Avowed Abilities Guide — All Skill Trees & Spell Combos

How Skill Trees Work

Each level-up grants skill points you spend freely across any of the four trees. There are no prerequisites between trees — you can invest in Wizard and Cipher simultaneously without penalty. Within each tree, higher-tier abilities require a minimum point investment in that tree to unlock.

The combo callouts below mark abilities that produce special interactions when combined. These interactions are the entire depth of Avowed's combat system and are documented nowhere in the game.

Combo notation: ⚡ Pairs with: marks an ability that triggers a named interaction with another ability listed. Invest in both to unlock the combo.

🛡️

Fighter Tree

Melee combat, stances, and resilience. The foundation of any frontline build.

Ability	Type	Effect	Notes & Combos
Knockdown	Active	Melee strike that sends the target Prone for 2s; deals Attack × 100% damage.	⚡ Pairs with: Any melee follow-up — Prone enemies take 25% increased melee damage. Queue companion attacks immediately after.
Defender Stance	Stance	While active, increases Deflection by 20 and reduces movement speed by 15%.	Your baseline in most fights. The Deflection bonus stacks multiplicatively with shield Deflection.
Aggressive Stance	Stance	While active, increases damage by 20% and reduces Deflection by 10.	Toggle to this when enemies are Knocked Down or otherwise CC'd — safe burst window to maximize damage output.
Vigorous Defense	Active	For 10s, increases Deflection by 30 and reduces all damage taken by 20%.	Activate when you've drawn multiple enemies or are being focused. Stack with Defender Stance for near-invulnerability windows on tanks.
Into the Fray	Active	Charge to a target; for 6s, all nearby enemies focus attacks on you instead of companions.	Your rescue button when a companion is being focused. Essential for tank builds; invaluable for protecting spell-casting companions who drew aggro.
Cleave	Active	Wide arc melee swing hitting all enemies in front of you for Attack × 85% each.	⚡ Pairs with: Knockdown — knock one enemy Prone, then Cleave the group around them. All targets take both Prone bonus damage and Cleave damage.
Armored Grace	Passive	Reduces the Recovery penalty from heavy armor by 50%.	Enables heavy armor on any build without the crippling action speed penalty. Mandatory for the Iron Bastion build; useful for any Fighter who doesn't want to trade survivability for speed.
Disciplined Barrage	Active	For 10s, increases Accuracy by 15 for all attacks.	⚡ Pairs with: Cipher's Whisper of Treason — high Accuracy improves Charm landing chance on resistant targets. Use Disciplined Barrage before attempting a Charm on elites.
Body Blows	Passive	Melee hits have a 25% chance to apply Staggered, reducing the target's Deflection by 10 for 4s.	Passive damage amplifier that benefits the whole party — lower enemy Deflection means all attacks land more accurately. Synergises with high-hit-count attacks like dual-wielding.
Unbending	Passive	While Endurance is above 50%, regenerate 2 Endurance per second.	Sustain in prolonged fights. Pairs with Constitution investment to keep the regeneration active longer. Better on garrison-style encounter design than fast burst fights.

🏹

Ranger Tree

Ranged precision, stealth openers, and the animal companion system.

