Your average “Elden Ring Nightreign” run is gonna be all 40 minutes, but that doesn’t mean it’s simple. In fact, it’s not. There is a tutorial, but from just going through it, you’re not gonna know everything that there is to know.
Hi folks, it’s Zaid, and today on Aura Riot, 10 things “Elden Ring Nightreign” doesn’t tell you.
10. There Are Four Flask Upgrades — And You Should Get Them
This is about as basic of a tip as I can offer, but it’s something I’ve noticed a lot of players have neglected. Whenever you start a new run in “Nightreign,” you begin with three charges of your sacred flask, which is fine when you’re dealing with the easy stuff, but it’s not enough when it comes to facing the Nightlord on day three.
There is a way to upgrade them though. All you have to do is head to the churches of America dotted on the map, which are not hard to find. They’re always marked on the map, and it’s not like you’re talking about the entire “Elden Ring” map here. You’re talking about the “Nightreign” map. And as long as you know the icon, that’s that.
Usually when you’ve got a team, they might drop by the ones they spot on the way to somewhere else, or go to the ones that are near the starting drop point. But just getting one or two flask upgrades, it’s not gonna cut it. You want and you need all four. It makes a massive difference by the time the final boss rolls around.
So when you’re playing, this is something to prioritize. Get to all four shrines on the map. Max out your healing flasks at seven. Combine that with the free flask upgrades that you get after beating the boss. Day two, you have eight. That’s what you should be taking in to fight with the Nightlord.
The trick here is do not rush it. Don’t just try to get ’em all on the first day. Spread it out a bit. Get to day one, two day two, something similar. Usually, the first boss at the end of day one is fairly easy, so you’re not gonna necessarily need a hell of a lot of them.
It can’t be understated just how useful it is to have all seven of the healing flasks, though it increases the survivability of your team just exponentially, which makes it much easier to avoid dying early on, which means by the time the Nightlord rolls around, your teammates are a lot easier to revive.
It takes some planning to actually reach all four shrines on the map. But with a coordinated team, it’s pretty easy to pull off, and you’ll still have enough time to spare on all the other stuff.
9. Solo Play Has Hidden Perks
It might seem like you’re at a disadvantage if you play solo, but there’s actually some benefits. It doesn’t quite make up for the fact you don’t have two buddies along for the ride, particularly in that they can bring your dead ass back to life, but they do give you a few things to try and even out the difficulty a little bit.
The first and most obvious is the boss’ health bar in solo. It takes significantly less damage to kill everything when you’re playing solo. It’s basically exactly like “Elden Ring” proper. If you summon help, the boss gets more health as compensation. “Nightreign” works the same way.
That’s the obvious one, but there’s other hidden benefits to playing by yourself. Like the fact all the vendors, they have a welding grace stock. These are powerful items that revive you instantly on death, so they’re really, really useful.
Once you realize how often they show up when you’re playing solo, your survivability goes way the hell up. Just buy these things whenever you spot a vendor and your chances of meeting an early demise go way the hell down.
It’s not just that you can buy one either, like every vendor has one, including the one that always appears before you fight the Nightlord at the end. So don’t be afraid to pick one up before the end of day two. Use it and get another one day three.
These are extremely rare items if you’re playing as a team, but they’re always there when you’re solo. Using them actually does make playing by yourself halfway viable, still not ideal, and it’s less fun to play without friends, but at least you have a chance.
8. Shifting Earth Events Are Crucial
After defeating your first Nightlord, you’ll unlock these things called shifting earth events. They can change the map pretty dramatically. They might insert a volcano, or a scarlet rot infested forest into the map.
And while the game warns about how dangerous these places can be, and the tutorial tips do explain how to make these events end early by resting at the bed and the round table hold, you don’t wanna miss out on these things ’cause they do offer some amazingly powerful rewards if you get through ’em.
They actually function more like mini dungeons that you have to travel through in a semi linear way, fighting a few bosses as you go. At the end, these locations have a particularly challenging fight.
