How to beat the Elden Ring Nightreign Night Aspect boss Heolstor the Nightlord

Elden Ring Nighreign Night Aspect Expedition Heolstor floating and opening purple rift in space — (Image credit: Bandai Namco)

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How to beat Night Aspect
Shape of Night tips
Heolstor the Nightlord tips

The Elden Ring Nightreign Night Aspect Expedition and its final boss, Heolstor the Nightlord, is a serious challenge, not only because the fight is a difficult but also because getting to Day 3 and leveling up is an ordeal in itself. There's a lot to prepare and some essential equipment to find on Days 1 and 2, so there's plenty of pressure to succeed before you've even reached the last day of this Elden Ring Nightreign Expedition.

However, overcome the challenges of Days 1 and 2 and you'll hopefully be ready to face Heolstor with some ranged weapons, Holy damage, and lots of flasks – all essential things to beat this boss which can rip open space to gain a fragment of the power of another Nightlord. It's an intense fight, so here's everything you need know to beat Heolstor the Nightlord in Elden Ring NIghtreign and complete the Night Aspect Expedition.

How to beat Night Aspect in Elden Ring Nightreign

Elden Ring Nighreign Night Aspect Expedition roundtable hold menu — (Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Beating the Night Aspect Expedition is no easy feat. Of all the Elden Ring Nightreign bosses. It's the only Nightlord boss that features two health bars – The Shape of Night, followed by Heolstor the Nightlord. That makes it quite the endurance test as you'll need to manage your consumables and flasks effectively.

Here are the essentials you need to know before taking on the final Nightlord:

Best characters: Good ranged damage is essential, so Ironeye and Recluse are great choices. Duchess and Executor are great for their high Dexterity (Duchess also has high Intelligence for sorceries) and Wylder, with his high grappling hook mobility, also works well as a melee option.
Weakness: Holy damage
Boss attack types: Physical, Fire, Poison, Magic
Phases: 4 (Shape of Night Phase 1 and 2, Heolstor the Nightlord Phase 1 and 2)

With the Night Aspect Expedition being arguably the toughest in Elden Ring Nightreign, setting yourself up for success early on is important. Make sure you've chosen a good team of the best Elden Ring Nightreign characters and have your best Relics equipped, ideally ones that boost things like Vigor and Endurance and enhance your character's abilities. With Heolstor's main weakness being Holy damage, any Relic perks that increase Holy Attack Power are good to have too but not essential.

Elden Ring Nightreign Shape of Night tips

Elden Ring Nighreign Night Aspect Expedition shambling Shape of Night boss — (Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Now that you've hopefully made it all the way through to the Night Aspect boss in Elden Ring Nightreign, here are some quick tips for defeating the Shape of Night – the first boss you'll face in this climactic final battle:

The Shape of Night is easy, but don't use your flasks: The shambling Shape of Night is, overall, quite slow but its sword attacks can still be hard-hitting. If you do get hit, it's best to retreat and drop a Warming Stone instead of using a flask as those should be saved for Heolstor.
At 70% health, the Shape of Night draws a colossal sword and dagger for Phase 2: While the phase-switch animation is a good opportunity to get some damage in, be a lot more careful around the Shape of Night afterwards. With three weapons drawn, it can become much harder to face head-on and as a group since it's flailing arms can be hard to read, and its sweeping attacks can easily hit multiple players. This is where ranged characters can shine, firing arrows or spells and taking turns drawing its attention.
Scarlet Rot is a nice damage boost: Since avoiding hits from the Shape of Night is important, you'll want to balance dealing damage without putting yourself in danger and the damage-over-time effect from sufficient Scarlet Rot build-up can be a big help here, if you have a weapon that can apply it. This also works on Heolstor too, who is otherwise immune to most status ailments.

Elden Ring Nightreign Heolstor the Nightlord tips

Elden Ring Nighreign Night Aspect Expedition Heolstor swinging poison sword — (Image credit: Bandai Namco)

With the Shape of Night beaten, it'll turn into the substantially more powerful Heolstor the Nightlord. You're doing well to get this far, but this boss is quite a lot stronger, so here are some tips:

Do not group up around the boss and spread out: Heolstor deploys a lot of area-of-effect attacks, so attacking all at once in melee range is a surefire way for everyone to get large chunks ripped out of their health bars.
Use ranged attacks where possible: With Heolstor's added aggression, it tends to focus almost all its melee attacks on just one player at a time, so the other two should chip away from afar with bows and sorceries if possible.
Heolstor is quick and will change targets often: I've observed this boss changing its target mid-attack combo a number of times and it can teleport right up to you. Even if you're far away, you aren't necessarily safe, so always be prepared.
Don't rely on crits for bringing down Heolstor: All of the Nightlords can occasionally be hit with critical attacks after breaking their stances, but Heolstor is much more robust than the other Nightlords. Powerful attacks, such as Ironeye's Single Shot Ultimate Art that are great for stacking up stance damage should instead be used sparingly to stagger Heolstor and potentially cancel some of its most dangerous attacks.

Elden Ring Nighreign Night Aspect Expedition final boss Heolstor creating exploding fissures of fire — (Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Run away from Heolstor when Phase 2 starts: The second phase begins when Heolstor reaches about 70%-60% health. You'll know it's happening as it'll rise into the air and open a giant rift in the sky, exposing a colored area which related to a particular damage type (fire, poison, magic, sleep, madness, etc). Run away while this is happening to give yourself the best chance of avoiding the massive exploding fissures he creates when he crashes back down.
Dodging Heolstor's attacks and constant movement is vital: Yes, this is obvious and applies to literally every boss, but Heolstor's hard-hitting attacks become even deadlier after this phase transition as they can also inflict high-damage status ailments like sleep and madness depending on the rift it opens. Unless you're parrying as Executor, try to evade as much as possible to stay alive and avoid status build-up.

With Heolstor defeated you've essentially completed Elden Ring Nightreign. You'll be separated from your companions for a solo ending sequence which leads into a cutscene, the credits (which you can skip without missing anything) and then another cutscene. After that, you'll appear back in the Roundtable Hold with extra Elden Ring Nightreign skins to unlock for your characters!

If you've not already completed it, make sure you finish the Elden Ring Nightreign Duchess Remembrance to get some of her best Relics.