Elden Ring Nightreign Guide | How To Beat Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect)

A guide on how to beat Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect) in Elden Ring Nightreign.

Game Guide by Groot on Jun 20, 2025

Heolstor the Nightlord is one of the hardest enemies in Elden Ring: Nightreign. It's also called the Shape of Knight, is the last boss, and will test all the skills you've learned along the way.

This guide is mostly about strategies for playing by yourself, but these methods are also very easy to use with other people.

Without the right planning, build decisions, and knowledge of how the boss works, you won't be able to beat this tough opponent and win.

Elden Ring Nightreign, Nightreign Guide, How To Beat Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect), PS5, Gameplay, Screenshot, NoobFeed

Character Build and Relics

You should use the character Raider for this encounter. The first thing you need to know is that this boss is weak to holy damage, which appears as a specific visual effect during combat.

When playing multiplayer, you should have a teammate that is either Guardian, Ironeye, or Wylder, or ideally, all of those together.

You want to prioritize upgrades that improve stance breaking, holy damage, physical damage negation, stamina recovery speed, stamina increase, and poise.

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Focus on anything that improves your attack damage and physical damage as well. During your first day, you should prioritize getting all of the churches, or at least as many as you can.

You should speed run through the whole game with Raider by yourself, prioritizing doing the easy areas at first, such as the mine shafts, the mausoleums, and the ruins. Then, you should proceed to get to level seven on day one.

Weapon Selection and Preparation

In terms of weapons, you want to have at least one weapon that has holy damage or holy skills. If you're playing as Raider, you should use colossal weapons such as Ultra Greatswords or Axes.

The great axe that has rot is really good, so if you can find a holy rot axe, it is really nice. Alternatively, you can start with a relic that makes your starting armament holy and then fully upgrade that with Smithing Stones one and two to make it purple.

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That is your best bet if you don't get a holy area on your playthrough. Additionally, holy grease also helps with the encounter.

Phase One Strategy

The very first phase is quite easy, so you really shouldn't take damage, but it's okay if you do. You should take advantage of having a lot of damage negation and a lot of HP as Raider, so you should take the forefront.

You should also use the character skill to break the enemy's stance, which is amazing with Raider. Critical hits are also very important, so you should take your time using your rot axe.

You want to proc the holy damage as soon as possible, which allows you to deal more damage to the boss and reduces the damage that the boss deals.

Elden Ring Nightreign, Nightreign Guide, How To Beat Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect), PS5, Gameplay, Screenshot, NoobFeed

This is something that you can always do in phase one and phase two, so you want to hit him with your holy weapon as soon as possible. You ideally don't want to take damage, and you want to have seven flasks before moving to the next phase.

Phase Two Tactics

In phase two, the enemy will be a lot more difficult and a lot faster. If it does a specific attack, it either means it will do a stab and follow up with a sword or will do a slash similar to Moonveil, very similar to the Dark Moon Greatsword.

You need to watch for a double swipe that ends with a stab, so it's three attacks you have to keep in mind.

Right after that attack sequence, you should hit him with your holy weapon and dodge when necessary. If you don't think you will be able to withstand some damage with your poise, make sure you activate your player skill with triangle and L2.

Elden Ring Nightreign, Nightreign Guide, How To Beat Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect), PS5, Gameplay, Screenshot, NoobFeed

If you find yourself in a sticky situation, activating your ultimate attack will make you impervious to damage, meaning you will not take damage.

There is a point where he does an AoE attack that is very difficult to avoid if you are right in it. You want to watch for the double swipe into stab and roll towards the attack at the correct time. If you hit the boss enough times with the holy armament, you will be able to stagger it very easily.

Phase Three and Advanced Mechanics

On phase three, or when he's at half health in phase two, he will open up the sky and perform a very wide area of effect attack in which you are required to jump. Otherwise, you will take frenzy damage.

This is the hardest part of the encounter and is absolutely difficult if you don't have HP. If your teammates have very low HP, you should tell them to stay away because Revenant will not survive this battle, and everything will throw a wrench in things.

You don't want to have a squishy character like Revenant in this battle, ideally.

His move set is very similar to the Abyss Watchers or Artorius of the Abyss from Dark Souls 1. His attacks have an everlasting effect, meaning he will stab and then follow up with a ground attack.

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You can see the groundbreaking underneath you, so you have to roll twice, not just once. You should dodge to the right or left - you don't want to dodge backward or forwards.

He will then make an attack where you should probably use your ultimate attack when he's doing this; that way, you are impervious to damage. You should roll towards the attack at the correct time when he's in midair to dodge him successfully.

The general rule in Elden Ring Nightreign and in Elden Ring, in general, is if you see ground attacks underneath you, like gravity or rocks, you should jump.

Final Strategy and Items

If you hit him enough times with your holy armament and break his poise with your character skill, you will be able to perform a critical hit. If you're playing this solo, you should start out with two Wending Grace that you can purchase at the merchant at the beginning.

Elden Ring Nightreign, Nightreign Guide, How To Beat Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect), PS5, Gameplay, Screenshot, NoobFeed

You can also get Wending Grace from the hidden power that you get at the end of boss battles during the regular game.

This is how you defeat Heolstor the Night Lord in a solo play. It is not an easy battle and is very difficult, which is why using Raider with a very high HP bar and very high stamina bar, as well as some poise, is recommended for this challenging encounter.

Also, check our Elden Ring Nightreign Review and other guides below: