I knew that Elden Ring Nightreign‘s Libra Everdark boss fight was going to be tough going into it. Libra’s main weakness, madness, is a rarity in Limveld. You’re lucky if you get any madness camps, and doubly blessed if that camp drops an actual madness weapon. A madness special event? You’re more likely to win the lotto. The original Libra was also the fight that took me the longest to beat. But after playing the new, souped-up version of Libra? Holy cow, y’all.
I went into the match with high hopes. My team was such a well-oiled machine that I briefly wondered if I was playing with hackers. We’re talking, melt field bosses down at level one type of scenario. But no, it was just a good combo of builds that revolved around blood loss and frostbite. We got the Noklateo power, which revives Nightfarers once. We even went into the Libra fight with a Wending Grace each. We weren’t level 15, but we did go in with a full stack of legendary weapons and good Talismans. I had the good luck of finding a team of randos who didn’t immediately attack Libra at the start, meaning we all considered taking the devil’s bargain.
It didn’t matter. We barely got Libra down maybe to maybe a fifth of its healthbar before the fight was over, at least the first time I tried it. I have a feeling this fight is going to take weeks for me to clear. Why? Well, the fight is pure chaos. Libra can do things like pull up copies of your entire team, though these replicants seem to have a different arsenal than you do. But don’t worry, they’ll still be able to backstab you! Libra will also randomly curse you with madness. Did I mention he can activate friendly fire against your teammates, which is especially cool when you mistake a pal for an NPC summon?
My favorite Libra move, though, is the one where he makes it so you lose a level if you use a flask for the period of time that attack is active. Bro. I’m already barely hanging on here, I don’t need to be even weaker for the entirety of the fight because I compulsively pressed a button when my health was low.
And that’s not all! People have already figured out what Libra can do. Here’s the full list, courtesy of Discord user mosten:
Summoned the Condemned – Summons NPCs that mimic your teammates characters and skins but have their own preset builds. He will summon more every 50 seconds.
Shrouds all allies – Makes teammates invisible. Occasionally makes the Condemned invisible. Lasts 30 seconds.
False Blessing – Flask charges become infinite, but you lose a level each flask use. Lasts 30 seconds, you’ll know you’re under this effect if you have rings around your character.
Inescapable Eye – Power of a Demon without the boost. Lasts 30 seconds.
Preaches Madness – All attacks of yourself and NPCs cause madness buildup. This means you can apply it to Libra, too. Lasts 30 seconds.
Incites a Riot – More NPC summons, but they can attack each other as well as Libra.
Offers a Challenge – Cuts HP in half. This also applies to Libra and the Condemned, however, he seems only to use it when he’s below half anyway. Lasts 30 seconds
How to beat Libra Everdark
So, what can you do? It’s worth remembering that while Libra’s primary weakness is Madness, Libra is also weak to Holy, Poison, and Scarlet Rot. Some of his new powers can also be used against Libra, that is, if you’re not getting held up by your doppelgänger. On that note, this fight is also one of the rare instances where you might want to bring a Bewitching Branch or two, as the item works against the NPC summons. In that regard, it might not be the worst idea to get the inventory expansion bag to have room for the essentials, like healing flasks and shards. You can also bring along an weapon that makes it less likely for you to be targeted, which will be especially useful when Libra incites a riot. And, of course, it’s worth considering running an Evergaol build, where each spectral jail can permanently increase your attack power and the more you do, the more they stack on top of each other. The Evergaol meta is getting kind of stale, I’ll admit, but you will need every bit of help you can get here.
As for Libra deals worth taking, Eventual Greatness is slightly harder to justify now that you’ve got way more enemies to deal with. If you’re going in with a long health bar, it could be worth it. But the deal where Libra offers you resistance to Madness is a solid pick, since losing 10% of your Stamina isn’t that big of a deal. With some turtle necks and Talismans, you might not even notice.
Naturally, the toughness of this battle makes players wonder if Libra might get nerfed. There are people who say they dealt with nu-Libra just fine, and have beaten him multiple times despite it being live for less than a day. Possibly, this might just be a case of people not quite knowing the optimal way to deal with Libra. But hey, FromSoftware has tuned boss fights after enough fan complaints, like with Radahn in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Whatever happens, I fully regret feeling like some of the earlier Everdark fights, like Augur, were strangely easy. I guess FromSoftware was just warming us all up for the big guns.
Good luck, folks. You’re going to need it!
