There are five main virtues in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. These are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. You can invest in each one as you earn Genuine Qi, and each provides stat boosts to enhance your character in specific ways based on your playstyle. On this page we’ll provide a breakdown for each virtue and the main benefits they provide.

What Does the Wood Virtue Do in Wo Long?¶

“Affects HP and the amount of Spirit lost when attacked.”

Wood Virtue Stats and Effects¶

The Wood Virtue increases your maximum health, Spirit Defense, and Spell Duration. It will also increase attack for Wood Virtue abilities, and defense from Earth attacks wielded by enemies. Most characters will benefit from investing at least moderately in the Wood Virtue, since it reduces the amount of Spirit that you’ll lose whenever you’re hit by an attack. This is important because most of your abilities to attack using spells, martial arts, and the more powerful Spirit attacks will require an amount of Spirit to execute. The amount of Spirit that you have therefore correlates to the amount of damage you can inflict, but also how frequently you can use specific spells to buff yourself and your allies.

The increased Spell Duration which is afforded by investing in the Wood Virtue is particularly useful for those who enjoy using Wizardry Spells rather than focus on melee attacks during battles. In the most basic sense, this will prolong the amount of time that a positive effect or ailment is applied to yourself or an ally, but it can also prolong the duration of negative effects that you inflict on enemies.

What Does the Fire Virtue Do in Wo Long?¶

“Affects the amount of Spirit gained when attacking, and the amount of Spirit consumed by Martial Arts.”

Fire Virtue Stats and Effects¶

The Fire Virtue will increase your Attack and Martial Arts stats, while also increasing the amount of fire damage you inflict, including burn status effects, and reducing the amount of damage you receive from poison / toxin sources. In terms of the basic Attack stat, increasing this will result in you earning more Spirit for every attack that you perform, which in turn will increase your ability to use martial arts, wizardry spells, and heavy Spirit attacks more frequently, depending on your preference.

The more you invest in the Martial Arts stat, the less Spirit you’ll need to perform martial arts attacks. In this way both the Attack and Martial Arts stats work in tandem to improve your overall offensive capabilities when using these special abilities. If you find yourself using them a lot, you may want to invest in fire more, but know that if you don’t tend to use martial arts attacks often, you may be wasting points which could be spent elsewhere.

What Does the Earth Virtue Do in Wo Long?¶

“Affects the equipment weight limit and the amount of Spirit gained when deflecting an attack.”

Earth Virtue Stats and Effects¶

The Earth Virtue increases your Deflect stat and your Max equipment weight capacity. It also increases your damage from Stone based attacks, and increases the heaviness status effect from them. At the same time, it reduces the Chill effect and damage received from Ice based attacks.

As with the basic Attack stat, if you increase your Deflect it essentially means that you will gain more Spirit each time you perform a successful deflection. This is arguably one of the most important stats in the game that you can increase, since deflections are crucial to success in almost any fight. For this reason you’ll want to invest a fair amount in the Earth Virtue, or at least balance it alongside another such as Wood.

The Max equipment weight stat is more of an afterthought here, but it can be useful if you prefer to use a medium armor type build. It’s generally ill advised to use heavy armor in these types of games, since it will significantly slow you down and make it more difficult to avoid enemy attacks, especially when you’re outnumbered. However, medium armor can become more viable if you improve your maximum weight capacity, since it’ll make you faster while you still retain some of the added protection from the medium armor.

What Does the Metal Virtue Do in Wo Long?¶

“Affects the duration that a high level of Spirit can be maintained for, and the Spirit consumed by Wizardry Spells.”

Metal Virtue Stats and Effects¶

The Metal Virtue increases your Spirit Sustainability stat and the Wizardry Spells stat, while also enhancing the damage and status effect that you inflict with poison and toxin attacks, and reducing the amount of damage you receive from Shock status and Lightning attacks.

In terms of Spirit Sustainability, this essentially means that the amount of time you can sustain a high level of Spirit for is increased. So, if you’ve accumulated a lot of it from attacking or deflecting, but you find yourself in a pinch and you need to briefly retreat, you’ll find that your Spirit pool is maintained for a longer duration, giving you some breathing space before it begins to deplete.

The Spirit Sustainability stat works fairly well with the Wizardry Spells stat, since the latter affects the amount of Spirit required to cast spells. If you prefer to play more of a ranged spell-caster roll, you’ll naturally find yourself creating more distance between enemies, so you’ll benefit more from the increased duration that your Spirit is maintained, which in turn allows you to cast more spells for longer from a safe distance.

What Does the Water Virtue Do in Wo Long?¶

“Affects how easily enemies can detect you and the amount of Spirit consumed when deflecting.”

Water Virtue Stats and Effects¶

The Water Virtue primarily increases your Ranged Weapon Attack Power stat, Stealth stat, and Deflect stat. It will also increase the amount of damage and Chill effect that you inflict with Ice based attacks, and reduce the Burn status and damage received from fire attacks.

It should go without saying that this stat is the most important for anyone who wants to focus on using ranged weapons, since the primary stat will increase the amount of damage that you inflict with them. The Water Virtue is also the only one which increases three main primary stats, (discounting the boost to HP from each one), giving you a decent balance as a rogue-like character with the improvement to the Stealth stat. This one not only makes it more difficult for enemies to detect you, but it also increases the amount of damage you inflict with surprise Fatal Strikes.

Finally, the Deflect stat here will reduce the amount of Spirit required to perform deflections, making it easier for you to defend yourself against relentless attacks, either from aggressive boss encounters or multiple enemies. It’s a no-brainer that you’ll want to invest heavily in this virtue if you’re looking to create a ranged build.

What Are the Best Virtue Stats in Wo Long?¶

Now that we’ve covered the basics for what each of the five virtues and their associated stats do, you may be wondering which is best to invest in for your own character. Other than the obvious choices depending on your build such as Water for a ranged build or Metal (primarily due to its Spirit Sustainability) for a spell-caster, it’s no secret that most people will be using melee-based builds.

In this scenario it’s difficult to argue against investing a lot in the Wood and Earth stats primarily, since both of these will improve your defensive abilities while also allowing you to maintain a good amount of Spirit, which can in turn be used for your own offensive abilities. If you’re someone who likes to use a lot of Martial Arts attacks, you may want to balance out investing in Wood and Earth with some Fire virtue.

Ultimately, you can experiment with different combinations for virtue investments, but if they’re not working out you can always reinvest once you reach the Hidden Village after speaking with Zuo Ci. You will need to defeat the boss named Aoye before you do can do this, however.