Elden Ring Nightreign Gladius Guide: How to Beat the Game's First Boss
That’s a big dog.
Despite being a multiplayer game, Elden Ring Nightreign is every bit as absurdly challenging as any other Souls game. That becomes abundantly clear as soon as you reach the very first Night Lord, the three-headed dog Gladius. If you want to unlock the entire rest of the game, you’ll have to beat Gladius, and it’s your first major roadblock on your Nightreign journey. Luckily, we’re here to help guide you through the process, both in terms of preparing for the boss and the actual battle itself. Here’s the best way to beat Gladius (the Tricephalos Expedition) in Nightreign.
Best Team and Build Options For Gladius
Your team for Gladius should have good melee options, and it’s typically better to avoid spellcasters for this one.
While you can realistically beat Gladius with any team, something melee-focused will definitely give you an easier time. Our recommendation is to have a team with a Wylder, Ironeye, and either a Guardian or Raider. This team composition will maximize your melee damage and let you quickly build up stagger damage on Gladius, which the boss is very susceptible to.
As you might expect, the Raider or Guardian should be the primary tank, constantly trying to keep Gladius' attention and soaking up damage. Wylder can step in and draw aggro when needed, but should mostly be focused on sheer damage output and inflicting stagger — which the Guardian/Raider can then get a critical on. Ironeye is a great addition to this team as they can pepper Gladius with arrows for constant damage. But even more importantly, Ironeye is great at getting teammates up if they're downed, because of their ranged attacks. The Ironeye should obviously keep their distance and play things a bit more cautiously.
Now, as for the actual preparation, gaining a sufficient number of levels is vitally important. A good way to do that is to blitz all the different camps and simply take out the bosses, or completely clear out the castle on the second day. You should be in the 11-13 range to take on Gladius comfortably.
The second vital component is to exploit Gladius’ weakness to Holy damage. All three players should have a holy weapon to use — and there are two ways to do this. Camps will be marked with the element you’ll find on weapons dropped by the boss. So if you look at the map and there’s a yellow sword next to a camp, you’ll find holy weapons there. If there aren’t any, you’re able to buy holy weapons from the merchants scattered around the maps — just make sure to find one before the end of the second day.
Finally, it’s a good idea to go into the boss battle with a full seven flasks, so you’ll want to hit all three churches that appear on the map. All you need to do is go into the church and grab the flask, so they’re easy to hit on the way to something else. If you need to, utilize the Spectral Hawk trees to move quickly.
Gladius Attacks and Phases
Gladius’ deadliest attack is the phase change, where it splits into three, and it’s usually a good idea to switch from offense to defense at that point.
Outside of general bites and swipes, Gladius has four major attacks that you’ll want to watch out for, as well as one phase change. Here are the big attacks to recognize.
- Grab Attack - If Gladius’ heads start to glow purple, it’s readying a grab attack that’ll cause devastating damage on one player, perhaps even down you instantly. The only way to avoid this is to get out of range, so if you see it activate, dash away as fast as possible.
- Chain Sword Combo - If you see Gladius rear on its back leg and grab its chain with its mouth, the boss is about to do a combo with tremendous range. Gladius will first slam the chained sword down straight ahead, and then sometimes add two more swipes. There are essentially two ways to avoid this attack. Either you dash out of the attack’s range, or you dodge at the exact moment it would hit. If you time it just right with the attack frame, you can easily dodge.
- Fire Wave - If Gladius draws the sword out of its back and plunges it into the ground, get ready for a massive wave of fire. After a short delay of roughly five seconds, the boss tears the sword out and sends magma spewing straight ahead in a wide area. You either need to get out of range or try to dodge to the side and get behind the boss.
- Phase Change - At roughly 50 percent health, Gladius will crouch and start glowing with a ball of flame. Right after, the boss will split into three smaller wolves. There’s still one health bar, but all three wolves attack independently, making it much harder to pin the boss down. As a note, any of the wolves with glowing red eyes are vulnerable to being staggered, so focus on those if you do want to attack. Once Gladius does this phase change once, it’ll do it more times until the battle is over.
- Explosive Dive (Only used after Phase Change) - This is an attack Gladius adds onto his chain combo after the first time it changes phases. After using the chain, the boss will jump into the air and come crashing down in a fiery storm. The range of the flames on this attack is huge, and even if you avoid the initial impact, those flames can hurt you. Again, your best bet is to try and get out of range.
How to Beat Gladius in Elden Ring Nightreign
Get in close and stay close to Gladius.
As tempting as it might be to play carefully, offense is your best friend in the fight against Gladius. You want to constantly keep up the pressure and damage, until it changes phases to the three wolves, at which point you should go on the defensive until it switches back. But there’s also a catch there, as if anyone has an ultimate ready, this is the perfect time to use it. The Ultimate for Raider or Guardian has a wide area of effect, so if you can get the three wolves together and time it right, you can cause tremendous damage by hitting all three at once.
As a general rule of thumb for this fight, you want to avoid approaching the boss head-on. It almost goes without saying, but right in front of the three-headed dog's jaws is the most dangerous place to be. If you have the boss’s attention, it’s hard to avoid, but anyone else should be circling to its side or back for attacks. Focusing on the legs is also the best way to get the boss to stagger, especially if you’re using stronger R2 attacks or the skills on weapons.
If you have any items that help with fire damage negation, they’ll be extremely useful for this fight. And anything that can boost your stamina restoration or physical damage. You really do want to stay on top of Gladius throughout this fight, as the boss has the incredible ability to close long distances with massive leaps. Staying on top of the boss and weaving between blows is your best bet.
That does bring up another important point, of what to do if a team member gets downed. If you’re trying to revive an ally, you want to be extremely careful, as like we said, Gladius can cross the entire battlefield in a single leap. Even if you think you’re safe, you’re not. It’s better to have one teammate distract the boss and draw it away, then have a second help the downed player.
Overall, despite Gladius having high damage output, the boss doesn’t have any complex mechanics or moves to learn. Keep in mind the patterns of its key moves, keep the pressure up, and you should be fine.
Of course, in Nightreign, the run before the boss is just as important, so if you haven’t prepared properly, you might find yourself in trouble. Don’t worry if you need to redo the boss a few times — a big part of the Nightreign experience is learning the ins and outs of the map and how to strategize properly.
