Avowed: Best Builds for Every Starting Background

The best Avowed builds take advantage of the game’s generous equipment and skill systems that essentially allow you to create a custom class. While you’ll be pulling from the basic ability and stat pools, the ways you combine those core character concepts with all the items you’ll find enable an incredible number of possibilities. 

Thankfully, getting started is much simpler. Today, we’re going to focus on the best builds for the early parts of the game (the first 10 levels). While these builds are designed around the background options you’ll choose when you create your character (and thus your starting stats), please note that they don’t limit you in the long run. For that matter, you have quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to the order you acquire your skills and the equipment you use, though we’ll point you in the right direction in those areas. 

And while we’ll talk about late-game builds another day, these builds do offer ideal starting points for optimal styles of play that can carry you to the end of the RPG. Just don’t forget to play around with the possibilities or you’ll risk losing out on half of the fun of the game. 

Best Arcane Scholar Build – Grimoire Wizard

Weapons: Grimoires and Wands

Primary Stats: Intellect, Perception, Dexterity

First 10 Abilities:

1. Minor Missiles
2. Grimoire Mastery
3. Armored Essence
4. Constant Recovery
5. Grimoire Mastery
6. Wand Mastery
7. Grimoire Mastery
8. Bounce
9. Grimoire Mastery
10. Wand Mastery

As a pure wizard, the best thing you can do for yourself early on is focus on leveling up your Grimoire Mastery ability. Doing so will allow you to access more powerful spells earlier in the game and help manage the often daunting resource requirements that otherwise limit magic users early on. 

So, the basic idea is to buy or loot a better Grimoire as soon as possible and start chipping away at those Grimoire Mastery upgrades. Doing so will allow you to rely on your spells earlier and more often, though it’ll take some wand upgrades early on for when you need to conserve Essence. Still, you’ll be surprised by how quickly you become a true spell slinger. 

Armored Essence is highly recommended for resource management, but Constant Recovery and Bounce are flex spots. The former is a nice health regeneration ability from the Fighter tree and the latter makes your wands more viable in fights against larger groups of enemies (typically the most dangerous kinds of fights). If you find yourself longing for more spells (or other Fighter and Ranger abilities), you can swap those as needed. 

Best Court Augur Build – Magical Gunfighter

Weapons: Pistols and Grimoires

Primary Stats: Perception, Dexterity/Resolve, Intellect

First 10 Abilities:

1. Evasive
2. Steady Aim
3. Corrosive Siphon
4. Parasitic Staff
5. Armored Essence
6. Marksmanship
7. Grimoire Mastery
8. Marksmanship
9. Grimoire Mastery
10. Harvest Essence

If you’ve ever dreamed of wielding a pistol and a spell book… well, I have a few questions for you if you’d like to reach out and talk about your interests and background. Until then, this build is what you’re looking for. 

First off, you’re going to want to acquire Beothel’s Grimoire as soon as possible to make this build work. Fortunately, that’s pretty easy to do relatively early in the game. You’ll also want to find a decent pistol. I recommend going out of your way for Caeroc’s Pride early on, but anything will do until you can snag an upgrade. 

With your core components in place, you’ll be relying on the Corrosive Siphon and Parasitic Staff abilities to both deal damage and help you restore your Essence and Health. Those siphoning abilities pair perfectly with your pistol, which allows you to stay on the edge of a fight and will be buffed by Marksmanship and Steady Aim. You’re ultimately working your way towards Harvest Essence – which makes it much easier to rely on your spells—though your pistol will carry a surprising amount of weight through the leveling process

Best Noble Scion Build – The Renegade

Weapons: One-handed melee weapons and a Pistol/Bow

Primary Stats: Might, Perception, Resolve/Dexterity

First 10 Abilities:

1. Tanglefoot
2. Charge
3. Evasive
4. Steady Aim
5. Marksmanship
6. Piercing Thrusts
7. Finesse
8. Constant Recovery
9. Devastating Criticals
10. Power Slide

Noble Scions offer a nice blend of combat abilities that allow them to easily dance between the incredibly valuable early abilities found in the Fighter and Ranger skill trees. 

The basic idea here is to use a bow/pistol power attack to open most fights. Steady Aim and Marksmanship will help enhance the effectiveness of those attacks. When the opportunity presents itself, you’re going to finish those fights with (preferably) dual-wielded one-handed melee weapons that are bolstered by Piercing Thrusts and Finesse. All the while your high Critical Strike chance (combined with the Devastating Criticals abilities) ensures the effectiveness of every blow. 

Tanglefoot and Charge make this build especially enjoyable. The former allows you to root an enemy for a follow-up power attack while Charge lets you easily transition from ranged to melee combat. By the time you get to Power Slide, you’ll be able to weave in and out of melee range while dealing a steady stream of damage all the while. 

Best Vanguard Scout Build – The Stealth Archer

Weapon: Bows/Guns

Primary Stats: Dexterity, Perception, Might

First 10 Abilities:

1. Tanglefoot
2. Steady Aim
3. Evasive
4. Armored Essence
5. Shadowing Beyond
6. Marksmanship
7. Evasive
8. Tanglefoot
9. Shadowing Beyond
10. Marksmanship

While I don’t necessarily recommend going the stealth archer route until you’re a little later in the game, this early version of that build does take advantage of the Vanguard Scout’s starting stats and will get you through a lot of early fights. 

This build is all about unleashing devastating ranged attacks with a bow or rifle (thematically, I prefer a bow). While it’s not the most exciting playstyle early on, Shadowing Beyond takes this strategy to the next level. That skill lets you turn invisible and unleash a melee backstab or simply escape to a safe distance. When combined with Tanglefoot (which lets you trap enemies) and Evasive (which greatly reduces the Stamina cost of your dodges), Shadowing Beyond allows you to transform into a sniping ghost during most fights. 

Ideally, this build will take Parry, Arrow Deflection, and Quick Switch to weave in melee counter-attacks/blocks while allowing you to operate at a distance. Since it’s kind of hard to grab all the skills you need to make that strategy work in the first 10 levels, though, I recommend respeccing around Level 11 or 12 to start incorporating melee counters. 

Best War Hero Build – The Barbarian

Weapons: Two-Handed Axe/Sword

Primary Skills: Might, Constitution, Resolve

First 10 Abilities:

1. Charge
2. Armored Grace
3. Toughness
4. Constant Recovery
5. Bleeding Cuts
6. Evasive
7. Brawn
8. Bleeding Cuts
9. Charge
10. Brawn

Playing a straight-up bruiser in Avowed (aka a two-handed weapon weilding tower of strength) is not only surprisingly fun but is one of the best ways to get through the early parts of the game with little trouble. 

Charge is the engine that makes this two-handed beast go “vroom.” It’s one of the best overall abilities in Avowed, and it shines when you pair it with one of the buffed two-handed weapon strikes you’ll be building towards with the rest of this set-up. Charge into battle, disrupt your enemies, deal massive damage with an equally large weapon, and dodge when needed at a reduced Stamina cost. 

You will want to rely on an axe or greatsword early on to take advantage of the Bleeding Cuts ability. Later, you can swap to a mace or hammer when Stunning Blows becomes a bit more valuable. You could spec into a shield with this build, though it doesn’t feel nearly as valuable as killing the enemies outright at this point in the game. Barbaric Shout is also a viable early option if you find yourself longing for another skill, though not having to manage your Essence quite as much early on is a blessing in disguise.

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