Obliterating your enemies with devastating Umbral magic is one of the most satisfying ways to enjoy your time in Lords of the Fallen. Combining this with the ability to maintain a steady flow of Life Leech ensures you are a highly resilient scourge of destruction.

In this guide, I will break down what is in my opinion one of the best melee caster builds that has a specialism in life leeching at both range and in close quarters combat to keep ourselves sustained.

I will go over the stats, weapons, armor, rings, pendants and rune choices that make this build an undying blood sucking Umbral menace that’s difficult to contend with.

Stats & Starting Class

In the early game, the main stats to focus on in this build are Inferno and Radiance for damage scaling and vitality for survivability.

As the build focuses on dual-wielding Bloodlust, we only require 13 points in Agility to ensure we can use them. The rest can then go into our main stats.

Initially, you’ll require around 20 points in Endurance to have ample Stamina to utilize in the early to mid game. My advice here would be to get Inferno to around 70 and Radiance to around 50 and then fill the rest in any order of your choosing. You’ll gain damage from statting into Radiance and Inferno and more HP from Vitality.

The Orian Preacher and the Orian Preacher Hammer are, as usual, your best choice of starting class and weapon due to the 18 points of radiant damage the class starts with and the fact it has an absolutely powerful weapon in the early to mid game.

Main Weapon & Runes

For the primary weapon, I am dual wielding Bloodlust short swords. This choice is underpinned by two reasons.

First of all, when delivering a final hit via a malee attack or spell, these swords have a life leeching effect. Wielding two also stack this effect.

Secondly, the rune slots allow us to use a total of 4 Tumul runes to further enhance our vampiric life leeching effect when we kill enemies. This weapon also comes with 60 Bleed and 60 Burn in the status effects department.

Combining this with Bleed Salts further emphasizes this effect and also allows us to further lean into the Undying Umbral Vampire kind of look. This can be acquired from the chest in the area where you fight Crimson Rector Percival and you’ll need to complete two playthroughs or find a willing friend to drop you a second one to complete this build.

For those of you with only one Bloodlust, this build still works, or be it with a slightly diminished return on the Life Leech. You could try another weapon to dual wield or go with a shield and some Tumul or Nartun runes for either Mana or HP Regeneration.

The three rune slots in this weapon are integral to the functionality of the build. 2 Tumul runes are non-negotiable to further improve our life leeching capabilities. When duel wielding two Bloodlust with two Tumul runes, we leech around 90 HP per kill.

The final rune slot is an Agility slot and you’ll have a number of choices here. You could go with:

• Vixys for increased bleed buildup
• Dimexus, which increases physical damage whilst dual wielding
• Ornx for increased Grievous Strikes damage
• Nhelaq for those choosing to Lords of the Fallen Vigor farm

I opt to go for Vixys to maximize how quickly bleed builds up to stay with the theme of blood and vampires, but all these options are completely viable catalyst folks.

Catalyst

In terms of catalyst, the best in slot choice here for this build is the Lost Berescu’s Catalyst at +10.

This provides us with exceptional spell power that is just shy of 800 and it also has A tier Radiance and Inferno scaling with 5 spell slots, a simply superb choice here. This is acquired in the Revelation Depths via an Umbral Belly.

In terms of rings and pendants, our pendant of choice is the Pendant of Atroph. This pendant allows us to continue to spam cast Umbral spells even when we’ve depleted our Mana. This makes it very easy to spam enemies down with a barrage of Umbral devastation.

The ring choices are also very straightforward. A Barrage Root and a Puissance Root provide us with increased damage to our sorceries, with the Barrage Root removing 1 spell slot as a penalty, which leaves us with 4 instead of 5. This is completely worthable and not a problem the off of this build.

You can also double down on either ring, with Barrage Root being the most desirable for those who want the highest DPS increase possible and at the cost of two spell slots being removed.

Spells

Speaking of spamming Umbral spells, our main source of range damage comes from Latimer’s Javelin.

This can be acquired from the Remembrance of the Hushed Saint. This thing hits like an absolute truck and offers both single target and AOE damage output.

