A new Elden Ring patch just nerfed Shadow of the Erdtree's most overpowered weapon, and also tweaked a crucial Ash of War.
Elden Ring patch 1.12.3 went live earlier today, July 4, making changes like resetting the positions of the Golden Hippopotamus and Commander Gaius when you re-fight them. Elsewhere though, the patch also changed the Bloodfiend's Arm, fixing a bug where the Arcane scaling with the colossal weapon was higher than intended, and reducing the status build-up from the weapon's heavy attacks.
This is huge because it completely decimates a tactic players have been using to destroy Shadow of the Erdtree's final boss in just 11 hits. We won't spoil the final boss themselves here, but the unique skill from the Bloodfiend's Arm was being used to repeatedly stagger foes and lock them in a cycle of never-ending destruction, which should now be over.
Elsewhere, the Rolling Sparks Ash of War, which was making Perfume Bottles similarly overpowered, has been nerfed. A bug was making the Perfume Bottles deal "more damage than expected," which is another tactic gone for players who like to cheese their way through boss fights and PvP combat.
The Lightning and Frenzyflame Perfume Bottles were actually dealing double the damage they were meant to "under certain circumstances," but this again been nerfed straight out of Shadow of the Erdtree. No more wildly overpowered Perfume Bottles for anyone.
Unfortunately, there's no bug fix for the issue where a duplicate of Shadow of the Erdtree's final boss would spawn in for hapless players. It's not really a huge shock - the bug only just came to light over the last few days - but consider this your warning that you could well be facing down two versions of the DLC's dreaded final boss at the same time.
Take a look over our Shadow of the Erdtree weapons guide if you need a new go-to main weapon after these nerfs.
