Elden Ring Patch v1.12.3 Includes Balancing Tweaks for Golden Hippopotamus and Commander Gaius Bosses

Elden Ring has received another patch on all platforms, this time targeting bugs and balancing, addressing the “re-fight” against the Golden Hippopotamus and Commander Gaius, so they're now in the same position as the first time you face them.

This is a more substantial patch than the recent ‘Calibration Update’ released for Shadow of the Erdtree, offering a balance adjustment to the "shearing vacuum effect" of the ‘Swift Slash’ skill in PvP,  as well as several balancing tweaks for specific weapons. The update also squashes a fair few bugs.

Elden Ring Patch v1.12.3 is live now across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC - you'll find the patch notes below. You can also read our Elden Ring: Shadow of Erdtree review here.

Elden Ring Patch Notes Version – Version 1.12.3

PvP-exclusive balance adjustments

• Decreased the damage and damage animation of the shearing vacuum effect of the “Swift Slash” Skill.

General balance adjustments

• Increased the Intelligence scaling of the Carian Sorcery Sword and slightly decreased the base damage.
• Extended the throwing attacks range for the following weapons:
• Smithscript Dagger / Smithscript Cirque
• Changed the placement of the bosses in the re-fight against the Golden Hippopotamus and Commander Gaius bosses to be in the same position as in the first fight.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused the Rolling Sparks Skill to deal more damage than expected.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Rolling Sparks and Wall of Sparks Skills to deal no damage while some special effects were applied to the player.
• Fixed a bug where some special effects of a right-handed weapon would also be applied to the following Weapon Skills when cast with the left hand:
  • Feeble Lord's Frenzied Flame
  • Discus Hurl
• Fixed a bug where successfully guarding while attacking using the Thrusting Shield weapon type would consume less stamina than intended.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players from cancelling the attack recovery of two-handed strong attacks by rolling for certain weapons of the Backhand Blades weapon type.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Lightning Perfume Bottle and Frenzyflame Perfume Bottle weapons to deal double damage under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug where the Arcane scaling of the Bloodfiend's Arm weapon was higher than intended when setting an affinity. The status buildup of the heavy attack was also reduced.
• Fixed a bug where the Faith scaling of the Gazing Finger weapon was not being applied correctly.
• Fixed a bug where the damage animation of some attacks of the Fire Knight's Greatsword against players was different than expected.
• Fixed a bug where the attack affinity of some attacks of the Fire Knight's Greatsword were different than expected.
• Fixed a bug that caused some affinities for the following weapons to be higher than intended:
  • Smithscript Dagger
  • Smithscript Cirque
  • Smithscript Axe
  • Smithscript Greathammer
  • Smithscript Spear
  • Golem Fist
  • Smithscript Shield
• Fixed a bug that caused enemies to heal when the Maximum HP reduction gradual HP reduction effect  applied by Black Knife Tiche wore off.
• Fixed a bug that caused summoned NPCs to behave differently than expected under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug that where the unblockable bite attack of the Golden Hippopotamus boss would connect with players more easily than intended.
• Fixed a bug that caused text to display differently than expected.
• Several other performance improvements and bug fixes.

Possible unstable performance fixes

• For the PS5 version of the game, unstable framerate may be improved by using the "Rebuild Database" option from the device’s safe mode.