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Patch 2.8.7 – Arthur nerf, more artifacts to the people and battle pass changes and more

Patch 2.8.7 dropped with a lot of hype around Wildfire Furnace and Alliance Supremacy. Those are cool new events and worth checking out in the official news posts, but the real long-term impact of this patch lies deeper in the notes. Some subtle changes here could shake up progression, the gem economy, and even the late-game meta. Let’s dig into the big ones.

Battle Pass Expansion & Shop

The Legendary & Peak Battle Pass has been expanded up to 100 levels, with levels now purchasable. On top of that, a Battle Pass Shop has been added where you can spend Inferno Insignia on Holy, Shadow, and Chaos immortal fragments plus their exclusive artifacts.

3. Legendary & Peak Battle Pass

1) Legendary & Peak Battle Pass levels increased to 100, with battle pass levels available for purchase.

2) Battle Pass shop opened, where Inferno Insignia can be used to purchase Holy, Shadow, and Chaos Immortal Fragments and their exclusive artifacts.

3) Inferno Insignia can be obtained through premium battle pass rewards, participating in Festival Events, purchasing festival packs, etc.

The way it works. Player Exe has been kind enough to share details with us:

  • Each BP level now gives 10 medallions.
  • It costs 450 medallions for 60 fragments (holy/shadow).
  • Buying a level costs 600 gems.

Basically, you can think of the mechanics to how this work as the normal GP, we have 50 levels of rewards and then we repeat level 50. But instead of an unlimited repeat of level 50 (like in normal GP) we have a cap of 100 levels, i.e. 50 levels that are just currency rewards. Basically a GP but capped at level 100 instead of unlimited.

Buying immortals this way is thus:

  • 27,000 gems = 60 frags of a Holy/Shadow immortal.

While gemming levels here for fragments is not particularly cheap, the path in itself with the 100 level version is incredibly good value. And even tho is is not cheap, and most players aren’t going to be spamming it, the upside is this adds another gem → useful fragments conversion path, which has been a theme in recent updates. Slow farming it with free pass levels is probably the most realistic play for most players, but whales now have a guaranteed gem sink for Shadow/Holy progress.

Completing the Battle Pass in the new version is super high value. For just 30$ you will get 2150 gems, 60 immortal fragment selection chests for holy/shadow, 1000 medallions (i.e. little over 120 frags) and 60 random holy/shadow fragments by completing daily quests consistently and maxing out the pass event. Comparatively, the old version yielded just 90 selection chests and 30 random holy/shadow fragments as you completed the 50 levels there.

Note, completing 100 levels should be doable without gemming since the quests have gotten an EXP buff. Player Exe who has been kind enough to share is past level 14 in 4 days without completing every quest.

Battle Pass Shop S2 Updates

The Monthly BP Shop S2 now includes Ragnar, Mehmed II, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Darius, and Cao Cao fragments, along with their artifacts.

The notes say “Monthly Battle Pass Shop S2 season adds Ragnar, Mehmed II, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Darius the Great, and Cao Cao fragments, along with exclusive artifacts.”

This is honestly a very welcome change. Ragnar and Cao Cao artifacts in particular have been high-demand pieces. A lot of players stalled out because you needed specific events to push those, so BP making them more accessible is a win.

And it ties nicely with the Sparks of Galaxy S2 update:

3) Sparks of Galaxy event S2 season adds seasonal Immortal exclusive artifact selection box.

The Seasonal Immortals tend to reference the ones available in e.g. Battle Pass as notes above, which is great. Now you can also grab seasonal Immortal exclusive artifact selection boxes in Galaxy! This is the same as the new seasonal addition in the Daily Pearl Shop, though that one is a bit expensive. Anyway, if you for example, is running a YSS + Himiko build (one of the strongest Season 2 metas), you can now farm Himiko artifacts within the same Galaxy event cycle. Much smoother progression for focused builds.

King Arthur Reflection Nerf

This one’s huge for late-game PvP.

Arthur’s reflection used to basically act like true damage. If you dropped him against an Apollo-heavy whale march, his reflect ignored their reduction stats — so Apollo just ate that damage raw. That made Arthur one of the few effective counters to big Apollo setups.

King Arthur Damage Reflection Algorithm Fix

After the fix, King Arthur’s reflected damage will be affected by the target’s damage reduction attributes.

Now:

  • Reflection does scale with the target’s damage reduction (YSS, Tower of Knowledge nodes, artifact reductions, etc.).
  • In practice, this means Arthur is going to bounce back much less damage to whales, since stacked defensive stats will blunt it.

I’ll be real — this probably kills his role as a “budget whale counter.” Without that cheese, he may slide back into obscurity unless something else keeps him relevant. Which is a shame, because he offered a very different tool compared to the standard bruisers. I hope the devs keep tweaking him instead of letting him rot.

If you’re mid-game and thinking of building him now, I’d wait to see how the meta reacts. He might still be okay for general marches, but his days of cracking Apollo are gone.

Other Small but Notable Changes

  • Immortal Specialization Master All: being able to preset and instantly unlock entire node chains is a nice QoL upgrade. Less clicking, more experimenting.
  • Daily Deals Shop: Holy and Shadow artifacts after 75 days → great for newer servers catching up.
  • Training Grounds raid requirement lowered: from 30% reserves to 10%. Means you can raid more aggressively without gimping your training, which is solid for active servers.
  • Gem auto removal: if you’ve ever had to unsocket multiple gems from one piece, you’ll love this.

Player Perspective

If I had to break it down:

  • Battle Pass changes are the best part of this patch for long-term growth. Even if you don’t whale, just having the option to slowly gem → fragment farm is progress.
  • Galaxy S2 + BP Shop updates smooth out a lot of the artifact bottlenecks. This is going to speed up how fast people can actually finish their intended builds.
  • Arthur fix is the one sore spot. It makes sense for balance, but it also cuts away one of the only fun curveballs against top-tier Apollo whales.

If it were me, I’d be putting gems into the BP shop path as a long-term holy/shadow investment, while holding off on Arthur until we see if he survives in the new balance landscape.

Bottom Line

Patch 2.8.7 is sneaky important. Everyone’s eyes are on Wildfire and Alliance Supremacy, but the Battle Pass overhaul and Arthur nerf will affect the actual day-to-day progression and PvP scene way more.

  • More ways to farm Shadow/Holy = win.
  • Easier access to artifacts = win.
  • Arthur losing his cheese = probably a loss, unless you never built him in the first place.

So, my advice? Start planning how to use gems in the new BP shop, enjoy the smoother artifact paths, and keep an eye on how the PvP tier list shifts without Arthur as a counterpick.

Published: 14-09-2025