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How Abilities Work In V Rising
How To Unlock Abilities
What Are Passive Abilities?
All Weapon Abilities
All Vampire Abilities
All Blood Abilities
All Unholy Abilities
All Illusion Abilities
All Chaos Abilities
All Frost Abilities
All Storm Abilities
V Rising features a myriad of vampire abilities for players to use. From shapeshifting to summoning unholy minions, there's a skill for just about every style of play. There are skills for your vampire, weapons, and abilities tied to specific disciplines of magic.
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Finding the right combination of weapon and character abilities can be daunting, especially when you don't know what each skill does. This guide will go over how abilities work in V Rising, how to unlock them, and cover every ability in the game—including every vampire skill, the game's plethora of spells, and every weapon ability you can use.
Updated May 25, 2024 by Jacqueline Zalace: Since launching in early access in 2022, V Rising has gone through a lot of changes! We've updated this guide with all the correct information regarding spell abilities, allowing you to easily learn about skills that you have yet to unlock.
How Abilities Work In V Rising
V Rising features three sources of abilities: vampire powers, weapon abilities, and character abilities. Vampire powers are available to all builds and grant utility benefits such as health regeneration outside of combat or the ability to morph into certain forms.
Weapon abilities are tied to certain weapon archetypes and cannot be changed. The quality of the item determines how many weapon abilities you have available. The better the item, the more skills you'll have.
Finally, your character can also run four abilities from various disciplines: Blood, Unholy, Illusion, Chaos, and Frost. Each of these disciplines has the following ability types.
Ability | Description |
|---|---|
Basic Ability | Damage or utility skills. You can have two of these allocated at once. |
Travel Ability | A dash that grants a secondary effect. Only one travel skill may be bound at a time. |
Ultimate Ability | Your strongest ability with a lengthy cooldown. You may only have one ultimate allocated at a time. |
How To Unlock Abilities
Harvesting V Blood from bosses is your main source of new abilities. For example, after defeating Keely the Frost Archer, you will receive a tier one Frost Spell Point. This can be used to unlock a basic frost ability.
Weapon abilities are unlocked differently. Instead of hunting down targets, you must use a weapon of a certain quality to unlock its other abilities. All weapons can use their Left Click attack by default. A second ability unlocks when you use Copper weapons, and the third ability unlocks if you're using a weapon made of Iron or higher quality.
Each weapon archetype has a unique ability set, although you cannot change the skills provided by the weapon itself. If you want to swap your weapon abilities, you'll need to switch weapons.
What Are Passive Abilities?
Passive abilities can be unlocked at the Altar of Stygian Awakening. This is an altar that allows you to spend Stygian Shards in order to unlock unique passives for each type of spell. For the available passives, you will need between 400 to 1,000 shards, depending on the tier of the passive.
To make the Altar of Stygian Awakening, you will need the following materials.
- 1x Regular Ruby
- 12x Iron Ingot
- 4x Greater Blood Essence
All Weapon Abilities
Swords
Primary Attack | Perform a combo of melee attacks. |
Whirlwind | Spin around and attack nearby enemies. |
Shockwave | Send out a shockwave in a line, launching the enemy hit into the air. Recasting will teleport you to the target. |
Axes
Primary Attack | Perform a combo of melee attacks. |
Frenzy | Dash forward and slash both axes forward. On a successful hit, you will enter a frenzy that increases movement and attack speed. |
X-Strike | Throw out two axes in an X shape, dealing damage and slowing enemies. Those within the center of the X will be incapacitated for one second. |
Greatswords
Primary Attack | Perform a combo of melee attacks. |
Great Cleaver | Charge forward and swing the sword, launching enemies into the air. |
Death from Above | Leap into the air and land on the enemy, dealing damage. |
Whips
Primary Attack | Perform a combo of melee attacks. |
Aerial Whip Twirl | Leap to the cursor and swing your whip around, which knocks back enemies. |
Entangling Whip | Attack in a line dealing damage and entangling enemies. |
Maces
Primary Attack | Perform a combo of melee attacks. |
Crushing Blow | Vault towards the cursor and slam your mace into the ground. |
Smack | Smack enemies in front of you, which incapacitates them. |
Spears
Primary Attack | Perform a combo of melee attacks. |
A Thousand Spears | Perform a multi-stab attack that can damage 8 enemies. Recasting will perform a thrust attack. |
Harpoon | Throw your spear, which deals damage and pulls enemies towards you. |
Reapers
Primary Attack | Perform a combo of melee attacks. |
Tendon Swing | Swing your reaper, dealing damage to nearby enemies, knocking them back, and inflicting a 2s fading snare. |
Howling Reaper | Throw a howling reaper that spins and deals damage. |
Slashers
Primary Attack | Perform a combo of melee attacks. |
Elusive Strike | Dash forward and slash enemies, causing them to slow. |
