Not Just Katanas; New Elden Ring Patch Buffs Large Weapons
Elden Ring has received patch 1.04. The update increases the attack speed of large weapons, adds an option to enable and disable automatic camera rotation, and introduces a ton of changes to the balance of spells, incantations, and ashes of war.
FromSoftware is in no hurry to release new updates for Elden Ring but when they do, they bring significant changes to the gameplay. The same is true for today's patch 1.04, which contains exactly 164 new features and/or fixes (the same number as the number of bosses and minibosses in the game - coincidence? I think not). Downloading the patch is necessary in order to continue playing online.
Large weapon buff
With so many changes it's hard to point out the most important one - in general, we can say that the most important is the adjustment of gameplay for less popular character builds. In less than two months since the release of Elden Ring the most popular weapon type were katanas - mainly due to the relatively high speeds and damage, but above all the effect of bleeding. Using other types of weapons, such as large swords, was therefore not very reasonable in the long run.
Meanwhile patch 1.04 has increased the attack speed of all large (colossal) tools of murder - from spears and halberds, through swords and axes, to hammers. This change doesn't just include jumping attacks. It should encourage players to experiment with different types of character builds.
Balanced balance
The more so because the update has also changed the balance of dozens of spells, incantations and ashes of war - what's important, in most cases for the better, not worse. Improvements mainly affect the speed of using individual skills and their regeneration time. Sometimes they also reduce the number of stamina or concentration points required to use a given ability. In some cases, they also affect damage, range or so-called hitboxes.
Stability & camera
However, this is not the end of the changes. Fans of raiding other players' worlds will be happy to know that the stability of multiplayer mode has been improved. A very useful - especially on controllers - should be a strictly technical option, enabling us to turn on or off the automatic camera rotation when we track an enemy - whoever has never fallen into an abyss or died in a boss fight because of its absence, let him cast the first stone.
Patches and other bugs
Last, but not least, we should note the expansion of Patches' story with a few new stages (is it possible that his quest has finally come to an end?), as well as the elimination of dozens of small and large bugs. The most appreciated by the community seems to be the possibility of being invaded by NPCs known as Edgar the Revenger and Festering Fingerprint Vykewhen we have defeated all the bosses in Lake Liurnia.
Tip of the iceberg
You can read about all the 164 changes here. Patch 1.04 is available on all platforms where Elden Ring is available, which means PC, PS4, PS5, XOne and XSX|S.
