Avowed: 7 beginner tips to know before you start

Avowed is far more beginner-friendly than the Pillars of Eternity duology, but a few starter tips would always give you a better footing. Obsidian's spin on translating their CRPG ruleset to their new first-person ARPG looks deceptive simple on the surface, but there's still much gameplay depth that lends itself to some tutorializing.

In this article, we'll share some of these beginner tips for Avowed that we wish we'd known when we started playing.

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Avowed beginner tips to get you started

Here's the gist of our must-know beginner tips for fresh envoys in Avowed (but note that the devil's in the details for some of these):

1. Stock up on lockpicks and check all corners.
2. Equipment upgrades are the key to higher-level content.
3. Utilize the cooking feature.
4. Make use of at least one Accumulation.
5. Camp often, and talk to companions often.
6. Pick your companions to fill out blind spots in your build.
7. Don't ignore Perception even if you're melee.
8. Don't sleep on Shadowing Beyond.

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1) Stock up on lockpicks, and check all corners

You can never have too many Lockpicks (Image via Sportskeeda || Obsidian Entertainment)

Avowed is absolutely chock-full of loot scattered around its obscure nooks and crannies. The bulk of these will be in lockboxes and chests, some which need to be pried open with lockpicks. And there definitely seems to be a lot of these locked doorways and containers, so it's always a good idea to buy out all the lockpicks you find on merchants — especially as they're quite cheap.

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2) Equipment upgrades are the key to higher-level content

Note the color and the stars below (Image via Sportskeeda || Obsidian Entertainment)

Avowed has a de-leveled world, but enemies do not have a traditional level scaling the same way your character levels up. Instead, they have 'Quality tiers' visible before their floating health-bars. These correspond to the recommended equipment upgrade tier to fare well against them.

• Green = Common
• Blue = Fine
• Purple = Exceptional
• Pink = Superb
• Orange = Legendary

If an enemy displays II-Blue, that means you need a Fine +2 weapon to deal regular damage to them. Lower upgrade tier than this will significantly nerf your outgoing damage when dealing with that specific enemy. There's enough upgrade materials to go by to maintain two or three weapons, but it's recommended you find one type and stick with it as your fallback piece.

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3) Utilize the cooking feature

Cooking saves a lot of money, just like real life (Image via Sportskeeda || Obsidian Entertainment)

In your camp, there's a cauldron you can interact with to get cooking. It's possible to completely overlook this mechanic for the better part of a playthrough, but when you're playing on harder difficulties, they are invaluable as a cheap source of regen. You can, for example, buy a couple of Lashwigs from the fisherman merchant in Dawnshore to get enough meat to last you for a handful of encounters.

Even if your build is self-sustainable, there's some late-game food that is too good to ignore. Charming Libation can give you +6 to all stats during conversations, while Strangebrew can reset your Second Wind for infinite tanking. The downside is that these superfoods are locked behind the Survivalist II and III perk (Ranger tree).

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4) Make use of at least one Accumulation

Freeze combos with a lot of stuff (Image via Sportskeeda || Obsidian Entertainment)

Avowed has status effects coded as Accumulations. If your build isn't cut out to stunlock enemies to death, some of these are actually quite handy. Shock can spread damage over an area, Cold can stun enemies temporarily to get a few free hits in, while Fie, Poison, and Bleed are all potent DoTs against specific enemies who are weak to these. The cheapest way to apply some of these is elemental grenades, which are collectible as herbs in the wild.

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5) Camp often, and talk to companions often

Companions can train you and grant stat boosts (Image via Sportskeeda || Obsidian Entertainment)

Avowed is ultimately all about the storytelling, and its lively companions that make your journey far more entertaining than it would have been otherwise. Often, you'll see their icons pop up at the bottom-left corner with exclamation notes on them. This means they have a new topic to discuss back at camp, and you should do so often.

Companions can even give you free permanent stat points when you've talked to them a bit, and to top it off, camping itself gives you a completely free refill. It's a win-win, in any case.

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6) Pick your companions to fill out blind spots in your build

There's a lot to mix and match here (Image via Sportskeeda || Obsidian Entertainment)

Avowed doesn't give you full control over your companions, but you can command them to use unique companion abilities (similar to Dragon Age: The Veilguard). These are cooldown-based and cost no resources otherwise, so you should spam them as much as possible. In the harder difficulties, it's important to pick companions that fulil a niche that your build lacks.

If you're a glass cannon, you want Kai with the Leap ability to tank and aggro-control enemies. Meanwhile, if you're more of a frontliner, Giatta and her healing abilities are a must-have.

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7) Don't ignore Perception even if you're melee

Perception is a stat uniquely useful for builds that use the ranged weaponry - bows, pistols, arquebus, and wands. The more you have, the higher effective range you have with these weapon types. However, Perception is also the main basis of adding a flat critical chance, so you also want to put a few points in them even if you're melee-only.

Perception is also the "read people" stat for conversations, and you either want this or Intelligence as an important secondary stat to get through dialogue checks. Might and Resolve give you the intimidation-leaning end of that spectrum, but it's not an either-or situation.

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8) Don't sleep on Shadowing Beyond

Invisibility is purple, apparently (Image via Sportskeeda || Obsidian Entertainment)

Unlockable at Level 5, Shadowing Beyond is in the running for the best skill you can take in Avowed. It give you instant invisibility, which is a reset from any fight as long as you don't have big ongoing DoTs. This may not fulfil your specific class fantasy, but the other reason it's good is that it gives you a free Divine Thorn (sneak attack), so you can use it as a very reliable single-target physical nuke.

With further upgrades, the Essence cost also becomes much more manageable, so it's also good for Essence-intensive Wizard builds.