I’ve seen this thing hit numbers of around 1.8k per throw and I’m not even maxed out on damage stats. But from what I’ve read and seen, apparently this can hit up to around 2.5k if you have both your Radiance and your Inferno stats maxed out.

This is in combination with the Pendant of Atrophy and it makes it absolutely insane for anyone favoring the caster approach. It also works well in combination with melee attacks as a way to chip the mob’s health and posture down before they even reach you.

The second spell is Diminishing Missile, which sends a homing projectile of Umbral magic that debuffs an enemy by reducing their attack damage and their defenses. This is another highly viable and useful choice here.

Our third choice of spell is Umbral Agony. This fires a slow-moving orb of Umbral energy that deals large chunks of damage to foes and takes huge chunks of stagger bars off. You can cast this at your enemy’s feet or at walls nearby to ensure that it explodes, dealing solid AOE damage to multiple enemies. It’s excellent for breaking stagger bars if you’re the sort of player that likes to look to run in and finish enemies off with Grievous Strikes for those extra style points.

Our fourth slot is flexible. I go with either Barrage of Echoes for extremely tasty first damage or Painful Echo, which sends a bolt of Umbral energy that bounces and chains between enemies. This is down to your personal preference, and I tend to swap between these two spells to keep things fresh.

Armour

I know a lot of you like to know how we complete the character looks, so in this case, I’m using:

• Grace of Adyr Mask
• Crimson Rector Armour
• Crimson Rector Leggings
• Lord Gauntlet

All of these are colored with the cell sword tint.

Mechanics

The mechanics of this build are very simple.

Buff up with Bleed Salts, favorably position yourself, cast your of Diminishing Missile and begin spamming whichever skills you see fit.

Latimer’s Javelin has excellent range and damage. The projectile also moves pretty quickly too, which makes this my most favorite choice. You can situationally use the other spells and I usually throw a cast or two of Barrage of Echoes at my feet as enemies approach, with what is left of the HP and stagger bar then being melted. I then either dispatch them with the well-timed attack or administer a vampiric life leeching Grievous Strike.

The build can be played as a full caster or a combination of melee and caster, in both styles allow us to gain 90 HP per kill, which makes us very difficult to kill in return.

For many players, including myself, there is nothing more satisfying than using a strength build in a soul-like game. Being able to wield some of the heaviest and most powerful weapons in Lords of the Fallen feels extremely rewarding and will also turn you into a killing machine.

The beautiful thing about raw strength builds is the fact that they’re effective against every single enemy in the game. If you want to feel extremely powerful with no weaknesses whatsoever, this is going to be the perfect build for you. 

Here, I'll breaking down one of the best strength builds in Lords of the Fallen and going over the best stats, weapons, and gear. Please prepare enough Lords of the Fallen Vigor to join me in making this build!

Best Starting Classes

For starting classes, you actually have several options. 

Anyone that purchased the deluxe edition of Lords of the Fallen will immediately gain access to the Dark Crusader class, which is actually one of the best starting classes in the game, especially for a strength build. 

The weapon and armor are both incredible for early game and the class has high Strength, Endurance, and Vitality. 

The Hollowed Knight, Udirangr Warwolf, Partisan, and the Mournstead Infantry will all work as starting classes for a strength build since all of these prioritize melee combat and provide a decent starting point for a powerful strength build during endgame.

Stats

The main stats to focus on for this build are Strength, Endurance, and Vitality.

Strength is going to be the main contributor of your weapon’s overall damage and your crossbows damage since the Trapper Crossbow skills exclusively with strength, providing a powerful ranged option for your slow heavy hitting warrior. This is a stat that you can afford to increase over time, considering each level will gradually increase your overall base damage. 

At some point, there will be diminishing returns. But anyone around level 100 to 125, you want to get this somewhere around 70 to 80, so you can deal some serious damage against your enemies.

Since strength builds are generally slower, you’ll want as much damage as possible to compensate for that.

