Understand Black Needle's Patch 1 tracking change and the conditional Genessa Phantom/clone pairing.
Defeat the Twin Sesters and the Stray Sester on the Sester's Gate route to obtain Black Needle. Balance Patch 1 improved its light-attack tracking; the Genessa / Phantom pairing is conditional community evidence.
The developer note says Black Needle's light-attack tracking was improved. That is a handling change, not a complete statement about damage, reach, status application, or ranking.
Use it to understand why older impressions may no longer match the current version. Do not infer exact values that were not published.
The cited NG++ test uses Black Needle with Genessa's Phantom/clone setup and Forgotten Crossbow. The build is described as having high potential but lower durability and occasional clone behavior problems.
The pairing should therefore be judged as a whole. Better weapon tracking does not erase the need to manage survivability or test clone consistency in the current version.
Balance Patch 1 improved light-attack tracking.
The available community test pairs it with Genessa.
Forgotten Crossbow.
The patch note addresses weapon tracking, not the reported clone behavior issue.
