Undertaker is the kind of character you pick when you do not just want to survive the Nightlord, you want to bulldoze your way through everything standing in front of them. On paper she is an abbess, mandated by her monastery to slay the Nightlord and assigned to bury the dead.
In practice she is a ruthless, hammer-wielding executioner who moves faster and hits harder than her appearance suggests, and Forsaken Hollows leans into that fantasy completely.
Elden Ring Nightreign Undertaker Nightfarer Build Guide
This guide takes only the information you provided and reshapes it into a focused, original build that plays to her strengths: fast, aggressive Strength/Faith pressure, constant Ultimate usage, and synergy with allies who can help her turn Loathsome Hex into a recurring nightmare for bosses.
How to Unlock Undertaker
You unlock Undertaker together with Scholar. To do that, you first need to defeat Gladius, Beast of Night (Tricephalos) in the first expedition. Once he is down, return to the Roundtable Hold and speak to the Iron Menial, who gives you a message from the Small Jar Merchant. After this short sequence, Undertaker becomes available as a Nightfarer option.
Core Identity and Stat Profile
Undertaker is built around Strength and Faith. Both of these attributes have A scaling, which immediately tells you what kind of playstyle she wants: heavy weapons that hit like a truck, backed up by Faith-based damage such as Holy or Lightning.
Her other key traits are:
- B scaling in Health, which gives her a comfortably high life pool for aggressive play.
- C scaling in FP and Stamina, which means she has enough resources to use Arts and attack often, but still benefits noticeably from any relics or passives that improve stamina or FP management.
- D scaling in Dexterity and Intelligence, so there is no real reason to lean into Dex or pure sorcery on her.
She prefers hammers by design, and the game clearly expects you to build around aggressive melee pressure rather than cautious, defensive tanking. Unlike Wylder or Raider, whose kits lean more into guarding and soaking hits, Undertaker trades some of that defensive focus for even more offensive capabilities.
Kit Breakdown – Confluence, Trance, and Loathsome Hex
Everything about this build revolves around understanding how her three core abilities interact with each other and with your team.
Confluence (Passive Ability)
Confluence is the passive that makes Undertaker feel ridiculous in coordinated runs. Whenever an ally Nightfarer activates their Ultimate Art, Undertaker gets a window where she can use Loathsome Hex for free, regardless of how full her gauge is.
That means two very practical things. First, you never have to sit on a full gauge “just in case”; if allies are using their Arts regularly, you will get plenty of extra Loathsome Hex casts anyway. Second, if your own gauge is already full when an ally uses their Ultimate, you can effectively fire off your Ultimate and then fire it again with the free Confluence window, turning one team burst window into a devastating double strike from you.
Confluence does not refill your gauge, it just ignores it, so you still care about normal Ultimate generation, but the passive rewards teams that communicate and chain their Arts together.
Trance (Character Skill)
Trance is Undertaker’s transformation moment. The description “Bloodletting triggers the power of the loathsome hex” fits how it feels: you flip it on and suddenly she stops feeling like a normal hammer user and starts feeling like a relentless executioner.
In its normal mode, Trance gives you several strong buffs:
- Your running speed increases without consuming stamina, so you can close gaps and reposition aggressively without draining your bar.
- Your toughness and combo attack power are increased, making trading hits during your pressure strings much more favorable.
- Your dodge becomes a dodge-step similar to Duchess, which feels snappier and more precise than a standard roll.
If your Ultimate gauge is full when you trigger Trance, you can use that full gauge to gain even greater temporary buffs:
- Your attack power is significantly increased.
- Your movement speed is greatly increased beyond the normal Trance boost.
- Like Wylder, you gain the ability to dodge a lethal attack, letting you survive what would normally kill you while the effect is active.
This skill is straightforward, but the timing separates an okay Undertaker from a terrifying one. If you pop Trance in the middle of chaotic patterns with no plan to attack, you waste it. If you use it right as a boss finishes a big move, or as a tanky ally has solid aggro, you can step in and unload devastating combos with far less risk.
