Vigor Farming: Six Routes That Still Work After the Nerfs
Six vigor farms verified against patch 2.5, ordered from the earliest one you can reach to a full end-game loop. Most of the old farms were patched out, so these are the ones that survived. Three of them run out of the Bell Room Vestige at Pilgrim's Perch, which makes that single rest point the most valuable spot in the game for a fresh character. The Crimson Rector skull loop is the clear winner at roughly 432,000 vigor per hour, but it needs a strong ranged spell to work. If you cannot nuke a platform yet, the Ardent Penitent hallway right next to it still pays about 288,000 an hour and asks for nothing but a lamp.
Before you start
- Access to Pilgrim's Perch and the Bell Room Vestige, which covers the first three farms
- Vestige Seeds for every farm that plants a seedling. Molhu at Skyrest Bridge sells them
- A strong area-of-effect spell for the Crimson Rector, Rosmund and Empyrean farms. Orius' Judgement is the reference pick and needs 35 Radiance plus a Radiant Catalyst
- The Pilgrim's Perch Key, needed only to collect the vigor skulls the Crimson Rector drops
- The Empyrean farm is end-game. Everything before it is reachable much earlier
Builds that make this easier
Items / Buffs
Pilgrim's Perch: The Bell Room Loops
Kill the Ardent Penitent outside the Bell Room Vestige
The simplest farm in the game and the first one to set up. Rest at the Bell Room Vestige, step out, and you will find a single Ardent Penitent in the hallway. Raise your Umbral Lamp and pull the Umbral parasite off him first, otherwise he takes far longer to bring down. Kill him in the hallway, walk back to the Vestige, rest, and repeat. Each kill pays roughly 400 vigor. At a steady pace on a level 100 character that works out to about 288,000 vigor per hour. Nothing here needs a seedling, a spell, or a key, which is what makes it the farm to fall back on early.
Detonate the Umbral pockets above the Bell Room
Leave the Bell Room Vestige and go right instead of left, up the stairs. You will pass a Moth Mother on the way. Keep heading right and climb to the very top of the area, where there is a flowerbed. Plant a Vestige Seed there and rest at the new seedling so every enemy in the area resets. Now walk back the way you came in Umbral with your lamp raised, popping each explosive Umbral pocket on the walls as you pass it. The chain kills every enemy on the route without you swinging once. Finish by killing the Moth Mother, then rest and run it again. The trash pays around 500 vigor and the Moth Mother adds the rest for roughly 1,100 per lap, or about 88,000 vigor per hour. That is well short of the hallway farm, so run this one for the drops rather than the vigor. The Moth Mother is generous with Vestige Seeds, armor pieces and manastones, which makes this the better loop if you are a caster short on mana consumables.
Nuke the Crimson Rector for Seething Vigor Skulls
The best farm on this list, and the most involved to set up. From the Bell Room Vestige, run past the Ardent Penitent and roll off the ledge rather than taking the ladder. You will take chip damage on landing. Roll off a second ledge, then climb the ladder all the way to the bottom. Look for the Umbral entrance on the cliffside and cross into Umbral there, taking care not to get clipped by the Ardent Penitent behind you. Go down the last ladder, kill the enemy waiting at the bottom, and plant a Vestige Seed right at the edge of the plank. Look down from the plank and you will see an empty platform and a T-shaped crossbar. Drop onto the crossbar and kill yourself. That is what spawns the enemies on the platform below, and you respawn at the seedling you just planted. From up on the plank, drop your strongest ranged spell onto the platform to kill the Crimson Rector, who leaves a Seething Vigor Skull worth 1,600 vigor. Rest at the seedling, fall to the crossbar again to reset, and repeat. Clearing the whole platform with Orius' Judgement adds roughly 1,200 vigor a lap on top of the skulls, which comes out to about 432,000 vigor per hour before you have picked up a single skull.
Collect the skulls from the platform belowOptional
The skulls pile up on the platform you have been shelling, so clear them out whenever you have banked a decent stack. Rest at your seedling and warp back to the Bell Room Vestige, then ride the lift all the way down to the blacksmith's room. A side door there opens with the Pilgrim's Perch Key and drops you straight onto the platform you were bombing. Sweep up every skull, then either burn a Vestige Moth to jump back to your seedling or take the lift up and start the loop again. Skip this step entirely if you would rather keep farming, but the skulls are dead weight until you cash them in.
Mid-Game: Single-Target Vigor
Farm the knight outside the Vestige of Brother Jeremiah
Head for the Hallowed Brothers Leprosarium in the Manse of the Hallowed Brothers and rest at the Vestige of Brother Jeremiah. Walk straight out the front door of the building and a very large knight is waiting in the open. That is the entire route. Kill him, rest, repeat. He is a real fight at low level but folds quickly once you have some scaling behind you. Each kill is 789 vigor, which is 189,360 vigor per hour if you sit on him for a full hour. The vigor is not why you come here though. He drops Deralium Chunks, which is the main draw, along with Briostone Trios, armor and weapons you can sell off later.
Run the double spawn at the Vestige of Rosmund
Start at the Vestige of Rosmund in the Abbey of the Hallowed Sisters and run through the gate, which you need to have opened as a shortcut beforehand. If you have not, go through the door instead, loop up and around, come back down and open the gate from the far side. Fight your way up through the enemies at the top, a dog and a handful of archers, until you reach an Ardent Penitent. He will run straight past you rather than engage. As soon as he does, turn left and plant a Vestige Seed on the small bed of Umbral flowers there. Rest once to shake off anything still chasing you. You now have two targets on a short loop. The Ardent Penitent is directly behind you and dies fast, and there is a bell-headed enemy out in the courtyard that you can delete with Orius' Judgement or any comparable spell. Take both, rest at the seedling, go again. An hour of this pays 175,200 vigor, plus whatever armor sets and weapons the pair drop along the way.
End-Game: The Empyrean
Seedling farm the pair in front of Judge Cleric
This one is strictly end-game. Run up the courtyard in The Empyrean and kill both Abbesses on the way through. Leaving them alive is miserable, because they trail you the whole way and keep firing their beam at your back. Once you are inside, plant your Vestige Seed right in front of where you fight Judge Cleric and rest at it. Run down the stairs, turn left, and nuke the two enemies there with your heaviest spell. Wait for their drops if they leave anything, otherwise go straight back to the seedling, rest and repeat. An hour on this loop returns 169,200 vigor. It is the lowest hourly rate here, but the drops are the best of any farm on the list. Those two hand over weapons, their complete armor set and Deralium Chunks, which makes it far more lucrative than the raw vigor number suggests.
