Unleash deadly agility and master flawless evasion with the Duchess, one of Elden Ring Nightreign’s most captivating and powerful classes. Known for her swift dagger strikes and unique quickstep dodge, the Duchess excels in hit-and-run combat, making her a thrilling choice for players who favor speed and precision over brute force. Ready to unlock her secrets and dominate the shadows? Here’s your essential guide to playing the Duchess on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Once you unlock the Duchess, pick her if you like to stay nimble and quickly dominate foes with excessively high damage per second. While her damage potential is one of the highest, Duchess has some apparent weaknesses that can diminish her viability.
If you’re an aspiring Duchess main who wants to get the best out of the character in your future expeditions, this Elden Ring Nightreign guide will show you how to play as theDuchess, with a focus on recommendations for her best relics, best teammates, and best weapons, alongside other miscellaneous tips.
How to make a great Duchess build in Elden Ring Nightreign
To make a great Duchess build in Elden Ring Nightreign, focus on maximizing her Dexterity and mobility by dual-wielding fast weapons like daggers or katanas, preferably those that inflict status effects such as poison, blood loss, or frostbite. Pairing these with the Restage character skill allows you to reprise damage for your entire party, making her a formidable damage dealer. Complement this with relics that boost Vigor for survivability and Dexterity for damage output, along with talismans that enhance sorcery damage or attack speed if you prefer a magic-oriented playstyle. Utilizing her Ultimate ability strategically for invisibility can help with reviving teammates or repositioning in combat. Overall, balancing quick, status-inflicting attacks with precise timing and mobility will unlock the Duchess’s full potential.
As a dextrous character, you’ll want to craft your Duchess build around daggers, katanas, and curved great swords. All in all, anything that has a fast move set and is able to apply bleed is beneficial to a Duchess build. Bleed just overall synergizes with Duchess’s Restage ability, so when in doubt, prioritize looking for weapons and relics that allow for bleed application.
Since Duchess scales with intelligence and faith as well, she does well with most of the game’s ranged weapon options. We recommend a good bow or staff in your equipment loadout.
Best relics for Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign
The best relics for the Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign focus on enhancing her dexterity-based dagger attacks, spellcasting, and survivability. Key relics include the Blessed Iron Coin, which boosts attack power when defeating enemies during her ultimate and provides continuous HP recovery, making her tankier in combat. The Night of the Wise relic adds poison effects to her weapons and increases attack power when enemies are poisoned or afflicted by rot, synergizing well with her hit-and-run playstyle. Golden Dew enhances her character skill attack power and boosts elemental affinity attacks, amplifying her burst damage potential. The Crown Medal significantly improves dagger attack power and enables chain attack reprises, increasing damage output during combos. Additionally, the Old Pocketwatch relic restores FP on successive attacks and grants Dexterity bonuses, supporting her fast, multi-hit dagger combos and spellcasting. Equipping these relics maximizes the Duchess’s damage, sustain, and utility, aligning perfectly with her assassin-like combat style in Nightreign.
Duchess scales primarily off of Arcane, Faith, and Dexterity, so the best relics for her are those that provide boosts to those specific stats. You can unlock these relics by just playing the game, but the best relics come from completing runs and defeating Nightlords. Another great way to gain access to high-quality relics is by completing the remembrance objectives found in the journal.
Some of the Duchess’ best options are relics with the following effects:
- [Duchess] Dagger chain attack reprises event upon nearby enemies
- [Duchess] Improved character skill attack power
- [Duchess] Defeating enemies while Art is active ups attack power
- [Duchess] Become difficult to spot and silence footsteps after landing critical from behind
- Boosts attack power of added affinity attacks
- Improved stance breaking when wielding two armaments
- Any relic that increases Dexterity, Intelligence, or Endurance
- Character skill cooldown reduction
- Starting armament inflicts are good relics as well if you can match the status ailment with a Nightlord weakness
Best teammates for Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign
The best teammates for Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign are frontliners like Raider, Guardian, Wylder, and Executor. These characters can draw enemy attention and create openings for Duchess to safely deal damage, leveraging her hybrid melee and magic playstyle while compensating for her low health. Raider is especially effective due to his high strength and synergy with Duchess’s Restage skill, which allows repeating damage dealt by teammates. Additionally, teaming Duchess with two Ironeye archers creates a high-damage composition where coordinated attacks and Restage can shred bosses quickly. This combination benefits from invisibility and revival capabilities provided by Duchess’s Ultimate Art, making the team resilient and deadly in boss fights.
Duchess excels when she’s able to deal damage unimpeded. She fits neatly into team comps that create enough space for her to do as she pleases. As the game evolves, new strategies may emerge, but at launch, the following classes are great fits as teammates for the Duchess and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
- Guardian – Guardian’s ultimate art provides a useful damage negation buff to teammates in its radius, helping Duchess with her survivability.
- Raider – Debatably Nightreign’s tankiest character, he can easily handle enemy aggro, allowing for Duchess to set up good uses of her Restage ability.
- Wylder – Wylder’s character skill allows him to grapple enemies to him. In the early stages of an expedition, Duchess is at her weakest. A good Wylder can help mitigate enemy aggro by yanking them away from her.
- Duchess – Having multiple Duchess players is not as good as the other picks; however, there is an unusual synergy with her Restage character skill. Since it applies to allies’ damage as well as her own, multiple Duchess players can rapidly apply status ailments like Bleed and demolish bosses.
