The latest release for Blade & Soul, Symphony of Destruction, is now live! There’s a lot of content and also many changes that we wanted to present to you today. Let’s start the guided tour of this update.

The Art Gallery

This new system adds a category of rewards to the game: Portraits! These items represent important characters or locations in the Blade & Soul world. Each portrait exists in four rarities that each grant you a higher bonus: Refined (green), Superior (blue), Heroic (purple), and Legendary (orange). Best of all: owning a portrait gives you a stats bonus!

The Art Gallery collects all the portraits and can be accessed in the main menu or via the Ctrl+M shortcut. In one of the two tabs, the Gallery displays the gorgeous art of portraits you own. In the Contracts tab, you can see the contracts needed to complete to get the portraits, the number of contracts completed, and how many portraits you registered.

You set contracts as favorites so that you can easily track the ones you’re interested in. Searching those contracts can show you the ones that increase a particular attribute or are completed with a specific piece of content (e.g., dungeon).

For now, we’ve released the Portraits via Portrait Chests that can be obtained via four methods:

• The Demonsbane dungeons, as Boss drops and shop rewards.
• In the Treasure Trove.
• By trading duplicate portraits with Art Trader Dochobi in the Ajanara Monastery to get a higher tier of the same portrait.

When you open a Portrait Chest, the portrait you obtain will be indicated in chat. We hope you’ll enjoy collecting these portraits while strengthening your characters!

Accessories

Oculus Accessories

We’re introducing a new Ring and Earring tier called Oculus. They use the same Mythical Enhancement System as the Starcross Accessories and drop from the new dungeon, Grim Nexus. You need Oculus Stone Fragments to enchant these unique accessories. They can be obtained from the Oculus Prize Wheel in Demonsbane dungeons, as rewards for the first clear of Stages 3, 9, and 18 of the Grim Nexus Demonsbane dungeon, and as rewards for completing 5 Daily Challenges.

To reset enchantments, use an Oculus Essence, currently available as a reward for the first clear of Stages 5 and 12 of the Grim Nexus Demonsbane dungeon, and in Oculus Safes (requiring an Oculus Key) dropping from the Boss Asorak.

The details of stat bonuses and enchantment costs of the Oculus Ring and Earring are listed in the Patch Notes.

Divine Spark Talisman

This new Talisman does not have Stages but can be enhanced by using Stigma Crystal Fragment obtained from the Soul League – Season 1. The details of stat bonuses and enchantment costs of the Oculus Ring and Earring are listed in the Patch Notes.

Skystealer Accessories

We’ve simplified the upgrade material for the Skystealer Accessories by combining the six different types of materials used (Flame, Ocean, Earth, Wind, Nature, and Lightning Skystealer Crystal) into one material type, called Skystealer Crystal.

Updated Dungeons

Demonsbane Changes

With the addition of Grim Nexus to the Demonsbane rotation, the Hall of Trials dungeon was removed from Demonsbane and set as a Heroic dungeon. We’ve updated the rewards of Demonsbane dungeons Altar of the Infinite and Namdo Shrine with Upsurge weapons and accessories from the newest tiers (Starcross Belt and Bracelet). Heroic mode dungeons Cold Storage and Heaven's Mandate get updated Gem Chests.

Koldrak’s Lair

We spent some time in this dungeon to reorganize it and made Koldrak stronger. Oops! It also means he rewards more reputation and better loot. You can see the complete list in the Patch Notes.

Equipment Guide

The Equipment Guide will show you the materials required to upgrade your gear. To Access the Equipment Guide, click on the corresponding icon at the bottom of the Inventory window. You can also select a piece of Equipment, click Manage Equipment, and finally select the Equipment Guide icon in the top right of the window.

You can then navigate between the weapon and various accessories in the Equipment tab. Each section will show you the gear progression and all the details of the tier you select. The Search function will allow you to find gear by name or material required.

The Resonance tab will give you details about the Resonance bonuses. While your class is selected by default, you can change class to read information about other classes’ gear.

PVP Equipment

In Battlegrounds and Arena, we’ve made acquiring PVP items more accessible with the following modifications:

• 50% reduction to the PVP upgrade materials Fragments and Ores.
• Removed gold requirements from PVP-related items.
• Added Oculus and Starcross Enchantment Stones for enchanting accessories in PVP content.
• Lowered the cost to obtain the highest-generation Realmkeeper Soul Shield and Realmkeeper Amulet.

Quality of Life Improvements

We gave the Daily Rewards list an update to make your activities more rewarding:

Lastly, we improved the User Interface (UI) of the game in a few places:

• Dungeon Party, Transmutation, and Map.
• A "Move All" Button at the Bottom of the Storage menu allows you to conveniently move all items of the same type into the same spot.
• The “Simplify Combat Stats” option in the Settings displays the damage numbers in a simplified way, for better readability.

Conclusion

That’s a lot of changes. Check them out and tell us what you think on the Blade & Soul forums, or on social media via Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook!