Avowed Build Guide: The Best Combat Backgrounds, Abilities, and Builds for your Envoy

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In a departure from the standard method seen in Obsidian Entertainment’s previous RPG series, “Pillars of Eternity,” their latest offering, “Avowed,” forgoes the traditional class-based character development system. Instead of selecting a character class at the outset, you’ll be shaping your Envoy’s abilities by freely assigning points as desired. This versatile system supports a multitude of combat styles, but it may initially seem daunting. To help clarify things, we’ve created this handy “Avowed character build guide.” Explore the suggested builds below to discover some effective strategies for your character in “Avowed,” and learn where you should allocate your points.

  • Best Backgrounds
  • Best Attributes
  • Best Abilities for Any Build
  • The Best Avowed Character Builds

A Word About Backgrounds

With Avowed, you can often adjust your Attribute and Ability points whenever you like, but one decision that cannot be altered post-character creation is your background, as it significantly impacts your connection with your patron nation, the Aedyran Empire, and your role as the Imperial Envoy.

You’ll find five distinct themes to pick from, and your selection will impact your starting arsenal and statistical distribution.

Keep in mind that you have the flexibility to adjust your point allocation, which means it’s more of a guideline than a fixed decision, made post-selection of your background. Additionally, you should expect to swap out your starting weapon frequently, as you’ll likely be upgrading to superior or alternative gear even before exiting the tutorial zone.

Put simply, feel free to pick any backdrop that appeals to you, as it adds a touch of style rather than enhancing its battle capabilities.

For completeness, here’s how each background shakes out by default:

  • Arcane Scholar – You’re the emperor’s personal scholar with some deep knowledge of esoteric topics. In conversations and quests, you’ll have a fair amount to say about the Living Lands’ strange magic, and be familiar with various complex topics dealing with magical research.
    • Starter Weapon – A Common Dagger
    • Stat Spread – Might 2, Dexterity 2, Perception 2, Intellect 3, Resolve 1.
  • Court Augur – A professional fortune-teller with imperial backing. You’ll have a silver tongue and a talent for reaching compromise and wielding influence.
    • Starter Weapon – Common Mace.
    • Stat Spread – Dexterity 2, Perception 3, Intellect 3, Resolve 2.
  • Vanguard Scout – A classical “ranger” background, you’re equipped to do the emperor’s will out in the wilds.
    • Starter Weapon – Common one-handed Axe.
    • Stat Spread – Might 1, Constitution 2, Dexterity 2, Perception 3, Intellect 1, Resolve 1
  • War Hero – Noted for your actions on the battlefield, you’re an elite soldier of the emperor, with the stats and starter weapon to suit your status a Tall Grass Spearman.
    • Starter Weapon – A common Spear
    • Stat Spread – Might 3, Constituteion 2, Dexterity 1, Perception 1, Resolve 3.
  • Noble Scion – The political choice, you’re a former noble turned close ally to the emperor. You’re highly placed in Aedyran society (or were, at least), and have close ties to the Aedyran side of the Living Lands.
    • Starter Weapon – Common one-handed Sword
    • Stat Spread – Might 2, Constitution 1, Dexterity 2, Perception 2, Intellect 2, Resolve 1

On Attributes

Your characteristics provide you with substantial all-round benefits, however, be aware that these advantages experience a decrease in effectiveness, or diminishing returns, as you continue to invest more points in a specific characteristic. This reduction in benefits becomes noticeable at the 5-point mark and again at the 10-point mark. These milestones also consider any equipment effects, meaning they apply whether you’re wearing armor or accessories that add attribute points.

To achieve the best results in Avowed, it’s advisable to consider distributing points across multiple stats rather than investing heavily in one. You can start focusing on another stat once you reach around 10 points in the current one.

Might, Dexterity, and Perception, are the Best Combat Attributes

In the game Avowed, it’s generally advantageous to focus on enhancing your Strength, Awareness, and Agility for optimal combat efficiency.

