Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

Like almost all the other Soulsborne games or even Soulslike games, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty has a pretty expansive stat system. Players of these games are already too familiar with opening their character's stat screen and being blasted with a page full of different numbers and percentages.

And, while Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty does have an in-game explanation function, it's pretty bare-bones, so let's go over all the main stats players will want to know about in this game, one by one.

The Five Elements Phases & Virtues

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty - Five Phases Virtue Element Star In The Menu System

First up is the 5-pronged Star AKA the Virtues of the Five Elements. These fill the role of the player stats in this game. Where one might expect to see something like Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence, and so on, instead there are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water Virtues.

Thankfully, while it looks confusing at first, these Virtues are basically just the standard stats by a different name, and putting a level into each one will increase a variety of different player stats depending on the Virtue they choose. Keep in mind, however, that each point in any of the five Virtues will increase Max HP as well as a few other stats, but this increase is much less than if the player put a point into the Virtue that specifically affects these stats. And lastly, it's worth noting that these Virtues have soft caps as well, as one familiar with these types of games would likely expect.

Wood Virtue

Strong Against	Weak Against
Earth	Metal

First up is the Wood Virtue, visualized by the green section of the Virtue Star, and the Virtue that impacts Max Health the most. The Wood Virtue represents nature and is commonly actualized in-game with lightning and healing Spells. In regards to stats, leveling the Wood Virtue will increase:

Max HP
Spirit Defense
Spell Duration
Defense against Earth-element damage

Fire Virtue

Strong Against	Weak Against
Metal	Water

Next up is the Fire Virtue, and it's fitting that a Virtue that represents the natural force of destruction that is fire is also the one that directly improves the player's combat abilities. Its Spells are all fire-based, and putting levels of Qi into it will:

Increase Spirit Gain when Attacking
Decrease Spirit Consumption when using Martial Arts
Increased Defense against Metal-element Damage

Earth Virtue

Strong Against	Weak Against
Water	Wood

This next Virtue is the perfect one for players who either want to throw on tons of Heavy Armor or for players who want to capitalize on deflecting and counter-attacking as much as possible. The Earth Virtue is the brown section of the Virtue Star and, as one would expect, all of its Spells are based on using rocks, mud, or dirt. Investing in this Virtue will:

Increase Spirit Gain from Deflecting
Increase a player's Max Equipment Load
Increased Defense against Water-element Damage.

Metal Virtue

Strong Against	Weak Against
Wood	Fire

Moving on to the most industrial of the Virtues, the Metal Virtue. This is the one people commonly forget about when remembering the Wuxing concept that the Virtue system is based on.

And, while some might think this is the Virtue for the tank/heavy weapons players since metal is heavy, that's wrong. Instead, this is the spellcaster Virtue, as putting points into it will:

Increase Spirit Sustainability (AKA the blue portion of the Spirit Gauge will take longer to naturally start draining)
Decrease the Spirit Consumption of Wizardry Spells
Increase Defense against Wood-element damage.

Water Virtue

Strong Against	Weak Against
Fire	Earth

And last up in the Five Virtues, it's the Water Virtue. This is the one players will want to have for anything resembling a Stealth build, and it even has good Spells. Additionally, it's helpful for losing less Spirit while spamming Deflect to make sure the next attack is deflected. Basically, this Virtue:

Increases Stealth overall.
Decreases the amount of Spirit it takes per Dodge/Deflect attempt.
Increases Defense against Fire-element Damage.

Wizardry Spells

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty - Player Casting Heaven's Rage Spell

Not exactly a 'stat' really, more of a mechanic. However, it's worth mentioning that access to more of each Wizardry Spell Virtue Tree will be granted the more a player unlocks Spells in that Tree. Additionally, Wizardry Spell Phase Points are obtained every 5 levels, starting at level 5 onward.

