord (https://discord.gg/emps-world-307890747116486658) for screenshots! :)