Endurance is important, but you really shouldn’t increase this to any more than 25 for your first play through. It’s way more beneficial to focus on Strength and Vitality since the gains after 25 Endurance are very minimal.

This stat can be increased once your main stats are in a comfortable spot. If you find yourself in a situation where your Encumbrance is too heavy, then maybe investing some points into Endurance will help. But generally, if you’re around level 100, you don’t need to increase this any more than 20 to 25.

Vitality is your character’s overall HP. The more you increase this, the more Health your character will have. Vitality is very important for a strength build since you leave yourself open at times to execute powerful heavy attacks. 

You also want high Vitality to survive enemy attacks when you’re trying to finish a powerful combo. If you want to have high Poise, you need to have a higher Health pool.

Weapons

The main weapon on this build probably the best strength weapon in the entire game, The Iron Wayfarer’s Hammer. 

Once fully upgraded, this powerful Hammer provides S Tier scaling for Strength, giving you the most amount of damage possible.

I have over 1,000 Attack Power with 80 Strength, divided into Physical, Holy, Fire, and Wither damage. 3 additional status effects in addition to the weapon's already high physical attack power, making it the perfect hammer to use against every single enemy in the game. You will need at least 31 Strength to wield this weapon.

I also have three runes equipped on this hammer: 

• 2 Ruq runes, which increase posture damage. This is going to help break an enemy’s guard, and it’s also going to help interrupt their attacks when you hit them more often.
• 1 Pertiax rune, which increases my overall physical damage.

To get this weapon, you have to defeat the Iron Wayfarer boss, which is guarding the entrance to the Bramis Castle later on in the game.

Before you get the Iron Wayfarer’s Hammer, I recommend using the Sword of Skin and Tooth, which can be found pretty early in the game near the Lower Calrath Alehouse, aka the Vestige of Lydia the Numb Witch. 

This is a massive sword that scales incredibly well with Strength and also has 200 burn buildup on enemies. Just keep in mind, you will need at least 36 Strength to wield this weapon. 

The Proselyte Sword is also a decent option if you don’t want to use a heavy great sword. This sword can be dropped from the Proselyte enemies you encounter several times throughout your journey. It has decent scaling for Strength, 100 burn buildup, and it only requires 19 strength to wield.

Ranged Weapon

For my ranged weapon, I’m using the Trapper Crossbow.

This crossbow can be purchased from vendors relatively early and it’s the best crossbow for a Strength build since it offers A Tier scaling for Strength once fully upgraded.

On top of that, it also causes 200 burn buildup over time, which can be combined with Cinder Bolts to amplify the effect. I also have Radiant Bolts for enemies weak against Holy damage and Weighted Bolts, which deal almost 1,000 physical damage alone.

Lords of the Fallen has a lot of ranged enemies to the point of frustration they’re everywhere, which means you need a ranged option to eliminate them as soon as possible.

Throwables

If you’re not a fan of crossbows in Lords of the Fallen, you also have throwables as an option, which are equally effective. 

The most powerful throwable for a Strength build is the Enhanced Lump Hammer. It has B+ scaling for Strength and can be extremely effective against all enemies in the game.

I also recommend using the Accusing Spirit. This throwable is very powerful and extremely underrated. It basically debuffs your enemies, amplifying your damage against them while also nerfing the damage that they deal to you in the process. On top of that, this debuff will also transfer to nearby enemies upon death.

Lastly, I do have the Throwing Rock just to get Lords of the Fallen Items that are hanging from trees.

Apparel

Let’s take a quick second to break down my apparel for anyone that’s interested. I love the way this outfit turned out and I feel like it really fits the build overall.

For the head, I have the Udirangr Warwolf Hood. 

For the torso, I’m using the Tancred’s Armour.

For the gloves, I have the Pilgrim’s Bandages just to help me maintain a medium Encumbrance and the Drustan’s Leggings to finish it off.

Pendant & Rings

For the jewelry, I’m using the Warrior’s Claw pendant, the Melchior’s Ring, and the Mineowner’s Ring.

