I remember the first time I switched to Ironeye. I'd been trundling along as Raider, enjoying my ability to headbutt everyone and create a big stupid rock whose chief purpose seems to be breaking the game. It was a fun time, but each Nightlord fight felt increasingly untenable; I'd chase them around the arena, and every time I was about to land a hit, they'd up and move again. Even when I was able to get into melee, the risk didn't feel worth it relative to the damage I was doing.
It'd be a different story if had Sekiro's endless sprint stamina, but alas, chasing each Nightlord is going to have you huffing and puffing, barely able to land an attack by the time you reach them.
In hindsight, it's kind of obvious—in a game where most of the Nightlord bosses are ridiculously mobile or literally fly out of melee reach, archery is king. There are a few different reasons why bows are so good in Nightreign:
- Bows give you consistent damage while bosses are moving all over the place, especially against flying Nightlords where melee has a massive disadvantage.
- Bows are
the best at reviving downed party members. You can lock on, manually aim, [[link]] and if you use something like the Barrage skill, you'll have them back up very fast and even at a distance.
- Ranged weapons have infinite ammo in Nightreign, so you can keep firing, and you can even manually aim for weak points to get additional stuns and flinches on enemies and bosses.
While ranged spellcaster, Recluse, suffers from a lack of FP regen when spellcasting, unless you can keep her affinity residue rotation going the whole time, Ironeye can fire infinite arrows. This often makes him the most consistent damage dealer in 90% of Nightlord bosses.
What's more, he doesn't have to take the risk of getting super close the same way melee fighters [[link]] do. To be honest, even if you don't play Ironeye, don't sleep on ranged weapons, especially if you're a high-dex character like Duchess or Executor. Either of those characters could do damage with a bow scaling-wise, or just carry one around for clutch revives at range.
But his bow isn't the only thing that makes Ironeye so good. He has an incredibly versatile kit of abilities. He can use his Marking skill to dash forward, slashing an enemy, and opening them up to additional damage from you and your entire team. Where this ability really shines, though, is when you use it as a dodge thanks to its generous invincibility-frames.
Does this Nightlord have a tricky attack you struggle with? Simply use Marking and dash through them, Marking them for extra damage at the same time. In fact, you don't even have to hit an enemy with it to gain the i-frames, so use it literally whenever you need a short window of invincibility. It also has a very fast cooldown, which can be further improved with relics.
On top of that, Ironeye's ultimate art, Single Shot, has a lot of utility, firing a giant arrow which deals stagger damage and kills most small enemies in an AoE around it. If you've got a Duchess in your party, it's a fantastic skill to Restage and repeat, and because Ironeye hits so often with his bow, your uptime on the art is quite speedy. Plus, its long animation is actually a good thing, since you're invincible while casting any ultimate art.
This outpouring of love for Ironeye and his endless arrows isn't to say that he's perfect for every single Nightlord—there are definitely a couple where having melee helps—but since Ironeye has high-dex, there's also no reason you can't run him with daggers, a twinblade, or a rapier, too. The only sad thing about playing Ironeye is that there's only one legendary bow in Nightreign, and it happens to be a great bow with a slow draw.
Whatever you use, as soon as you try Ironeye, you'll quickly realise how much of a massive advantage ranged weapons have against many of the Nightreign's hardest bosses.