BODY: Greatshield mains, your day has come. On August 27, FromSoftware rolled out Ver. 1.17 for Elden Ring โ the first substantial balance overhaul the game has seen in a while โ and the headline change is a dramatic buff to the Tarnished's biggest slabs of metal.
Greatshields across the board have received boosted guard stats alongside noticeably reduced weight, a rare combination that addresses the class's long-standing problem: shields heavy enough to wreck your equip load for defense that didn't always justify the cost. With Ver. 1.17, hiding behind a wall of steel becomes both more effective and far less punishing to your rolls and stamina.
The update doesn't stop at turtling. Parrying โ a high-skill, high-reward defensive option โ has also been tuned to feel more rewarding, giving aggressive counter-players more incentive to trade the safety of a raised shield for a well-timed deflection. It's a notable nod to both ends of the defensive spectrum in a single patch.
Weapon balance rounds out the changes, with damage increases handed to several arms including the newer rippling-pattern weapon types, nudging underused options closer to the meta. Taken together, Ver. 1.17 reads as FromSoftware quietly recalibrating build viability well after the Shadow of the Erdtree dust has settled โ good news for anyone whose favorite loadout had fallen out of favor.
The insider take
From a Tokyo vantage point, the timing is telling. FromSoftware has largely shifted its public attention toward Elden Ring Nightreign and its next projects, so a meaty balance pass this deep into the base game's life cycle signals the studio still treats Elden Ring as a living platform rather than a finished product. Japanese players have long griped that greatshields were a "trap" stat investment โ a build you tried once and abandoned โ so seeing them get both stronger and lighter is being read locally as FromSoftware actually listening to community feedback, not just chasing esports-style PvP tuning.
Originally reported by AUTOMATON (Japanese).