The Warrior’s Claw pendant is one of the best in slot pendants for a raw Strength build since it increases physical damage and physical defense. This pendant increases your damage and survivability simultaneously.

The Melchior’s Ring increases your physical damage even further.

The Mineowner’s Ring increases maximum stamina and stamina regeneration rate. The Mineowner’s Ring is probably the most important ring just because The Iron Wayfarer’s Hammer is heavy and takes a lot of Stamina to swing. You want that Stamina back as quick as possible, so you can dodge attacks or land a final killing blow.

Quick Access Items

For quick access items, you obviously want to have your health potions handy.

You also want to make sure you have Ammunition Pouches and Ammunition Satchels if you want to keep up with your crossbow. These are pretty cheap and can be purchased from Gerlinde at Skyrest. 

Unripe Berries are also good to have during boss battles, so you can execute more attacks and dodge when needed.

Inferno magic is one of the most powerful sources of damage in Lords of the Fallen. Each Inferno Spell can deal tons of damage with the right build, with some spells feeling incredibly broken.

If you’re looking for an all-out offensive spellcaster build based around brutal fire magic that can also destroy enemies with the best dual swords in the game, then this build is perfect for you.

In this guide, we are breaking down one of the best Inferno builds in Lords of the Fallen, going over the best stats, weapons, rings, spells, etc.

Best Starting Class

The best starting class for this build is the Pyric Cultist.

This class pretty much comes with every everything you need for the opening hours of the game. The Pyric Cultist Staff is a great starting weapon that skills actually very well with Inferno and also deals both physical and fire damage, which can be extremely useful against tough enemies.

This class also comes with one of the best and most well-rounded Infernal Spells in the game - Infernal Orb. This spell pretty much carried me through the entire first half of the game. It barely uses any mana. And the further you upgrade your Catalyst and increase your Inferno stat, the more damage the spell will deal.

Best Starting Weapon

The best starting weapon for this Inferno build is the Bloodlust short sword.

This is going to be your main weapon until you kill the Lightreaper boss to obtain the Lightreaper dual swords.

The Bloodlust sword is easily one of the best weapons in Lords of the Fallen. It scales equally with Agility and Inferno. It has 60 bleed and burn buildup on enemies, which is great considering you’re applying two status effects at once. It’s a short sword, which means it’s a light weapon with super fast attacks.

It can also be found very early in the game. This sword can be found in inside of the chest where you fight the Crimson Rector Percival mini boss in Fitzroy’s George.

To use the Bloodlust short sword, keep in mind you will need at least 13 agility and 13 Inferno to wield this weapon.

Best Early-Game Vigor Farm

Next, I want to show you the best early-game LotF Vigor farming spot in Lords of the Fallen.

This is going to give you a huge advantage since you can basically increase all of your primary stats very quickly over time.

This farm is located right next to the Vestige of Blind Agatha, also known as the Ballroom Vestige. This farm is incredibly easy to do, and it doesn’t require you to fight any enemies at all. So, as soon as you spawn at the vestige, run directly past the nail headed enemy and run towards the edge of the cliff.

Don’t worry. As soon as you run past him, he will immediately start sprinting towards you. And all you have to do is get him to fall off the cliff by dodging at the very last second. This does take some getting used to. But once you get the hang of it, you can average roughly 600 Lords of the Fallen Vigor every 20 seconds, which is 1,800 Vigor per minute, leading up to 108,000 Vigor per hour.

I still use this farm even after dozens of hours playing when I need to upgrade weapons or purchase rings from vendors.

Stats

The main stats to focus on for this build are Vitality and Inferno, which is going to be your main damage scaling stat.

strength is pretty useless for this build since your weapon scale with Inferno.

Agility should only be increased to meet weapon requirements and honestly, you only need to increase it to 13 since the Bloodlust sword and the Lightreaper swords only require 13 Agility.

Endurance is going to affect your Stamina and Equipment Load. But since this build has a light Encumbrance, you don’t need much Endurance at all. This is because you’ll be wearing light armor and the weapons themselves are pretty light as well. If you do want to carry heavier weapons and armor, I would increase this as much as you need.

