Everything you need to know about the best Raider build for the Enhanced Sentient Pest in Elden Ring Nightreign, including Relics, and more.

Raider is easily the most beginner-friendly Nightfarer in Elden Ring Nightreign, perhaps even more so than the game’s poster child, Wylder. The trick to using Raider is simple, you just “bonk” everything on your path, until it stops moving. However, while the “brute-force” method might take you far through the regular Nightlord bosses, that’s not going to help you much against their enhanced variants. The Enhanced Sentient Pest, for instance, is easily one of the biggest hurdles for the traditional Raider playstyle. Thankfully, you can easily “stomp” your way through Enhanced Gnoster, if you have the right build for your Raider.
Here’s a comprehensive guide on the best Raider build for the Enhanced Sentient Pest in Elden Ring Nightreign.
Overview of the Best Raider Build for Enhanced Sentient Pest in Elden Ring Nightreign

For the Raider build, we’re going for pure elemental damage. Unlike other Nightlords, the Sentient Pest doesn’t give you enough room to get a ton of attacks in. Instead, you’ll get small opportunities to dish out your attacks. And you want to capitalize on these opportunities with elemental damage. Ideally, you want Fire damage on your weapon when going up against Gnoster. However, for this build, we are using both Fire and Frost. Fire will stagger and deal damage over time to the boss, whereas Frost will slow it down and also deal a chunk of damage.
The only downside here is that you need to devote some time to getting the Smithing Stones to upgrade your starting weapon. Additionally, we also recommend keeping a look out for Colossal Weapons, that way you can power-stance the starting weapon, and deal additional stance damage. That said, you can also two-hand the starting armament. Doing so is ideal if you don’t want to focus on jumping attacks.
Relics for the Best Raider Build

Night of the Fathom
- Increased maximum HP
- The flask also heals allies
- Items confer effects on all nearby allies
Night of the Miasma
- Nearby Frostbite conceals self.
- Changes compatible armament’s skill to Chilling Mist at the start of an Expedition.
- Attack power up when facing a Frostbite-afflicted enemy.
How To Use the Best Raider Build Against Enhanced Sentient Pest?

Here are some tips on how to properly use the best Raider build when facing off against the Enhanced Sentient Pest:
- To use this build, you need to make sure that your starting armament, i.e., the Colossal Halberd is upgraded to the Epic (purple) rarity. If you get the Crater Shifting Earth event, you can even take the weapon to the Legendary tier; however, Epic more than suffices for this encounter.
- In the first phase, you want to focus on inflicting Frost damage and staggering the boss. We recommend saving your Ultimate for phase 2. Also, don’t exhaust all your FP in phase 1, and make sure to carry at least one Starlight Shard.
- The best way to use this build is to inflict Frostbite with Chilling Mist and follow that up with jump attacks. However, if you don’t have power-stanced Colossal Weapons, you can instead use the light attack combo to break Faurtis’s stance.
- Also, make sure you and your teammates prioritize Faurtis over Gnoster. While Gnoster has less overall HP, it’s not easy to hit that boss, especially with melee-focused characters like Raider.
- Frost and Fire should easily melt through the boss’s HP, and even stagger it plenty of times to help you get an easy victory, be it solo or in multiplayer.
Additional Notes
You can also use Bleed for the Enhanced Sentient Pest. However, if you have access to Frost, that’s overall the best option for this Nightlord.

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