In thisElden Ring: Nightreignvideo, we’re going to take a look atthe Raiderand how to play him in combat. We’ll cover his stats, skills, recommended relics, weapons to look out for, and how to use him effectively in a party. So, if you’re playingthe Raideror planning to learn this class, this video is for you.
General Description
The Raideris a strength class that plays like anoonga boongameathead strength build from Elden Ring, primarily built to take a bunch of hits with hishigh Poiseand crush enemies with huge weapons. Unlike the guardian who focuses on defense, this class is all about offense, so if you liked any Strength builds like the ones in our Elden Ring Best 15 Strength Builds video, then this class will absolutely be for you.
In group play,the Raider mostly plays as a frontlining DPS, taking agro similar to a tankwhile bonking enemieswith great hammers or colossal weapons. He has the health and poise to tank many, many attacks in the game, so it’s one of the easier classes to play in my opinion. You don’t have to worry about getting 2 shot like the Duchess or Recluse, and you still deal plenty of damage given you have the right build.
Stats & What that means
The Raidersmain stats are almost all abysmally low, with aD in Intelligence and Faith, andCs in Dexterity and Arcane. In exchange though, he gets anS in strength, making him the perfect candidate for huge weapons which cost a lot of stamina. Additionally he has a hiddenhigh Poise stat, allowing him to tank through hits while attacking, which is vital given how slow his usual weapons are.
With anS in strength and a C in dexterity, there are a few weapon categories which work best for Raider, namelyColossal Swords,Greataxes,GreathammersandColossal Weapons. These weapons generally have good strength scaling without relying too much on Dexterity, so if you can find these weapons in an expedition you’ll probably deal much more damage.
Unlike other classes that tend to have an S or A in at least 2 scaling stats, the Raider only has strength, so you will be pretty limited to these options for weapons in any given run. We’ll go over specific weapons to be on the lookout for after.
HP, FP and Stamina
As for other stats,the Raideris very well off with anA for Health,D for FPandA for Stamina. T
hese stats make him the second most tankiest and stamina-enduring class in the game, second only to the Guardian.
Because of that D in FP, you’ll need to use weapon skills sparingly. In my experience, I don’t find myself using weapon skills too often with the raider, but in case you do you’ll wantto equip relics that restore FP.
Against the Nightlord boss, you’ll want to stock up onStarlight Shardsif you have a skill on your weapon.
Skills and How to Use Them
Retaliate: Character Skill
A vigorous punch that can stagger even the largest enemies.
To start, we’ll talk about theCharacter Skill Retaliatesince the passive is directly related to it. Retaliate is basically just a right punch, where the Raider takes a stance for a second and pummels whatever is in front of him. It deals quite significant damage and stance damage, scaling very well with character level; The damage will go from 120 at level 1 to 296 by level 10 against the training dummy.
While he’s in his stance or punch animation, he also gains aHUGEamount of damage negation, allowing him to survive through basically any attack in the game.
You can essentially think of this skill as a parry with a huge, very forgiving timing window except a little damage will always seep through.
This skill has a very low cooldown at around 12 seconds, so you can be using it constantly in long dragged out boss fights to negate tons of damage. I highly recommend getting into the habit of using it when you aren’t quite sure what the timing of a bosses attack is, since the window of damage negation is huge, and you won’t be risking death by trying to roll.
Fighter’s Resolve: Passive Ability
Cannot be knocked down while using the Retaliate skill
Raiders passive is Fighter’s Resolve, which adds a whole new layer to Retaliate. With this passive, when you take enough damage from enemies, the Raider will start glowing with a smoky aura that indicates he’s“charged up”.
If you use Retaliate while he’s charged up, the animation for taking stance will take even longer and he’ll do a left uppercut instead of a right jab, with an additional wind aftershock that adds some range.
Naturally, this does more damage and as far as i’ve seen, will always temporarily stun the boss and do more stance damage. As with the base retaliation, the damage scaling also scales very well with character level, going from186 at level 1 to 444 at level 10against training dummies.
After the raiderCharges Upyou can keep the effect forever, and it has no expiration, so you may save the retaliation for canceling big boss attacks, which can be a huge game changer.
This passive also has a few other effects that come innately, such as Retaliate being uninterruptible by enemy attacks and allowing you to live through heavy damage attacks.
Totem Stela: Ultimate Art
Summons a Giant Tombstone that deals damage. Boosts nearby allies and can be used as a platform
Lastly inthe Raiders Kit is his Ultimate Art, Totem Stela. This ultimate is probably the strangest in the game, and will likely confuse a lot of players when they first use it.
When the Raider activates this Ultimate, he’ll first gointo a 1-2 second animationwhere he plunges a stone dagger into the floor. It’s worth noting that this animation has I-frames, so you can use it to avoid some attacks.
Once he plunges it into the ground, a big stone tombstone rises under his feet and deals some pretty bigAoE damageto all enemies around him. It then stays for around 20 seconds before disappearing.
Besides the initial damage, what this tombstone does is give you and all teammates within a short rangearound a 15% attack bonus.
