Which stats to upgrade first in The Last Faith

As The Last Faith is a full-blooded Metroidvania soulslike, this means it has, by default, inherited some emblematic genre trappings we all know and love. Like, for example, the fact that the game does not explain any of its many different character stats.

The good news, though, is that The Last Faith only has five disparate stats you’ll need to juggle through your playthrough. From Vitality to Instinct, the specifics of what these do are not immediately obvious, but it is possible to suss them out by keeping an eye on statistical changes as you preview your character upgrades at Helenya. Which ones should you be focusing on, though?

The Last Faith character stats explained

Before we outline which stats should you be going for early on, let us go over what each of them does, from our personal experience:

• Vitality: Increased health and better resistance to physical and bleeding damage.
• Strength: Improved ability to wield heavy weapons and better resistance to cold damage.
• Dexterity: Improved ability to wield technical/fast weapons and better resistance to fire damage.
• Mind: Increased focus/mana and better resistance to dark and nightmare damage.
• Instinct: Improved ability to wield ranged weapons and better fate bar/Stigma ability, as well as better resistance to electric damage.

This should give you a solid idea of what each of the five character stats does in The Last Faith, which means we can move on to the really important bit: which stats matter the most early in the game.

Which The Last Faith character stats should you invest in?

While you’re certainly going to want to keep your starting character class in mind when thinking about which stats you’re investing in with Helenya, our experience is that Vitality and Mind will be the bread and butter of success in The Last Faith. These stats bolster your health and ability mana pool, respectively, and they’ll make the biggest difference in moment-to-moment combat, generally speaking.

So, we recommend investing in Vitality and Mind for the most part, and then, once you’ve settled on a particular weapon type, choosing either Strength or Dexterity as your main weapon scaling stat. This should ensure that you do not waste any level up opportunities, and that you don’t waste too many resources on something that does not bring in any meaningful boons.