Kuva Lich

"We Maggots live… not long. We hope more life… work… kill… maybe Queens notice… Maybe… they share… the Old Blood. We are maggots. But eventually even maggots can fly."

- Introduction to Kuva Liches

The Kuva Lich are Grineer super soldiers that have been spiked with their Queens' Kuva, rendering them all but immortal. Serving as an individual player's personal enemy, the Liches will hunt down Tenno and invade the Star Chart using their influence to steal loot and increase enemy levels in controlled territories. A given Kuva Lich has a unique name and randomly assigned elemental resistances and equipment. They are difficult to kill, with the Tenno who created the Lich being the only one who can defeat said Lich for good. In order to do so, players will need to modify their Parazon accordingly with the correct sequence of Requiem Mods to purify their Kuva and permanently sever their Continuity.

Creation and Behavior


After the completion of The War Within quest, the player may encounter a Kuva Larvling in a regular level 20+ Grineer mission - this does not include Sorties, Void Fissures, Invasion, Quests or Dark Sectors. The potential for the spawning of a Kuva Larvling in a mission is announced to the player by the level's lighting flickering yellow. When the flickering occurs the player has a hidden time limit to kill enough enemies to force a larvling to be created. This is similar to the way the Juggernaut spawning works. When enough enemies have been killed, Kuva Larvling will spawn along with a transmission from a Kuva Guardian announcing their presence. Its location will be marked by a red waypoint which is slightly different from the red marker for nearby enemies.

By choosing to kill the Kuva Larvling with a Mercy kill, the player causes a Kuva Lich to arise in the Origin System, thus becoming the Progenitor of that Kuva Lich, and the Warframe used for this is recognized as the Progenitor Warframe​. In a squad, only the last player that damaged the Larvling may take the Mercy kill. If no one takes the mercy action, the larvling will despawn after 15 seconds. This does not interrupt the normal course of the mission. Upon return to the Orbiter, the player will receive communications from the newly created Kuva Lich.

Star Chart Influence and Reward Tax
A Kuva Lich increasingly establishes Influence across a set of nodes in the system by commanding Kuva Thralls, which will appear during missions. The Lich will gain Influence each time it ranks up, and a node will lose its influence after the player defeats the Lich Controlled Territory mission there. Clearing Influence from every node on the Star Chart will cause the Lich to rank up. Influence serves to diminish the player's rewards for completing missions in the affected nodes as a part of the reward will be claimed by the Kuva Lich through a Reward Tax (this includes Credits, Resources, Blueprints, Void Relics, Ayatan Treasures, Kuva, and Mods, but not Requiem Relics, Requiem Mods, and Pigments). As the number of nodes under Influence increases, the Reward Tax will also increase. Everything the player loses through Reward Tax will only be reclaimed after they have defeated the Kuva Lich.

Rage Meter
A rage meter can be seen in the Kuva Lich Profile page, representing the likelihood that the Lich will appear in the player's missions. The 'angrier' the Kuva Lich, the more likely the player will encounter them. Only killing thralls in nodes occupied by the player's Lich will further anger the Lich and increase the meter. Occupied node mission completion will not increase the meter nor will killing thralls in different Lich nodes (via taxi), although the latter will still give murmur progress. There are five levels of anger: Indifferent → Annoyed → Fuming → Furious → Enraged. The meter will reset every time the Lich levels up.

Level
Every Lich starts at Level 1, indicated above their name in their stats screen. As the player progressively fills the Lich's rage meter they will eventually meet the Lich in combat during a mission. If the player fails a Mercy attack at any point during the fight the Lich will perform a finisher on the player and down them. After doing so, the Lich will despawn, though not before increasing in level by one. As a Lich increases in level so too does the level of missions under their influence. A Lich can reach a maximum level of 5. Liches may gain additional resistances and immunities upon leveling up.

Abilities
Kuva Liches have four unique abilities, three of them are variants of existing Warframe abilities and one is a movement ability. The first three abilities that they possess depend on the element associated with the Progenitor Warframe that killed them. Regardless of the Progenitor Warframe, the fourth ability can be one of the following four abilities: Lurch, Stampede, Teleport, or Vault. Thralls will inherit their Kuva Lich's movement ability. In addition to the above abilities, Liches can perform grapple attacks against Tenno. These are similar to their Parazon-instigated finisher attacks (described below), but only dealing damage instead of an instant kill. The player will be thrown and stuck in a ragdoll animation after these attacks. During the animation other players can damage the Lich, albeit dealing reduced damage.