  • Might gives a blanket bonus to all damage (including spells and ranged weapons!), while also granting bonuses to carrying capacity.
  • Dexterity increases your attack and ability speed across the board. This includes reloading guns, casting spells, and swapping weapons. You can even parkour faster.
  • Perception increases your Critical Hit chance and your ranged weapon maximum range. It’s excellent both for melee and ranged fighting.

Resolve, Intellect, and Constitution are more Situational

In the game Avowed, Might, Dexterity, and Perception might be seen as the fundamental or primary combat statistics. However, the significance of the remaining three stats can vary greatly based on your preferred playing style and the character build you’ve chosen.

  • Resolve increases your stamina, which is consumed by almost every basic and power attack, as well as blocking and dodging. It’s a good all-around attribute to put points into, as it directly increases your active combat time.
  • Constitution raises your maximum HP and resistance to the Poison and Bleed status effects. While having extra health is good,  CON is best treated as a dump stat unless you’re heavy into close-range melee builds, as Avowed gives you many options for damage mitigation and even gaining extra health via Ability point investment. That said, it does get more valuable at high difficulties, as having more health will help you survive.
  • Intellect increases your maximum Essence (magic points) and elemental resistance. While even non-spell abilities use Essence to cast, your Intellect investment needs are entirely dependent on how much spell- and ability-casting you want to do. Wizard builds will want a good amount, and heavy melee builds can use a bit of INT as they have more active abilities, but ranged weapon and dexterity melee builds need INT the least, as they rely the most on regular attacks and don’t use abilities that often.

General Build Tips and Universally Good Abilities

 

Tips for Building Your Envoy

  • Experiment! – Avowed has a pretty flexible build system that generally lets you play the way you prefer, and doesn’t really punish “suboptimal” point investment except at really high difficulty settings. As such, our builds are meant more as sample archetypes with suggestions to help guide your priorities rather than templates you must follow in lockstep.
  • Spread your points around – Due to the diminishing returns mentioned above, you’ll get the most out of your points if you don’t invest to heavily in a single score.
  • Have an Alternate Style – By the mid-game of Avowed you’ll have amassed enough ability points to effectively build up decent capability in a second combat style, allowing you to naturally hybridize or cover for weaknesses you noticed in the early game. For example, a ranged capability to supplement your melee prowess or some melee strength to defend yourself when you run out of essence.
  • Respec Frequently – Avowed makes it easy to redistribute all the points you’ve earned. Take advantage of that flexibility and tailor your build to try new things. You can even respec to overcome specific combat challenges, so long as you have a bit of cash on hand.
  • Ice Is the Best Elemental Damage – In Avowed elemental effects and status effects work through “accumulation”, meaning you need to hit an enemy repeatedly with a certain type of elemental damage to inflict a status, like setting them on fire. While none of other effects are necessarily bad, Ice has the best effect because you can freeze enemies solid, stopping them in their tracks briefly. Given the hectic nature of the game’s combat, that can give you a lot of breathing room and opportunities to thin the field.
    • Outside combat, Ice used on water can also freeze the surface, making a platform to cross over wide gaps.
    • Beyond Ice-stacking, damage-over-time effects like burning (from fire), and poison (from corrosion) are also surprisingly effective.
    • You can speed up your freezing even more with the Wizard ability Secret of Rime, which inreases your frost accumulation. Similar abilities exist for the other elemental types.

Abilities with Excellent Utility

While Avowed categorizes its skills based on roles, several skills provide significant advantages across various character builds and combat strategies. If you’re unsure where to assign additional points, these could be good choices:

Avowed Builds

In a nutshell, these recommended character builds should be seen as flexible guides rather than strict blueprints. Remember, the game is designed to offer a great deal of freedom. When creating these builds, we aimed for them to be “universal,” meaning they don’t require specific unique items like weapons, armor, or accessories. However, we do provide suggestions for gear and party configurations.