But if you beat it, you unlock something special that changes depending on your current shifting earth event in effect. Each one’s different, but the rewards are almost always extremely good.
The trick here is that getting through these places is gonna take a full day. That’s just how it is. You can’t really optimize it. It’s just gonna take a while. So you always save exploring these places for day two. Don’t do it day one.
The game doesn’t actually tell you what you get for completing these things. So I’m just gonna tell you now what each one gets you.
- The crater volcano event: special crafting table at the end, automatically upgrades any weapon of your choosing to legendary rarity, while removing the level requirement.
- The mountaintop event: protection against frostbite, adds a bonus to your dragon damage.
- The rotted forest event: total immunity to scarlet rot.
- The Shrouded City: passive ability that allows you to come back to life once after death, which affects the whole team.
So not all of these places are useful to explore a hundred percent of the time, but anytime you see a volcano, go for it, ’cause that crafting table’s crazy good.
7. Avoid Cataclysms at All Costs
Here, let me save you a team wipe. Have you ever seen spots with like a swirling, dark cloudy vortex above ’em? Avoid those. Do not bother checking them out because you will die.
These things tend to appear over ruins that would normally be easy pickings for a day one team. But when the cataclysm’s active, they become significantly more dangerous.
Instead of just having some low level enemies and an easy boss, any location affected by how cataclysmic things can be now has dark night bearers that are disgustingly powerful roaming about. They can and they will kill you and your team in a single hit if you go in unprepared.
These places are reserved for a high level team only. Even then, it’s a risky play that’s probably not worth it. If you are going to attempt to clear a cataclysm event, plan on doing it near the end of day two with a fully kitted out party, otherwise it will end in tragedy, period.
6. How to Unlock a Costume Change
If you’re interested in this game, you’re probably aware that there is a way to change your night bearer’s costume. And there are some memorable returning outfits from previous from games.
This feature isn’t unlocked right at the start, though. You have to reach a certain milestone in the game to actually access it. It’s nothing too brutal. All you have to do is beat at least two Nightlords, and then the caretaker appears and tells you they have placed a dresser in the storage room.
I have installed a dressing room next to the study. If you have other garments you would prefer to don, it is yours to use as you will.
And now you can access the change garb option at any time. And while unlocking this stuff is gonna cause a lot of Murk, if you play the game enough, it’s kind of a pretty small price.
5. What the Special Item in the Store Actually Does
Speaking of stuff you can do in the round table hold, there is an item sold at the jar bazaar that has a strange description, talking specifically about the scenic flat stone you can purchase for about 600 Murk.
The game says that it’s a scenic flatstone that has yet to be polished, purchased to reveal it’s a precious gift. Sounds like a worthless joke item. I mean, I remember a certain other precious gift back in “Dark Souls,” one that ended up being completely worthless.
But in this case, it’s actually something you’ll want. When you buy it, you actually get a random relic. These aren’t always the best relics or anything, but the guy sells an infinite number of them. And it’s possible to get some really useful stuff here if you’re willing to spend the money and roll the dice.
A lot of the relics you get this way are too specialized specific to be all that useful. But once in a while, you’ll unlock something really amazing. If you got extra Murk lying around, this is the best way to spend it, period, especially early on when you’re trying to sort out your relic build, so to speak.
4. Nightlords Appear in the Open World — Kill Them for Upgrades (continued)
Pretty self-explanatory. Once in a while, a random event will cause one of the Nightlords to appear early out in the open world. For example, you might see Auger with the bubbles. Libra sometimes shows up kerch team and lower their maximum health, which is maybe the most infuriating early boss ambush, ’cause if you want to get rid of it, you have to pay up.
You could just kill him instead, but you better be prepared, because while these Nightlord avatars are easier than their day three incarnations, they’re still, I mean, they’re incredibly dangerous. If you’re in day two and pretty decently equipped, taking ’em out is worth it because each one you kill rewards you with a really powerful passive upgrade.
Some of these things probably best avoided, but if you got the right team for the job taking on a Nightlord avatar is definitely worth the risk.
