Prepare for Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem with our best 10 tips and tricks for beginners. You might have heard about this game recently if you’re a fan of action RPGs. It has a similar vibe to both the Diablo franchise and Path of Exile, despite difficulties with a tough launch. Take a look below at our guide for useful information to getting started.
Table of Contents |
| Tip 1 – Basic Attacks Charge Your Willpower/Rage |
| Tip 2 – Learning the Attributes |
| Tip 3 – Skills on Your Hotkey Bar Gain Experience |
| Tip 4 – Use Dodge Rolls to Increase Your Mobility |
| Tip 5 – Teleport to Town Using the Map |
| Tip 6 – Only Collect Valuable Gear |
| Tip 7 – Stun Bosses by Depleting Their Blue Health Bar |
| Tip 8 – Alt To Make All Items Visible |
| Tip 9 – Learning the Skill Tree |
| Tip 10 – Plan Your Builds Online |
Tip 1 – Basic Attacks Charge Your Willpower/Rage
The basic attack bound to your left mouse button charges the resource for using your abilities. Depending on your playstyle, this can be Rage or Willpower. In my case, the Battle Staff screenshot to the right shows at the top left corner, “Willpower per hit: 120”.
This means with every attack from my Battle Staff, I will gain 120 Willpower. As you use your Willpower or Rage, it turns into the opposite resource. Certain weapon traits and passive skills can slow this process.
Tip 2 – Learning the Attributes
As shown in the screenshot, I prioritized Ferocity for a critical chance build.
Understanding the best attributes to use in Wolcen is important because of their advantages. While every attribute provides a damage boost, each one builds your character a certain way. However, they’re balanced so they all feel necessary.
| Ferocity | Toughness | Agility | Wisdom |
| Attack Critical Chance | Maximum Health | Attack Speed | Attack Status Ailment |
| Spell Critical Chance | Maximum Force Shield | Spell Casting Speed | Spell Status Ailment Chance |
| Bonus Damage | Bonus Damage | Bonus Damage | Bonus Damage |
Attributes are gained from leveling, specific passives on the skill tree, and gear traits. Up to 10 attribute points are given per level. Also, you can reset them for 500 gold per level of your character.
Tip 3 – Skills on Your Hotkey Bar Gain Experience
Pressing “S” by default shows the active skills menu where they’re upgradable.
Leveling your skills is an important way to become stronger and often deal more damage. You need to have them on your hotkey bar if you want them to gain experience. It doesn’t matter if you use them or not. Over time, you’ll unlock more modifier points for unlocking more upgrade buffs for each skill. The other way to level skills is a little more advanced and requires the Primordial Affinity currency.
You can level your skills manually by talking to Demetra in town. The cost of an upgrade depends on how much experience you have toward it so far.
Tip 4 – Use Dodge Rolls to Increase Your Mobility
Take advantage of dodge rolling so you never get stuck in a bad situation.
When I first began to play Wolcen, I didn’t take advantage of the dodge roll mechanic much. For the most part, until you reach Act 2, most enemies tend to be pretty easy. However, the dodge mechanic works great for getting out of AoEs from bosses or any other charge attacks from enemies. Even if you’re not using the dodge rolls for dodging, you can still use it to move quickly through an area.
The dodge roll can’t go through enemies until grabbing the Slipping Shadow passive skill.
Tip 5 – Teleport to Town Using the Map
This is the Galatha Vales map for act 2, but it still functions the same as act 1 for teleporting.
Wolcen has a button for teleporting to town that takes a few seconds to use. Enemies can easily interrupt this timer by damaging you. The alternative is to open your map with “M” by default and instantly teleport wherever you want. This applies to all towns and discovered waypoints.
An additional tip is to frequently teleport to town for selling extra gear. There’s no need to leave valuable gear behind when you can quickly turn it into money.
Tip 6 – Only Collect Valuable Gear
If you’ve played any RPG before, you likely have dealt with limited inventory space. Instead of repeatedly teleporting to town to clear your inventory, you can do a little better than that. Over time, you’re more likely to run into higher rarity gear that is more valuable to traders. There’s no reason to pick up white gear that sells for a few gold compared to rare gear for a hundred.
Basic ARPG knowledge. Make more money off higher rarity gear. Check rarity names
Tip 7 – Stun Bosses by Depleting Their Blue Health Bar
The shrunken blue bar underneath the boss’s health is depletable for a temporary stun.
Bosses in Wolcen have two health bars, a red and blue one. The red health bar is their main one that needs to hit zero for them to die. However, when the blue bar drops to zero, the boss becomes temporarily stunned. This is a great opportunity to deal damage and even better if you plan for it. I try to kill enemies nearby and have my willpower full right at the moment that shield drops.
Tip 8 – Alt To Make All Items Visible
Don’t miss out on great items because their name isn’t showing.
Wolcen has a habit of quickly making item names disappear. It’s easy to miss valuable gear when you’re busy fighting enemies and every item is hidden. This is why it’s important to hold the “Alt” key to make items reappear. I even mentioned this recently in my tips and tricks article for Stoneshard.
Tip 9 – Learning the Skill Tree
The skill tree is massive and extremely intimidating at first.
The skill tree in Wolcen is known as the Gate of Fates and it can be intimidating. First, there are three tiers represented on the tree as wheels that are rotatable. The blue wheel at the left side of the screenshot above has two arrows underneath it for rotating a segment. This allows for more creativity in making builds.
Second, before you can make it further into the tree, you need to start from the center and create a path. Depending on how you play, you may start with a different path and change as you go.
| Purple | This focuses on magic users with bonuses like willpower cost reduction, wisdom, higher spell damage, e.g. |
| Green | This focuses on attack speed, agility, dodge chance, e.g. |
| Red | This focuses on attack damage, ferocity, maximum health, e.g. |
Also, passive skills shown with a large yellow circle surrounding them are a higher tier version. There are three types with the lowest having stat boosts, second having minor buffs, and third having major buffs. The second tier has a yellow circle similar to the larger one but is slightly smaller.
It costs 25 Primordial Affinity per level to reset your skill tree. This can be done from the character screen. For a more in-depth skill tree guide, Rock Paper Shotgun writer Dave Irwin has a great write-up here.
Tip 10 – Plan Your Builds Online
The DoTsplosion Archer is one of many builds on Wolcen Universe from player wudijo30.
There’s a useful website named Wolcen Universe for creating and finding the best Wolcen builds. I debated including this tip as it more often applies to people that theory craft builds. However, it’s still useful for everyone to find different playstyles that work well. Also, I like to plan my build going forward so I don’t forget what skills I want to upgrade. Massive skill tree webs like Wolcen and Path of Exile make it easy to become confused.
I hope these tips and tricks help you get started in Wolcen. If you have any other questions or suggestions for beginners, let me know below!
Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem available on PC via Humble Bundle and Steam, as of February 13, 2020.
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Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.