Lords of the Fallen

Okay, I'm not the best at writing guides, but here goes!

[Intro]

I did this in Co-op, on New Game +3. It's undoubtedly possible on other settings, but I used my main character that I'd completed the 3 ending-based achievements with. As a result, this character had lots of ammunition pouches, healing items, stamina berries etc.

*I can confirm that all 'Master of Fate DLC' achievements will unlock if you complete a playthrough will all SEVEN modifiers enabled*
*Achievements will pop just as the credits roll - at least in my experience they did*

Note: Achievements will pop for the host player only, two runs will be required for a Co-op Team to grab these achievements.

The six base modifiers are:

- Ironman
- Withered Health
- Randomised Loot
- Randomised Enemies
- Enemy Density
- Pre-upgraded Weapons

There is an additional 'Vestige Decay' Modifier which reduces the number of vestiges available. For achievements sake, you'll need to select 'Tremendous Vestige Decay'. This means there will be no readily-available rest points other than the primary Vestige at Skyrest Bridge.

Note: You can still use deployable Vestige Seeds at Seed-beds around the map and at the now-defunct Vestige Sites themselves to create rest points. All Tremendous Vestige Decay really does is scupper fast-travelling, since planting a second seed overwrites the first, meaning you can only ever travel between your current seed and Skyrest Bridge.

I recommend going for the Radiant Ending - so when you encounter the Beacons (big red beams of light dotted around the map), select the 'Cleanse' option which will play a short cutscene and turn the Beacon into a yellow beam of light.

Anyway, here's what I used and how I completed a playthrough with all Seven modifiers enabled at once:

[Gear/Equipment]

I used a Ranged Crossbow build I found online, it works well and keeps you out of danger for most of the game. I can't quite remember where I saw it but let it be known I'm not claiming any credit for the build itself.

Melee Weapon(s):
- Melted Dark Crusader Sword (x 2) - Dual Wield.
Since any Rune can be slotted to these swords, stick 6 'Aelstrix' runes onto them (three per weapon). This buffs Ranged Weapon damage.

Secondary Weapon:
- Harrower Dervla's Crossbow (The Pledged Knight's Remembrance Weapon)
This crossbow fires a volley of three shots, it eats ammo (so have plenty of small and large ammo bags) but it's absolutely devastating from range.

Armour:
- Any armour will do, but try to keep weight light for maximum mobility. In my experience, at NG+3 most hits decimate health anyway so just avoid damage and engage from range whenever possible. Also, the lighter you are, the more damage you'll do with the Princess' Sting Pendant equipped.

Munitions:
- Weighted Bolts
- Twisted Bolts
- Explosive Bolts

Rings:
Crossbowman's Ring x2. Alternatively, Crossbowman's Ring and Blackfeather Ranger Ring.
(You could go for x2 Blackfeather Ranger Rings, but I found the constant reloading to be a pain)

Necklace:
Princess' Sting

Umbral Lamp:
- Primary Eye: Umbral Eye of the Hooded Antuli (Helpful for Save-scumming - I'll explain shortly)

[Stats]

Everyone will be a different level so its hard to say exactly. But make sure to level Agility and Endurance, with a secondary focus on Strength and Vitality.

- Agilty helps with Crossbow Damage
- Endurance gives more Stamina for bow attacks

Try for Agility at 75 and Endurance at 60. Then focus on getting Vitality to 60 and Strength to 75. These are LOTF's soft caps, any further points can be used but will result in minimal stat gain.

[Ending]

The only main bosses required to finish the Radiant Ending are:

- Pieta, She of Blessed Renewal
- Congregator of Flesh (Beware of Umbral Shield protecting him)
- The Hushed Saint
- The Spurned Progeny (Beware of Lava Stomp)
- Harrower Dervla/The Pledged Knight
- The Hollow Crow
- Tancred, Master of Castigations (Beware of Umbral Shield in first phase, second phase use Twisted Bolts to 'Stun' him)
- Judge Cleric
- The Lightreaper (Upper Calrath Fight, since you can summon Pieta to help)
- The Sundered Monarch (Use Twisted Bolts, since these 'Stun' him slightly)
- Adyr, the Bereft Exile

Note: There's a handful of 'Sinners' (Mini Bosses) to face in between the main bosses. There's lots of guides online for these so for now I'll just list the main bosses you need to beat.

