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

Obsidian Entertainment's latest RPG, Avowed, breaks from its peers in the Pillars of Eternity series by eschewing the traditional class-based system of character-building. Instead of picking a character class and going from there, Avowed has you building up your Envoy's capabilities by assigning points as you please. It's a flexible system that allows a wide range of different combat styles, but it can be a little overwhelming. To make things a little easier to grasp, we've come up with this quick Avowed character build guide. Read on to learn what we think are some of the most effective character builds you can try out in Avowed, and where you'll want to put your points. F

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

A Word About Backgrounds

While Avowed lets you respec your Attribute and Ability points almost any time, one thing it won't let you change after character creation is your background, the choice of which influences your relationship with your patron nation, the Aedyran Empire, and your mission as the Imperial Envoy.

There are 5 backgrounds to choose from, and your choice will influence your initial weapon and stat distribution.

However, note that you can change your point distribution even after choosing your background, so it's really more of a suggestion than a locked choice. On top of that, you'll be changing out your initial weapon very quickly, replacing it for newer or better gear even before you've left the tutorial area.

In other words, choose whichever background strikes your fancy. It's more for flavor than combat effectiveness.

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 attributes give you broad statistical bonuses, but note that those bonuses suffer diminishing returns as you put more points into a given attribute. The drop in gains occurs at 5 points and then again at 10 points. These thresholds also take gear effects into account, so they apply if you're wearing armor or accessories that add attribute points.

For that reason, think carefully before putting more than 10 points into any given stat. Avowed generally rewards spreading your points out a little bit, so feel free to put points into a new stat once you hit 10 or so.

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

Going purely by combat effectiveness, nearly any build you can explore in Avowed will benefit from having high Might, Perception, and Dexterity.

• 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

If Might, Dexterity, and Perception can be considered the "core" combat stats in Avowed, the importance of the other three stats are more dependent on your playstyle and and your chosen build.

• 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

Though Avowed classifies its abilities by "role," some abilities have great crossover benefit for multiple builds and combat styles. If you don't know what else to put a point into, consider these:

• Constant Recovery - You slowly regenerate a portion of the last amount of health you lost. It's a great passive survivability skill, and gains even more potency as you get used to fighting and take hits less often.
• Toughness - The reason why CON is kind of a dump stat. A few ranks of this is basically the equivalent of multiple points of Constitution investment, minus the status resistance bonus.
• Evasive - Dodging is your best survival skill, and this makes it more efficient.
• Scavenger - Gear upgrades matter a lot in Avowed, moreso than your overall level! Ranks of Scavenger will get you more upgrade materials, and make those upgrades cheaper. Pick this up early.
• Arcane Veil - This wizard spell is optional, but it's a very good semi-passive defensive spell that's useful no matter how you like to play. It's also cheap on Essence, so even the lowest-INT Fighters can cast it repeatedly. Buying it with ability points allows you to cast it without a grimoire.
• Built to Destroy - This one restores a trickle of health and essence when you break a breakable object. There are tons of breakable objects everywhere in Avowed, so consider taking this if you ever find yourself worried about your food and potion consumption. It's not strictly necessary, but at the highest difficulties it might be useful.
• Inspiring Triumph - This passive allows you to restore your companions' health as you make kills. On Normal and lower this isn a bit overkill, but at higher difficulties your companions will matter more for taking the heat off and you'll want them around as long as possible.
• Quick Switch - This allows you to quickly swap loadouts, but it's also an excellent Rank 2 purchase for players that love using guns as a primary or a backup weapon, as inactive guns will reload automatically.
• Critical Strike - Interestingly, virtually every weapon attack in the game can crit (including summoned weapons from spells like Black Bow), so a flat bonus to your critical hit chance is almost universally useful, even if you don't have a high Dexterity. Even pure spellcaster characters will probably use their weapons sometime, so a point in Critical Strike will make those times carry more weight.

Avowed Builds

The following Avowed character builds should be treated more as guidelines than rigid templates, keeping in mind the game's flexibility. We've picked these builds with an eye towards keeping things "gear-agnostic" and not dependent on having any particular unique weapon, armor, or accessory. We do include gear suggestions and party compositions though.

The Barbarian Bruiser

This build is a pure melee damage-dealing powerhouse of an Envoy. You'll spend most of your combat time cleaving through your enemies with heaviest two-handed weapons you can carry, hacking and slashing away and sweeping anything you can reach off its feet.

The Bruiser build will have an Arquebus or Bow as their backup ranged weapon, preferring the Arquebus for maximum ranged damage on the first hit, and to help deal with pesky ranged 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 is the classical sword-and-board melee knight build, inspired by the classic Pillars of Eternity Paladin class. You'll have a bit of magical power to call on, but mainly be wading into the fray with heavy or medium armor, wielding a one-handed melee weapon and shield, with a pistol or wand as a backup medium-range ranged weapon.

