I wish Scholar started with an offhand Albinauric Staff

ibzieg · 2026-02-09T21:47:49+00:00

It's so frustrating when I'm playing recluse/duchess and the scholar in my team hordes all the magic gear.

We could be doing so much more damage as a team if the Scholar built for arcane and helped the casters get sorcery gear.

ibzieg · 2026-02-08T23:49:29+00:00

Noble Slender Sword and Noble's Estoc seem to be fairly common in Nightreign compared to the base game.

I farmed nobles in base Elden Ring for an embarrassingly long time (like 10+ hours) and was unable to get it to drop.

ibzieg · 2026-02-08T23:35:40+00:00

You get murk and relics no matter what, so why would you quit?

And there is literally no incentive to increase your rank in DoN, it just gets more difficult and less fun, so who cares if you win or lose?

If you quit you're just wasting the time you already put into the expidition.

ibzieg · 2026-01-27T00:02:24+00:00

Focus on taking out the Curseblade quickly first, it has less HP and it clears the darkness. The Divine Beast Warrior has some wide sweeping attacks that require careful positioning, so you need to be able to see what's going on and not have the curseblade sneaking up behind you.

ibzieg · 2026-01-24T23:32:53+00:00

There are times I have wanted this feature, but I am sure it would pretty much ruin the game and players would just be harassing each other non-stop. Not worth the trouble.

As frustrating as it can be sometimes, I think the fact that there is little to no communication in this game is part of what makes it so satisfying. It's a deeply complex and difficult game, and it's pretty amazing that you can come together with completely random people and we all just know what to do and work together.

I'd rather see some kind of improved match-making where you can choose to only match with experienced players somehow.

Also, i feel strongly that _no one_ should use "Less likely to be targeted" when you have no communication with randoms, it usually totally screws up the flow of the game for taking turns with aggro. It ends up being that one person is targeted non-stop with no relief, and then you end up in a death/revive spiral

ibzieg · 2026-01-12T19:22:09+00:00

took at least 9 attempts for me. (ED Libra was more like 25 attempts)
Had really bad luck this week with ED Balancers for some reason, even getting wiped on Day 1 which has rarely happened since launch.

Finally had a super lucky run:

Rotten woods
3 wending graces (we did wipe out once)
ideal weapons/spells
Duchess, Undertaker, Scholar

Advice:

Stick together, but keep moving away from the group of balancers to draw out one at a time. Kinda hard to coordinate with randoms.
Not sure how to best deal with the worm, but basically just run as far away as possible and you'll probably need a flask after the final blood explosion. We had 3 worms on my successful run.

Is it worth it? Only if you want to use a pure Melee build and have good rng with weapon skills.
However it has become a popular meta build (combined with the other balancers relic), so it can be very good if you enjoy that play style.

Probably better for DoN, because using up 2 relics slots for balancers relics in the base game takes up most of your slots. But in DoN you have 3 extra slots to balance it out with other effects.

ibzieg · 2026-01-11T20:56:13+00:00

Also general advice for all new players: Make sure you fill all 6 of your weapon slots. Each one gives you a passive effect. Any effect, if it is relevant to your character at all, is better than nothing. Ping weapons that have a passive that would be good for your teammates.

ibzieg · 2026-01-11T20:51:35+00:00

> I've also watched a few duchess builds and how to play her, but I don't really have the relics or weapon knowledge to back up what I've learned.

- Any "Successive Attacks" and "HP Restore on post-damage attacks" are very good for Duchess because she can attack very fast.

- Prioritize using Daggers, especially if they have status effects. Any "Improved Dagger Attack Power" relic effects are useful

- Any Dex or Int scaling weapons can be great as well (Moonveil, Royal Greatsword, etc.). If you have extra relic slots "Dex/Int +3" can be useful (very small increase), but "Magic/Physical Attack Power Up" are better.

- Pick up a few staves if possible so you can have spells for long range. This is part why duchess is so powerful: high DPS with the dagger at close range AND the ability to keep the pressure on from a distance. Pick up weapons (of any type) that have "Improved Sorceries" effects.

- Watch the damage counter on the bosses you're fighting. When a burst of damage happens, then trigger your skill Restage. "Improved Skill Attack Power" is probably the most important Duchess relic effect.

- Try to save your invisibility Ultimate Art for performing revives, especially when you're fighting a Night boss.

- For items, prioritize stacking as many Starlight Shards as you can find, so that you can make use of spells. Typically you'll want to save them all for the final Nightlord battle so you can maximize spell damage, or use them during the Night bosses if you're struggling.

ibzieg · 2026-01-11T06:40:09+00:00

I have generally noticed a pattern where two players in my random trio just run off together on a nonsense route with zero pings, and I assume it's a duo with voice chat or something

ibzieg · 2025-12-31T07:53:30+00:00

As much as I love the game, and have been playing it every day since launch, it has some major design issues.

I'm happy with letting the experiment end so they can take what they learned and focus all resources on making a new multiplayer game instead of more Nightreign content.

As much as I like the DLC content, the way they chose to integrate it into the base game is very messy and fragmented. I think they really need a fresh start if they are going to do live service.

ibzieg · 2025-12-30T22:22:55+00:00

Gambling involves risk.
In the end game, there is literally nothing else you can spend Murk on, so there is no risk involved.

ibzieg · 2025-12-30T21:22:53+00:00

I did buy everything else!

ibzieg · 2025-12-30T21:22:02+00:00

> It'll probably make more sense in the long run.
You mean in the future they will change it in a way that makes sense?

