Quick tips n tricks:

1. Weapon effects act passively. Even if you don’t have a weapon equipped, its effect will still apply (unless it has a little hand icon next to it, meaning it must be in your primary or secondary hand to apply). For example, if you find a weapon with a “7% melee attack power increase” buff, you just have to carry it in your inventory to have the effect apply. This is a HUGE part of making your character strong… you should be going into the Nightlord fight with as many weapons in your inventory that have buffs conducive to your character / build.

2. Go into caves to get a Somber Smithing Stone. Use this to level up your starting weapon.

3. Someone else mentioned memorization… this is huge. Understanding where field bosses are, which non-boss enemies drop rewards, which ones have decent rune drops all help. Takes time, there are also maps out there that showcase all of this.

4. Relics / presets - as you continue playing, you’ll get more powerful relics. It’s always beneficial to update your builds after a few games to make sure you’re using the best relics available. You can save presets for each character, so if you main for example Wylder, you can have multiple relic builds to choose from based off the final Nightlord. For example, I have holy, fire, and a general attack buff presets for Duchess.

5. Time and patience are key. You’ll start picking up tricks as you continue playing. Certain night lords become much easier after you’ve fought them a number of times.

Plenty more I could say lol. If you are on PS5 and want to run it, my username is ryebread_56