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[Review] Winners and Losers: Analysis of Patch 2.8.6 Notes in Infinity Kingdom

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Article Publish : 08/04/2025 14:57

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💠Introduction

What’s up, folks? Welcome to this month’s edition of Winners and Losers for Patch 2.8.6. Patch 2.8.6 will be released on Thursday, August 7. The patch contains a new feature, new skills, buffs, and several optimizations. Let’s take a look at what the patch entails, the winners and losers of this patch, as well as how the changes might affect new and seasoned players.

💠Table of Contents

Pinnacle Trial Ranking
New Skills
Buffs
Optimizations
Summary

💠Pinnacle Trial Ranking

The community has been suggesting that the monthly events have gotten stale and repetitive. Patch 2.8.6 will throw a wrench into the Pinnacle Trial portion. The Trial Ranking will feature a top ten leaderboard after players complete certain stages. Stages will reward points, and others will be able to challenge anyone on the list. Players will get one attempt per day, and winners will earn Trial Ranking points. At the end of the event, rewards will be given based on your ranking. This is a great addition and a chance for players to earn more rewards. Unfortunately for low-tier and free-to-play players, spenders will have more skills and immortals at their disposal to make the rankings easier to climb. Regardless, this should spice up the monthly events.

Winners: Mid and high-tier players

Losers: N/A

💠New Skills

The patch will bring two new skills with it. The Legendary skill Knife Through Butter deals 60% + 20% per level, 200% at max level, Physical Damage to all enemies and has a 60% chance to reduce the enemies’ energy by 90 + 30 per level, 300 at max level, after the immortal lands six normal attacks. This is an incredible skill to counter the rapidly increasing energy gain for backline units. Immortals who can utilize attack speed well, like Hannibal Barca and Alexander, will reap the benefits. Both units already love AoE damage with Assembly Charge, Cleave, and Wind Rage, so this should fall right into their wheelhouse. To a lesser extent, front-line Physical Damage carries will also be able to use it. Emperor Qin will also be even more desirable as his ultimate increases attack speed. It will be obtainable through the Wisdom Well.

Winners: Alexander, Barca, and other frontline attackers as well as Qin

Losers: Backline primary damage dealers making use of Energy Mastery, Corrosive Power, Infinite Firepower, and support specializations

The second skill, Iron Curtain, can be acquired through the Recharge Gift Packs in Conquest Servers. The skill allows normal attacks to have an 18% + 6% per level, 60% at max level, chance to weaken barrier effects on enemies by 30% for 3 seconds. Additionally, if the immortal’s troop count is above 70%, the immortal will take 10.5% + 3.5% per level less damage, 35% at max level. Alexander and Barca get even more love. They are the two immortals who utilize attack speed the most effectively. Qin benefits for the same reason as above. In my opinion, it should work better for mixed Earth marches than if Alexander and Barca are alone. The skill shouldn’t be as good as their current favorites, but can be placed on the one who doesn’t have them. There were already shield weakening effects in the game, which made the community turn to YSS. This skill will further impact Charles and Energy Shield.

Winners: Mixed Earth marches

Losers: Charles, Energy Shield

💠Buffs

Several Holy immortals also got some love in this patch. Firstly, in addition to the Control Immunity Manco Capac’s ultimate already affords him and his Holy brethren, Manco will also be immune to Confuse effects from the likes of Loki and Lost Dimension after channeling for 15 seconds. Manco was already seldom used because he’s difficult to get and specialize, and his damage just pales in comparison to other attackers. The 25% increase in Dodge Rate for allies is also not significant, as there are so many Accuracy bonuses in the game. I do not believe the addition of Confuse Immunity will push Manco over the top and make him viable again. Nonetheless, it’s a buff.

Winners: Manco

Losers: N/A

Khubilai Khan will also receive a buff. The damage of each wolf will increase from 72% + 24% per level, 240% at max level, to 78% + 26% per level, 260% at max level. In total, all five wolves will deal 100% more damage, split among random immortals. This is not much of a buff, especially since the wolves target random units. This is more of a placebo than anything else and won’t make Khubilai Khan any more viable in PvP. It’s a good buff against Titantula and Rift Breaker.

Winners: Khubilai Khan

Losers: No one should care about this buff

Lastly, Nebuchadnezzar II will get a slight energy regeneration buff. It’s increasing from 66 points per second to 83 points per second. This is a much-needed buff as his current energy regeneration is disgustingly low. Unfortunately for Nebu, it’s still low with this buff, and his energy regeneration isn’t why players aren’t using him. Like the other two, Holy immortals are relatively expensive to get, and there are better immortals that do what he does, but better. Nebuchadnezzar just doesn’t do anything well enough to justify spending on him. He doesn’t deal enough damage as a backline immortal carry, and he doesn’t increase healing enough. Additionally, support skills are just better in the current meta.

Winners: Nebuchadnezzar II

Losers: No one should care about this buff

💠Optimizations

There are two optimizations and changes that all players should care about in this patch. First and most importantly, the cost of Gems needed to restore prosperity will increase with each subsequent recovery, and it resets daily. This means if you keep recovering prosperity with Gems, at some point, it will become unaffordable. This change will play a massive role in upcoming KvK seasons. I believe this will also hurt mid-tier players the most. Free-to-play and low-tier players will unlikely spend a lot of Gems to restore prosperity anyway, so it won’t affect them too much. High-tier players have so many Gems that it would take a lot for them to feel the hurt. Mid-tier players have just enough Gems to recover, but not enough to wave it off. Garrisons will become increasingly important.

Winners: Servers with a lot of bodies to throw at enemies

Losers: Mid-tier players

The second important change is the increase in the migration cap of each server. The cap will increase from two to three million power to four to six million power. This means even if the King sets the cap to the lowest of four million, certain players will still be able to bypass the limitations. If someone wanted to go rogue on a server, it would be easier to do so. I don’t see the point of this change.

Winners: Rogues

Losers: Everyone else

💠Summary

Patch 2.8.6 has a little bit of everything, from new features to new skills and buffs. Pinnacle Trial Ranking will accompany the monthly events. Two new skills will make Alexander, Barca, and mixed Earth marches in general more relevant. Three Holy immortals got placebo buffs. We’ll see prosperity play more of a role in future KvKs, and migration caps will mean less after the patch.

What do you think about the upcoming patch? Let me know in the comments below!