Beginner’s Guide to Lords of the Fallen (LotF)

Lords of the Fallen has a few quirks that separate it from other action RPGs. And if you’re not familiar with its unique lexicon, mechanics, or item interactions, you might find yourself struggling more than the developers anticipated. So here’s a beginner’s guide to getting through Lords of the Fallen, explaining some of its basic mechanics.

How Sanguinarix and Healing Work in Lords of the Fallen

The cross-thing on your item bar in Lords of the Fallen is your sanquinarix, which heals you when you use it. It refills every time you rest at Vestige. You can upgrade it with Saintly Quintessences when you talk to Pieta at Skyrest Bridge.

When you heal in the Umbral, it will heal some normal health and some withered health, so be careful when healing in the Umbral

How Withered Health Works in Lords of the Fallen

Sometimes you’ll see part of your health bar is gray. That gray part is called withered health. You turn it into normal health by hitting enemies. The amount of normal health you get from attacking is determined by the amount of damage you do. This can also be bolstered by some specific items in the game that you can find later on.

If you get hit, all of your withered health goes away. However, there’s no time limit for recovery, so you can have withered health for ten minutes, find an enemy, and smack them to get it back.

You can also get withered health by some other actions, like choosing to go into the Umbral with your lamp or getting hit by attacks that do wither damage.

Related: Lords of the Fallen Review

How Parrying and Blocking Work in LotF

When you block using a shield or a weapon, rather than fully negating damage, it causes you to gain withered health in Lords of the Fallen.

If you press block just before an enemy attacks, you parry them. With a parry, you don’t gain withered health and you can follow up with a Grievous strike once you clear the little stagger circle above their health bar. You can parry whether you have a shield, one weapon, or duel-wielding weapons.

In most cases though, the game has some pretty generous i-frames and dodging is just as viable as blocking or parrying.

What Vigor Does in Lords of the Fallen

Despite it sounding like the stat that dictates your health or stamina, Vigor is actually the XP you gain when killing enemies, which you use to level up and purchase many items for NPCs.

When you die, your vigor can be in one of two places. It can either be on the ground close to where you died, in which case you can just go and pick it up. Or it could be absorbed by an enemy, and you’ll have to kill them and pick it up after they drop it.

If you want good areas for farming vigor, we’ve created some guides for exactly that.

What Vestige is in LotF

Vestiges is your “not bonfire.” Resting at one refills your health, mana, ammo, and sanquinarix charges as well as respawns enemies. You also use them to upgrade your character, and you can teleport between vestiges you’ve discovered. When you die, you respawn at the last vestige you rested at.

There are permanent vestiges around, but if you have a Vestige Seedling and find an Umbral Bed of Flowers, you can create a new vestige.

Vestige Seedlings are available for purchase at Molhu, and can obtained by defeating mini-bosses, key bosses and are sometimes dropped as loot from stronger enemies.

What Axiom and Umbral Are

Axiom is the realm you normally occupy. The “normal” world. If you hit zero HP in Axiom, you go to Umbral. If you hit zero HP in Umbral, you die and respawn at the last vestige you rested at in Axiom.

When you reach zero HP in Axiom, you are transported to Umbral. If you reach zero HP while in the Umbral, you will die and respawn at the last Vestige you rested at in Axiom.

Umbral is the world of the dead. The environment looks ashen and spooky with lots of bodies and fingers coming out of the scenery. The landscape is similar to that of its Axiom counterpart, but there are often important differences such as puzzles you have to solve in Umbral.

If you find a skull-thing called an Emergence Effigy, you can use it to return to Axiom and unlike resting at a Vestige, it won’t respawn enemies. However, if you slip into Umbral again, that Emergence Effigy will not be there. It will return after you die or rest at a Vestige.

The longer you stay in Umbral, the more dangerous it becomes. The basic enemies that spawn in the Umbral will appear more frequently the longer you stay, and harder enemies will arrive if you continue to linger. Staying in Umbral is often a risk vs reward scenario, as you can farm a good amount of vigor while in Umbral, but if you stay long enough, a boss-like enemy will hunt you down.

NPCs in certain areas exist only in the Umbral, so you can miss them if you don’t check.

Related: Do You Need to Play Lords of the Fallen 2014 Before LotF 2023

What the Umbral Lamp Is in LotF

The Umbral Lamp in Lords of the Fallen is a starting item that lets you willingly go to Umbral. This is required to solve puzzles or traverse areas blocked off in Axiom.