[Strategy]

Using Harrower Dervla's Crossbow, simply nuke the path ahead with Explosive and Twisted Bolts wherever necessary. Since enemy spawns are randomised, it helps to nuke corners, beneath ladders, overhead ledges and piles of wood/boxes etc., the last thing you want is a tanky enemy surprising you, or pushing you off of a ledge. Take care to watch for ranged enemies, particularly the invisible archers since they can do a lot of damage. Slowly and steadily advance through the game skipping any unneccessary fights.

Since dying can be a real b*tch with Ironman enabled. You can rely on the good ole' save-scum method to reliably complete your playthrough. With this in mind, I'd recommend *always* dropping a Vestige Seed to create a rest point before a boss battle. However, in my experience, the game will *remember* your absolute death if you try quitting the application as you die. By absolute death I mean the second 'death' where you are killed while within the Umbral Realm - this is a Game Over and will result in you being sent back to the very start of the game.

I can confirm you are safe to kill the application upon your first 'death' - the one in which you fall and pass from the normal world into the Umbral Realm. The game will remember that you died and teleport you out of the boss arena, but you'll rise to your feet in the Umbral Realm, still very much alive with your run intact. Should this happen, just run to a rest point you created before the boss battle and 'Rest' taking you out of Umbral and giving you another crack at the boss.

Also, any avaialable NPC summons are obtainable automatically upon reaching a boss arena. That is, you don't need to 'die' to be able to summon them.

The safest strategy when fighting the bosses is that if you die once (passing from the normal realm into the Umbral Realm), kill the application and reboot. You're outside the arena and have to return to a Seed to rest, giving you another shot. Not the most prestigious strategy mind you, but we do what we must for the achievements, right?

I'd also recommend adding the Umbral Eye of the Hooded Antuli as the *Primary* Umbral Eye on your Lamp. This makes you invulnerable for 8 seconds when you 'die' in the first instance, passing from the normal realm into the Umbral, allowing you ample time to kill the application and reboot.

[Tips]

- Pay extra attention to the items you're picking up. If you trigger a mimic moth, it'll crunch you straight into Umbral with a full bar of withered health (meaning any nearby enemy can one-shot you). The mimic moths' 'item' is slightly larger than a regular item drop and it pulsates with light. It's obvious when you really stop and look at it, but take care nonetheless.

- Spend as little time in Umbral as possible. You will have to go into the Umbral Realm to ascend certain ladders, cross bridges etc., but immediately seek an exit from it when you can.

- Be careful with 'The Drop'. In the later stages of the game, as you advance up the mountain to the Manse of the Hallowed Brothers, on your way to the Tancred fight, you'll come to a courtyard where you'll kill and enemy and loot the 'Kitchen Key' from his body. Once through the kitchen you'll exit and pass around a Church to find a gate that requires 'Abbot Vernoff's Key'. The key is inside the locked Church and you'll have to drop in from above to grab it. This is 'The Drop'. Basically, you'll need to ascend the outside of the steeple-like tower, enter the church via a hole in the roof, drop down onto a hanging cross, and then drop down onto a wooden platform underneath which will allow you to cross a beam and finally drop onto a balcony below that has an Umbral exit point. The initial drop from the roof beams of the Church onto the hanging cross can be a little dicey since the game forces you into the Umbral Realm for this entire affair - meaning, if you miss the drop you're back to the start of the game since the fall will almost certainly kill you. Just take your time, line yourself up and walk straight off of the beam. I blew a run here when my character stumbled a little as he landed, painful to watch.

