The Undertaker is one of the standout additions introduced in Elden Ring’s Night Train DLC, and after spending a good chunk of time testing her across solo runs and team-based expeditions, I can confidently say she’s one of the most flexible characters the game has received in a while. She isn’t perfect, but her toolkit gives players a ton of room to adapt, optimize, and even improvise depending on what the game throws at them.
This breakdown gathers the key points from the video’s deep-dive, then expands on what it means practically when you’re actually out there, dodging grab attacks and cracking stance bars.
Core Stats and First Impressions
The Undertaker has a surprisingly balanced stat spread for a character themed so heavily around aggression. Her Strength and Faith scaling are excellent, which already opens doors for hybrid melee-caster setups. FP and Stamina start on the lower side, but neither is crippling thanks to the relics you can find later in a run.
Her weakest stat by far is Dexterity, which matters more than you’d expect because many weapons — even the Strength-leaning ones — still benefit from a touch of Dex scaling. Fortunately, there’s a relic to fix that, and honestly, you feel the difference immediately once your attack rating starts catching up.
If you’ve ever struggled through mid-game farming sessions trying to squeeze out a few more points to upgrade your gear, the pacing here feels refreshing. One thing I do recommend early on, especially for newer players, is to spend a bit of time collecting elden ring runes to smooth out the first few build transitions. Nothing excessive — just enough to keep your weapon and spell progression from falling behind the DLC’s difficulty curve.
Hammer Playstyle and Practical Weapon Options
Since the Undertaker is thematically tied to hammers, it’s no surprise she finds these frequently during expeditions. Hammers don’t win any awards for raw DPS or range, but the stance damage is one of the best perks you can bring into solo play. Charged heavies hit fast and hard, and because of her stat alignment, she can break poise more consistently than many characters in her weight class.
That said, I usually avoid power-stancing hammers with her because the animations feel too slow and stamina-heavy for what you get. One-handing or two-handing a single hammer keeps you mobile and leaves enough stamina to reposition or dodge without feeling punished.
Her unique hammer moveset does lose a bit of speed, but the extended lunge helps more than you’d expect, especially against enemies who backstep a lot or hover just outside normal melee range.
Outside of hammers, she works extremely well with Strength/Faith weapons like Envoy’s Horn or Marika’s Hammer. The one thing I don’t recommend is giant weapons unless you’ve specifically built around stamina relics—her base stamina simply drains too quickly for those to feel comfortable.
Her Character Skill: Trance
Trance is easily the Undertaker’s defining feature. It’s an instant-cast ability that gives you eight seconds of pure aggression mode: full stamina refresh, faster movement, improved dodge, extra poise, bonus damage, and bonus damage negation. Even used in its simplest form, this button single-handedly changes how you approach fights.
The stamina refresh alone encourages players to stay in pressure range instead of backing off after every combo. When I started getting comfortable with her, I found myself adopting a more proactive rhythm—attack, overextend a little, pop Trance, and melt whatever poise bar was left.
The enhanced dodge does take a bit of getting used to. It’s snappier, and sometimes you’ll overshoot your spacing if you panic-roll. But once you settle into the feel of it, the dodge becomes one of her strongest tools, especially when weaving between multi-hit boss strings.
The stacking damage bonus from consecutive hits is more of a bonus than a core mechanic; you rarely get the full duration window. Still, extra free damage is extra free damage.
Fully Charged Skill Variant
Charging Trance consumes your ultimate gauge but gives you about fifteen seconds of buff time, plus automatic dodging. Yes, literal auto-evades. Any hit that would connect instead triggers a dodge animation and keeps you alive.
It’s not something you’ll rely on constantly — her standard ultimate is usually more useful — but it shines in a few situations:
• reviving teammates when everything is chaotic
• escaping when multiple Night Lords decide to dogpile you at once
• dealing with boss attack patterns you simply aren’t used to yet
Think of it as your absolute “nope” button in emergencies.
Ultimate Art: Loathsome Hex
Her ultimate turns you into a homing missile, and the damage is absurdly high. This thing almost never misses, which already puts it above many of the harder-to-aim ultimates in the game. It’s the second-highest damage ultimate overall, and it even leaves you with 25% charge afterward, so you aren’t completely drained.
It does struggle to revive teammates due to awkward alignment, but that’s where the charged skill variant fills the gap. As long as you lock onto your target and pick a clean line, the ultimate is incredibly reliable.
From a practical gameplay perspective, be mindful of how enemies cluster together. If you line up your shot behind your main target, you can hit multiple enemies in a straight path and extract more value from the explosion.
Passive Ability: Confluence
Here’s where things get funny. If anyone on your team uses their ultimate, the Undertaker gets a free ultimate as long as she’s within range. This alone makes her one of the best characters for trio runs. You can chain ultimates back and forth, and even if an Undertaker player barely knows how to optimize her kit, just pressing the ultimate button on cooldown still provides huge team DPS.
In solo play, the ability triggers whenever you dodge a grab attack, adding consistency during boss encounters with unavoidable grab-heavy patterns.
Relics and Build Direction
Her relic pool is stacked with strong choices, and most players end up testing several depending on their run. A few standouts include:
• The dexterity-boosting relic: great for hammer builds, fist weapons, and hybrid Strength/Faith weapons.
• The mind-and-faith relic: ideal for turning her into a pure caster with massive Incantation damage.
• Activate Ultimate to Increase Attack Power: one of her best relics by far. It gives a long damage buff and works even when the ultimate triggers through her passive.
• Physical Attack Up When Assist Spells Are Active: amazing for hybrid melee-casters and encourages collecting sealing items you might normally ignore.
Since a lot of players grind seals or materials by farming routes throughout the DLC, you’ll occasionally see info floating around online about elden ring runes for sale from third-party sites like U4GM and others. Even if you don’t use services like that, it’s easy to understand why players mention them — builds like the Undertaker’s can feel rune-intensive early on, especially if you’re experimenting.
General Playstyle Advice
If you want a short, actionable summary of how to get the most out of her:
• Stay aggressive and use Trance to maintain pressure.
• Prioritize stance damage in solo play—she breaks enemies fast.
• Use her ultimate often rather than saving it; it regenerates quickly.
• In trios, stay within passive-range of allies to chain free ultimates.
• Mix in incantation buffs even for melee builds to take advantage of certain relics.
Her flexibility makes her one of the most forgiving characters to play, but she still rewards players who pay attention to positioning and aggression windows.
The Undertaker is one of the strongest, most versatile characters introduced in the Night Train DLC. Whether you build her as a stance-breaking hammer bruiser, a Strength/Faith hybrid, or a full caster, she consistently performs at a high level. Her kit encourages confident play, and her team synergy is downright ridiculous when ultimates start chaining. If you enjoy characters who reward smart aggression and dynamic decision-making, the Undertaker is absolutely worth mastering.
Full Overview: Elden Ring: Nightreign Hands-on Experience
