Elden Ring Patch 1.08 Update: Colosseum DLC, PvP Balance Changes, PvP Game Modes, Bug Fixes & More

In this guide, we're going to be talking about Elden Ring patch 1.08 that just dropped for PC and consoles just a couple of hours ago and we're going to cover the new features added to the game including the Coliseum, as well as balancing changes, weapon buffs and bug fixes.

Elden Ring Patch 1.08 - Free Colosseum Update, PvP Game Modes, PvP Balancing, Weapon Buffs & Nerfs 

The most recent update to the Elden Ring patch notes 1.08 brings with it not just additional balancing changes and bug fixes, but also a brand-new PVP feature called the Colosseums. Team up with your friends or enter the arena solo to test your prowess in a number of unique combat trials found in Colosseums scattered across The Lands Between. Now let's get straight into the complete patch notes for Elden Ring update 1.08, including the new Colosseum update.

1. Colosseum Update for Version 1.08

(1)The Colosseums of Limgrave, Caelid and Leyndell are now open.

There are three coliseums in the game, there is one in Limgrave, there is one in the Leyndell area of the game - the Royal Coliseum and then there is the Caelid Colosseum. So there are three possible locations to do this from and you can find in any one of these. Each Colosseum has its own set of rules, but the easiest way to access this mode is to go to Roundtable Hold and there's a new America statue there by the fireplace that you can access and enter these Colosseums. It seems like in order to select a specific Colosseum that you must have visited and opened the doors of these locations in person at least once. So if you haven't done that to any of the Colosseums in your playthrough, you'll probably notice that you're not able to select anything from the statue. So if you're having that issue, go to Limgraves CM, open the doors there and then go back to the Statue and see if that fixes the issue for you. You may have to do this with all three of the Colosseums in order to be able to activate all of them. 

PvP game modes: So there are two game modes available, there is United combat which is team based where you can play 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3, there is a password so you can play with your friends, if you want to play with your friends against other people, we expect this to be a thing probably be tournaments done and we will probably have our own tournament in the future. Each death counts as points, players are able to respawn and the team with the highest score at the end of the time limit wins. 

The other game mode is combat ordeal, this is a free-for-all game mode essentially every player for himself, you can change the number of players two four six or any number. So if you don't want to wait you can have 3 people or 5 people and it works similarly, people can respawn until the timer hits zero, the person with most points wins, so you have those options. Those are available at the Limgrave Coliseum.

If you want to do duels, the Royal Colosseum found in Leyndell has a dual mode which allows two tarnish to face off against each other in a one death thing, there's no respawn here. So first player to kill the other player wins the duel, there are no points. So if you're a big fan of dueling, you will probably spend the most of your time in the Royal Colosseum.

The Caelid Colosseum features all those game modes including the Dual mode, but players are allowed to use the spirit ashes, so they can summon them. So this could be crazy, you could have 6 players free-for-all with everyone's spirit ashes with their tear ash, that is a basically a copy of themselves, fighting that can be absolutely insane or you could have duels where people are using their spirit summons and it can make things more interesting for those who are getting tired of regular duels can mix it up a little bit. people haven't really gotten to PvP with this aspect before, so this is a brand new thing. 

(2)New hairstyles for character creation have been added. These ar also available during character edition by using the Round Hold Clouded Mirror Stand.

Besides this, a few new hairstyles have been added to the game, so if you've been searching for some more fashion, then you're going to get your wish here with a couple new hairstyles .

2. PvP Exclusive Adjustments & PvP Balancing

Then we are going to run through the PVP exclusive balance adjustments. These apply only to PVP not when you're playing in single player cooperatively, so disregard these if you're not doing those. That will get us wrapped up with PVP so we can move on to adjustments that affect all players.

(1) Reduced thrusting weapons counterattack damage.

First up, we have the counter attack damage for thrusting weapons reduced in PvP. The thrust counter attack damage is essentially damaged you deal with thrusting type damage while an enemy is attacking you with like a forward swing. This happens a lot in PvP because a lot of times you're trading blows and getting that increased damage with counters is really beneficial of thrusting weapons. 

(2) Reduced guard efficiency when attacking with your shield up for some weapon types.

They've also reduced the guard efficiency when attacking with your shield up. So if you're holding like a thrusting weapon and you're throttling and you're just poking, they reduce the damage. Obviously, the theme with these is they're trying to reduce that Shield Up Turtle gameplay.

