Elden Ring patches its patch after Endure spell proves too enduring

Elden Ring official artwork — (Image credit: From Software)

Elden Ring recently received a 1.07 update, which was one of the most major attempts FromSoftware has made to deal with the porous line between PvE and PvP in these games. It came with an absolute boatload of changes aimed at multiplayer balance, and decoupled PvE and PvP weapon balancing (albeit, this mainly involved buffing weapons in PvE). It all got a bit live service for a moment.

Possibly too live service, because now the developer's rushed out a patch to the patch, re-tweaking some values and acknowledging that some weapons weren't functioning quite as an Elden Lord might like. Prime among them is the Ash of War art Endure, which had its effect lengthened and let you poise through attacks with decreased damage and respond with an almighty thwack. The direction of this art has now been reduced after Tarnished got a bit too poise-happy, with the buff having "a greater impact on the game balance than expected."

There's a minor tweak to the Inescapable Frenzy incantation, where the FP reduction wasn't being properly reflected, and apparently the 1.07 patch notes also incorrectly assigned a 'charge' mechanic. The incantations Flame of the Fell God and Gurranq's Beast Claw cannot in fact be charged, and this note corrects the previous.

Finally there's an odd bug with the Black Blade incantation, which has a combo element to its attacks: if you cast it from the left hand at the moment, you won't get the follow-up attack. FromSoft is aware of this but hasn't yet fixed it, and promises a correction in a future update.

The patch ends by promising more future game balancing, and the original patch 1.07 does show a game settling in for the PvP long run. The Souls series have these grand player-driven afterlives because, long after you've explored every nook and cranny of the Lands Between, it remains enormous fun to go sallying forth in co-op with newer adventurers, or hunt your fellow grizzled veterans. The list of changes made in this patch is exhaustive: you can see them all here.

TOPICS

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."