Avowed Beginner Tips

The world of Eora is filled with peril. As multiple characters will point out throughout your own journey, the “Living Lands” are quite ironically named, as death seems to lurk in the shadows, or even in the middle of the bright, colorful landscapes.

READ: Avowed - How To Upgrade Weapons And Armor

The game gives you a lot of tools and, in Pillars of Eternity fashion, an eclectic selection of trusty companions, but your journey will be tough, especially in higher difficulties. To help with that, we bring you some crucial beginner tips for your Avowed playthrough, based on our own experiences with the Path of the Damned difficulty.

Upgrade Items Early

Avowed features an equipment scaling system that is based off of your own equipment and level. Unique weapons you find will be based on the level of your most powerful weapon.

This means that, if a sidequest or a specific boss drops a unique weapon, the level of that item will be matched with your own strongest weapon. If you’ve bought a Fine weapon, or upgraded it from Common to Fine, that Unique weapon will be Fine, too.

Fine Unique

Scaling will work all the way to Legendary, and will essentially save you a lot of upgrade materials if you use it correctly. We recommend honing in on a single Unique weapon, essentially the first one you come across that fits your build, and upgrading it as much as you can.

Do the same process for a Unique armor piece. Break down every other item and funnel those resources into your two main Unique pieces of equipment, and you’ll have upgraded your entire loot pool for the remainder of the game.

Check Every Nook And Cranny

If you’ve been playing open world RPGs for a while, you’ll have almost certainly gotten into the habit of checking the paths opposite to those of the quest marker first. This game will reward your curiosity almost every time you explore anything.

Hidden Loot

Towns have chests hidden everywhere, often in higher-up places, with conveniently placed wooden structures, allowing you to do your parkour. Cracked walls can be broken down, flimsy wood can be broken, and you’ll almost always find treasure behind these. Always check behind your waterfalls, you never know what they might be hiding.

Lastly, stock up as many lockpicks as you can afford. Buy the stock of all merchants you encounter, encountering a hidden chest that you can’t open is not fun, especially if you tend to forget them afterwards (definitely did not happen to us).

Do Not Turn Fights Into Individual Duels

Despite the many comparisons to Skyrim, Avowed is very different from Bethesda’s title, especially when it comes to combat. The excellent action combat created by Obsidian here is excellent, and it is sometimes so good that you forget that you’re still playing a party-based RPG.

Teamwork

Use your companions well. Don’t let battles into groups devolve into duels. Even if you might handle your duel well, you might lose one or both of your companions unnecessarily, and you’ll soon be overwhelmed.

If you’re playing with Darius and Kai, as an example, use Kai to drag attention, and cover Darius. Use the combat indicators to make sure you don’t get attacked by anyone out of your line of sight, and focus whichever enemies your companions are hitting.

Combat Priority: Healers, Ranged Enemies, Melee Enemies

The classic MMORPG triangle of classes is present throughout most group fights in Avowed. Groups will frequently feature one healer, a couple of ranged enemies, with the remained being a mix of different melee combatants.

This tip might sound obvious, but Avowed requires you to follow it very closely, especially in higher difficulties. Projectiles are hard to keep track of, and deceptively difficult to dodge. Healers seem to have infinite range and heal so much that you can’t outdamage them.

Focus Healers

Ignore all other enemies until you take the healer down, use any companion abilities you have to achieve this. They can’t heal themselves, so they die quickly. Focus the ranged enemies next, forcing duels while using cover to protect yourself from any other ranged threats.

This tactic will make most group fights a lot easier.

Stealth Is Key

Stealth brings us back to the Skyrim comparisons.No, you are not going to be one shotting powerful enemies with a bow and arrow because you spent dozens of hours boosting that Stealth level to 100, but don’t underestimate how powerful Stealth is in Avowed.

Stealth Shot

The first Godlike ability you get access to is an extremely powerful stealth attack, taking down most weaker enemies in a single hit, without making any noise. Additionally, any attacks used from Stealth get bonus damage, which can sometimes almost double it.

Even if you’re using a melee build, we recommend carrying some sort of ranged option in your second loadout to make better use of Stealth attacks when you can’t get close enough to use your Divine Thorn.

The Minimap Is King

Avowed’s minimap shows you everything you need to keep an eye out for. Lootable bodies will show up as an X, plants have different icons depending on their type, and these can be really hard to find in the middle of the game’s non-lootable bright flora.

Minimap Icons

Once you’ve finished a fight, scan your minimap for any Xs, saving you a ton of time and helping you find bodies that you might’ve missed, especially if you’re using anything fire-based, as those corpses will frequently turn to ash.