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 is a unique boss, taking the form of a Grineer that is spiked with Kuva, who will hunt players down 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.

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, Quests, Nightmare Mode missions, or Dark Sectors. The spawning of a Kuva Larvling in a mission is announced to the player by the level's lighting flickering yellow, along with a Kuva Guardian announcing their presence, with its location being marked by a red waypoint. This doesn't necessarily happen at the start of the mission.

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, and Mods, but not Requiem Relics or Requiem Mods). 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. Killing thralls and completing missions on controlled nodes will further anger the Lich, increasing the meter. There are five levels of anger: Indifferent → Annoyed → Fuming → Furious → Enraged.

The meter will reset every time the Lich levels up.

Abilities
Kuva Liches have four unique abilities, three of them are variants of existing Warframe abilities and one is a movement ability. The abilities that they possess depend on the element associated with the Progenitor Warframe that killed them. 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, albiet dealing reduced damage.

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

Ephemera
Kuva Liches can rarely spawn with an Ephemera equipped that corresponds to the Progenitor Warframe that killed them.

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.

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. There is a limit to the number of Thralls that will spawn in a given mission, approximately 15. Thralls are several levels higher than other enemies in the mission, are immune to most forms of crowd control, and can use a teleport dodge move. Upon reaching 0% health, Thralls will stumble and become vulnerable to a Mercy Finisher. Mercy kills have a 5% chance to drop a Requiem Relic). Upon the Thrall's death, all players in the mission are rewarded a Requiem Murmur. 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; the first two required Mods need 30 Murmurs each to reveal, while the third requires 70. 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, 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.

Defeating the Kuva Lich
When the right combination of Requiem Mods is found the player will be given two choices: Vanquish the Kuva Lich or Convert it.
 * 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.
 * 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.

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 and meets the required Mastery Rank, they can claim these weapons from their Foundry. The weapons vary in attributes, dependent on the Lich the player has slain.

A list of Kuva Lich weapons are as follows (with a brief outline of how they differ to the base variant):

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 elemental damage.

All Kuva weapons deal innate elemental damage in addition to physical damage. The amount of this damage is random, ranging from 25-60%, 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 of the same kind. This process destroys the donor weapon and overrides the previous Kuva weapons damage bonus while retaining applied Formas, Orokin Catalyst, Focus Lens, Mod configs, Appearance configs, and etc.

For example, say you have already installed a catalyst on  A with a 25% bonus and you got a new Kuva Seer B with a 55%  bonus. When you perform a valence transfer from Kuva Seer B to A, everything you've done on Kuva Seer A will stay when Kuva Seer B is consumed. The 55% buff from Kuva Seer B will be passed onto Kuva Seer A, and Kuva Seer B will cease to exist in your Inventory.

Note that this can only happen if the donor weapon has a higher damage bonus than the weapon you are transferring the bonus to. Valence Transfer can be accessed in the Action tab at the bottom of the Upgrade screen of your desired Kuva Weapon.

Tips

 * When a Kuva Lich invades a mission, enemies near it will start turning into thralls. This can be used to "farm" Requiem Murmur fragments, although not indefinitely.

Trivia

 * As confirmed on Prime Time #267, the first Lich that rose in the public build was called "Budigg Fugg".
 * The idea of Kuva Liches dates back to Devstream 88 when they were previously known as the "Kingpin" system.
 * Originally, your Warframe's color palette, choice of skin, and even whether it was a Prime/Umbra variant or not would affect your Lich's look and color scheme. In the current build however only your 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.
 * 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 know, 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 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.

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.
 * If an Ayatan Sculpture is stolen, it is not returned when the Lich is defeated.
 * 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.