Elden Ring Nightreign classes: All 8 Nightfarer characters in FromSoftware’s co-op spinoff explained

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In other words, the success of the improvised builds during gameplay in Elden Ring Nightreign – FromSoftware’s upcoming cooperative roguelike spinoff of Elden Ring – will mainly depend on the randomly generated weapon and upgrade drops you discover while exploring and defeating minibosses. However, it is essential to enhance your overall performance with preferred playstyles by selecting the most suitable Nightfarer class for yourself.

When Elden Ring: Nightreign is set to release on May 30th, a total of eight Nightfarer characters will be available. Each character possesses unique strengths, weaknesses, and exceptional abilities that offer significant advantages not only for themselves but also for their cooperative teammates. To assist you in selecting the Nightfarer that aligns best with your tastes, I’ve compiled information about all of them in the sections that follow.

Before we dive in, it’s worth mentioning that unlike Elden Ring and other FromSoftware Souls-style games, Nightreign (Elden Ring) doesn’t require specific stats for weapons. You can use any item you discover during a gameplay session without worrying about compatibility based on your character’s stats. However, predefined stat upgrade paths when leveling up do influence which weapon types work best for certain characters.

Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Wylder

  • Passive Ability: Sixth Sense — Cheat death a single time. This ability can onlybe used once until restored through revival from death or passing through a Site of Graces
  • Skill: Claw Shot — Launch grappling claw to rope foes in or move swiftly by retracting. Whether targets can be roped in or not depends on enemy physique. Effective at breaking guard. Hold to aim.
  • Ultimate Art: Onslaught Stake — Powerful single attack that launches an iron stake with a great explosion. Recoil causes one to reel back, but preserves a portion of Ultimate Art gauge. Hold to boost impact and remain standing.

In essence, Wylder – the knight often depicted in Elden Ring Nightreign’s promotional artwork with a winged helmet – is the game’s epitome of a versatile character. He boasts a decent balance of health, stamina, armor-based damage reduction, and physical attack power, but he’s not particularly proficient in magic. At the beginning of each playthrough, he initially equips a small shield and a greatsword.

His Quick Mobility Claw Ability is extremely beneficial for swift movements, particularly when needing to swiftly climb high terrain or escape from zones that restrict playable space as night approaches on the map. Yet, it can also be employed to either draw enemies towards you or move yourself towards them, depending on their size. Additionally, his Sixth Sense passive allows him to ‘cheat’ death once, making him one of the more forgiving Nightfarers for beginners to learn with.

In simpler terms, Onslaught Stake is expected to be the top damage-dealing Ultimate Art. When activated, Wylder prepares a stake on his wrist, then thrusts it forward, causing immense damage and a massive explosion, which usually staggers the target if it connects. Essentially, it’s like the “Rubiconian Handshake” special move from Armored Core 6, but for an Elden Ring character, and it’s truly amazing! However, be mindful of its relatively short range.

Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Guardian

  • Passive Ability: Steel Guard — Plant feet and brace with shield for a more powerful guard. Greatly improves guard boost, but prevents running while holding up shield.
  • Skill: Whirlwind — Beat wing to whip up a churning cyclone. Enemies caught in cyclone are drawn toward center. Sweeps away lightweight projectiles. Hold to enlarge range.
  • Ultimate Art: Wings of Salvation — Leap up and dive back down to raise protective area. Can move briefly while in air, and diving attack is perfect for rescues. Hold to shield nearby allies from damage.

Initially, Guardian caught the attention of numerous fans as one of the most intriguing Nightfarers due to his towering eagle-human form clad in thick armor. It’s likely that he will be not only noticed but also highly regarded among the best. Despite his damage output being lower compared to other classes, he boasts exceptionally high damage resistance, health, and stamina. He kicks off every adventure equipped with a greatshield and a halberd.

Essentially, he serves as Nightreign’s protective shield, equipped with the Steel Guard passive that enables him to enhance his defense significantly at the cost of reduced movement, and a Whirlwind ability that disturbs enemies by whirling them with a gust of wind. This can either knock back or stun opponents. In situations where you want to focus on block counter builds and absorb enemy attacks while keeping a boss occupied, it’s best to utilize the former. The latter is useful for managing large groups of smaller or weaker enemies when crowd control is necessary.