Camouflage | Gain camouflage and increase movement speed. The next attack will deal extra damage and incapacitate the enemy. The camouflage will break after using any skill. |
Crossbows
Primary Attack | Fire a projectile. |
Rain Of Bolts | Fire 5 bolts into the air that rain down on enemies. |
Snapshot | Fires a quick bolt that deals damage, interrupts casts, and a fading snare. |
Longbows
Primary Attack | Fire a projectile, which grants Focus. These shots can be charged to deal more damage. |
Multishot | Fire 5 arrows in a cone shape, which consumes Focus to launch additional arrows. |
Guided Arrow | Fire an arrow that deals damage and inflicts a fading snare. The arrow will turn and hit the enemy again; the amount of times hit depends on total Focus. |
Pistols
Primary Attack | Fire a projectile. |
Fan the Hammer | Fire 10 bullets in a cone shape. |
Explosive Bullet | Do a dodge roll and fire (after rolling). The bullet will explode and knock back enemies. |
All Vampire Abilities
Vampire abilities are powers that aren't directly used in combat, but they can come in handy. These are gained by defeating bosses and completing the story.
For example, you will gain Bear Form after defeating Kodia the Ferocious Bear. Dominate Mount, on the other hand, is acquired by completing main story quests.
Bat Form | Turn into a bat and fly high into the air, allowing you to cross impassable terrain. Cannot be used while carrying resources, while indoors, and requires a valid landing location when exiting the form. Beware of the sun! |
Bear Form | Turn into a powerful creature able to destroy massive resources. Increases your resistance, movement speed, and reduces damage taken. You regenerate health slightly quicker while in this form. |
Human Form | Turn into a human, allowing you to sneak around unnoticed in human settlements. Be careful though: the strong-willed can see through your disguise. While in human form you can interact with traders. Human form greatly increases blood consumption rate. |
Rat Form | Turn into a small rat and blend into the environment, making it harder for enemies to detect you. Taking damage breaks the effect. |
Toad Form | Turn into a toad, able to jump into the air. Taking damage breaks the effect. |
Wolf Form | Turn into a swift creature, increasing your movement speed. Taking damage breaks the effect. |
Spider Form | Turn into a spider, allowing you to burrow into the ground and avoid sun damage (and avoid enemies). Taking damage breaks the effect. |
Blood Hunger | Allows you to instantly recognize the blood type and blood quality of nearby enemies. |
Blood Mend | Consume 0.1 liters of blood per second to recover 5% of your maximum health. |
Expose Vein | Lower your guard and allow other vampires to drink your blood. Splits your blood pool in half as you share your blood and blood type with another vampire. |
Dominate Human | Charm a human, causing them to follow you back to the castle in order to become a servant or prisoner. While dominating humans, you can't use vampiric abilities. |
Dominate Mount | Convert a house into a Vampiric Steed. This allows you to summon the horse to you regardless of the distance. |
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All Blood Abilities
The first type of magic you will use deals with Blood. These skills typically have Leech, which provides you with a bit of healing.
Basic Skills | |
|---|---|
Blood Rage | Heal nearby allies for 40% of your spell power, increase attack speed by 25% and movement speed by 15% for 4s. Inflicts Leech on nearby enemies. |
Blood Rite | Block melee and projectile attacks for 1.5s. Blocking an attack heals you for 30% of your spell power and triggers a wave of energy that pushes enemies away, dealing 100% magic damage. Turn non-material for 1.2s when this effect triggers. |
Sanguine Coil | Launch a projectile that deals 75% magic damage and leeches 40% health on enemy hit. Heals ally for 100% and self for 40% of your spell power on ally hit. |
Shadowbolt | Launch a show projectile that deals 170% magic damage and inflicts Leech. |
Blood Fountain | Summon a pillar of blood healing allies for 50% of your spell power. The pillar erupts after 1.2s inflicting Leech and dealing 75% magic damage to enemies while healing allies for 75% of your spell power. |
Travel Skill | |
Veil Of Blood | Dash towards input direction and elude nearby enemies for 2.2s. Your next primary attack heals you 5% of your maximum health and triggers a nova of blood dealing 20% magic damage, drains 20% health and inflicts Leech. |
Ultimate Skills | |
Crimson Beam | Channel a beam of energy that deals 250% magic damage and inflict Leech to enemies hit while healing allies for 200% of your spell power per second for up to 3s. Each target hit heals self for 75% of your spell power. |
Heart Strike | Dash forward and strike enemies in a line. Deals 150% magic damage and heal yourself for 150% of your spell power over 3.5s. A nova of blood erupts when the effect ends dealing 150% magic damage and inflicting Leech to the victim and nearby enemies. |
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Passive Skills
Passive Skill | Description |
|---|---|
Blood Spray | Critical strikes leech 5% health and there is a 25% chance to spawn a Blood Orb when killing a target affected by Leech. |
Hunger for Blood | Increase damage against V Blood carriers by 10%. |
Sanguine Mastery | Boost the effect of your current blood type by 8%. |
All Unholy Abilities
Next, we have Unholy Magic. Many of these abilities can summon skeletons or powerful entities to fight alongside you.