- Kinrangr Guardian Folard (First Mini-Boss in Fief of the Chill Curse). The Guardian isn't too tricky, but his two wolves can be a bitch to manage while you're trying to pop his Umbral Shield. Fortunately, you can take the wolves out of the equation by stopping before you enter the arena to fight the Guardian and firing some Explosive Bolts at them. They'll aggro and chase you, as soon as they leave the threshold of the area the Umbral Shield protecting them drops and you can easily kill them. One less factor to manage in the Mini-Boss fight itself.

- The Lightreaper - This guy's an absolute cheese merchant. Be wary of his incessant attack spamming if you're using a lot of stamina for bow attacks. Additionally, with Harrower Dervla's Crossbow the firing and reloading animations are significant and its easy to get caught by the ninth firey slash attack in a row from The Lightreaper. A good rule of thumb when fighting the Lightreaper is not to dive straight into two volleys of arrows in a row, it's almost a guarantee that when your first volley strikes him, he'll backflip and send a firey slash your way. Instead, send a volley at him and get ready for the roll dodge. Slow the fight down and you'll be fine. *Be careful of his Death Animation, since it's an explosion that will kill you if you're too close!*

[That's all folks!]

...and that's it! Just take it slow, avoid unneccessary risks, nuke everything from a distance and kill the application if you pass into Umbral.

Let me know if there's anything I should update or change, I'll be happy to add in tips etc. with full credit.

Good Luck folks! Happy achievement hunting!

[Edit 13/06/2024: Corrected some minor punctuation mistakes]

Hello everyone, I know i'm a bit late to the party but hopefully this can help some of you out if you decide to go for an all modifiers run. I did mine on NG+2 and had a build that was more than sufficient to still make the bosses easy. If you want to copy my build, here it is. This guide shows the most optimal route through the game, and it should take you about 2 - 2 1/2 hours to complete

-Flickering Flail (this is an update weapon and has a hidden upgrade which ill touch on later) slot 3x Satus runes into it. If you don't have 3 Satus Runes you can also use Olandi Runes which increase the rate of smite buildup

-Any Shield, doesn't matter. I used just a regular medium shield, but if you have enough points in strength + endurance to sustain a heavy shield without getting a heavy equip load I would do that

-Exacter's Scripture (obtained from Exacter Dunmire's questline)

-For Rings, use Charred Root + Orian Sorcerer's Ring

-For your lamp, the main slot needs to be Eye of Betrayed Eliard, and both of the secondary slots need to be Eyes of Blind Agatha. (This should be your 4th playthrough, so hopefully you have 2 of these ready, if not, you can use one eye of blind agatha and one eye of Marco the Axe)

-For spells, the most important one is Radiant weapon, this will give you roughly a 70% attack buff every time you use it. Since we're using Charred root, we can also utilize 3 Inferno Buff Spells that will help greatly in boss fights. These are Adyr's Hardiness, Endurance, and Rage. Pop all 3 of these before you enter a boss fight, you can have all 3 of them active at the same time. Some fights might drag on enough for you to have to re-pop the buffs again mid-fight, namely the crow boss or lightreaper. For the final slot, i'd recommend using piercing light because it's the best ranged radiant spell. you probably won't have to use it too much, but it's nice to have just in case.

Now, for your stat points, the flickering flail scales only with radiance, meaning you don't have to pump any of your skill points into strength or agility unless you want to in order to wield a heavy shield. You should max out your vigor and radiance first, then pump about 40 skill points into endurance, and throw the rest into inferno.

The flickering flail is obtained after defeating tancred at the bottom of the tower of penance, and it's located in one of the cells in his boss room. In order to upgrade it, you have to farm various enemies at different statues throughout the game. This unlocks the hidden ability that is super op and breaks the game. GamerFuzion has a great guide on how to get the weapon and unlock the hidden ability here if you want to check it out. It's not too complicated and should take about 45 minutes to do.