Element Abilities & Counter System

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty - Player Using Ice Weapon Wizardry Spell

This system was hinted at above in the Five Virtues section as each Virtue explanation mentioned the Element said Virtue was strong and weak against. Basically, think of it like type advantages in Pokemon or the Weapon Tree in Fire Emblem games. Some Elements will directly counter or even cancel out other ones. And, like one would assume, the star-based visualization of the Virtue System also helps to illustrate these weaknesses and strengths. If a person started at the tip of the Wood point, then begin to 'draw' a star shape from there, they would go from Wood to Earth, Earth to Water, Water to Fire, Fire to Metal, and finally Metal back to Earth. And, this also accurately depicts the Elemental Weakness system in Wo Long:

	Strong Against	Weak Against
Wood	Earth	Metal
Earth	Water	Wood
Water	Fire	Earth
Fire	Metal	Water
Metal	Wood	Fire

But how does this translate to gameplay? Well, when using Spells, a Water Spell would counter and beat a Fire Spell or even nullify it, depending on the Spell. Additionally, enemies and bosses that seem to specialize in one element, will almost always take additional damage from the element (or Divine Spirit) that counters them. The same works for defense too, such as wearing Armor with High Earth Virtue Defense if an Earth-based Boss seems pretty tough.

Combat Abilities

Next up are the Combat Stats AKA the Combat Abilities. Players can see this section of their Stats in the Status Screen, and each stat is impacted by a variety of different things. But, to go over what each one is in essence:

Stat Name	Function
HP	The player's current total Max HP.
Melle Weapon Attack Power	The amount of damage the players' Melee 1 or Melee 2 Weapon deals to an enemy.
Ranged Weapon Attack Power	The amount of damage the players' Ranged Weapon deals to an enemy.
Defense	The base amount of incoming damage the player currently protects against.
Physical Resistance	The percentage of incoming Physical Damage the player currently mitigates.
Spirit Defense	The higher this is, the less the players' Spirit Gauge falls every time they're hit (aka the brown part of the bar).
Spirit Sustainability	Determines how long Spirit gained (aka the blue section of the bar) lasts before passively draining.
Spell Duration	The percentage of time a Spell with any sort of 'duration' lasts. At 100 percent it lasts the default amount, at 200 percent it lasts twice the amount and so on.
Stealth	Governs how easily the player is detected by enemies, in general, or when sneaking. It also determines the amount of damage backstabs (Shadow Strikes) deal to unaware enemies.
Luck	Increases the players' base 'chance' of finding rare items. The higher this number, the more likely they are to find rare items more often.
Spirit Gain Rate	Spirit Gain (Attack): How much Spirit a player obtains per attack that connects. Spirit Gain (Deflect) How much Spirit a player obtains per successful Deflect.
Spirit Consumption Rate	Martial Arts: How much Spirit Martial Arts 'cost' by default. Works the opposite of most other percentages. The lower the percentage, the less Spirit it costs to use Martial Arts. Wizardry Spells: How much Spirit it costs to cast a Wizardry Spell. Each Spell costs a different amount so the effect of this will vary depending on the Spell. Deflect: The amount of Spirit it costs to even attempt a Deflect, whether it's successful or not.
Equipment Weight	Max: The 'maximum' numerical amount of weight the player can currently equip at once. Proportion: The percentage of the player's currently equipped gear is counted towards their Max. AKA If their Max is 50 and their Proportion is at 50 percent, they have 25 units of weight currently equipped. Agility: The letter grade 'mark' that determines the player's current Agility. Essentially just an alphabetical representation of their Proportion Stat. Some Weapons/Armor scale with Agility as well.
Proportion & Agility Text Color	Not a 'separate' stat but one to keep in mind. The color of the text for Proportion and Agility determines how a player 'Dodges' and how costly it is to Dodge or Deflect overall: Blue: The highest level of Agility. Dodge is the standard 'butterfly kick' type of aerial maneuver commonly seen in Wuxia films and media. Also, Dodge attempts won't cost any Spirit at all. Green: Still has the butterfly kick Dodge, but in between every butterfly kick the player character will Roll for the next Dodge attempt. Also, Dodges now take half a bar of Spirit each time. Yellow: The player will only roll when Dodging now, and it's a relatively slow roll at that. Additionally, Dodge attempts now take about 75 percent of a Spirit bar each time. Red: The player is over-encumbered. They'll still 'roll' when Dodging, but now they'll find themselves unable to even attempt to Deflect at all.

Equipment Stat Systems

And finally, let's go over Equipment Stats. This, of course, includes Armor, Weapons, and Accessories. All three Equipment types have a lot of the same stats, but they also have some stats that are more individualized. All three of them, however, follow the Star Rarity System. This System is visualized by the number of stars next to the Equipment's name (with 5 being the max), and it determines its 'rarity' as well as the number of Special Effects it will have.

