Chronic Rose news

Fifteen new skills for the second jobs

2026-10-18T12:00:00Z

Each second job gets a move that looks like its own. The animations come from later versions of the game; the numbers are ours, tuned in the combat simulator. Every book is sold by Darren.

NewChampion: Voltage Crush (two-handed sword, slows the target's attacks), Dance of Flames (spear, sets an area on fire) and Final Strike (axe, costs HP and lowers the Defense of everything around the target).
NewKnight: Shield Bash (needs a shield, lowers Attack and attack speed) and Gaia Presser (one-handed sword or mace, a spin that lowers Defense and slows). Knights with a crossbow get Volcanic Shot (a burning meteor bolt that lowers Attack) and Star Gazer (an area slow that lowers Defense).
ChangedSkills that need a shield now hit harder with a stronger shield: +2% damage for each point of the shield's own Defense, up to +250%.
NewRaider: Eruption (katar, strikes everything around you) and Shun'ei-zan (dual swords, a single-target finisher that crits most of the time).
NewScout: Arrow Shower, the Scout's first area skill (a rain of poisoned arrows), and Deadly Snipe, the longest shot in the game, which lowers the target's dodge.
NewMage: Diabolos' Curse strips the target's buffs and slows it. It's the first player skill that can dispel. Shadow Servant is a dark nuke that lowers magic resistance and accuracy.
NewArtisan: Photon Cannon, a bazooka shell that lowers the accuracy of everything around the target. Calibrated Burst finally has a book, so it can actually be learned.
NewBourgeois: Exceed Break, a wave of fire that rolls down a 40 × 25 m strip in front of you and burns everything it hits. It costs Zuly as well as MP.
ChangedThe Dealer skill tree has been relaid out. Calibrated Burst now follows Gunshot Mastery, and Jewel Item Craft follows Craft Mastery.

Every weapon its own pace, every monster its own role

2026-10-16T12:00:00Z

ChangedEvery player used to get +70 Attack, +80 Accuracy and +35 attack speed for free. It made the early game trivial (a level-1 starter sword killed a Choropy in one hit) and made every weapon swing at about the same speed. That bonus is gone and the weapons carry it instead, each type at its own pace: a katar swings every 0.6 s, an axe every 1.2 s.
ChangedThe mark beside a monster's name now tells you how it fights. Guards are walls. Warriors hit hard but go down faster. Archers and Magicians keep their distance, and Magicians resist magic. Stars mean 1.5, 2.2 and 4 times the HP, and a gold star is meant for two players.
ChangedBosses are sized for groups. A king is a fight for three players (45–90 s), a skull boss a fight for five (about 3 minutes). Frozen Tooth, the Sikuku Elite Slaughterer, the Cursed Ant Vagabond and the Ikaness Heavygear are field elites, and now wear a silver star.
FixedMonsters keep using their skills all fight long. Most could cast once or twice and then never again until they had stood idle for a while.
NewMonster skills have names, like "Searing Burst" and "Rock Throw", wherever the game shows one, such as the damage meter.
ChangedThe big first-job skills hit harder at low ranks: Leap Attack, Lightning, Ice Bolt, Screw Attack, Holding Arrow and Gun Smash. Rank 10 is unchanged.
ChangedHawker Spirit raises Attack Power (6–15%). Hawkers and Raiders holding a katar can land critical skills (×1.5). Skills could never crit before.
ChangedThe Bourgeois' Terror Knight taunts, so the monster turns on it instead of you. Ctrl+click an enemy to send it in.
FixedThe Artisan's Weapon Research critical bonus showed in the character window but never applied in a fight. It works now, retuned to +3–10%.
ChangedThe Luna Clan Field's monsters are two-player content now.