Additionally, Unholy spells can cause the Condemn effect, which essentially increases the damage dealt to enemies.
Basic Skills | |
|---|---|
Bone Explosion | Raise a bone pile from below that explodes at the target location dealing 140% magic damage in a area and inflicts Condemn. |
Corrupted Skull | Launch a projectile that deals 80% magic damage, summons a skeleton warrior and inflicts Condemn. The attack deals 40% bonus damage to enemies below 30% health. |
Ward Of The Damned | Block melee and projectile attacks in front of you for 2s. Absorbing an attack summons a skeleton, each consecutive attack absorbed has a 50% chance to summon an additional skeleton up to a maximum of 5. Enemy melee attackers are knocked back. Recast during the effect to launch a wave of energy dealing 25% magical damage and inflicting Condemn. |
Death Knight | Summon a Death Knight at target location that attacks nearby enemies. Each swing deals 50% magic damage in an area and inflicts Condemn. The Death Knight lasts for 6s. |
Soulburn | Drain a life from up 3 nearby enemies dealing 70% magic damage, inflicting Condemn and leeching 50% health. Cancels any attack the enemy performs, silencing them for 1.5s |
Travel Skill | |
Veil Of Bones | Dash towards input direction and elude nearby enemies for 2.2s. Your next primary attack heals you 5% of your maximum health, inflicts Condemn and summons a skeleton warrior. |
Ultimate Skills | |
Army of the Dead | Inflict Condemn on nearby enemies and summon an army of 5 skeleton warriors and 3 skeleton mages around you. Skeletons last for up to 8s. |
Volatile Arachnid | Summon a giant spider that chases down your enemy and explodes when nearby dealing 250% magic damage, inflicting Condemn and spawning 3 spiderlings. Each spiderling explodes dealing 125% magic damage and inflicting Condemn. |
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Passive Skills
Passive Skill | Description |
|---|---|
Soul Drinker | Reduces the cooldown of Feed by 2s and there is a 20% chance to summon a Skeleton Warrior when triggering bite. |
Arcane Animator | 15% chance to summon a Skeleton Mage when a Condemned target perishes and minions deal 10% bonus damage. |
Dark Enchantment | Reduces damage taken by 20% when below 15% health. |
All Illusion Abilities
Illusion Magic involves confusing and tricking your enemies on the battlefield, giving you the upper hand. These spells can Weaken enemies, which makes them deal less damage. Additionally, several of these skills deal with Phantasm.
When weakened targets die, you have a chance to gain Phantasm, which helps reduce cooldown on spells.