Weapons

Players will be sorting through hundreds if not thousands of different weapons during their time with Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

So, it's important to know exactly what each stat means on these weapons as early as possible so that a player doesn't accidentally burn a fantastic weapon for Salvage or something like that.

Stat Name	Function
Base Attack	The weapon's default attack power, not including any bonuses from scaling or any other outside influences.
Attack Power	The total attack power of a weapon including Attack Bonus scaling and any other modifiers.
Attack Bonus	Essentially the stat-scaling system from the Nioh and Souls games, but rather than scaling with, say, Strength, it scales with something like the Wood Attribute. The 'quality' of the letter follows standard letter grades (A is better than B, B+ is better than B-), and the better the letter, the higher the additional damage that weapon gets with points in the associated Virtue.
Spirit	Spirit Attack: Determines the amount of Spirit an enemy will lose being hit by this weapon. Spirit Attack (Guarding): Determines the amount of Spirit lost when hit while the enemy is Spirit Defense (Guarding): Determines how much Spirit the player loses when hit while Guarding. Deflect Difficulty: Determines how 'easy' it is for the weapon to Deflect. A higher percentage equals easier time deflecting.
Martial Arts	Technically under the 'Special Effects' section of the weapon, these are the Martial Arts that are assigned to this weapon, varying from one or two depending on luck and weapon rarity.
Weapon Traits	These are the additional effects players can remove, add, or adjust using the Embedment feature at the Blacksmith. They're passive benefits the player receives while this weapon is equipped. Additionally, the number of Traits directly correlates to the 'Rarity' of the weapon, meaning a 3-star Weapon always has 3 Traits, a 4-star has 4, and so on.
Weapon Type	Shown by the icon just under the weapon's name and to the left. There is a multitude of different weapon types in the game, including; Swords, Staves, Spears, Straight Sabers, Slashing Spears, Poleaxes, Hammers, Halberds, Glaives, Dual Swords, Dual Sabres, Dual Halberds, Curved Sabers, Bows, Crossbows, and Repeating Crossbows

Armor

Armor in Wo Long is very similar to Weapons in regards to their stat types. Where Armor differs however, is that it's much more defensive than offensive, and there are 'types' of Armor such as Ligh, Medium, and Heavy Armor. So, players need to be able to tell at a glance what type of Armor they're looking at, what benefits it provides, and if it's part of a set.

Stat Name	Function
Armor Type	Not written in words but rather seen as an icon just below and to the left of the Armor name. The icon has 3 pip slots underneath the helmet, and the number of filled pips will denote what type of Armor it is: 1 Pip: Light Armor 2 Pips: Medium Armor 3 Pips: Heavy Armor
Armor Weight	To the far right on the same line as the Armor Type icon there is a Weight icon with a number next to it. This number denotes how much is added to the player's maximum Weight while this Armor is equipped.
Defense	Base Defense, determines damage taken when hit while wearing this Armor.
Physical Defense	Determines what percentage of incoming Physical Damage is mitigated.
Spirit Defense	Dictates what percentage of incoming Spirit Defense is mitigated.
Resistances	The innate Resistance the Armor piece has against the different Virtues. The higher the number, the better that Armor is against that Element.
Armor Traits (Special Effects)	Same as with Weapons, these are Armor Traits that can be added or removed at the Blacksmith using the Embedment feature. And, the 'star' rarity of the Armor determines how many Armor Traits it has.
Set Bonuses	Only found on certain Armor Sets, this is a passive Bonus the player receives when wearing between 2 and all 5 pieces of the Set. The Bonuses also vary depending on the number of pieces worn and stacks on top of the other buffs.

Some may be wondering where the 'Accessories' section is, and that's valid. The reason there isn't an Accessories section on here is simply that all of the Stats an Accessory could have has been explained in either the Weapons or Armor sections. They don't have any stat names or types unique to them. In any case, that's about it for stats in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, so hopefully this helps newer players make heads or tails of the systems in this game as quickly as possible so they can spend even more time relishing in its amazing battle system.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was released on March 3rd, 2023 and is available on Playstation 4&5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

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