Elden Ring Nightreign Dreglord weakness and boss fight guide

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The Nightreign Dreglord, a challenging two-stage boss found in The Forsaken Hollows DLC, is a formidable opponent. It relies heavily on inflicting Scarlet Rot and using wide-area attacks, making the fight particularly difficult. Known as the Traitorous Straghess, this boss is surprisingly quick, hits incredibly hard, and doesn’t have any obvious weaknesses to take advantage of. However, the following tips should help you defeat this tough enemy and finish the DLC.

Nightreign Dreglord weaknesses

The Dreglord boss, as noted in the Expedition guide, doesn’t have any weaknesses. This is a problem because, unlike the other Nightreign bosses, there’s no specific damage type or status effect you can focus on during the first two days to boost your damage in the final fight – for instance, the Balancers boss is particularly vulnerable to Sleep attacks.

Even though the Dreglord doesn’t have any major weaknesses, don’t skip damage effects like Bleed, Frostbite, Poison, and Scarlet Rot. They can still increase your damage, but they won’t trigger frequently. I’ve found using builds focused on Scarlet Rot and Bleed as the Nightreign Scholar helps a lot. Also, a Reddit user (u/Competitive-Monk721) reports that Holy damage is the most effective against the Dreglord, followed by Fire, but neither is crucial for winning.

Best Relics and characters for beating the Dreglord

Before starting the Dreglord Expedition in Nightreign, it’s important to equip your character with the best Relics and build a well-rounded team. While fast, close-combat characters like the Wylder, Executor, and Nightreign Undertaker are effective against the Dreglord, you also need support characters like the Scholar and Recluse who can attack from a safe distance and avoid the Dreglord’s powerful area attacks. Check out our Nightreign character tier list for help choosing the right team.

When fighting enemies that cause Scarlet Rot, having some protection is helpful. The Dreglord uses this status effect a lot, so it’s best to either increase your resistance with specific Relics (look for the “Improved Rot Resistance” ability) or bring Preserving Boluses to quickly cure the Rot if you get infected.

It’s very difficult to avoid getting Scarlet Rot during the fight with the Dreglord, so a good strategy is to accept it and use items that help you benefit from it. Here’s what to keep in mind:

  • Rot in Vicinity Causes Continuous HP Recovery. This one is great as it massively reduces the overall damage you take from the Rot effect.
  • Attack power up when facing scarlet rot-afflicted enemy.
  • Poison and Rot in Vicinity Increases Attack Power. Night of the Wise, which is earned from defeating the Nightreign Sentient Pest boss, has this perk and adds Poison buildup to your starting weapon too.
  • If you want to make the most of these effects, finding a Scarlet Rot weapon, such as the Antspur Rapier, will also help a lot!

Nightreign Dreglord tips and strategy

The Dreglord is likely Nightreign’s most challenging boss, fought in two stages: first against the Traitorous Straghess, then the Pure Impulse Straghess. Both stages feature a wide range of attacks and inflict significant Scarlet Rot buildup. If you’ve defeated the Nightreign Night Aspect, you’ll recognize the basic fight pattern, but here are some helpful tips to increase your chances of winning.

  • Level up and get as many flasks as possible. This obviously goes for every boss in the game, but reaching at least level 13 (and ideally level 14 or 15) and getting as many flasks as you can is especially crucial against the Dreglord since it’s a long fight and you can’t rely on exploiting weaknesses to get through it. I strongly recommend fighting through all the layers of the castles present during the Nightreign Great Hollow event on Day 2 as the bosses you face there are an excellent source of runes and legendary armaments and upgrades.
  • Get good at dodging. The number of area-of-effect attacks that this boss throws out means dodging effectively is absolutely essential. Guarding will do little to help and parrying will only take you so far. Thankfully, most of the Dreglord’s attacks are quite well telegraphed, giving you plenty of time to prepare your evasive manoeuvres, but getting caught out can result in taking massive damage at best and instant death at worst.
  • Be ready to sprint away when the Dreglord starts charging up any Scarlet Rot bomb attacks. The most obviously telegraphed attacks usually involve the Dreglord inhaling rot matter to create a sort of Scarlet Rot projectile or blast, and this is your cue to start sprinting away, both to avoid the suction and the inevitable attack. Running away gives you the best chance of avoiding these attacks entirely or, at the very least, will give you more time to evade if one is thrown your way.
  • You will almost certainly be afflicted with Scarlet Rot at some point. As mentioned, you can equip Runes to mitigate this, but the Traitorous Straghess can summon Rot rain which applies substantial and unavoidable Rot buildup
  • Don’t attack the boss’s summoned minions unless you absolutely must. The Traitorous Straghess will conjure Scarlet Rot enemies of varying size to help but they are slow and generally not very threatening for the most part. Avoid them as much as possible, focusing solely on wearing down the Dreglord – the quicker you get through the first phase, the fewer enemies it’s able to summon too!
  • Never take your eye off the Pure Impulse Straghess. When the Dreglord boss reaches its second phase, its mobility increases massively, able to charge around and change direction very quickly. It can even leap between the Scarlet Rot pillars it creates for certain attacks, so you always need to keep an eye on it to be ready to avoid its attacks.

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2025-12-08 22:40