Dark Souls III - Dark Sword Nerfed

PCGamer reports that the latest update for Dark Souls III has made some anticipated changes to item balance, notably the Dark Sword.

A Dark Souls 3 update rolled out just ahead of the weekend has made a number of tweaks to various weapons, items, and effects in the game, including a long-awaited nerf to the Dark Sword. The official update notes say the sword now has "reduced weapon efficiency," which the "Detailed Changes" thread on the DS3 Fextralife Wiki has broken that down to mean about a five percent loss in effectiveness.

[...]

The full, official list of changes:

• All Dagger weapons: increased critical attack power.
• Dark Sword: reduced weapon efficiency.
• Anri's Straight Sword: reduced scaling effects.
• Wolnir's Holy Sword: added faith scaling and adjusted weapon efficiency accordingly.
• Crescent Moon Sword: added intelligence scaling and adjusted weapon efficiency accordingly.
• Morne's Great Hammer: added faith scaling and adjusted weapon efficiency accordingly.
• Lothric's Holy Sword: added faith scaling and adjusted weapon efficiency accordingly.
• Yorshka's Spear: increased FP damage effects.
• Scholar's Candlestick: reduced sorcery-strengthening properties.
• Demon's Fist: reduced weight.
• Greatsword of Judgement: increased attack power.
• Heysel's Pick: increased intelligence scaling.
• All shield-piercing weapons: added shield-piercing properties to regular attacks.
• All Skills that enchant a weapon with special properties: extended length of effect.
• Obscuring Ring: increased distance at which ring takes effect.
• Hornet Ring: adjusted efficiency.
• Black Serpent: adjusted tracking.
• Lightning Stake: now requires 1 attunement slot.
• Magic Barrier/Great Magic Barrier: extended length of effect.
• Divine Pillars of Light: increased attack power.
• White Dragon Breath: reduced stamina consumption.
• All Bug Pellet items: extended length of effect.
• Addressed other game balance issues and fixed other flaws.

The notes also state that the update will not require a patch or maintenance, and in fact if you've played Dark Souls 3 at any time over the past weekend, you should already have it installed. And in case you missed it, here's a video of guy who finished the game in well under three hours, without taking a single hit.