V Rising: All Passives Guide & Explained (Update 1.0)

As someone who has played V Rising on and off for the past couple of years, I freed up space in my schedule just to check out the full release version of the game that came out a couple of days ago. There are many new and revamped features to explore, and in this guide, we will be talking about the new passive system and how it works.

All Passives Guide & Explained (Update 1.0)

Passives are a new feature added in the launch version of the game, and it adds an extra layer of customizability to each player’s build. This type of self-expression was not too common in earlier versions of the game, and it’s a lot to unpack.

In this case, these new passive abilities all stack on top of each other as long as they have been unlocked. Getting them will take a lot of time, however, so you might want to prioritize certain ones first.

Passive abilities are unlocked at an Altar of Stygian Awakening, which will require you to beat General Elena the Hollow. This is one of the bosses that was added alongside the new Ruins of Mortium zone.

Each ability requires Stygian Shards to unlock, and these are earned through rift incursion events that occur in the new zone. Take your time to learn this new feature, as you will be grinding a lot of these.

List of Passive Abilities

There are currently a total of 18 passive abilities in the game, separated by three different tiers and each belonging to a distinct spell school.

Some of these seem to be more useful in PVP than in PVE. As I really only play on PVE servers (I don’t have time to deal with base raids), just take note that any opinions I inject here are going to be coming from a non-PVP player’s perspective.

Tier 1 passives require 400 normal Stygian Shards to unlock, while the higher ones will need you to gather varying amounts of Greater Stygian Shards. Here are all of the current passives, listed by tier:

Tier 1 Passive Abilities (400 Stygian Shards Each)

• Blood Spray – Your critical strikes will leech 5% health. Enemies that are affected by Leech have a chance to drop a Blood Orb upon dying.
• Chaos Kindling – Ignite will deal 20% bonus damage and adds a 50% chance to ignite enemies when you hit them with Chaos Explosion.
• Arcane Animator – Adds a 15% chance to summon a Skeleton Mage whenever an enemy that has been Condemned dies. Your minions also deal 10% bonus damage. (As a Corrupted Skull and Ward of the Damned enjoyer, this is my personal favorite of the lesser passives)
• Spiritual Infusion – Increases your spell damage against Weakened targets by 10%. Also increases the duration of Weaken by a second.
• Chillweave – Your shields will absorb 10% more damage. It also slightly boosts your damage against Chilled or Frozen enemies.
• Lightning Fast Strikes – Increases primary attack speed and causes Static to deal 20% more damage. This is a solid pick overall, and I would recommend prioritizing this first regardless of your build.

Tier 2 Passive Abilities (600 Greater Stygian Shards Each)

• Hunger for Blood – This increases your damage against V Blood Units by 10%. I highly recommend getting this immediately, because it will drastically speed up your boss fights.
• Turbulent Velocity – Gives you 6% bonus movement speed for a few seconds upon dealing damage to an enemy. This should be your second choice after the previous one, especially if you are a ranged user.
• Soul Drinker – Reduces your feed cooldown by a few seconds and adds a 20% chance to summon a skeleton warrior upon biting. Feel free to correct me in the comments but I don’t really see much value in it, and that’s coming from a guy who uses a summoner build.
• Skinwalker – Grants increased movement speed while shapeshifted. Solid choice if you don’t have an undead horse yet or are going to be traveling to places where mounts will be impractical (wolf form is always solid).
• Lingering Frost – Adds a 30% chance to apply Chill after Freeze is removed.
• Elemental Resistances –Increases all of your resistances by 10. Decent to have, but not necessarily an immediate necessity.

Tier 3 Passive Abilities (1,000 Greater Stygian Shards Each)

• Sanguine Mastery – Increases the effects of your current blood type by around 8%. This is a definitive must-have, especially if you already have a bunch of 100% blood units imprisoned at your castle.
• Embrace Mayhem – Significantly speeds up your ultimate cooldown rates.
• Dark Enchantment – Gives you a 20% damage resistance buff whenever you are below 15% health. No need to prioritize this over the others in this tier, because you don’t want to get hit anyway.
• Flowing Sorcery – Boosts your spell cooldown rates and adds a 25% chance to not consume Phantasm.
• Cold Soul – Killing a Frozen enemy or inflicting Freeze on an immune target will also inflict Chill and trigger an ice nova for additional damage. Needless to say, this is great for cold builds.
• Enhanced Conductivity – Adds a 50% chance to give Chain Lightning an extra bounce. Good for stormbuilds, particularly against junk mobs, not so much for anything else.

And those are pretty much all of the passive abilities that are currently in the game. If you ask me, your priority list will just depend on the type of content you engage with and what build you’re running.

As you reach the later stages of the game, you’ll be unlocking all of these anyway, especially if you have clan members helping you out as you progress. And that is everything you need to know about the new passive system in the game, as well as a few personal recommendations for what to get first. While you’re here, consider checking out our incursion events guide for V Rising as well, since you’ll need to do them for these passives anyway.