This bonus even lasts a little longer after the totem is destroyed, so you get around 30 seconds of the buff.
So, there is tons of value you can get from placing this right on top of a boss and boosting the attack power of all nearby alliesby 15% for 30 whole seconds.
Additionally, you create some free high ground teammates can jump up onto whereIroneyescould snipe from above, or anyone else could come up for a quick heal.
That being said, this ultimate can also be a net negative for your team if used incorrectly, and can also be a little buggy.
Revealing Caligo, Miasma of Night New Elden Ring Nightreign Boss
First Look at Caligo, Miasma of Night — New boss in Elden Ring: Nightreign
If you place it right on top of an enemy, sometimes they’ll get stuck into the box like a sealed Prison Realm. But as I’m sure we’ve all experienced in fromsoft titles, that doesn’t stop them from hitting you through a wall, effectively making it harder to hit them and easier to hit you.
Additionally, even without the buggy sealing jutsu, the totem can be very annoying for mage casters in your team, as it introduces obstacles within line of sight to the boss. A mage operates best in an open space where their spells can always hit the target, so erecting a huge fucking pillar doesn’t really work for them.
So in short,The Raidersult has great upsides with the initial damage, high ground and attack power, but can also be a detriment to your teammates since it can screw with bosses and add unnecessary obstacles in the battlefield. I recommend using it all the time when you have another melee class on the party, and using it sparingly when you have casters on the team
Suggested Weapons & Ideal Run
Next, let’s go into The Raiders best weapons. You start with the Raider’sGreataxe, a Colossal Weaponwith the weapon skill Endure.
Endure will very briefly boost your poise and damage negation for 1 hit, which you’re able to use alongside Retaliate (your character skill) to have damage negation up for many situations.
Make sure to 2 hand this when you drop into Limveld.
In terms of the setup you want once you get later into the run, I personally find that dual wielding eitherGreat Hammers, Great Axes and Colossal Weaponsare the best options for Raider.
The reason is that when you’re dual-wielding, you get the option of high damage jump attacks as well as light attack strings.
However, this can be hard to pull off if you get unlucky in a run; I’ve had runs where I got 1 colossal weapon (starter weapon), 1 great hammer and 1 great axe, when you need 2 of the same type to dual wield properly.
When it comes to swords, I personally do not like wielding swords with the raider because they have less range and deal less damage since they scale with strength worse; they also look like a toothpick on the raiders character.Monkey see big number monkey like, so I always choose the 3 recommended weapon types overgreatswords or colossal swordsif given the option.
Practically every singleGreat Axe, Great Hammer and Colossal Weapon is great, but there are a few standouts to lookout for in each rarity.
For blues, there are a few with built in status effects:
For Purples, there are a few more standouts for Raider:
Unlike other classes, I didn’t find an absolute best combination of weapons, like the Executors dual wielding Rivers of Blood, so if you can dual wield purple Great Axes, Great Hammers or Colossal Weapons then that will likely be the best you can do for a run.
For your other 4 weapon slots, there are a few passive effects which you will want to look out for.Anything damage negation related works out very wellsince you’ll likely be the tank of the team, and being able to take more hits when Retaliate is off cooldown is very helpful. On the offensive side, extra damage while dual wielding armaments and improved Jump Attacks is also great.
Naturally, since you wield such heavy weapons, your goal is to stance break very often, so you’re able to build your character for Critical Hit bonuses as well.
Suggested Relics
Forrelics,you’ll get 2 relics from the Raider Questline as well as 3 chalices; The urn hasRed Green Greenslots, the GobletRed Blue Yellowand the ChaliceRed Red and Multicolour.
The Raider questlineis quite easy to complete, so I recommend doing so in order to get the relic which restores health when enemies are defeated near Totem Stela and fills the ult gauge more when defeating enemies.Other relics you can use can beCritical Hit bonuses, Endurance Bonuses, HP bonuses such as + to Vigor, Stamina recovery on attacks, + to physical damageand anything you can find which in general makes you tankier.
Party Composition
When it comes to party composition forRaider, he can fit into literally any group as a frontliner tank. Casters may have some issues withTotem Stelablocking their field of vision, but the tankiness and damage you get from Raider is just too good to pass up on any party.
The game would be a little slow if you had 3 frontliners, so having at least 1 caster alongsidethe Raiderwould be great for damage output, but besides that there really isn’t anything you need to be on the lookout for specifically if you are playing this class.
Conclusion
In summary,the Raideris the ultimate meatheadunga bunga class. He takes aggro all the time, squishes enemies into fine dust with ginormous weapons, and negates a bunch damage with the press of a singular button.
Bringing out the best in this character is super easy; you just have to get a little lucky with finding the perfect dual weapons, and learn to constantly be abusing Retaliate for survivability.
How you perform will depend on if you can keep aggro on bosses to let your mages do the work, and how many jump attacks you miss pathetically.
If you can master the basics of this class and get the right equipment, you’ll absolutely carry every run.
So that wraps up my guide for the Raider. Do you guys have any more tips or playstyles you’ve found with the Raider? Let me know in the comments below!
