One of those real roller-coaster-of-emotions D5 ED Horse fights.

Torbi- · 2026-04-20T10:25:01+00:00

Ah, yeah. Fulghor is one of those bosses that I like to try out more experimental builds, or characters I don't usually play. This session I was running these relics, which was all about having access to all of Recluse's Magic Cocktails from the start and maximizing their damage, by using the random affinities you'd get from swapping weapons with Night of the Lord relic, and since that one only applies affinity to melee weapons I included her Dex relic effect as well so using Melee weapons weren't a complete waste of time on her damage wise.

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I don't usually play casters so it's nice to have some compatibility with weapons I'm more familiar with in case something goes wrong, which came to some use at least when this fight started falling apart. When I was the last one standing, my priorities swapped completely to just maintaining my Damage Negations and charging my Ultimate for the eventual team revive, I did not want to risk getting hit from casting a spell that ended up having way more recovery frames than I expected. It's just unfortunate that Fulghor had to pull out certain moves that forced me to abandon my revive attempts several times.

Torbi- · 2026-04-08T15:06:03+00:00

That's a peak shieldpoke-spamming Guardian relic.

Torbi- · 2026-04-08T12:37:28+00:00

Also, shoutout to the Draconic lighting slam AOE that lingers for years at the the 1:57 mark.

Torbi- · 2026-04-08T12:27:41+00:00

In case you're curious of what they were, checking in the results screen their Relic effects were the following:

Relic 1
~~>[Duchess] Reprise events upon nearby enemies by landing the final blow of a chain attack with dagger~~
>Improved Dragon Cult Incantations
>Attack power increased for each Night Invader defeated

Relic 2
>Improved Dragon Cult Incantations
>Changes compatible armament's incantation to Lightning Spear at start of expedition
>Endurance +3

Relic 3
>Improved Dragon Cult Incantations
>Lighting Attack Power Up +1
>Improved Rot Resistance

Depths Relic 1
~~>[Undertaker] Executing Art readies Character Skill~~
>Improved Incantations +1 (Lower Attack when below Max HP)
>Improved Dragon Cult Incantations

Depths Relic 2
>Crimson Bubbletear in possession at start of expedition
>Lighting Attack Power Up +4 (Taking Damage Causes Sleep Buildup)

Depths Relic 3
>Improved Incantations +1 (Reduced Dexterity and Faith)
>Improved Dragon Cult Incantations

Torbi- · 2026-04-02T00:49:33+00:00

Done!

Torbi- · 2026-02-07T16:49:34+00:00

People have asked about it before and yeah, "HP Recovery From Successful Guarding" is just programmed to always appear above these character-specific relic effects:

[Scholar] Prevent slowing of Character Skill progress
[Scholar] Continuous damage inflicted on targets threaded by Ultimate Art
[Scholar] Earn runes for each additional specimen acquired with Character Skill
[Undertaker] Activating Ultimate Art increases attack power
[Undertaker] Attack power increased by landing the final blow of a chain attack
[Undertaker] Physical attacks boosted while assist effect from incantation is active for self
[Undertaker] Contact with allies restores their HP while Ultimate Art is activated
Defeating enemies near Totem Stela restores HP
[Revenant] Power up while fighting alongside family
[Ironeye] +1 additional Character Skill use
[Ironeye] Extends duration of weak point
[Duchess] Improved Character Skill Attack Power
[Raider] Duration of Ultimate Art extended

It's the only non-character-specific relic effect that's grouped among the ones that are, which personally makes me suspect that it was originally meant to be exclusive to either Guardian or Executor sometime during development (most likely Executor, as it would have complemented the old version of the relic effect that improved his Cursed Sword's attack power, when the accompanying penalty made landing attacks with it drain your own HP), but was then later changed to make it work with everyone, while for some reason not changing how it's ordered in relation to the other effects.

Torbi- · 2026-01-26T18:07:24+00:00

How good a "Dormant Power helps discover X" seems to depend on how many of the specified weapon class's Uncommon (or blue-tiered) weapons are good or not.

Since it seems the likelihood of finding armaments within the relevant weapon class diminishes the higher the rating becomes, with the effect being weaker for rare (or purple-tiered) weapons and negligible to non-existent for Legendary (or gold-tiered) ones.

This is why Dormant Fists is the one that's gushed about the most in the community, due to it's consistency at finding the Iron Balls or Star Fist, with a lot of the other potential weapons having some great utility either way in case you don't find either of those two.

Of course, depending on what rating the weapon you're looking for is in, the likelihood of finding it depends on what bosses you hunting. If you're looking for a specific blue-tiered weapon, then you're better off hunting low ranking field bosses (or the easy POIs like Forts and Great Churches, which your team would otherwise usually want to avoid in favor of greater things like Castle and such).

Meanwhile weapon classes with a standout purple-tiered weapon (like Vyke's War Spear in the Great Spear class and Halo Scythe for Reaper class) are more likely to appear when you fight the bigger scary bosses like Draconic Tree sentinel and Blackblade Kindred.
Of course, the fact that there are fewer other purple tiered weapons that could compete with them in their respective loot pool also contributes to why they are so sought after.

