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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree just got a little easier thanks to a new patch that makes Scadutree buffs stronger, and my own before-and-after experience with one of the expansion's more notorious bosses made it seem like a night-and-day change. But players have now done the math on the new buffs, and the numbers are so small I don't know what to believe anymore.
The Fextralife wiki shows exact numbers on how the Shadow of the Erdtree Scadutree Fragments affect your damage and defense in the DLC. Before the patch, the first blessing level would give you 1.05x damage dealt and 0.952 damage received, roughly a five percent buff on both stats. The progression from there was pretty linear - a full 20 blessing levels would get you to double damage dealt and half damage received.
Since the patch, things have changed slightly. At max blessing level, you now deal 2.05x damage and take 0.487x damage. That's a roughly 2.5% buff to both stats, which is nice, but not exactly earth-shattering. The big change is that earlier blessing levels are now more powerful, which weights the progression curve to give players a slightly easier time earlier in the DLC.
For me, the difference seemed pretty extreme. I spent about two hours trying to figure out how to beat Rellana in Shadow of the Erdtree last night, and never managed to get her below 25% health. This morning, after the update dropped, I took another shot and beat her in about 10 minutes, and on the winning effort I'd even forgotten to hit the helpful NPC summon on the way in.
I thought it was all thanks to the new buff, but I was at blessing level four and apparently that means I got an additional 8.3% buff to damage and a 7.6% buff to defense. That doesn't seem like quite enough to make up for the deficit I faced against Rellana. Does that mean these buffs are better than they look? Am I bad at judging the value of stat increases? Or was the real help the good night's sleep and cup of coffee I got in the meantime? These questions are sure to haunt me as I get deeper into the Realm of Shadow.
