In thisElden Ring Nightreignvideo, we’re going to take a look atthe Executorand how to play him in combat. We’ll cover his stats, skills, recommended relics, weapons to look out for, and how to use him effectively in a party. So, if you’re playing the Executor or planning to learn this class, this video is for you.
General Description
The Executoris a melee-focused class that acts as a frontliner, primarily geared toward dueling thanks to his built in Cursed Sword.
This class is essentially Nightreign’s answer to anyone looking for a Sekiro playstyle, with a built in parry mechanic very similar to that of Sekiros, and stats geared towards swords and katanas. If you played theSamuraistarting class in Elden Ring and love Dex builds, then this class will absolutely be for you.
In group play, you function mostly as a frontlining DPS slicing away at enemies with melee-based weapons.
The parry mechanic also allows youto be quite a good “tank”provided you can parry every attack coming your way.
However, you don’t have the health or defence to absorb many hits, so this style of tanking will demand a lot of consistency in the reflex department.
From my experience playing this class, the parry mechanic isn’t nearly as hard as the basic buckler parries in Elden Ring, and feels more likeSekiroparry timings but with an even larger timeframe.
Stats & What That Means
The Executors main stats are cut clean to be purelyDexterity and Arcane, with an S scaling on both. All other stats have aD scaling, except Strength with ascaling of C.
This means that you won’t be able to use any weapons that don’t scale well with Dexterity effectively, so you should avoidGreatswords & Colossal Swords,Axes & Greataxes,Hammers & Great Hammers, and Colossal Weapons. Naturally, with Intelligence and Faith both at D, the Executor also won’t be able to do any high-damage spell casting, but he can still use Ashes of War skills effectively.
With an S in dexterity, there area few Weapon typesthat you should be on the lookout for;Katanas,Claws,Daggers,Curved SwordsandWhips,as these weapons generallyhave great Dexterity scalingby default, so you’ll deal much more damage if you stay in line with these weapons in a run.
The S in Arcanescales up the amount of Blood Loss and Poison built up from your weapon. Almost allKatanas and Clawshave bleed buildup, and a handful ofDaggers, Curved Swords and Whipsalso have Bleed Build Up to complement this stat. We’ll get more into those specific weapons later.
HP, FP and Stamina
As for other stats,the Executoris quite average with aB for Health, D for FP and B for Stamina. This makes his survivability better than other weak classes, saythe Recluse and Revenant, but do note that he is the second-squishiest melee focused class, just behindthe Duchess, who has aC scalingfor health.
Missing parries will hurt, and guarding attacks will consume the stamina bar fast.
The D in FPmeans you’ll be using weapon skills sparingly, and you’ll likely need to bringStarlight Shardsto the final boss of the run if you want to consistently cast weapon skills, or equip relicsthat can sustain your FP.
Skills and how to use them
Tenacity: Passive Ability
Receive a boost after recovering from status ailments.
Starting with the passive,Executors have Tenacitywhich triggers some bonus buffs after a status effect is triggered or cured. These buffs are an attack power boost and a stamina recovery boost.
These buffs will last for around 20 seconds, and from my testing youget roughly 20% Attack Power, with the stamina recovery feeling similar to a boost you would get from a Green Turtle talisman inElden Ring.
Compared to all other class passives, Executors may just be the worst.
From my playtime, I don’t think I ever actually noticed when I triggered this buff, since you usually want to avoid status ailments. You could pair this withMadness buffs, but you would have to purposefully fill the madness meter to get the buff. This passive was likely intended as a boost in tough situations, but unfortunately I did not get much use from it.
Suncatcher: Character Skill
Draw a cursed sword that can deflect enemy attacks.
Moving on to the character skill,The Suncatcherskill is likely why you want to learn this class.
This skill draws a special built-in sword that you can attack with and parry with by pressing Deflect, just like inSekiro. However, while you have the sword equipped, you will be forced to walk.
The parry window is quite generous, being an even larger timeframe than in other soulslike games.
verify to try parrying earlier since it can count as a guard (consuming Stamina); parry too late and you’ll just take damage.
When the Cursed Sword is equipped, you also gain a unique slash skillthat costs FP.
You can use this slash normally, or as an enhanced version if the sword is glowing for extra damage. To make the sword glow, you need to charge it up by parrying a few attacks, usually 3.
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In terms of attacking,The Cursed Sword’sdamage scales based on your character level. From levels 1–3 it matches your base weapon’s damage, and it damages it by level 4.
After the first few levels, however, its scaling falls off a cliff, so other weapons you find will almost always be stronger, especially sincethe Cursed Sworddoesn’t produce buildup. As such, it’s best to avoid using it for offense; even your starter weapon is a better choice for attacks since it hasBleed buildup.
I found myself using the weapon almost exclusively for parrying; This mechanic can deflect most, if not all, attacks in the game - including attacks imbued with status effects or skills such as roars.
It can also be quite useful for helping up downed teammates. Since damage doesn’t matter for reviving them, you can just keep the sword equipped and parry attacks that would interrupt you while you pick them up.
One more very important tip to note aboutthe Cursed Swordsis something I call switch-parrying. When you switch to this Sword, it counts as a parry, so you can quickly switch between your normal weapon andthe Cursed Swordat the exact moment an enemy attacks you, and parry it.
This is an incredibly important tip for mastering this class, as taking out the weapon has a small animation which can leave you vulnerable, and the switch-parry is a great way to smooth out your gameplay.
My typical rotation withthe Cursed Swordis the following:
Aspects of the Crucible: Beast: Ultimate Art
Assume the form of the primordial beast.