When you get the upgrade for the flickering flail, the way it works is every time you use the special ability on it, it costs one umbral lamp charge. To perform the special ability, you simultaneously press LB+RT. The special move varies depending on whether or not you're two-handing it. ALWAYS 1 HAND THIS WEAPON. The one handed special move shoots a volley of 3 projectiles that deals massive damage. This is going to be your bread and butter the entire playthrough. Make sure to buff your weapon with radiant weapon always. In order for the build to thrive, we want to stay in umbral for all the boss fights so we can spam the ability and play the game on easy mode. This is why we slot 2 umbral eyes of blind agatha into the build, because, assuming your lamp is already fully upgraded, you'll have 4 charges and with 2 eyes of blind agatha you'll have a charge refresh every 5 seconds when in umbral. With only one eye of blind agatha and one eye of marco, you'll have 5 lamp charges but at the cost of having them regenerate every 10 seconds instead of every 5 seconds, which is much worse for a spammy easy mode build. I know that purposefully going into umbral might seem like a stupid idea on an iron man run, but the build is so much better in umbral and you'll be pumping out so much damage that not having an extra life won't even matter.

Note: you should only purposefully pop umbral for boss fights, when just running through the game, you obviously still want to stay in Axiom as much as possible.

Ok, now that the build is out of the way, let's talk about the most optimal route through the game. A LOT of people don't know this, which is why I decided to write a full guide rather than just leave a comment. The radiance ending is the no-brainer here as you don't need to backtrack to any of the beacons or do any extra running around. NOW FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT PART - if you collect the rune of Adyr from the Abbey BEFORE cleansing any beacons, the shortcut in Skyrest Bridge that leads to Upper Calrath opens up, completely eliminating about 4 areas from the game that you would normally have to go through. This shortcut is located at the far end of the bridge from where you fought Pieta at the very beginning of the game on the complete opposite side on the left wall. It's back there where the flaming sword knight spawns and if you've done Andreas of Ebb's questline, you'll recognize that it's the area where you find the stigma in order to progress his quest when he asks you to go find his book.

The most optimal route through the game is as follows: (be warned, pilgrim's perch is the hardest part of this run, simply because of the platforming and the constant transitions into umbral. Enemies WILL knock you off of ladders and kill you. be careful. take your time through this part.)

1. Complete tutorial and defeat lightreaper at start of the game.
2. Make your way to skyrest, defeat pieta, and activate the vestige.
3. Use the souls you acquired from Pieta to purchase the Pilgrim's perch key from Stomund.
4. Make your way through Pilgrim's Perch until you reach the area where the Bellroom vestige would normally be and open the door leading to the Manse with the key you just purchased.
5. Go up the elevator to the Manse, progress through this area until you're at the top, once there, go towards the Abbey first instead of the Tower of Penance.
6. Continue through the Abbey until you reach the Boss Fight with the Huntress that guards the Rune of Adyr.
7. Once you get the Rune of Adyr, backtrack to the Tower of Penance.
8. Make your way down the tower, defeat Tancred, and use the elevator to clease your First Beacon.
9. Go back to the Abbey, run all the way through until you reach the Empyrean and defeat the Cleric for your second beacon.
10. Warp back to Skyrest and make your way all the way back through Pilgrim's Perch until you reach the aforementioned Bellroom vestige. This time, go left towards the intended path to Forsaken Fen.
11. Make your way through the fen and defeat the Hushed Saint for your third beacon.
12. Warp back to Skyrest again, take the fief key from the floor to the right of the vestige.
13. Backtrack outside of Skyrest to the brige where you fought pieta and take the stairs tucked away on the right side to bring you back to the area from the start of the game.
14. Once you reach the Windmill vestige, open the door to the fief using the key. Progress through the fief until you encounter the crow boss for your fourth beacon.
15. Warp back to skyrest once again and take the shortcut at the end of the bridge that leads to upper calrath. We already killed the lightreaper at the start of the game, so you should just be able to walk up and cleanse your fifth beacon.
16. Go through Upper Calrath, defeat the Iron Wayfarer, and open the door to Bramis Castle.
17. Proceed through Bramis Castle, defeat the Sundered Monarch and enter the finale with Adyr.
18. Complete the fight with Adyr and voila you've just completed an all modifiers run in record time, unlocked several achievements, and can finally uninstall the game.

GLHF!