Thralls
A Lich does not maintain their territory on their own. Aside from enlisting the aid of Grineer soldiers, a select few of these soldiers are turned them into Kuva Thralls, who are behaviorally identical to standard Grineer troops, but have various bonuses. Aside from inheriting Lich's movement Ability, they receive less damage compared to their standard counterparts. Additionally, should a Lich spawn in a mission, they will convert a nearby Grineer every 20 seconds into a Thrall as well. These Thralls are otherwise identical to "normal" Thralls, though their weapon colors are changed to match the general color scheme of their Lich. The number of Thralls that will spawn in a given mission is limited to 10. The number of Grineer a Lich can convert to Thralls is also limited to 10. Thralls converted by the Lich do contribute to the mission's limit, and once the combined number of spawned and converted Thralls has reached or exceeded 10, more Thralls can only be generated by the Lich, up to the limit of 10 converted Thralls. The maximum number of Thralls that can appear in a mission is 20, only achievable by having all 10 Thralls spawn in the mission before the Lich converts any Grineer to Thralls and then letting the Lich convert 10 Grineer.

Thralls generally spawn near other Grineer, and are identified by a blue outline that surrounds them, similar to the one found on Synthesis Targets. Their label is changed to "(Lich Name) Thrall", and their presence is noted by a both a unique Mission Waypoint and a musical sting that plays when they spawn. Ironically enough, the Thralls themselves provide the means to defeat their Lich once and for all.

Quirk
Kuva Liches may rarely spawn with a quirk that provides unique voice-lines and behavior when encountered.

Ephemera
Kuva Liches have a 10% chance to be created with an Ephemera equipped that corresponds to the Progenitor Warframe that killed them. These Ephemeras can be equipped on Companions.

Strategy


To fight a Kuva Lich, the player must draw them out. To do this, nodes that the Lich has influence over must be completed and their Thralls destroyed. A Lich will also have specific resistances and immunities that are unique to the player. The player will know a Lich is after them when an icon appears in the Navigation and Menu screens. This icon will appear beside the Nightwave button and will allow the player to check details about their Lich, including Lich Level, Requiem Mod attempts, and more.

Kuva Influence will be shown as a red cloud on the Navigation screen. It will start on one planet, clicking it in to view it will show which nodes the cloud is spreading over Nodes. These nodes will give the option to run the standard node mission, the Kuva Lich version, or any other active special version, such as Nightmares or Invasions. Kuva Liches can have Influence over nodes under other faction's control, making the thrall mission become similar to Crossfire missions.

All Defection missions in Lich controlled territories are changed to Exterminate missions.

Endless missions in Lich controlled territories only feature one "round", with Defense lasting five waves, Survival lasting five minutes before extraction is called, Interception lasts one wave, and Excavation requires 500 Cryotic before extraction is called.

Only one Kuva Lich can be after the player at any time, so the current Lich must be defeated before a new one can be made by the player.

Requiem Murmurs
To defeat a Lich, the player must use the Parazon with the correct Requiem mods. The Requiem Mods must be in the correct order to deliver the final blow. Other squad members can weaken a Lich, but only the player the Lich belongs to may kill it.

To find hints about the correct mods and combination the player will need to kill the Lich's Thralls. Any mission under a Lich's influence will spawn Thralls. Thralls will periodically spawn as the squad advances through the mission. Thralls are several levels higher than other enemies in the mission, are immune to most forms of crowd control, and can use their Lich's movement ability. Upon reaching 0% health, Thralls will stumble and become vulnerable to a Mercy Finisher. Upon the Thrall's death, all players in the mission are rewarded a Requiem Murmur, and the Thrall has a 5% chance to drop a Requiem Relic. Testing a Requiem Mod on a Lich also advances Murmur progress, roughly 10x more than a Thrall on average. Each combination can only be tested against a Lich once to be awarded Murmurs, requiring players to change the combination for the next encounter. A multitude of Requiem Murmurs will update the Lich's status screen, revealing part of the Requiem Mod combination that will prove fatal to the Lich. Currently, the number of Murmurs needed for each reveal can vary but average to 36, 60, and 84 with the total being approximately 180 Murmurs.