Loathsome Hex (Ultimate Art)
Loathsome Hex is Undertaker’s signature moment. She pulls an uncanny bone from her body, flies at the target, and delivers a high-power strike. It is a long-range Ultimate that can also be used in mid-air, which makes it just as much a movement tool as a damage tool.
Practical points that matter for this build:
- It is ideal for closing large gaps quickly and punishing openings that would normally be out of reach for a hammer user.
- It is powerful enough that you should treat it as a centerpiece of your damage pattern, not just an occasional finisher.
- It can be wasted if you slam into geometry. You are explicitly warned that she can hit obstacles, so learning its range and trajectory in the Roundtable Hold’s Sparring Grounds is worth the time.
- You can also use it to reach allies in “near death” state faster, and the impact will help deplete their near-death gauge, which adds utility to an ability that is already packed with damage.
The simple version is this: whenever Loathsome Hex is available and you have a safe line to the target, you should be thinking about using it. Her kit and relics are built on that assumption.
Overall Playstyle – How Undertaker Fights
Undertaker plays like a hyper-offensive Strength/Faith bruiser. If you are used to classic Souls Strength builds, she will feel familiar, but Trance and Confluence give her far more explosive bursts.
The flow of a typical engagement looks something like this. You move in with normal hammer pressure, watching enemy patterns and your Trance cooldown. Once you see a moment where the boss is committed or focused on someone else, you trigger Trance and commit to a full combo chain, taking advantage of the increased toughness and combo damage. If your Ultimate gauge is full, you use the enhanced Trance variant and go even harder, knowing you can shrug off one lethal mistake.
As allies use their Ultimate Arts, you watch for the Confluence window and fire off Loathsome Hex whenever the line is clean. If Duchess, Wylder, Guardian, Revenant, or Recluse are in the group and coordinating Ultimates, those shared burst windows let you pump out multiple Loathsome Hexes across a single boss phase.
Compared to more defensive Nightfarers, Undertaker is less interested in blocking and more interested in constantly whittling down HP bars and forcing fights to end earlier through sheer output.
Weapon and Element Choices
The game makes it very clear that hammers are Undertaker’s preferred weapons. They take advantage of her Strength scaling for physical damage and pair nicely with Faith when you start adding elemental damage.
Because she has A scaling in Faith, she is naturally pulled toward Holy and Lightning, as both of those elements scale with Faith. You have two particularly strong directions you can take this:
You can lean into Holy hammers, using relics and passives that make your starting armament deal Holy damage, improve Holy attack power, and even add Holy to your weapon. This creates a build where every swing carries both high physical impact and strong Faith-based damage.
Alternatively, you can build a Lightning hammer setup, using Lightning-focused relics and incantations. Lightning also scales with Faith, and it works very well if you like the feel of electrifying hits and fast, aggressive pressure.
Both variants still rely on raw physical power, so relics that improve physical attack power and directly enhance hammer attack power remain valuable.
Relics and Passives
Relics are where Undertaker steps from “strong” to “absurd” if you pick the right effects for her kit.
There is one standout relic mentioned that fits her aggressive identity perfectly: Grand Luminous Scene. This relic permanently increases attack power for each Evergaol prisoner defeated, marks treasure on the map, and gives you a Stonesword Key at the start of the expedition. The permanent attack scaling is especially brutal when combined with an already offensive kit, and it fits very naturally into duos or trios that are constantly pushing deeper into content.
On top of that, Undertaker has several unique relic effects that are clearly designed to be the backbone of her build. When you see these, you prioritize them.
Activating her Ultimate Art can increase her attack power, which is perfect because the entire kit and the external build guidance keep telling you that she should use Loathsome Hex often. Her passive already pushes you toward frequent Ultimate usage; this relic effect turns each of those activations into a temporary damage steroid.
