Assorted Suggestions for Fighting Kuva Liches

Kuva Liches are in a weird situation right now. They’re a little bit tricky for newer players to deal with, they are a non-challenge and a nuisance for veterans with the right gear and they are a long, tedious slog for pretty much everyone. Creating a Lich is insanely simple and, honestly, defeating a Lich is really simple, it’s nothing more than trial and error. What with it being trial and error, the average Lich can take anything from half an hour to three hours to defeat, excluding time spent getting Requiem mods. That being said, here’s some tips for how to defeat Liches every so slightly quicker.

Get your Requiem Mods and make sure you have all Requiem Mods before you make a new Lich

This is the fastest tip I can give you. Sure, it means doing Kuva Siphons and Floods until you get enough relics, but it makes life so much easier having a full set of mods ready to go, so you don’t have to pause your Lich hunting to get the mod you’re missing. Why? Because if you’re missing a Requiem mod, there’s an approximately 1 in 8 chance that the mod you lack is the mod you’ll need. Why play with luck when you can just get a full set of mods before you start?

Don’t rush through missions

While there is a limit to how many Thralls can spawn in any one mission, it’s worth pointing out that they don’t spawn consistently at all. I’ve noticed this the most on Exterminate missions, where you can reach your goal yet a few more Thralls will spawn. At the same time, Kuva Liches normally wait a few minutes before spawning in and will often spawn in succession, or at least a minute or so after previous Liches. In fact, even if your Lich doesn’t spawn, you still benefit because Liches can convert nearby enemies into Thralls for more Murmur gains.

So yeah, take your time. Especially if you are looking to kill your Lich.

Swap your mods out every time you fight your Kuva Lich

Every time you finish a mission in which you fought your Lich and lost, you should be switching out the mods that didn’t work for new mods. It doesn’t matter how many Murmurs or whatever you have, you should be doing this every time you start a new mission. If, for example, you have Xata, Netra and Khra on your Parazon and you fight your Lich and he or she breaks your back because Xata is wrong, you should IMMEDIATELY swap Xata out when you get back to your ship because you KNOW that mod is wrong. It doesn’t matter what mod you use (apart from other mods you know are wrong) but you are cutting back on the work you have to do. Even if Xata turns out to be one of the Murmurs later on, you now know that Xata either goes in the second or third slot.

Swapping out mods has the extra benefit of sometimes being complete correct. I actually witnessed someone kill a level 1 Kuva Lich, having somehow guessed all the right mods in one try.

Avoid Defense missions if you are looking for blood

Defense missions are probably the worst mission to try and fight a Lich on because the Lich will draw attention away from the cryopod you are supposed to be protecting, and will continue to exist regardless of what wave you are on. But more importantly, a Kuva Lich does NOT count as an enemy when it comes to the last wave, meaning your fight against a Lich will be rudely cut off when the last non-Lich enemy is killed.

Don’t be scared of DYING. Let yourself be murdered by your Lich

Another way to really speed things up is to just, well, get yourself murdered. Why? Because getting killed by your Lich is the same as killing 10 Kuva Thralls. That’s about a mission’s worth of progress towards your Murmurs. Sure, you might end up facing higher level enemies (although enemy level appears to be dependent on the level of the host’s Kuva Luch, not always yours) but Liches cap out at level 5 and enemy levels and territory increases stop after level 5, so you might as well just die, get those Murmurs and get your Lich killed more quickly.

With the update on February 4th 2020, your Lich now won’t instantly kill you if you get the combination wrong. They still level up if you get the sequence wrong and you still get murmurs and Kuva for failed attempts, but you leave with your body intact. Be careful though because they still have the grabbing abilities which WILL kill you if you get too close.

If you’re unwilling to die, you should still fight your Lich. If you down them but don’t stab them 3 times, they won’t level up but they will leave. This means that someone else’s Lich has a chance to spawn as well, once your Lich has gone away.

Feel free to restart missions in the hopes of finding a male or female Kuva Lich

It’s bad enough that you’ll spend many hours hearing a Lich’s dialogue, it’s made worse if it’s the Lich personality you don’t like. While I prefer the more chipper male Kuva Liches, someone might prefer a more scathing female Kuva Lich. Luckily, although you can’t pick what weapon or anything that they have, you CAN pick a Lich’s gender by simply not murderizing a male or female Kuva larvaling. Male baby Liches look like the Saturn Six escaped prisoners from the first Nightwave while female baby Liches look like Scorpions except with less armour and a Karak. You can also tell what gender they are from the sounds they make.

Bonus! With the February 4th 2020 update, a downed Larvaling will now display what weapon it has! So you can repeat missions until you get the weapon you want. Duplicate weapons also have some value, as you can merge Kuva Weapons of the same type together for a better percentage of status.

Hopefully these little tips will help you out and speed up the death of your Kuva Liches.