The Barbarian Bruiser

This character setup is a formidable melee damage dealer as an Envoy, primarily focusing on close-quarter battles. You’ll predominantly engage in combat by wading through your adversaries with the heaviest two-handed weapons you can manage, swinging and slashing relentlessly, and sweeping off their feet anything within your reach.

In this setup, the “Bruiser” character will carry either a Arquebus or a Bow as an additional long-range weapon. The Arquebus is their go-to choice for delivering the highest initial damage at range, and it’s particularly useful against bothersome enemies that are out of reach.

Bruiser Weapons and Armor:

  • Main Weapon: Great Axe/Hammer, Great Sword
    • Recommended Uniques: Seven Strivings, Inevitability, Unmaker
  • Backup Weapon: Arquebus or Bow
    • Recommended Uniques: One Last Trick, Ancient Alacrity
  • Armor: Heavy or Medium Armor
    • Recommended Uniques: Sentinel Mail, Vailian Breastplate, Lava-Forged Plate, Engwithan Cuirass
  • Recommended Accessories:
    • Gloves: Berserker Gloves, Sentinel Gloves, Skald’s Gauntlets (for sword/axe mains), Eothasian Gauntlets (for hammer mains)
    • Boots: Sentinel Boots, Berserker Boots
    • Amulet or Trinket: Torc of the Warrior King, Steel Garrote Medallion
    • Rings: Vailian Dueling Ring, Sands’ Shroud, Ring of Major Deflection, Bitter Bonding

Bruiser Key Abilities:

  • Charge – An excellent gap-closing ability that bowls enemies over, stuns them, and can even break walls and blocking. Rank 2 increases travel distance.
  • Armored Grace – Reduces the stamina penalty for wearing heavy and medium armor. You’ll be up close and personal most of the time, and armored grace lets you keep hitting. You’ll want higher ranks, as two-handed weapons have a hefty stamina cost to swing.
  • Constant Recovery/Toughness – Good for increasing your health regen to keep things safer without a shield. High ranks of Constant Recovery can seriously cut down on your food/potion consumption as well, as you can fully recover most of the damage you take.
  • Parry/Evasive – As a two-handed weapon user, your blocking is less efficient and effective than a shield-user, so you’ll be more reliant on evasion. Parry unlocks the parry move and allows you a useful high-stun counter-attack.
  • Barbaric Shout – This spell briefly interrupts nearby enemies, but at higher ranks it becomes a tank-style taunt. As a bruiser, you don’t want too many enemies targeting you at once, so don’t buy too many ranks.
  • Brawn – This gives a flat damage bonus to two-handed weapon attacks, and applies equally to hammers, great swords, and great axes.
    • Add Bleeding Cuts if you find yourself preferring Axes and Great Swords over hammers for extra damage.
    • Taking Stunning Blows as a hammer main will add massive stun potential to your hits.
  • Devastating Criticals – Crits are great, and if you’ve got a decent DEX score this ability makes your crits that much better.
  • Retribution – This passive ability adds a bit of oomf to your attacks as you get hit, and as a melee main, you’ll get hit a lot.
  • Clear Out – This is where you roleplay as a Diablo Barbarian, whirling around and devastating nearby foes.
  • Flurry of Blows – This high-level ranger ability is excellent for any melee build, maximizing your attack speed, giving you effectively infinite stamina for a brief period. It’s basically “Berserker Mode”.

Bruiser Companions

  • Giatta – Giatta is an excellent support companion, able to heal, shield, and speed up the party.
  • Yatzli – As a more offensively-oriented companion, Yatzli brings a good amount of magical and AOE abilities that you might lack yourself as a melee main.
  • Marius – Marius fires arrows from range and can lock down some enemies with his Binding Roots or even assassinate them with Shadow Step.

The Paladin

This build is modeled after the traditional knight in battle, reminiscent of the Paladin class from the popular game Pillars of Eternity. You’ll find yourself equipped with some magical abilities, but mostly engaging in hand-to-hand combat, donning either heavy or medium armor, and brandishing a one-handed melee weapon alongside a shield. For mid-range attacks, you can rely on a sidearm pistol or wand.

