August 27 patch: the Glast Heim clue hunt begins, and it points at the Gunslinger
A month of build-up to Glast Heim, with a server-wide clue hunt — and the change that actually gives you time back: tickets that skip dailies.
What it changes
- Maintenance ran 27/08, 4:50 to 9:00 (UTC-4). What opened is the event — Glast Heim gets its own entrance on the main screen. The city itself is not in this patch: the official post says Glast Heim “is not yet fully open”, and the only Glast Heim map you can walk into today is Glast Heim Outskirts.
- Shadows over Glast Heim (28/08 – 28/09): the name is the whole event, which gets its own entrance on the main screen; its own reward track is a daily sign-in. Days 8 and 9 hand you the [Costume - Rock Spirit] and [] appearances for free.
- Spacetime Rift (28/08 – 28/09): hit 100 daily Activity for one Glast Heim Clue per day, capped at one. Progress is server-wide — at 70% everyone gets a 7-Day Bounty Pass. Clues can be shared to World Chat for others to claim, and collecting them all grants the permanent title []. The clues are said to cover new gear, new gameplay and a new job.
- Abyssal Raid (04/09 – 10/09): three mystery monsters — Owl Duke, Dark Illusion and Knight of Abyss — spawn on Funfair Isle. Three attempts a day, refreshing at 5:00, for [], [] and limited drops of [] and [ ×100].
- Quick Skip (Base 99+): tickets that clear Cat Paw Shop, Demon Treasure, dailies, Guild Quests and Helheim outright. They come from Guild League (30/week), Emperium Overrun (30/week) and Dimension Drill (9/week).
- Seventeen MINI cards can no longer be sold on the Black Market or through Trade-Auction — only through the Chamber of Commerce, at the same currency and price.
- Two more Lord Knight corrections: [Aura Blade] no longer keeps its buff if you swap to a non-sword weapon after casting, and [Berserk] had its spear description clarified — description only, the effect is unchanged.
- Skill descriptions now carry a [Skill Can CRIT] tag where it applies.
- Cute Critter Clash (28/08 – 10/09): cross-server animal chess. Eight piece types, each one beating some and losing to others — there is no piece that beats everything, and the weakest one takes the strongest.
- Lucky Flip (28/08 – 10/09): the rewards from Cute Critter Clash and the Abyssal Raid turn into tokens you spend here. Nine cards numbered 1 to 9, no repeats; each flip adds to your score. Go over 15 and you take a consolation prize, land on exactly 15 and a multiplier box opens, worth up to 7×.
- Deviruchi’s Offer (07/09 – 21/09): five extra Deviruchi SP vouchers a day, the ones that feed the Demon Treasure daily. Claim resets at 5:00 (UTC-4).
- BINGO (07/09 – 21/09): daily activity, complete quests, fill the card and take the rewards.
- Operation Commission (07/09 – 21/09): +20 Commission Tickets a day. Same daily, higher ceiling.
Read the official announcement →
Summary written by ROOC Companion. Full details in the official post.
Our take
The clue hunt is the part to watch. A server-wide collection bar that unlocks a reward for everyone at 70% is a real cooperative mechanic, and the clues are said to describe new gear, new gameplay and a new job. That is a class announcement being trailed a month ahead, dressed as a puzzle.
On the new job, the bet is the Gunslinger, and the strongest signal comes from the Asia server — a separate build on its own schedule. There, the Gunslinger arrived together with Glast Heim, not before it. Two details are worth holding on to: Glast Heim took close to three months to land there after this build-up began, and Global has consistently run ahead of Asia’s calendar by two weeks to a month. That points at roughly two months, which is a guess built on someone else’s memory of another server — not a date. What is odd is the ordering: on Asia this pre-launch event came after season 2, and here it came before.
Besides the class, the clues describe two more things, and neither is on anybody’s radar. Everyone is watching for the Gunslinger because the same event ran in Asia first. Nobody is expecting the other two.
The first is a star-based account progression — constellations you pick and level, a star map with more than one path through it. Asia got exactly that not long ago as Ymir Astrocore: six named cores, red for damage and blue for defence, each built from three substars and a main star, levelled with Stardust from dailies, team dungeons and the gold shop. Account power, not gear — the same shelf as feathers and medals. Our files hold not one word of it.
The second is a guild raid where composition decides the result, and here the evidence runs the other way: the system sits in our client in full, translated, while not existing in the game. It is called Tetra Realms, it is live on the Chinese version, and its second phase opens three portals — Purgatory for the strongest (capped at 30, against a boss with unlimited health), Ingenuity in the middle, and Guardian for the guild’s weakest members. Clear Ingenuity and Guardian to 100% and the cap on Purgatory lifts.
Read clue 44 against that design: “a guild once tried stuffing all the strongest jobs into the same party, only to discover it wasn’t feasible”. In Tetra Realms that is not a lesson, it is the rule — send everyone strong to Purgatory and nobody unlocks it. Clue 45 says the rest out loud: “you can’t have too many of the same kind of people; every type of power needs its place”. There is a realm designed for your weakest members, and their progress is what frees your best.
One caution we are keeping on ourselves: a system being in the client is not a promise. Nebula Path is in there too, fully translated, gated behind a 3rd job class that is not on the roadmap for any server. So take these as what the clue hunt is pointing at, not as a release schedule.
Worth getting the mechanic right, because the official post does not spell it out. The [] does not hand you a card — it lets you pick one of four albums, and the card inside the album you picked is then random, 25% each. You choose the album, not the card. What is in each:
The Abyssal Raid is not the only source either: Tyr’s Trial also hands out an item containing a MINI album.
Our pick is Album IV, and the reason is that it is the only one where a bad roll still leaves you with something.
The three mystery monsters are no coincidence either: Owl Duke, Dark Illusion and Knight of Abyss are all Glast Heim minis. The event is showing you the map’s roster a couple of months early, which is also why they spawn on an existing map instead of a new one.
Worth recording: this is the second patch in a row to touch the Lord Knight’s Aura Blade. The August 18 hotfix rewrote its damage formula; this one closes a weapon-swap hole that let the buff survive on a non-sword. That hole was not theoretical — players report suspensions of one to three days handed out for exploiting it.
Commentary by ROOC Companion, not part of the official announcement.