Revision 6

Drakantos uses three interconnected systems, Orbs, Artifacts, and Trophies, to let players modify and enhance their Heroes beyond base leveling. Because the same character can be configured in many ways, a single hero can feel distinctly different depending on the orbs, artifacts, and trophies attached to it. Together these systems form the build layer behind both the Open World and Adventurer's Guild content and competitive play.

System Overview

The table below summarizes how the three systems differ and how many of each a hero uses. Individual orb, artifact, and trophy stats are not published, so this wiki does not list per-item numbers.

Orbs

Orbs are rare items that change what a hero's skill does. They work like talents, so equipping different orbs changes how a skill functions and opens up alternative approaches to the same hero. Because they are items rather than a fixed talent tree, orbs are something to chase in the endgame: players hunt for new builds and rare drops over time. New orbs can be released with updates, which means even an older hero can gain new skills, different builds, or fresh mechanics long after release. Orbs are tied to a specific hero rather than shared across an account.

Orbs attach to specific skills rather than to the hero as a whole, so a hero's orb pool is organised around its individual abilities. A February 2025 development pass added four new orbs to every hero covering their defensive abilities, which gives some sense of the granularity: a single ability can have several orbs competing for it. Each hero's skills, orbs, and artifacts also carry short animated clips inside their in-game descriptions, so a player can watch what a piece actually does before committing to it.

One ability is left out. As of the August 2025 build, ultimates could not take an orb even though the system was capable of supporting it. The plan described instead was alternate ultimates, which would swap a hero's ultimate for a different one and can change what the hero is for, rather than orbs that adjust the existing one. Nothing has been published since to say whether that has shipped.

Artifacts

Each hero can equip up to four artifacts: two active and two passive. The two active artifacts function as two extra skills, while the two passives add supporting effects, and the combination of the four opens up many possible builds and combos. Artifacts are account-wide: an artifact is unlocked on the account and can be used by almost any hero, so investment carries across the roster rather than being locked to one character. Over 200 artifacts exist, and around 200 active skills have been created across them, giving players a deep pool of options to pursue.

Artifacts do not run on plain cooldowns. As of a rework announced in July 2026, they draw on focus, a resource the hero generates in combat, and each artifact carries its own focus cost. Spending is therefore a budgeting decision inside a fight rather than a wait: a build weighted toward expensive artifacts gets fewer uses out of the same fight than one built from cheap ones, and focus generation depends on staying active. The same rework added one more artifact slot, which the developers said was meant to widen build variety and let players hold a situational artifact back for the right moment. The resulting total per hero has not been stated, so this page does not give one.

Focus replaced an earlier charge economy, and that history is worth keeping because most material written before mid-2026 describes it. Under the charge system, each artifact had a limited number of uses per mission, boss fight, or match, plus a short residual cooldown in the region of five to ten seconds. The studio had moved to charges from pure cooldowns in early 2024 for a specific reason: a cooldown pushes a player to fire everything the moment it comes back up, which suits a damage ability but works badly for a shield or a reposition that needs to land at one exact moment. Focus keeps that timing freedom while tying the number of uses to how a player is actually performing in the fight. Anything describing artifact charges, including the halved-charge rule the second closed beta used in the shorter arena modes, reflects the pre-July-2026 build.

Two smaller rules sit on the artifact pool. Artifacts come in rarity tiers, with blue, purple, and gold among them, and a small number are restricted rather than universal: the developers' example is a nature artifact that only elven heroes can equip, so class and race can gate an individual piece even though the pool as a whole is account-wide.

Named Artifacts

Very few artifacts have been named publicly, and none have published numbers. The examples below were described by the developers when a batch of new artifacts was added in late 2025, and they show the kind of effect the system is built around: repositioning, protection, and turning an enemy's own attack back on them rather than flat damage boosts.

One further category is confirmed without individual names. A set of artifacts lets a player temporarily switch to another hero on their account mid-fight, which the developers presented as a way to build burst combos across two kits rather than one. Because artifacts are account-wide, that swap draws on the roster described on the Heroes page.

Upgrades

Artifacts and trophies are not static once acquired. Equipment, artifacts, and trophies all have upgrade paths driven by recipes, and the studio described finishing the full set of upgrade systems and configurations as hundreds of recipes in one development update. Those recipes drop as rewards in their own right alongside the items, so a run can advance a build by supplying either the artifact or the means to improve one already owned. Upgrades follow the same account-wide rule as the artifacts and trophies themselves, so progress made while playing one hero applies wherever that piece is equipped.

How the Artifact Pool Grew

The artifact roster was built up over roughly two years of development updates. The table records the counts the studio published as it went, which is useful context for reading any older figure that is still circulating.

Trophies

Trophies provide two passive abilities and serve as the passive counterpart to artifacts. Where the active artifacts add new skills, trophies add hero passives that shape how a build behaves without taking up an active slot. They are part of the same build layer as orbs and artifacts and contribute to a hero's overall power and playstyle.

The developers describe trophies plainly as hero passives for builds. The set has been revised more than once: an update in late 2025 revisited older trophies and introduced new ones, and a rework of the trophy passive system was named as an upcoming focus at the same time. Trophy specifics should therefore be read as the most likely of the three systems to change before launch.

Coliseum Medals

Trophies are bought rather than dropped, and the currency comes from the Coliseum. Clearing the waves there ends in a one-on-one duel against an opponent that fights like a player rather than like a monster, and winning pays out medals tied to the specific hero you played.

Those medals then split the trophy catalogue in two. Neutral trophies can be bought with medals from any hero, while a hero's own trophies can only be bought with that hero's medals. The restriction is on the purchase, not the use: once a trophy is bought it obeys the same account-wide rule as everything else on this page, so every hero on the account can equip it.

Medals are tradable through the player market, which the developers expect to produce a real supply-and-demand curve. Heroes that are comfortable in a duel yield medals easily and should trade cheaply, while medals from heroes that are awkward one-on-one should command more, so a player who is good with a difficult hero has something to sell.

Build Presets

A preset system lets you arrange up to four build presets of orbs and artifacts per hero. This makes it easy to swap an entire build for different situations: one preset for general PvE, another tuned for PvP, and others built around specific maps or bosses. Instead of re-slotting items by hand each time, you can switch presets to change how a hero plays for the content in front of you.

Builds in PvP

In PvP Modes, all stats are equalized and maxed, so matches come down to skill and strategy rather than grind. Trophies and artifacts are maximized as well, which means their unlock is not required to compete on equal footing. A maxed artifact or trophy shows its full effect in PvP even if you have not unlocked it through normal play, so every player is testing builds at full strength. Mode length still shapes how much a build can spend, since the longer Assault matches leave more room to regenerate and spend focus than the shorter modes do. During the second closed beta, which ran on the older charge economy, that was expressed as a flat halving of artifact charges in Control and Escort.

Cross-Account Progression

Artifacts, trophies, and cosmetics are shared across all heroes on a single account. Progress made while playing one hero benefits the others, which encourages players to try multiple characters without feeling like they are starting over. Levels and gear are tied to individual heroes, but the artifact and trophy layer is account-wide, so the build options you unlock travel with you across the roster.