Walking Through All Three Days at Level 1: Taking On Gladius, Beast of Night, with the Duchess in ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN

The streamer introduces the Duchess as a character whose starting weapon is a dagger and who is characterized by her nimble movement. Her early-game approach is to coat herself in frost with the Ash of War Chilling Mist and take down enemies while in a stealthed state. Thanks to an invisibility effect from a relic, this style of play was extremely comfortable, they say.

Since there was no need to earn runes this time, the streamer chose to wander from ruin to ruin, collecting items at their leisure. According to the streamer, the ruins hold as many as eight treasure chests, making them very rewarding. You can also occasionally pick up talismans in hidden rooms, so just making the rounds of the ruins across the continent lets you assemble some pretty good gear, they say.

Next, they entered a nearby mine in search of materials to upgrade the dagger. With the rain closing in from the edge of the area, the plan was to get out quickly once they had the Smithing Stones. Against the mine's boss, the "Pumpkin Head," they opened with Chilling Mist, landed a combo while invisible, then used the skill Restage to keep stabbing in quick succession and took it down. They made it out successfully, but looking back, they note that there was surprisingly little time to spare before the rain arrived.

The goal for Day 1 was "if I can upgrade my weapon, that's a good result." After that, they planned to go around the graveyards looking for the Cursed Spirit-Summoning Bell, but found it right away. The streamer says they had wanted to try out this bell ever since seeing it on TikTok the day before. All that remained was to upgrade their weapon at the smithing table and continue treasure hunting until the first night arrived.

In the night boss fight, the streamer showed off the "cute Jar Cannon" held in their left hand. At Level 1 they can't fire it properly, but thanks to the gear's effect it periodically generates glintblades that provide support, they say. With help from these glintblades, the Demi-Human Swordmaster went down easily.

In the following fight against the Demi-Human Queen, they inflicted frostbite in rapid succession to turn invisible and fought safely. They also became invisible using the Duchess's Ultimate Art, Finale. Finally, taking advantage of the Duchess's surprisingly high FP, they whittled away the rest of the boss's health with the Cursed Spirit-Summoning Bell.

There was nothing in particular to do on Day 2, so they say they just went around the various treasure spots and waited for night. After a bathroom break and some idle time in the forest, the second night arrived and the fight against the Tree Sentinel began.

The streamer explains that, since part of the aim this time was to compare against a normally leveled run, they chose the same boss lineup as in their previous video. According to the streamer, you can infer the boss lineup from the terrain, and there are only a limited number of terrain patterns. That means you know a certain amount about the bosses and areas from the start, so setting up the same lineup isn't difficult, they say.

In the previous video, the Executor's Ultimate Art alone took off most of the boss's health. This time, by contrast, they're at Level 1, so the streamer says they'll likely get to enjoy the fight for a relatively long time. The only damage sources in this fight are the dagger and the glintblades, but frostbite, bleed, and skill damage add to that. Because of this, the streamer reckons firepower isn't much of a problem even at Level 1. In fact, they had taken off about half the boss's health within a minute of the fight starting.

According to the streamer, what's more troublesome than firepower at Level 1 is that you go down from just a light graze. But this, too, can be offset by the passive effects on your gear, so a single hit or so is a manageable problem, they say. With that in mind, they recommend several passive effects for anyone attempting a Level 1 run.

The first safe choice they mention is "Improved damage negation at full HP." With this, you can easily survive taking a single hit, they say. Add an effect like "Partial HP restoration upon attacks," and you can trade blows with bosses normally even at Level 1. The streamer also notes that it pairs well with "Improved attack power at full HP."

For the Duchess, who excels with daggers, "Improved damage negation once during successive attacks" is also useful, they say. In fights like these it stays active almost constantly, so it's reassuring to have as insurance. For example, the Tree Sentinel fight has a sort of "break time" when the boss stops moving, and the streamer demonstrates that if you just hit it then, you can reliably trigger the effect.

Every boss in this lineup involves fighting multiple enemies, so it's not unusual to take a hit from a blind spot. The streamer says that being able to prepare for situations like that is part of what makes build-crafting in this game fun.

