I have a confession: I am an idiot. But at least I'm an informed idiot now, thanks to Elden Ring Nightreign's latest patch. The update brought us the Dark of Night endless mode, a fix for the holy damage icon (finally, it no longer looks like a squished lemon), and one absolutely brutal change: the Night's Tide now hits significantly harder after you defeat the second-night boss. The patch notes say, "Increased the Night's Tide damage after defeating the second-night boss." They don't say by how much, but let me tell you from experience—it's a lot. Like, "why did I think I could tank this?" a lot.

Being the curious (read: reckless) gamer I am, I decided to test exactly how lethal the Night Tide is now during one of my Deep of Night expeditions. After my team killed the second-day boss, my two teammates wisely carried on into the gloop that sends you to the Nightlord boss arena. I, however, spotted a Site of Grace just a few steps away—inside the Night Tide. "Just a quick hop," I thought. "I'll grab it and be right back." I didn't even make it. My health bar wasn't exactly massive (level 12, no HP buffs), but the Night Tide chewed through a fifth of it in seconds. I retreated, tail between my legs, and my teammates were already shaking their heads.

But wait, it gets better. On my second trip back into the Night Tide to recover my lost runes, I decided to overshoot and reach that same Site of Grace, thinking it would refill my health and flasks. Spoiler: it did not. All Sites of Grace caught in the Night Tide are now unresponsive—at least as far as I can tell. Maybe it's a bug, since the patch notes don't mention it, but either way, traversing the Night Tide on day two is now basically a death sentence. It took me several more humiliating attempts to inch my runes back to a safe spot, and by the time I reached the Nightlord's gate, my teammates both shook their heads at me again. I could practically hear the disappointment.

😅 Lesson learned: the Night Tide is not your friend.

This change has a massive ripple effect on a beloved (read: greedy) strategy: third-day rune farming. You know the drill. You kill the second-day boss, but instead of heading into the goop, you and your squad wander around killing extra enemies, maybe try to slay that dragon in the south of Noklateo's map, all in the hopes of hitting level 15 before the Nightlord. I once waited 15 minutes for my teammates to fail at exactly that. It was a popular move for players who wanted more runes and a shot at a better weapon. But with the Night Tide now hitting like a freight train, that strategy is effectively dead. You'll have to make do with the runes you have after day two—or find some ridiculously finicky workaround, which I'm sure the Nightreign community will discover within the hour.

Here's a quick summary of the patch's key changes, because I'm a gamer who loves a good table:

Change	What It Means
Night's Tide damage increased after second-night boss	Stepping into the goop is now a one-way ticket to Respawn City
Holy damage icon updated	It finally looks like holy damage, not a citrus fruit
Sites of Grace in Night Tide unresponsive (possibly a bug)	Don't rely on them for healing—they're just decorative now

Honestly, I'm not particularly sad to break the news. I never liked messing around in the Night Tide after the second day—it always seemed a bit too high on the "fuck around and find out" chart for me. But I do feel for the rune farmers. Their whole ecosystem just got nerfed into oblivion. So if you're the type who likes to squeeze every last rune out of a run, you'll need to adapt. Maybe bring more HP buffs, maybe just accept that level 11 is fine, or maybe—and this is a wild idea—don't test the Night Tide like an idiot. Trust me, I learned that one the hard way.

💀 Final tip: Be thankful for what you have in Nightreign. If you wanted level 15 and got level 11, just roll with it. The Nightlord doesn't care about your dreams, and the Night Tide certainly doesn't. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go apologize to my teammates.