PSA: Don’t skip the Sparring Grounds in Elden Ring Nightreign

After completing the Elden Ring: Nightreign tutorial, you’ll spawn into this game’s version of the Roundtable Hold. While it might seem attractive to hop right into your first genuine expedition, you mustn’t sleep on the Sparring Grounds.

Elden Ring: Nightreign lets you pilot eight character archetypes, all of whom play differently. To test out the differences between classes, there’s no better place than the safe, reliable Sparring Grounds. Few things in Nightreign feel worse than letting your team down during an expedition because you didn’t quite know how to play that class. Look, we get it, Recluse is a pretty character, but she’s also the most complex Nightfarer. It’ll be evident if you picked her just for the fashion. But the Sparring Grounds will allow you to play around with all of her spell combinations so you’re not just stylish for style’s sake.

Whatever you do, don’t think you’re above spending some time in the Sparring Grounds. In this Elden Ring Nightreign guide, we’ll go over everything you need to know about the Sparring Grounds, plus offer some insight into how best to use the feature.

Where to find the Sparring Grounds in Elden Ring Nightreign

Once you first spawn into the Roundtable Hold, you can access the Sparring Grounds via the Roundtable Hold map. From there, select the Sparring Grounds and fast travel directly there.

For those who prefer the scenic route (or want to explore the Roundtable Hold to get a good lay of the area), you can reach the Sparring Grounds by heading out the door on the other side of the initial room you spawn in and exiting out through the opening on your right.

How to use the Sparring Grounds in Elden Ring Nightreign

Upon arrival, you’re met with a menu that showcases the passive ability, character skill, and ultimate art of the character you are currently playing as. Pressing the touch pad or the view button to access the show guide settings brings up a menu similar to the training options you can find in most modern fighting games.

In the Sparring Settings menu, you can change your level; tweak how quickly your HP, FP, and stamina replenishes; remove or add cooldowns to your character skill and ultimate art; turn on or off infinite consumables; and remove or display the pop-up showcasing your character’s skill information.

This menu also allows for quick swapping of your equipped character, allowing you to try out each playable character in a mostly safe environment. If you prefer to practice on a moving target instead of a training dummy, you can animate an enemy for you to spar with opposite the training dummies and next to the dilapidated wall.

This simulation of combat can help ease the pain once you get out into the field of Nightreign. The bosses you’ll come across don’t pull any punches, and even returning bosses from previous Souls games have new tricks up their sleeves that’ll send you straight back to the Roundtable Hold if you’re not careful. As of this writing, there’s no way to practice dedicated boss fights in the Sparring Grounds, but the training dummies and animated enemy units should suffice in honing your skills at least.

How to change weapons in the Sparring Grounds

The equipment feature in the Sparring Grounds helps you parse the many weapon builds and setups you can create in Elden Ring Nightreign. Finding the assortment of weapons in the sparring grounds allows you to completely kit out your character with any weapon, Ash of War, sorceries, or consumables to test particular scenarios.

This aspect of the Sparring Grounds won’t appeal to all Nightreign players because it’s primarily for those wanting to min-max and get the absolute most out of their characters. For many of you, learning on the fly will work just fine, as there’s nothing more thrilling than being thrown in the deep end of a FromSoftware game. However, if you’re someone who likes to optimize your performance, the Sparring Grounds offer the tools to do so.

But like the rest of the amenities available to you in the Roundtable Hold, it’s best not to sleep on this in-depth feature. You’ll be happy you spent the extra time learning the intricacies of not only your chosen Nightfarer but of your team’s characters as well. Putting in the work to study in the Sparring Grounds will put you ahead of the game’s learning curve — and most importantly, your teammates will thank you.

For more Elden Ring Nightreign guides, here are our beginner’s tips, plus recommendations on the best class to start with, a list of all classes, and the best rune farming locations.