All weapon balance changes in The Finals Season 11 (Galaxy Masters) patches

Season 11 of THE FINALS — "Galaxy Masters" — launched on 9 July 2026 and, as of 10 August 2026, is still running. Eight patches have shipped so far, and only two of them contained balance changes: Update 11.0.0 (season launch) and Update 11.3.0 (mid-season). The dominant story is the ground-up melee combat rework — new Stamina and Precision systems, a Quick Melee kick, and per-weapon re-tuning — plus a smaller pass on ranged weapons, gadgets and specializations. Embark's dev notes make clear the patch cadence, not individual number changes, drove the meta: several 11.0 numbers were tuned again in 11.3.

Season 11 patch timeline

Update 11.0.0 — launch balance pass (9 July 2026)

Ranged weapons

Dev notes frame most of these as reining in outliers or nudging underperformers:

"Our previous buff to the FCAR pushed it well above most other Medium weapons in performance metrics, making it a significant outlier. This change is 'splitting the difference' on our last buff and its prior state..." — 11.0.0 FCAR note

For the 93R, Embark acknowledged the weapon had been a "very strong outlier compared to all other Light weapons, by a considerable margin" since patch 10.3, and that cutting its ammo in 10.3 hadn't offset the 25-damage buff — so 11.0 returned to pre-10.3 damage (24) and raised ammo to 27 instead. The Pike-556's unusual 1.75x headshot multiplier was added deliberately; the devs note they rarely use fractional headshot tiers because they "frequently make the overall combat system seem inconsistent."

Melee rework — new core systems

Every melee weapon (Dagger, Dual Blades, Riot Shield, Sledgehammer, Spear, Sword) was rebuilt around two new mechanics. Per Design Director Matt Lowe's deep dive:

"Being out of Stamina does not reduce damage, does not reduce movement speeds and does not slow attacks, instead it acts more as a kind of 'combo throttle.'"

• Stamina gates the lunge component of attacks. With stamina, attacks lunge toward targets; out of stamina, attacks still deal full damage but don't lunge. Stamina regenerates over ~2 seconds or instantly on a precise hit.
• Precision splits each swing into a center "precision zone" that deals critical damage, and outer "glancing" hits that deal reduced base damage. Each weapon got a zone angle (8°–10°) and stricter lunge aim angles (mostly 25°–40° down to 20°).

The per-weapon numbers (precise hit / glancing base, with old flat damage in brackets):

Quick Melee was cut from 40 to 25 damage and gained a contextual Kick: with full stamina, a quick-melee connects as a kick pushing the target back ~5m (~1m against players stealing an objective). The devs flagged they'd "monitor this closely" — the kick was a big community talking point at launch. (Hotfix 11.0.1 subsequently fixed the Sledgehammer secondary "causing multi-hits," a bug from the rework.)

Specializations and gadgets (same patch)

• Evasive Dash (Light): charges 3 → 2, cooldown 7.5s → 6.5s. Embark said the two-dash test from the Season 10 "Respec Order" experiment, plus positive community feedback, convinced them the nerf was right "despite Lights not having Respec Order's additional 25 HP."
• Cloaking Device (Light): minimum cloak duration ~13s → ~11s; energy now drains at the minimum rate below run speed and at the maximum rate at/above run speed (previously only stationary/lunging respectively) — a deliberate push toward a slower "hide and seek" playstyle.
• Winch Claw (Heavy): victim mini-stun 0.25s → 0.1s; destination lock 0.15s → 0.1s; user action delay 0.25s → 0.1s — reducing its effectiveness as a close-range "kill-tool."
• APS Turret: projectiles blocked 5 → 6; health 160 → 175; cooldown no longer regenerates while deployed (manual retrieve 5s, remote 15s, destroy 30s).
• Breach Charge: arm time 1.5s → 1s (stays 1.5s when attached to a carriable, to defend against "nukes").
• Data Reshaper: can now reshape Gateways to instantly disable them (change accidentally omitted from the 10.12 notes).
• Hover Pad: health 350 → 425.

