As you go through the Axiom and Umbral realms of Lords of the Fallen, you will need to upgrade your stats to handle the increasing amounts of brutal enemies and bosses. Once you start investing a lot of points into a character stat, at some point the increase in power won’t be as much as it was in earlier levels. This is due to the Lords of the Fallen soft caps system.
It’s intended as a balancing element to weapon scaling and stats which stops you and your weapons from being way too strong and overpowered. So, let’s learn more about how this soft caps and weapon scaling system works in a more detailed manner.
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What Are Soft Caps and Hard Caps?
Soft Caps
Soft caps in Lords of the Fallen are based on a certain value in a given stat (Strength, Endurance, Vitality, etc.) where the benefits you get from investing points into the stat will start to have diminishing returns. This means if you hit the soft cap value of a given stat, any further points invested into that stat after that value won’t have the same effect as it did before you hit that value.
Let’s take the Strength stat for example. This stat will increase the overall defense and the weapon damage for weapons that scale with Strength. But, when you hit the soft cap for Strength, the increase in your defense and weapon damage for every point you invest in Strength won’t be as much as it was until you hit the soft cap.
Due to this, it might be wise to stop investing many points into a stat after hitting its soft cap value. Investing points into other stats that haven’t hit the soft cap will prove to be more beneficial.
Hard Caps
A hard cap means that you don’t get any benefits whatsoever beyond that value despite investing points in it. This is not a thing to consider during your first playthrough, as you likely won’t accumulate enough points to reach these hard cap values. However, it is something to consider for New Game+ playthroughs.
What Is Weapon Scaling In Lords Of The Fallen?
Soft caps also affect the weapon scaling that determines which stat any given weapon scales its damage off of. Every weapon will have a certain tier of scaling for at least one of these four stats:
- Strength (STR)
- Radiance (RAD)
- Agility (AGI)
- Inferno (INF)
For example, the Mournstead Infantry Spear has a ‘D-‘ tier in STR and a ‘C-‘ tier in AGI. This means the more points you have invested in the Strength and Agility stat, the more its damage will be. Also, the scaling tier determines the amount of increase in damage for every point invested in the stat.
Upgrading a weapon can increase its scaling tier from the D tier, which is the lowest, up to the S tier which is the highest.
Keep in mind that soft caps also affect the increase in weapon scaling damage for that stat. This is even more reason to not focus on one stat too much, especially when nearing the hard caps.
All Soft Caps And Hard Caps In Lords Of The Fallen
Some stats are affected differently compared to other stats by the soft caps system in this game. Here are all the soft and hard cap values for every stat in Lords of the Fallen:
| Character Stat | Soft Cap | Hard Cap |
| Strength | 50 | 75 |
| Agility | 50 | 75 |
| Endurance | 20 / 40 | 60 |
| Vitality | 20 / 40 | 60 |
| Radiance | 50 | 75 |
| Inferno | 50 | 75 |
As you can see, Endurance and Vitality both have two different soft caps. When you hit the first soft cap, the benefits gained will start to be lesser than before, but it will stay like that up until you hit the second soft cap. After that, the benefits will decrease even further until the hard cap, where it stops altogether.
Can You Respec Your Character Stats?
If you have already invested points in any stats, there is no way to take it back other than having to reset and respec all your character stats. This can be done after you defeat Pieta in Lords of the Fallen, after which she will become a friendly NPC you can interact with at Skyrest Bridge.
In addition to that, every time you want to respec your points you will need a rare item known as Rebirth Chrysalis. If you want to know more about how to respec and how to find this rare item, you can read our guide on how to respec in Lords of the Fallen.
That is for the Lords of the Fallen soft caps and hard caps guide. You might be interested in knowing how to find blacksmith Gerlinde so you can upgrade the scaling tier of your weapon.