Ability	Type	Effect	Notes & Combos
Aimed Shot	Active	A charged ranged attack dealing Attack × 200% damage. From stealth, adds a 50% damage multiplier.	⚡ Stealth combo: Conceal → Aimed Shot deals Attack × 300% effective damage. Your primary burst tool — the opener that defines the Ghost Ranger build's damage ceiling.
Animal Companion	Active	Summons a loyal animal (wolf, bear, or hawk) that fights independently and responds to ability commands.	Invest in companion upgrade skills — an upgraded bear companion is a genuine tank that draws as much aggro as a Fighter companion. Hawk companions provide bonus Accuracy to your attacks. Wolf companions have trip abilities.
Conceal	Active	Enter stealth even during combat. 6s channel; broken by attacking or being detected.	⚡ Pairs with: Aimed Shot (see above). Also resets Evasive Roll cooldown in some builds. The core loop of stealth-ranger is: Aimed Shot opener → combat → Conceal when safe → Aimed Shot again.
Marked Prey	Active	Mark a target; all attacks against it deal 20% increased damage for 12s.	Call this on elites and bosses immediately. The 20% is party-wide — your companions benefit from it too. One of the highest-value abilities in a coordinated party.
Evasive Roll	Active	A quick dodge roll covering ~5m; brief invulnerability window during animation.	Your escape from melee range. The invulnerability frame is real — you can dodge through AoE spell effects. Essential for light-armor rangers who get caught.
Driving Flight	Passive	Ranged attacks have a 30% chance to pierce through the first target and hit a second enemy behind them.	⚡ Pairs with: Marked Prey — the second pierced target also benefits from the damage bonus if they're behind the marked target. Strong in corridor encounters.
Wounding Shot	Active	Applies a wound that deals Attack × 30% damage per second for 8s (stacks up to 3 times).	Stack this on bosses at fight start before your burst rotation. Three stacks of Wounding Shot running simultaneously adds substantial sustained damage that doesn't interrupt your main attack cycle.
Swift Aim	Passive	Reduces the recovery time between ranged attacks by 20%.	Multiplied heavily by Dexterity investment. On a DEX-heavy ranger, Swift Aim makes pistol fire feel nearly continuous. Mandatory for sustained DPS builds.
Stalker's Link	Passive	While your Animal Companion is alive, you gain +10 Accuracy and +10% damage.	Strong passive that rewards keeping your companion alive. Pair with the bear companion for a durable bonus — the bear survives much longer than wolf or hawk, keeping this passive running through most fights.

🔮

Wizard Tree

Elemental spells, Grimoire management, and the most powerful AoE toolkit in Avowed.

Grimoire rule: You don't need to invest in a spell's tree to cast it from a Grimoire — but you do need the Grimoire equipped. Investing tree points unlocks spells you can cast without a Grimoire equipped, and improves base damage scaling. Carry Grimoires with spells you want mid-rotation but haven't invested in yet.

Ability	Type	Effect	Notes & Combos
Fan of Flames	Active	Short-range cone deals Attack × 80% fire damage and applies Burning (DoT) to all targets hit.	⚡ Combo — Burning Shatter: Fan of Flames (apply Burning) → Fireball on the same group extends Burning duration and increases fire damage taken by 15% for 6s. Open with Fan of Flames, follow with Fireball.
Fireball	Active	Lobbed explosive deals Attack × 120% fire damage in a wide AoE. Scales with Intellect for radius.	Your bread-and-butter AoE nuke. At 18 Intellect, the radius is large enough to hit entire rooms. The go-to against grouped enemies and the core Arcane Scholar opener.
Chill Fog	Active	Persistent AoE cloud that applies Chilled and reduces Accuracy of enemies inside by 15.	⚡ Combo — Frozen Shatter: Chill Fog (Chilled) → Amplified Wave (on Chilled enemies) = Frozen status → any attack on a Frozen enemy deals 3× damage. The highest single-target burst in the game. Set up on elites and bosses.
Amplified Wave	Active	AoE push dealing Attack × 100% damage. Against Chilled targets, applies Frozen instead of knockback.	⚡ See Frozen Shatter above. Against non-Chilled enemies, the knockback still interrupts casters and creates safe melee windows. Useful even without the combo.
Minoletta's Minor Missiles	Active	Rapid burst of 5 magic projectiles, each dealing Attack × 30% damage, automatically targeting enemies.	Fast-cast finisher for low-health targets. Each missile can critically hit separately. With Merciless Gaze active, this can proc 5 crits in sequence. Excellent Focus generator for hybrid Wizard/Cipher builds.
Merciless Gaze	Active	Self-buff lasting 12s: increases Critical Hit chance by 30% and Critical Hit damage by 50%.	⚡ Pairs with: Minoletta's Minor Missiles and Fireball. Cast Merciless Gaze → Fireball for a near-guaranteed crit on the initial blast. Best used at the top of a fight before your primary AoE rotation.
Llengrath's Safeguard	Active	For 8s, grants Interrupt immunity and +20 to all defenses.	Cast before entering a large pull or before casting a long-channel spell. Prevents your big opener from being interrupted by enemies who close to melee range mid-cast.
Slicken	Active	Coats a ground area with oil, applying Prone to all enemies who enter or stand in it.	⚡ Combo — Oil Fire: Slicken (Prone + oil surface) → Fan of Flames or any fire spell on the oil patch = ignites the oil for a persistent burning AoE. Prone enemies can't escape the fire. Devastating in corridors.
Wall of Many Colors	Active	Conjures a magical barrier that randomly applies Confused, Terrified, Blinded, or Charmed to enemies that pass through it.	Highly variable but extremely powerful. Place it at a chokepoint enemies must path through. Confused and Charmed results are effectively fight-enders for standard enemies. Higher Intellect increases the duration of all applied effects.
Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon	Active	Channeled beam dealing Attack × 40% Corrode damage per second; heals you for 50% of damage dealt.	Sustain tool for Battle Mage and melee-caster hybrids. Not a pure DPS spell — the healing is the point. Use on Prone or Frozen targets who can't interrupt the channel. Corrode damage bypasses many resistances that block Fire or Ice.

