How To Unlock And Play The Duchess In Elden Ring Nightreign

In the game Elden Ring Nightreign, the initial character you can unlock is an intriguing figure within the Nightfarer group of the Roundtable Hold. Known as the Duchess, she becomes available early in your adventure. At first sight, she might seem simple, but upon closer examination of her stats and abilities, it’s clear that this Duchess is not limited to a single skillset.

Indeed, despite her seemingly kind and virtuous demeanor, it is through cunning schemes and hidden maneuvers that she truly thrives. Mastering her strategies will be essential if you aim to outwit her in return.

Duchess Overview

HP	C
FP	B
Strength	D
Dexterity	B
Intelligence	A
Faith	D
Arcana	C

Contrary to what you’d think based on her elegant appearance and graceful movements, the Duchess isn’t primarily a Dexterity-focused character. Instead, it’s her Intelligence that sees the most significant growth or improvement. While she might have a high Dexterity, her stats favor Intelligence more.

Duchess excels in agility, intellect, and special abilities, making her an incredibly adaptable figure, carrying secret advantages under her belt.

The Duchess prefers companionship when playing, but if she’s forced to play by herself, she won’t play honestly. This is clearly seen in her fondness for daggers, her skill at inflicting repeated harm, and her knack for avoiding detection by enemies.

Among the Duchess’s equipment, it’s her remarkable agility and evasive skills that truly stand out. This noble, slick as a serpent, seems to be perfectly designed for executing stealthy, unnoticed attacks.

Duchess players will typically be:

Those who enjoy fast and aggressive gameplay that relies heavily on strategy and careful enemy selection.
Those who like to play a more aggressive support role.
Those who prefer status builds (poison, rot, etc.).

In the game, you don’t get to play as the Duchess right away. Instead, she becomes accessible after you present her with the antique Pocketwatch Relic. For a detailed walkthrough on how to recruit her, consult our official guide.

Duchess Traits

Although the Duchess may seem like a lone wolf with an edge, she’s far from it. Instead, her characteristics indicate a versatile role that blends cunning aggression with strategic assistance.

The characteristics she inherently possesses never change, regardless of who uses her or the specific construction she receives, as for the role she assumes, that can vary.

Passive Skill: Magnificent Pose
Character Skill: Restage
Ultimate Art: Finale

Passive Ability: Magnificent Pose

The Grandiose Posture significantly enhances the Duchess’s agility and elegance in combat. This talent boosts her evasive abilities, expanding her invincibility frames (I-frames), and increasing the duration between dodge sequences.

The Duchess’s impressive stance makes her more nimble and graceful on the battlefield. It speeds up her dodging, gives her additional invincibility time during dodges, and increases the gap between each evasive move she takes.

In essence, this skill allows the Duchess to chain dodges together in groups of two.

In Limveld, I’ve found that honing my skills can significantly enhance my active abilities. For instance, I’ve discovered techniques that enable my dashes to create trails of effects like Lightning or Madness.

Character Skill: Restage

This talent works optimally when utilized within a collective group, given its distinctive capabilities. The skill known as Restage enables you to roll back time and inflict fresh damage upon a chosen adversary that was recently sustained.

Any previously applied damage, regardless of the method used or if it was due to a status build-up, will be taken into account. Moreover, certain status build-up effects like ‘Blood Loss’ can actually be reactivated by this ability.

What’s truly remarkable about this skill is its extremely quick recast time. With a recast interval of just 12 seconds, it allows for repeated usage on the same enemy, significantly increasing its lethality.

The best time to use it is often after:

Unique uses of Character Skills and Ultimate Arts from other players (such as Recluse’s Magic Cocktail).
Triggering a damaging status build-up.
Performing a Critical Hit.

For novice players, figuring out the optimal moments to employ Duchess’s Restage feature can be quite a challenge due to its swift cooldown time and rapid battle tempo. Typically, newbies tend to underestimate this ability, but in the case of Duchess, it’s usually better to use Restage more frequently rather than not using it at all.

Frequently utilize it, and don’t fret over unfavorable activations while learning the rhythm of combat and Duchess’s character. Given that some bosses in Nightreign have substantial health, 12 seconds is relatively brief; another opportunity for a successful engagement will come along soon.

Ultimate Art: Finale

In the same manner that Finale benefits all of Duchess’s fellow team members, it does for her too. When activated, Finale renders both Duchess and her allies invisible to adversaries, also disabling their ability to track and attack them, even during active combat.

This effect lasts for a full ten seconds and does not immediately disappear even after attacking.

Using this skill won’t make players invulnerable to damage. They can still get hurt from wide-reaching attacks or dangerous areas like lingering flames or toxic gas clouds.

Due to its distinctive character, this Ultimate Art can be effectively utilized under various innovative situations or scenarios.

A player has fallen. By using this ability, you can revive a teammate easily without fear of being knocked out yourself.
Sneaking past areas to reach bosses without fearing trash mobs.
Ending aggression on a player who needs to regroup and fall back.
Providing an opportunity for extra free damage through a frontal assault or a backstab.

Best Weapons For The Duchess

With the Duchess boasting an unusual and unconventional versatility in combat, numerous strategies are open to players. Despite her personal fondness for daggers, she can also wield short swords, katanas, rapiers, and even staves if you’re looking to experiment with different weapons.

What all of these have in common is one crucial denominator:

The Duchess loves status conditions.

Rapidly-activated weapons are ideal for our skilled in-house assassin.

Frostbite
Scarlet Rot
Poison
Bleed

Due to her swift and nimble movements, she often inflicts status effects quickly, but it’s also important to take into account other factors as well.

The Duchess’ special interactions with Relics, like her Crown Medal Relic or those on different gear items, all harmonize effectively with quick-acting weapons.

For instance:

The Crown Medal Relic increases Duchess’s innate Dagger Attack Power.
Likewise, the second Relic above shows a Concealed bonus for instances when Duchess performs backstabs.
And Duchess’s Old Pocketwatch rewards more FP for successive attacks.

Consequently, the most effective weapons in Duchess’s inventory would be swift blades capable of causing status ailments.

Following that recommendation, the next best choices are:

Wakizashi
Shortswords
Sickles

Among Duchess’s top reliable picks, the Reduvia stands out. With its Bleed enhancement, it checks every required box.

Likewise, Misericorde may be an excellent option during specific runs, especially when it’s infused with a status affinity or provides a significant boost for critical hits.

If your weapon doesn’t have any special status, consider enhancing it with magical energy instead. This alternative might even prove more beneficial in certain situations.

Weapons that possess a magical affinity (such as the Moonveil Katana) will scale slightly with the Duchess’s Intelligence stat. This scaling means you’ll deal more damage, but you may need to sacrifice certain bonuses provided by your relics.

2025-05-31 21:35

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