Night Aspect serves as Elden Ring Nightreign‘s final expedition, set up to be a challenging finale to the story and having you face off against Heolstor the Nightlord. This Boss has two health bars and a terrifying array of melee and magic attacks to use against you, especially when it starts borrowing power from other Nightlords.
This guide to Elden Ring Nightreign will focus on how to defeat the Night Aspect, putting an end to the Night once and for all. (At least until you reload the game and arrive back in Roundtable Hold, of course.)
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Shape of Night Overview in Elden Ring Nightreign
In the first phase of the boss fight, Shape of Night will walk slowly toward you across the barren plain that serves as its boss arena. Once you’ve attacked, they’ll begin using a selection of slashing and lunging attacks. After dropping to roughly 2/3rd health, Shape of Night falls to one knee as an additional arm bursts from it, wielding a darkened version of the Dark Moon Greatsword and allowing it to perform faster and more dangerous combos.
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Attack |
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Attack Description |
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Wide Swing |
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The Boss raises its sword and performs a wide horizontal swing. This can be easily dodged and reliably blocked. The Executor’s Parry is also effective. (Generally, the Executor’s Parry works on most attacks, so we’ll only note if it doesn’t work on something from now on.) |
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Stab |
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The Shape of Night pulls its sword back before thrusting it forward. This can be dodged by moving or rolling to the side. |
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Quick Swing |
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The Boss raises its left hand and quickly swings its sword forward. This attack comes out fast, so watch for the wind-up and be ready to dodge at a moment’s notice. |
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Teleport |
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The Shape of Night disappears into smoke before reappearing elsewhere in the arena. It will often use this when switching targets or to reposition behind a player. |
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Sword Combo |
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The Boss swings its sword in a three-hit combo, beginning with two vertical swings, and then finishing with a stab. |
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Phase Change |
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The Shape of Night falls to one knee, taking reduced damage from all sources as an extra arm tears itself out of its back. After the extra arm and its blade are revealed, it performs a sweeping horizontal slash with both blades. |
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Lunge Combo |
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The Shape of Night roars, dealing a small amount of damage in an area around it, and then launches forward with its blades out. After completing the lunge, it turns and performs an overhead slam, followed by two sweeping attacks as it advances back toward its target. Dodge to either side to avoid the initial lunge, then keep your distance to avoid the slam and follow-up sweeps. You can approach and roll through the follow-up sweeps to position yourself near the boss, giving you an opening to attack when it finishes. It can also use a variation of this attack where it doesn’t use the overhead slam and instead uses three consecutive sweeping attacks. Watch for what it does after the initial lunge to determine which variant it is using. |
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Greatsword Combo |
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After pulling the blade back to wind-up, the Shape of Night performs three sweeping attacks with its Moonlight Greatsword, which cover a lot of ground and deal a ton of damage if they connect. Roll through them and try to keep track of where the boss ends up, since it moves around a lot when performing this attack. |
Heolstor Overview in Elden Ring Nightreign
After revealing his true form, Heolstor becomes much faster and more dangerous, taking full advantage of the Dark Moon Greatsword to deliver devastating slashing and lunging attacks, and utilizing several magic attacks to further augment his range. Heolstor can still use his phase 1 attacks during this phase, especially after splitting the sky and gaining an Affinity buff.
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Attack |
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Attack Description |
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Greatsword Lunge |
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Heolstor charges magic while pulling back the moonlight greatsword, and then shoots forward in a damaging lunge. Blocking or Executor parrying this attack will still cause knockback, or you can roll through it if you start your roll as he lunges. He then follows up with an overhead plunge that stabs the blade into the ground, causing an explosion. You can roll through the explosion if you start the roll just as the blade hits the ground. |
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Moonlight Blade Combo |
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Heolstor prepares for a wide swing, before spinning and performing a slash that sends out a magic wave. He then performs another moments later, before finishing with a lunging attack after a short delay. It’s best to roll through the horizontal slashes/waves, then pause for a moment as he prepares the lunge, and roll through the lunge. |
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Ground Pound Combo |
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Heolstor charges his sword and then stabs into the ground, creating a small AOE blast. He then repeats the attack, charging for longer and creating a bigger blast. You can roll through both blasts to avoid them. |
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Jumping Slash |
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Heolstor launches forward and performs a quick slash with his longsword. You can roll through this and punish with an attack during his recovery, but it comes out fast so you’ll need to be careful. |
