Elden Ring Nightreign: How To Defeat Everdark Tricephalos Solo?

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

Elden Ring Nightreign (Image via FromSoftware)

Everdark Tricephalos, aka Gladius, Beast of Night, is easily the best the Everdark Sovereign Nightlords have to offer. It’s essentially an amalgamation of both Gladius and Heolstor, with a few new AOE attacks that are incredibly punishing, but are also easy to read (and dodge). As the very first Nightlord in Elden Ring Nightreign, Gladius desperately needed a good Everdark version. And FromSoftware has delivered just that. Everdark Gladius is easily the most well-balanced Nightlord in the game, that offers a good amount of challenge without being overwhelmingly difficult, a la Libra, Creature of Night, or Maris, Fathom of Night.

While Everdark Tricephalos is an incredibly challenging boss, it can be defeated rather easily, provided you know how to counter its attacks. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to easily defeat Everdark Tricephalos in Elden Ring Nightreign’s solo mode.

Overview of Everdark Tricephalos in Elden Ring Nightreign

Everdark Tricephalos, much like vanilla Gladius, Beast of Night, is weak to Holy. It’s also weak to Bleed and Frost. However, it gains extremely high resistance to affinities in the second phase. As such, you won’t be able to apply a defense debuff on the boss, outside of critical hits. In solo mode, however, the boss does retain lower poise, even in the second phase. Much like most Everdark Nightlords, Tricephalos is easier to fight in solo, due to lower HP and poise. However, you still need to keep up with the aggression of the boss when it splits into three.

Thankfully, the Everdark variant doesn’t transition to and fro between its split and combined phases all that much. The boss starts the battle in its split phase. However, the majority of the second phase is in Gladius’s combined form. One major difference between regular and Everdark Gladius is that both split and combined forms share unified poise and HP. As such, the poise damage you deal to one of its phases carries over to the other.

Overall, Gladius is a fairly standard one-on-one boss fight, with a few AOE attacks thrown into the mix. The only big attack that you need to look out for is when Gladius grabs the sword in its jaws and jumps into midair. This attack is very similar to Heolstor’s AOE, albeit without the randomized affinities. The best way to avoid getting hit by this attack is to dodge right before Gladius’s sword touches the ground. However, you can also block this attack with a bit of chip damage.

Tips To Defeat Everdark Tricephalos in Solo Mode

Here are some tips that will help you easily defeat the Everdark Tricephalos in Elden Ring Nightreign’s solo mode:

For Everdark Tricephalos, we recommend using a Nightfarer that has ample defense and poise. Most of Gladius’s attacks have a follow-up, which can easily knock you out of your attacks. This is where having additional poise will come in handy.
Most of Gladius’s attacks also deal affinity damage; as such, make sure to stack a few affinity damage negation passives as well. Raider and Wylder are easily the best choices for this boss fight.
The first phase of Everdark Gladius is where it dishes out a ton of damage. However, the boss is also at its weakest in this phase. You can easily stagger Gladius and land a couple of critical hits before it transitions to its second phase.
In the second phase, Gladius gets access to attacks that usually end with a Fire AOE. However, the timing of these attacks is quite easy to predict and dodge. The only attack that can catch you off guard is the slam AOE.
Ideally, you’re meant to dodge this attack right before the boss’s sword reaches the ground. However, another good way to avoid taking lethal damage from this AOE is to simply hold the block. You will still take a bit of damage, but it won’t be lethal.
The best way to approach Gladius’s second phase is to treat it as Heolstor, but with a wider hitbox. Thankfully, in solo mode, Gladius usually stays passive, with only its AOE attacks posing any form of threat.

Additional Notes

For Everdark Gladius, we highly recommend using the Rotted Woods Shifting Earth. The buff from the Rotted Woods increases your base HP and also affinity resistance. If you don’t have Rotted Woods active, you can summon it via the Collector Signboard at the cost of 1 Sovereign Sigil.