V Rising 1.1 – Two PVE Builds for Easy Progression

The Invaders of Oakveil patch just came out for V Rising, and it added a whole lot of new enemies, more endgame content, base-related refinements, opportunities for friendly PVP in bases, a handful of weapons, spell changes, and so much more. It can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you are a completely new player. Here is a guide that might help you get started.

V Rising 1.1 – Two PVE Builds for Easy Progression

Before you get started, just know that this is mainly just a bunch of recommendations of what you can use at the start of the game up until you move up towards mid to late game content. These are just loadouts, and not necessarily a progression guide.

If you are looking for a guide for progressing through the game itself, you will not find that advice here. Instead, check out our guide on how to progress through V Rising’s 1.1 update as a solo player or duo group for help in that regard.

That guide should give you a general list of guidelines from early game all the way to when you start getting a whiff of the new Oakveil content.

Now, let us get to the “builds”, which are really just ability setups and a few gear recommendations that might help you breeze through early game content if you learn how to maximize their effectiveness.

Build 1 – Ward of the Damned Focus

For the first setup, you want to have ward of the damned alongside your preferred secondary skill and veil. The main idea here is that ward of the damned not only provides you a bit of protection, but it is also a very potent summoning ability.

Regardless of whether or not you want to focus on magic or physical damage, this spell is almost like a swiss army knife with how useful it is. It lets you apply condemn, which amplifies damage dealt to the target. It can also be used to absorb most attacks in front of it.

The main appeal of this barrier is that it has a chance of summoning skeletons whenever it blocks an attack. Although it has been nerfed from the old days, when it could make an entire army in a second, it is still insanely good for PVE content.

Get this spell as early as possible and you will have a much easier time with PVE, as long as you can time and aim your blocks properly. Of course, this is not going to help your damage output too much, which is why you pair it with more offensive spells.

Power surge or chaos volley can help with this, depending on your build. The former will help you a lot if your focus is on physical damage as it lets you inflict ignite that way while also buffing your speed. The latter, on the other hand, allows you to inflict ignite while dealing burst damage at the same time.

As for your veil, blood is completely serviceable for early game progression as it is a fairly reliable self heal that you can use as soon as you make your character. Storm is a great upgrade for people with more offensive playstyles, while veil of frost can help bail you out if survivability is an issue for you.

Build 2 – Ranged Magic Focus

For this one, your focus is going to be either corrupted skull or chaos volley. Starting off with the latter, it is going to be similar to the previous recommendation of using chaos volley with ward of the damned.

The main difference is that you are going to be using a ranged weapon for it, and your goal is to keep reapplying ignite and keeping your distance while spamming away from afar. As a more offensive setup, you could opt for a second spell that isn’t a ward.

For example, a frost bat can compensate for the lack of shields by just making it harder for enemies to actually reach you. Since you can get a frost spell point from Keely the Frost Archer, this is a decent early game option that you should be able to unlock within your first hour.

Cold snap can be a decent secondary too, if you are going for the frost setup. It helps boost your survivability while also giving you an option for area of effect damage, albeit just a little bit.

On the flip side, corrupted skull as your primary damaging spell can be a really powerful option as it inflicts condemn to further amplify your normal attacks. On top of that, it also summons skeletons, which is always great for early game content.

Since it comes with two max charges, this means you can dump them in every fight and immediately get yourself some meat shields that also do an okay amount of damage. This will give you so much elbow room during tough encounters.

As for your choice of veil, stick with the same recommendations as earlier. Storm or blood can be great, but you should probably ignore the frost option since you are likely already going to run one as your secondary spell.

Some Gear Recommendations

As far as gear goes, you just progress through the tiers normally. Grim ranger or warlock gear will be nice early on depending on your preferred damage type. This early in the game, though, you do not need to sweat it too much, so just work with what you can get.

As you move up to iron armor, which is after you are done with your hollowfang armor set, focus on either blood hunter or dark magus sets depending on your damage type. If you are looking for pure mobility, mixing either of them with two duskwatcher pieces will help.

This is because duskwatcher’s set bonus at two pieces gives you a small movement speed boost. If you do not mind running just a little slower than before, then just go for a full set of damage buffs as mentioned above.

In terms of jewelry, try your best to rush your very first scourgestone pendant. This will open up various other options that have varying modifiers aside from spell power. This boils down to personal preference, since there are so many to choose from.

Pendant of the Dawnrunner is great for any playstyle, as it gives you a small chance to inflict condemn with any primary hit. It also provides you with a small movement speed buff, which is always nice to have.

For physical builds, Pendant of the Duskwatcher or Pendant of the Warrior are decent options too as they both increase your damage output in varying ways. Pendant of the Sorcerer may be good for mages, though if you already spam ignite effects, this might feel a bit redundant.

And those are the suggestions that most people tend to recommend for fast early game progression. As you approach the later stages of your ingame career, you should already be more knowledgeable of the game’s mechanics and have figured out your own personal build.

These will merely help you get a more structured build path through the first few regions of the game. Once you unlock more spells and points, many other options open up to you, and you will have already developed a distinct playstyle that you can easily deviate from these recommendations.

If you are just returning and stumbled into a community that does friendly PVP using the update’s fresh features, check out our guide on how to use throwing daggers and claws in V Rising 1.1 PVP for a bit of advice on the shiny new weapons that were introduced to the game.