Best builds in Avowed | GamesRadar+

The best Avowed builds make full use of the game’s skill trees, abilities, and unique gear to maximize your combat effectiveness, whether you’re after a stealth, ranged, melee, or spellcasting playstyle. The sheer number of options available to you in Avowed means there are probably several excellent builds suited to your ideal playstyle waiting to be crafted. However, it can be difficult to know what to work towards in the early levels, especially when you don’t have many unique weapons that appeal to you. So to help you out, I’ve devised some great Avowed builds that each lean into the Fighter, Ranger, and Wizard skill trees.

Avowed builds and tips

The best builds in Avowed will usually combine abilities from Fighter, Ranger, and Wizard as each one has abilities that are incredibly helpful in many builds. However, when starting out, it’s wise to focus on just one skill tree until level 10 or higher and keep your weapons down to no more than three so that you’re not spreading your upgrade materials too thinly. Once you start getting to those upper levels and amass a lot of Unique gear, remember that you can respec your abilities and your Avowed Attributes to fine tune your build or completely change it.

Be sure to pay attention to status effects that abilities and items apply so that you can create a specialized build that packs plenty of power and suits your playstyle. The right Avowed Companions even make a difference as they can support you and fill in any gaps. Want to play with elemental effects? Look for things with Fire, Frost, and Shock Accumulation. Want to relentlessly batter enemies in melee? Choose abilities that apply Stun and make you uninterruptable. Does making every hit as lethal as possible sound good to you? Boost your Critical Hit chance and Might in any way you can.

Best Avowed Fighter build

This build makes strong use of the Fighter’s Charge and its ability to shatter frozen enemies, which works nicely with some of the Wizard’s ice spells, so I’m calling this the Avowed Frost Knight build. Using a shield and a Unique ice axe called Drawn in Winter allows you to hack at enemies and defend yourself in close combat, while also being able to apply Frost effects to eventually freeze enemies. Once frozen, chop with the axe or use Charge to break them apart and deal significant damage.

Here are the essential items, Attributes, and Abilities you need for this build:

• Attributes: Put your points into Might, Constitution, Dexterity, and Resolve.
• Ideal companions: Giatta and Yatzli
• Essential items:
  • Drawn in Winter axe: The crux of this build, found after collecting the Ancient Memory in Dawnshore.
  • A shield
• Fighter Abilities:
  • Charge (Level 1): This is the main Active Ability for this build, letting you close the distance fast and smash through frozen enemies. At Rank 3, you travel very far and deal a lot of Stun damage with each Charge.
  • Shield Bash (Level 1): This enhances your capabilities with a shield, giving you another way to Stun enemies and keep them under control. Parry on the Ranger skill tree is also worth considering.
  • Barbaric Shout (Level 5): Use this at the start of a fight to ensure you can attack without getting interrupted and apply Frost Accumulation quickly to freeze enemies.
  • Bleeding Cuts (Level 5): Adds Bleed Accumulation to axes which’ll increase your overall damage output a little.
  • Unbreakable (Level 10): Stamina management in combat is crucial, so reducing stamina consumption while blocking will mean you can counterattack after blocking a few hits.
  • Clear Out (Level 20): This third Active Ability allows you to deal lots of damage plus apply Frost and Bleed Accumulation to multiple foes at once. Use it after charging in to hack at enemies relentlessly.
• Wizard Abilities:
  • Chill Blades (Level 1): A simple ice spell that applies lots of Frost Accumulation at range. Useful for quickly freezing a charging enemy if your other Abilities are on cooldown and stamina is low.
  • Grimoire Mastery (Level 5): Unlocks level 5 spells.
  • Bristling Frost (Level 5): Grants temporary damage reduction and applies Frost Accumulation to melee attackers.
  • Blizzard (Level 5): A great spell for applying Frost Accumulation to multiple enemies at once.
  • Secret of Rime (Level 15): Increases the amount of Frost Accumulation you deal. This will make freezing enemies even easier.
• Ranger Abilities:
  • Finesse (level 5): Increases your axe damage.

Best Avowed Ranger build

The Ranger’s invisibility power, Shadowing Beyond, is extremely powerful, making you completely undetectable for as long as your Essence bar allows or until you attack. Leaning hard into this, you can make a sort of Skyrim-style stealth archer and assassin build in Avowed focused on dealing high-damage at range and up close with lethal strikes.

If you want to make this kind of build for yourself, these are the items, Attributes, and Abilities I recommend equipping:

• Attributes: Spec into Might, Dexterity, Perception, and Intellect.
• Ideal companions: Giatta and Kai
• Essential items:
• Ranger Abilities:
  • Tanglefoot (Level 1): This Active Ability offers nice crowd control, helping you line up shots with your bow if the fighting gets frenetic.
  • Steady Aim (Level 1): Holding a power attack with a bow slows time by 25% – up to 75% at Rank 3.
  • Evasive (Level 1): In boss fights where stealth is less of an option, you’ll need to rely on dodging a lot.
  • Shadowing Beyond (Level 5): This is the main Active Ability for this build, letting you go completely invisible even when moving at full speed. Get this to Rank 3 to enhance your stealth attack damage, speed, and Essence consumption rate.
  • Marksmanship (Level 5): Increases damage with your bow, which will help you get lethal hits.
  • Critical Strike (Level 15): Increasing Critical Hit chance and damage will help you kill enemies in as few hits as possible, so this is a great Passive Ability boost to get.
  • Sniper (Level 15): Increases your bow damage against unaware enemies. Hugely useful for the stealth archer archetype.
  • Staggering Shot (Level 20): Power Attacks with bows deal significantly more Stun. This’ll be useful against bosses and tougher enemies in prolonged combat.
• Fighter Abilities:
  • Devastating Criticals (Level 5): Increases Critical Hit damage with melee weapons, which’ll make your close-combat strikes all the more deadly.
• Wizard Abilities:
  • Harvest Essence (Level 10): This increases the amount of Essence restored by fragments dropped by defeated enemies, which will help you use your Shadowing Beyond invisibility without chewing through potions and food.

Best Avowed Wizard build

Avowed takes a lot of cues from Dungeons & Dragons, so let’s spec into every Wizard’s favorite spell, Fireball. This incendiary Avowed Wizard build focuses on all-out destruction using fire spells which apply Fire Accumulation and ignite enemies. However, this is definitely a glass cannon build, so you’ll need to sling these spells from afar and avoid direct close-combat if you can.

Moreover, because of the way casting spells with a grimoire works, you shouldn’t upgrade Fan of Flames, Fireball, or Meteor Shower higher than Rank 2. Casting them with a grimoire will bump them up to Rank 3 for you.

If you want to scorch your foes, here are the most important items, Attributes, and Abilities you should consider:

• Attributes: Focus on Might, Constitution, Perception, and Intellect.
• Ideal companions: Kai and Giatta/Marius
• Essential items:
  • Grimoire of Embers (or any grimoire with a good selection of fire spells)
  • Arcanist’s Gambeson armor: Increases your maximum Essence and area-of-effect damage.
  • Ring of Slow Essence: Slowly regenerate Essence while wearing it.
• Wizard Abilities:
  • Minor Missiles (Level 1): A basic spell that deals respectable damage. Doesn’t set the world on fire but is good to use if your grimoire spells are on cooldown.
  • Fan of Flames (Level 1): Scorch enemies ahead of you with a cone of fire, applying lots of Fire Accumulation to ignite enemies.
  • Arcane Veil (Level 1): An excellent defensive spell that provides a temporary shield to increase damage reduction significantly and prevent your spellcasting from being interrupted. As our Avowed tips suggest, this is a great ability to put into your quick slots.
  • Grimoire Mastery (Level 5): You’ll have to take this all the way up to Rank 4 to access Meteor Shower so this is essential.
  • Fireball (Level 5): Lob an fireball that explodes, dealing massive damage and Fire Accumulation in a small area.
  • Grimoire Snap (Level 5): If enemies get too close to you, casting Grimoire Snap to knock back enemies and deal a bit of Stun damage can get you the space you need.
  • Harvest Essence (Level 10): A vital way of regenerating Essence mid-combat without using potions, this is a crucial passive. At lower levels, you could unlock the Parasitic Staff spell instead and then respec later.
  • Scion of Flame (Level 15): Increases the amount of Fire Accumulation you deal, making igniting enemies easier.
  • Meteor Shower (Level 20): Rain fiery destruction, dealing high damage and plenty of Fire Accumulation.
  • Arcane Seal (Level 20): Create a zone on the ground that, when standing within it, regenerates your Essence.
• Fighter Abilities:
  • Constant Recovery (Level 1): After taking damage, you slowly regenerate 50% of the amount health you just lost. This helps a little with staying alive if you do get hit, letting you recover when you get out of danger.
• Ranger Abilities:
  • Evasive (Level 1): With no blocking capabilities, crowd control, or stealth, you’ll have to rely on dodging to avoid attacks.
  • Critical Strike (Level 15): Increasing Critical Hit chance and damage will help you kill enemies in as few hits as possible, so this is a great Passive Ability boost to get.

So those are some of the best builds in Avowed that we’ve come up with, though with so many abilities and unique items, there are loads of lethal combinations to discover for yourself if my builds don’t quite take your fancy. You can enhance your builds even more with the right totem too, as each one provides powerful buffs to help in combat. As you explore, make sure you keep an eye out for the Avowed Totem of Rightful Rulership and the Totem of Defiance.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.