Elden Ring balance update makes the first half of the DLC easier, so you don't have to be as good as games journalists

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree has gotten its first balance patch, and it's a small but impactful one. This balance calibration, posted on the official Elden Ring website, has significantly improved the stat enhancements granted with initial Shadow Realm Blessings: Scadutree blessings and Revered Spirit Ashes.

This should make those early bosses like Rellana and the Divine Beast Dancing Lion a bit easier for those still struggling to get past them. In fact, it should allow players to tackle much of the first 50% of the DLC without doing as much exploration - great news for those who want to bash their heads against Messmer relatively early.

This comes in the wake of a swarm of negative reviews and criticism directed at the DLC by some players, asserting it was too hard to be fun and difficult to really get into. Some have even created mods for the game that lower the impact of the Scadutree fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes in order to make it similar in difficulty to the base game.

One of these was even dubbbed a 'journalist mode', despite the fact that, you know, a lot of journalists and guides writers beat the game un-patched prior to its release without being able to look online for assistance.

It's no lie that the DLC is hard! This solution, which will push players past some of the earlier roadblocks, should allow them to go wild exploring the rest of the map and sweep up the rest of the Shadow Realm Blessings. The reason why it's a smart solution is this - the latter levels of these blessings are less impactful, which should make players who reach the higher echelons of upgrades at roughly the same level pre and post patch.

That means that, even if this update allows you to get further into the DLC, those later bosses will still pack a punch. Just wait until the final boss...now they were difficult!

Let us know what you think of this update below? Was it needed?