The first Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree patch nerfs the boss-melting explosive perfumes into the ground

A wielder of a Lightning Perfume bottle in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree charges up for a vicious attack.

(Image credit: FromSoftware)

FromSoftware's major Elden Ring expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, has arrived to a rapturous reception: including the highest score PC Gamer's ever given a piece of DLC (sorry, Geralt). There have been a few unforeseen issues, of course, prime among which was the deadliest bottle of perfume ever known, capable of absolutely melting through Erdtree's fearsome bosses.

The culprit was the Lightning Perfume Bottle's standard moveset, which creates a series of individual explosions: combining this with the Rolling Sparks Ash of War and aiming at the ground had the unintended effect of making every explosion detonate instantly and on top of one another, resulting in unholy damage numbers that could obliterate the final boss in 13 seconds. This also worked with the Frenzyflame perfume bottle. Well FromSoftware nose what you've all been up to, and today's new patch nerfs that sweet smell of success into the ground.

After the patch, aiming the perfume combo at the ground will result in just a single weedy little explosion. This wasn't the only dialling back on a tool with unexpected behaviours: players have been using the spiky shields to sleepwalk through boss fights, thanks to a glitch that meant thrusting into attacks both defended you and didn't use up stamina like it should have. Alas, no more.

Those are the most extreme nerfs, but there are also tweaks to the Bloodfiend's Arm, which was scaling with arcane more than intended, while the Carian Sorcery Sword has had its base damage reduced but its Int scaling increased. There's also one PvP specific nerf: "Decreased the damage and damage animation of the shearing vacuum effect of the 'Swift Slash' Skill."

Some players have been having issues with Erdtree's performance, and this patch addresses some of the problems, though not all. It also, rather cheekily, puts the blame on third party mouse software and players' own ray tracing settings. The rest of the patch notes are minor tweaks and bugfixes, and can be read in full here. They contain one especially magnificent line:

"Fixed a bug where the unblockable bite attack of the Golden Hippopotamus boss would connect with players more easily than intended."

The poor Golden Hippopotamus! The patch is live now, and will be required to use the game's online features. I haven't even got close to the end of Erdtree yet, but the game's large community has torn it apart in the weeks since launch: the final boss is apparently a total nightmare, but some maniacs are already dancing through one of FromSoft's biggest challenges without so much as a scratch.

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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."