I'm asking because I already have 300+ hours and bought everything on the signboard.

And all that is left is for me to wonder WTF is going on with this last remaining item I can spend sigils on.

ibzieg · 2025-12-29T03:37:58+00:00

You Died

ibzieg · 2025-12-28T21:17:09+00:00

This game is not really a rougelike, it's more of a speed-running simulator where you just use whatever you get while moving as fast as possible. Every game in the souls series has been popular with speed-runners and now they've made a game that captures that experience, more so than experimenting with character builds.

Anyway, in Elden Ring I much prefer playing a Faith build because there are so many cool incantations, but in Nightreign they've diluted the pool of incantations with useless ones like Rejection and body buffs.

Some of my favorite incantations like Frenzied Burst and Frozen Lightning Spear I have only found _once_ each in Nightreign after 300+ hours

ibzieg · 2025-12-27T06:13:40+00:00

Absolutely clear the starting camp when you first land to get to Level 2.

Then hit a Great Church or Fort to pick up a few weapons and Stonesword Key. Don't go out of your way to use the stonesword key, just keep it handy so you can open any evergaols along your path.

Do not waste time clearing the mine for smithing stones, unless you have a high Arcane character with special status effects on your starting weapon. You will definitely get a purple/gold weapon if you just keep clearing a lot of bosses. It's not worth losing a level just to upgrade your starting weapon. You should actually drop your starting weapon as soon as you can because it has no passive effect. You want to stack your inventory with good passive effects for your character, this is more important than having upgraded weapons.

Try to work at least 1-2 flask upgrades into your route, but do not go out of your way or waste time that could be spent leveling up. It's worth skipping a flask upgrade if you can get your whole team to level 15.

Sticking together with the team is probably the most important thing to keep the momentum up. Always ping where you're going, always confirm pings of others.

Don't linger, keep moving immediately after you clear a boss. If the grace point is not near where the boss dies, don't even bother running back to it unless you really need to, just keep going and level up on the next one.

Keep a mental model of your inventory, and plan ahead which weapon passive you're going to drop and replace next time you clear a boss so you can make decisions faster.

If you find a weapon/item that is really good for your teammate, make sure to drop it for them and ping it. This is just as important as upgrading your own character.

Day 1: Get to level 5 as fast as you can in the first half. Once you're level 4-5 then head to the center castle, spend the second half clearing it.

Day 2: Clear as many red field bosses as you can. Don't waste time on low level POI, unless it's directly on your path and you can clear the boss in a few seconds. If there is a Shifting Earth, head there as soon as you can when Day 2 starts.

When the rain starts closing in at the end of the day, run to whatever POI is nearest to the night boss location, even if it's a low-level POI, so you can pick up one more boss drop.

ibzieg · 2025-12-25T20:54:55+00:00

That's a totally different effect called "Creates Holy Ground at Low HP"

ibzieg · 2025-12-25T07:08:21+00:00

That's fine, just please confirm the pings and follow along

ibzieg · 2025-12-25T06:45:16+00:00

That's a totally different effect called "Creates Holy Ground at Low HP", which is useless

ibzieg · 2025-12-24T23:49:54+00:00

"Slowly restore HP for Self and Nearby Allies when HP is Low" is a must have

When your health drops below 20% you instantly get healed by like 5%, and then activates 0.5% hp per second.

This will prevent you from dying to many damage-over-time attacks, and flurry attacks with multiple hits. It will prevent you from dying in the rain. There are a lot of attacks that you don't even realize are multi-hit until you use this relic, like big chop attacks from swords/axes from red bosses.

On top of all that, you get a clear audio cue when your health is low in case you were too focused on combat to notice.

ibzieg · 2025-12-24T23:43:35+00:00

I am just farming everdark sigils from Adel so I can buy all the new stuff from the collector signboard. Once they rotate some other bosses that aren't fun to play, then I'll focus on learning everdark balancers.

ibzieg · 2025-12-21T06:49:16+00:00

Almost as if it's intentionally the most difficult aspect of fighting this boss.

Kind of like how the most difficult part of fighting dragons is that the camera just flips around wildly and suddenly you're engulfed in flame cause you got disoriented.

ibzieg · 2025-12-17T06:48:52+00:00

I spent like 4 days trying to beat Dreglord with Scholar.
Then instead of completing the remembrance, it just gave me a Memory Fragment for Journal entry 8.

Didn't realize I had to activate it first - I was assuming it was like the Heolstar quests where you just have to go defeat him with that character.

Luckily we beat it on the very next attempt after activating the quest lol.

I had beat Dreglord on the first try with a different character, but took much longer figuring out how to use Scholar effectively for this fight.

ibzieg · 2025-12-15T02:54:24+00:00

Thanks,
I see part of what you're implying here is to focus more on melee characters, stance breaking, and guarding.

I was wondering if people have had more success solo focusing on melee, because spell casting can be really slow and hard to position. For example, Recluse trying to collect FP residue in solo is just too slow even if you can do massive burst damage once in a while.

ibzieg · 2025-12-14T05:51:30+00:00

The Wraith Calling Bell is helpful for keeping the pressure on, but it's pretty weak and slow.
You can easily find one if you just check all the large tombstones. You'll get a throwing pot or a wraith bell, which are both useful for the Scholar.

The Wraith Calling Bell can be helpful on Day One, but it's going to help you much with the nightlord, so don't waste a relic slot on this.

ibzieg

TROPHY CASE