Murmurs progression carries over from one mod to the next, for an individual Lich. For example, if in a single mission the first mod reveal count is completed with extra Murmurs left over the excess will carry over to the progression of the second mod. Similarly, if a mod is guessed correctly by testing it on the Lich then the Murmurs will transfer over to the next mod reveal. However, after defeating a Lich, any extra Murmurs will not transfer over to the mod combinations for a new Lich.

If a player joins a mission mid-progress, all killed Thralls are instantly added to the Murmur progress.

Note that Murmurs will only reveal the Requiem Mods required to kill the Lich, not the order they are needed to be in. The player will need to figure the order by trial-and-error.

Combat
If a Lich is sufficiently enraged, there is a chance they will appear in the mission for combat. It is entirely possible that a Lich will appear long before the player has deduced all three Requiem mods; because of this, killing or even fighting the Lich is not required for mission success (for example, waves in Defense missions will end even if the Lich is still active).

A Lich has a shield bar and three health bars. Depleting a Lich's health bar to 5% will cause them to stumble and begin to gradually recover health for 10 seconds, giving the player a chance to use their Parazon for a Mercy attack. If the Requiem mods are in the correct sequence, the Lich's health bar will be destroyed, otherwise, the Lich will instead perform a finisher on the player. A Lich's finisher attack will instantly kill any Tenno, bypassing Bleedout entirely (even if other players are present), cause the Lich to despawn, and give the Lich a rank up.

Liches have variable resistances and weaknesses to damage types, however, as one levels up, the type against which it's vulnerable to, may become one of those it resists. Important to note that Liches are immune to Status Effects like most Bosses.

If a Lich stumbles three times without attempting to use the Parazon on the Lich, it will automatically flee and leave the mission. This prevents it from leveling up, but will not drop Kuva nor generate Murmur knowledge.

Rank 1, 2, 3, and 4 Liches will respectively drop 150, 200, 250 and 300 for all squad members when a Parazon is used on them.

Defeating the Kuva Lich
When the right combination of Requiem Mods is found and all three of the Lich's health bars have been destroyed, the Lich will finally be defeated for good. The player will be given two choices: Vanquish the Kuva Lich or Convert it.


 * Whichever choice made, all "stolen" drops that they were responsible for will be returned to the player. If the Lich has an Ephemera equipped, the player is also guaranteed to get it. The Requiem mods used will lose a charge upon a successful kill/convert.
 * Vanquishing it will award the player a Kuva Weapon named after the defeated Lich. (e.g. "Ulogg Stakk Kuva Quartakk"). This weapon will be "Ready to Claim" in the Foundry.
 * Converting it will turn it to the player's side, allowing it to appear in fights beside as an ally.
 * The player can trade a converted Lich, allowing another player a chance to earn their weapon and/or Ephemera. The trade is performed inside a Clan Dojo's Crimson Branch room, and the recipient must not have any active Lich.
 * Kuva Lich History (Previously vanquished and converted Lich) can be viewed in the Orbiter's Codex in the "universe" tab.
 * The stats of the Lich being traded can be previewed by right-clicking its token.
 * Once traded, the Lich will become the recipient's active Lich, and the Requiem Mod combination used to defeat them will change.
 * A converted Lich can only be traded once. If the recipient converts their received Lich, it will not be tradeable.

The player has 20 seconds to choose. If no choice is made, the Lich is vanquished.

Kuva Weapons
These weapons are carried by a player's Lich and can be acquired once the Lich is killed. If the player has enough weapon slots, they can claim these weapons from their Foundry. The weapons vary in attributes, dependent on the Lich the player has slain. Kuva Liches are guaranteed to have a different weapon than its immediate predecessor, preventing players from generating Liches with two of the same weapon in a row.

Mechanics
A Kuva variant of a weapon will only provide mastery points once, a second weapon of the same variant but with a different Lich name will not provide extra mastery. These weapons have a max rank of 40. To obtain the maximum rank, the player must polarize the weapon five times, with each Forma increasing the maximum possible rank by 2 (similar to ). The weapon's base damage is based on the Kuva Lich's percentage of bonus damage.

