Advance In Lies Of P is one of six stats or attributes around which builds can be tailored and perfected – which is a staple in the souls-like genre of games. Advance is like the Arcane attribute in Bloodborne or Magic / Intelligence stat in other RPGs – it focuses on defeating enemies through stacking status effects like fire, acid, electricity – through a mix of weapons and throwables. This is as against a more agile and fast-paced playstyle, where the player does quick dodges, parries and counter-attacks in a Technique / Dexterity build or relying on ‘tanking’ or ‘trading blows’ kind of a playstyle in a Strength / Motivity build.
Lies Of P comes with several weapon choices which are perfectly suited to this playstyle – they scale with the Advance attribute – increasing damage in line with no. of points put into Advance, and they have damage which is split between physical and one of the status effects. Some of these weapons go right upto S scaling when fully upgraded, to give maximum damage if one is going for an Advance build.
While this can be a fun way to play the game with a lot of cool looking weapons and effects, the things to consider on the downside are that frequent weapon swaps will need to be done depending upon the resistances of the enemy; and the split damage between physical and elemental means that the damage, as compared to a pure physical weapon will sometimes be lesser. The benefit that you get for the trade-off is damage over time, which is pretty useful against tough opponents and bosses.
An Advance build is definitely a viable one that can help get through the entire game. Using the right legion arm and equipping throwables alongside that have similar status effects like the weapon can work out to be a lethal combination that can decimate bosses.
Lies Of P, launched on Sep 19, 2023 has been received quite well and sold 1 million copies in less than a month. It has especially helped in some way to fill up the vacuum left in the wake of Bloodborne – the game that it resembles the most – with neither a remake or a sequel for Bloodborne on the cards. A Lies Of P sequel and a DLC was announced later in November, and the developer has also been consistently putting out updates and patches to improve upon the game experience.