Best weapons for Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign
The best weapons for Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign center around her proficiency with daggers, which excel at inflicting status ailments like bleed and scarlet rot. She starts with the Duchess’ Dagger, notable for its Magic Dagger skill that adds magic damage, making it ideal for early-game combat when paired with glintstone sorceries in the off-hand. For maximizing her damage output, dual-wielding daggers such as Reduvia, Wakizashi, Rivers of Blood, Scorpion’s Stinger, and Crystal Knife is highly effective, especially when combined with her Restage ability to amplify damage. Additionally, katanas with bleed affinity and staves like the Carian Regal Scepter complement her dexterity and intelligence scaling, offering versatile melee and magical options. Weapon passives that enhance rapid attack chains and damage negation are crucial to help her survive and maximize DPS, given her glass cannon nature. Overall, quick, status-inflicting weapons paired with sorcery support define the best arsenal for Duchess.
Hands down, the best weapon for Duchess is a dagger, as Duchess prefers to build up status ailments as quickly as possible. To that end, it’s best to equip her with weapons that have fast move sets.
That said, even though she’s a dextrous character, she also has good intelligence scaling. Staves are extremely underrated on Duchess. Since there’s no equipment load or stat requirements outside of levels, there is simply no reason not to have at least one good staff member with you at all times. Below are some of the best weapons for Duchess:
- Crystal Knife
- Reduvia
- Wakizashi
- Moonveil
- Rivers of Blood
- Meteoric Ore Blade
- Horned Bow
- Carian Regal Scepter
Best talismans for Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign
The best talismans for Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign enhance her damage output, boost her rapid attack chains, and improve her sorcery capabilities. Key talismans include Milicent’s Prosthesis, which increases Dexterity and successive attack power; Graven-School Talisman for improved sorceries; Radagon Icon to speed up spellcasting; and the Dagger Talisman for enhanced critical hits. Defensive and stamina-related talismans like Erdtree’s Favor, Crimson Seed Talisman, and Green Turtle Talisman also complement her agility and survivability. Additionally, Lord of Blood’s Exultation and Kindred of Rot’s Exultation amplify damage when status effects like bleed or rot are active, synergizing well with her quick attack style and status-inflicting weapons.
It isn’t often you’ll run into a talisman during an expedition, but if you get lucky, they can completely dial up the effectiveness of any character. Be on the lookout for scarabs, a returning enemy from Elden Ring, who tend to drop them.
The best talismans for the Duchess are the following:
- Millicent’s Prosthesis – Boosts attack power with successive attacks.
- Twinblade Talisman – Boosts the power of chain attack finishers.
- Lord of Blood’s Exultation – Boosts attack power when blood loss is in the vicinity.
Depending on your playstyle, you might even prefer to use talismans that increase spell casting power, such as Graven-School Talisman or Radagon Icon. While it may not be her best option, it is still viable, and being able to adapt on the fly is the best skill you could have in Elden Ring Nightreign.
What secret tactics can I use to master the Duchess in Nightreign
To master the Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign, focus on her signature hit-and-run tactics, flawless evasion, and maximizing burst damage through her Restage skill. Key secret tactics include:
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Use her quickstep dodge and passive ability to chain multiple dodges rapidly, allowing you to evade even the most aggressive boss attacks by backflipping or sidestepping to create openings for backstabs and critical hits.
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Time the Restage skill perfectly to repeat all damage dealt in the last few seconds, including status effects like bleed or frostbite. Activate it immediately after landing critical hits or coordinated team attacks to amplify burst damage and clear groups efficiently.
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Employ her Ultimate Art strategically to cloak herself and nearby allies in invisibility, enabling surprise attacks, escapes, or reviving teammates. Note that the invisibility breaks on attack, so use it defensively or for positioning rather than offense.
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Dual-wield daggers with bleed or frostbite effects to maximize damage over time, taking advantage of Restage to reapply these effects for sustained pressure.
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Prioritize positioning and avoid trading blows due to her fragility. Constant movement, flanking enemies for backstabs, and exploiting openings are essential for survival and damage output.
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Coordinate with teammates to synchronize Restage with their big attacks, boosting overall team damage.
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Consider gear and relics that enhance Dexterity, Intelligence, reduce Restage cooldown, and boost critical hits to further optimize her lethality.
By mastering these tactics, you can leverage the Duchess’s speed, agility, and burst potential to dominate combat while compensating for her low health and defenses.
How can timing Restage maximize my damage output against the Duchess
Timing Restage to maximize your damage output as the Duchess in Elden Ring Nightreign hinges on activating it immediately after you or your allies land a significant burst of damage. Restage creates a ghostly afterimage of the recently damaged enemy that replays about 50% of the damage dealt in the last few seconds, effectively amplifying your total damage output by up to 150% when combined with your initial attacks.
To optimize this:
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Use Restage right after high-damage combos, critical hits, or status effect procs like bleed or frostbite to multiply their impact.
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Coordinate with teammates to trigger Restage following their Ultimate Arts or powerful abilities, as Restage also repeats allied damage, boosting team DPS.
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The timing window is tight-if you wait too long (more than a couple of seconds), Restage fails to trigger, so prompt activation after damage is crucial.
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Restage can be used mid-dodge or even when taking hits, allowing you to reposition safely while dealing extra damage.
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Since Restage hits contribute to stance breaking and status buildup, use it to finish off enemies or bosses more efficiently.
By mastering the precise timing of Restage, you turn the Duchess into a relentless damage machine that not only repeats but also enhances every attack you and your team land on enemies.
