The Elden Ring Nightreign Dreglord is a two-phase boss who loves Scarlet Rot and area-of-effect attacks, making for an extremely tough boss fight to cap off The Forsaken Hollows DLC. As well as being unexpectedly fast and immensely hard-hitting, the Dreglord, also known as the Traitorous Straghess, is especially difficult to fight because there aren't any vulnerabilities to exploit either. With that said, the tips I've laid out below should still help you overcome this nightmarish DLC boss and bring an end to the Dreglord.
Nightreign Dreglord weaknesses
As the Expedition description points out, the Dreglord boss has no weaknesses. That's obviously not ideal as, unlike all the other Nightreign bosses, there's no clear damage type or status ailment you and your teammates can try to spec into during days one and two to help you maximize your damage for the final fight – for example, Sleep is listed as the primary weakness of the Nightreign Balancers boss fight.
However, with no specific weaknesses to exploit, that doesn't mean you should avoid damage effects altogether for this Elden Ring Nightreign Expedition. Bleed, Frostbite, Poison, and Scarlet Rot are still useful status ailments to inflict on the Dreglord to boost your damage, but don't expect to be activating them very often – I've been playing as the Nightreign Scholar a lot, focusing my builds around Scarlet Rot and Bleed whenever possible, which has certainly helped in the times I've fought the Dreglord. Furthermore, according to this Reddit post from u/Competitive-Monk721, Holy is the most effective damage type against the Dreglord, with Fire close behind, though they aren't essential to success.
Best Relics and characters for beating the Dreglord
Before you've even set off on the Dreglord Expedition in Nightreign, you'll want to make sure you've got the right Relics equipped for your character and that your team composition is nicely varied. Mobile melee fighters like the Wylder, Executor, and the Nightreign Undertaker are very good against the Dreglord, but you'll want characters like the Scholar and the Recluse who can support from afar, staying away from some of the Dreglord's most brutal area-of-effect attacks – take a look at our Nightreign characters tier list for some pointers.
When it comes to Relics, you'll want Scarlet Rot-based effects to feature at least a little bit. The Dreglord makes liberal use of Scarlet Rot, so you either want to focus on resisting its build up as much as possible by slotting in Relics with the "Improved Rot Resistance" perk and by collecting Preserving Boluses before the boss fight to remove the Rot effect if you become afflicted.
Although it's nigh impossible to avoid Scarlet Rot during the Dreglord fight, so embracing it with various Relic perks is also a perfectly valid strategy and you should look out for the following:
- Rot in Vicinity Causes Continuous HP Recovery. This one is great as it massively reduces the overall damage you take from the Rot effect.
- Attack power up when facing scarlet rot-afflicted enemy.
- Poison and Rot in Vicinity Increases Attack Power. Night of the Wise, which is earned from defeating the Nightreign Sentient Pest boss, has this perk and adds Poison buildup to your starting weapon too.
- If you want to make the most of these effects, finding a Scarlet Rot weapon, such as the Antspur Rapier, will also help a lot!
Nightreign Dreglord tips and strategy
The Dreglord is arguably Nightreign's toughest boss fight taking place over two phases – the Traitorous Straghess, followed by the Pure Impulse Straghess – each with a huge variety of attacks and lots of Scarlet Rot. If you've beaten the Nightreign Night Aspect boss, you should be familiar with the general flow of this boss fight, but here are some tips to bear in mind for the best chance at victory:
- Level up and get as many flasks as possible. This obviously goes for every boss in the game, but reaching at least level 13 (and ideally level 14 or 15) and getting as many flasks as you can is especially crucial against the Dreglord since it's a long fight and you can't rely on exploiting weaknesses to get through it. I strongly recommend fighting through all the layers of the castles present during the Nightreign Great Hollow event on Day 2 as the bosses you face there are an excellent source of runes and legendary armaments and upgrades.
- Get good at dodging. The number of area-of-effect attacks that this boss throws out means dodging effectively is absolutely essential. Guarding will do little to help and parrying will only take you so far. Thankfully, most of the Dreglord's attacks are quite well telegraphed, giving you plenty of time to prepare your evasive manoeuvres, but getting caught out can result in taking massive damage at best and instant death at worst.
- Be ready to sprint away when the Dreglord starts charging up any Scarlet Rot bomb attacks. The most obviously telegraphed attacks usually involve the Dreglord inhaling rot matter to create a sort of Scarlet Rot projectile or blast, and this is your cue to start sprinting away, both to avoid the suction and the inevitable attack. Running away gives you the best chance of avoiding these attacks entirely or, at the very least, will give you more time to evade if one is thrown your way.
- You will almost certainly be afflicted with Scarlet Rot at some point. As mentioned, you can equip Runes to mitigate this, but the Traitorous Straghess can summon Rot rain which applies substantial and unavoidable Rot buildup
- Don't attack the boss's summoned minions unless you absolutely must. The Traitorous Straghess will conjure Scarlet Rot enemies of varying size to help but they are slow and generally not very threatening for the most part. Avoid them as much as possible, focusing solely on wearing down the Dreglord – the quicker you get through the first phase, the fewer enemies it's able to summon too!
- Never take your eye off the Pure Impulse Straghess. When the Dreglord boss reaches its second phase, its mobility increases massively, able to charge around and change direction very quickly. It can even leap between the Scarlet Rot pillars it creates for certain attacks, so you always need to keep an eye on it to be ready to avoid its attacks.
Hopefully, these strategy tips for defeating the Dreglord see you through to victory. In fact, beating the Dreglord is essential to completing the Nightreign Scholar Remembrance, which will help you get some excellent upgrades for that character.
If you're enjoying the Undertaker more than the Scholar in the Nightreign Forsaken Hollows DLC, then you might want to know how to know how to complete the Nightreign Undertaker Remembrance too.
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