Duchess Build Guide – Elden Ring: Nightreign
Welcome to our Duchess Build Guide for Elden Ring: Nightreign.
This guide explains how to play as a Duchess in Nightreign and provides tips and general direction for building her. Due to the RNG nature of loot and buffs in each run of Nightreign, we won’t provide a precise blueprint. Instead, we’ll explain the most optimal things to prioritise when choosing your loot.
Please note that this guide is based on pre-release information, much of it from the network test. As such, it is still a work in progress that we aim to update in the run-up to and immediately after the release of Elden Ring: Nightreign. See also: Nightreign Nightfarers List.
Table of Contents:
Duchess Overview – Nightreign
Duchess is a melee fighter who prefers to fight with daggers. She favours a stealthy playstyle and can help her team to ambush enemies.
- Starting Stats:
- HP: 160
- FP: 65
- Stamina: 54
- Starting Gear:
- Duchess’ Dagger
- 3x Shield Grease
- Magnificent Poise – Allows Duchess to immediately dodge a second time after dodging, by pressing the dodge button again.
- Restage – Reapply all damage that the target has recently suffered.
- Finale – Stealth yourself and all nearby allies for 10 seconds, preventing enemies from attacking them.
These abilities make Duchess great at supporting the team. A well-timed Restage can help to bring down a boss much quicker than would otherwise be possible, and Finale is perfect for setting up coordinated ambushes against a powerful enemy, or for gaining space to resurrect or to bypass an enemy you do not want to fight right now.
Duchess is a bit squishy and requires a player who is skilful enough to avoid most enemy attacks, although this is made a little easier thanks to her ability to double-dodge.
Duchess Build Guide – Nightreign
In this section, we will outline the best strategy for building the Duchess in Elden Ring: Nightreign. While no two runs are exactly the same, there are strategies you can utilize that tend to result in the most optimal improvements for the Duchess.
Early-Game Loot Strategy
At the start of the game, prioritise farming the following locations, if possible:
- Start by killing small enemies near your spawn location, aiming to reach at least level 3.
- Go to nearby Blood Loss and Frostbite settlements. Loot all chests and kill all enemies to farm weapons.
- Look out for blood and frostbite weapons.
- Visit as many Churches as possible to get healing upgrades.
Mid and Late-Game Strategy
As you progress through the game, shift to the following priorities:
- Return to the Blood Loss and Frostbite settlements, aiming to upgrade your weapons. Look out for Legendary weapons of the correct type (blood or frostbite).
- Look for more churches while travelling.
- On Day 3, check the merchant for Smithing Stones to upgrade your weapons. Complete any level-ups that are still available.
Duchess Best Spells
The following spells are generally the strongest options for Duchess in Elden Ring: Nightreign:
- Golden Vow – Incease the attack and defense of you and nearby allies.
Duchess Best Relics
Look out for the Relics that provide the following effects:
- Improved Jump Attacks
- Improved Critical Hits
- Improved Chain Attack Finishers
Duchess Best Equipment
Look out for the following items when looting as Duchess in Elden Ring: Nightreign:
- Best Weapons:
- Scavenger’s Curved Sword – Causes bleeding.
- Rivers of Blood – Grants the Corpse Piler skill – forms a blade of cursed blood for repeated, interweaving attacks.
- Frozen Needle – Applies Frostbite
- Scimitar
- Best Talismans:
- Lord of Blood’s Exaltation – Raises your attack power when Blood Loss is triggered nearby
- Green Turtle Talisman – Increases your Stamina Recovery Speed
- Best Consumables:
- Blood Grease – Coats your weapon, causing it to inflict Blood Loss
- Freezing Grease – Coats your weapon, causing it to inflict Frostbite
- Freezing Pot – Throw at enemies to cause a buildup of frost
Don’t worry if you can’t find the exact weapons mentioned above. RNG will ensure that your build is very rarely perfect. The most important thing is to have a pair of Blood Loss weapons to dual-wield, and a pair of Frostbite weapons to switch to. Whenever you apply a status effect, the boss becomes more resistant to further applications. Therefore, apply two or three stacks of Blood Loss, then switch to your Frostbite weapon and apply that instead, and rinse and repeat. Remember to use Duchess’ Restage ultimate to reapply bursts of damage caused by your status effects.
How to Play Duchess – Nightreign
Duchess has a relatively low base HP, which makes it tricky for beginners to play her. However, this is partially counteracted by her ability to dodge twice in quick succession. It is still advisable to learn the basics of the game on a character like Guardian or Wylder who are more forgiving – playing Duchess well requires you to be able to dodge enemy attacks confidently.
Once you’re confident enough to play Duchess, you can focus more on her excellent DPS potential. We’ll be dual-wielding, and as mentioned above, we recommend having a pair of Blood Loss weapons and a pair of Frostbite weapons. Sometimes you’ll have bad RNG and this won’t be possible – don’t worry too much about it.
When you can get a decent set of Blood Loss and Frostbite weapons, alternate between the two after applying two or three stacks of each status effect. This allows you to deal more damage over time and negate the resistances built up when statuses are stacked too many times. Remember to use Restage after dealing a big burst of damage to repeat the same damage. Advanced players can coordinate this with their allies to simultaneously repeat damage bursts from several players.
Ensure you get something on your Weapon Passive slots before the end of Day 2. The best option is stacking up Improved Chain Attack Finishers, but sometimes you’ll need to settle for other passives, and that’s fine.
Remember to use Blood Grease and Freezing Grease on bosses to deal more damage.
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