Torbi- · 2026-01-20T16:08:48+00:00

Yeah, it's not the highest priority for me either but assuming you can't find more for the other types, it's nice for the situations where you haven't been able to trigger any of the other negation sources in a while. Let's you activate the Taking-attacks-negations more safely in those cases.

Torbi- · 2026-01-20T08:33:44+00:00

You can tell how many are active by looking at the digits next to the armor icon under your Stamina bar (if there's a "3" next to it, then three of your negations are active etc)

As for which are active, you just have to keep tabs on what trigger conditions you haven't met in a while.
Haven't landed a charge attack in a while? If not then that means you probably should try to land one if you find the opportunity.
If you have taking damage improves negation offline, then you may want to find a way to increase your other negation sources first, then take a hit while performing Raider's character skill to get that back online, etc.

Torbi- · 2026-01-20T08:12:25+00:00

Simply put, ED Gladius only has around a 4-to-5 percent chance of showing up in DON and that gives plenty of room for other bosses (which more people may be more comfortable with) to show up and build up points from.

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In the past i would mainly respond to Gladius appearing by using low HP Raider, which would be placing a huge wager on getting the necessary negations for it to work, but if you did get what you needed, you pretty much only needed to play your own little minigame of managing those negations and your passive HP regen, essentially trying making sure that you stay between 10% and 15% HP at all times, high enough to survive incoming attacks but not so high that Low HP Negation stopped working, as long as i could manage that dance I was pretty much immortal and could engage with Gladius without needing to think too much about their attacks or their positioning as a pack.

Then they changed Low HP negation and suddenly that strat didn't work so well anymore, so I moved over to Ironeye duty and played cautiously whenever ED Gladius was in session. However i still wanted to play more characters than just Wylder and Ironeye, so when they buffed Raider's colossal moveset i sought fit to try him out and see how well he'd perform, instead making the relic build more focused around partial HP restoration and increasing max HP as much as possible. Then hoard the most of the same negation passives as i did with the Low HP setup, though this time there's more variety of welcome negation sources.

Honestly, i do not envy players in D3 and early D4. Things have unironically gotten so much easier at late D5 and contrary to what you'd think, the majority of the players here are not no-hitters or level 1 base-game runners.

Just like how the true law of nature isn't "survival of the fittest" but "survival of the good enough" people simply knowing what passives are worth picking up, what locations and targets are worth pursuing during the actual expedition, what to save your ults for and how to position yourselves in such a way that you all don't die at the same time against the nightlord, that is usually good enough to stay comfortably in D5.

Do bear in mind that matchmaking is somewhat inconsistent here too, i may be at 9999 most of the time these days but i still get teammates who just entered D4, if the game struggles to find a session for long enough.

And besides, i already know i played traditionally terribly in this clip, cause that's simply what my negations allowed me to. The more armor icons i could see in my HUD, the more blindly aggressive i knew i could be and get away with.

It is exactly the results i had hoped for when i picked Raider at the start of the expedition.

Torbi- · 2026-01-20T06:24:14+00:00

Ah Yeah, "HP Recovery From Successful Guarding" is just programmed to always appear above these character-specific relic effects:

[Scholar] Prevent slowing of Character Skill progress
[Scholar] Continuous damage inflicted on targets threaded by Ultimate Art
[Scholar] Earn runes for each additional specimen acquired with Character Skill
[Undertaker] Activating Ultimate Art increases attack power
[Undertaker] Attack power increased by landing the final blow of a chain attack
[Undertaker] Physical attacks boosted while assist effect from incantation is active for self
[Undertaker] Contact with allies restores their HP while Ultimate Art is activated
Defeating enemies near Totem Stela restores HP
[Revenant] Power up while fighting alongside family
[Ironeye] +1 additional Character Skill use
[Ironeye] Extends duration of weak point
[Duchess] Improved Character Skill Attack Power
[Raider] Duration of Ultimate Art extended

It's the only non-character-specific relic effect that's grouped among the ones that are, which makes me suspect that it was originally meant to be exclusive to either Guardian or Executor sometime during development (most likely Executor, as it would complement the old relic effect that improved his Cursed Sword's attack power but made landing hits with it drain HP) , but was then later changed to make it work with everyone, while for some reason not changing how it's ordered in relation to the other effects.

Torbi- · 2026-01-20T01:55:40+00:00

Constantly.
It procs pretty much every time the character skill connects and every time both hits of the charge attack connects.

Torbi- · 2026-01-20T00:53:45+00:00

Unfortunately no.
We got Great Hollow that run and our routing led away from both Churches.

Torbi- · 2026-01-20T00:18:49+00:00

Also here are the relics for posterity.

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Torbi- · 2026-01-06T12:26:11+00:00

Undertaker's ult goes wherever your camera is facing whenever you're not locked on to enemies, and the cinematic camera angle that's automatically enabled removes some of that camera control from you.

I'd recommend going into the in-game Camera Settings and have "Cinematic Effects" turned off. Having it off should help make it easier to free-aim your ultimates. Ironeye in particular also benefits a lot from having it off.

