Valor Mortis Ambers: How to Use and Equip Them

To use Ambers in Valor Mortis, rest at any Lantern, open LEVEL UP, select an open slot marked with a plus sign, pick an Amber from the CHOOSE AMBER list and confirm. Ambers are passive gems, so once one is slotted its bonus is always on, and you can swap them at any Lantern. The catch is that the first slot only opens at level 5, which is why many players find their first Amber long before they can equip it.

We checked this against PC Gamer's Amber guide, All Things How's step-by-step equip walkthrough, the metabot.gg Amber database built from the game files, PowerPyx's side quest list and Steam's achievement page in November 2026.

Equipping an Amber Step by Step

Ambers are not equipped from the inventory. Everything happens on the Lantern's Level Up screen, and the inventory only lets you read what you own. The guides we checked document PC keys, so those are listed here; on PS5 and Xbox you open the same Lantern and work through the same named screens with your controller:

1. Stand at a Lantern and press E to rest.
2. Choose LEVEL UP from the Lantern menu.
3. Look at the bottom row of the screen. Once you are level 5, the first lock is replaced by a plus sign. Click it.
4. The CHOOSE AMBER list opens. Hover over each Amber to read its effect, then click the one you want.
5. Press F to CONFIRM before you leave the screen, or the change will not stick.

To browse Ambers away from a Lantern, open the inventory with Tab and move with A and D to the tab with the gem icon. That screen shows each Amber's description and rank, which is handy for planning a swap before you reach the next rest point. Any slot accepts any Amber, so there is no color or type restriction to worry about.

Why the First Lanterns Cannot Equip Ambers

The first three Lanterns on the Battlefield (Onslaught Arch, the Trenches and the Field Encampment) only show LEVEL UP, UPGRADE FERROFLUID FLASK and LEAVE, and the Amber slots on the Level Up screen stay locked until your character reaches level 5. Nothing else needs to be unlocked or completed. Spend a few Catalysts at a Lantern, reach level 5, and the first slot opens.

After that, PC Gamer and All Things How agree that new slots open as you keep leveling. PC Gamer gives the full schedule as level 5, 15, 25, 35 and 45, for five slots in total. The metabot.gg database lists a different schedule (levels 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9), which conflicts with the level 5 start that the other guides report, so trust the lock icons on your own Level Up screen over any list. Either way, five is the maximum number of Ambers you can run at once. If you are wondering how far 45 levels really is in Catalysts, the level cap and Catalyst cost breakdown has the full curve.

A practical tip: you will likely pick up Duellist's Focus well before level 5. It sits in a red chest with gold trim in the woods north of the gorge on the Battlefield, next to a wrecked crate and a dead soldier in a green coat. It widens the parry window for melee weapons, which makes it one of the best first Ambers for the General Lothaire fight.

How Ranks and Duplicates Work

There are 29 different Ambers. Fifteen have three ranks and fourteen have a single rank. Rank is simply the number of copies you own, so picking up a second copy of a ranked Amber raises it to rank II and a third copy to rank III. Duplicates are never wasted; they are how Ambers get stronger. In total, metabot.gg counts 62 Amber copies in the world: 44 in chests, 5 from side quests, 12 from elite enemies and one gift.

Perfect Copy is the special case. It is a single Amber found in the Valley of Ashes that raises the rank of every other equipped tier 1 and tier 2 Amber by one, which effectively turns your other four slots into higher-rank versions. It costs a slot, so it shines most when you are running several rank I or rank II Ambers you have not finished collecting yet.

Some Ambers only have one source. Sleight of Hand, which speeds up reloading and weapon switching by 20%, comes from the An Unheard Farewell side quest in the Valley of Ashes, and the quest lets you pick it or a copy of Lucky Shot. Players chasing the Ambersmith achievement (gather all Ambers, 18.3% of Steam players as of November 2026) should plan that choice carefully.

