Summary
Motivity Builds inLies of Pare pretty interesting. The game’s combat system is designed so that Motivity builds (Motivity basically equals Strengthin any other Soulslike) feel incredibly satisfying and powerful against basic enemies, but require precise control ofthe protagonist Pinocchioduring boss fights.
Bosses inLies of Pleave few windows for players to get some attacks in normally, and it’s even more difficult with Motivity builds that use these slow but hard-hitting weapons. So, let’s look atsome of the best P-Organ upgrades(and abilities to slot into them) to choose from.
Updated December 31st, 2023 by Jacob Buchalter:Now that (at least at the time of writing this) the year is about to end, it’s easy to look back on the games of 2023 fondly. Lies of P, for example, is one of the best Soulslike games of the year, hands down. And, a major way that this game innovates on the classic Soulslike formula is by introducing the P-Organ system. When improving the P-Organ in Lies of P, players will be unlocking all sorts of new Upgrades and Abilities, so let’s see which ones, in particular, are worth getting first when it comes to a pure Strength (AKA Motivity) build whilewe wait for the next entry in this new franchise.
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Let’s do something different and start things off with an Upgrade mostLies of Pplayers won’t even see, the Fury Attack Guard upgrade. This is an upgrade that’s found in Phase 7 of the P-Organ, which might seem confusing given that there are only 5 Phases in the game.
However, once players get to NG+ they’ll unlock Phase 6, and Phase 7 is unlocked in NG++. So, while it’s a bit unrealistic for most players to use, the Fury Attack Guard is one of the best upgrades overall to get for a Strength build, as it allows players to just focus purely on raw damage and parrying without having to worry about avoiding Fury Attacks anymore.
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Survival Type
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Next up is the first ability on here, and it’s worth mentioning the difference between ‘Upgrades’ and ‘Abilities’. Upgrades are basically the major 4 ‘Nodes’ on each Phase of the P-Organ, while the abilities are the buffs that are used to fill all the slots of each upgrade to fully ‘activate’ it.
And as far as slot fillers go, the Increase Pulse Cells ability is a no-brainer. More Pulse Cells means a higher survival rate during boss battles, so the more the merrier. And, this is also one of the abilities that pops up the most in the ability tree, as most others only have 2 at most while the Increase Pulse Cells ability has 4.
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First up, anything that increases the Staggerable Window, be it a P-Organ upgrade or ability, is worth grabbing. Players may look at these upgrades at first and assume that they don’t need them, as the first chunk of bosses are pretty generous with the time they give players to get Charge Attacks off.
However, as the game goes on, bosses are going to make it more and more difficult to get a Charged Attack off at all. This is why these upgrades that increase the Staggerable Window just make the game a bit less stressful as a whole so players can focus more on theatmosphere and mystery ofLies of P’sworld.
Attack Type
As far as abilities go to slot into P-Organ upgrades using Quartz, the Enhance Fatal Attack ability is a fantastic one to grab early. While it is technically possible to play this game while ignoringboth the Perfect Guard and Fatal Attack systems, this is tough to do and an unconventional playstyle to say the least.
By default, a standardLies of Pplayer will be getting Fatal Attacks pretty often, usually at least once or twice in every boss fight. Following this train of thought, if players are going to be using Fatal Attacks often, then buffing their damage output will have a big impact.
This next upgrade is a no-brainer for basically anyonewho has ever played a Soulslike game. In these types of games, every single equipment slot is precious, especially when it comes to rings and amulets. In fact, a difference of choice in rings can make two similar builds have entirely different playstyles.
So, being able to add a whole extra slot for players to put an Amulet in will have a gigantic impact over the course of the game. Granted, there aren’t a ton of Amulets players can get until they at leastfind Alidoro the Treasure Hunterand trade their Rare Ergo for more Amulets, but once they do find him this upgrade will become even more useful.
Alongside the actual Staggerable Duration P-Organ upgrade, grabbing this Staggered Duration ability is also a smart move. Again, as the game progresses, players will need to be even more cautious with their usage of Charged Attacks during a boss fight.
So, having a big window of time between seeing that white bar appear around the enemy’s health andusing a Charge Attack to knock them downhelps more than one might expect. When the window is short, players tend to panic and use their Charge Attacks when it’s obviously a bad time to do so, but with this ability, they’ll have more time to pick the most optimal moment.
To be frank, the window to Perfect Guard inLies of Pis tight, even tighter than the Deflect window inSekiro: Shadows Die Twice.In this game where every enemy has Fury Attacks that can only be countered by Perfect Guards, a lot of battles feel almost cruel in the amount of Perfect Guards they expect from players.
Thankfully, Perfect Guards aren’t the only option, and players can do equally as well with regular Guards if needed. And, when using regular Guard, increasing the amount of Guard Regain players can get will play a big part in keeping them alive in a fight they otherwise would’ve died in.
The amount of Stagger that Charge Attacks add to an enemy is pretty absurd, especially with some of the bigger (and slower) weapons in the game. In fact, if a player managed to Perfect Guard most attacks and get a Charge Attack in at every possible opportunity they had, most boss fights would only last a minute or two at most.
So, grabbing an ability that only increases the amount of ‘Stagger damage’ a Charge Attack can mean the difference between interrupting a boss' Fury Attack to unleash a Fatal Attack on them or eating that Fury Attack while getting greedy trying to punish that Staggerable window.
This next P-Organ upgrade comes way too late into the game considering how much more approachable it would’ve made the gamefor more casual Soulslike fansif it was offered earlier. Basically, with this upgrade, Perfect Guards now have the ability to ‘interrupt’ an enemy’s attack chain, which means players don’t have to Perfect Guard 6+ attacks in a row against certain bosses (such as the Puppet King) in order to survive or get their Staggerable punish window.
However, this upgrade is in the 4th ‘tier’ of upgrades, which is only really accessible after players have fought a good number of bosses that rely on these long attack chains. Regardless, it’s an Upgrade worth grabbing as soon as it becomes available, even if it’s a bit late.
This next ability has a double bonus of bothbeing very helpful in combatand giving players more chances to look extra cool. There’s nothing better inLies of Pthan when players get a Perfect Guard and it causes the enemy’s weapon to break, it just feels so satisfying.
Not only that but an enemy with a broken weapon is severely hampered in both their damage output and range. So, with this ability, weapon breaks will happen more often, and it’ll happen faster, giving players earlier windows to punish enemies that only become more dangerous the longer they’re around.
