On Being Finished With Kuva Liches, For Now
The other day, I converted a Kuva Lich, sparing its life and allowing it to live. Sparing this Lich meant it had the chance to one day join me in future missions as an ally. But it also meant that I was finally finished with Liches. This last Lich, an Impact-based one, gave me the Shockwave Ephemera. Because of that, I now had a complete collection of Vengeful Ephemeras. Alongside having one of each type of Kuva Weapon, I was done.
Until the next batch of Kuva Lich-related updates, I no longer need to hunt Liches.
However I could still hunt Liches, if I wanted to. I don’t, but I could. While I have one of every weapon and one of every Ephemera, there’s still more to farm. I could spend time farming additional Kuva Weapons, so I can valence transfer into my existing ones. This would increase the status bonus on said Kuva Weapons. And allow me to change elements, so I’m not stuck with a Cold Quartakk.
Alternatively, I could farm for a Kuva Weapon of every element, but that’s not just a waste of slots, but a waste of time too. The most useful elements are Radiation and Toxin, with Heat coming in at a distant third. Magnetic is only really useful against Corpus (still), Cold builds into the two less-desirable elements (Magnetic and Blast – Viral is a lot stronger these days) and Impact is… Impact. No one really likes Impact because Impact does what Blast should do.
But screw that. I’ve got good versions of the weapons I like, so I’m good.
The grind was not that good.
Originally, the farm for Liches sucked. You’d get a random weapon with a small chance for an ephemera, going in completely blind. Thankfully, this changed, so that Kuva Larvalings show what weapon they will have when they become Liches. This has saved me a HUGE amount of suffering, since I know exactly what weapon I’ll get. I also know exactly what element I get as well, since the element is based on the Warframe that does the stabbing.
Sure, once I got into the swing of things, farming Kuva Liches wasn’t that bad… when I just wanted the weapons. Getting the Ephemeras is a whole different game. Because that is pure chance. At first, it was a 5% chance to get an Ephemera, a chance I hit with my very first Lich. The chance was bumped upwards, from 5 to 10 to 20%. Even 20% though is kinda hit and miss – I once got two Ephemera Liches in a row, followed by 7 without. Not too bad for me, but not everyone is as lucky as me.
I had help though…
For me, I was even luckier, because I had someone I could trade Liches with. We basically tag-teamed Liches with Ephemeras. I helped him get a Vengeful Pull Ephemera and he helped me get a Vengeful Shockwave Ephemera. The grind is going to be a lot worse if you’re not willing to get help or trade or anything. Getting the weapons is easy at least.
But what about future content?
Frankly, I have no idea. I mean, I’m sure at some point we’ll have more Kuva Lich weapons. There are plenty of Grineer weapons that could end up with Kuva variants. Alternatively, we could get completely new Kuva weapons, like the Ayanga and the Bramma, which lack normal Grineer versions.
We might also get new elemental types, and with them, Ephemeras. After all, we only have a few types: the base four elements (Heat, Toxin, Electricity, Cold), one physical type (Impact) and two combined types (Radiation and Magnetic). What about the other types? What about a Viral, Corrosive Gas or Blast-based Lich? or Slash and Puncture Liches? These are all possibilities.
One other potential future update could push Kuva Liches into owning their own Rail Jacks. While Liches owning Railjacks would make for very interesting gameplay, especially if they can interfere with missions, I genuinely wonder if people would care much. After all, while current Liches are annoying, they are at least somewhat quick and easy to deal with. Would players be willing to deal with longer Liches and longer Kuva Lich missions? Who knows? It all depends on how future Lich updates are implemented.
For now though, I’m done.
No more Liches for me!