I can’t be the only one who has run by boluses in Elden Ring Nightreign without a second thought, or thrown the balls away in favor of items that seem more immediately useful. Why waste a slot? I’ve been such a fool. Boluses might be one of the best consumables in the entire game.
As those who play know, bolus balls in Elden Ring confer resistances against every type of ailment, like poison and scarlet rot. There’s good reason to use these items, especially in the original open world game, where you aren’t being pressured by a timed storm to keep things moving and can spend time planning. But in Nightreign, it can be hard to predict what you might come up against, or where your team of randos might decide to attack. Unless you’re facing the third Nightlord boss, which the game gives you some information about before embarking, it’s difficult to know what type of bolus is worth hanging on to and when.
Except, as it turns out, everyone has been thinking about boluses all wrong. Boluses aren’t like other items, which only gift you a bonus for a set amount of time. No, bolus effects last the entire match — and they stack. Which is to say, there’s absolutely no reason not to eat every single bolus you come across. Eat em’ straight off the ground, even. You don’t have to pick up an item to use it!
This discovery is rocking the Nightreign community, and rightly so. “Literal game changer,” one post on X reads. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” another exclaims. Folks are also joking that its typical FromSoftware to not tell the player something important, though information about the bolus benefits have been visible on the screen that tells you your status effects this entire time.