Of course, there are spoilers. I advise you to play the boss at least once before coming here for advice. That said, Nightlords first then night bosses. Contributions to this post would be nice, be it with pictures to embed or further commentary.

There's nothing too special about the cerebus - it's the tutorial boss, after all. At intervals it will split into three seperate dogs with near-identical movesets. If you damage it enough, it will skip through this phase, however you can also simply wait it out.

Try not to use lock-on for this fight. The dogs are highly mobile, and may disorient or flank you.

Be cognizant of your range from it, as the Nightlord can swing its sword to be lethal at any distance. Arguably, it's more dangerous than the close-range moveset.

Its fire breath is deceptively wide owing to having three heads, and comes at a slight visual delay - roll only after their heads snap into their 'spitting' pose, not the moment they begin the flame-throw.

This boss has two distinct phases. In the first it is slow and fights without much fanfare by tumbling into you. In its second phase, the fight plays out similarly to Fallingstar Beasts.

Be mindful of the boss' animations, as committing to a bad attack can lead to your health bar disappearing. It's relatively safe underneath it, however.

Notably, its weakness to poison is a half-truth: While initially extremely vulnerable to poison, it will also cure itself of poison with a unique attack only in its first phase - effectively stunning itself and also dealing all the damage the poison would have done at once. In its second phase, it loses this special 'attack'.

As a draconic creature, it is affected by anti-dragon effects. Usual to the category as well is a notable resistance to bleed.

As implied in its description, this is a gank boss. If you've ever fought Moonlit Butterfly, you'll find it familiar. The lobster has high physical res and periodically turns to stone, while the moth flies around the stage firing projectiles and occasionally landing.

In its second phase, the moth will land on the lobster and they will start doing combination attacks. A halo of three lights will also appear above the moth. These are indicators of the moth's remaining use of a certain attack.

The butterfly is rather fragile and will occasionally present opportunities of attack. The scorpion is beefy, and sports a finite, regenerating, health pool. Only a portion damage dealt to the scorpion will actually lower the health bar of the fight; be it from direct strikes or statuses. Wgen the scorpion does reach 0 however, it withdraws into a ball and turns stone-white, and regenerates its entire health bar. This is still advantageous, as while the scorpion is regenerating the moth will fly low and directly engage in combat.

Uniquely for this fight, when poisoned by the moth a bud will sprout upon the afflicted. This bud indicates that a player can be attacked to remove the bud, which can be removed quickly. Otherwise, the poison has an extremely-extended duration but does not deal increased damage.

Bringing projectile weapons is recommended even on characters with middling dex (or hunt down a greatbow from bow stands), as the lobster is slow and easily kited by a single person while the moth is vulnerable to damage. If someone were to singlehandedly maintain aggro on it that would also be beneficial, but sometimes you don't have the luxury of strategy in solos.

Avoid lock-on for this fight - the lobster is too large and you need to maintain peripheral of the moth.

An unintuitive boss for most. This Nightlord spends most of its time airborne, summoning enemies and dashing through the stage. It has an attack where it continuously causes sleep buildup of those within line of sight. its summons include jellyfish which swim close to detonate (causing sleep buildup) and polyp-like tendrils which flail at those nearby.

It has a variation of the mass sleep buildup which causes those asleep to take damage. This is near-definitely lethal and must be interrupted with a stagger.

Projectile weapons are surprisingly not necessary for this boss, and may actually prove a distraction. Instead, you want to be killing its summons. Projectile attacks are mandatory for this fight, especially if you are a character without an intrinsically-offensive ability. In phase 2, Augur will periodically spawn a slow-falling, glowing orb of energy. This can and should be destroyed. Failure to do so causes a near-mapwide instance of magic damage if it contacts the ground. Although it can be i-framed and deflected, without other telegraphing you will be caught if your focus is not on it.

Augur summons adds in the form of jellyfish, polyps, and the above thermonuclear bomb. Killing these deals part of their max health in damage to the boss, and is very worth doing so. Damage transferred this way also appears to stagger Augur nearly as fast as pumping equivalent lightning damage.