In the game Avowed, Paladins are often referred to as “close-combat defenders.” Even though there’s no complete battle tactic for tanks in the game yet, playing as a tank lets you use the enemy’s tendency to attack you rather than your allies. This gives you an opportunity to capitalize on your defensive abilities and bring the enemies closer.

Paladin Weapons and Armor:

Paladin Key Abilities:

  • Charge – An excellent gap-closing ability that bowls enemies over, stuns them, and can even break walls and blocking. Rank 2 increases travel distance.
  • Armored Grace – Reduces the stamina penalty for wearing heavy and medium armor. You’ll be up close and personal most of the time, and armored grace lets you keep hitting. You’ll want higher ranks, as two-handed weapons have a hefty stamina cost to swing.
  • Constant Recovery/Toughness – Good for increasing your health regen to keep things safer without a shield. High ranks of Constant Recovery can seriously cut down on your food/potion consumption as well, as you can fully recover most of the damage you take.
  • Parry/Evasive – You’ll be doing more blocking than evading as a Paladin, but you’ll still want to dodge the occasional heavy attack, so these abilities help. Parrying is also nice for enabling a vicious counter.
  • Barbaric Shout – This spell briefly interrupts nearby enemies, but at higher ranks it becomes a tank-style taunt. Higher Ranks activate the shout’s taunt effect and give you temporary health.
  • Shield Bash – A useful shield-based attack that stuns enemies heavily.
  • Bleeding Cuts – A useful talent for Axe-users that adds the Bleeding damage-over-time effect.
  • Devastating Criticals – Crits are great, and if you’ve got a decent DEX score this ability makes your crits that much better. If you main swords, you’ll benefit even more.
  • Unbreakable – An excellent passive that reduces the cost of using your shield.
  • Finesse/Piercing Thrusts – A pair of great weapon-specific talents that amplify the damage output of Swords and one-handed melee weapons.
  • Reflect – A bit situational, but reflecting an enemy’s projectile back into them never gets old.
  • Arcane Veil/Bristling Frost/Ring of Fire – These defensive spells might be good picks to fulfill your Paladin fantasy of being able to cast a bit of magic on top of clocking enemies on the head.
  • Into the Fray – Another situational ability that aligns well with the notion of playing a tank, Into the Fray draws an enemy toward you, taunting it. Use it on the toughest foe in a group to get its attention.
  • Retribution – This passive ability adds a bit of oomf to your attacks as you get hit, and as a melee main, you’ll get hit a lot.
  • Clear Out – This is where you roleplay as a Diablo Barbarian, whirling around and devastating nearby foes.
  • Flurry of Blows – This high-level ranger ability is excellent for any melee build, maximizing your attack speed, giving you effectively infinite stamina for a brief period. It’s basically “Berserker Mode”.

Paladin Companions

  • Giatta – Giatta is an excellent support companion, able to heal, shield, and speed up the party.
  • Yatzli – As a more offensively-oriented companion, Yatzli brings a good amount of magical and AOE abilities that you might lack yourself as a melee main.
  • Kai – Kai is a highly effective sub-tank character who can keep you from getting overwhelmed by large numbers of enemies, and has endurance to spare.

The Spellslinger

The “Spellslinger” character is specifically designed for magical combat, emphasizing spell-casting and long-range attacks. Spellslingers are exceptionally adaptable at mid-range, employing wands as their primary tool, but can resort to firearms when necessary to extend their reach, regardless of the Essence level constraints.

Keep in mind that magic-focused characters may require additional points in the Wizard skill due to the prerequisites for mastering advanced spells through Grimoire Mastery. Each spell you own and have in your Grimoire provides a small boost to its level.

