How to play Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign

Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign is built for players who enjoy thinking a few steps ahead rather than brute forcing every fight. Introduced alongside Undertaker in The Forsaken Hollows DLC, it leans heavily into planning, item usage, and team synergy. He performs best when others are drawing attention, giving him room to analyze threats, support allies, and slowly tip the scale of a fight in the party’s favor.

That said, here is how to play Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign.

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Best way to play Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign

Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign scales extremely well with Arcane, sitting at S-tier, while HP, FP, and Stamina all sit at solid B rankings. His weakest stat is Strength, which drops to a D, meaning brute-force weapons do him no favors at all.

Playing Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign well requires more awareness than most characters. You need to watch enemy positioning to find opportunities to analyze safely (Image via FromSoftware)

Instead, he thrives with thrusting swords and Arcane-leaning loadouts that let him poke safely while supporting the team. He performs best when other Nightfarers are pulling aggro. Scholar isn’t meant to tank or race bosses in raw damage. He works when he has space to observe, analyze, and apply pressure indirectly.

For new players jumping into Nightreign, Scholar represents a slower but extremely impactful role. You won’t carry fights alone, but you’ll make everyone around you significantly stronger.

Lean into items and Arcane scaling

Arcane-based and utility-focused builds are where Scholar shines. His high Arcane synergizes naturally with:

• Thrusting swords with Arcane scaling
• Status-based effects
• Heavy consumable usage

Strength-based weapons should be avoided entirely. Scholar simply doesn’t gain enough value from them to justify the tradeoff. More importantly, consumables are not optional for Scholar as they are core to his power.

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Passive Ability: Bagcraft

Bagcraft is what truly defines Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign. This passive lets him:

• Carry increased consumable stacks
• Level up consumable categories twice during a run

Item categories level up through repeated use. The first upgrade improves power or effectiveness, while the second adds a bonus effect. These upgrades apply to the entire category, not individual items. If you upgrade fire pots once, all fire pots improve.

Because of this, Scholar should be item spamming constantly. Healing items get stronger, offensive throws hit harder or wider, and some gain extra status effects. The more items you use early, the more value you extract later in the run.

Starting relics that give additional consumables are incredibly valuable for Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign since they let him level up item categories earlier.

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Character Skill: Analyse

Analyse is Scholar’s defining active mechanic. When activated:

• Scholar lowers his weapon and becomes vulnerable
• A large targeting circle appears
• Enemies and allies inside the circle are analyzed

The longer you hold Analyse, the stronger the effects become. Once locked in, you decide how to resolve it:

• Left trigger applies debuffs to enemies
• Right trigger grants buffs to allies

Buff outcomes:

• Level 1: stamina boost
• Level 3: barrier that triggers a shockwave when hit

Debuff outcomes:

• Level 1: reduced enemy attack
• Level 3: enemies take bonus damage on their next hit

Distance matters here. The closer you are to targets, the faster Analyze completes. The real power comes from catching multiple enemies and allies in one circle, weakening whole groups while strengthening your team.

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Ultimate Art: Communion

When analyzing, make quick decisions about whether to go for the risky close-range analysis or play it safe from distance (Image via FromSoftware)

Scholar's ultimate art is called Communion, and it creates links between all nearby enemies and allies. When one linked enemy takes damage, every other linked enemy also takes that damage. It's basically a damage multiplier that turns every attack into an area effect.

The linking doesn't just affect enemies though. Allies caught in Communion's range also get linked, which means any healing items used in the area get shared between all linked Nightfarers.

This turns group fights into damage amplifiers and massively boosts team survivability. When paired with Bagcraft, boosted healing items become even stronger since the benefit spreads to the whole team. Communion excels against:

• Multi-enemy bosses
• Dense enemy waves
• Prolonged engagements where sustain matters

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How Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign fits into team comps

Scholar in Elden Ring Nightreign pairs well with almost every Nightfarer, especially damage-focused characters who benefit from reduced enemy pressure and shared healing. Where he shines most is against encounters that involve multiple targets at once.

That said, stacking multiple Scholars is rarely a good idea. His value comes from support and control, not raw DPS. One Scholar per expedition is ideal. He won’t carry runs like Wylder or Undertaker, but when used well, he makes everyone else perform better than they otherwise would.

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If this article is to your liking, you can check other Elden Ring Nightreign content below:

• Elden Ring Nightreign review: A brilliant evolution of The Lands Between
• All bosses in Elden Ring Nightreign
• Best PC Optimization Guide for Elden Ring Nightreign