God of War Ragnarok: How to increase strength & defense stats

Your gear is king

There’s a lot of moving parts to God of War Ragnarok, especially in terms of managing stats. Here’s a quick rundown on how stats work, and how to buff up your chief upgrades: strength and defense.

The best way to increase your stats is via gear

While you can buff your stats through collectibles found in the open world, you’re really going to be getting the bulk of your upgrades through direct gear pieces. That includes traditional armor and weapon upgrades, as well as side items like talismans.

Here are what stats actually do (directly from the in-game tutorial prompt):

• Strength – Increase damage dealt on all attacks and skills
• Defense – Decrease incoming damage
• Runic – Increase the power of runic attacks and elemental status damage
• Vitality – Increase max health, and stagger resistance
• Luck – Gain additional rewards, and activate chance abilities more often
• Cooldown – Reduces the wait time for abilities to refresh

When you’re playing Ragnarok, it’s important to really figure out where your personal strengths and weaknesses lie, controlling Kratos and company. If you’re the type of person who plays things really close to the chest, and can parry/block/dodge very easily, focusing on strength would be a smart choice. If you’re really reckless and find yourself getting two-shot in even regular encounters, maybe err on the side of defense.

Personally, I went with a fully strength build, and min-maxed strength 100% of the time. It served me well throughout the entire game on normal difficulty, and during endgame activities. Give it a shot and see if it works for you.