How to Play Recluse – Elden Ring: Nightreign

Historically, playing a spellcaster in FromSoftware’s games has been a bit of an easy mode. Because of that, Nightreign’s resident magic user Recluse might be alluring for newer players. Only once you actually play her, you’ll realize that Recluse is without a doubt the most complex Nightfarer in the game. If you want to stop getting ganked by basic enemies as you scratch your head in confusion, this guide will help you master Recluse and her wide array of spells.

Skill Playstyle

• Collect Affinity Residues to never run out of FP
• Weave Magic Cocktail spells on the fly according to the situation
• Use Soulblood Song to avoid heavy damage and heal your team

Passive Ability: Elemental Defense

Effect: Enemies and allies hit by elemental damage become marked. Collect these marks to restore FP and set up your active ability.
Approach: This passive allows Recluse to cast spells non-stop without worrying about running out of FP.

One of the first issues you may run into when starting an expedition with Recluse is that she only starts with a basic magic staff and no melee weapon at all. And seeing how there are no FP-restoring flasks in the game, this can become a problem. Once you run out of FP, you have very few ways to restore it, especially if you’re in the middle of a boss fight.

Recluse’s passive ability unlocks a new dimension to the game. Whenever an enemy or your ally gets hit by magic damage, they get an affinity residue. You see these residues as two curved lines on their model. Collecting this residue (Y+LT or your control scheme equivalent) restores a reasonable chunk of FP and places the residue inside your active skill gauge.

There are 4 types of affinity residues, and each of them has its own color:

• Magic – Blue
• Holy – Orange
• Lightning – Yellow
• Fire – Red

Whenever a target gets hit with magic damage, it gets a blue residue. Fire damage leaves behind a red residue, and so on. The residue color doesn’t matter for FP restoration, but you’ll want to pay attention to them for the purposes of your Magic Cocktail skill.

Character Skill: Magic Cocktail

Effect: After collecting three affinity residues, you can combine them into a powerful free spell.
Approach: Magic Cocktail can give you a spell for any situation. Learning these spells and when to use them will make you a great Recluse.

Mixing Magic Cocktails

• Collect 3 affinity residues
• Unleash them as a devastating spell

Playing Recluse is unlike any other Nightfarer. You need to master noticing affinity residues on enemies and allies, and you need to actually collect them. Collecting a residue is a combination button press (Y+LT or your control scheme equivalent), which can be a bit cumbersome, but you need to make it your second nature. At least you don’t need to lock onto the target with a residue. If you see the residue lines – you can collect it.

What complicates things is that the residue only considers the latest instance of damage. So if you deal some magic damage on an enemy but then your ally deals fire before you collect the residue, you’ll collect the fire residue. Collecting a residue also has an animation that slows you down. You need to account for it before you hit the buttons to avoid getting hit. Good positioning is crucial to play Recluse.

In order to use Magic Cocktail spells, you need to collect three affinity residues. When you have three of them collected, the next time you press the buttons you’ve been using to collect residues, Recluse will cast her spell. This spell doesn’t cost any FP, but it consumes your collected residues. These spells usually have an even longer animation than simple residue collection, so make sure you’re out of harm’s way when you cast them.

Recluse has access to a total of 14 Magic Cocktail spells. We have a separate guide listing all of them. Magic Cocktail spells can use one, two, or three different elemental affinities. For the spells that combine different elements, it doesn’t matter which order you collect them in. And for spells using two elements, it doesn’t matter which element you have two of.

Magic Cocktail Standout Spells

Recluse starts each expedition with a staff that deals exclusively magic damage. If you want to become stronger, you’ll want to find other sources of elemental damage fast. But due to Nightreign’s randomized nature, you can never guarantee you’ll get what you want. As such, there’s no single best cocktail. Instead, you want to make the best use of what you’ve got.

Before you can feel like you’re actually playing Recluse, you will want to get at least two reliable ways to apply affinity residues of different elements. If you manage to get three, you’ll get access to some very potent spells. Four elements will unlock all of Recluse’s spells, but you shouldn’t rely on getting that in most games.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at some of Recluse’s Cocktail spells.

Pure Magic

This is the most basic Cocktail spell and the only one you’ll be able to reliably apply at the start of an expedition. It requires 3 magic residues to cast. When you cast it, you may be underwhelmed by its effects. It circles around your target, dealing several instances of minor damage. What you may not notice straight away, however, is that each of those instances has a good chance to interrupt all but the toughest of enemies. And even more important is that this spell is essentially your magic battery. Each instance of damage it does applies a magic residue that you can then collect. If you’re running low on mana, casting this spell and then collecting the residues will top you off.

Magic/Holy

This is a situational Cocktail spell that can shine in certain situations. You can mix it by combining 2 magic residues with 1 holy or 2 holy with 1 magic. The order doesn’t matter. When cast, it creates an area that negates FP consumption for you and your allies. This works very well with certain powerful spells that drain FP continuously.

