This EverQuest Test Server update dated January 13, 2026 includes a progression-locked travel item, new achievements tied to Planes of Power progression, quality-of-life fixes for bandoliers and augments, and several targeted changes to missions, raids, and tradeskill materials in recent content. Below is a practical, player-focused breakdown of what changed and why it matters—especially if you’re pushing progression, maintaining multiple characters, or trying to keep your gearing and crafting pipeline moving without wasting time.

Highlights at a Glance

• New progression-locked teleport item (ask the dragon in Runed Relic about travel).
• Achievements added that follow Planes of Power progression.
• Major QoL: bandolier reliability, augment swapping, real estate eviction item safety.
• Tradeskill improvements: better drop rates/quantities for key materials and depot performance.
• Mission and raid fixes: less frustrating respawns, better resets, and improved mechanics.
• Progression server tuning: Mitigation of the Mighty adjusted for hand-to-hand damage.

Progression Additions: Teleport Item and PoP Achievement Track

New progression-locked teleport item (Runed Relic)

A new teleport item has been added, gated behind progression. The note indicates you’ll need to ask the dragon in Runed Relic about travel. While the exact destination and unlock requirements aren’t fully detailed in the notes, the intent is clear: smoother movement through the current progression path without skipping the intended gates.

Why it matters: travel time is a real tax on group missions, repeatable tasks, and farming loops. On busy weeks—when you’re juggling flags, collections, spell upgrades, and tradeskill mats—reliable travel shortcuts often translate directly into more completions per session.

Achievements that follow Planes of Power progression

New achievements have been added to follow Planes of Power progression. If you’re the type of player who likes structured goals (or you’re chasing meta-progression rewards that require achievement completion), this is a meaningful addition—especially for characters working through older progression beats with modern power levels.

Practical tip: if you maintain alts or personas, keep an eye on whether these achievements are tracked account-wide or per character in your setup, and plan your completion order to avoid rework.

Item Changes and Fixes

Midnight Mallet class restriction and recast increase

• Midnight Mallet can no longer be used by characters who aren’t one of the classes listed on the item.
• Recast increased to 2.5 minutes.

Impact: if you were using it as a utility click outside intended classes, that’s done. The longer recast also reduces how often it can be leveraged even by valid users, so adjust hotbars and rotations accordingly.

Protector’s Gem of Unraveling Order heroic stamina corrected

Protector’s Gem of Unraveling Order should now have an appropriate heroic stamina value. This is the kind of fix that quietly matters: heroic stats are often the difference between “fine” and “comfortable” when you’re stacking survivability thresholds for harder pulls or raid mechanics.

Short Bow of Unraveling Order AC fix

The Short Bow of Unraveling Order should no longer be missing AC. If you’ve been avoiding it because the displayed stats looked incorrect, this update should bring it in line with expectations.

Acrylic Slate of the Char no longer lore; Initiate’s Cloak of the Char now lore equipped

• Acrylic Slate of the Char is no longer lore.
• Initiate’s Cloak of the Char is now lore equipped.

Impact: removing lore restrictions can make farming and distributing items more flexible across boxes and alts; lore-equipped restrictions can prevent accidental duplicate equip scenarios while still allowing storage.

Items turned in for quests above your character’s current level will now be returned instead of being lost. The quest won’t advance, but this is a major safeguard for anyone pre-staging quest items on alts.

Ornaments and vendors

• New armor ornaments purchasable from Grog Harpy and Cortana Stone Breaker in Scard Grove.
• Celebratory Champagne Flute ornament now works correctly on one-hand, two-hand, and hand-to-hand weapons.

Cosmetic support rarely changes power, but it does affect how players spend time and currency. If you’re budgeting for ornaments while also gearing, it helps to plan around your core upgrades first—especially on fresh or returning characters with limited reserves.

Quality-of-Life Fixes That Actually Change Your Day

Bandolier reliability fixes

• Bandolier should load correctly even with two of the same item in a set.
• Clicking an empty bandolier no longer removes your weapons.

If you swap weapon sets often (tank vs DPS, ranged pulling, throwing items, specialized procs), this reduces “why am I barehanded?” moments that can wipe groups or ruin pulls.

Augment swapping improvements

• Corrected an issue preventing swapping two augmented items in the same lore group.
• Added an option to bypass confirmation prompts when inserting/removing/swapping augments.

Impact: this is a time saver for anyone doing large-scale augment management across multiple characters. It also reduces the friction of keeping situational aug sets (survivability vs damage vs resist) properly maintained.