In the Network Test, his Ultimate ability, Wings of Salvation, was undeniably top-tier in class S. When activated, the Guardian ascends dramatically into the sky, only to plummet back down, generating a massive shockwave. This shockwave serves as a protective shield for allies as long as the Guardian’s energy lasts. The shockwave inflicts significant damage on enemies and bosses, heavily staggering them, and even revives any teammates who have fallen within its vicinity instantly. The shield can be used strategically to provide cover for allies, allowing them to safely regroup and attack the target without worry of retaliation (until the shield depletes).

Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Duchess

  • Passive Ability: Magnificent Pose — Attack and dodge optimally, dodging repeatedly when necessary. Reduces stamina reduction from attacks and evasive actions. Allows up to two consecutive evasive actions.
  • Skill: Restage — Stage reprisal of recent occurances to damage nearby foes. Damage to phantoms affects original. This skill can be used at any time.
  • Ultimate Art: Finale — Obscure self and surrounding allies to hide from foes. Enemies lose track of the caster, wandering aimlessly or becoming prone to leaving themselves vulnerable.

If Guardian is the tank-type character, then Duchess plays more like a rogue – swift, agile, and capable of delivering high burst damage. She’s exceptionally quick, even among Nightfarers, and can swiftly dodge not just once but twice consecutively thanks to her Magnificent Pose passive ability. However, she comes with significant drawbacks as well; she has low health and poise, which makes her challenging to master and less forgiving than characters like Wylder. To begin with, her starting weapon is a short sword.

In the realm of Nightreign, the Duchess possesses an exceptionally potent offensive ability known as Restage. When activated, this skill makes the enemy she’s aiming at suffer all the damage inflicted upon them over the past few seconds once more. This damage encompasses blows dealt by allies, meaning that employing Restage immediately following a series of powerful team attacks or ultimate abilities can yield significant benefits. Additionally, this double damage also causes stance breaks, which can often disrupt and stagger bosses, allowing for continued offensive momentum.

The Art of Finale Ultimate, while impressive in some ways, doesn’t quite live up to expectations as it primarily makes you and your allies invisible without any direct combat benefits. However, during overworld exploration, this stealth feature does provide an advantage by allowing for strategic backstab attacks and ambushes. In confrontations with bosses, though, its main utility lies in offering a chance for everyone to heal or reinforce themselves with consumables, ensuring safety.

Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Recluse

  • Passive Ability: Elemental Defense — Discover affinity residues that can be collected to replenish FP. Affinity attacks create affinity residues. Residues appear for allies, as well, which can also be collected.
  • Skill: Magic Cocktail — Collect the affinity residues of targets to fire an affinity-exploiting magic cocktail. Affinity residues accumulate. Collect three to wield a magic spell. Complex affinity combinations create more powerful spells.
  • Ultimate Art: Soulblood Song — Unleash forbidden chant to brand nearby foes with blood sigils. Brand foes with short-lived blood sigils that increase damage taken and restore the HP and FP of caster.

As a researcher studying Nightreign’s mage class, the Recluse, I find it crucial to clarify her abilities for easier understanding. The Recluse, being Nightreign’s resident mage, initially wields a staff and possesses the ability to cast magic. Upon striking enemies with her spells, an elemental affinity residue is left behind, which the Recluse can later harvest to replenish her FP (mana). When three of these residues are accumulated, the Magic Cocktail Skill may be activated, enabling a powerful spell to be hurled at foes. The nature of this spell is influenced by the elements of the collected residues; for instance, fire spells produce fire residues, lightning magic produces lightning ones, and so forth.

The Recluse’s ranged damage is both potent and persistent because she can replenish most of the FP she expends and employ several Magic Cocktail spells throughout a boss fight. Similar to Duchess, her health and defenses are quite weak for a character focused on magic, making her one of the more challenging Nightfarers to master.

Remarkably, her Soulblood Song Ultimate Art stands out as one of the most powerful supportive skills in the game. When activated, it marks surrounding enemies or bosses with symbols that intensify the damage they receive, while simultaneously restoring HP and FP for those who attack them. It proves especially potent during boss fights, particularly when your team runs out of Crimson Tears flasks and can’t heal otherwise.

Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Ironeye

  • Passive Ability: Eagle Eye — A keenly observant eye discovers more items to obtain from foes. The effect of this ability also applies to allies.
  • Skill: Marking — Cut foe with  dagger, creating temporary weak point. Inflict damage on temporary weak point to destroy it and stagger foes. Damaging weak point extends its duration.
  • Ultimate Art: Single Shot — Fire a powerful arrow that surpasses sound and ignores any defense. Arrow pierces all types of enemies, terrains, and structures. Hold to draw bow and aim before firing.

