Elden Ring’s Carian Retaliation spell seems broken for online players

polygon.com:

Elden Ring is a massive game with dozens of weapons and spells at players’ disposal, some of which may not work as expected. And it seems that players just found a new one: Carian Retaliation, a half-offensive, half-defensive spell, seems to be completely broken in the game’s competitive multiplayer.

Carian Retaliation is an Ash of War that can be applied to light or medium shields. The ability lets players parry an enemy’s attack, then it spawns three spectral daggers that automatically target nearby foes. On its face, this is obviously a strong spell, but it turns out there are a few issues that make it unintentionally overpowered, particularly in PvP combat.

For one thing, players don’t have to parry an enemy’s attacks to spawn the daggers. They can simply parry their own spells, including things like Glintstone Scraps, to bring the knives out. More importantly, it seems that the blades will sometimes turn invisible when used in PvP. This makes the spell one of the best in the game for competitive multiplayer fights, since opponents can’t easily dodge what they can’t actually see.

Thankfully, Elden Ring developers at FromSoftware seem to be keeping a close eye on the game. The studio has already proven its willingness to nerf strategies that are either overpowered or outright bugged. So hopefully a patch for these invisible killers will arrive sooner rather than later.