Paladins are also the "melee tank" build. While tanking isn't a fully formed combat strategy in Avowed, playing the tank allows you to take advantage of the fact that enemies will more readily target you than your companions, leveraging your defensive advantages to bring them in close.

Paladin Weapons and Armor:

• Main Weapon: One-Handed Sword or Axe and Shield
  • Recommended Uniques: Drawn in Winter, The Emperor's Reach, Meteor Blade
• Backup Weapon: Pistol and Shield (or Two Pistols)
  • Recommended Uniques: Magic Pistol, The Disappointer (Enchanted), Fair Play
• Armor: Heavy or Medium Armor
  • Recommended Uniques: Engwithan Cuirass, Steel Garrote Plate, Tranton Family Brigandine
• Recommended Accessories:
  • Gloves: Sentinel Gloves, Vailian Gauntlets
  • 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

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 is a dedicated wizard build with a focus on spellcasting and ranged combat. Spellslingers are highly versatile at medium range with their use of wands, but can use guns in a pinch to reach out and touch someone, Essence levels be damned.

Note that spell-based builds will need a bit more investment in the Wizard tree, thanks to Grimoire Mastery requirements to unlock high-level spells. Having a spell you've purchased in your Grimoire acts as a one-rank bonus to the spell.

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

Sadly for Pillars of Eternity veterans, Avowed does not have a Cipher class, which was a unique, "psionic" class in the first two games that loved using an unusual, alternative form of magic casting compared to wizards.

This build recreates my old melee Cipher build from Pillars of Eternity, using abilities to craft a sort of melee hybrid caster. It's centered around using a hybrid of melee weapons, but will treat the Spirit Lance spell as its main weapon once it's earned.

Cipher Roleplayer 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

Cipher Roleplayer 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.

Cipher Roleplayer 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 Monk

Unlike typical fantasy Monks that are influenced by Asian martial artist archetypes, the Monks of Eora turn their pain and suffering into power. In the service of their gods, they can turn their wounds and damage into sources of strength.

While Avowed doesn't have a distinct Monk class, it does have the Iron Fists ability, which adds power and quality tiers to your unarmed attacks. This build centers around that ability to create an agile, powerful fistfighter that forgoes the benefit of a weapon.

As a note, this is more of a role-playing build, and thus isn't quite as potent as a properly geared fighter, but it's nice that the system supports such departures.

Monk Weapons and Armor:

• Main Weapon: Unarmed (or Fist and Grimoire)
  • Recommended Uniques: 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
  • Recommended Uniques: Ancient Alacrity
• Armor: Light or Medium Armor
  • Recommended Uniques: Threads of the Faithful, Many-Hude Doublet, Vailian Breastplate
• Recommended Accessories:
  • Gloves: Sentinel Gloves, Wildwalker Gloves
  • Boots: Sentinel Boots, Vailian Boots, Councilor's Shoes
  • Amulet or Trinket: Torc o the Warrior King, Thirdborn Tira Nui Badge, Painter's Brush
  • Rings: Vailian Dueling Ring, Ring of Pain Amplification, Ring of Deflection, Band of Transcendent Suffering

Monk Key Abilities:

• Iron Fists - The essential "Monk" ability in Avowed. This adds quality levels to your unarmed attacks. Max this out as soon as possible to upgrade your fists to match local enemies.
• Evasive - As a Monk you won't be wearing heavy armor or using a shield, so you'll be reliant on your dodging to keep yourself safe.
• Constant Recovery/Toughness - Wearing light armor and having no shield reduces your defenses, so stack up on health perks to compensate.
• Charge - Use this to close gaps and knock out strong enemies.
• Barbaric Shout - 1 Rank of this will help you manage crowds in close proximity.
• Retribution - Turn your damage into your power (sort of) by using incoming hits to amp up your unarmed blows.
• Power Slide - You'lll have a high-mobility build, and can make the most of it with power slide.
• Flurry of Blows - An essential "berserker mode" trigger to max out your punching speed.
• Grimoire Mastery - You may wish to cast spells as a Monk to make the most of your speed and essence, so mastering Grimoires will be needed to give you access to spells.
• Arcane Veil - The core of your defensive ability as a Monk
• Ring of Fire/Bristling Frost - A useful melee-range defensive aura that hurts enemies coming into range.

Cipher Roleplayer 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.

Those are just a small sample of the build possibilities within Avowed's flexible system! Check out more of our Avowed guides here!