Basic Skills | |
|---|---|
Mist Trance | Block melee and projectile attacks for up to 1.5s. Turn immaterial and teleport to cursor location when an attack is blocked. Inflicts Weaken on nearby enemies when reappearing and grants Phantasm for each enemy hit. |
Spectral Wolf | Send out a Spectral wolf that bounces to a nearby enemy after each hit, up to 2 additional hits. Deals 125% magic damage on the first hit, subsequent hits deal 85% damage of the previous hit. Each hit inflicts Weaken and grants a stack of Phantasm. |
Phantom Aegis | Apply a shield to target ally or self that shields the target for 200% of your spell power, inflicts Weaken on nearby enemies and grants Phantasm for each enemy hit. The shield lasts up to 2s. |
Wraith Spear | Dash towards input direction and launch a piercing projectile dealing 160% magic damage and inflicting Weaken. Each subsequent hit deals 75% magic damage of the previous hit and grants Phantasm. |
Mosquito | Summon a spectral mosquito at target location that attracts nearby enemies and explodes after 1.7s dealing 100% magic damage in an area, inflicting Weaken and fearing enemies for up to 1.5s. Grants Phantasm for each enemy hit. |
Travel Skill | |
Veil Of Illusion | Dash towards input direction and elude nearby enemies for 2.2s. Your next primary attack heals you 5% of your maximum health and inflicts Weaken. Spawns an illusion that launches projectiles inflicting Weaken and granting Phantasm. Recast to return to your start position and spawn a new illusion at your current location. |
Ultimate Skills | |
Wisp Dance | Summon three wisps that circle around you, dealing 60% magic damage, leeching 30% health and inflicting Weaken to enemies and granting Phantasm. Recast to launch all three wisps as piercing projectiles dealing 100% magic damage, inflicting Weaken and granting Phantasm. |
Spectral Guardian | Summon a Spectral Guardian that shields allies in an area for 125% of your spell power and inflicts Weaken on nearby enemies. The guardian attacks enemies with a mighty swing dealing 100% magic damage. The shield is reapplied every 1.5s and the guardian lasts for 7s. |
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Passive Skills
Passive Skill | Description |
|---|---|
Spiritual Infusion | Deal 10% increased spell damage to Weakened enemies and increase the duration of Weaken by 1s. |
Skinwalker | Increases movement speed while shapeshifting by 8%. |
Flowing Sorcery | Increases spell cooldown recovery rate by 5% and there is a 25% chance to not consume Phantasm when triggering a cooldown reset. |
All Chaos Abilities
Chaos Magic is all about causing, well... chaos. These skills ignite enemies, which deals magic damage. When ignited enemies die, they will then explode and deal even more damage.
Basic Skills | |
|---|---|
Aftershock | Smash the ground, causing a shockwave that erupts, dealing 125% magic damage in a line and inflicting Ignite. |
Chaos Barrier | Block melee and projectile attacks in front of you for 2s. Blocking an attack charges the barrier up to 5 times. Unleash a chaos bolt dealing 50% magic damage and inflicting Ignite when the effect ends. The projectile deals 40% additional damage per charge. Recast during the effect to launch the chaos projectile. |
Chaos Volley | Launch 2 Chaos Bolts in a sequence that deals 110% magic damage and inflicts Ignite. |
Power Surge | Boosts a target ally or self. Increases movement speed by 20%, attack speed by 20% and physical attacks inflict Ignite for 3.5s. |
Void | Summon an orb that explodes at the target location, dealing 90% magic damage, inflicting Ignite and pulls enemies towards the center. |
Travel Skill | |
Veil Of Chaos | Dash towards input direction and elude nearby enemies for 2.2s. Your next primary attack heals you 5% of your maximum health and inflicts Ignite. Your illusion explodes, dealing 50% magic damage to nearby enemies and inflicting Ignite. Can be recast to dash once more, triggering recast increases the cooldown by 1s. |
Ultimate Skills | |
Chaos Barrage | Launch 4 Chaos Orbs that deal 200% magic damage on direct hit, 100% magic damage to enemies in an area and inflicts Ignite. |
Merciless Charge | Charge forward and grab an enemy dealing 125% magic damage, and push them in front of you. Deals 125% magic area damage, inflicts Ignite and inflicts a Stun lasting 1.5s when reaching maximum range or when colliding with another enemy or object. |
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Passive Skills
Passive Skill | Description |
|---|---|
Turbulent Velocity | Gain 6% increased movement speed for 8s when dealing damage to an enemy. |
Chaos Kindling | Ignite deals 20% increased damage and there is a 50% chance that Chaos Explosion ignites enemies hit. |
Embrace Mayhem | Increases ultimate cooldown recovery rate by 15%. |
All Frost Abilities
As the name suggests, Frost Magic will chill and freeze your enemies. Chilling causes them to move slower, while freezing causes them to be completely unable to move or attack you.
