Servants are how a V Rising castle runs without you. Convert one, put it in a coffin, then send it on hunts from a throne to bring back resources while you are doing something else. The difference between a productive castle and a dead one is almost entirely in three decisions: which servant you convert, how long you send it for, and what gear you give it.
All numbers below come from the V Rising Wiki’s Servants page.
How to capture a servant
To convert a target, you must first reduce their health below 30%, activate Dominate, and channel (default key R) to subdue them. Two warnings from the wiki:
- The target may still attack during the channel. Dropping it below 30% is not the end of the fight.
- Only human and some draculin targets can become Servants.
Once subdued, the target is neutral and dormant — attacks disabled, but still able to take damage from enemies. Because your other abilities are unavailable while a target is subdued, the wiki recommends using a consumable to transport it to an empty Servant Coffin immediately, or routing through Cave Passages.
Conversion takes 20 minutes of real time — or 10 minutes with Crypt Flooring. It costs Blood Essence to convert a Servant, and Servants cannot be revived while the “Castle Under Attack” status is active.
One more structural note: once converted, Servants cannot be moved between existing coffins, so place them where you intend to keep them.
Expertise: half of blood quality
Since Update 1.1, a Servant’s expertise equals half their blood quality percentage. Expertise influences four things: Max Health, Physical Power, Loot and Hunt Proficiency.
| Effect | How expertise scales it |
|---|---|
| Max Health | Increased by the expertise % directly |
| Physical Power | Increased by the expertise % directly |
| Loot from hunts | Increased by half the expertise % |
| Hunt Proficiency | Increased by a flat amount, not a percentage |
The worked example the wiki gives: a Gear Level 30 Servant with 90% blood quality gains
- +90% Max Health and Physical Power
- +45% Loot from hunts (half the expertise value)
- +90 Hunt Proficiency, for a total of 490 — that is 100 base + (30 × 10) from Gear Level + 90 from Expertise
The asymmetry is the interesting part: Loot is the one stat that scales at half rate. A high-blood-quality servant is far better at surviving and fighting than at hauling.
Gear: only one stat matters
Servants have the same equipment slots as the player except for cape and headgear, and the wiki is emphatic about what actually counts:
The only equipment stat that matters to a Servant is Gear Level. All other secondary stats have no effect — including set bonuses and durability level.
Gear Level increases Hunt Proficiency by 10 × the gear level, and increases combat stats for castle defence proportionally. So the correct gearing strategy is simply “highest Gear Level you can spare”, with no consideration for rolls, sets or durability.
Servants have 100 base Hunt Proficiency, and each location requires a minimum proficiency for the hunt to succeed.
Hunt duration: short is better per hour
| Hunt duration | Loot amount | Success chance | Relative yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 hours | 50% | +0% | 100.0% |
| 4 hours | 75% | +5% | 75.0% |
| 6.5 hours | 100% | +10% | 61.5% |
| 10 hours | 125% | +15% | 50.0% |
| 16 hours | 150% | +20% | 37.5% |
This is the single most misunderstood table in the servant system. Longer hunts return more absolute loot, but the relative yield per hour is highest at 2 hours (100%) and falls to 37.5% at 16 hours.
The trade-off is risk: shorter hunts have a lower success chance (+0% at two hours versus +20% at sixteen), and if a hunt is unsuccessful the servant will likely be killed. A dead servant can be resurrected at their coffin for Blood Essence over 10 minutes.
So the choice is efficiency versus safety. Short hunts when you are actively playing and can afford losses; long hunts when you are logging off and want the servant alive when you return.
Notably, hunt completion is based on real-world time — you do not need to leave the game running, and it does not matter whether you play solo or on a dedicated server. Start a 16-hour hunt at 6pm in a solo game, exit, and it completes at 10am the next day.
Blood Type and Faction perks
Each Servant has two perks that apply on hunts:
| Perk | Source | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Blood Type | The servant’s blood type | Reduces the difficulty of a hunt in the matching location by 100 |
| Faction | The servant’s region of origin | Increases loot from successful hunts in that region by 20% |
Blood Type perks do not stack, which is why the wiki advises sending a diverse group of servants rather than several of the same blood type. The supported perks for each area are visible in the hunt interface, so check there before committing a party.
This is the answer to “best servant for a given area”: match the faction to the region you are farming for the +20% loot, and match the blood type to the location for the difficulty reduction.
Practical servant setup
- Convert high blood quality humans or draculin. Expertise is half of blood quality and drives health, power and proficiency directly.
- Give them your highest spare Gear Level. Nothing else on the item matters.
- Match faction to region for the +20% loot bonus.
- Diversify blood types in a party, since those perks do not stack.
- Run 2-hour hunts while active for maximum resources per hour; switch to long hunts when logging off.
- Build with Crypt Flooring to halve conversion time from 20 minutes to 10.
Since Update 1.1, servants no longer get injured during hunts — that mechanic was removed from the game, so the only real risk now is death on a failed hunt.
For the castle side of this, see the base building guide. Combat context for the domination fight is in the combat guide, enemy blood types in the enemies guide, and gearing fundamentals in the items guide. If you are still setting up, the beginner guide covers reaching your first coffin.