(3) The poison damage of the following weapons have been reduced: straight swords, thrusting swords, heavy thrusting swords, curved swords, axes, spears, twinblade swords, katanas.

(4) Reduced the poise damage of the incantation bestial sling.

They've also reduced the poise damage of Bestial Sling, that's a popular one in PvP for staggering people.

(5) Reduced the power of the spell carian slicer.

They've reduced the power of the spell carrying slicer, this is a spell that you can just absolutely spam at will, people probably in PvP haven't done a ton of PVP or just mashing R1 attacking way faster than other players and melting them before they can do anything. So the damage of that has been reduced.

3. General Gameplay Adjustments For 1.08 Update

There are a bunch of general adjustments which will also affect PVP as well as PVE, but that's not a ton of PVP exclusive changes:    

- They've increased the speed and distance of some attacks and reduced the recovery time for daggers, axes, hammers and flails, a dual wielded. Maybe that's because people don't dual wield these weapons all that much daggers probably, but we don't see people really do a wielding axis Hammers and flails, they're trying to encourage people to use these weapons more since they're not seeing a lot of play particularly in the dual wield setup.     

- They've also increased the speed of some attacks and reduce the recovery time for two-handed twin blades, people don't tend to two-hand them as much as they do dual wield, reaper, fist claw, so these weapons should be more effective.

- They've also slightly increased the speed of crouching and rolling attacks with colossal swords. 

- They've increased the stagger damage of axis guard counters making them more viable when you're using guard counters with them.

- They've increased the poise when attacking with two-handed hammers meaning it's going to be harder for you to interrupt it when you're attacking with these weapon types of two-handed.

- They've increased the poison damage of claws without changing the weapon art, so you're going to stagger bosses or enemies more regularly with claw attacks.

- They've increased the poise value during the active part of stamp and upward cut/sweep, the weapon art itself is going to make it harder for you to get staggered out of these animations.

- They've increased the poise damage to the weapon slash part of Transient Moonlight and reduce the poise damage of the wave. So effectively, this is probably a nerf from moonvale because now you have to connect with a weapon to get roughly the same poise damage that you did before and you're not going to get as much poise damage off the wave part itself, meaning that you have to be a lot closer to the target. Probably in most cases, this will roughly translate to be about the same poise damage especially on big bosses where you get in close anyway, but in terms of PVP or if you're fighting enemies from far away, it's going to be less effective in general.   

- They've reduced the speed of thrusting swords and heavy thrusting swords crouching attacks. These were being abused, they reduced the stagger caused by a double-handed heavy thrusted sword jump attacks. 

- They've reduced the poise damage of hammers, great hammers and some colossal weapons. The weapon arts remain unchanged. This isn't surprising these weapons have the highest stagger damage in the game. 

- They've reduced the poise damage of the Cragblade Weapon Art.

- They've reduced the hitbox duration of the flame portion of flaming strike, so if you cast out waving flaming strike’s fire, it's not going to last as long and people won’t run into it after it's been cast as easily. 

- They've reduced the poise damage of the flame of the Redmanes Weapon Art.

- They've reduced the time it takes to activate the guard part of the shield bash weapon art.

- They've reduced the poise damage of the gravity bolt weapon art. This thing is nuts on the falling star Beast Jaw. This thing could stagger bosses in like 2 or 3 hits from like all a screen away.

Bug Fixes for Patch 1.08 Elden Ring

There were several bug fixes, probably the most notable one though is a bug where stamina would replenish when switching to a crouching position while running. People were absolutely abusing this, people will no longer be able to do that. 

- Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented consumable items from being replenished when teleporting to a grace from the map.

- Fixed a bug where stamina would replenish when switching to a crouching position while running.

- Fixed a bug where Spell, Incantation, and item input actions were ignored while guarding against attacks.

- Fixed incorrect physical attack values of some attacks of the Serpent-Hunter weapon.

- Fixed a bug that prevented the follow-up attack from occurring when the Black Sword Incantation was activated with a Sacred Seal in the left hand.

- Fixed a bug where the attack power of the right hand weapon was sometimes applied when casting the Inescapable Frenzy Incantation with a two-handed Sacred Seal in the left hand.

- Fixed a bug that could cause multiple damage instances when certain Spells and Incantations were casted while jumping.

- Fixed a bug that caused Weapon Arts to be incorrectly used with specific combinations of weapon and Weapon Arts.