Update 11.3.0 — mid-season balance pass (30 July 2026)

The second and, so far, final balance patch. It primarily walked back or fine-tuned the 11.0 numbers based on live data, and is described by the development team as the first follow-up to the melee rework.

Weapons

The KS-23 is the clearest example of the "change to find the truth" philosophy at work. The 11.0 buff to 110 damage was judged too much after a few weeks on live:

"We can see from the last few weeks on live that the increase to 110 damage was too much, so we're reducing it to 104 with this update to break some of the attack combo breakpoints and lower DPS. We do still think the pre-11.0 KS-23 needed a small buff, hence not returning to 100 damage per shot immediately..." — 11.3.0 KS-23 note

Similarly, 11.3.0 accepted that parts of the melee rework overshot. The dev note for Dual Blades admits "the 11.0 reduction to movement speed while Deflecting, of 50%, was also too aggressive," and the Riot Shield note defends the 11.0 redesign (turtle/anchor play for Medium, with Dual Blades as the aggressive brawler option) while conceding players felt it "lost a lot of its power." The Spear note states its 11.0 damage cuts "have proven to be more severe than we intended."

Gadgets and specializations

• C4 (Heavy): cooldown 30s → 45s. Dev note: "The C4 has been an outlier in terms of win rate and usage for Heavy for quite some time... The ability to use C4 for 2-3 drops per Cashout fight is part of that power."
• Grappling Hook (Light): cooldown 7s → 6s — a deliberately small nudge, since bigger grapple buffs "risk breaking map pacing."

Recurring themes and things to know

• The KS-23 has now moved twice in one season: 100 → 110 (11.0) → 104 (11.3). The FCAR likewise illustrates Embark's "split the difference" approach — the 540 RPM from its 10.x buff was knocked to 530 RPM rather than reverting.
• Melee weapons were deliberately re-leveled: in 11.0 most melee weapons' potential damage rose (Sword 88 → 110 precise, Sledgehammer secondary 175 → 200 precise) but that power is gated behind hitting the precision zone; glancing blows typically deal less than Season 10 damage. 11.3.0 then loosened the tuning on Dagger, Dual Blades, Riot Shield and Spear rather than tightening it.
• UI fixes in 11.3.0 corrected stat displays, not stats: the 93R's ammo count now shows 27 in the equipment overview (already correct in-game), and the Pike-556's headshot multiplier properly displays 1.75x instead of 1.5x.
• One discrepancy between official notes: 11.0.0 lists the Riot Shield primary lunge as going to 4m, yet 11.3.0 (and both the wiki and thefinalsloadout.com) describe the follow-up as moving it from 4.25m to 5m. The 4.25m figure evidently reflects the live value at that time; the official 11.0 text said 4m. The 11.3 change itself is consistently reported as 4.25m → 5m.
• No weapon balance changes were made in hotfixes 11.0.1, 11.0.2 (Cashout Bots progression only), 11.1.0, 11.2.0, 11.4.0 or 11.4.1. The 11.0.2 hotfix did disable Item XP in bot matches and cut World Tour points from bots (16→12 win, 10→6 final) — progression, not combat, balance.

Bottom line

If you're picking up the game mid-Season 11: the launched meta was set on 9 July (Evasive Dash to 2 charges, FCAR down to 530 RPM, melee rebuilt around stamina/precision and the Quick Melee kick), and 11.3.0 on 30 July is the current reference point — Dagger/Dual Blades/Riot Shield/Spear melee all got easier or stronger, KS-23 settled at 104 damage, FAMAS and BFR got small buffs, and C4 got a 45s cooldown. Embark has said the Elytra anti-cheat rollout targets "11.6", implying at least one or two more version bumps before Season 12; any further balance changes would land in those. As of 10 August 2026, the last three patches (11.4.x) contained no gameplay changes.