Archery hasn’t been very strong in FromSoftware’s Soulslike games, and while it was more feasible than ever before in Elden Ring, it was still not one of the best options to choose. Therefore, I remain cautious about Ironeye’s effectiveness in Nightreign, even though I’m happy that a character like them is available. It’s hardly surprising that they start off with a bow.

The Marking Ability allows Ironeye to strike a foe with a dagger, forming a vulnerable spot on their body that your team can aim at; this action swiftly disorients them, making it ideal for setting up critical hits or a synchronized assault. On the other hand, the Single Shot Ultimate Art enables you to launch an arrow packing a massive punch, passing through all kinds of enemies, terrain, and structures. This move will be most effective when multiple adversaries are in alignment, or when there’s an opportune time to strike a powerful blow against a boss with high damage.

In summary, the Eagle Eye passive stands out because it boosts not only your own but also your allies’ loot finds when vanquishing adversaries. If amassing numerous item drops is key to realizing a specific build you envision, the Ironeye could be the perfect Nightfarer for you.

Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Raider

  • Passive Ability: Fighter’s Resolve — Taking damage boosts Retaliate potency, cannot be knocked down while using it. Remain standing with a sliver of HP even after taking heavy damage.
  • Skill: Retaliate — Assume an attack stance and pummel vigorously. A defensive posture which reduces incoming damage. An enhanced skill which causes even larger enemies to recoil.
  • Ultimate Art: Totem Stella — Drive gravekeeper’s wedge into earth to summon a giant tombstone. Tombstone radiates protective aura, boosting strength of nearby allies and blocking arrows. Can also be climbed. 

In simpler terms, the Raider character from Elden Ring’s Nightreign is a barbarian type, ideal for players who prefer raw Strength builds in Elden Ring and similar games that emphasize poise, heavy armor, and robust defenses. If you’re one of those players, the Raider could be just right for you. He begins each run equipped with a large, two-handed axe.

Fundamentally, his main move is called Retaliate Skill – this is an unstoppable action where the Raider stands firm and lessens incoming damage while building up a powerful strike with immense damage and causing a substantial stance break. Significantly, his Fighter’s Resolve passive increases its potency when he takes a hit, thereby prompting you to activate Retaliate right before an enemy is about to attack, thus maximizing its strength. The description implies that it offers a weaker form of Wylder’s Sixth Sense, maintaining your life with minimal health as long as the attack that would have knocked you out was a major one.

This Stella Ultimate Art of his Totem appears to be one of the game’s most distinctive abilities. It raises a colossal gravestone from beneath the earth, harming enemies it collides with and boosting both you and your teammates (by enhancing their attack power and defense). You can also seek shelter behind it or ascend onto its peak, utilizing it as a vantage point to fire arrows, cast spells, or launch plunging attacks from.

Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Executor

In Elden Ring, the seventh class is known as the Executor. So far, we haven’t seen much of them in gameplay, but here’s what we do know: They wear an armor set that resembles the one worn by the Alonne Knights from Dark Souls 2. Initially, they wield a katana, and it seems their core mechanic involves a deflect parry similar to Sekiro. This suggests that if you enjoy getting up close with a boss, parrying their moves for critical hit opportunities, then the Executor could be an excellent choice for you.

Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Revenant

There is still much unknown regarding Nightreign’s eighth and concluding character at launch, but she was momentarily shown in the latest game trailer. The whispers suggest her name might be Revenant, and that she wields a harp to conjure Elden Ring Spirit Ashes similar to a necromancer. However, this information remains unverified, so remember it’s speculation for now. I anticipate more details about this enigmatic character will surface as Nightreign’s release date draws nearer.

As a devoted gaming enthusiast, I’m thrilled to share that pre-orders for Elden Ring Nightreign are currently open on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PS5, and PS4. If FromSoftware manages to pull off an exceptional finale, this game could very well be among the top Xbox games and PC games of 2025! Priced at $39.99, it’s a steal, especially when you consider that it’s $20 cheaper than Elden Ring itself. But here’s a pro tip: secure your copy of the PC version for an even sweeter price of $35.19 exclusively at Fanatical!

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2025-05-02 23:40