Note that the jellyfish have to be killed for them to count. Their automatic detonation will not progress the boss' mechanic.
Guardian is particularly well-suited for this fight given his ability to instantly kill the jellyfish en masse per ability use.
Due to the lack of attacks for Executor to safely deflect, bringing them is explicitly ill-advised.

This baphometic Nightlord has a gimmick where it will trade a positive modifier for you, for a debuff to you. This pool is shared with his appearance as a world event, and merchant.

• I wish to have a rare weapon; grants you a rare weapon, costs 2 levels
  
• I want resistance to ailments; grants you a slight universal resistance buff, cuts your stamina
  
• I wish for great strength; grants you +3 levels. When you use a flask, lose 1 level
  
• I wish to be attuned to [attribute]; Sacrifices your other attributes to increased the selected one
  
• I wish to keep death at bay; Receive a heal when hit at low health, cuts your max health
  
• I wish for us to fight at our best; Receive a universal stat bonus for ~1 min, boss starts in empowered state and also receives the buff for ~2 min.
  
• ..?; Periodically, randomly, creates a madness eye on your position for a minor frenzy flame burst. Causes frenzy buildup on self.
  
• ..?; Half your HP, FP and SP. After...some...time, those stats are improved. Going DBNO before the timer elapses ends this effect but does return your missing stats.

This Nightlord is highly agile and has the ability to teleport. its attacks include circles on the floor which detonate after 3 seconds to cause massive madness buildup, hovering rings which spew projectiles which also cause buildup, and rings of bombs which cause damage and madness buildup as they travel and detonate.

Periodically and at health thresholds before the time is up, the boss enters an invulnerable state and a minigame is set, explained in the advice section. These can be considered phases, and will be called empowered and wild states.

In empowered state, Equilibrious will prioritize spell attacks which are empowered. Floor rings are set under and one other in close proximity to each player and have increased effects, hovering rings will spin as they fire and last longer, and explosive shards will spawn in triplicated rings. Equilibrious also gets a buff to its defenses.

In wild state, Equiliribrious eschews magical attacks for lunging and sweeping strikes. It also receives a damage bonus buff.

DO NOT ATTACK HIM DURING THE SHOP PHASE. YOU WILL BEGIN THE FIGHT IN EMPOWERED STATE.

As it attacks, and periodically, it will drop harmless motes on the ground which unfortunately resemble the aforementioned bombs, except duller and have a column of yellow light. Running over these will remove your madness buildup and heal you for a minor amount.

image from IGN:


During the minigame, Equilibrious becomes near-invulnerable but still susceptible to sources of forced stagger. It spawns hovering holy sigils in its vicinity. Destroy these sigils to force it into the comparatively weaker wild state. Note that these rings can spawn in the air, so ranged attacks are mandatory for this fight if you'd like to avoid the empowered state - or Raider, Ironeye, and Wylder. As you can not lock onto the rings at all, you will have to learn to free-aim or be quick. Failing this minigame will cause Equilibrious to enter its empowered state.

In this empowered state, the rotating barrage of projectiles can be dodged through despite its appearance, if you are moving directly perpendicular.

At any time if Equilibrious becomes afflicted with madness, it will stagger and immediately enter its wild state - regardless of its current condition. This can be used to knock it out of empowered state, or the minigame... but not effectively.

image from IGN:


The empowered state is hell for anyone with a melee build. It's best to just wait it out. It will overlap delayed detonation effects, so getting hit once can be instant death due to the stun from madness.

Overall, don't bring Guardian or Raider. None of the projectiles can be reflected with whirlwind. Raider suffers less, but the Nightlord's mobility will also make it difficult to maintain aggression.

Fight Libra patiently, and you will succeed.

Others have described him as Iudex Gundyr, but really his moveset is more similar to Vordt. Watch out for the shockwaves from his slam attacks, as they travel quite the distance. Periodically, he will charge up an attack for about 4 seconds. After doing so, lightning will crash down near-instantly. This is not a window of attack, unless....

