Nightfarer (Class) Tier List (Best Class to Play) – Elden Ring: Nightreign

Elden Ring: Nightreign launched with a roster of eight unique Nightfares. You can only have up to three of them on each individual expedition. This raises the question – which Nightfarers are the best, and when can you start blaming your failures on your random allies picking all the worst characters? To help answer that, we’ve put together this tier list.

• S-Tier
  • Duchess, Revenant
• A-Tier
  • Ironeye, Executor, Recluse
• B-Tier
  • Wylder, Guardian
• C-Tier
  • Raider

It’s important to note that this list ranks Nightfarers by how they do in multiplayer matches. Solo Expeditions have different priorities and standout Nightfarers. The main gameplay mode of Nightreign combines the strengths of three distinct characters to create a team that can tackle any threat.

Each expedition in Nightreign limits how much time you can spend getting stronger, necessitating a team that can quickly dispatch enemies of all kinds regardless of their numbers, resistances or the fact that they like to spend most of the fight flying overhead.

A good Nightfarer, even in a group match, should be self-sufficient. You don’t want to drag down your team by having them constantly pick you up. Inversely, a good Nightfarer should be able to quickly restore their allies back to life without putting the whole expedition in danger.

With that in mind, here’s how we rank Nightfarers:

• Damage Output: Dealing enough damage to quickly defeat your foes speeds up your team’s power acquisition and saves them from having to dodge too many nasty attacks.
• Survivability: Being able to avoid damage will not only save you some flasks, it will prevent your teammates from exposing themselves while they try to pick you up, which can spiral into a disaster during tough encounters.
• Group Utility: How much a Nightfarer brings to the table. This includes skills that somehow help the team, support abilities, healing powers, etc.
• Ultimate Art: How big of an impact their Ultimate Art can have on a fight.

S-Tier

Nightfarers in S-Tier make you smile whenever you see them on your team. You never not want to have them around, and they tend to make every expedition better by their sheer presence.

Duchess

Duchess is the ultimate damage dealer. Her Restage ability not only greatly increases her own damage, it works for every member of the team. With Duchess around, most enemies will be melting in seconds. Considering its short cooldown, Restage is easily the best skill in the game. Not merely an offensive power, Restage will help your team stagger foes and apply status ailments to them, preventing them from doing much of anything as you gang up on them.

Her relatively low HP is offset by the best dodge move among the Nightfarers. Using it, Duchess can easily get in and out of range to deliver a flurry of deadly strikes. Due to her fast attack speed, she will also inflict status ailments like Bleed and Frostbite rapidly, despite her middling Arcane stat.

Despite being a primarily melee damage dealer, Duchess’ strongest attribute is Intelligence. This lets her effectively use sorceries, enabling a spellsword playstyle. These spells make Duchess incredibly versatile in how she approaches encounters.

Duchess’ Ultimate Art is good but not great. It makes her team invisible to the enemies, giving you some breathing room. You can use these moments of relative calm to pick up your fallen teammates or attack unsuspecting foes. However, many tougher enemies will continue their wild sweeping attacks even without a target in sight, hitting you through the invisibility.

Revenant

At first glance, Revenant isn’t particularly good at anything except casting incantations. And even there, she’s limited by an FP pool she has trouble restoring. Despite that, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a group that wouldn’t work better with Revenant in it.

Revenant’s passive Necromancy and her spirit summons allow her team to tackle tougher encounters much earlier, quickly putting them ahead of Revenant-less teams. Even Night Bosses are made incredibly easy by Revenant – if you time it right, you can have an army of summons waiting for the boss to spawn to immediately pummel it into submission.

Revenant’s starting weapon is unique and with some upgrades can last her the entire expedition, making her much less dependent on loot. And if she rolls some nice Sacred Seals, she can also deal incredible damage.

Her Ultimate Art turns certain defeats into victories. Not only does it instantly revive all teammates, regardless of how many times they’ve fallen, it also makes her team immortal for its duration and powers up her spirit summons.

A-Tier

Nightfarers in this tier will always be a solid choice. You’ll never be disappointed to see one on your team.

Ironeye

Historically, ranged weapons have been very bad in FromSoftware’s games. Nightreign changes this, making Ironeye a very safe ranged damage dealer. He pays for it by a slightly lower damage output compared to the melee damage dealers.

Ironeye’s active ability makes up for that by allowing him to mark a target and make it so his entire team deals more damage. This ability can also serve as a second dodge move, allowing Ironeye to easily escape from tough situations.

Ironeye’s passive is one of the best in the game. It boosts item acquisition for his entire team, further adding to his impressive utility kit.

