Elden Ring’s Cursed-Blood Slice quickly nerfed. No more pushing Malenia around

FromSoftware has released update Version 1.09.1 for Elden Ring. In addition to a couple of bug fixes, the update also nerfs the Cursed-Blood Slice skill, which had only very recently been buffed in Version 1.09.

Cursed-Blood Slice is a unique weapon skill found on Morgott’s Cursed Sword. It has a wide attack range and excels at breaking an opponent’s poise. One of the downsides to the skill was the long startup time, but it started to grab the attention of players after it was buffed in Version 1.09, which was released toward the end of March. Specifically, the skill was modified to have “Increased projectile generation speed and reduced recovery time.” Version 1.09 also strengthened Curved Greatswords, the weapon category to which Morgott’s Cursed Sword belongs.

Originally, Morgott’s Cursed Sword and the Cursed-Blood Slice skill were powerful but slow and difficult to use. But these shortcomings were overcome in Version 1.09, and the combo became able to easily annihilate Malenia, one of the strongest enemies in the game.

However, the new Version 1.09.1 makes the following change to Cursed-Blood Slice:

– Decreased the poise damage of the Cursed-Blood Slice Skill.

After checking how different the move feels after the update compared to how it was before, I (the original author of this article) can say that it has certainly become more difficult to defeat Malenia with Morgott’s Cursed Sword. But perhaps it would be better to say that the Malenia fight was made too easy with the Version 1.09 changes. In Version 1.09.1, it is no longer possible to break her poise by simply performing the Cursed-Blood Slice skill with abandon.

Even though Cursed-Blood Slice has been weakened, it is still plenty powerful, and you could say that it has been made more balanced. That said, based on how quickly it was nerfed, you can tell that the developers thought that the strength of Cursed-Blood Slice was a serious issue.

The full patch notes for Version 1.09.1 can be found here.

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-04-19 08:45 JST)