The Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign is one of the two secret Nightfarers that you can unlock, but you’ll have to follow some steps first.
Here is a complete breakdown of Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign, and everything you need to know about playing her.
What type of Nightfarer is Duchess?
The Duchess is a dexterity-based Nightfarer class renowned for her agility, stealth, and burst damage potential. She excels in evasion and quick strikes. She also has limited defenses, making her ideal for players who favor hit-and-run tactics and precise timing over brute-forcing boss fights with their tenacity.
She prefers Daggers as her weapons, which results in high and targeted damage output. Due to her abilities, she is skilled in evasion and can dodge quickly several consecutive times during boss fights. She also has an invisibility ultimate, which is very useful for sneaking onto enemies or reviving fallen allies to continue the fight.
All Duchess’s abilities and skills
Here is a table showing the passive, active skill ability, and ultimate for Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign:
| Ability or Ultimate Name | Skill Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Magnificent Poise | Passive Ability | Reduces stamina consumption for attacks and evasive actions. Allows up to two consecutive evasive maneuvers. Helps you find better angles in the fight for making the best impact. |
| Restage | Character Skill Stage | Reapplies a portion of the damage dealt to enemies in the preceding few seconds, effectively doubling the impact of recent attacks. Amazing for burst attacks. |
| Finale | Ultimate Art | Obscures the Duchess and her surrounding allies, rendering them hidden from foes. Good for instantly reviving downed allies. |
She has extremely low health, starting at 220 HP, which makes her vulnerable to attacks. She also has FP 75 and Stamina 54, at the starting level, which can be scaled higher as she gains more levels.
How to unlock Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign
To unlock Duchess, you need an item called the Broken Pocketwatch, which can either be obtained randomly after an expedition or as a guaranteed drop from the Gladius, Beast of Night boss. Once you have the item, make your way to the Roundtable Hold and interact with the hooded figure with the item.
After that, you should trigger a cutscene where she’ll dramatically remove her hood while pledging to slay the Night lord. Now, you can select her in your character selection menu, and you can choose her whenever you want to add her to your party with other Nightfarers.
How to defeat the Gladius, Beast of Night boss
The Gladius, Beast of Night boss is a three-headed beast that is going to be your first Night Lord you need to find and defeat. It’s relatively easy to dodge his first few attacks, where he swings his chained sword toward you with a small wind-up animation.
However, you can’t take him for granted, as after taking a bit of damage, he separates himself into three individual wolves, and they can either gang up on a single player or go for everyone at the same time. It loves jumping around the boss battle arena, so always be on your toes to avoid its jump attack, or else you’ll have to endure heavy damage. It also likes to charge at enemies, so it can be lethal for you.
It also uses fire to damage you, either from the sword or spitting fire at you directly, if you’re standing too close. If you do manage to take him down, you unlock the Tricephalos achievement along with the Broken Pocketwatch to unlock the Duchess.
Which are the best classes to defeat the Gladius, Beast of Night boss in Elden Ring Nightreign?
You can pair Duchess with multiple classes to make her shine in the expeditions and take down high-level bosses. Here are some classes that go well with her kit:
- Guardian: Soaks up heavy damage from the enemies to let Duchess get those windows to burst down the bosses.
- Recluse/Ironeye: Secondary consistent damage source for your fights, who can deal high damage as well.
Next up, you can unlock the Revenant class and emote in Elden Ring Nightreign.