His Ultimate Art is great at dispatching groups of foes and dealing heavy damage to strong targets, but it’s only marginally useful for saving downed teammates. Still, Ironeye is great at picking up his allies. He can simply lock onto them and keep sniping at them from a safe distance with his bow.

Executor

Executor is the dedicated Dex-based melee damage dealer. He starts the expedition with a katana that has a Blood Loss effect and only gets stronger from there. His Arcane attribute is the best in the game, allowing him to apply status ailments with a few quick swings.

Thanks to his active skill, Executor can tank some hits by simply parrying them. Unfortunately, that greatly slows him down, making this less viable against highly mobile enemies. Executor’s Ultimate Art transforms him into a giant beast. This transformation lasts a while, allowing Executor to pick up fallen allies, deal with enemy groups, or output some impressive damage against bosses.

While definitely strong, there’s a certain anti-synergy effect with some of his abilities. Both his skill and Ultimate Art stop him from wielding his regular weapons. These weapons will often be imbued with status ailments, and losing access to them is unfortunate.

Recluse

Recluse is the most complex Nightfarer in the game. This is both good and bad. Her Character Skill gives her access to 14 unique spells she alone can cast. Combining these spells takes not only knowing them, but also planning ahead when gathering loot during an expedition, and knowing how to time her spells right.

In the hands of a skilled player, Recluse can be incredible. But even decent Recluse players will occasionally mess up – either casting a useless spell at a crucial moment or getting hit while trying to get a spell out.

Still, even outside all that, Recluse is great at both sorceries and incantations. And if played right, she will never run out of FP, allowing her to cast her spells without any interruptions.

Her Ultimate Art can help the team deal more damage and stay in the fight longer, but it’s again a double-edged sword. Since it doesn’t make her allies invulnerable, it can easily get them in trouble if they focus too much on attacking the enemies marked by the ultimate.

B-Tier

This tier has Nightfarers who are either too selfish to be of much use in a team setting, or don’t neatly fit in the meta.

Wylder

Wylder is the dedicated jack of all trades character. He’s not terrible at anything, but he isn’t particularly outstanding either. He can deal decent damage and his survivability can help him tank a few hits, but he won’t be breaking any records.

Wylder’s skills are also tailored to solo play. His passive is only mildly useful in a team. His grappling hook skill allows him to move around very fast, but doing so will just leave his allies behind. And his ultimate deals respectable damage and is great at staggering foes, but it won’t immediately bring his fallen teammates back to life.

Guardian

Guardian is the dedicated tank Nightfarer. His skill set is aimed at disrupting groups of foes, drawing enemy attention, and hiding behind a shield while his allies dispatch the foes. The only problem here is that this is a playstyle more suited to something like Dark Souls. With Nightreign’s increased pace, you don’t have the time to slowly poke at your enemies from behind an impenetrable wall.

Moreover, unless Guardian activates his Steel Guard ability, the damage most stronger enemies do will constantly stagger him. And unfortunately, activating Steel Guard can be a bit wonky and leave Guardian exposed from the flank to the very attack he tries to block. Besides, a much better way to avoid damage in Nightreign is just not being there, and Guardian isn’t especially good at that.

What brings Guardian back from the brink of falling further down in the rankings is his Ultimate Art. When used right, it can be better than Revenant’s ultimate. It deals damage in a wide area, instantly revives fallen allies, and can then create a zone of invulnerability for Guardian’s team.

C-Tier

This is the tier for Nightfarers that don’t neatly fit in the game. They’re not outright terrible and shouldn’t cause your allies to leave should they see you pick them, but there’s something that makes them less desirable.

Raider

Raider shares a lot of shortcomings with Guardian. He’s the slow, bulky oversized weapon user you’d expect to see in earlier FromSoftware games. His relative lack of agility makes him less ideal for Nightreign’s fast-paced environment.

One thing Raider is great at is staggering his foes. He also won’t fall over should a stiff breeze turn its attention toward him. This is very good for him, because his active ability in fact incentivizes him to take damage. And that really isn’t something you want in this game. Moreover, the skill’s short range and extended animation make it hard to use right without punching empty air.

And then, there’s his ultimate. It’s the only Ultimate Art in the game that can have a detrimental effect on your team. Sure, the totem increases your allies’ damage around it. But it also blocks their line of sight, causes their attacks to deflect off it, and stops them from getting through doors and other passageways. It can also actually trap enemies inside its model, making them hard to hit and their loot impossible to pick up while the totem still stands.

That isn’t to say the Ultimate can’t be used with teams, but it requires great coordination and good timing in order to make the Totem a barrier instead of an obstacle. With the right Raider, it can be a good utility, but just not good enough to make Raider a truly viable team player.

This is how we rank the Nightfarers a week after release. If you have any thoughts or suggestions for this list, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments.