- Elden Ring Nightreign receives a massive balance patch today
- It coincides with the release of the free Deep of Night expansion
- The new content provides even harder challenges
Elden Ring Nightreign‘s free Deep of Night expansion has arrived, taunting eager Nightfarers with the prospect of even harder challenges.
The new content adds several modifiers to your expeditions. The Nightlord boss is selected at random, and you won’t know which it is until entering the boss room on the third day. Furthermore, weapons you pick up can have both positive and detrimental effects. Successfully clearing a Deep of Night expedition will increase your depth level, further raising the challenge and making it possible to get even more enticing rewards.
It sounds horrifying, but developer FromSoftware isn’t averse to evening the odds, at least somewhat. To that end, publisher Bandai Namco has posted patch notes for the game that have gone live alongside the Deep of Night update.
There are a handful of bug fixes and general improvements on offer here, as well as some tweaking to Everdark Sovereign fights. But the highlight is the various changes and buffs made to Nightreign’s playable Nightfarers, which should help to smooth out some of the frustrations you might have with your favorite. As a Duchess main, I can tell you that I’m pretty happy with the changes here.
You can read the full patch notes via the link above, but if you just want to glance at the Nightfarer changes, I’ve listed them below.
Wylder
- Increased Poise while casting Claw Shot.
- Increased Stamina damage dealt by Claw Shot to blocking enemies.
Guardian
- Increased Strength and Dexterity gain when leveling up.
- Increased the Steel Guard passive ability angle range.
- Increased the range of the Wings of Salvation Ultimate Art’s weapon portion.
- Increased the attack power of Halberd guard counters.
Duchess
- Increased Dexterity gain when leveling up.
- Increased the attack power of some Dagger attacks.
- Decreased the two-handed Dagger’s second heavy attack damage.
- This change does not affect charged attacks.
- Increased the duration of the Finale Ultimate Art.
Raider
- Increased the Greataxe’s and Great Hammer’s ability to stagger enemies with attacks.
- Increased the attack range of the Retaliation skill.
Revenant
- Adjusted the transparency of Revenant’s summoned spirits.
- Players can now pass through Revenant’s spirits Helen and Frederick.
Recluse
- Increased the offensive spells attack power of Magic Cocktail.
- Decreased the time required to cast spells using Magic Cocktail.
Executor
- Increased attack power while Cursed Sword is in use.
- Increased the attack power of the Cursed Sword weapon skill when the skill is in use and the blade is in its unleashed state.
- Increased the attack power of some attacks while Aspects of the Crucible: Beast is active.
You might have noticed that there are no direct changes for the Ironeye Nightfarer, the gang’s ranged specialist.
I would guess this is because he’s already an incredibly powerful option in a multiplayer environment thanks to his relatively safe play style and supportive attack-boosting buffs. Whenever I play with friends, we almost always have an Ironeye in the squad.
As a result, it’s likely FromSoftware didn’t feel the need to administer any changes to him at this stage.