Mastering the Scholar in Elden Ring: Nightreign - A 2025 Guide to Support Domination

I remember when I first saw the Scholar, the newest support archetype introduced with the Forsaken Hollows expansion for Elden Ring: Nightreign. For years, we've had warriors and mages focused on raw power, but this character felt like finally getting the missing conductor for a chaotic orchestra. He doesn’t just join the fray; he rewrites the rules of engagement. Learning to wield his unique skills, like the strategic Analyze and the game-changing Communion: Taboo Knowledge, was like learning a new language of combat. As a Nightfarer whose power stems from the enigmatic Arcane stat, he offers a playstyle that’s less about being the spearhead and more about being the strategist pulling the strings from the shadows.

Let's break down what makes the Scholar tick, starting with his core abilities. His passive, Bagcraft, fundamentally changes your relationship with consumables. Think of it as having a master alchemist's satchel instead of a standard adventurer's pouch. While you still have four pouch slots, you can now carry up to four of the same item, doubling the standard capacity. More importantly, items gain experience as you use them, leveling up to unlock enhanced effects. A Starlight Shard, for instance, isn't just an FP restore at level 2—it restores more. At its maximum level 3, it temporarily boosts your maximum FP pool. This system turns every potion and grease from a simple consumable into a piece of gear you actively improve. If your playstyle with other classes rarely touched items, prepare for a paradigm shift. Pro-tip: Equip relics that grant starting items to jump-start their leveling process from the very first expedition.

The Scholar's signature Skill, Analyze, is his bread and butter. Activating it is like flipping on a tactical overlay; the screen shifts, and pulsating circles appear over allies and foes. Your goal is to focus on enemies, watching their circles fill with a menacing red hue. The strategic depth comes from deciding when to cut the analysis short. Pressing the right trigger concludes the skill and applies a buff to yourself based on your scan progress, while the left trigger unleashes debilitating debuffs on all analyzed enemies. The effects scale beautifully:

Scan Progress	Self-Buff (Right Trigger)	Enemy Debuff (Left Trigger)
< 50% Circle	Stamina Boost ⚡	Attack Debuff ⬇️
≥ 50% Circle	Greater Stamina Boost ⚡⚡	Greater Attack Debuff ⬇️⬇️
100% Circle	Parry Window (2 sec on hit) 🛡️	Attack + Defense Debuff ⬇️🛡️

Achieving a full scan is a high-risk, high-reward maneuver, granting you a brief but powerful automatic parry opportunity. Remember, you can't attack while Analyzing, but you can dodge—a crucial survival tool. An advanced technique is the quick re-activation of the skill, which briefly preserves some scan progress on enemies, letting you 'pause' your analysis like a scholar bookmarking a complex page, though the saved progress decays rapidly without specific relic support.

The crown jewel of the Scholar's kit is his Ultimate Art, Communion: Taboo Knowledge. This ability transforms the battlefield into a web of shared fate. When activated near both allies and enemies, it marks them all in a grand, symbiotic curse. From that moment, any healing done by a party member is shared with the entire group, creating a resilient, self-sustaining network. More offensively, it links enemy health pools; damaging one foe causes all others marked to suffer 20% of that damage. Using this against multi-boss encounters or enemy camps feels less like a battle and more like orchestrating a domino effect of destruction. It pairs exquisitely with Analyze's debuffs, setting the stage for your team to unleash catastrophic damage. I often save this Ultimate for those unavoidable, screen-clearing boss attacks, using its activation frames for complete invulnerability.

Now, let's talk about making him hit things. The Scholar's stat sheet shows a solitary S in Arcane, and his preferred weapons are Thrusting Swords. You might initially struggle to find weapons with native Arcane scaling, but here’s the secret: you don't need them. Arcane's primary combat function is amplifying status effects. Weapons that inflict Blood Loss, Frostbite, Scarlet Rot, or Poison become terrifying in the Scholar's hands, their buildup rates supercharged. Your role isn't to top the damage charts with raw hits (unless you're solo, which is like trying to conduct a symphony alone—possible, but missing the point). Instead, you're a vector for debilitating ailments. Top weapon choices include:

• Antspur Rapier (innate Scarlet Rot & can be infused for Blood Loss) 🩸

• Frozen Needle (projectile attacks & Frostbite) ❄️

• Eleonora's Poleblade (a rare Dex/Arcane option for aggressive play) ⚔️

Your build's true potential is unlocked through relics. Prioritize the Scholar's Remembrance Quest immediately. Completing Chapter 5 rewards the Cleansing Tear (a red relic), which provides:

• ✅ Increased Damage Negation

• ✅ Art Gauge charge on enemy defeat

• ✅ Damage over time to enemies trapped by your Ultimate Art

Finishing the entire quest grants Note \"My Dear Successor\" (a yellow relic), a cornerstone for support:

• ✅ Reduced Skill cooldown for more frequent Analyzes

• ✅ Allows you to buff allies with your Analyzed buffs (game-changer!)

For your third relic slot, you have flexible options:

• The Augur's Relic: Turns your personal Flask use into group healing and shares your consumed item's effect with allies. Perfect for a pure support focus.

• Status-Boosting Relics: Since Arcane scales statuses, relics that grant Poison or Blood Loss affinity at the start of a mission are powerful. Completing the Sentiest Pest expedition, for example, rewards a Nightlord's relic that applies Poison at mission start.

• Item-Focused Relics: Any relic that provides a starting consumable accelerates your Bagcraft leveling, making you more potent faster.

My final piece of advice is about mindset. In the early game, the Scholar can feel fragile. Resist the urge to frontline. You are the battlefield's librarian, not its berserker. Your job is control, observation, and opportunistic strikes. Manage your Analyze windows, keep your team linked with your Ultimate, and let your status effects and debuffs do the heavy lifting. By the late game, a well-built Scholar becomes a terrifying force, not just supporting but actively dictating the flow of battle with a toolkit that feels less like a set of spells and more like rewriting the laws of reality itself. In 2025's meta, a skilled Scholar isn't just a helpful ally; he's the cornerstone of any team aiming to conquer Nightreign's greatest challenges. 🧠✨