(Image credit: Tyler C. / FromSoftware)

On December 1, Bandai Namco released an assortment of Elden Ring Nightreign player statistics to celebrate the release of The Forsaken Hollows DLC. There are some interesting omissions, like the popularity of each nightfarer (but we can extrapolate from the data we do have), as well as some surprising reveals.

The biggest shock for me is that the memetically terrifying Bell Bearing Hunter isn’t even in the top three for deadliest field bosses: He’s beaten by Erdtree Avatar, Draconic Tree Sentinel, and Royal Carian Knight in rising order. I’m curious if this is in terms of absolute bodycount or proportional to attempts on the boss⁠—either way, it could very well be that, as word of the Bell Bearing Hunter’s difficulty spread, players just stopped trying to fight him⁠—my crew skips him nine times out of ten.

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(Image credit: FromSoftware)

The Erdtree Avatar is an absolutely wild pull for number three. It’s one of the slowest, most predictable bosses in the game, but that could very well be its secret weapon: It’s surprisingly tanky and hard-hitting in Nightreign versus its original Elden Ring appearance, best saved for late in a run, and I’ve absolutely underestimated it before.

Draconic Tree Sentinel is a brute, a beast, and a cretin. I hope he chokes on his sniper fireball one-hit kills. As for the Carian Knight⁠—Loretta from the base game⁠—she’s certainly challenging, but I never would have picked her for the number one spot. Shout out to the castle-defending Pot Trolls at number five: I hate you guys so much.

The top two emotes make me very happy: The "I’m just gonna take five" Spread Out, and the "T-pose for dominance" Golden Order Totality at second- and most-used respectively. My own Nightreign crew has made it a habit of T-posing at the end of every successful run.

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(Image credit: FromSoftware)

There have been 1.2 billion revives in total, which is a suitably big, impossible-to-imagine number. Bamco laid out the most popular skins for each nightfarer in the blog post as well. If we take them as proxies for the respective character’s overall use⁠—assuming no surprise variables like a huge gap in popularity between skins, say⁠—that gives us the following power ranking for the nightfarers:

1. Wylder, 18 Million (Abysswalker)
2. Ironeye, 17.3 (Sellsword)
3. Recluse, 11.2 (Darkness)
4. Duchess, 10.3 (Darkness)
5. Raider, 9.6 (Remembrance)
6. Executor, 8.7 (Darkness)
7. Revenant, 8.6 (Darkness)
8. Guardian, 4.1 (Dawn)

Poor Guardian, I will never play as you. It’s hard to imagine the avian halberdier’s lot improving either: Both new nightfarers introduced with The Forsaken Hollows whip ass. I was having plenty of fun with the bizarre support/damage hybrid Scholar, but the Undertaker is where it’s at: Mobile, powerful, aggressive, and boasting an ultimate ability I hope never gets nerfed.

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Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister’s copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he’s not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.

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