Released 2026-07-31. Everything in the change table below is quoted from the official patch notes — see the developer announcement. The "what it means" column is our reading, not theirs.
This review follows the official Update 8.1 notes. The item effects below are official changes; the route advice is our interpretation and remains subject to in-game testing.
What changed
| Item | Change | What it means for your build |
|---|---|---|
| Blood Moon Necklace Reworked | On entering combat, Bullet Attack increases by 20% every second until combat ends. Forged version: 50%. | Sustained combat and boss routes. It is no longer a Transmutation-buildup payoff; it now rewards staying in the same fight and scaling Bullet Attack. |
| Lord's Mercy Reworked | Adds Physical Battle Skill damage affected by Hemorrhage bonuses. | Hemorrhage and Physical Battle Skill routes. Re-test the relic as a physical payoff rather than relying on its pre-patch area loop. |
| Ring of Suffering Buffed | Smite Chance also grants an equal Physical Damage Bonus. | Smite and Hemorrhage routes. Smite Chance now improves both the trigger and the physical damage line, making the stat easier to justify. |
| Overloaded Coil Buffed | Lightning Damage Bonus grants half the Disruption damage cap. Forged version grants the full Disruption damage cap. | Lightning routes. The relic now connects the ordinary Lightning Damage stat to Disruption's ceiling, so its value rises with the rest of the route. |
| Crown of Battle Fervor Reworked | 25% of Battle Skill Damage becomes Final Damage. Forged version: 50%. | Battle Skill routes. The effect now feeds the whole loadout, so it is less dependent on pure skill damage being the only win condition. |
| Shock Round Reworked | On Ultimate, Lightning Damage permanently increases by 5%. Lightning Damage Bonus grants equal Final Damage. Two Shock Rounds automatically forge; Forged version adds 15%. | Ultimate and Lightning routes. It now rewards repeated Ultimate casts and turns Lightning investment into a broader final-damage payoff. |
| Frost Fist Buffed | Smite and Critical Hits reduce all enemy Resistances by 10% infinitely. Each Frost relic adds 10% Frost Resonance. Forged version: 25%. | Frost, Smite, and Crit routes, especially long boss fights. The resistance reduction is no longer a five-stack ceiling, but this needs live testing before calling it universal. |
| Flower Cannon Reworked | Weapon effect reworked in Update 8.1; use the in-game tooltip as the current source of truth. | Flower Cannon routes. The old planner description is intentionally not treated as current until the new projectile and bloom behaviour is rechecked. |
Builds we still recommend after this patch
- Marcus Extra-Shot Crit — The core route does not depend on one of the changed relic effects. Keep uptime first and treat the new patch items as optional pivots.
- Long Tong Amber companion — The one-element plan remains readable. Use the changed Lightning and Frost pieces only when the run actually offers their element.
- Jenny dismantle economy — The economy route still has a clear fallback when a changed relic is not available. Combat power comes before preserving a shopping plan.
What we are not calling yet
These are open questions after this patch. We would rather list them than publish a confident answer we cannot support — the game ships no damage-testing dummy, so nobody is measuring these changes in public yet.
- Whether Blood Moon Necklace's per-second Bullet Attack growth is refreshed or simply accumulates once per combat.
- How much Disruption damage Overloaded Coil adds at different Lightning Damage values, including the Forged version.
- Whether the new Frost Fist resistance reduction remains useful against every boss resistance type.
- Flower Cannon's new projectile and bloom behaviour, because the public pre-patch database is stale for this item.
How to use this page
If a build guide anywhere — including ours — does not name the patch it was written for, it is not telling you enough to act on. Updates have been shipping every few days. Check the version stamp, then check whether anything your damage loop depends on appears in the table above.
Test a revised loadout in the build planner, which scores synergy and flags conflicts, or start from the current best build blueprints. All patch reviews are listed on the patch index.