This boss is trivialized with lightning damage. Hilariously so. The only boss whose weakness has a noticeable impact. During the charging up of the lightning attack where he stands still and rises on his hind legs slightly, striking him with lightning damage will force a stagger.

Otherwise, Fulghur's moveset closely resembles that of a mounted tree sentinel - so apply whatever plan you have when fighting those and avoid anywhere with fissures of gold.

it's a dragon on the scale of Darkeater Midir, and per its description causes frostbite buildup with its breath attacks.

A primarily cinematic fight against a target with an inflated health pool, high damage, but scarce attacks.

Don't lock on; Always be moving; if you find yourself in front of the boss then get to its side or under it. The breath attack is near-unavoidable if you are in its area, which happens to be anywhere to its fore, unless with careful timing of your dodge.

Every-so-often, the boss will disappear and cover the stage with mist. During this, one of two things can happen, which can be discerned by whether a dark fog column rises from somewhere, or the sky becomes covered in crystal. Note that if you are too far away from the boss you may not be able to see the dark fog, so the absence of crystals in the sky also serves as an indicator.

When there is a column of dark fog, locate pillars of ice which rise in an area around the boss, and block line of sight to the column. After about 15 seconds, chilling mist will be erupted outward. This attack is nigh undodgeable, and will proc frostbite unless you have high resistances. Where there are crystals in the sky, follow the sound cue to the boss, and stay by it. Around the dragon will be a safe radius from this attack. Being hit by the falling sky will cause high damage and frostbite, but this attack is avoidable with some luck. Notably, this attack cannot be blocked but can be deflected by Executor.

Doing this boss with Mountaintop active as the modifier would benefit you greatly due to the increased damage against dragons and frostbite resistance modifiers you can get from the zone.

Dealing enough fire damage to this boss will cause its resistances to lower.

As a dragon, it also has a notable resistance to bleed damage.

Fancy boss with fancy visuals. If you liked Slave Knight Gael, you'll like him. The attacks are mostly lunges or wide sweeps, and there is little downtime in the fight. Passively, in its second phase, John Nightreign will use a moonlight-greatsword-esque weapon with random affinity damage (Magic, Poison, Holy, Lightning, etc). The arena will also erupt randomly in geysers which cause said damage.

Almost every attack has enough impact to fling Guardian from his enhanced guard, and will do affinity damage, so blocking is not recommended. The boss has little downtime between attacks and movement, so Ironeye and Recluse will be particularly useful to maintain damage. You will also need to watch your step, because the fissures are randomly placed and you may run into them unwittingly. Unlike with Slave Knight Gael's dramatic 1 damage lightning, these will kill you. With a chunky health bar, statuses will be useful even despite John Nightreign's staggering status resistance; Frostbite in particular for the outgoing damage reduction.

Whenever John Nightreign holds the greatsword horizontally, do not commit to any action with a long end-lag. This will either be a near-instant, high-damaging lunge, or a series of high-damaging projectiles.

Night bosses are selected from a pool based on the selected nightlord(?). They will not be sorted that way. Instead, each entry will denote where I (or anyone commenting on this) have observed their presence.


There are two variations of his fight, based on the two times you fight him in Elden Ring. When Niall is mentioned, it refers to both. Field Commander refers to the rot version, and Outland Commander to frostbite. Niall is a tanky brute who summons spectral adds. Field summons crossbow-and-sword exiles, and great-axe exiles. Outland summons beheaded two-sword knights..

Niall's attack patterns are identical for the most part, all widely-sweeping strikes with his flag-spear.

4 exile axmen, 2 headless knights

This one is brutal when underlevelled. Kill his adds quickly, then focus him down. Allowing him to buff them will be a forgone cause.
Him slamming his flag into the ground is an indicator for both his buff/summon attempt which is a window of free attack, or for his feint which causes a whirlwind of rot or frostbite around himself. You will be able to distinguish them based on whether he yells, so listen for the cue before pouncing.