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Roaring Combo |
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Heolstor Roars, and then performs the lunge combo from phase 1. It can be avoided in the same way as before. |
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Night Rain |
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Heolstor kneels, and the arena darkens, causing wisps of purple light to rise around the boss. These will rain back down with a weak homing effect, targeting all players. A lucky stagger can interrupt this attack; otherwise, your best bet is to sprint in a wide circle around Heolstor until the bolts stop raining down. |
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Sky Splitter |
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Heolstor teleports up into the air, and tears a hole in the sky of the arena. This converts the Arena into one of the other Nightlord’s Arenas and infuses Heolstor with their affinity damage type. Heolstor then crashes down into the ground, causing a huge explosion as fissures spread out over the arena, before bursting a second time, a moment after they form. You can dodge the first explosion by rolling through it, and the second by jumping just before the burst. After Heolstor uses this attack, small cracks in the ground will form periodically in random parts of the arena, which will explode and deal affinity damage shortly after appearing, so watch your step. Heolstor can gain Fire, Lightning, Magic, Holy, Sleep, Poison, Scarlet Rot, Blood Loss, Deathblight, Frost, or Madness affinity when using this attack. When Heolstor performs sword combos while the arena is transformed, they will create small fissures ahead of him on the ground, which deal affinity damage and should be avoided whenever possible. |
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Finisher Combo |
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After spending some time with the arena transformed, Heolstor will perform his greatsword combo, creating large fissures with each swing that detonate after a moment. He then rises into the air, pauses for a moment, and then crashes down in a massive explosion that returns the arena to normal and removes his affinity buff. Dodge away from him to avoid the fissures and time your roll to dodge through the explosion. |
General Strategy for Night Aspect in Elden Ring Nightreign
During the Shape of Night phase you’ll want to conserve flasks, items, and FP. It’s weaker during this phase, but you can still take a lot of damage if you get careless and don’t dodge in time. Aim to stagger him with jumping attacks, which is especially easy when wielding a holy weapon, and back off when it begins the phase transition to pull out the Moonlight Sword, since it gains significant damage reduction during this animation. Once the Moonlight Sword is out, keep on top of your dodges and repeat the previous strategy whenever there’s an opening.
After the boss reveals its true form, it will always begin with the Greatsword Lunge, so focus on dodging it and don’t try to attack until it finishes the combo. After that, take advantage of the short recovery time between combos to dish out damage. When it uses Night Rain, back away and focus on avoiding it, then attack once the bolts stop falling. When it splits the sky and gains an affinity infusion, you’ll want to dodge and go for staggers like in phase 1, since it mainly uses its phase 1 attacks while it has the affinity buff active.
Keep this up, and Heolstor will go down.
Best Team Composition for Shape of Night/Heolstor in Elden Ring Nightreign
Due to how easy it is to stagger Heolstor with Holy Weapons, having a Wylder or Raider in your group is fantastic when facing this boss. His holy weakness means the Executor’s Cursed Blade Special Attack will be particularly effective too, especially if you can time the parries against his phase 1 attacks. Ironeye’s range is great for getting in damage from a safe distance, and gives you more time to react to his long-reaching lunge and slash combos.
If you’re going for the stagger strategy we’ve recommended, bringing along the Duchess to Restage critical strikes and Ultimate Arts on the boss will allow your group to pile on the damage. She can also use her own Ultimate Art to give you room to heal and pick up allies, especially during the more dangerous parts of the fight. The Recluse, when armed with holy spells, can dish out a ton of damage to the boss during both phases, especially if you manage to pull off spell combos like Holy Breath, Gravity Blast, and the Lightning Stake. Similarly, the Revenant performs exceptionally well if she has access to a good holy spell, especially if she has ways to recover her FP and/or a stockpile of Starlight Shards.
Our recommended party for this fight is: Raider, Duchess, and either Ironeye or Revenant. The Raider, equipped with a big holy weapon, can reliably tank the boss’s attacks with their skills and stagger the boss, setting them up for a critical blow. The Duchess can dance in and out of melee, using daggers and staves to dish out damage, and Restage any critical hits or other big bursts of damage.
If you brought along Ironeye, they can deal consistent damage to the boss from range, dashing in periodically to reapply their mark and amplify all damage on the boss, and use their ultimate to revive allies and/or stun the boss out of dangerous attacks. If you brought Revenant, her summons can provide a distraction for the boss, allowing the group an opportunity to heal, while she uses holy spells to exploit the boss’s weakness and her ultimate to keep the group on their feet.
Rewards for Beating Night Aspect in Elden Ring Nightreign
Beating Heolstor allows players to see the ending of the game, and also provides them with the “Night of the Lord” Relic. This is a powerful and unusual Relic that applies an affinity buff (identical to those applied by grease) to your new weapon whenever you swap weapons. It also increases the added affinity damage provided by the buff and provides an attack power buff whenever you switch weapons.
This makes it a fantastic choice when paired with any relic that provides a bonus when you’ve got three of the same weapon type equipped, since you can cycle between them to keep the affinity buff active constantly. The extra damage is fantastic, and you can always switch again if you don’t get a useful affinity for your current situation.