There is also an effect where contact with allies restores their HP while her Ultimate Art is activated. That means that while you are flying through enemies to hit the target, you can also pass through teammates and patch them up mid-fight. It turns you into a sort of offensive support missile without ever stepping away from your primary role as a damage dealer.
Another unique effect increases attack power when you land the final blow of a chain attack, which works beautifully with Trance, since that skill already improves your combo attack power. This pushes you to complete combos rather than constantly rolling away after a hit or two.
Finally, she can gain a relic effect that boosts physical attacks while an incantation assist effect is active on herself. This is what connects her Faith scaling to a more hybrid style. If you cast an incantation that buffs you, such as a damage-boosting or protective spell, her physical hammer attacks then benefit even further.
Beyond these exclusives, the recommended relics and passives for her are very straightforward and all point in the same direction. You look for effects that:
- Make your starting armament deal Holy or Lightning damage, leaning into her Faith.
- Improve hammer attack power, reinforcing her preferred weapon type.
- Increase Strength and/or Faith by +3, pushing her core attributes and therefore everything she does.
- Reduce character skill cooldown, letting you use Trance more often.
- Improve Holy or Lightning attack power if you have committed to those elements.
- Increase physical attack power to keep your base hits strong.
- Add Holy to weapons and improve chain attack finishers, reinforcing both Trance and your combo-driven damage pattern.
- Raise maximum stamina and improve incantations so you can swing longer and get more value from your Faith spells.
None of these effects are complicated on paper, but together they create a clear picture: Undertaker wants to be in Trance often, swinging hammers that blend physical and Faith damage, finishing her chains, and casting supporting incantations that make her next set of attacks even more punishing.
Teammate Synergy
Undertaker absolutely can hold her own in battle, but she becomes even more dangerous when paired with the right allies.
Scholar is a natural pairing. His entire kit is built around supporting allies through buffs and debuffs, and with the right relics his Analyse skill can significantly boost your attack power while also weakening enemies. When you combine that with your Trance burst and Loathsome Hex spam, enemies start losing chunks of HP very quickly.
Duchess may be the single most explosive partner for Undertaker because of her Restage ability. Restage repeats the last few seconds of damage, which is exactly the window where you are usually dropping Loathsome Hex or a heavy Trance combo. If you time it correctly, Duchess can effectively double the damage of a clean Ultimate from you. Add in more offensive Ultimates from Wylder or Guardian and you create boss phases where health bars simply evaporate.
Raider also works well alongside Undertaker. Both of you lean into big weapons and heavy hits, so together you create constant pressure on bosses. Because this duo is more vulnerable if things go badly while you are both committed to swinging, it helps to bring at least one Nightfarer with a strong Ultimate that can revive or stabilize quickly, such as Revenant, Recluse, or Wylder. Those Ultimates also happen to trigger Confluence, feeding you more free Loathsome Hex casts.
Practical Combat Gameplan
Putting all of this together, a typical fight for this Undertaker build feels like this. You enter with a hammer that has either Holy or Lightning from relic effects, backed by increased hammer attack power, some improvement to chain finishers, and at least one Undertaker-exclusive relic that rewards Ultimate usage.
You open by learning the boss’s rhythm, trading safe hits, and building resources. Once Trance is available and you see a clean gap in the attack pattern, you trigger it and commit to a full combo chain, making sure to land the finisher so that any “attack power increased by landing the final blow” relic actually pays off.
As allies use their Ultimates, you immediately watch for clear lines to the boss and respond with Loathsome Hex, taking full advantage of Confluence. You try to avoid firing it into cramped or cluttered areas and instead use it in moments where the boss is locked into a long animation or standing in open ground. If an ally drops into near-death, you can choose to spend a Loathsome Hex on closing that distance quickly and supporting the revive, knowing you will have more Ultimate windows later thanks to your passive and your team’s Arts.