V Rising Tips and Tricks: Ultimate Beginner PvE Guide

V Rising is such a fun game — but it might take you a while to get your bearings. There are so many elements to it, from blood drinking to resource gathering that it can get confusing. Or, if not confusing, then pretty tricky to figure out the best way to advance. 

I started off not knowing anything about the game, and I chose to play alone on a PvE server. When looking things up online, I found mostly basic answers, or things geared towards PvP players. None of which was very helpful. 

So, I decided to create my own guide to help out any unassuming new player find their way in V Rising. Playing solo can be daunting, but it’s actually fun and just the right amount of challenging. Below, you’ll find some of the basic tips that you can find everywhere, but also some more detailed and obscure tips that will save your life multiple times. 

The (Obvious) Basics

Here are a few tips that get mentioned everywhere online, but that I found pretty obvious (and unhelpful, honestly). They’re here just in case you’re unsure about something or haven’t even started playing yet. 

• Gather the resources. From the moment you start playing V Rising, you’ll need to start gathering resources. And considering this is a survival game, this is fairly clear. You’ll need a lot of wood, stone, bones, blood essence, plant fibre, copper and more. Fortunately, all of these are easy enough to find. My (a bit more advanced) tip is to never let go of anything and never stop collecting stuff. All of it will come in handy at some point. Thousands of plant fibre? Wait until you get a paper press, you’ll need those buggers. Rugged hide? I had those by literally thousands until I got a Tannery. Even sawdust is useful later on. Build as many chests as you can to keep it all safe and keep some resources in refinement machines to save space. 
• Pay attention to which blood you drink. There are eight different types of blood and each of them gives you a different boost. I have a detailed breakdown here, if you’re curious. Personally, I didn’t notice much difference while playing, but that might be because I didn’t drink enough quality blood or it matters more in late game. 
• Follow the quests. Not only will you progress faster, but you’ll also unlock different buildings, spells, and more. 
• Use the right weapons. You’ll have quite a few weapons at your disposal in V Rising, so make sure you pick the right one for each occasion. The mace is best for gathering resources. The spear (at least I found) is good for fighting humans and creatures. The sword is also good for humans. There’s also a crossbow, for killing people at a distance (though take this with a grain of salt, I’m really horrible at aiming). 
• Be careful when consuming blood. While it might seem like a good idea to feast on the first human you kill, please be aware that you can get killed while consuming blood. If you really need it, wait until you kill off almost all the humans in your battle and eat the last one. 
• No need to sleep during the day. While the sun does some damage to your vampire (and could kill it), it’s not all that bad. You can use the daylight to collect resources by staying in the shade, organizing your castle, and even travelling shorter distances (in a roundabout way). 
• Hover over different areas on the map to find resources. There’s really no need to manually go through different areas to look for resources you need. If you need something specific, just hover over different areas on the map and it will tell you what you can find and where to find it. 

The More In-Depth V Rising Tips & Tricks

Don’t get attached to your first castle

Your first castle will be your first safe space in the game. If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably build it in the area closest to where you spawned. And you’ll keep coming back to it. 

But the thing is, you’ll very likely build that first castle without any regard to strategic placement. My first castle was far from literally everything and it was mighty inconvenient whenever I had to respawn in my coffin or go back from anywhere. 

There also weren’t many humans around, so hunting required more travel time. 

Then I built my second castle on a whim (because I wanted to be closer to an encampment with a V Blood I was tracking at the time), and realized just how stupid I’ve been. My new castle was right above a small camp I could jump to and kill the humans easily (plus get some resources) and much closer to everything else I needed. There was even a copper mine nearby, always freshly supplied with copper rocks and humans. It was high up too, with more shade than I had before, and much more space. 

My point is, don’t get too attached. Build your first castle, build everything that the quest requires of you (or you need for crafting), but take a bit of time to explore other areas and find nice places for your new castle. I promise you there are so many cool (and convenient) places to build in. 

I’d recommend a central location, somewhere in the middle of the map, at an elevated position and with enough space so you can expand. 

Fight enemies one by one (or in smaller groups)

If you’re facing a boss or a camp where you need to loot for resources, you may be tempted to go straight in. This is especially true if the humans in there are at a lower gear level than you. And I get it, I really do — but you have to realize that there’s more of them than there is of you. Once they all descend on you, there’s not much you can do. 

My recommendation is to kill them one by one. Enter the camp (or area), draw a few of them out, and then fight. Do so until there aren’t any more humans around or until you’re sure you can kill the remaining ones easily. 

This way, you won’t die senselessly. 

Organize your castle well

One of the biggest mistakes I made in V Rising is not organizing my castle well. The first one I built while running from a creature far beyond my level so I just placed walls and stuff willy-nilly. The second one I thought would be temporary so I didn’t care much. And then when the time came to make it nicer, with stone walls and make it look like an actual castle, I couldn’t do anything. 

There are two options to reorganize your castle. One is to dismantle things (don’t worry, you’ll get resources back), and then rebuild them. The second is to move them around by going into build mode and selecting them, then moving them.

The first option takes too much work, and the second one was nearly impossible on my Steam Deck (even on desktop, it takes too much time). Either way, it’s better to do it right the first time.

First off, make sure that you clear out the area before building. You won’t be able to build walls or floors without it. Then, place your castle heart and all of the other items strategically. Make sure that there’s enough room for walls, doors, windows. You’ll keep unlocking useful stuff, and some of it will be a part of your quest, so it’s much easier to be prepared in advance, than to have to scramble later on. 

Avoid bosses lurking around

Bosses in V Rising (or V Bloods) aren’t limited to staying in one area. Well, allright, some of them are — but some are not. You’ll be frolicking around, killing humans or buying stuff from merchants, and suddenly run into a Vampire Hunter or Lillian The Chaos Archer (way before you’re ready for them). They will attack you on sight, and they don’t give up so easily. Some might even follow you into your castle (if you don’t have walls all around it yet) so nowhere is safe. 

Be careful while exploring, is what I’m saying. If you see someone with a red bar above their head coming your way, start running. You can’t beat them, and even if you could, you can’t get their unlocks until you kill the V Blood that’s next on your list. 

Don’t log off (or pause) until you’re in the coffin 

If you think you can just log off V Rising whenever and wherever you want, you’re in for a rude awakening! 

The thing is, you may be logged off, but your vampire stays wherever you left them and the game’s time and people move on without you. That means that you’ll very likely find your vampire dead (from sun exposure) or at least in the middle of a battle with a strong boss or random villagers. 

There’s not really any way to pause either. You can enter the map, the system settings, etc. but the game won’t be paused. I can’t tell you how many times I was messing with the settings or looking at V Bloods only to find my vampire burning in the sun. 

The only way that I found to truly (somewhat) pause the game or log off safely is to put your vampire in the coffin. The day/night process will continue, but at least no one will be able to attack you. 

Get a horse

One thing you’ll notice once you start playing V Rising is that the vampire main character is slow. Like, super slow. And while I’m all for some lazy exploration, there are times when you just want to move from one point to another as fast as possible. 

Sure, there’s the dashing spell, but that has a cooldown so you can’t use it that often. Certain blood types can also help you be faster, but I personally didn’t think it made enough of a difference. 

So, to save yourself some time, you should get a horse. You can find one in Dunley Farmlands, in the southeastern area (there will be an area named Farm). Once you get there, find the stable and interact with the horse to mount it. 

You can find horses in other areas as well and whenever you do, just interact with it (press the required button) and mount it. 

If you can, keep multiples of your gear and weapons

One thing I didn’t know going into V Rising is that your gear and weapons can deteriorate in battle. It may be dumb or naive of me, but it’s true. I was in for a rude awakening once my level dropped abruptly in the middle of a battle and I died. 

While you can repair your items, this will require you to always carry a certain amount of resources (from refinement buildings, so nothing you can just pick up). And carrying resources into battle is not a good idea because you lose them if you die (and then have to go back to get them, which can be dangerous). 

The same could be said of extra gear, but there are extra slots where you can place this gear and weapons that means you won’t lose them. So, if you can, create doubles of everything. Once you get the right buildings, this won’t be that hard. 

Don’t follow the V Blood tracking blindly

V Blood tracking in V Rising is extremely useful. No matter how far the V Blood is, your vampire can track them (via the red mist). There’s even a notification on your screen that tells you how close you are. 

However, this is a double-edged sword too, in my opinion. Because the red mist is so compelling (and finds the shortest route), it can lead you straight through some very dangerous areas. Or, if your V Blood is in an encampment, it will lead you straight into it. 

All of this is bad for you, because no V Blood is alone. They have henchmen, creatures and whatnot (depending on the boss). If you’re going in alone, this most likely means you’ll die. 

But it doesn’t have to be that way. 

While you should still follow the red mist, do so carefully. Make sure you don’t walk through any areas you aren’t ready for. I guarantee there’s a safer, though longer way. 

And once you locate the V Blood, look around for a bit. If they’re in an encampment, there will usually be a less guarded back entrance where you can pick off at the henchmen one by one before facing the boss. Fighting the bosses this way will take longer, perhaps a few in-game days, but you will do so safely, without losing gear or resources. 

This is also a great way to collect resources you can’t create yet and use them to craft better gear. For example, if you’re tracking Keely the Frostarcher, you might think it’ll be easy because she’s at your gear level (or lower). 

However, you have to keep in mind that she has a lot of rouges and warriors around her. If you enter the encampment blindly at your gear level, you will likely die. Instead, find the back entrance and loot the camp. Anything you can slash at will most likely produce leather, which you need to create better gear, that will put you at several levels above the boss. Kill off her henchmen one by one so you can face her one-on-one. It’ll be a piece of cake for you then. 

Final Thoughts

V Rising is such a complex game that you can hardly tire of, so there’s always something new to say about it. Because of that, I’ll likely be adding more tips to this list as I go through the game myself. This is just a beginners guide to help you find your way at first. 

If you haven’t started playing V Rising yet or just want more info on it, check out my full review where I go over game mechanics and all the details you need to know about before you get started.