The balance pass, and the one line that moves tier lists
Twenty-nine balance lines landed across five of the six classes — the first pass that reads as tuning rather than bug-fixing, and the first to touch PvP damage directly. Soul Harvest went live at the same time, alongside a new stage of the Fate Chart, triggering by chance inside ordinary Hallowgrove and Brandrgarde matches rather than as a mode you queue for.
- Blackarrow and Sorcerer both had their PvP damage multiplier reduced in solo mode only. PvE damage and trio PvP are explicitly unchanged, so this is aimed at solo queue being decided by whoever fires first.
- Shadowstrix took the most detailed pass — Spinning Slash Super Armor and Battle Frenzy piercing down, Phantom Shift costlier, against a faster Inspiring Impale and Wound Accumulation detonating at 8 stacks.
- Mercenary is the only class the pass did not touch at all.
- Two systemic changes affect every build carrying them: DoT ticks are less frequent for the same total damage, and the Eloquence affix's high-tier anti-interrupt went from a 10-second cooldown to 15.
- Quality of life nobody had announced: real-time voice chat, and an "Add to Blocklist" control inside the World Chat window — the chat blocking the 7 August notice had promised for "next week".
What else it fixed: the stutter, the ping number, and a cosmetics leak
The balance lines got the attention, and the fix list underneath them is where this patch touches most players. One entry was a first: the notes claimed the client-side stutter directly, rather than describing it as under investigation the way every previous post had. That claim did not hold — the 15 August post went back to the same symptom from the server side — so treat it as a claim to retest rather than a closed case.
- "Fixed client hitching, stuttering, and crash issues occurring under certain scenarios." Read the 15 August server update beside this one before concluding it is settled.
- Ping display logic was reworked to give "a much more accurate, real-time reflection of your actual in-match input latency" — so a ping number that looks worse since the 12th may be the first honest one you have seen.
- Cosmetics meant to be visible only to you and your teammates could become visible to enemies under specific circumstances.
- Einherjar mode could not be activated when the Dried Flower Knot's remaining durability fell below the expected consumption.
- Two interruptions that cost runs are gone: being interrupted while looting could leave you unable to attack, and being interrupted mid-cast had its own failure.
- Out-of-match economy fixes worth knowing: warehouse items disappearing from view while preparing gear, and a Loadout saving fault.
The 7 August server update this one completed
Five days earlier Bellring rolled out a server-side update rather than a store download. The concrete gameplay fix was narrow but mattered for Withered Knight: cancelling a Polearm & Shield charge should no longer abnormally trigger the Focused affix movement-speed bonus. Any build advice that depended on that cancel is outdated. That notice also promised chat blocking "next week" and said the next client update would launch Soul Harvest — both of which this 12 August update delivered. It has no page of its own here because a single fix and a set of promises is not a document; this is where it belongs.
- No redeem code, tier reset or reward table was announced in the 7 August notice.
- Season Tasks are the loose end. The 7 August notice said the next client update would open them, and this is that update — but its own New Gameplay list names only Soul Harvest and a new Fate Chart stage, and no official post since has used the phrase.