Kuva Liches: create, decode and defeat them

A Kuva Lich is a Grineer soldier made immortal by Kuva. You create it yourself, and from then on it is your very own rival. It occupies planets, steals some of your loot and keeps showing up in your missions. Only when you crack its secret can you defeat it for good. Your reward is an upgraded Kuva weapon.

The key terms in short:

Kuva Larvling

A special Grineer that can appear in normal missions. Finish it with your Parazon and your Lich is born.

Parazon

The blade on your arm used for finishers. You put the Requiem mods into it.

Requiem mods

Eight special mods (Lohk, Xata, Jahu, Vome, Ris, Fass, Netra, Khra). Three of them in the right order break the immortality.

Thrall

A Grineer serving your Lich. It has a blue outline and is a bit tougher.

Murmurs

Knowledge you collect from Thralls. Enough Murmurs reveal one of your Lich’s Requiem mods.

Progenitor Warframe

The Warframe you finish the Larvling with. It decides the weapon’s bonus element.

Kuva

The red Grineer resource. You need it for things like Riven mods.

1. 01

   Finish “The War Within”

   The quest unlocks the Lich system. You also need Mastery Rank 5 and a Railjack for the finale later on.

2. 02

   Play a Grineer mission level 20+

   Normal Grineer missions on the Star Chart count, Steel Path too. Sorties, Void Fissures, Invasions, quests and Uranus do not.

3. 03

   Watch for the yellow flicker

   When the lights flicker yellow, quickly kill about 15 enemies. A Kuva Larvling then appears with a red marker.

4. 04

   Check the weapon

   Knock the Larvling down and get close. Above it you see which Kuva weapon your Lich will carry.

5. 05

   Finish it with the Parazon

   If you like the weapon, do the Parazon finisher. In a squad only the last player who hit it can do this. After the mission your new Lich contacts you.

Every Kuva weapon has extra elemental damage of 25 to 60% of its base damage. The amount is random. The element depends on the Warframe you finish the Larvling with, which also decides your Lich’s abilities. Here are all Warframes by element, click one to open its page:

Heat

• Chroma
• Ember
• Inaros
• Jade
• Kullervo
• Nezha
• Protea
• Temple
• Uriel
• Vauban
• Wisp

Cold

• Frost
• Gara
• Hildryn
• Koumei
• Narin
• Revenant
• Styanax
• Titania
• Trinity

Electricity

• Banshee
• Caliban
• Excalibur
• Excalibur Umbra
• Follie
• Gyre
• Limbo
• Nova
• Valkyr
• Volt

Toxin

• Atlas
• Dagath
• Ivara
• Khora
• Nekros
• Nidus
• Nokko
• Oberon
• Oraxia
• Saryn

Magnetic

• Citrine
• Cyte-09
• Harrow
• Hydroid
• Lavos
• Mag
• Mesa
• Xaku
• Yareli

Radiation

• Ash
• Equinox
• Garuda
• Loki
• Mirage
• Nyx
• Octavia
• Qorvex
• Voruna

Impact

• Baruuk
• Dante
• Gauss
• Grendel
• Orion & Sirius
• Rhino
• Sevagoth
• Sirius & Orion
• Wukong
• Zephyr

Your Lich controls nodes on one planet, and its Thralls roam there. Finish them with the Parazon to get Murmurs. Each full ring in its profile reveals one of the three Requiem mods, but not their order. You need roughly 180 Murmurs for all three.

• You open a Requiem Eterna Relic like a normal Void Relic. It contains the Requiem mods.
• Kuva Siphon missions give one 50% of the time, Kuva Flood missions always. Both appear on the Star Chart after “The War Within”.
• Thralls have a 5% chance to drop a Requiem Eterna Relic.
• Each Requiem mod has 3 charges. Every successful Lich takes one charge from each mod used. Empty mods can be sold, dissolved or transmuted.
• Requiem mods are tradeable, so you can also buy missing ones from other players.

0

Lohk

0

Xata

0

Jahu

0

Vome

0

Ris

0

Fass

0

Netra

0

Khra

0

Oull

The more Thralls you kill on its nodes, the angrier your Lich gets. At some point it shows up in person. Bring its health almost to zero, it kneels for a moment and you can use the Parazon. The mods are tested from left to right.

1. 01

   Equip mods

   Put the three mods you know into the Parazon. If you don’t know all of them yet, fill the gaps with guesses.

2. 02

   Face the Lich

   Knock it down and use the Parazon. Each correct mod in the correct slot destroys one of its three health bars.

3. 03

   Check the result

   If a mod is wrong, the Lich ranks up and leaves. Its profile shows which slot was right. Every attempt also gives Murmurs, and Kuva at ranks 1 to 4.

4. 04

   Swap and repeat

   Swap the wrong slots and try again. With all three mods known there are only 6 possible orders.

Once you get it right, the Lich flees to Saturn Proxima. You chase it there with your Railjack, which needs one Railjack Intrinsics category at rank 5. After the fight on its ship you decide its fate.

On every node your Lich controls it takes part of your loot: credits, resources, blueprints, Void Relics, mods and even Kuva. The more nodes it holds, the higher the tax. It does not take Requiem relics or Requiem mods.

• Completing an occupied node removes its influence there.
• Clearing every node on a planet makes it rank up and move on.
• When you finally defeat it, you get everything back.

You have 20 seconds to choose. If you pick nothing, the Lich is vanquished. Either way you get the stolen loot back. A converted Lich can be traded once to another player in a Clan Dojo, who then fights it for the weapon.

There are 21 Kuva weapons. Some are upgraded versions of known Grineer weapons, others exist only here. Popular picks include:

Kuva BrammaKuva NukorKuva ZarrKuva HekKuva ChakkhurrKuva Shildeg

• You do not need the weapon’s Mastery Rank. You simply claim it from the Foundry.
• Each Forma raises the max rank by 2, up to rank 40 after five Forma. Every rank above 30 gives extra mastery.
• Valence Fusion: if you own the same weapon twice, you can fuse them. The higher bonus is multiplied by 1.1, up to 60%, and you pick the element.
• From rank 40 an Elemental Vice lets you switch the bonus element. The percentage stays the same.