Basic Skills | |
|---|---|
Crystal Lance | Launch a projectile dealing 160% magic damage and inflicting Freeze lasting 4s. |
Frost Barrier | Block melee attacks and projectiles in front of you for 2s. Conjures up to 8 frost spikes dealing 60% magic damage and inflicting Chill when the barrier is struck. Recast during the effect to conjure a cone of cold dealing 25% magical damage and inflicting Chill. |
Frost Bat | Launch a projectile that deals 100% magic damage. The projectile explodes upon impact, inflicting Chill on nearby enemies. Hitting a Chilled enemy Freezes it for 4s. |
Ice Nova | Summon a nova of ice at the target location dealing 140% magic damage. The nova radiates outward inflicting Chill. Hitting a Chilled enemy Freezes it for 4s. |
Cold Snap | Block melee and projectile attacks for 1.5s. Blocking an attack triggers an ice nova that deals 50% magic damage and inflicts a 3s Freeze. Gain a shield absorbing up to 100% of your spell power for 6s when this effect triggers. |
Travel Skill | |
Veil Of Frost | Dash towards input direction and elude nearby enemies for 2.2s. Your next primary attack heals you 5% of your maximum health, shields you for 100% of your spell power and inflicts Chill. |
Ultimate Skills | |
Arctic Leap | Leap into the air and strike down at target location, dealing 200% magic damage. A nova of frost erupts from the impact location, Freezing any enemy hit for up to 6s. Enemy vampires are Frozen for 2s. |
Ice Block | Turn target ally or self into solid ice for up to 5s and summon a frost vortex. The ice block shields target for 450% of your spell power, grants immunity to crowd control effects and heals up to 10% of target maximum health. The vortex initially deals 100% magic damage and inflicts Chill. The vortex deals 240% additional damage over the duration of the effect. |
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Passive Skills
Passive Skill | Description |
|---|---|
Lingering Frost | 30% chance to apply Chill when Freeze is removed. |
Chillweave | Shields applied on you absorb 10% additional damage and you gain 5% increased damage to Chilled and Frozen targets. |
Cold Soul | Killing a Frozen target or inflicting Freeze on an immune target triggers an ice nova dealing 25% damage and inflicting Chill. |
All Storm Abilities
Lastly, we have Storm Magic. Spells of this type can cause the Static effect, which electrifies enemies to cause even more damage. Storm magic can also trigger chain lighting effects that travel between enemies.
Basic Skills | |
|---|---|
Discharge | Block melee and projectile attacks for up to 1.5s. Blocking an attack pulls the target towards you and grants one Storm Shield. Enemies triggering Discharge in close vicinity are stunned for 0.8s. Storm Shields circle around you, dealing 20% magic damage and inflicting Static. Effect stacks up to 3 times. |
Ball Lightning | Launch a Ball Lightning that lingers in place, periodically shocking a nearby enemy inflicting Static. Deals up to 180% magic damage per target over 3s. Ball Lightning's total damage cannot exceed 450% magic damage. Explodes after the duration dealing 50% magic damage in the area. |
Cyclone | Conjure a cyclone that pierces enemies dealing 90% magic damage and inflicting Static. The cyclone returns once it reaches max distance, circling back towards you and lingering for up to 8s hitting any enemy it passes through. |
Polarity Shift | Launch a projectile that deals 90% magic damage and inflicts Static. You and the other target swap locations on impact. If the target is immune to the effect you instead teleport to the location of the target. |
Lightning Curtain | Summon a curtain of lightning that blocks projectiles for up to 2.5s. Inflicts Static and periodically deals 25% magic damage to enemies that pass through the effect. Applies a fading haste increasing movement speed by 30% for 3s to allies that passes through. |
Travel Skill | |
Veil Of Storm | Dash towards input direction and elude nearby enemies for 2.2s. Gain 20% increased attack speed for 4s. Your next primary attack heals you 5% of your maximum health and inflicts Static. |
Ultimate Skills | |
Raging Tempest | Dash forward and bounce between nearby enemies striking them for a total of 525% magic damage split across targets within the area over 3s. Additionally strikes all enemies in the area up to 4 times dealing 40% magic damage and inflicting Static. Afterward, dash towards your aim direction. Attack to end this effect early. |
Lightning Typhoon | Spin around gaining a 100% fading haste and shock nearby enemies dealing 800% spell damage and inflicting Static over 3.5s. Occasionally release sparks of lightning dealing 40% spell damage and inflicting Static. |
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Passive Skills
Passive Skill | Description |
|---|---|
Elemental Resistances | Increase all resistances by 10. |
Lightning Fast Strikes | Increases primary attack speed by 5% and Static triggers deals 20% increased damage. |
Enhanced Conductivity | 50% chance that Chain Lightning bounces one additional time. |
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V Rising: Boss Location Guide
There are a lot of bosses in V Rising; here, you can learn where to find every single one.
