Dark Souls 3 patch nerfs the powerful Dark Sword

If you've updated Dark Souls 3 recently, your Dark Sword will be slightly less effective.

Dark Souls 3 patch nerfs the powerful Dark Sword

Perhaps Dark Souls 3's best all-time weapon is the Dark Sword, which combines the heavy-damage of Greatswords with the speed of a lighter straight sword. This has led to some utterly devastating Dark Sword builds, which is wonderful, but you might have noticed they became slightly less effective since last weekend. That's because the latest Dark Souls 3 patch has reduced its effectiveness by five percent along with a host of additional tweaks to various weapons.

Yes, the Dark Sword received a slight nerf, but it wasn't the only once. For example, the Scholar's Candle saw "reduced sorcery-strengthening properties" while its effectiveness was reduced to 12.5 percent. On the plus side, some other weapons and abilities have received boosts which give them more of an edge in battle. The full list of official changes are included below:

• All Dagger weapons: increased critical attack power.
• Dark Sword: reduced weapon efficiency.
• Anri’s Straight Sword: reduced scaling effects.
• Wolnir’s Holy Sword: added faith scaling and adjusted weapon efficiency accordingly.
• Crescent Moon Sword: added intelligence scaling and adjusted weapon efficiency accordingly.
• Morne’s Great Hammer: added faith scaling and adjusted weapon efficiency accordingly.
• Lothric’s Holy Sword: added faith scaling and adjusted weapon efficiency accordingly.
• Yorshka’s Spear: increased FP damage effects.
• Scholar’s Candlestick: reduced sorcery-strengthening properties.
• Demon’s Fist: reduced weight.
• Greatsword of Judgement: increased attack power.
• Heysel’s Pick: increased intelligence scaling.
• All shield-piercing weapons: added shield-piercing properties to regular attacks.
• All Skills that enchant a weapon with special properties: extended length of effect.
• Obscuring Ring: increased distance at which ring takes effect.
• Hornet Ring: adjusted efficiency.
• Black Serpent: adjusted tracking.
• Lightning Stake: now requires 1 attunement slot.
• Magic Barrier/Great Magic Barrier: extended length of effect.
• Divine Pillars of Light: increased attack power.
• White Dragon Breath: reduced stamina consumption.
• All Bug Pellet items: extended length of effect.
• Addressed other game balance issues and fixed other flaws.

Dark Souls 3 is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.