(Field) Equilibirious
(Outland) Augur


It's a greatsword crucible knight with increased stats. At some time or after 25% health is lost, the giant hippo spawns.

4 misbegotten axmen, 2? misbegotten bowmen

Crucible Knight can be parried if you're ballsy, but the stomp attack has to be jumped. The hippo is really just a distraction, but listen for the grab attack sound cue. The fight is straight-forward, but both bosses deal considerable damage in a single hit. In multiplayer, it's best if one person manages the hippo while two wail on the knight.

Equilibrious


She has considerably overtuned damage similar to her DS3 iteration, but has heavily-telegraphed chain attacks. She's like a normal Elden Ring boss actually, in that sense.

Nokstella priestesses: 2 dagger, 2 urumi

Stay behind her when possible.
Never, ever, let your stamina fall below half (or if you are a math wizard, 30 points). You will need the SP to dodge or sprint out of the way, especially when she begins twirling around the arena.


A returning boss from dark souls 2, she's faster and a lot tankier here. Her add spiders also pose a greater threat, having a lunging grab. At low health, she covers the battlefield in silk and slows everyone in the area.

8 spiders, 2 mantis scythe guy

Hit her head, and stay close. She's relatively harmless, and her magic attacks are actually weaker in this game (smaller hitbox, less damage).
Kill her adds quickly, as they have a grab which kills your ability to dodge Freyja's abilities.

Sentiment Pest, Equilibirious

it's the same boss from dark souls 1, just a little faster. None of its attacks are too dangerous, but during its charging rampage it will spawn pools of poison. (Similar to the magma wyrms.)

2 large grafted hands, 6 small grafted hands

Stay behind it, and focus on its tail. The tail contributes to most of its dangerous attacks, and when broken appears to be guaranteed one consumable and one equipment drop. Of course, with most oversized enemies, lock-on is your enemy.

Gaping Maw?

The fight opens with only Godskin Noble, but Godskin Apostle will quickly show up after some time.

4 Dominula villagers; 2 black fire monks

Avoid lock-on: Godskin Apostle is highly mobile and boasts an excellent range, so you want to maintain an eye on him even while fighting the Noble. That said, his moveset is actually awful in direct confrontation so it's better to save him for last. The Noble has darkflame ritual and his belly attacks, so you never want to trade hits with anything other than his rapier. The delayed thrust attack can be avoided if you run perpendicular to him, so do that if you aren't confident with the timing.

Darkdrift(?)

You know him! Except this time it passively exudes a deathblight aura and continually spawns deathblight crabs and infested rats. Notably, large Wormface's grab attack has been enhanced and can be used up to five times in sequence.

2 large rats, 2? large crabs, small rats

The rats and crabs drop rejuvenating boluses, which remove deathblight buildup. If you have Wormface's attention, bring it away from your team. If you don't have Wormface's attention, kill the adds. The fight will run smoothly once you have a surplus of rejuvenating boluses, and you can always pick your normal consumables back up after the fight is over.

Sentiment Pest, Equilibrious

It's him! And... he's actually really squishy in this game. His Ornstien phase also lacks most of the dramatic moves he usually has due to the side of the arena. That said, he does still do a lot of damage with each hit.

Orange-furred dragon, simply called 'flying dragon', curved greatsword misbegotten

Stay under his wyrmdrake in the first phase. Striking him directly is also preferable as he takes considerably more damage than the drake. In the second phase, someone should maintain his attention while the other two wail on him from other angles or a distance. He is dangerous, but only fragile.

John Nightreign, Darkdrift

This has to do with Noklasteo, so if you would like to be un-spoiled then scroll away.

Astel has nothing special in this iteration, but fights unfairly due to its raw strength.

Astel's arm-slams will generate magical rings which pulse and expand. Scary as they are due to their high damage, these can be avoided by dodging into them by every character except Guardian. They can also be jumped over.