V Rising – Things I Wish I Knew Before Playing

Gear Score is Overrated

You read the subheading, and it’s true. V Rising bosses aren’t difficult, this isn’t a game focused around difficult pve- this isn’t dark souls. Pretty much all bosses can be flawlessed and lack a selfheal mechanics, this also means they can be done at any level if you’re good enough, so don’t get too hung-up on gear score.

Sure, it makes it easier, but is the extra time you spend grinding recipes really worth the time you could spend practicing the boss? The latter would make sure you never struggle at it again if you’re dilligent enough.

Take Ungora the Spider queen, for example. You could spend ages trying to grind a full merciless hollowfang set, you could also just grab ward of the damned and bloodrite and do her easily, assuming you stay out of her AOEs.

Quincey, the Bandit King, is another example of this. Farbane gameplay is boring gameplay, you dont even have all of your weapon skills unlocked! Why spend time there when you could simply kill the bear boss immediately using a horse and a copper spear- and then, once you get normal nightstalker gear, give Quincey the same treatment.

Your Favourite Weapon Is…

All of them, in fact. No weapon in this game can match the sheer power and versatility carrying multiple weapons offers. Good players run 7-8, but just doubling up on iframes (slashers and pistols) makes the game massively easier.

Iframes, or invincibility frames, are abilities which make you completely invulnerable to damage and crowd control during their duration. Your veils are iframes, and so is slasher q and pistol e. Greatsword e is also an iframe but it’s vulnerable to punishes at the end of the animation unless you spend yet another ability to get out- horribly inefficient.

Your damage is also increased using weapon-swapping. Why use axe q into axe autos when you can swap to greatsword mid-animation and deal extra damage that way, pistols are a good mid-range option.

Slasher e can buy you valuable time and make certain AOEs in pve a cakewalk to strafe, axe q can be utilised as a quick movement tool with greatsword q being a good chase option or movement if you have more time.

Longbow is borderline cheese against some bosses, the good ranged damage coupled with the ability to fire faster, less powerful, shots make it outclass crossbow for pve at least.’

There is no such thing as a “greatsword” or “pistols” build for pvp, despite what content creators might suggest.

There are really too many examples to count here, I’ll simply leave with probably the optimal pve loadout.

• Slashers
• Spear
• Axes
• Pistols
• Whip
• Longbow
• Greatsword
• Mace

For pvp Longbow probably loses out to crossbow, and mace gets replaced by sword to penetrate counters. Keep in mind the game is still new and the weapon meta isn’t completely figured out yet. It pretty much is- but not completely.

Don’t Scale the Fucking Boss

Seriously, don’t.

V Rising has this neat little mechanics which seems to go right over the heads of most players. Multiple people engaging a V Blood increases its hit points and damage, in turn making it more difficult to perform especially if you’re not pulling your weight damage-wise.

If you see someone killing a boss, and they aren’t explicitely asking you for help, do NOT engage- it’s simply griefing. Especially so if you’re lower level than the person killing the boss, but even if you’re higher that’s no guarantee you’re more skilled. Stay out of the boss’ aggro range unless you’re asked to intervene- however, of course step in if the engaging player dies, to prevent the boss from resetting.

This ties into a useful strategy which can be used to beat most bosses without much trouble; cycling. By taking turns fighting a boss, stepping out and in respectively to heal, the boss fight will take a little longer but your chances of success will increase tenfold. A very nice way to do bosses underlevelled if you haven’t practiced them.

Strafe More, Spam Less

This is a short one, but very useful for bosses.

Patience is key. If you’re struggling with a boss play passively, only dealing damage when you’re absolutely sure the boss won’t punish you for it. Trading with bosses only works when you’re overlevelled, and even then that won’t fly in brutal- the superior gamemode.

Most bosses are unable to force cooldowns, but what does that even mean?

A boss, or enemy, forcing cooldowns means that you are forced to expend cooldowns in order to negate damage done to yourself. Bosses which can’t force cooldowns can be done entirely through strafing, and are as such the easiest to flawless (to kill them without taking a single hit), even if you make a mistake you can expend one of your cooldowns to counter, barrier, or iframe the attack.

Because many new players underestimate the value of strafing, often complaining about the “long” dash cooldown and the like.