11 Essential Tips for New Players in Avowed’s Living Lands

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Here are some essential tips for Avowed that will help you tackle the challenges ahead and understand the key game systems at play. As expected from an RPG, Avowed has a wealth of mechanics to master, and with so many options for character development, it can feel a bit overwhelming. To help you navigate this, I’ve compiled some crucial tips to enhance your combat skills, resource gathering, and world exploration.

In Avowed, enemies don’t scale with your level; they have fixed power levels that you need to match or exceed. If you see skull icons next to a quest or an enemy’s health bar, it indicates that you’re outmatched and may struggle significantly. The more skulls, the tougher the challenge—two skulls are dangerous, and three skulls mean it’s best to avoid that encounter altogether. However, as you upgrade your gear, you’ll notice that the skulls for quests or enemies may decrease or disappear, indicating that they’ve become a more suitable challenge for you.

There are numerous build options in Avowed, but I suggest keeping your focus straightforward during your initial hours. I began my playthrough with a mix of Wizard and Fighter, wielding a sword and grimoire, which proved challenging due to my lack of synergistic gear and reliable skills. It’s wise to concentrate on just one of the three skill trees until you reach around level 10. The game offers a variety of weapon types, so it’s best to stick to a single loadout that complements your chosen skill tree to avoid wasting upgrade materials on unused weapons. Once you’ve established solid skills and equipped better weapons, you can explore more unique builds if you wish.

Combat can be made easier with stealth attacks, which utilize your Godlike Divine Thorn power to deliver significant damage in a single hit. While hiding in grass can help you approach enemies undetected, you can also perform stealth attacks in open areas as long as you crouch and sneak up behind foes. If executed correctly, a prompt will appear to initiate the stealth move. When facing multiple enemies, target the strongest opponent first to maximize the damage benefit. Additionally, using the Ranger Shadowing Beyond ability allows you to become invisible and enhances your stealth attack effectiveness.

The quick slots assigned to the D-Pad enable you to swiftly use skills, companion abilities, or potions without navigating the Radial menu. This quick access is crucial for maintaining combat flow, so choose your abilities wisely. Given the limited quick slots, you’ll still rely on the Action Radial frequently, but I recommend assigning health potions for quick recovery and your most useful combat abilities—Kai’s leap and Marius’ vines are solid choices!

During combat, you can hold the Block button to deflect incoming attacks, but this only works if your Off Hand is empty or you’re wielding a shield, making blocking ineffective for certain builds. Some enemies will have unblockable attacks, indicated by a red circle before they strike, so dodging is often the best way to avoid damage. To dodge, press the jump button while moving sideways or backward, which can leave your opponent vulnerable for a counterattack.

Keep an eye out for breakable crates while exploring; these are marked by a cracked vase icon when you look at them. Smash them with a melee weapon, as they may contain loot like currency and food. Not every crate holds valuable items, but it’s worth the effort since it all adds up over time.

You can dismantle gear in your inventory to obtain upgrade materials, which is essential for enhancing your combat power in Avowed. Make sure to break down any items you don’t use. Additionally, sell any unnecessary boots and gloves to merchants for extra cash, which can also be spent on upgrade materials.

Health and essence potions are relatively scarce, especially early in your journey, so always forage for food and gather edible items. These can provide health, essence, or both, so check their descriptions for effects. Consuming food during combat will slow down its restorative effects compared to when you’re just walking around, so be ready to find cover or use your companion as a distraction while you heal.

Many food items, especially those cooked at the party camp’s cauldron, offer temporary buffs in addition to healing, such as attribute boosts, damage reduction, and increased maximum Essence. Drinking water also enhances your movement speed by 25%, which is great for exploration!

If you’ve been following the classic RPG strategy of collecting every weapon and item, you’ll eventually face encumbrance. This can be easily resolved by opening your Inventory, hovering over any unnecessary items, and selecting the ‘Stash in Camp’ option to send them to your Avowed Party Camp for later retrieval.

Once you start establishing Party Camps throughout the map, you can access them almost anytime using Avowed’s fast travel. Regular visits are beneficial, as you can perform various useful functions here, with weapon and armor upgrades at the workbench being among the most important. There’s also a cauldron at the main campfire for cooking buffing meals with your gathered ingredients. You can rest to fully recover health and essence without using resources and assemble and activate totems for significant buffs, like the Avowed Totem of Rightful Rulership or Totem of Defiance.

Don’t forget to check in with your companions at camp, as they may offer training to enhance your skills and engage in dialogue that could lead to potential romance options in Avowed.

You’ll be engaging in plenty of conversations with various characters in Avowed, and while exploring the Living Lands, it can be confusing to keep track of the different factions and new terms. To help with this, use the ‘Dialogue History & Lore’ prompt in the bottom right corner of the screen, which opens a menu where you can check definitions and get more details on any highlighted terms from your conversations—handy for distinguishing between your Deadfire and Dreamscourge!