'Elden Ring': How Strong Are Arcane Weapons After The Patch?

All of the bugged Arcane-based weapons in “Elden Ring” recently got fixed in the latest 1.03 patch and so far, they’ve surpassed the community’s expectation in terms of raw damage output in both PvE and PvP.

Before the 1.03 update, the physical damage on weapons like the Marais Executioner’s Sword and the Rivers of Blood did not scale off of Strength and Dexterity stats. This lack of scaling meant that these weapons did pitiful damage even on-hit when fully upgraded, but they were still able to deal constant Blood Loss procs because of their ability to stack bleed.

Now, these weapons have risen to the top of the food chain, especially the fast-hitting ones like Eleonora’s Poleblade.

As it stands, these Arcane weapons now scale similarly to other weapons with Blood infusions. They won’t deal as much damage on-hit due to relatively low scaling values, but it’s still better than nothing.

Their primary source of damage is still the Blood Loss effect, which they can still reliably trigger in just a few hits. Fully upgrading an Arcane weapon will now cause its innate scaling from STR and DEX to increase, as like all other weapons, but each upgrade tier also increases the bleed amount inflicted per hit.

The improved base damage combined with Blood Loss procs makes these weapons very effective against bosses, especially ones that are weak to bleeding like Malenia and beast-type enemies. They’ll still struggle with bleed-immune or bleed-resistant enemies like Gargoyles and Crucible Knights, however.

Compared to other options, Arcane weapons are still weak in the early stages of the game. Other weapons that scale primarily off of STR or DEX will be able to inflict higher DPS in general considering they don’t outright kill opponents.

On the other hand, bleed-based weapons have the advantage in drawn-out fights. Even a base-level Rivers of Blood can defeat an Ancient Dragon with Blood Loss procs alone, and the same is true against players in PvP scenarios considering how quickly the Corpse Piler skill can land hits.

“Elden Ring” will, without a doubt, enter a Blood Loss meta after the patch and so far, it’s too early to tell whether or not FromSoft will nerf bleed damage, in general, to compensate for the dominance of these weapons in the game.