Elden Ring Nightreign: How To Defeat Everdark Tricephalos

Everything you need to know about the Everdark Tricephalos in Elden Ring Nightreign, and how to easily defeat it.

Elden Ring Nightreign (Image via FromSoftware)

Everdark Sovereign Expeditions are easily the most engaging aspect of Elden Ring Nightreign’s endgame, simply due to the new Nightlords. There have been a few Everdark Nightlords, like Libra and Augur, that ended up leaving the Nightreign community divided. However, for the most part, these new bosses have been received quite well by the players. And that trend seems to continue with Everdark Tricephalos. As the final “officially confirmed” Everdark Sovereign, Tricephalos is easily the best the Everdark Sovereign has to offer. The boss is a mix of vanilla Gladius, Beast of Night, and Heolstor, the final boss of the game, coupled with some really cool gimmicks.

However, unlike Everdark Libra, Gladius is an incredibly well-balanced boss fight, with the focus being one-on-one battle. And while vanilla Gladius is nothing more than a pushover, the Everdark variant is incredibly challenging. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to easily defeat Everdark Tricephalos in Elden Ring Nightreign.

Overview of Everdark Tricephalos in Elden Ring Nightreign

Structurally, Everdark Tricephalos is very similar to its base game counterpart, with roughly the same movesets and weaknesses. Furthermore, the boss’s grab attack also remains identical across both variants, albeit with slight timing differences between them. Unsurprisingly, Everdark Gladius has more massive reserves of health and also deals more damage with its attacks. However, you can still stack physical and Fire damage negation passives to nullify most of the damage the boss deals. The biggest difference between regular and Everdark Gladius comes in the form of affinity resistance. Additionally, Everdark Gladius has a few new AOE attacks under its belt.

Unlike regular Gladius, the Everdark variant is resistant to most affinities, save for Holy. This is where the similarities to Heolstor come into play. Gladius shares a lot of elements of the Heolstor boss fight, complete with a massive AOE combo that can only be dodge-rolled out of. Additionally, in his second phase, Gladius gains Attack Up temporarily, where its attacks will ignore your damage negation passives. However, to balance this out, in this phase, Gladius has significantly lower poise.

As always, the best classes to use against Gladius are ones that have plenty of HP and defense. However, due to the fast-paced nature of the boss fight, Guardian isn’t a good choice here. We highly recommend using Raider or Wylder for this boss fight. Duchess is also a good choice, granted you can stack enough damage negation passives.

Weaknesses of Everdark Tricephalos

Similar to the regular Gladius, Beast of Night, the Everdark variant is primarily weak to Holy. In its first phase, you can also inflict Frost and Bleed on the boss. However, it’s completely immune to other affinities (including Scarlet Rot). In its second phase, Gladius gains very high resistance to Holy as well. Nevertheless, you can still use Holy Affinity to apply a defense debuff on the boss. Characters like Ironeye and Duchess can apply the Holy debuff quite fast. However, without Ash of War, melee attacks won’t be able to deal a Holy debuff on Gladius.

Tips To Defeat Everdark Tricephalos in Elden Ring Nightreign

Here are some tips to easily defeat Everdark Tricephalos in Elden Ring Nightreign:

Considering the amount of physical and affinity (Fire) damage Gladius can dish out in the first phase, you must reach at least Level 13 by the end of Day 2. Ideally, you want to get to Level 15; however, Level 13-14 is also perfectly fine.
Additionally, make sure to grab a few physical and affinity damage negation passives. Holy weapons are recommended, but not necessary. Instead, focus on increasing your physical damage via passives.
Stance-break and affinity attack up passives also work quite well against Gladius. Similar to base Gladius and Caligo, Everdark Gladius is incredibly agile and frequently runs across the battlefield. As such, we also recommend equipping a few stamina-related passives.
Both Frost and Bleed do work against Gladius in the second phase. However, the boss has very high immunity to affinities. You can still apply the aforementioned affinities to the boss; however, it won’t deal high amounts of damage.
Similar to Heolstor, Gladius also has a massive AOE combo which ends with a slam attack. Ideally, you’re meant to dodge this attack right before Gladius’s sword hits the ground. However, another way to negate a good chunk of damage from this attack is to hold block.

Additional Notes

For Everdark Gladius, we highly recommend the Rotted Woods Shifting Earth. The Rotted Woods’ buff grants additional HP and also increases affinity damage negation. Having the extra bit of Vigor helps a ton in terms of survivability.