All Kuva weapons deal innate elemental damage in addition to physical damage. The amount of this damage is random, ranging from 25-60% of the Kuva weapon's base damage, while the type of element is determined by the Progenitor Warframe, as per the table below:

Valence Transfer
Valence Transfer is a feature unique to Kuva Lich weapons. Players can replace a Kuva weapon’s innate damage bonus with one from another Kuva weapon. This process destroys the donor weapon and overrides the host Kuva weapon's element and damage bonus while retaining any applied Formas, Orokin Catalyst, Focus Lens, Mod configurations, Appearance configuration, Lich name, etc.

For example, A has 25%  bonus and a Catalyst installed, and the player who owns it receives a new Kuva Seer B with a 55%  bonus. Performing a valence transfer from Kuva Seer B to A will override the 25% from A with the 55%  buff from B, while A will still retain the installed Catalyst, and B will cease to exist from the player's inventory.

Note that if both weapons have the same bonus element, the donor weapon needs to have a higher damage bonus than the weapon the bonus is being transferred to. Valence Transfer can be accessed in the Action tab at the bottom of the Upgrade screen of the desired Kuva Weapon.

Tips

 * Although Kuva Liches are unlockable as early as Mastery Rank 5, it may be wise to hold off on creating a Lich until you have a more varied arsenal; assuming players only do the bare minimum of mission nodes and Junction requirements required to access The War Within, reaching Mastery Rank 5 only takes one fully-ranked Warframe and two fully-ranked weapons which, while a very unlikely circumstance, is a very insufficient arsenal for taking down a Lich.
 * If you feel that you won't be able to handle a Kuva Lich, you can choose not to generate one. Kuva Larvlings are announced by a Kuva Guardian, they wield a, and they will not die immediately even if heavily damaged in one shot, instead kneeling for a Mercy when their health is depleted. If they're not Mercied, Downed Larvlings will despawn after 15 seconds without creating a Lich.
 * When a Kuva Lich invades a mission, they will randomly convert any enemy around (currently even Latchers) into a thrall. This can be used to "farm" Requiem Murmur fragments up to the mission's Thrall cap. However this process requires enemies alive around the lich, so care must be taken. Invisibility is a plus at this point as sneaking around the Lich while farming thralls will be much easier.
 * Once you get the first Requiem Mod identified, consider attempting a Mercy with it in the first slot. Whether you manage to destroy a health bar or not, you'll still get a considerable amount of Requiem Murmur progress for the next Requiem Mod.
 * In addition to their randomly generated elemental weaknesses and resistances, all Liches use Shields, Ferrite Armor, and Flesh.
 * Killing 5-20 enemies triggers creation of a thrall in most missions. Especially for solo hunters, instead of killing every enemy immediately, you can stop killing and focus on the thrall alone, then continue for another 5-20 enemies. Because mostly only 1-2 thralls will be active at a time over all the map (unless a Lich is active) and a thrall is only converted from an enemy readily on the map.


 * This tip was put on hold after the update 26.1, due to some inconsistencies from hunts by the OP of this tip. Though the tips now seems to hold true, having low number of enemies in solo sessions affects the total conversion numbers, and kills between spawns may increase in team sessions.
 * In survival missions, the hunt may continue until the air support reaches to 0 and all enemies are dead.
 * A safe 4 attempt run would entail the following:
 * Collect murmurs until the first hint is acquired. Equip the requiem mod in the first slot, allowing for the second and third to be random, then try your combination. If this fails, move it to the second slot.
 * Collect murmurs until the second hint is acquired. Equip this new requiem mod into the soonest unknown slot (the first slot if the above step was unsuccessful, otherwise the second slot), then try your combination. If this fails, move it to the third slot. If this is successful, and your second slot fails, move the second slot to the third instead.
 * Repeat the above steps for the third hint and slot. By this third attempt, you should have revealed your first slot, making the second and third slot unknown in the worst-case scenario, which only requires that you swap them for your fourth attempt, guaranteeing the kill.
 * Only a single Lich is allowed to be spawned at time, but multiple, different ones can spawn in a mission. If you're running in a team that hasn't been pre-made, inform them of whether or not you're going to try a mercy attempt on it if it does spawn to make clear what their expectations should be.

Trivia

 * The idea of Kuva Liches dates back to Devstream 88 when they were previously known as the "Kingpin" system.
 * Originally, the Warframe's color palette, choice of skin, and even whether it was a Prime/Umbra variant or not would affect the Lich's look and color scheme. In the current build, however, only the Warframe's chosen helmet is attached to one of the Lich's shoulders, though it also takes into account Deluxe and TennoGen helmets as well.
 * Some helmets are seemingly incompatible, however. In these instances, Excalibur's default helmet will appear instead.
 * During the Railjack gameplay during TennoCon/2019, A Kuva Lich was present named "Agor Rok".
 * As confirmed on Prime Time #267, the first Lich that rose in the public build was named "Budigg Fugg".
 * With 8 unique Requiem mods, there are 336 possible permutations that can be created using three of those mods.
 * Thus, if none of the mods needed are known there is a 1 in 336 chance for a random 3 of the 8 mods to be in the correct order. If one mod in the sequence is known, there is a 1 in 126 chance. If two mods in the sequence are known, there is a 1 in 36 chance. And if all three mods in the sequence are known, there is a 1 in 6 chance for them to be in the correct order.
 * However, while knowing 0, 1, 2, or 3 of the needed mods, only a maximum of 18, 13, 8, and 3 preliminary fights against a Lich respectively are needed to determine the correct mod order. In the case where at least one mod is known as the best strategy to minimize the possible number of fights needed is to always check the position of the known mods first. Otherwise, if 0 mods are known, the player must make 7 checks for the first position, 6 for the second, and 5 for the third, resulting in 18 total checks in the worst-case scenario.
 * For example, say only 2 mods are known. These known mods, A & B, should always be placed in the first two positions with the third position being filled by one of the remaining 6 mods. Say position 3 is filled with mod C for the time being. If during the fight with a Lich the first mod fails, switch the first and second position since both A and B are known. So B is in 1 and A is in position 2, then repeat the fight. If the first position fails again then it is guaranteed that one of the remaining 6 mods must fill position 1, while A & B are in positions 2 or 3. In which case 5 more checks for mods C through G may be necessary to determine the correct mod for position 1, and one more check may be necessary to check the order of A & B in the last two positions. 5 checks for position 1 and not 6 even though 6 mods remain, because if mods C through G fail then it is guaranteed mod H must fill position 1, and as such there is no need to check it. Thus resulting in 13 checks total in the worst-case scenario. This process applies to the other two cases where only 1 mod and 3 mods are known.
 * Because simply testing a combination on a Lich grants roughly 10 Murmurs on average, the number of checks needed will actually be even lower than described above. It should also be noted that Murmurs collected from Thralls during missions will of course lower this further.
 * All Kuva Liches have a large crimson gem-like orb on their bodies, specifically on the chests, on the backs, or covering one of the eyes. This is presumably a vessel that contains the Queens' blood, Kuva.
 * Tenno always stabs Parazon into the orb when vanquishing a Kuva Lich, probably to destroy their source of Kuva, severing their immortality.

Bugs

 * Currently it is possible to finish other people's Lich if they were to spawn during a Thrall hunt. This is possible during a small time window after the original target attempts to kill the Lich without the correct sequence of Requiem mods. Doing so will kill the interacting player without playing the animation and will grant the Lich a level for both interactions.
 * There is a discrepancy between the stats you see in your Kuva weapon's equip menu (and codex entry) stats and its upgrade menu stats. What this may be is the upgrade menu reflects the actual stats of your Kuva weapon and the equip menu reflects generic Kuva weapon stats for that specific Kuva weapon, before the Kuva Lich modifier is applied.
 * Kuva Liches may sometimes appear to have Excalibur's helmet attached to their shoulder, regardless of what Warframe is its progenitor.
 * Occasionally, Mercy Finishers may not correctly play against Kuva Thralls, resulting in a simple placeholder animation where the frame stabs their Parazon in the direction they're facing, regardless of the target's actual location; the target simply falls over after the animation completes. This can also be seen by performing a Mercy Finisher as an operator, as the operator lacks animations for it.
 * Upon defeating the Lich the UI to convert or kill the Lich might be missing. This locks the player's vision and prevents converting and killing the Lich as well as extracting from the mission. Used Reqiuem Mods will not be consumed.
 * If a Lich takes over an initial area that is locked on the Star Chart, the Lich's anger meter will not progress until the area is unlocked. However, if a player kills thralls in another player's game, the murmurs will still unlock mods.
 * If player(s) can deal damage fast enough when the Lich stands up after being incapacitated for the third time, the Lich will be incapacitated again without having time to retreat/despawn.