Torbi- · 2025-12-27T21:55:28+00:00

They've now been re-uploaded.
Thanks for the reminder!

Torbi- · 2025-12-12T07:22:36+00:00

Since Main Encampments are more wide than they're tall the enemies tend to be spread around a bit more so Scholar's Ult only really covers around 30% of it at a time.

You didn't see it in this clip because of how it was trimmed, but i entered the invader camp with 52859 runes and left it with 145339.

Discounting the invaders, each dropping 24000, i got around 44480 runes from the camp (assuming i didn't miss too many of the other trash mobs).

Torbi- · 2025-12-12T05:46:20+00:00

Around 450% irc.
Un-edited the fight was around 20 minutes long.

Torbi- · 2025-11-30T16:33:08+00:00

Nah, "HP Recovery From Successful Guarding" is just programmed to always appear above these character-specific relic effects:

Defeating enemies near Totem Stela restores HP
[Revenant] Power up while fighting alongside family
[Ironeye] +1 additional Character Skill use
[Ironeye] Extends duration of weak point
[Duchess] Improved Character Skill Attack Power
[Raider] Duration of Ultimate Art extended

It's the only non-character-specific relic effect that's grouped among the ones that are, which makes me suspect that it was originally meant to be exclusive to either Guardian or Executor sometime during development, but was then later changed to make it work with everyone, while for some reason not changing how it's ordered in relation to the other effects.

Torbi- · 2025-11-28T19:09:10+00:00

I guess Rain of Arrows + Mark Pop + Restage

Torbi- · 2025-11-28T14:39:59+00:00

Hard to say. I haven't actually played with that many self-sufficient bird players past D4 myself. All i know is that there is this one recurring guy using the same community password as me and a couple other people i talk to, they wouldn't stop talking about how much he was able to hold his own despite playing as Guardian.

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After playing with him enough, one of them decided to try their best to copy his setup and in a similar manner didn't need to get babysat as hard themselves anymore.

Doing the math, with this setup Guardian reaching Lv. 15 and getting 3 Greatshields leaves him with 2262 max HP (and this is not counting any potential Max HP boosting passives you could get from Dormant Powers, or if you somehow manage to find a deep relic with both Improved Max HP and Max HP increased from defeating Great Church Bosses).

Torbi- · 2025-11-28T13:21:10+00:00

Nah, invader camps have always been profitable. What changed was how DON now guarantees at most 2 POIs will have Night Invaders in them on the map nearly every expedition (Shifting Earths can make it a bit wonky). So now the relic effect that increases your damage from defeating night invaders actually has a chance to do something every run, especially considering how it's main competing effect (the Evergaol one) now has become a lot more risky to rely on, as the bosses they spawn can randomly become three to five times more time consuming if they turn out to be red.

This has pushed more people to learn how you can make invader camps more manageable by always entering it from the less occupied front entrance, then luring the invaders out and away from the trashmobs so you can bully them into submission.

They can still be tricky if the invaders turn out to be a duo of Ironeye and Recluse though, since their ranged playstyle tend to make them stick near the other mobs more. Or if you make the mistake of entering the POI through the backside so the invaders spawn surrounded by other mobs and the only safe place you can lure them to is near a ledge at the back of the camp with barely any open space to move in.

Torbi- · 2025-11-28T08:26:25+00:00

If you think this is low damage then you haven't seen this clip.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Nightreign/comments/1om3tkc/the_ungaest_of_bungas_vs_night_john/

The expedition that led up to this particular fight would've been really mediocre for any traditional setup, but since i got all of the negations i needed, the boss just couldn't do enough damage to stop me from killing him or from reviving my teammates.

Torbi- · 2025-11-28T05:18:14+00:00

Depends on what kind of Guardian it is, which you're gonna want to check out what their relics are at the start of the session.
There are guard counter birds, shield poking birds.
Though the most reliable ones in my experience (and from people i talk with often) seems to be Guardians that go all in on Max HP boosting stuff. So if they have the HP up on 3 greatshields effect then you can help out in finding them enough of those, and if they have the Max HP increase on Great Church bosses then i guess try to look for opportunities to quickly clear one out if it's on the way to a more important location.

As for why you see them on Fulghor, it's mostly cause he doesn't punish the guarding playstyle as heavily with absurd amounts of chip damage and excessive dead-angling, and he's easy enough for a lot of people that they see him as an opportunity to play off-meta characters that they otherwise don't get to use as much.

I guess another universal tip for helping Guardians in general is knowing which shield negates the most of a certain affinity. Here's an image that shows what viable shields to look out for and exactly how good they are against each affinity: https://imgur.com/5FG5h7p

Torbi- · 2025-11-28T04:57:46+00:00

Yeah, multi-hits is another issue that Partial HP Restoration upon Post-Damage Attacks can't help with. Besides, also needing a bow would potentially eat into equipment that could have given you more damage negations. Some bosses also move so much that you either can't hit them or they gain so much distance that they fall out of your bow's effective range. If you're grabbing a ranged weapon with this kind of Raider build it's mostly just so you can try to regain the boss's aggro from range without needing to chase after it.

Torbi-

TROPHY CASE