Elden Ring Nightreign introduces a fascinating unlockable character, Duchess, who adds a unique flavor to the Nightfarer circle at the Roundtable Hold. You can access her early in your gameplay. While she might seem straightforward at first, a deeper dive into her stats and abilities reveals that Duchess is anything but ordinary.
Though she exudes grace and nobility, Duchess thrives on cunning strategies and intricate schemes to gain the upper hand. To utilize her to her fullest potential, you’ll need to comprehend her clever tactics and devise your own crafty plans.
Overview of Duchess
|
HP |
C |
|
FP |
B |
|
Strength |
D |
|
Dexterity |
B |
|
Intelligence |
A |
|
Faith |
D |
|
Arcana |
C |
Despite her elegant appearance, Duchess isn’t just about Dexterity. While she has a strong Dexterity stat, her best scaling is actually in Intelligence. With her high Dexterity, Intelligence, and FP stats, Duchess is a versatile character with several hidden advantages.
Duchess prefers to have support but won’t shy away from solo play, even if it means bending the rules. She favors daggers and can apply recent damage while evading enemy detection.
One of her standout abilities is her rapid mobility and superior dodging capabilities. This nimble character is perfectly suited for stealthy takedowns.
Players who choose Duchess tend to enjoy:
- Fast-paced, aggressive play that hinges on strategy and careful target selection.
- A more assertive support role.
- Status builds like poison and rot.
Duchess is an unlockable character and cannot be played from the start. You’ll need to give her the Old Pocketwatch Relic to recruit her. Refer to our official guide for more details on how to do this.
Duchess’s Traits
Duchess may seem like a lone wolf, but she actually exhibits a flexible role that combines offensive moves with clever support. The specific role she adopts depends on the player’s style and her build, but her core traits remain consistent:
- Passive Skill: Magnificent Pose
- Character Skill: Restage
- Ultimate Art: Finale
Passive Ability: Magnificent Pose
The Magnificent Pose ability defines Duchess’s combat style. This skill boosts her dodge speed, invincibility frames, and the cooldown between dodges. Essentially, it enables her to perform consecutive dodges in pairs.
This passive ability can be enhanced with various skills in Limveld, like those that let dashes leave behind effects such as Lightning or Madness.
Character Skill: Restage
This skill shines in a full team setting. Restage allows you to rewind time and reapply recent damage to a specific enemy. The damage can come from any source, including status effects. Notably, it can even trigger certain effects, like Blood Loss, again.
The best part? The cooldown time is only 12 seconds, so you can use it multiple times on the same boss, making it incredibly powerful. Ideal moments to activate it include:
- Using Character Skills and Ultimate Arts from teammates (like Recluse’s Magic Cocktail).
- Triggering a damaging status condition.
- Landing a Critical Hit.
New players often struggle with timing Restage. Don’t hesitate to use it frequently; with battle pacing, you might find yourself missing opportunities if you don’t. Remember, with bosses having substantial health pools in Nightreign, 12 seconds is brief—plenty of chances will follow.
Ultimate Art: Finale
Finale benefits both Duchess and her teammates. When activated, it makes her and all allies invisible, removing enemy tracking and aggression for a full ten seconds—even during combat.
This ability does not grant damage immunity; players can still be hit by large sweeping attacks or environmental hazards, such as fire or poison clouds.
This Ultimate Art presents several clever scenarios for use:
- When a teammate has fallen. You can resurrect them without risk of being attacked.
- Sneaking past mobs to reach the boss unbothered.
- Ending aggressions so teammates can regroup and fall back.
- Allowing for extra free damage through a frontal or backstab attack.
Best Weapons for the Duchess
Given Duchess’s unique scaling, she can adapt to various builds. While she excels with daggers, you can also equip her with short swords, katanas, rapiers, or even staves if you’re adventurous.
What all these have in common is a critical factor:
Duchess thrives on status effects.
Weapons that quickly inflict one of the following conditions are ideal for our nimble assassin:
- Frostbite
- Scarlet Rot
- Poison
- Bleed
Her quick attack style allows her to trigger these status effects rapidly. However, there’s more to consider.
Duchess’s unique relic effects, including her Crown Medal Relic and various equipment pieces, synergize well with fast weapons.
For instance:
- The Crown Medal Relic boosts Duchess’s inherent Dagger Attack Power.
- The second Relic offers a Concealed bonus for her backstab actions.
- Duchess’s Old Pocketwatch rewards extra FP for consecutive hits.
Therefore, the ideal weapons for Duchess are swift daggers that apply status conditions. In addition, consider:
- Wakizashi
- Shortswords
- Sickles
Reduvia is a standout option, being a dagger with Bleed properties, checking all the right boxes.
Similarly, Misericorde is effective in certain runs, especially with applied status effects or significant bonuses for Critical Hits.
If your weapon lacks a status condition, the next best choice is to infuse it with Magic. Weapons with a Magic affinity (like the Moonveil Katana) will scale with Duchess’s Intelligence stat. This means you’ll deal more damage at the expense of potential bonuses from relics.
