Each Nightlord in Elden Ring Nightreign comes with a different attack style and weapon pool, but probably none of them is as unique as Equilibrious Beast. Also known as Libra or Demon Merchant, the boss has an interesting mechanic before the fight. Before engaging in combat, the player can make a deal with Equilibrious Beast. Each deal comes with advantages and disadvantages.
The players never fully understand what they will receive for each deal until they accept it and then check their stats, which is quite difficult to do in the midst of a boss battle. Every time you meet Equilibrious Beast, either in the boss arena or in Limveld, he offers a handful of random offers. So, every time, you will only get a few of the deals below. And remember, you always have the option to accept none of the deals.
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Eventual Greatness
Eventual Greatness is a combination of a nerf and a buff. As soon as the player accepts the deal, the maximum value for their HP, FP, and Stamina will be halved. This is known as the Ascetic Path. It will remain like this for a certain period, which is long enough that you could take half of Libra’s health in the meantime.
Once the duration is over, Ascetic Path will turn into Ascetic Greatness, restoring the maximum value for HP, FP, and Stamina to the original and also increasing them further from the original values.
For solo players, this is not a good deal, but when playing as a team, surviving the first half of the fight with 50% of the vital values is possible. Still, Eventual Greatness is not the best offer by Libra. Only accept it if other offers are worse or don’t help with your build that much.
Fight At Utmost Strength
This is the only deal from Equilibrious Beast that doesn’t include any sacrifices directly from the player. However, it does benefit both the player and the boss, though the player’s share is more than the boss’s.
After you accept Fight At Utmost Strength, Libra will shift its shape, and then the buffs will apply to both of you. The player receives three Tempered Gold Chip buffs, including increased attack power, increased Madness resistance, and a 20% increase in the value of Max HP. On the other hand, the boss receives a damage resistance buff, but we never know what it does exactly.
However, there is a big downside to this deal. The buffs that the player receives are not permanent, and they will all fade away after a period. The duration is not too short, but it’s safe to say that it will not last until the end of the fight either. You are likely to lose the buff by the time Libra is near 50% of its HP. Of course, it depends on the playstyle, but it’s almost impossible to have the buff until the very end of the battle unless you are using a god build.
Great Strength, Great Dexterity, Deep Faith, Expand Intellect, And Touch With Arcane
These are five different deals, but they all work in a similar way. You can think of them as a means to change the class of your characters. Imagine you are playing as Recluse, but you find an amazingly powerful blade or sword. Well, you typically wish you could’ve switched to Executor or Wylder at this point, but some offerings from Equilibrious Beast like Great Strength or Great Dexterity make this dream come true.
What each one of these deals does is that they change your character’s stats by canonizing the mentioned stat in the title of the deal. Imagine you play as Executor, and you have a nice legendary staff in your inventory. Now, if you accept the deal to Expand Intellect, Executor’s stats will change, as if he were a sorcerer.
With this change in class, the character’s maximum values for HP, FP, and Stamina also change correspondingly. So, in the case of the example above, Executor gains a massive Max FP boost, but loses some Max HP and Stamina. These stat changes also adjust the damage output from armaments. An Executor with an Intellect focus will now deal far less damage with his melee weapons, while he can use a staff more efficiently.
These deals come with no sacrifices. The real sacrifice is that you lose your character’s original stats. It’s neither a buff nor a nerf. Just an ability to switch classes.
Resistance To Ailments
The deal is as simple as the title itself. The player will lose 10% of their maximum Stamina value in exchange for slower ailment buildup. The game doesn’t reveal the exact value of the resistance, and it is difficult to guess it, but knowing that Equilibrious Beast is a boss that can deal a lot of Madness through its spell attacks, Resistance to Ailments seems like a fair deal.
When the player’s level is beyond 10, accepting Resistance to Ailments is a good choice, as losing 10% of Stamina will not affect your moves that much at higher levels.
Hold Death At Bay
Hold Death At Bay is not as good as it may sound. The deal has a superb concept, but it is just way too situational. When this deal is accepted, players will restore all their HP when it is down from a certain threshold, which the game refers to as “low HP”. While there is no exact value to describe “low”, based on personal experience, it’s somewhere close to 10%.
The problem with the deal is that it will not avoid a death blow. For example, if your HP is around 30% and the incoming damage from the boss is supposed to kill you, Hold Death At Bay will not prevent that. And that’s why it’s situational. Because the sum of the damage you take during the fight needs to put your HP somewhere between 1% and 10%, and that’s not something players can plan for. Only in that case does the level drop by 1, and the HP is fully restored.
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Power Of A Demon
With this deal, Libra grants a small fraction of its power to the player, but it comes at a cost. The Power of a Demon adds a Madness eye on top of the player’s head, which shoots projectiles at Libra. The eye will not always work. It will only appear from time to time. Also, the player has no control over it, as the projectiles will be shot automatically.
The good news is that the madness eye will not consume FP. However, whenever it appears, it builds up madness in the player. Now, the amount isn’t big, but when combined with the madness coming from the boss itself, it could be a little extra pressure on the player.
Desire A Flask
After accepting this deal, the player gains one extra Flask. Not that it’s not a good deal, but it’s not worth the cost. The player will need to sacrifice Max HP to get the extra flask, and that is not a good price.
You can already earn multiple extra Flasks for free in Limveld by visiting an abandoned church. So, it’s safe to say that Desire A Flask is the worst deal to get from Libra.
Powerful Weapon
Accepting this deal will grant the player a random weapon of Epic or Purple rarity. Generally, it’s not a good deal to take unless you really don’t have decent weapons in hand. Remember that you will lose 2 levels to receive the weapon. So, it’s not wise to take it while below level 10.
A purple weapon is good, but the player must be familiar with its fighting style as well. With Executor, for example, you will get Vyke’s Spear, which is a relatively heavy weapon with slow attacks, unlike Executor’s original weapon, which is quite fast and builds up bleed.
On the other hand, for Recluse, the weapon is Frenzied Flame Seal, which deals a significant amount of damage, though it also builds up a lot of madness. So, it’s just a risky deal.
Gain Many Levels
Reaching the Nightlord fight while underleveled is usually a wasted opportunity, but when facing Equilibrious Beast, you have the chance to compensate for that by accepting a tricky deal. Gain Many Levels will add 3 levels to the player’s current level, but there is a catch. Every time the player uses a Flask, they will lose one level. So, if you have 3 Flasks, by the time you use them all, you will be back to your original level before accepting the deal.
This is the safest deal offered by Libra, as the player doesn’t lose anything. The worst-case scenario is that they will go back to their original level, which still is not a loss. It becomes a loss when the player has more than 3 Flasks, which could push them below their original level.