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V Rising can be a surprisingly difficult game when starting out. Enemies are relentless, hit hard, and can even disable a portion of your health bar if you take enough damage. Surviving in Vardaron is going to require a good castle, constant research and crafting, and a good understanding of this game's health and combat systems.
In this guide, we'll be providing some tips and tricks to help you survive V Rising's tougher combat encounters in the early game. We'll cover how the health system works, how to restore your HP, and we'll give some general tips that will make tough skirmishes a little easier.
How The Health Bar Works
V Rising doesn't spend much time explaining its health system, yet it's different enough from most games that it warrants its own small section. Whenever you enter combat and begin to take damage, you'll lose a portion of your health. Lose a large chunk of your HP (about 25%), and part of your health bar will be grayed out for the remainder of combat. Grayed-out HP cannot be healed until combat ends, even if you use Blood Mend.
Recovering any lost HP that isn't grayed out can be done through the use of some abilities and consumable items, notably salves and potions. Once you are no longer in combat, you'll need to use the Blood Mend vampire ability to recover any grayed-out HP, consuming your blood gauge for each second it's in use.
Your blood gauge is not your health bar; it's a second resource that determines your character's passive buffs. This gauge decays slowly with time, doing so more rapidly if you activate Blood Mend or Human Form. When your blood gauge is empty, you'll lose a small amount of HP per second until your health reaches one point. You recover your blood gauge by feeding on humans. The type of blood the human has will determine the passive benefits the blood gives you. Consuming the same blood type multiple times does not stack their percentage quality cumulatively; it overrides your blood quality instead.
Use Blood Mend
By holding Left Control, you can bring up a small selection of vampire abilities that are separate from your hotbar abilities. One of these abilities is called Blood Mend, and it serves as your main source of healing post-combat. Using this ability locks you into place, consuming a chunk of your blood gauge each second to restore your health bar and any grayed-out chunks. Use this ability whenever combat ends to top off your HP.
Feed To Execute Enemies
Your feed ability is an important tool for keeping your blood gauge filled and empowering your vampire. Most use it at the very end of combat to harvest the blood of a powerful enemy, but it can also be used mid-fight as a finisher.
Getting an enemy to low health will allow you to feed on them. When you start to feed on a target, you can cancel the blood harvest at any time by pressing Left-Click. Doing so will end the animation and instantly kill the target without altering your blood gauge, putting feed on a short cooldown. If a particular target is at low HP and still giving you trouble, use feed and immediately end the animation. You can't do this on V Blood enemies, but it can come in handy during hectic skirmishes.
Have Healing Consumables Handy
Blood Mend is risky to use mid-fight, so you'll want to have another form of healing at the ready. There are two notable healing items you can use during the early game: Vermin Salves and [Blood Bag Potions]. Vermin Salves are incredibly easy to make and can be crafted directly from your inventory. Blood Bags can be made once you have an Alchemy Station in your castle. Be sure to have a few of these on you at all times to heal during combat.
Swap Between Your Weapons
Weapons in V Rising each come with unique attack combos and abilities. The higher the rarity of the item you're using, the more abilities it'll have unlocked. Copper unlocks one ability, while Iron and above unlock both weapon abilities. Even the harvesting weapons—Axes and Maces—come with unique attack animations and abilities.
That is why swapping your weapons mid-combat can be quite useful. The Spear's "Q" ability deals immense damage against single targets, yet the Mace's "Q" ability is a powerful AoE slam that doubles as a movement skill. Weapons share cooldowns amongst each other if you swap, but don't let this dissuade you from swapping weapons during a fight. Switching which weapon abilities you have available will give you far more options in combat than someone maining one weapon type.
Upgrade Your Weapons
As mentioned briefly earlier, you'll want to upgrade your weapons as soon as possible. Weapons of a higher quality not only deal more damage, but your weapons will also gain access to new abilities. Upgrading from Bone to Copper will unlock one weapon ability. Copper to Iron unlocks a second weapon ability. Upgrade your weapons as soon as possible to unlock your full suite of abilities.
Experiment With Abilities
Completing V Blood hunts from your Blood Altar is your main source of crafting blueprints and vampire abilities. Be sure to check your ability page (Default "J") to see which abilities you've unlocked and haven't used. Each element features five main skills, a movement skill, and two ultimate abilities. Experiment and see what fits your playstyle the best. You can then focus on gear attributes, your blood type, and weapons to flesh out that core playstyle.
Never Fight During The Day
At the end of the day, you're a vampire. And all vampires in V Rising are deathly allergic to the sun. Should you catch a glimpse of the sun for more than a few seconds, you'll burst into flames and take immense damage. You can stay in the shadows or near a Mist Brazier to avoid taking lethal doses of vitamin D, or you can just choose not to fight during the day.
We recommend the latter, mainly because the sun's shadows will shift as the day progresses. What was once a shaded area in a boss arena can quickly vanish in less than a minute. Start your hunts and any other outside activities when the night is young. We recommend spending the day on castle upgrades, research, and crafting.