Lastly in the kit, we havethe Ultimate Ability. Activating it will turn your character into a hugeCrucible Beastand give you 4 unique attacks for 15 seconds.
Light Attack becomesa 4 hit combo string, swiping right, then left, then both sides and ending with a slam.
Heavy attack becomesa 3 hit combo string, swiping right, then right again after a 360, and ending with a slam.
Guard becomes a very long range Roar attack which is quite powerful against groups of mobs that are scattered around your area. You can also use this to revive knocked down teammates from far away easily.
Lastly, the Skill is a Crucible blade swipe which will end the ultimate ability after being casted.
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You wind up for a few seconds, then slash in a big AoE dealing a bunch of damage and stance damage as well.
All these attacks will get progressively stronger as your level increases, and by quite a large margin too.
FromLevel 5 to 10, you see an around 50% increase in damagewith Heavy and Light combos.
If you want to optimise your damage in this form, From my testing(without getting into the maths)the light attack combo actually delivers moderately higher DPS than the heavy combo when you’re in this form.
Additionally, you should always try to finish your ultimate with the Skill, since the ultimate’s cooldown won’t prematurely cut off the Skill animation.
One more thing to note about this ultimate is that its a great way to get out of tough situations where your health is low since it heals you to full when you cast it. Conversely though, if you take damage in the range of your human health bar while in the ultimate form or die, that will apply to you once the ultimate expires.
Suggested Weapons & Ideal Run
Next, let’s dive into weapons. You start withthe Executor’s Blade, which has Bleed Buildup and the Unsheathe skill.
you may keep this weapon for quite a long time, but other weapons you find will deal more base damage.
Once you get further into the run, what I like to do is dual wield Katanas.
This is because two handing a weapon is a pain in the ass when swapping with theCursed Blade; everytime you swap to parry and swap back, you have to re-two hand the weapon. So instead, I just opt for dual wielding.
The Executorperforms best with weapons that complement itsDexterity and Arcane scaling, so Dex weapons with Bleed Buildup. Here are a few of my recommended weapons:
From my experience though, Katanas are always the best bet and the most common drop. Namely, the following:
And the absolute best weapons you could get areRivers Of BloodandHand of Malenia.
Rivers of Bloodis more likely to drop and is equal to if not better thanHand of Maleniadue to its Skill, Corpse Piler.
This skill is a mid-range blood slash attack which successively slashes the enemy with blood to rapidly accumulate bleed buildup, scaling perfectly withArcane.
The weapon itself has anA scaling with Dexterityas well asC scaling with Arcanewhich is quite rare, making it the perfect fit for this class.
Hand of Maleniahas an S scaling with arcane and is a legendary armament dealing more damage, however the associated skill is not as good and it doesn’t have arcane scaling. If you somehow manage to find both though, you may always dual wield.
For your other4 weapon slots, you will want to be on the lookout for a few passive effects.
Anything guard related will likely be good forExecutorsince you can guard accidentally from time to time when trying to parry attacks.
For example,successful guard giving damage negation, improved guarding ability, or health recovery on successful guarding. Depending on the type of weapon holding you are doing, you can also get passives such as bonus damage when wielding two weapons, or bonus damage while two handed.
Successive attack bonuses also work as Dex weapons tend to attack very quickly.
In an ideal run you’ll probablyget dual Nagakibaswith status effects built in like Frostbite or Poison, and ideally get to level 7 on the first night.
On the second night, some Talismans for Stamina or Dexterity like theGreen Turtle TalismanorMillicent’s Prosthesis, and hopefully aRivers of Bloodand a smithing stoneto upgrade the Nagakiba to purple, then you’ll be set for killing the final boss.
Suggested Relics
ForRelics, you get a few great from the Executor Questline as well as 3 chalices; The urn hasRed Yellow Yellowslots, the GobletRed Blue Greenand the ChaliceRed Yellow and Multicolour.
You get quite a few good ones later on as you progress the Executor questline. You’ll have to beat a fewNightlordsin order to finish it, but once you do you get relics which restore health when you chargethe Cursed Bladeyellow and another which restores health when you roar inUltimate form.
Other relics you can use before then include any that have a guarding bonus such asextra HP on guard, and dex, health, arcane and endurance bonuses. If you want to tank damage there’s also a relic which can draw enemy attention while guarding.
Party Composition
When it comes to party composition forExecutor, he’s just likeWylder in that he can fit into just about any group. Since he’s a frontliner that can both tank and dish out crazy damage with Bleed procs, it’s a very flexible class in what it can and cannot party up with.
If youhave 2 magic usersor squishies, you can focus on taking aggro on most bosses and enemies and parrying attacks to give your teammates space to range the enemy down.
When you already have tanks like aGuardian, then you can comfortably use your weapons most of the time and act as more of a frontline DPS.
In essence, you just need to adapt to the party you get, and you can play pretty comfortably most of the time.
Conclusion
In summary,the Executor is a high risk high reward class which plays mostly the same in every run, but has that unique parry which almost feels like you could make a whole game centered around it…
Bringing out the best in this character is very much how well you can parry, and if you can find the right weapons.
You should make sure you keep in mind small tips that make a big difference, like switch-parrying or helping up teammates using the roar in ultimate form. If you can master the basics of this class and get the right equipment, you’ll deal insane damage and take none.
So that wraps up my guide forthe Executor. It’s a very fun class which I imagine is going to be a fan favorite from day 1 based on the views fromthe Executor launch trailer.
The parry is just too awesome to ignore, and this is a rare bit of Sekiro fanservice which we haven’t gotten from Fromsoft in a long time. Do you guys have any more tips or playstyles you’ve found with the Executor? Let me know in the comments below!
