Elden Ring Nightreign has eight unique characters to play as, with all of them prioritizing different play styles, having their own favorite weapons, and very different skills to use in combat. There's a bit of build flexibility in each character, but your overall play style is determined by the general play style of the character you've chosen.
Of the eight available characters to play as, some are a bit more complicated than others and will need a bit of practice to use them effectively. Here are which classes are best to start out with, along with which ones are more complicated for later on.
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Best Classes To Start With In Elden Ring Nightreign
The following table is in order, with the easiest at the top. Compared to the characters mentioned later in the article, all those in the following table are very easy in comparison.
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Character Name |
Explination |
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The guardian is the tankiest of all characters, giving him the highest survivability. He can get character-specific buffs to his block, making it an easy class to use if you're not the best with timing dodges or parries. His skills are easy to land, have a decent area of effect, and overall deal decent damage despite being the tank. |
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Fighting from a distance is much safer than running up close and having to worry about how to dodge or avoid damage. Creating and hitting weak points is a fairly easy meta-goal during combat, and the additional focus on constant basic attacks from a distance is easy to manage. |
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A good all-around character for those who like melee combat. Decent survivability and his passive Sixth Sense allows you to cheat death once, giving more room for error than any other class. His skills are both fairly simple and easy to weave into combat or just about any weapon play style. |
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A high damage class with decent survivability. His passive does help you stay alive, the more damage you take, with his passive naturally being very effective. This class is rewarded more for charging headfirst into combat without worrying about setting up the right skill or counter to an enemy's attack. |
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More Complicated Classes In Elden Ring Nightreign
With a little bit of time and practice, the following classes can be very effective, you'll just need to master how their skills and overall gameplay loop work to get the most out of them.
- Recluse - A mage class with complicated FP management if you don't know how her skills work. Very low survivability and won't do much against an enemy in melee.
- Revenant - Another mage character who relies heavily on her summons to keep enemies away. Not properly using your summons will leave her unguarded and often open to being downed.
- Duchess - A glass cannon that is very reliant on her character skill to deal a lot of damage. While extremely mobile and good at avoiding incoming attacks, she'll need good teammates to distract enemies so she can deal her full potential's worth of damage.
- Executor - While not as squishy as the other options in this section, this character needs an Arcane-focused play style. While a lot of his fighting seems like just charging at enemies, not using status ailments can leave you fighting with one arm tied behind your back.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 80 /100 Critics Rec: 78%
- Released
- May 30, 2025
- Developer(s)
- From Software
- Publisher(s)
- Bandai Namco Entertainment, From Software








- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Soulslike, Roguelite