Potions with a cooldown, and rings that finally work

2026-10-17T12:00:00Z

ChangedVital and Spiritual Waters come in four sizes (S, M, L, XL) for levels 1, 30, 70 and 120. Each heals a fixed amount plus a share of your maximum, up to 400 + 15% HP. There's a wait of 8 s between HP waters and 3 s between MP waters, enforced by the server. Before, a level-10 character could drink four times its whole HP bar at once.
FixedHP and MP recovery on items never counted. That covers Recovery and Meditation Rings, recovery gems and the Orlean Saga. They all work now.
FixedA skill's MP is taken once. The bar used to drop twice and then jump back.
FixedSlowed monsters no longer jump across the map when a chase ends. Casting a skill while walking to a monster no longer leaves you fighting 10–15 m from where the server thinks you are.
FixedA critical skill hit now looks like one, and the critical flash sits above the damage number on big monsters.
FixedStatus effects the server had already ended no longer stay on screen. A projectile skill's area status now lands with the shell, not 10 seconds later.
FixedThe Evil Fairy's thrown gem lands in 1–2 s instead of 5–7. Turak shows its full health right after it transforms, and its other forms are named Alpha Turak.
FixedCastle gear riders who get stunned stop swinging at nothing, and a shot already in flight keeps its damage number.
FixedShots from Zuly, Vortex and Nova Bullets and from Rock, Cluster and Molten Shells were invisible. You can see them again.
FixedA rare crash of the game server at startup.

Castle gears, uniques, and the road to Luna

2026-10-16T12:00:00Z

New74 castle gear parts: 23 sets climbing from the Insect Mk I (level 90) to the Garter (levels 200–240), plus five special arms. Those are the Gigant Axe, Rocket Punch, Tank Defender, Missile Launcher and Keraunos Shot. Where to get them comes later.
NewThe 15 unique weapons this version of the game was missing, for levels 180–210. Nothing drops them yet.
FixedJunon had no way to Luna. [Guide] Alphonso is back on the Junon Polis harbour front. With the other station guides he takes you between Junon, Luna and Eldeon for a fee, with no level requirement.
NewJunon Ents walk Sunshine Coast's summer event spawns again, and the Woopie Hooligans' seasonal event works.
NewIn the new interface, your summons get cards. Each shows the summon's level, health and stats, its abilities (with tooltips) and its status effects. Click a card to target it.
NewThe Celestial Frost Scepter's frame now spins around its crystal, and socketed Diamonds glow on your weapon.

How we balance: the combat simulator

2026-10-16T12:00:00Z

Mostly for our testers: the tool behind this week's balance changes, and what it means for your reports.

NewThe combat simulator answers "how does this build do against this monster?" by playing the fight thousands of times. Every formula comes straight from the game server's own code. That covers stats, refines, gems, buffs and debuffs, attack timing, regeneration, potions, stuns, and the monster's AI with its skills.
NewIt builds characters the way players do: class gear, real skill points and a skill rotation. Nine in ten follow their weapon's skills and one in ten plays support. It can also grind for ten minutes (kills per minute, food eaten, time spent resting), and play like a perfect player or like a typical one who reacts late and recasts buffs a few seconds after they drop.
NewA balance sweep fights every monster within five levels, grouped by the mark beside its name. That sweep showed the kings could be soloed and that the Raider lagged behind.
ChangedWe checked it against the real game: 16 kills with a Champion, a Mage and a Scout. Hit rates, critical rates and damage matched within 1–2%.
FixedAlong the way it found real bugs, now fixed: recovery items that added nothing, the Weapon Research critical bonus, and monster skills locked after one cast.
TipIf a fight feels wrong, tell us the monster, your level and your gear. We can replay it in the simulator and find out whether the game or the numbers are off.
NewFor modders: Rose Dev Studio, a desktop editor for the game's tables and text, with the simulator built in.

A scepter of our own, and fights that keep going

2026-10-11T12:00:00Z

NewThe Celestial Frost Scepter, the first weapon made for Chronic Rose itself rather than taken from another version of the game. It came in through a new tool that turns a standard 3D model file into a weapon you can hold. Nothing drops it yet.
FixedCasting Lightning, Wind Storm, Tornado, Luna Stone, Ice Bang, Curse, Red Cloud or Zuly Storm in the middle of a fight no longer leaves your character standing still. You go back to attacking, as with every other attack skill.
FixedHats that cover your hair, like the Dimple Bonnet and about ninety others, no longer let a second hairstyle poke through them. It looked like a broken texture.

For map makers: a friendlier map editor

2026-10-11T12:00:00Z

NewA searchable object browser. Find any decoration or building from any zone, by name, folder or number, with thumbnails, and place it in your map. Objects from another zone are copied into yours for you.
ChangedPlacing objects is clearer. The editor tells you when you're placing, can keep placing after each click, turns the object with the mouse wheel, and can vary heading and size or tilt objects to the slope. Rotations are in degrees.
FixedA long list of editor bugs. Objects placed on slopes no longer float or sink, Ctrl+S no longer walks the camera, Delete no longer fires while you type, and a brush stroke undoes in one step. The editor also stutters far less.
ChangedPacking the game's data for the client takes 14 seconds instead of 7 minutes.

The seal holds, and the icons sharpen

2026-10-10T12:00:00Z

ChangedA wall of ice now seals the Cerberus Lair's crater. Cerberus sleeps in plain sight from the start of the run and can't be touched until the Warden of the Seal falls. Then the ice melts away and the fight begins.
NewThe lair has its own music.
FixedSkill icons are sharp again. They had been stored in a compressed format that threw away about two thirds of their colours. 269 of them are back to their crisp originals.
NewFour skills get new art: Employ Warrior, Employ Hunter, Terror Knight and Berserk.

The Cerberus Lair

2026-10-09T12:00:00Z

Luna's last boss sleeps behind a seal. Once an hour, up to five adventurers are drawn to go and break it.

NewEvery hour, on the hour, [Arumic Seal Keeper] Yelena opens registration at the Arumic temple in Arumic Valley for ten minutes. Anyone level 140 or above can sign up.
NewAt ten past, up to five names are drawn. The winners are put in a party and taken to the lair from wherever they are. The entry fee of 100,000 zuly is taken when you arrive.
NewInside: two packs of Hellhound Whelps, then the Warden of the Seal (level 152), whose Seal Burst slows everyone around it. Beat the Warden and Cerberus (level 155) appears, asleep in the crater. Once woken it leaps, breathes fire, and calls Hellhounds at two thirds and one third of its health.
NewThe loot is mostly things nothing else drops: named level 155 weapons, wings and back shields, gems [5] to [7], and level 160–170 weapons.
ChangedOnce you're in, you stay in. There's no gate out and warp scrolls don't work. If you die, you revive at the lair's entrance. Cerberus's death (plus a minute to loot) or 20 minutes sends everyone back to the temple.

Smoother fights, thinner crowds

2026-10-09T12:00:00Z

ChangedOro is less crowded. Its five field maps now group monsters into camps like Karkia's, about half as dense as before. Each boss comes one at a time again; the Fearsome Terrasaurus King could turn up five at once.
FixedMonsters no longer lurch back into each attack. The Dreadnaught King, Pazugenti and others now swing smoothly from one blow to the next.
FixedWhen a monster's spell is cut short, you now see its damage number instead of just losing HP.
FixedThe Basilisk Captains in Luna's Crystal Snowfields and Freezing Plateau were invisible because they had no model. They have one now.
FixedThe Grand Master Devourer and the King Asper drop their Vital and Spiritual Water as they were always meant to.
FixedMonsters say their lines when they're meant to, instead of repeating them on almost every hit.
FixedA boss's health over its head reads "100k/310k" when the full numbers don't fit. Before, it dropped digits and showed the wrong amount.
FixedServer announcements at the top of the screen fit on one line on wide screens, and the dark panel behind them fits the text.
FixedA loophole in how the server handles teleports has been closed, and the game server now shuts down cleanly.

A god at the Oasis Shrine

2026-10-06T12:00:00Z

[God] Hebarn, a giant horseman, is now the strongest boss in the game. He only fights if you ask him to.

New[God] Hebarn waits by the oasis pond at the Oasis Shrine in Oro. Be level 220 or above and bring 10 Devourer Horns, and he takes up your challenge. He's level 240, with about 360,000 HP, twice the Deadly Drake.
NewHe stomps the ground to stun everyone around him, charges at you from a distance, and loses his temper at 30% health. If nobody fights him for 15 minutes he leaves, and waits for the next challenger.
NewHis loot: Karkia's mythical weapons, the level 240 armour and the best shields, plus a good chance at a level 240 body armour and a cap on every kill.
New26 new back items: wings, back shields, bags and one beer mug. Fourteen of them are the first back items above level 155, going all the way to 240. Five are made of light alone, like the Moonlit Magic Circle and the Will-o'-Wisps.
FixedPhantom Shadow Wings and Fallen Gabriel Wings no longer flicker as they move.

Combat that keeps up

2026-10-06T12:00:00Z

In long fights, hits used to drift until they landed seconds after the swing that made them. That should be over.

