Valor Mortis Beginner Guide: 10 Tips for Your First Session
Start by learning a repeatable defense, then use your new tools to open routes. These ten tips identify their sources and separate advice from measured results.
Ten practical starting tips
- Check reachable bindings. Put defense and dodge where you can press them while moving. Confirmed: the developer control post highlights rebinding and suggests mouse side buttons; check your current menu rather than copying old CTRL/ALT defaults.
- Finish your swing. Take one opening before committing again. Confirmed: the official tips say an attack cannot cancel into a parry.
- Recover block damage with a counter. Confirmed: publisher guidance says an immediate counter restores block-lost health. Inference: wait if the next hit is already coming.
- Aim at glowing blisters. Confirmed: the publisher explains that weak-point hits refill Nephtoglobin and kills often supply ammo. Inference: save a round for a visible target instead of firing blindly.
- Keep a defensive weapon while learning. Reported: Method recommends the Saber for both blocking and parrying. Test what a replacement permits before swapping your familiar defense for a different attack style.
- Spend and recover Catalysts deliberately. Reported: Fextralife Combat says a second death before recovery loses the dropped currency; lanterns allow leveling but resting respawns ordinary enemies. Inference: prioritize the recovery route before exploring another branch.
- Use Fire on the first blocked side path. Reported: PowerPyx Chapter 1 places a Bottomless Well chest behind gold vines reached by climbing back from Onslaught Arch. This is an early example of a tool opening an optional route.
- Find the Pistol during Regroup. Reported: PowerPyx Chapter 2 places it in the train car on the left during the bridge platforming route. It is required to progress; do not search for a random firearm drop.
- Read an Amber's healing cost. Confirmed: the official Amber examples say Butcher's Carnage heals melee hits but disables flask healing. Equip Ambers at a lantern; do not assume every healing effect stacks.
- Reserve a final Shield upgrade if chasing trophies. Reported: PowerPyx's material guide requires Shield level 5 for Abyssal Eviction and finds only two final Transmutation materials. Avoid spending both on Fire/Stasis before checking this goal; availability is a launch-guide report.
Inference. The order is an editorial learning plan, not an optimal build or a promise that every pickup has been tested on every platform.
Progression and demo limits
Reported. Rock Paper Shotgun's retail review highlights health/damage upgrades and branching shortcuts.
Confirmed. The August developer post says the demo jumps from Chapter I to Chapter VII. Do not assume retail hands out the same gear early.
Continue with weapons or build choices.
Sources and evidence
Checked on October 14, 2026. Confirmed identifies primary-source facts; Reported identifies attributed secondary coverage; Inference identifies editorial advice. This is an unofficial fan resource, not a hands-on review.
