Elden Ring Patch 1.17: The First Major Balance Update in Nearly Two Years

Our June state-of-the-game post covered the Tarnished Edition's Switch 2 launch and the new classes coming with it. What that post couldn't cover yet was patch 1.17 itself, which shipped August 27–28 alongside the Tarnished Pack — and it's a bigger balance update than Elden Ring has seen in nearly two years.

Here's what actually changed in combat.

Weapons and Ashes of War

The bulk of 1.17's changes touch weapon skills and shields:

• Storm Wall no longer costs FP to use — a straightforward buff for anyone running it as a defensive option.
• Parry timing improved across daggers, curved swords, and small shields — if you've bounced off a parry window that felt like it should have landed, this patch is why it might land more often now.
• ~24 shields received more guard boost relative to their weight, making lighter shield builds more viable without sacrificing block quality.
• Great Katana fixes — critical damage against large enemies was adjusted, and jump attacks with Great Katanas are no longer parryable, closing a matchup that felt backwards for anyone using the weapon class seriously.
• Smithscript weapons got mixed changes: the Smithscript Dagger and Rellana's Twin Blades saw critical damage increases, while the Smithscript Axe and Spear got reduced throw stamina cost and faster recovery.

Most of this reads as FromSoftware smoothing out weapon classes that were underperforming relative to their playstyle demands, rather than a wholesale meta shake-up.

Sorcery Buffs Mages Should Know About

If you're running our Astrologer mage build, three changes are directly relevant:

• Founding Rain of Stars and Carian Retaliation both got base damage increases.
• Meteorite — both the standard version and the Astel variant — has a shortened cast animation, meaning a genuinely safer window to fire it off mid-fight than before.

We've updated the mage build guide to reflect all three. None of them dethrone Comet Azur or Rock Sling as your core rotation, but Meteorite's safer cast window in particular is worth working back into your kit if you dropped it for feeling too risky to commit to.

PvP-Specific Adjustments

A couple of changes are aimed squarely at invasions and duels rather than PvE:

• Rakshasa's Great Katana and Rugalea's Roar both received nerfs specifically called out as PvP-motivated.

If you don't invade or duel, these won't change your experience much — but if you've been on the receiving end of either, expect the matchup to feel less lopsided.

What This Doesn't Change

To be clear about scope: this patch is not a boss rebalance. We went looking for boss-specific changes and came up empty for this window — the specific boss nerfs you might have heard about (certain Shadow of the Erdtree bosses, Radahn's final-phase timing) trace back to earlier patches, not 1.17. If your build has been struggling against a specific DLC boss, this patch isn't the reason to try again — but the weapon and sorcery changes above might still help.

Why This Patch Matters

FromSoftware had gone long enough without a substantive balance update that outlets were openly calling 1.17 "the first major update in nearly two years." Combined with the Tarnished Pack's new classes and the Switch 2 launch, it's a genuine signal that Elden Ring is still an actively maintained live game more than four years after release — not just a completed product on life support waiting for the A24 film to bring in new players.

If you haven't touched your build in a while, this is a reasonable moment to dust it off. Full build details are in the Mage Build guide, and if you're curious about the other big thing FromSoftware shipped this year, we've also got a Nightreign starter guide — it's a genuinely different game, not more Elden Ring, and worth understanding before you jump in expecting the same thing.