FixedMonsters no longer fall a swing behind. Their hits land with their animation, instead of 2–3 seconds late while your health bar showed more than you had.
FixedYour own hits keep up too. Against a big boss, 85% of them now show within a second of the server deciding them, up from 21%.
FixedMonster spells play when they happen, not 3–5 seconds later.
ChangedThe game and the server now send each message as soon as it's ready. Before, small messages could be held back for up to a fifth of a second.

Small things, done properly

2026-10-07T12:00:00Z

FixedThe mark beside a monster's name means something again. Kings wear the crown (42 bosses wore no mark at all), unique bosses a skull, and archers and casters a bow or a staff. Ordinary monsters lost stars they hadn't earned.
FixedDamage numbers float above tall and flying monsters instead of sinking into their bodies. The names and health bars of big monsters like the Mega Drake and the Wolf King sit above their heads.
FixedNames over heads no longer shake while the camera settles.
FixedA personal shop's sign no longer covers its owner's clan name, and speech bubbles sit above both.
FixedThe blue portal on Eucar's teleporter now shows in the daytime too.
FixedThe new interface's skill bar no longer leaves a gap at 150% scale and above.

For map makers: minimaps in one click

2026-10-06T12:00:00Z

NewThe map editor makes minimaps. Tools › Make minimap draws the open map from above in the original game's style (painted water, a parchment frame, named warp gates) and installs it. The original minimaps were made with a 3ds Max plugin that has been lost for years. The first install keeps a backup, and Restore puts it back.
NewThe map editor shows NPCs and monsters standing as they do in game, instead of with their arms out in a T-pose. Unusually built models, like Hebarn and his horse, no longer come apart.

The Cave of Ulverick, and a desert made whole

2026-10-05T12:00:00Z

The spider cave under Desert of the Dead used to be a party instance. Now it's open to everyone.

NewThe Cave of Ulverick. [Bone Warden] Ossian waits at its mouth in Desert of the Dead and lets you in for 10 Animal Leg Bones and 10 Animal Backbones, which the desert's own beasts drop. The cave's gate takes you back out.
NewInside: camps of Ulverick's Minions (level 128) and a boss in each room. Ulverick's Leader (level 135), Ulverick's General (level 145) and, in the hardest room to reach, King Ulverick himself (level 151). Each has his own loot, and they're the first monsters to drop the new back items.
FixedDesert of the Dead was half empty. More than 500 of its decorations and all six of its buildings never appeared in game. They're back.
FixedThe gate between Anima Lake and Desert of the Dead works again.

A staff that hits like a staff

2026-10-05T12:00:00Z

FixedThe Intrepid Staff and Intrepid Wand (level 210, sold by Huzam in Muris) dealt sword damage on normal attacks, so they hit like a weak club against armoured monsters. They now deal magic damage like every other staff and wand. Skills were never affected.
FixedTorches and lamps on every map stayed dark until you died or changed zone. This bug is as old as the game.
FixedAfter a server restart, monsters are there straight away. Before, a boss on a 30-minute timer was missing for the first half hour.
FixedThree spots in Desert of the Dead and the Goblin Cave that could crash the game.
NewA red item name, for boss loot. The first set of weapons is ready, but nothing drops it yet.

Maps made to order, and the light to see them by

2026-10-04T12:00:00Z

This one is mostly for the map makers among you: two new tools, and two test maps to show what they can do.

NewA map generator. You describe a map (a ravine, a village on a hill, an outpost hidden in the woods) and it builds the whole zone: terrain, ground painting, water, trees, villages borrowed from the original maps, and the lighting. It also checks that nobody can get trapped, that the roads connect, and that what should be seen from the road can be. For now it only does Junon-style grassland, up to 640 m square, with no monsters, NPCs or warps.
NewA lighting tool for maps made or edited in the map editor. It covers the sun's direction and height, how deep shadows go, the shade under trees, the darkness in corners and the colour of the light. Out of the box it matches the original Junon. Torches and lamps aren't baked yet.
NewThe map editor has a fullscreen view (F11) for clean screenshots, and opens packed game clients directly, read-only, including Wish Online's.
ChangedEvery map file the game uses (ZON, HIM, TIL, MOV, IFO, LIT) now has a reader and writer behind it. Together they rebuild all 9,035 of the game's map files byte for byte.
TipRelight a map after every edit in the map editor. The editor numbers object lighting by order and never renumbers it, so deleting one object shifts the lighting of every object after it, and can crash the game.

