Rule the night with these V Rising guides

V Rising items: 7 things to grab first
V Rising whetstone: Where to find it
V Rising leather: How to craft it
V Rising iron ore: Where to mine it
V Rising unsullied hearts: How to harvest
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If you’re trying to figure out how to get blood essence in V Rising, you’re in luck. The top-down vampire survival game has just entered Steam’s Early Access, and favourable comparisons to Valheim are already being made. V Rising has crafting and base building, and if you want to hop into the game with friends, there are plenty of options to do that, too.

V Rising puts far more emphasis on survival, and you’ll need to collect a lot of blood essence to stay alive and maintain your base. There are also blood types to consider, and these can give you different buffs and abilities, depending on the quality of the blood you drink. Sounds confusing? Don’t worry, I’m here to help. Here’s what you need to know about V Rising blood essence and the different blood types.

V Rising blood essence: How it works

Blood makes your vampire’s world go round, and you’re going to need a lot of it if you want to survive in V Rising. Every time you kill an enemy, you’ll notice blood essence orbs collect in your inventory. These can be used to protect your Castle Heart from decay, and to power bigger crafting tools, such as the sawmill. You also need blood essence to craft various items and building pieces, so it’s essential you start hunting for it as soon as you can.

Blood also ties into your health, and taking damage means you’ll start losing blood. You regain health passively over time, but this puts a big dent in your overall blood pool—you can see this at the bottom of your screen—and means death if you don’t replenish it.

You need to feed off enemies to replenish your blood pool, and this can be done by taking your foe down to low health and using the “Feed” prompt that appears. Just be aware that you’ll be vulnerable for a few seconds while feeding, so if you’re fighting a group, it’s best to wait until the last enemy.

The different blood types in V Rising

You need to feed to survive, but that’s where another mechanic comes into play. Different enemies have different blood types, with varying blood qualities, and each blood type offers passive benefits. You can hover your mouse over an enemy to check which blood type they are, so if you’re after a specific buff, you know you’re targeting the correct type.

You’ll also see their blood quality, which ranges between 1 to 100%. The higher the percentage, the more buffs you’ll gain from feeding from them, but these will only last until the next time you feed. It’s worth noting that the next enemy you feed on will overwrite whatever blood type and quality you currently have.

Here are the blood types in V Rising, along with their buffs:

Frailed
Default blood type with no buffs.

Creature

Less than 30% blood quality: 15% movement speed30% or higher: 10-15 sun resistance rating60% or higher: 10-20% damage reduction90% or higher: 150% increased health regeneration100% blood quality: Boost all above effects by 30%

Warrior

Less than 30% blood quality: 10-20% increased physical power30% or higher: 8-15% reduced cooldown on weapon skills60% or higher: 7.5-15% reduced damage taken and 25% increased damage when striking enemies at full health90% or higher: 15% chance to parry an attack, reducing damage taken by 50%. Parrying an attack increases your own damage by 25%100% blood quality: Boost all above effects by 30%

Rogue

Less than 30% blood quality: 10-20% chance to critical strike on weapon attacks30% or higher: 8-15% movement speed60% or higher: 12-25% Reduced cooldown on travel skill. 100% chance to critical strike on next physical attack after using a travel skill90% or higher: 50% chance on critical strike to expose victim’s armor, increasing damage taken from all sources by 15% for 4 seconds100% blood quality: Boost all above effects by 30%

Scholar

Less than 30% blood quality: 12-25% increased spell power30% or higher: 8-15% reduced cooldown on spells60% or higher: 5-10% spell life leech90% or higher: 20% chance to reset spell cooldown on cast100% blood quality: Boost all above effects by 30%

Worker

Less than 30% blood quality: 10-30% increased resource yield30% or higher: 15-25% increased damage against resource objects60% or higher: 10-20% increased mount gallop speed90% or higher: 3% chance to instantly destroy a resource100% blood quality: Boost all above effects by 30%

Brute

Less than 30% blood quality: 7.5-12.5% primary attack life leech30% or higher: 7.5-15% increased primary attack speed, gain 1 gear level60% or higher: Healing received increased by 20-35%. Heal self for 4% of your victim’s health when striking a killing blow90% or higher: 6% chance per relative health recovered to boost movement speed by 20% and damage of primary attacks by 25%100% blood quality: Boost all above effects by 30%