What's the Balancers' weakness in Elden Ring Nightreign?

Finding out the Balancers weakness in Elden Ring Nightreign's new Forsaken Hollows DLC will give you a better shot at beating them if you're struggling. I personally think this mob boss is one of the coolest in the game, part-Deacons of the Deep from Dark Souls 3, part-Cleanrot Knights from Elden Ring. This group of glaive-wielding valkyries can gang up on you if you're not careful.

After you defeat them all, they do an Abyss Watchers from Dark Souls 3, creating a super version of themselves with enhanced attacks. All the other Balancers will get back up, too, meaning you have to balance dealing with them and the main aggressive entity.

It's a fun yet chaotic fight, so here's what they're weak to, as well as some additional tips to help you beat them if you're struggling.

Elden Ring Nightreign Balancers boss weakness and tips

The Balancers are weak to sleep. You can see the symbol of the closed eye if you examine them in the expedition menu at the table, so you'll want to look for ruins on the map with this same symbol. Sleep ruins usually have a Runebear boss and will often reward you with weapons that inflict sleep.

If you smash containers in the ruins and search the chests in the cellar, you'll also find Soporific Grease, which can apply sleep to your weapon, as well as Sleep Pots you can throw. The new maps also have sleep cathedrals, so watch out for those.

Grease or Sleep Pots are definitely your best best, especially as there's only one weapon in Nightreign that's guaranteed to apply sleep; the Sword of St. Trina. In many ways, sleep is just as hard a weakness to cope with as bringing madness weapons for Libra, since it's mainly down to RNG whether you find an appropriate ruin or happen to find that sword.

It's also a challenging boss weakness because it's not an affinity. Except for poison against Gaping Jaw, and Libra's madness, all the other Nightlords are weak to damage types, rather than status build-up. That said, ailments usually have a very precise effect against bosses that are weak to them.

If you poison Gaping Jaw, for example, it gets staggered and has to stop to vomit the poison out. If you inflict madness on Libra, he stops casting spells and goes into his slightly easier to deal with rampage mode. In this case, sleep will put Balancers into a slumber, making the fight a little less chaotic. Here are some additional tips:

• I haven't worked out whether the Scholar can link status effects on enemies, but if so, you should be able to sleep all the Balancers at once. Either way, the Scholar is definitely a strong pick for this fight, as linking the Balancers will let you damage them simultaneously. Since the Scholar can upgrade items through use as well, he'll also be better at using Sleep Pots.
• Due to the number of grab attacks the Balancers do (especially after they buff their attack), and the fact that Undertaker gets a free art cast when she dodges a grab attack, she's also a strong pick if you've cracked those attack timings.
• Remember that killing the central most-aggressive Balancer with the enhanced attacks will stun them all, but before long, it'll reincarnate as another of the Balancers. With all that in mind, the best tactic is to kite the main one while the rest of the team take out the others.

Also make sure you communicate (if on comms) when that main Balancer suddenly switches aggro to another player. It's a chaotic fight, but easily survivable provided you know who the most aggressive Balancer is attacking.