How to get Merciless weapons and armor in V Rising

V Rising armor best sets all
(Image credit: Stunlock Studios)

V Rising Merciless weapons and armor are next tier gear that can be build from particular crafting recipes, obtainable in different ways but leading you all to the same point. Merciless gear is even essential to passing certain points within the game, so you'll need to know how to set it up if you want to be anything more then a basic bloodsucker. Here's how you get the Merciless Weapons and Armor in V Rising, including recipes and crafting alike.

How to get Merciless weapons and armor in V Rising

(Image: © Stunlock Studios)

Merciless gear, armor and weapons in V Rising can only be crafted, rather than found. For that you need a Merciless recipe, which can be found in one of two ways:

- Researched at your Castle

- Found as random drops from certain enemies

Merciless weapons are basically enhanced, superior versions of existing weapons and gear. For example, a Merciless Copper Sword functions the same as a Copper Sword, but with better stats and numbers attached. 

Researching Merciless recipes

We'll cover researching Merciless gear at your castle first, as it's slightly more reliable as a process. To do this, you'll need a LOT of V Rising Paper, or even the rarer, higher-value V Rising Scrolls. Once you have either, build a Research Desk or the Study, depending on what you want to get.

  • Research Desk (requires 50 Paper): Merciless Copper Weapons, Merciless Nightstalker armor
  • Study (requires 75 Scrolls): Merciless Iron Weapons, Merciless Hollowfang armor
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Want to shape the world easily? Check out out V Rising console commands and cheats page for details!

The big issue here is randomness - submitting Paper or Scrolls to the two research objects gives you an entirely random new research, not guaranteeing that you'll get anything Merciless. That means you're essentially rolling a dice each time, though keep going and eventually you should get what you need - or at least some of it. Each Merciless weapon and armor piece is researched individually, so you'll likely accrue the sets piecemeal, one at a time.

Finding Merciless Recipes

The alternative is finding recipes dropped by mobs and enemies along the way. Again, there's a lot of randomness involved here, so the best thing you can do is go on an absolute slaughter through (specifically human) enemies, rolling the dice each time they die. You can get the recipe, then bring it back to the Study or Research Table to submit it and get the recipe. What you want should alter where you look, as these recipes are tied to enemies in certain locations:

  • Farbane Woods: Merciless Copper Weapons, Merciless Nightstalker armor
  • Dunley Farmlands: Merciless Iron Weapons, Merciless Hollowfang armor

Crafting Merciless weapons and armor

V Rising merciless armor weapons copper iron nightstalker hollowfang

(Image credit: Stunlock Studios)

Once you have the recipe, head back to either the simple workbench, if you're crafting Merciless Copper and Nightstalker armor, or to a Smithy, if you want to create Merciless Iron and Merciless Hollowfang armor. The exact recipe requirements will change depending on what you're crafting, but each of these generally require the base version of that weapon or armor to craft it, along with additional resources. Still, it's definitely worth it, as you'll come away with superior gear and little downside.

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Joel Franey
Guides Writer

Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and raconteur with a Masters from Sussex University, none of which has actually equipped him for anything in real life. As a result he chooses to spend most of his time playing video games, reading old books and ingesting chemically-risky levels of caffeine. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at USgamer, Gfinity, Eurogamer and more besides.