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4 min readWritten by ClutchBot News Desk The Finals

THE FINALS 12.3.0: Shockwave and Dome Shield nerfed again as TGM26 Pick'ems go live

Embark's latest patch loads up Grand Major 2026 content while cutting Medium's defensive tools for the third time this season.

#news#the-finals#game-news
THE FINALS 12.3.0: Shockwave and Dome Shield nerfed again as TGM26 Pick'ems go live

What happened

Embark Studios shipped Update 12.3.0 for THE FINALS this week, loading the game up with content for the upcoming Grand Major 2026 (TGM26) while taking another swing at some of the more complained-about defensive tools in the Medium kit.

On the esports side, The Grand Major 2026 takes place 27-28-29 November in Stockholm, with the Arena now ready to host all 16 teams. To go with it, TGM26 Pick'em is live, letting fans call The Grand Major before it happens, open from 12 November 11:00 CET until 27 November 00:00 CET, logging in with an Embark ID for one submission only. In Brisbane that's a window from Thu 12 Nov 8pm AEST through to Fri 27 Nov 9am AEST (Sydney/Melbourne: Thu 12 Nov 9pm AEDT to Fri 27 Nov 10am AEDT). Only five of the 16 teams reach The Throne on Day 3, so section one asks you to name those five in qualifying order, section two asks how the crowns get shared out, and section three is a Hot Seat quiz. Also in: the TGM26 Esport Bundles, one per each of the 16 teams heading to the Major, plus an Event Pass with two pages and 16 levels of rewards including a Legendary outfit and weapon skins.

What changed

Update 12.3.0 is mostly a Medium-focused patch — Dome Shield loses a third of its health, the Healing Emitter loses a quarter of its output and Shockwave takes three seconds longer to come back. Specifically: Shockwave's connection damage on buildings drops from 3,000 to 1,000, cooldown goes from 12s to 15s, and Glitch effect duration is cut from 2s to 1s. Embark's own reasoning: they'd received a lot of feedback that Shockwave can feel very spammy for the players it hits, and these are small adjustments while a bigger rework of how it applies Glitch is planned longer-term.

Dome Shield also gets trimmed again: health drops from 600 to 400, because the 12.0 changes still left it a little too difficult to deal with in some scenarios — the new numbers make it faster to destroy while keeping the same relative decay rate. On healing, following the 12.0 Healing Beam buff for Medium, Embark felt the Healing Emitter and H+ Infuser were still cannibalising too much of the Beam's role, so both get trimmed. The H+ Infuser specifically goes from 10 health per shot (20 ammo) down to 7 per shot but with 30 ammo. Elsewhere, Head Hunter LTM returns alongside new Twitch Drops available until 26 November — that's Thu 26 Nov in AEDT/AEST too, since the cutoff is a calendar date not a precise timestamp.

What players are saying

Reaction threads specifically on this patch are still fresh — it only went live this week — so we're not seeing deep Reddit or Steam discussion volume yet tied to 12.3.0 itself. What we can say: historically, THE FINALS' Steam forums carry a recurring theme whenever a nerf-heavy patch drops, with long-running threads complaining about a "nerf spiral" where defensive tools get cut repeatedly rather than buffing underused options. Given Dome Shield has now been nerfed in back-to-back patches (12.0 and 12.3.0) after already getting buffed in 12.0, expect that sentiment to resurface. On the positive side, the return of Head Hunter and the TGM26 content (bundles, Pick'em, Event Pass) tend to land well with the community as "free hype" ahead of a Major, going by past esports-tied updates.

What it means for you

If you've been running Dome Shield or Shockwave as your go-to Medium specialisation, expect fights to swing faster against you — the shield pops sooner and Shockwave's Glitch window and building-fracture power are both down. Healing-focused Mediums running the Emitter or H+ Infuser will need to land more consistent hits to match previous output. For OCE players, none of this changes server routing — but if you want your name on the record before TGM26 kicks off (27-29 Nov Stockholm time), get your Pick'em picks in before the Fri 27 Nov 9am AEST / 10am AEDT lock.

Watch next

Pick'em locks Fri 27 Nov (9am AEST Brisbane / 10am AEDT Sydney-Melbourne), with results rolling in through the DreamHack Stockholm weekend of 27-29 Nov as matches are confirmed.

What to watch next: Pick'em results roll out 27-29 Nov AEDT as DreamHack Stockholm matches are confirmed, and Embark has flagged a bigger Shockwave/Glitch rework still to come.

Sources

Researched and written by ClutchBot News Desk (Claude + live web search) for The Clutch Club — PapaKow's community. Community voices are paraphrased. Spotted something wrong? Tell us in the Discord.