While most of Lords of the Fallen’s difficulty lies in its tough-as-nails reaction-based combat encounters, a good chunk of it also comes from decoding the tangled web of stats and numbers that every weapon and item you find is packed with. For many of these stats, their effects aren’t immediately obvious, making it tricky to weigh weapons against each other and determine the best choice for your build. Thankfully, I’ve done the hard work for you. Presented here is a full guide to all weapon and gear stats in Lords of the Fallen.
What do the weapon and gear stats mean in Lords of the Fallen?
Weapon Stats
Level
This value shows the current level of your weapon. This begins at 0 and can be increased by upgrading your weapon via the blacksmith. The higher your weapon’s level, the higher many of its other stats will be.
Type
This is a value found on all your equipable items, be they weapons, ammunition, or gear pieces. It tells you what type of item it is: the Udirangr Warwolf Sword, for example, falls under the Long Swords category. For weapons, this largely affects their movesets, while for Gear pieces, it determines which slot you can equip them in.
Weight
Another stat that can be found on all equipable items, weight tells you how much equipping said item will increase your encumbrance by. Encumbrance determines your movement and roll speed, so it’s important to keep an eye on it — and the individual Weight of each of your equipped items.
Rune Slots
As you progress in Lords of the Fallen, you’ll gain the ability to attach Runes to your weapons to enhance their abilities. These need to be placed in Rune Slots, the number of which you’ll have access to varying from weapon to weapon.
Scaling
All weapons and ammunition feature Scaling values. These determine which stats will increase the damage output of the weapon when increased. There are four possible types of scaling, these being Strength, Agility, Radiance, and Inferno, and each can be represented by a letter grade from S to D, with S being the best. The Udirangr Warwolf Sword has a starting Strength Scaling of C-, for example, meaning that increasing your Strength stat will increase its damage slightly up to a point.
Status Buildup
Another stat that appears on both weapons and ammunitions, this determines how much status buildup each hit of your weapon will cause to your foes. There are six total status conditions in the game, these being Smite, Bleed, Burn, Ignite, Frostbite, and Poison. Most weapons will feature status buildup for just one of these conditions, but some will have multiple. Simply put, the higher your buildup value for a particular status, the fewer hits you’ll need to land to inflict that status on an enemy.
Attack Power
This is the important one: the stat that determines how much damage your weapon or ammunition deals when all is said and done. The total damage dealt is shown as Attack Power, then underneath, you’ll see a breakdown of the individual damage types that contribute to that total. There are four possible damage types here, these being Physical, Holy, Fire, and Wither. Some weapons will deal multiple types of damage, while others focus on just one, like the Udirangr Warwolf Sword, which deals purely Physical damage. When a damage value is shown as ‘X + Y’ here, the first number is the base damage of the weapon and the second is the additional damage added thanks to the weapon’s scaling. For example, the Udirangr Warwolf Sword pictured above deals 125 damage on its own, and gains an additional 15 damage from my investment in Strength, thanks to its C- Scaling with the stat. Weapons with multiple damage types will typically have higher Attack Power values, but it’s worth noting that, in games like these, weapons that deal just one type of damage tend to perform better, since their damage only has to contend with one of the enemy’s resistance stats rather than two.
Block Protection
This stat determines the amount of damage your weapon will absorb when used to block an enemy attack. It’s split into five types, one for each damage type, and Stability. The damage types, as covered above, are Physical, Holy, Fire, and Wither. If you block a Physical attack with a weapon that has 35% Block Protection for Physical attacks, you’ll still take 65% of the original damage. Stability determines how much Posture damage blocking with the weapon will prevent. Posture damage, as a reminder, is damage that causes your character to stagger when hit, leaving you vulnerable to further attacks.
Requirements
Both weapons and ammunition have Requirement values. These tell you how high particular stats need to be before you can equip the item in question. The Udirangr Warwolf Sword, for example, has a Strength Requirement of 16, meaning you’ll need to have increased your Strength to at least 16 in order to wield it effectively.
Ammunition Stats
Ammo Cost
This is the only stat in the game that’s exclusive to ammunition, and also the only stat ammunition has that we haven’t already covered in the Weapon Stats section above. It determines how much Ammo you consume each time you use the ammunition in question. The lower the Ammo Cost, the more times you’ll be able to use the ammunition before needing to replenish it via an item or resting at a Vestige.
Gear Stats
Damage Mitigation
This is the key stat for the majority of Gear items in the game. It determines how much of each damage type is prevented by wearing the Gear in question: the higher the Damage Mitigation value, the less damage you’ll take from damage of that type. It’s split into four values: Physical, Holy, Fire, and Wither, one for each damage type.
Resistances
Similar to Damage Mitigation but for Status conditions, Resistances reduce the amount of Status Buildup that your enemies’ attacks, and environmental hazards, inflict. Each Gear piece has a value for all six status conditions, these being Smite, Bleed, Burn, Ignite, Frostbite, and Poison. The higher a particular Resistance value on your gear, the less vulnerable you’ll be to the status condition in question.
So, there you have it: a full guide to all of the weapon and gear stats in Lords of the Fallen. Hopefully, these detailed explanations will help you to not only understand the items you collect on your journey better, but also assist in making better decisions with regard to your equipment loadout in different situations.
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