The lamp has an ability called Soul Flay that allows you to pull the soul from an enemy and do damage to it while they’re stunned, though this uses a limited resource that’s replenished when you rest at a Vestige. Soul Flay can also retrieve items and open doors only accessible in Umbral, and this functions without needing to replenish it.

It can also Soul Siphon, which you can use to remove Umbral parasites attached to enemies, which weakens their hosts. You can also use Soul Siphoning to aggro enemies.

You can upgrade the Umbral Lamp with Antediluvian Chisels when you talk to Molhu at Skyrest Bridge.

Three Types of Magic in the Game

There are three types of magic in Lords of the Fallen.

Rhogar is fire magic. It’s strong against Radiant magic but weak against Umbral. If you want to use Rhogar spells, you’ll want to up your Infernal stat.

Orius is Radiant magic. It’s strong against Rhogar but weak against Umbra . If you want to use Orius spells, you’ll want to up your Radiance stat.

Then there’s Umbral magic. It’s strong against all elements but weak to physical. You need a mix of the Radiance and Inferno stats to wield Umbral spells.

Does Lords of the Fallen Have Co-op?

You can engage in jolly cooperation with the help of NPCs or other players online in Lords of the Fallen. The aiding party will get social currencies, loot from normal enemies, and 1/3 of the reward from enemies and bosses. It has crossplay, so you can play with friends regardless of what system they’re on. 

You can join with a friend at any point in the game and remain in co-op remain with them until you decide to leave. Unlike From Software games which don’t have seamless co-op, a friend can join you for your entire adventure in Lords of the Fallen. 

You can use a password to play with a friend or connect with a random player to help you. You can also join a random player’s game to aid them, or if you’re feeling bloodthirsty, you can engage in PvP.

If the aiding party reaches zero HP, they’ll spectate in Umbral. If the host reaches zero HP, both them and the aiding party will go to the Umbral.

Stats in Lords of the Fallen, Explained

Radiance is an odd stat in Lords of the Fallen. As expected, it’s needed to use powerful Orius spells and it gives you more mana, but it also reveals the description of certain items, though so far, it’s been all flavor text and nothing useful or mechanical.

The rest of the stats are straightforward for genre veterans:

• Strength is needed for heavy weapons and increases damage on strength-scaling weapons.
• Agility does the same but for agile weapons.
• Endurance increases stamina and equipment load.
• Vitality increases HP.
• Inferno increases mana and you’ll need it for Rhogar magic.

How to Plan Your Build

Weapons have specific stat requirements to use them effectively, so if you plan on using a certain weapon, make sure to look at its stat requirements early so you don’t waste your vigor on stats you don’t need.

Often times weapons have multiple stats, including magic weapons that might require a combination of Strength and Inferno to use effectively for example.

Don’t worry though, if you don’t get your build right the first time, you can purchase a Rebirth Chrysalis from Molhu, which you can then give to Pieta to reassign your stats to your liking. Just bear in mind it’s a hefty amount of vigor to do so.

Can You Accidentally Kill NPCs in Lords of the Fallen?

For the most part, NPCs do not take damage from you or enemies if they’re standing around and have the “talk” option. While you can’t kill most NPCs, some can die, so don’t be reckless.

All Starting Gear Is Available to Purchase at Some Point

All of the starting class’s weapons and gear are available in the game, though not right away. So if you want to start as a preacher but get the Warwolf’s sword later, you can. Their items may also be found in the world as hidden items as well.

Related: Is Lords of the Fallen Harder Than Lies of P?

Always Double Check Areas and Explore in LotF

Run through an area after finishing it in the Umbral realm to see places you may have missed. A lot of the game’s most important items are often found in Umbral. There’s hidden walls, gates, platforms, bridges and more that you might miss if you don’t check the Umbral realm.

It’s easy to avoid enemies by running and dodge rolling; you don’t always have to fight your way back to a boss or when retrieving your lost vigor. As with any Souls game, sometimes just knowing where you’re going is half the battle, so don’t be afraid to just run through some areas to get your bearings and see what you’re up against. Dying is a part of the experience, so after you spend all your vigor, just learn the map, find the secret areas and of course unlock every door you can which will often open speedier ways to get to that next boss.

Don’t forget to revisit places you’ve already been to as well, as often times there’s secret doors you can’t access until finding certain keys or items.

With that, you know the basics of Lords of the Fallen.

If you’re looking for more on the game, check out ranking of the various starting classes in Lords of the Fallen from worst to best.