Spellslinger Weapons and Armor:

  • Main Weapon: Wand and Grimoire
    • Recommended Uniques: Aurochs-Skin Grimoire, Whisper of Exiles, Minoletta’s Conduit
    • Recommended Non-Uniques: Grimoire of Rime, Grimoire of Sparks, Grimoire of Elements/Greater Elements
  • Backup Weapon: Two Pistols, Arquebus, or Pistol and Shield
    • Recommended Uniques: Magic Pistol, Caeroc’s Pride, Heavenstrike
  • Armor: Light or Medium Armor
    • Recommended Uniques: Warmage’s Robe, Arcanist’s Gambeson, Wavebinder Robes, Spiritmender
  • Recommended Accessories:
    • Gloves: Warmage’s Bracers, Wavebinder Bracers, Stormdancer Gloves, The Hands Occult
    • Boots: Boots of the Bricklayer, Stormdancer Boots, Warmage’s Boots
    • Amulet or Trinket: Tranton Family Talisman, Mortal Haven, Brooch of Spreading Flame, Night-Mistress’ Favor, Pearlescent Icosahedral Helstone
    • Rings: Ring of Elemental Balance, Ashfall’s Legacy, Arcanist’s Ring, Ring of Slow Essence

Spellslinger Key Abilities:

  • Grimoire Mastery – This one is required to unlock spells to use in your grimoires, and reduce their costs. Generally, try to use grimoires for your most expensive spells, then buy up the cheaper ones that you want to be able to use whenever you like.
  • Armored Essence – As a pureish mage, you’ll use Essence a lot, so you’ll want to minimize your essence penalty.
  • Blast/Bounce/Wand Mastery – These can turn your wand from an unimpressive rapid-fire ranged weapon into the ultimate stunning “shotgun”, able to spread tons of damage and elemental accumulation through entire groups of enemies.
  • Parry/Evasive – You’ll rely a lot on your evade move as a wizard with a focus on ranged combat, as without the comfortable distance of sniping or stealth enemies will be coming for your head.
  • Harvest Essence – An excellent ability to increase the essence you can harvest from kills.
  • Arcane Veil – Your ultimate defense. Buy and rank this up to reduce your damage intake and make it impossible to interrupt your spells. It’ll even reflect projectiles and knock back melee enemies.
  • Jolting Touch – An excellent early-game spell that basically frees you from the need to aim. It’ll clear out groups of smaller enemies and turn tougher foes into AOE beacons of shock damage thanks to accumulation.
  • Corrosive Touch – “Hold still while I poison you to death.” At rank 2 this spell locks enemies down, buying you some breathing room when you’re getting targeted by elites.
  • Grimoire Snap – A useful stun/knockback spell for forcing enemies away from you.
  • Blizzard/Blast of Frost – Two excellent spells for freezing enemies solid with Ice Accumulation. The caveats are that Blizzard is an area spell, which isn’t great for mobile fights, and Blast of Frost is a melee range spell.
  • Pull of Eora – Probably the best non-elemental control spell in the game, this levitates enemies and makes them vulnerable to your ranged attacks.
  • Arcane Seal – This turns you into a powerful mage-turret, thanks to its increased casting speed and essence regeneration. Just make sure you’ve got Arcane Veil up in case enemy ranged units start targeting you in your little zone.

Spellslinger Companions

  • Giatta – Giatta is an excellent support companion, able to heal, shield, and speed up the party.
  • Marius – Marius can immobilize enemies and keep them from getting close to you, as well as provide ranged support from a distance.
  • Kai – Kai is a highly effective tank character who can keep you from getting overwhelmed by large numbers of enemies, and has endurance to spare.

The Cipher Roleplayer

Regrettably for fans who’ve delved deeply into the world of Pillars of Eternity, the upcoming game Avowed does not feature a Cipher class, a distinctive, “psionic” character type from the initial two games that was renowned for its unconventional approach to magic casting, unlike traditional wizards.

This construction mirrors my past melee Cipher character from “Pillars of Eternity,” employing skills to fashion a melee-oriented spellcaster hybrid. It primarily focuses on wielding a mix of melee weapons, although it will utilize the Spirit Lance spell as its primary weapon once obtained.

