The latest Elden Ring update took a nerf bat to the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC’s infamous final boss, but for my money the most exciting entries in the patch notes are notable buffs to some cool but underwhelming gear. The biggest winner may be Rellana, one of the DLC’s first and altogether best boss fights, whose entire suite of equipment has fittingly been buffed to the moon.
Rellana’s Remembrance can be traded for her twin light greatswords and a spell echoing her twin moons AoE attack. In her castle, you also find a talisman called Rellana’s Cameo which, on paper, works incredibly well with her twin blades, and likewise synergizes with any stance-based weapon. All three of these got big buffs in update 1.14, and the talisman especially feels like a new must-have.
Rellana’s Cameo buffs “attacks executed after maintaining the same stance for a certain length of time.” Basically, if you hold a pose before unleashing a skill, this talisman boosts that skill’s damage. Before the new update, you had to hold that pose for way too long to trigger a decent but not incredible damage buff. But as of today, this thing triggers after about one second, and the damage boost is bigger too – 45% according to early calculations from Fextralife.
I fired up Elden Ring to test it out for myself, and I’m never taking this talisman off certain builds now. With Rellana’s twin blades, Rellana’s Cameo triggers almost immediately after the stance animation naturally ends, so there’s virtually no delay. For any compatible weapon that heavily relies on its skill, including the Sword of Night and Flame, katanas with the Ash of War Unsheathe, Moonveil’s Transient Moonlight, as well as Overhead Stance, this is a huge damage boost. It’s like having a second, more niche version of the Shard of Alexander, widely regarded as one of the best talismans in the game.
To my delight, Rellana’s twin blades got a boost of their own. Their Moon-and-Fire Stance skill, which launches magic slices on the light attack and a fiery tornado on the heavy attack, was decent before, but now it’s genuinely competitive. The light attack has more range, poise damage, and faster attack speed thanks to the latest patch, and the heavy attack also does more poise damage now. These are among my favorite DLC weapons so I’ve used these swords a lot despite their issues, and I immediately noticed the change, particularly with the light attack.
To top off this Rellana special, Rellana’s Twin Moons, the 72 Intelligence Sorcery which previously dealt solid damage but in a comically small radius, is pretty good now. FromSoftware bumped up the AoE of the first two hits significantly and reduced the knockback on the second hit to help ensure the final blast connects. I still wish this thing had more range given the long windup, but now it can actually kill crowds of enemies and connect full damage at a decent distance in boss fights. You can see these changes and others in action in this handy video from YouTuber Youwy:
My 80 Int build can reliably land all three hits, dishing out upwards of 5,500 damage on enemies in NG+++. It absolutely dunks on humanoid targets, stun-locking invaders and the likes of the Blackgaol Knight. It’s a fantastic follow-up after a parry and riposte, too. Rejoice, my fellow Rellana fans, for our time has come.