Forget the final boss nerf, the new Elden Ring DLC patch just made a garbage talisman a must-have for some weapons and even buffed my favorite swords and spells

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