Avowed: How does Second Wind work?

Combat in Avowed can get hectic and dangerous at the drop of a dime, and it's particularly tricky if you don't invest in the Constitution stat or Toughness (Fighter skill tree). To provide the glass cannons with a buffer, Avowed has a Second Wind feature that gives you a chance back into the fight. Unlike the Fight For Your Life mode in the Borderlands games, the Second Wind here is a passive automatic effect.

However, not all of it is explained directly, leading to some confusing and unexpected deaths in some combat encounters.

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What you need to know about Second Wind in Avowed

Avowed's Second Wind condition can be tracked easily with this icon (Image via Sportskeeda | Obsidian Entertainment)

Second Wind triggers when your Health hits zero once in Avowed. It gives you temporary invulnerability for the duration of the animation, and it also dispels all accumulation effects that were active beforehand.

By default, you get back 40% of your Health after a Second Wind, and a debuff that prevents Second Wind from triggering again. If you drop down to zero HP again with this debuff, you die for good. The main thing to do is to track this debuff, visible as a human head icon on top of your Health bar.

The debuff goes away on its own, but it has an excruciatingly long timer. It's long enough to not just last for an entire combat encounter, but basically makes it quite hard for you to play agressive for the next couple encounters if you don't reset it.

In the early-game , the only way to hard-reset Second Wind cooldown is to go back to a camp. At the time of writing, fast-travelling to a beacon also resets it — but it's not known whether it's a bug. The only other way is the Strangebrew drink, consuming which resets your Second Wind instantly, and revives all fallen companions. However, making this drink requires the third upgrade to the Survivalist perk (Ranger skill tree).

The amount of health which Second Wind restores when you're up again will be determined by the Resolve stat. At maximum Resolve (15), this is 85% efficiency, meaning you regain about 75% of your Health after Second Wind recovery.

Certain trinkets also extend this Second Wind recovery, but not by much. There's no known way to make the Second Wind restore your health to full.

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Don't forget to check out these articles from Sportskeeda:

• Avowed review: Living up to the pillars of a phenomenal RPG
• Avowed pre-order guide: Editions, bonuses, and more
• Avowed release time and preload size, explained