Vitality affects your character’s HP and I would recommend increasing this to at least 30 during your playthrough.

You don’t really need to touch Radiance at all unless you plan on using specific Radiance spells, which you don’t really need.

Lastly, Inferno, which is the main stat on the build. This stat contributes to your weapon physical and fire attack power and it also increases the damage of your spells over time. Inferno is going to be your highest stat on the build.

Primary Weapon

For my primary weapon, I’m using the Lightreaper dual swords.

In my opinion, these are the coolest looking swords in the game and they also fit perfectly on this build.

To get these swords, you will need to defeat the Lightreaper boss. Now, you’ll run into this boss several times throughout your journey. But eventually, you will have to face him and defeat him to progress through the story.

To be honest, this boss fight wasn’t the easiest. The Lightreaper is incredibly fast, very agile, and he can also regenerate in combat, which means you constantly have to deal damage over time. Otherwise, he’s just going to heal up.

The best strategy I found for this boss was to play super aggressive, learn his move set, and only attack when his combos were over. Whenever the Lightreaper wasn’t in melee range, I basically nuked him with the infernal orb spell. The key is to always deal damage with this boss. You cannot afford to play slow.

Besides, the weapons dropped by this boss are well worth the headache. I have both Lightreaper swords fully upgraded +5. Both swords have a tier scaling for Agility and Inferno. These swords deal both physical and fire damage simultaneously, making it a perfect choice for any Inferno build.

Please note: these swords have a secret move set that you can unlock.

I have three runes equipped for each sword: 2 Berlam runes, which increase Inferno attribute scaling, giving you more damage overall, and 1 Pertiax rune, which increases your physical damage even further.

I have these same exact runes for each sword, giving me the most amount of damage possible.

Also Read: 3 Best Starting Classes In Lords Of The Fallen

Catalyst & Spells

For the Catalyst, I’m using the Searing Accusation fully upgraded + 10.

This is easily one of the best Inferno Catalysts in the game. It has ‘A’ tier scaling for Inferno, almost 600 Spellpower and 4 spell slots.

*The first spell I’m using is Magma Surge. This spell summons an explosive surge of magma from beneath the ground. The reason this spell is so powerful is that it can pretty much be casted anywhere and it will always hit your target as long as you can lock on to them.

You need at least 30 Inferno to use this spell, but it makes sense because it’s easily one of the strongest Inferno spells in the game. It offers so much burst damage. It can be casted repeatedly, and it doesn’t use much Mana at all.

*The second spell I’m using is Infernal Orb. If you remember, this is the very first spell you unlock when you start playing as the Pyric Cultist and I wasn’t lying when I said it’s one of the most well-rounded spells in the game.

There is a stronger version of this spell called Lava Burst. But it’s almost double the Mana, and it takes way too long to cast.

*The third spell I’m using on the build is Adyr’s Rage. A shout sorcery which allows you to summon the rage of Adyr within yourself, increasing all of your damage types, which means your swords and spells will deal more damage.

*The last spell on the build is Seismic Slam. This spell lets you summon an infernal hammer to strike the ground, sending forth a line of explosions.

I have to say this spell is up there with Magma Surge for being one of the most powerful Infernal Spells. It’s also incredibly easy to chain the spell into your melee attacks as well.

Rings

For the rings, I’m going to show you two different ring combinations. Obviously, the possibilities are endless. There’s so many different rings in this game. But these are my personal recommendations.

The first combination here is going to favor melee over spellcasting, so we have the Princess’ Sting pendant, which allows you to deal additional damage when you have a lighter equipment load. This works extremely well for this build because we do have a light Encumbrance.

The Mineowner’s Ring increases maximum Stamina. But most importantly, Stamina regeneration rate. This ring is a must-have for melee combat.

Lastly, the Ring of Knight’s Fire, which increases your overall fire damage. If you want to go the spellcaster route, I would recommend using:

• The Hysteria Pendant, which increases Spellpower;
• The Puissance Root, which increases the power of sorceries;
• The Anchorite’s Ring, which increases defense while casting sorceries.

