How do you use the Lords of the Fallen Umbral lamp? The Dark Crusader’s journey to save Mournstead from demonic forces takes them through the parallel worlds of Axiom and Umbral. The link between the realm of the living and the dead is the Umbral lamp, a highly coveted artifact of unknown origin. It has many different uses in both combat and exploration, and we’re here to go through them all, so you can unlock its secrets and survive the dark forces that move against you.
The Umbral lamp is available to all Lords of the Fallen classes right at the beginning of the soulslike game, and it’s essential to progress past obstacles and uncover secrets. You might also consider it one of the most reliable Lords of the Fallen weapons at your disposal – in fact, the best Lords of the Fallen builds for Umbral magic users are sure to incorporate the Umbral lamp’s bonus withered damage application. Without further ado, here’s how to use the Umbral lamp in Lords of the Fallen in both exploration and combat.
How to use the Umbral lamp in exploration
You can raise the Umbral lamp at any time by holding L-Ctrl, which allows you to peer into the realm of the dead to navigate obstacles and discover alternate paths. You can also use the lamp to create an Umbral Rift by holding Q, which allows you to enter Umbral without dying first.
Within Umbral, your lamp can perform a number of abilities that it can’t when in Axiom. You can use it to manipulate platforms in the environment by locking onto it, raising your lamp, and right-clicking to drag it towards you. You might also find an Umbral entity blocking your progress, which you can remove by locating the nodes connected to it and destroying them using the same technique.
The longer you spend in Umbral, the more dangerous it becomes as the spectral entities that roam the realm become increasingly aware of your presence. Consequently, we recommend only using the Umbral lamp to rift when absolutely necessary. You can keep track of your Umbral Dread by checking the vigor multiplier in the top-right corner; a good rule of thumb is to return to Axiom as soon as it reaches x2.00 to avoid a quick death.
How to use the Umbral lamp in combat
While in Umbral, perform a soul flay attack by raising the Umbral lamp using L-Ctrl then holding right-click. This move temporarily slows the enemy while separating their soul from their body. Attack it to apply withered damage to their health pool; once fully withered, a flayed enemy is left wide open to a devastating front or backstab.
Soul flaying an enemy uses up a soul flay charge, represented by the blue nodes on the top-left of the UI. Once these nodes have been depleted, you must recover charges by siphoning enemies or Umbral blisters with your lamp by holding up the lamp with L-Ctrl and then holding left-click.
You can also this soul siphon technique in combat to destroy Umbral parasites that cling to certain enemies and imbue them with powerful buffs. You can identify enemies with Umbral parasites by their blue health bar. Soul siphoning removes the Umbral parasite without stepping into Umbral – though you can rift over and destroy the parasite using regular attacks if you’d prefer.
How to forge Vestiges using the Umbral lamp
You can create Forged Vestiges using the Umbral lamp by locating an Umbral bed of flowers and planting a Vestige Seed by raising the lamp with L-Ctrl and holding F. These custom checkpoints can be placed tactically to cut down on the time it takes to run back to a boss room, or level up and replenish your Sanguinarix without having to double back to a previous Vestige.
The Umbral lamp icon in the bottom-right flashes blue when an Umbral bed of flowers is nearby, though you can also pinpoint them by their telltale white flowers in both realms. Vestige Seeds are hard to come by, so it’s worth taking stock of your immediate surroundings to ensure that an existing Vestige isn’t close by. We generally recommend planting one near Lords of the Fallen bosses, so you can jump straight back into the fight after every failed attempt.
Now that you know how to use the Lords of the Fallen Umbral lamp, you should have no trouble flaying enemies and hopping between worlds. The lamp is undeniably useful in Lords of the Fallen multiplayer, so be sure to check out our guide to Lords of the Fallen crossplay if you’re teaming up with pals on console. Finally, check out how long Lords of the Fallen is, whether you’re in it just for the story or the secrets.