Spellslinger Weapons and Armor:

  • Main Weapon: Spear and Grimoire (or Wand and Grimoire)
    • Recommended Uniques: Giant’s Slumber, Wayfinder, Cruel Command, Beothel’s Grimoire, Eilara’s Grimoire, Vesrik’s Grimoire
    • Recommended Non-Uniques: Grimoire of the Spellblade, Grimoire of Energy, Grimoire of Sparks
  • Backup Weapon: Bow or Pistol and Shield
    • Recommended Uniques: Magic Pistol, Ancient Alacrity
  • Armor: Light or Medium Armor
    • Recommended Uniques: Warmage’s Robe, Arcanist’s Gambeson, Wavebinder Robes, Spiritmender
  • Recommended Accessories:
    • Gloves: Warmage’s Bracers, Wavebinder Bracers, Stormdancer Gloves, The Hands Occult
    • Boots: Boots of the Bricklayer, Stormdancer Boots, Warmage’s Boots
    • Amulet or Trinket: Tranton Family Talisman, Mortal Haven, Brooch of Spreading Flame, Night-Mistress’ Favor, Pearlescent Icosahedral Helstone
    • Rings: Ring of Elemental Balance, Ashfall’s Legacy, Arcanist’s Ring, Ring of Slow Essence

Spellslinger Key Abilities:

  • Grimoire Mastery – This one is required to unlock spells to use in your grimoires, and reduce their costs. Generally, try to use grimoires for your most expensive spells, then buy up the cheaper ones that you want to be able to use whenever you like.
  • Armored Essence – As a pureish mage, you’ll use Essence a lot, so you’ll want to minimize your essence penalty.
  • Blast/Bounce/Wand Mastery – These can turn your wand from an unimpressive rapid-fire ranged weapon into the ultimate stunning “shotgun”, able to spread tons of damage and elemental accumulation through entire groups of enemies.
  • Piercing Thrusts – Your Spirit Lance Spear is affected by abilities that affect melee weapons, so this will make its power attacks even better.
  • Finesse – Spears are technically one-handed, so you’ll want this.
  • Marksmanship – This will amplify the damage your Blackbow does.
  • Parry/Evasive – You’ll want to evade as a squishy mage, even if you’ve got a backup shield.
  • Harvest Essence – An excellent ability to increase the essence you can harvest from kills.
  • Arcane Veil – Your ultimate defense. Buy and rank this up to reduce your damage intake and make it impossible to interrupt your spells. It’ll even reflect projectiles and knock back melee enemies.
  • Spirit Lance – This is your main weapon! It summons a magical spear that deals AOE explosive damage on hit. It’s an insanely good weapon, and you should use it whenever you can, with your regular spear used mainly for backup.
  • Blackbow – This should be your main ranged weapon, once you’ve unlocked the spell. The Blackbow does a ton of poison damage, and at higher ranks can even pierce targets.
  • Grimoire Snap – A useful stun/knockback spell for forcing enemies away from you.
  • Pull of Eora – Probably the best non-elemental control spell in the game, this levitates enemies and makes them vulnerable to your ranged attacks.
  • Corrosive Siphon – A useful spell that can lock down single enemies at close range with rank 2.
  • Returning Storm/Blizzard/Missile Salvo – Useful AOE spells that let you deal damage while you close in with your spirit lance.

Spellslinger Companions

  • Giatta – Giatta is an excellent support companion, able to heal, shield, and speed up the party.
  • Marius – Marius can immobilize enemies and keep them from getting close to you, as well as provide ranged support from a distance.
  • Kai – Kai is a highly effective tank character who can keep you from getting overwhelmed by large numbers of enemies, and has endurance to spare.

Here’s an example of how you could rephrase that sentence in a friendly, conversational tone: “Take a peek at some of the many ways you can build within the versatile Avowed system! For more tips and tricks, head over to our Avowed guide collection!

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2025-02-22 19:29