Tancred, Master of Castigations is a major boss hidden away at the bottom of the Tower of Penance. 

Preparation

To get to him, you must start at the top and descend through the entire structure, making your way past crossbowmen, poison-spewing enemies and all sorts of other foes. Collect the Lords of the Fallen Vigor and loot dropped by enemies to prepare for subsequent upgrades.

Before you begin the fight, be sure to put down a Vestige Seed in the area outside of the boss arena. That way, if you die during this boss fight, you won’t have to descend through the tower again.

How To Beat Tancred?

Tancred’s most basic move is a two-hit strike with his weapon. He’ll charge up, step in with a horizontal swing, and then backhand for the second attack. If you dodge forward and to the right after the second attack, you’ll stick close and be in the perfect spot to get a few hits.

It usually takes him a moment to recover and to start a new move, so use this time to attack, buff yourself, heal, or do any action that requires not being interrupted.

He also has a two move shield attack. The first is a short step forward while the second is a full lunge. So, be mindful of both.

Also, keep an eye out if a shield ever starts to glow. That means an AOE wave is coming. So, dodge roll through it as it approaches to avoid taking damage.

Another attack he’ll use to close the distance is his rush. The delay between when he brings his hand back and swings forward is short, so be ready to dodge. 

If you are in a good position, you can commit to an attack while he’s sliding to a stop.

When he’s about to do his overhead attack, he’ll hold his weapon above his head and it will glow with golden light. There’s a moment of pause between when he brings the weapon back and before he strikes. That’s the best time to dodge.

He can ready himself quickly after this attack, so be cautious if you’re going to commit to anything more than a single light attack. 

One of his magic attacks is a barrage of homing spells. He’ll arc his weapon in front of him and then hold it straight up. It will shoot five homing spells one after another. While you can dodge roll out of the way of them, there’s a better strategy.

While he’s charging the attack, make sure you’re in a neutral state so you regain stamina. When the ball of light appears, run in a wide circle in one direction to avoid the spells and stay far enough away from him to avoid having to dodge a melee strike.

Another magic attack is a sustained beam of energy. If he’s readying this attack, you’ll see his weapon glow as he holds it behind him. Then, he’ll point it at you and fire the radio and beam.

Keep running or dodge rolling in the same direction until it fizzles out. It’s a war of attrition.

In addition to the cooldowns, he will almost always take several steps between each attack, allowing you to get hits in without fear of retaliation. This time can also be spent healing, casting buff spells, or using Lords of the Fallen Items, so capitalize on those moments.

Remember how to react to each attack and avoid getting greedy. Thanks to his times between attacks, heal overtime spells are incredibly useful against him.

How To Beat Reinhold The Immured?

Once you whittle his health to zero, prepare for phase 2: Reinhold the Immured.

This time, his body contorts. He runs on all fours and his movements become more beastial and erratic, giving him a whole new suite of attacks. He has a powerful jump. He can use to close distance and take a chunk out of your health. 

To avoid it, you’ll want to dodge as he starts to arc down toward you from the air. If you get behind him, he can stand on his back legs, teeter for a moment, then fall back to try and squish you. He’ll remain on his back for a few moments after the attack, leaving an opening to hit him with a combo or charged heavy attack.

If his head and neck start glowing red, he’s going to spit a fireball. Dodge roll or run to the left or right to avoid it. Be aware that it leaves behind a pool of lava, so avoid going back that way for a few seconds. 

It can be hard to see with his gyrating, but if you’re close, he’ll pull his left arm back to instigate a grab move. It deals a lot of damage, so be sure to not get greedy with hits and always watch out for it when in melee range.

He can also slam his head down, striking in front of him with the weapon sticking out of his skull. Circle strafing is enough to avoid this attack if you’re close. But dodge roll if you’re uncertain, you can avoid it. 

He has a melee slam attack that causes the ground in front of him to erupt with lava. Like with his other fire attack, the lava will stay on the ground for a few seconds. If you move behind him to avoid this move, he likes to follow it up with the standing slam attack.