Fire/Lightning

This Cocktail spell mixes 2 fire residues with 1 lightning or 2 lightning with 1 fire. When cast, it turns you into a ball of fire that flies forward while damaging surrounding enemies with bolts of lightning. Because you can never have too much mobility, this is a good spell to have memorized.

Magic/Fire/Holy

The actual order of residues doesn’t matter for this spell, you just need one of each. When cast, it produces a magic wave that damages enemies while restoring HP and FP for your allies, so basically, it does everything at once. Despite being a breath attack, it has a surprisingly long range.

Magic/Lightning/Holy

When you combine these essences in any order and cast the spell, you will become encased in an impenetrable block of ice for a while. You’re invulnerable while inside this ice block, while enemies around you will take damage in a wide area. With how powerful some boss attacks are, having an on-demand way to completely negate them is very powerful.

Ultimate Art: Soulblood Soung

Effect: Places a mark on nearby enemies. Marked enemies take more damage and restore HP and FP for those who attack them.
Approach: Use it against tough enemies to help your team and become invulnerable while you cast it.

Mark Enemies During Tough Encounters

The Soulblood mark applies in a decent area, allowing you to mark a whole group of enemies. This helps your team to stay alive and dispatch your foes faster. You are invulnerable while casting, so the best time to use Soulblood Song is when you’re about to get hit with a nasty attack.

Don’t Rely on It for Healing

The healing you get from Soulblood song is noticeable, but not outstanding. You may naturally want to save it for when your team needs a heal, but using it this way can do more harm than good. When your allies see your mark, they have the tendency to abandon their defenses and instead focus on attacking. And if they were already in a spot where they needed healing, that’s the last thing they should be doing.

Instead, use Soulblood Song for its extra damage early, or for its invulnerability frames when you’re about to get hit by a strong attack.

Weapon Strategy

• Your main weapons are sorcery staffs and incantation seals
• If you do want to have a backup melee or ranged weapon, make sure it deals elemental damage and thus can apply residues

It may seem strange to not have a melee or ranged weapon, but Recluse really doesn’t need one, unless it’s something like the Erdtree Bow that deals holy damage. Her best attributes are Faith and Intelligence, so you should focus your efforts on maximizing your pool of sorceries and incantations. Each magic weapon comes with 2 spells, and the best weapons you want then are those that give you access to 2 different elements. As such, some of the best options for you are:

• Gelmir Glintstone Staff – has both fire and magic elements
• Gravel Stone Seal – has both fire and lightning elements

Seeing how it can be tricky to find the exact weapon you want, you should always try to do the best you can with the elements you do find. Don’t worry too much about getting the perfect weapons. Recluse is one of the very few Nightfarers who use staffs and seals, so your teammates will rarely want to spend the time to explore the places where you have a good chance to get some strong weapons. That said, if you do get a chance, you’ll want to explore Sorcerer’s Rise and Great Church locations.

Sorcerer’s Rise

Sorcerer’s Rise towers are scattered throughout Limveld. To get inside, you’ll need to solve a puzzle where you need to find and destroy a magic crest. We have a guide to help you figure out how to get inside Sorcerer’s Rise locations. Once there, you’ll find a Dormant Power that usually grants you a choice of some magic weapons and talismans.

Great Church

Don’t mistake Great Churches with the Churches of Marika where you upgrade your flasks. Great Churches are bigger and have enemies inside. They also tend to have hidden tunnels and altars where you’re almost guaranteed to get some magic seals.

Gameplay: Positioning, Positioning, Positioning

When playing Recluse, you need to get into a special rhythm. You cast a spell, you collect a residue, you cast a spell. In some situations, you’ll want to cast several spells in quick succession before restoring your FP with residues, but you still have to do it all the time. You want to send out a constant stream of Magic Cocktails and make sure you never run out of FP. Once you get a hang of it, you’ll be able to collect resides from fallen foes in the brief instant before they disintegrate.

Because of the Cocktail animations and your overall low level of HP, it’s crucial for you to always know where you are, where your enemies are, and where the nearest walls and pits are. The good thing about Recluse is that she’s a ranged character, and magic doesn’t have a distance-based damage drop-off like bows. Unless you absolutely have to, you should stay as far away from the action as possible.

This also puts you in a great position to be the team’s healer. That is, someone who revives downed allies. Because you can actually lock onto allies who are down, you can target them from afar and send some long-ranged spells at them to get them back into the fight.

If you do get attacked, use your ultimate or Magic/Lightning/Holy to become invulnerable, dodge and dash, or use Fire/Lightning to become a fireball lightning and zip away.

We hope this guide helped you better understand Recluse and become a better player. If you have any questions or tips to share, make sure to put that in the comments.