The Six Amber Families

metabot.gg groups the 29 Ambers into six families by what they affect. Knowing the families makes the CHOOSE AMBER list much faster to read:

• Melee (5): Duellist's Focus, Perfectionism (+10% to +20% melee damage at full Health), Glass Soldier, Warrior's Fury and Fire Breathing.
• Firearms (6): Dilated Moment, Volatile End, Lucky Shot (+10% to +20% chance to keep ammo), Marksman's Bane, Sleight of Hand and Sixth Sense.
• Transmutations and Nephtoglobin (5): Bottomless Well, Life Diverted, Transmuted Persistence, Lunatic's Grasp and Equivalent Exchange.
• Ferrofluid Flask (4): Iron Grip, Potent Concoction, Tomorrow's Promise and Limit Break.
• Survival (6): Butcher's Carnage, Wound that Heals, Dominatus, Indestructible Shell, Bountiful Harvest and Payback.
• Utility (3): Perfect Copy, Surplus (+10% to +15% Catalysts from kills) and Silent Squeak.

The flask family pairs naturally with your healing upgrades. Iron Grip makes flask use 50% faster and uninterruptible, and Tomorrow's Promise adds regeneration on top of every sip. If you are building around healing, our Ferrofluid Flask upgrade guide shows how far the flask itself can be pushed first.

Trade-Offs and Combinations to Watch

Several Ambers carry a real downside, and stacking the wrong ones can quietly break a build. These are the ones to read twice before you confirm:

• Butcher's Carnage heals you for a share of every melee hit but stops Ferrofluid Flasks from healing at all. It makes the flask family pointless while it is slotted.
• Life Diverted turns flask sips into Nephtoglobin instead of Health. Great for Transmutation spam, risky if you rely on the flask to survive.
• Glass Soldier adds 20% to 30% melee damage but cuts all your damage resistances by 40%.
• Lunatic's Grasp raises your Ignite and Stasis build-up by 30% to 50% but wipes out your own resistance to those effects entirely.
• Dilated Moment slows time while aiming but drains Endurance while you do it and trims aimed damage by 10%.

Because the game has no armor pieces, Ambers like Indestructible Shell and the Survival family are a large part of how you tune defense. Our breakdown of how defense works without armor covers the rest of that picture.

Good Starting Setups

A sensible plan is to fill slots in order of what is hurting you most. If bosses are the wall, start with Duellist's Focus for parries and Dominatus, which heals 20 to 30 Health flat on every Critical Attack. If you are exploring and farming, Surplus pays extra Catalysts on every kill and Lucky Shot stretches your ammo. As the late game's firearm-resistant bosses show up, swap the shooting Ambers for melee or survival ones. Since swaps are free at any Lantern, it is worth changing your setup before each boss rather than running one fixed loadout. For a full skill and weapon plan built around these choices, see the best build guide.

Common Amber Mistakes

A few habits cost players a lot of power without them noticing. The first is leaving slots empty. Every time you level past a slot threshold, check the Level Up screen for a new plus sign, because the game does not force you to fill it. The second is forgetting to press CONFIRM: if you back out of the CHOOSE AMBER list without confirming, the slot stays as it was, and you only find out in the next fight.

The third is ignoring rank. Perfectionism doubles from +10% melee damage at rank I to +20% at rank III, so a fully collected ranked Amber often beats a flashier Amber you only hold one copy of. Elite enemies drop twelve of the 62 copies in the world, so clearing the tougher optional fights pays off in Amber ranks as well as Catalysts. Finally, do not keep a boss setup on while exploring. Ambers like Glass Soldier that trade away resistance are fine for a duel you have learned, but they turn a crowded corridor into a string of deaths. Because the game has no difficulty settings to fall back on, swapping Ambers at the Lantern is one of the few ways to make a hard section easier.

Starting With Every Slot Open

Amber slots are tied to your level, so the slowest part of using them is reaching level 45 for the fifth slot. The store's Valor Mortis Mega Modded Save skips that wait: it starts at the first Lantern in Chapter I with a level 264 soldier and every skill active, and the product page lists 32 Ambers in the inventory along with 999,999 Catalysts and five weapons at Lvl 5.

It is available for PS5 and PC only, not Xbox, and you must already own the game. The trophy service and other listings are on the Valor Mortis store section.

Frequently Asked Questions