You’ve finally made it to Nightreign’s final boss – the Night Aspect – and if you’re anything like me, you’ll have spent your first attempt gawking at the phenomenal skyboxes featured in this fight more so than the boss itself. It’s a mesmerising finish to the game, honestly, but it’s also far from easy, as you’d expect.
Capable of utilising the attacks of all the Nightlords before it, the Night Aspect is a brutal boss, but with some preparation (and in Nightreign’s instance, good RNG), you’ll be able to fell the final Nightlord in no time. Here’s how to beat the Night Aspect in Elden Ring Nightreign to help you out.
How to beat the Night Aspect in Elden Ring Nightreign
First things first, if you’re going to beat the Night Aspect in your upcoming Nightreign Expeditions, there are a few tips to bear in mind as you’re exploring Limveld. Making sure you’re specifically preparing for the Night Aspect throughout an Expedition – by collecting gear and consumables that target his weaknesses – you’ll have a much easier time of the fight.
- Night Aspect is weak to Holy damage, so any Holy armaments, Incantations, Pots, or Grease are worth keeping a hold of.
- Night Aspect deals all kinds of damage, so any Damage Negation passive effects you can find are worth grabbing: these are Physical Damage Negation, Affinity Damage Negation, and so forth.
- Frostbite, Bleed, and Poison are not effective against the Night Aspect.
- Use consumable buffs: this was one of my biggest recommendations for Shadow of the Erdtree, and I’m echoing it here, where consumables are even more powerful. Don’t let any pouches or Runes go to waste. Use Boiled Prawns to help negate Physical Damage and Exalted Flesh to boost your attack.
- Shields (especially Towershields) can be used to tank a lot of the Night Aspect’s attacks, but you do not necessarily need one for the fight. They can be useful if you plan on playing a melee Nightfarer.
- If you can hit all Churches and collect all Flasks – which will be between three and four – while gearing up across Limveld, do so! This fight is tough, so the more heals you have, the better.
When it comes to fighting the Night Aspect, any combination of Nightfarers can be used, though I do recommend bringing a Raider or Wylder along where possible in an attempt to deal consistent stance damage to the boss.
How to beat The Shape of Night in Nightreign (Night Aspect’s 1st Phase)
The first phase of the fight – which sees you fighting The Shape of Night – is relatively straight-forward. The three-armed Nightlord wields two swords (including a Moonlight Greatsword!) that they’ll alternate between using, and while they can lunge and phase around the arena, they’re relatively slow during this phase.
Be careful of their swords slashes and side swipes, however, and even though this fight might seem easy, I recommend taking it slowly. You want to preserve your HP and Flasks for the second phase as best as possible, and with some team coordination, you should be able to complete this phase of the fight without taking too much damage.
The Shape of Night is also capable of swinging at a player before quickly turning around and dashing to deal with any player behind him, so if you’re wailing away at his back, try to keep an eye on what’s going on with his attacks and prepare to dodge backwards sooner or later.
If you need to heal during this phase, consider using a Warming Stone if you have one while your team takes the enemy aggro. You’ll have chance to use these later if need be, but it’s better to use them early on in the fight and save your Flasks for when things get a little more chaotic, which they soon will be.
Similarly, once the first phase does end, I recommend quickly popping any consumable buffs you have there and then, as any openings you have during the second phase should ideally be spent attacking or consuming a Flask quickly.
How to beat Heolster, the Nightlord in Nightreign (Night Aspect’s 2nd Phase)
Once second phase begins (which has a new health bar), try not to stare at the sky too much; I know it’s pretty, but we’ve Heolster, the Nightlord to deal with now. During this phase, he still wields his two swords, but his Moonlight Greatsword is now imbued with Magic and his third arm wields a dagger. He’s also much faster now, and his attacks are – simply put – brutal and unforgiving from here on out.
Whenever there’s an opening, you want melee attackers to work on dealing stance damage to the Nightlord wherever possible (Ironeye’s Mark Skill helps with this), in an attempt to break him out of – and prevent – some of his worst attacks. When there aren’t any openings, the attacks you need to be prepared for are as follows:
- Magic Projectiles: Heolster begins to spin, dragging his Greatsword along the ground. He’ll then summon magic projectiles as a result that you will need to dodge.
- Magic Downpour: Heolster summons a dark light in his hand, filling the arena with purple mist. He summons more projectiles that eventually crash down like a magic downpour. Heolster is free to attack while he does this, but you will want to keep an eye on and dodge the projectiles as they crash down into the arena.
- Sword Slash and Dash: Much like his first phase, Heolster will continue to slash away at you before quickly dodging towards another teammate and attempting to slash them. You need to hope your reaction times are at their best during this fight and you can dodge these slashes – which are arguably the nicer of Heolster’s attacks – and even if you think you’re safe, it’s much safer to assume you aren’t. He can also perform this move while his swords are ‘power up’ and glowing.
- Triple Sword Slash: Alongside his slash and dash, Heolster can dish out a three-part sword combo, swiftly chasing after whichever player he is targeting. With this attack, you want to try and dodge away from the sword swipes, and side-dodge away from the final hit of his combo.
- Empowered Lunge: If you see the Night Aspect hold its Greatsword in front of it and imbue the sword with magic power, prepare to dodge backwards. They’ll shortly dash to and attack a player, knocking them back.
When there is approximately 50-60% of Heolster’s HP remaining, he’ll fly off into the sky and quite literally tear the sky apart before unleashing a devastating AoE attack around the arena; there are safe spots between each AoE beam he sends out that you can sprint to, or you can dodge if you’re feeling confident.
This particular part of the fight is just epic, and if you die here because you’re too taken aback by what the hell is happening, I honestly can’t blame you.
The attacks to look out for during the Night Aspect’s third phase are as follows. He will also continue to use attacks from his second phase, and can still be stance broken.
- Explosive Fissures: As you commence Heolster’s third phase, there will be explosive fissures around the arena to be careful not to stand on. These are the rumbling rocks in the ground that will have white or purple light beneath them before erupting. He will also conjure more of them – in straight lines across the arena – as he swipes his sword at players, so be prepared to side dodge plenty and keep a careful watch on your footing.
- Five Sword Slash: The triple sword slash from Heolster’s prior phase remains, but powered up. This time, after he’s swiftly followed his target around slashing his sword at them four times, he’ll quickly conclude his combo with a fifth downward slash – which uses both of his swords – that you can dodge away from.
- Dive Attack: Heolster flies into the sky, imbues his sword with an affinity (this could be any affinity, including Sleep if you’re unlucky), before diving and plunging his sword into the ground, unleashing a brutal AoE attack that spans most of the arena. His attacks use his chosen affinity now, and he can repeat this attack, changing his weapon’s affinity again.
- Magic Arc: Night Aspect imbues his Moonlight Greatsword and spins it around himself, before using it to fire out a magic arc (a lot like the Moonlight Greatsword’s Weapon Skill). He can fire out multiple of these in quick succession, and will follow up by plunging at the player with his Greatsword. You can dodge through this or to the side of it.
All in all, the fight against the Night Aspect is difficult, but when you know exactly what to expect from the boss – including all of the spectacle that the fight possesses – and can prepare for it, the fight quickly becomes easier. Just remember to use Holy damage where you can, stack those Damage Negation passives, and prepare to dodge his explosive, jaw-dropping transition from second to third phase.
For more on Nightreign, take a look at all random map events you can come across in Limveld, as well as our tips and tricks page which is full of boss and Nightfarer build guides.