The builds you're able to put together on the fly while hacking and slashing your way through Elden Ring Nightreign — FromSoftware's experimental co-op roguelike spinoff of Elden Ring — runs will largely be determined by the randomized weapon and upgrade drops you'll find as you explore and defeat minibosses. With that said, you can improve your baseline effectiveness with specific playstyles by choosing the right playable Nightfarer class for you.
At launch, there are eight Nightfarer characters in total, and each one boasts unique strengths, weaknesses, and special abilities that provide valuable benefits to both them and their co-op allies. To help you determine which Nightfarer best suits your preferences, I've listed everything you need to know about them in the sections below, while also putting together a tier list of what I feel are the best classes based on my extensive playtime with the game.
Something to quickly note before I do so, though: Elden Ring Nightreign doesn't have stat requirements for weapons like Elden Ring and other FromSoftware Souls-style games do, so that's not a consideration you need to worry about. No matter who you're playing as, you can use anything and everything you find throughout a match. Predetermined stat upgrade paths when leveling do mean that some characters are better with certain weapon types than others, however.
Every Elden Ring Nightreign class, ranked
Now that I've played through the entirety of Elden Ring Nightreign for my review of the game and have put quite a bit of playtime into all eight of its classes, I've put together a tier list that ranks the characters. Note that I strongly believe all of them are effective in the quest to lift the plague of Night from the Lands Between, even if I ultimately do think some are better than others.
Overall, the Ironeye, Executor, and Raider are all at the top of my list since they have some of the highest damage potential in the game, even if they're a bit riskier to play compared to the other Nightfarers. Wylder, Guardian, and Duchess are more stable picks comparatively with lower total damage output, with Recluse and Revenant at the bottom since they're both very tricky to use and sometimes hard to get consistent value with.
Tier | Nightfarer |
|---|---|
S | Ironeye, Executor, Raider |
A | Wylder, Guardian, Duchess |
B | Recluse, Revenant |
Again, I want to stress that none of the Nightfarer characters are bad, and that all of them are viable against all the enemies and bosses you'll encounter in Nightreign. Ultimately, you should play as the one you think you'll enjoy the most — and if you're not sure what makes each of them unique and distinct, you'll want to read each of the sections below.
Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Wylder
- Passive Ability: Sixth Sense — Cheat death a single time. This ability can only be used once until restored through revival from death or passing through a Site of Grace.
- 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.
Wylder — the knight with a winged helmet that's more or less become Elden Ring Nightreign's poster boy in its key art — is the game's quintessential jack-of-all-trades character. He has a good mix of health, stamina, damage reduction from his armor, and physical damage output, though he's ill-suited for magic use. At the start of each run, he spawns with a small shield and a greatsword.
His Claw Shot Skill is exceptionally useful for quick bursts of mobility, especially if you need to quickly zip past a few enemies or get out of the damaging zone that slowly restricts playable space in the map as nighttime draws closer. However, you can also use it to either pull enemies to you or pull yourself to them, depending on how large they are. The ability to cheat death once with his Sixth Sense passive also makes him one of the more forgiving Nightfarers to start playing with.
Onslaught Stake, meanwhile, is one of the best Ultimate Arts for raw damage. When used, Wylder takes a moment to charge up the stake on his wrist before driving it forward, dealing huge damage with a large explosion and building up quite a bit of stagger on his target if it's a boss. It's essentially the "Rubiconian Handshake" pile bunker from Armored Core 6 in the hands of an Elden Ring character, and it's awesome. Just make sure you account for its 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.
Guardian immediately stood out to many fans as one of the most interesting Nightfarers since he's a giant eagle man in heavy plate armor, and as it turns out, he's widely considered to one of the better ones, too. Though his damage isn't as impactful as the output of other classes, he has very high damage resistance, health, and stamina. He starts every run with a greatshield and a halberd.
Put simply, he's Nightreign's tank, complete with the Steel Guard passive that lets you toggle an extreme boost to his blocking capabilities in exchange for reduced mobility and a Whirlwind ability that disrupts foes with a cyclone of wind that will either stagger them or send them flying. Using the former is ideal for block counter builds and a great way to soak up hits while you have a boss' attention while your allies go all out offensively, and the latter comes in handy when you need to crowd control a large group of smaller and weaker foes.
His Ultimate Art Wings of Salvation is also indisputably S-tier. When performed, Guardian soars high into the air before crashing back down to earth, creating a huge shockwave that then becomes a shield for allies as long as his stamina holds. The shockwave does good damage and heavily staggers enemies and bosses, and will also instantly revive any downed teammates in its radius; the shield is then useful to hold up so that allies can safely recover and attack your target without fear of being hit (at least until it goes down).
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 typical tank-style character, than Duchess (here's how to unlock her) is the rogue — fast, nimble, and capable of high burst damage. In fact, she's even faster than other Nightfarers and can quickly dodge twice in a row with her Magnificent Pose passive. The tradeoff, though, is that she has very low health and poise, so dodging instead of blocking is crucial. Her starting weapon is a short sword.
The Duchess has one of the most powerful offensive Skills in all of Nightreign with Restage; when used, it forces the enemy she's targeting to take all the damage they took in the last few seconds again. This includes damage dealt by teammates, so using it right after your team gets a bunch of big hits in or uses their Ultimate Arts will net you incredible value. All of that double damage applies stance break, as well, so smart usage of Restage can often stagger bosses and help you keep up the offense even more.
The Finale Ultimate Art is a bit on the underwhelming side since it simply turns you and your allies invisible and doesn't have direct combat applications, though while exploring the overworld, that guaranteed stealth does let you set up powerful backstab crits and ambushes. In boss fights, though, its main use is to give everyone a safe opportunity to heal, rebuff themselves with consumables or Ashes of War, or revive downed teammates.
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.
The official descriptions for the Recluse's capabilities are a bit confusing, so I'll simplify how she works here. As Nightreign's resident mage class, she starts off with a staff and can cast magic; hitting foes with her magic will then apply an elemental affinity residue to them, which the Recluse can then collect to regain FP (mana). Once you have three of these residues, you can then use them to activate the Magic Cocktail Skill and launch an especially powerful spell at foes. The effects of that spell are determined by the elements of collected residues; as you might expect, fire spells create fire residues to collect, lightning magic creates lightning ones, and so on.
The Recluse's ranged damage is both high and long-lasting since she can regain most of the FP she uses and make use of multiple Magic Cocktail spells over the course of a boss fight. However, as is often the case with magic-focused characters, her health and defenses are very poor. Because of this, she — like Revenant, who I'll go over later — is one of the harder Nightfarers to learn.
Notably, her Soulblood Song Ultimate Art is one of the strongest supportive abilities in the game. When used, it brands nearby enemies or bosses with sigils that increase the damage they take while also regenerating HP and FP for everyone that hits them. It's particularly strong in boss battles, especially when your squad is 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 has never been particularly good in FromSoftware's Soulslike games, and while it was more viable than ever before in Elden Ring, it was still far from a top-tier choice. For that reason, I was very surprised to learn that Ironeye is one of the best Nightfarers in Elden Ring Nightreign. Unsurprisingly, the archer starts off with a bow, and is all-but-guaranteed to get better ones as runs progress.
The Marking skill lets Ironeye slash at a target with a dagger to create a weak spot on their body that can be targeted by everyone in your squad; doing so will rapidly build up stagger, making this a great way to set up critical hits or a team-wide attack flurry. The Single Shot Ultimate Art, meanwhile, lets you fire an extremely heavy-hitting arrow that pierces through "all types of enemies, terrains, and structures." This is best saved for when you're able to line up multiple baddies at once, or when there's a good moment to slam a boss with a high-damage attack. It's also exceptionally good at saving downed allies and deals a ton of stagger damage.
Lastly, there's the Eagle Eye passive, which is quite unique in that it makes both you and your allies find extra loot when defeating enemies. If you want as many item drops as possible to try and perfect a build you have in mind, it sounds like Ironeye will be your ideal Nightfarer.
Overall, the ability to rapidly fire arrow after arrow after arrow from range leads to Ironeye getting some of the highest consistent DPS of any character, though he's not great at dishing damage out in bursts. He also has low HP, but that's a weakness mitigated by the fact he can play from the backline while melee-centric teammates hold a boss' attention.
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.
The Raider is Elden Ring Nightreign's barbarian-style character, and will be a perfect fit for you if you enjoy pure Strength-focused builds in Elden Ring and other Soulslikes that rely on poise, hyper armor, and high defenses. He starts each run off with a large two-handed axe, and while he's a bit risky since he demands taking hits in order to be truly effective, he's also built to take those hits and then hit back with some of the highest burst damage in the game.
At the core of his kit is the Retaliate Skill — an uninterruptable move in which the Raider plants his feet and reduces incoming damage while charging up a devastating blow that does very high damage and causes a significant amount of stance break. Notably, his Fighter's Resolve passive boosts its power when you get hit, encouraging you to initiate Retaliate just before an enemy is about to strike so you can maximize its power. It also saves you from death if you're hit by an attack that would have killed you while in Retaliate.
His Totem Stella Ultimate Art is one of the most unique ones in the game. It creates a massive tombstone that shoots up from underground, damaging any foes it touches and buffing both you and your allies with improved attack power. You can also take cover behind it or climb on top of it, using it as high ground to shoot arrows, cast magic, or initiate plunging attacks from.
Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Executor
- Passive Ability: Tenacity — Receive boost after recovering from status ailments. Effect boosts attack and stamina recovery speed.
- Skill: Cursed Sword — Draw a cursed sword that can deflect enemy attacks. Repeated deflections reveal blade, enabling powerful attacks with the living sword. Cannot run while at ready with enchanted blade.
- Ultimate Art: Aspects of the Crucible: Beast — Assume the form of the primordial beast. Use unique attacks in beast form that drain the Ultimate Art gauge. Activate again to quickly end transformation.
Nightreign's quintessential high-risk, high-reward character is the Executor, an armored samurai with a Sekiro-inspired deflect parry as a core mechanic. By using the Cursed Sword skill, you'll temporarily replace your weapon with the Executor's unique katana that powers up each time you manage to deflect an attack; this is done by timing blocks at the perfect time. Not only do deflections eventually light the sword with Holy energy and let you then perform heavy slashes with it, but they also rapidly stagger anything you're fighting — including bosses.
With sky-high Dexterity, the Executor excels at dishing out incredible damage to his targets with Katanas and other Dexterity-based weapons like Curved Swords. His Arcane is very high, too, so he can build up status effects like Poison or Bleed extremely quickly.
The Tenacity passive doesn't come into play much since getting afflicted by status effects isn't too much of an issue in Nightreign, but the same can't be said of the Aspects of the Crucible: Beast Ultimate Art. It transforms you into a large four-legged beast that can claw and roar, dealing very high health and stagger damage. Notably, you can't dodge in this form, but activating it does give you a full heal and reduces incoming damage quite a bit.
With terrible magic stats and very little FP, the Executor forces you to use his risky deflection mechanic and frequent melee strikes if you want good value out of him. Get good at mastering enemy movesets so you can consistently deflect attacks, however, and you'll easily lead your squad in terms of total damage done.
Elden Ring Nightreign classes: Revenant
- Passive Ability: Necromancy — Raise enemy ghosts to fight as allies. Ghosts are summoned to fight, but are fleeting and dissipate after some time.
- Skill: Summon Spirit — Play lyre to summon fallen family to battle. Choose to summon Helen the agile page, Frederick the burly cook, or Sebastian the doting butler.
- Ultimate Art: Immortal March — Release vengeful ire to make self and nearby allies immortal. Revives near-death allies, and transforms family into immortal warriors.
Like the Duchess, the Revenant is a character you have to unlock, and also happens to be what is arguably Elden Ring Nightreign's most interesting Nightfarer of all. Compared to every other character in the roster, she's less of a direct fighter and more of a supportive class. Her Summon Spirit skill lets her summon one of three Spirit Ash-like allies, including a nimble page fighter with both melee and ranged attacks, a burly pumpkin head warrior that excels at tanking, or a massive skeleton that staggers foes effectively.
Her Necromancy passive, meanwhile, briefly raises nearly slain foes as ghosts to fight for her and her allies for a few moments, while her Immortal March Ultimate Art makes herself, her summons, and other Nightfarers immune to damage for a brief period. It also raises them if they're downed, giving Immortal March some big clutch potential.
The Revenant herself has extremely low HP and not much stamina, but very high Faith, FP, and Arcane — a stat spread that makes her ideal for using sacred seals to cast supportive and offensive Faith-based incantations as well as the unique Dragon Communion spells that scale best with both Faith and Arcane.
Overall, she's very difficult to play because she requires a lot of space and time to maximize her value and has a very unforgiving health pool, but in the right hands and in a team of good players that can keep aggro off of her, Revenant can make a huge impact.
Elden Ring Nightreign is a bold new experimental spinoff from FromSoftware that spices up the original game's Soulsborne combat with a roguelike, co-op driven twist. Though it has sizable issues like only having one map or underwhelming enemy variety, it's nevertheless going to be one of this year's best Xbox games and best PC games for Souls fans craving action. It's $39.99, but you can get it for $33.99 at Newegg with the promo code XVSAVE.
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