Real estate eviction item safety

Real estate eviction should no longer cause items to be lost or missing. This is a “silent disaster prevention” fix—especially important for players who use housing for storage, crafting staging, or roleplay collections.

Auto-follow and auto-fire updates

• Player characters are less likely to “go into orbit” when following another player.
• Player window will flash blue when auto fire is used.
• Removed target requirements for disabling auto fire.

These changes are particularly relevant if you run multiple characters or rely on follow chains for positioning. Less follow instability means fewer accidental trains and fewer wasted recoveries.

Client and performance notes

• The OpenMP library is no longer used by the game client.
• The client will no longer set CPU affinity; related client core variables are now obsolete.

It’s too early to call the real-world performance impact without testing, but any change that touches threading/affinity is worth watching. If you run many clients, keep notes on CPU usage, stutter patterns, and zoning hitching after the update.

Tradeskills: Better Drops, Better Depot Performance

Recipe correction

The recipe for Acrobat’s Diminished Belt of Unraveling now uses the correct container type. If you were blocked by a container mismatch, this should resolve it.

• Increased drop rate on Riven Arcana Imbued Timber.
• Increased drop rate and quantity of Riven Arcana Imbued Silk.

Impact: this directly reduces the time sink for crafting progression items and belts, especially if you’re gearing multiple characters. When tradeskill bottlenecks ease up, the economy usually responds quickly—prices normalize, and fewer players feel forced into marathon farming sessions.

For players managing a progression budget, this is also where currency planning matters. If you’d rather spend your limited playtime on missions and raids than on material loops, having extra EverQuest plat available can be the difference between “stuck waiting on silk” and “crafting tonight.”

Tradeskill UI and depot improvements

• Increased size limit for saving/loading recipes from Favorites.
• Improved performance of the tradeskill depot.
• Updated outputfile recipes to accept accept all (outputs everything for all tradeskills).

These are excellent for high-volume crafters and anyone who maintains a deep recipe library. The depot performance improvement in particular should reduce lag spikes in crafting-heavy sessions.

Quests and Events: Mission Friction Reduced

Echo of Hate mission improvements

• Removed a wandering spiteful and venomous drachnid near the northern event area.
• NPCs no longer respawn for the life of the instance (clear once, stay clear).
• Mission will no longer congratulate you for defeating the wrong target.

Impact: fewer random adds, fewer “trash repopped mid-event” failures, and cleaner completion runs—especially helpful for smaller groups or box teams.

Runed Relic: static magic storm near the janitor

A static magic storm has been added near the janitor that may need cleaning up while helping him. This reads like a targeted fix for a known pain point where the timer pressure and pathing could cause inconsistent updates.

Levitation now possible in Char Darren mission

It will now be possible to levitate in the Char Darren mission. This is mostly a movement/positioning quality improvement, but it can also reduce accidental deaths and speed up route execution.

Shaondar mission: falling no longer strands you

Falling off the edge will no longer strand you at the bottom of the zone. This is a classic “one mistake shouldn’t ruin the whole run” fix.

Labyrinth of Spite tasks and resets

• Task steps typo fixes for Labyrinth of Spite, Letting Go, and Grounding Resolve.
• The Hate Machine task now has less repetitive text and behaves better if steps are completed out of order.

Any mission chain that breaks when steps are done slightly out of sequence is a time tax. This should make progression smoother for groups that split objectives or move quickly.

Raid mechanics: bombs and event cleanup

• In the Invader raid, bombs no longer explode instantly when dropped.
• Bombs will no longer chase players around.
• In the Echo of Hate raid, Dark Mania will be removed on success or reset.

Impact: fewer “unavoidable” deaths and clearer counterplay. This should reduce chaotic wipes caused by inconsistent bomb behavior and lingering debuffs after resets.

Lockout and looting fixes

A fix was made for cases where players were incorrectly blocked from looting due to a zone thinking the lockout came from a different instance. This is a big deal for raid scheduling and for anyone running multiple instances across a week.

Ring of Scale Rage flagging reliability

Ring of Scale Rage should no longer fail to reward flags to dead or zoned-out players on success. Flagging issues are some of the most demoralizing progression blockers, so this is a welcome stability change.

Arcstone, Shattered: ethereal fragments now more consistent

The drop rate of ethereal fragments in Arcstone, Shattered has been increased—now dropping one from each (as described in the notes). If you were previously stuck repeating content due to fragment scarcity, this should dramatically reduce the grind.

Candlemaker’s wax seals expanded to more zones

Candlemaker’s wax seals will now drop from NPCs in Vortex, Runed Relic, Labyrinth of Spite, and Arcstone, Shattered. This matters for spell progression because it helps address shortages in rank II spell availability.

