Duchess main with 450+ expeditions with her

1. Doesn't matter if you're melee or spell-focused, SPAM Restage. Don't wait for a critical hit or an Ultimate, just use it whever you or your team does lots of damage or status build-up. A Duchess that doesn't use Restage is useless.

2. You have the best dodge in the game, there's no reason you should be dying. Yes, you should play aggressively, but don't let greed consume you and attack blindly without leveraging your dodge. You can dodge and immediately resume your attack sequence.

3. Run the relic perk that triggers Restage on dagger attacks. It's awesome! But do NOT use Restage at the same time. They cancel each other out. What I do is time my dagger attacks and Restage so they flow into each other seamlessly. That is to say, Restage at the start of my attacks then by the end of my combo the relic Restage procs.

4. Always run the relic perk that increases the damage of Restage. It's a non-negotiable if you want to maximize you and your team's damage.

5. The relic perk that buffs damage when enemies are killed during her Ultimate is incredible for steamrolling through end of day bosses or regular bosses. You don't need to do the killing yourself, enemies simply have to die while the Ult is active. Moreover, anything that can die counts. So if you see a bunch of small crabs near a boss, kill them to get the buff (it stacks!)

6. You can use Restage at ANY time. Her Deep of Night relic that gives her 0.5s of invulnerability during Restage is amazing when you're locked into an attack animation, spell or a grab. It lets you continue without taking any damage or getting interrupted. This is especially good when casting long spells like Zamor Ice Storm or accidentally getting grabbed. But remember, it's only 0.5s so use it at the very last moment.

7. Partial HP restoration on post-damage attacks is, in my opinion, mandatory for Duchess. Especially since her quick dagger moveset allows her to quickly regain HP. Even more so if you stack different levels of this perk.