After defeating the Tree Sentinel, they took on the remaining cavalry. Since they had some Fire Pots left over, they fought while staggering the enemies with them. It's a hassle if the cavalry escapes beyond the edge of the area, so they lured it back inside before throwing another Fire Pot. They then reapplied the enchantment with Chilling Mist, attacked with the dagger, and took down the first one.

However, at the very moment of that kill, the streamer was hit by a different enemy. Surprised, they wondered, "Had it been hiding its presence the whole time, waiting for its chance?" and praised the timing—striking in the brief opening right after the kill—as "perfect." After that, they knocked the remaining rider off its horse with the dagger and finished it off with a critical hit and frostbite. With that, they defeated the Royal Cavalry and wrapped up Day 2.

The streamer calls the final day "dog-walking day." Having far too many runes left over with nothing to spend them on, they bought random items at an overpriced merchant, then headed to the gate to challenge the final boss, Gladius, Beast of Night.

In the previous video they fought using deflects, but this time the plan was to fight by dodging properly. The streamer rates the Duchess's evasion as flawless across the board—invincibility frames, dodge distance, and stamina cost alike. Because of this, dealing with enemy attacks is no problem, they say.

The challenge is their own means of attack. This time they brought the Cursed Spirit-Summoning Bell, so after dodging, they swung the dagger if the enemy was close and rang the bell if it was far. If you only think about short-term DPS efficiency, you'd want to ring the bell even at close range. But doing so would leave them out of FP toward the end, so swinging the dagger at close range is also a way of saving FP, the streamer explains.

Partway through the fight, Gladius splits into three. According to the streamer, normally you can escape just by running, but at Level 1 you don't have enough stamina to outrun them to the end. So at Level 1, this phase requires you to keep skillfully dodging the waves of attacks from all three. The streamer describes it as "fun content that really rewards creativity."

Depending on the character, you can easily get away using a skill, and you can also use Ashes of War and Ultimate Arts, they say. This time, they parried the attacks with the Duchess's evasion while going on the offensive when their Ultimate Art was available. Even while hidden, the enemies attack indiscriminately, so attacking with the bell here is very safe, they say. The cursed spirits also do a surprising amount of poise damage, so if you keep landing them, you can aim for a stagger. They did in fact knock the boss down, but with Level 1 stamina it was a bit too far to close the distance. So they kept attacking with the bell while restoring FP.

Of the four FP restoration items they had, only one remained, and running out of FP was starting to loom. This time they managed to pick up gear with glintblades, but the streamer suggests that if you don't find such gear along the way, it's also a good idea to use the passive effect "FP restoration upon attacks." Since they hardly used their right-hand weapon this time, they reflect that if they'd had gear with that kind of effect in their right hand, the fight would surely have been even more comfortable.

By the time they used up the last FP restoration item, the boss had about as much health left as they could whittle down with their remaining FP. After that, the three-way split phase began again. With no Ultimate Art available this time, they carefully kept dodging. According to the streamer, when breath attacks happen to overlap, dodging suddenly becomes much harder. That high degree of randomness is what makes this fight fun, and the Duchess, who can dodge in succession, has room to spare even then, they say.

The streamer has fought a variety of lords so far, but says that at Level 1, the Gladius fight with this split phase is the most fun and their favorite. Noting that powered-up versions of the lords will apparently be appearing gradually, they say they're hoping Gladius will eventually get a powered-up version too. In the end, they delivered the finishing blow with just enough FP left for one more cursed spirit, watched the boss's big move play out, and defeated Gladius, Beast of Night.

To wrap up, the streamer rated the Duchess as a character with surprisingly high sorcery aptitude, excellent evasion, and a fun skill, making her comfortable to play even if you just move her around casually. NIGHTREIGN may look like a hectic game at first glance, but at Level 1 there's no need to earn runes, so you can enjoy wandering around at your own pace. With that, the streamer recommends Level 1 play to viewers as well and ends the video.