3. The Duchess and the Revenant
At the start of Nightreign, you only get access to six of the total eight playable characters in the game. If you wanna use the other two, you gotta unlock ’em. It’s not super difficult though, but it is actually pretty easy to miss if you’re not checking around the round table hold. So I’m just gonna explain how you unlock ’em.
The duchess can be unlocked after beating the first Nightlord. Killing them gives you a key item called the Old Pocket Watch. There’s nothing hinting at what you’re supposed to do with that. But what you have to do is talk to the priestess, and there will be a new dialogue option called, “Show her the old pocket watch.” Select that, and a cut scene plays that reveals the priestess is actually a playable character, The Duchess.
I’ve had quite enough of all the ceremony.
Now I’m ready to get my hands dirty.
We’ll slay this Nightlord yet.
The Revenant’s little bit longer in terms of time to unlock. She only becomes available after killing at least two Nightlords. After your second expedition victory, return to the round table hold. And if you look around, you’ll notice a strange ghostly figures staring at one of the paintings.
Talk to them, and you’ll be transported to a portion of the map where you fight a boss called the Night Idol, who isn’t too difficult to beat normally, but if you’re having trouble, just switch to Iron Eye, The Archer. Taking out their summons and sniping her to death while avoiding the occasional projectile, probably the way to go. Iron Eye makes the battle a cinch.
Once she’s beaten, you’re transported back to the hold and the final playable class in the base game is unlocked. The Revenant, who is extremely effective and one of the best characters in the game if you’re willing to learn the ins and outs.
2. The Returning Bosses
If you’re a long time from fan, seeing some of these old bosses again hits the nostalgia core pretty hard. Best part is that while they revealed a few of these guys pre-release like the Centipede and the Nameless King, there’s a few more hidden in Nightreign that haven’t been revealed yet.
I won’t spoil ’em all, but there is a gaping dragon from Dark Souls one here, and they’re just as grotesque as ever, as well as just as easy to kill.
Surprisingly, there’s another return from “Dark Souls 2.” The even more despised Smelter Demon makes a comeback, looking a little less intimidating here, for whatever reason, though.
There are a few more surprises, but I just wanna show off some surprising returns. So prepare yourself to deal with that Smelter, ’cause Smelter still sucks.
1. There’s a Trick to Beating the Equilibrist Beast
Most of the Nightlords in Nightreign really don’t have any tricks outside of their elemental weaknesses. They’re just extremely tough bosses and that’s all there is to it. But one fight in particular has an entirely new mechanic that’s essential for beating them, while also being extremely counterintuitive.
Once you know the trick, the fight becomes significantly easier, but nothing the game tells you really keys you in on what you’re supposed to do. In fact, the game basically lies to you and tells you to do the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to be doing.
The Equilibrist Beast, which I’m just gonna call Libra, ’cause that’s what it’s actually called, it’s also much easier to say, it’s a big pain in the ass. This thing’s gimmick is that it attacks, and those attacks generate madness, which is, to put it mildly, pretty bad.
Getting rid of madness buildup is basically impossible while fighting this thing normally, but there is something that will help you out. You see these glowing gold crystals that fall off the boss? The description of the Nightlord makes it sound like they’re dangerous things that need to be avoided, but they’re actually quite beneficial.
You want to touch them, actually. Running over these things actually restores a bit of your health and removes the badness buildup. Seriously, that’s what they do.
In the heat of the battle, that can be hard to tell what’s going on, but these are a hundred percent a good thing. So in this specific instance, the boss actually drops something that helps. This is never something that really happens in these games.
So your first instinct is you see something glowing on the ground, and the boss spawns it. So that’s something you probably want to avoid. But for this boss and this boss only, those things that look like traps are actually pretty much necessary for surviving the boss.
I wish I’d known it before fighting it the first time. That would’ve made it a lot easier.
That’s all we’ve got for today. What’s been your experience with “Nightreign?” Leave us a comment, let us know. And as always, thank you very much for reading this blog. I’m Zaid. We’ll see you next time, right here on Aura Riot.