Runed Relic: quest and rare improvements

• Increased drop rate of the Hem of Stability verse from rare NPCs.
• Rare planar NPCs in Runed Relic can drop a page if any group member has the quest.
• Dirt dervishes spawn during partisan quest 3.
• The third fragment will now despawn if left alone for a period of time.
• The wandering sky near the zone-in from Arcstone, Shattered will no longer spawn.

Impact: better group-friendly quest item logic, fewer frustrating zone-in deaths, and clearer behavior for timed/left-behind objectives.

Spell and NPC tuning

• Reduced damage of Burning Slime cast by Kazier the Lava Dweller to align with the expansion baseline.
• Added 20 pages to the spell book.
• Spell description fixes (example: Secretion of the Mamba).
• Bard: Q Melody no longer breaks when using an offensive song on an unattackable target.
• Enchanter: added illusion scroll drops to specific zones.
• Beastlord: fixed an issue where some warders between levels 56 and 64 could lose taunt when focused.

These are a mix of survivability tuning, usability upgrades, and “paper cuts” fixes that reduce confusion and downtime.

Zone Flavor (and Danger): Labyrinth of Spite Fish Replaced by Alligators

In Labyrinth of Spite, fish had a “rude awakening” and have been replaced with alligators that can and will chase you on land. While this reads comedic in patch notes, it’s a real gameplay change: pathing and chase behavior can significantly affect pulls, recovery runs, and safe spots near water routes.

Practical tip: if your group previously treated water as a soft reset or safe buffer, assume that’s no longer true until you’ve tested the new behavior.

Progression Servers: Mitigation of the Mighty Hand-to-Hand Adjustment

On progression servers, Mitigation of the Mighty has been readjusted to mitigate hand-to-hand damage less. This is aimed at correcting the balance impact on monks and other hand-to-hand users, after prior tuning swings.

Impact: expect melee balance to shift slightly in early-to-mid era raid parsing and group efficiency. If your guild comp or box setup avoided hand-to-hand DPS due to mitigation scaling, this may reopen class options.

Persona and Faction Sharing Updates

Several factions have been made persona shared, including:

• Draclo Loyalists
• Wrathguard
• Wrathguard Leadership
• Scholars of Soulseak
• Infiltrators and Traders of Ashengate

Impact: faction grinds completed on one persona can benefit others, which is especially valuable when faction unlocks gear purchases or quest lines. This is a time saver and can reduce the need to repeat older content purely for access.

Small UI and Command Changes Worth Knowing

• Updated /who to accept raid as a parameter (shows players in your raid, including level and name).
• Added a chat message when picking up an item from the ground.
• Market window now correctly displays membership discounts for Daybreak Cash items.

None of these are headline-grabbers, but collectively they reduce friction in organizing raids and managing inventory.

Several changes in this patch reduce grind (silk/timber drops, ethereal fragments, wax seals), but they also shift what’s “worth farming” week to week. When bottlenecks loosen, prices often dip temporarily before stabilizing. If you’re trying to stay raid-ready across multiple characters, it can be helpful to treat your resources like a progression budget: prioritize spell upgrades, key augments, and tradeskill components first, then cosmetics.

Some players smooth out that budget by converting a subscription token into trade value or by keeping a reserve of EverQuest Krono for unexpected expenses like consumables, last-minute gear gaps, or crafting materials when farming luck runs cold. The key is to plan around your schedule so progression doesn’t stall when time is tight.

FAQ

Will the new progression-locked teleport item work for all characters?

The notes only say it’s locked behind progression and tied to a Runed Relic NPC. Expect it to require specific unlock steps, and assume alts may need the same progression unless stated otherwise.

What’s the biggest practical win in these patch notes for group players?

The Echo of Hate mission changes are huge: fewer wandering adds and no trash respawns for the instance lifetime means more consistent clears and fewer random failures.

Are tradeskills easier after this update?

Yes for key bottlenecks: increased Riven Arcana imbued timber and silk drops should reduce time spent farming core materials, and depot performance improvements make crafting sessions smoother.

Does the Arcstone, Shattered ethereal fragment change reduce the grind?

It should. The update indicates fragments are now more consistently available (described as one from each), which reduces repeated runs caused purely by bad drop luck.

How should I think about spending plat after these drop-rate buffs?

When supply increases, prices often fluctuate. If you’re low on funds, consider saving EQ plat for spell ranks, augments, and essential crafting components before spending on optional upgrades.