Riverwatch: a ravine, a bridge, a village you can see from the start

Ledgewood: a low road past the pits, a high road to the tower

Dreadnaughts, and a longer chat

2026-09-30T12:00:00Z

FixedThe Dreadnaughts on Luna's Freezing Plateau look like Dreadnaughts again. Since an old re-levelling of Luna they had been wearing the Mini Mammoth's model.
ChangedThe chat keeps more history, and the new interface got a round of small fixes.

Shibuya becomes a hunting ground

2026-09-29T12:00:00Z

A level 60–80 zone, built as a tribute to the SECONDWALL collaboration.

NewThe Deaders: twelve monsters with their own attacks and spells, including armed police. Deader Rex waits in the plaza.
NewThe Rot Tracker, a rare spawn that can appear after any kill in the zone.
NewSix quests from the band, ending with a hunt for Deader Rex once the first five are done. The rewards are SECONDWALL cosmetics.
NewFences, foliage and railings no longer shimmer at their edges. This needs an NVIDIA card with antialiasing on. Toggle it under Options › Graphics › See-through edges.
FixedA hit of yours that fell behind now lands together with the next one instead of trailing seconds later. Casting a skill no longer swallows the swing you were in the middle of.
FixedMonsters no longer teleport, forget what they were told to do, or show a health bar below zero.
FixedA monster spell whose animation was interrupted still applies its effect.

Shibuya opens; every skill explained properly

2026-09-28T12:00:00Z

NewShibuya and Live House SEVEN: a Tokyo street walk and the survivors' shelter, with shops and storage. Ask Jones in Junon Polis for the way there.
ChangedEvery skill description has been rewritten in plain English and checked against the real numbers. Tooltips now say whether a skill is a buff or a debuff, and give its true chance of working.
ChangedStatus effect names and system messages are in plain English too.
FixedDrain skills heal by the caster's INT, not the victim's.

A new interface, from top to bottom

2026-09-27T12:00:00Z

Every in-game window, rebuilt. The login and character screens keep their classic look.

NewStatus, buffs, skill bar, inventory (with costumes and cart parts), character sheet, party, quest journal, minimap, NPC conversations, shops, trade, storage, personal shops, upgrade, crafting, break down, friends and chat rooms, clan, options and chat.
NewWindows can be moved, locked and scaled from 75 to 200%, and remember where you left them. There is a target frame now.
NewThe skill tree is drawn from the game's own skill data. It shows fifteen skills the old artwork never had room for, including every Cleric buff and Vanish.
FixedSaving your options no longer freezes the game for a second.
FixedYour party sees your maximum HP rise the moment you level up.

A long list of small wrongs, righted

2026-09-22T12:00:00Z

FixedSkill books carry the name of the skill they teach. A handful of books that taught nothing at all are gone from Darren's shelves.
FixedThe walls around Junon Polis' fountain square no longer flash while the camera moves. The same fix covers two dozen other maps.
FixedAngelic and Vengeance arrows fire a projectile again.
FixedIn PvP, attackers no longer stop ten metres short of their target, area skills spare clan mates in clan fields, and Cure works on yourself.
FixedOther players' attack speed shows correctly. Before, everyone around you appeared to swing at the same speed.
FixedGolden, Saint and Demon item variants show their real names. Darren no longer offers the second job quest twice.
FixedDouble-clicking a monster no longer cancels the attack, and a quest "!" only appears over NPCs that actually have one.

Oro rebuilt, Skaaj discovered

2026-09-18T12:00:00Z

NewSkaaj, a small tropical island of cat-folk. There are no monsters, only townsfolk you won't understand until someone teaches you their language.
NewOro has been rebuilt from a later version of the game: ten zones for levels 205–240, each species with its own drops. It is the only place the level 240 armour comes from.
NewBosses cast their full spell lists: the Grand Master Devourer, the Terrasaurus King, Moon Sister Inguz and others.
NewA second level 230 armour line with a different trade-off: more defence, less magic resistance.
ChangedKarkia's two main maps have been thinned into camps. They were holding four times the monsters they were meant to.
FixedA crash when leaving certain zones.