✨

Cipher Tree

Soul powers fueled by combat — the most mechanically unique and highest-ceiling tree in Avowed.

The Focus mechanic: Cipher abilities cost Focus to activate. Focus is generated by dealing weapon damage in melee. The faster your attacks, the more Focus you generate. This is why Cipher builds use fast one-handed weapons — attack speed is your resource engine. Without weapon damage, you have no Cipher powers to spend.

Ability	Type	Effect	Notes & Combos
Soul Whip	Passive	Your melee attacks generate 20% more Focus. Additionally, +15% damage when you have 50%+ Focus.	Take this first. Everything else in the Cipher tree is limited by how fast you generate Focus. Soul Whip is the passive that makes the whole tree function. Non-negotiable for any Cipher build.
Whisper of Treason	Active	Costs Focus. Charms a target for 12s; they fight for you and take 50% increased damage from all sources.	⚡ Combo — Treason + Burst: Charm the strongest enemy → your party (and the Charmed enemy's former allies) focus all attacks on them while they're Charmed. After Charm expires, the target dies to its own group. Against elites, it's effectively a free kill.
Ectopsychic Echo	Active	Costs Focus. Projects a soul-blade that travels in a line, dealing Attack × 150% damage to all enemies hit.	Your ranged Cipher damage option — lets you spend Focus at range without entering melee. Excellent for transitioning between targets. The soul-blade passes through multiple enemies, making positioning for line-ups high value.
Mind Wave	Active	Costs Focus. AoE psychic burst in a cone — Dazed for 6s and knocked back.	Your get-out-of-jail card when surrounded. The knockback creates enough space to reposition. Dazed enemies have reduced Accuracy and can't use active abilities — use it before an enemy would otherwise use a dangerous skill.
Mental Binding	Active	Costs Focus. Paralyzes a single target for 5s.	⚡ Pairs with: Any melee follow-up — Paralyzed enemies can't dodge or deflect. Stack every party member's highest-damage ability on the Paralyzed target for a coordinated burst window. This is the Cipher's contribution to party damage — not just direct damage, but vulnerability creation.
Pain Link	Active	Costs Focus. Links two enemies — for 10s, 50% of all damage dealt to one is also dealt to the other.	Exceptional against paired elites or boss + adds encounters. Deal AoE damage to one linked target; the other takes half the damage passively. Combine with Fireball for free cleave damage on the second target without targeting it directly.
Amplified Thrust	Active	Costs Focus. Massive psychic lance dealing Attack × 200% single-target damage. Costs high Focus.	Your Focus dump — use when you've built maximum Focus and need to unload it before a fight transition. Costs enough Focus that you'll typically cast it once per fight. Best on Paralyzed or Charmed targets who can't resist it.
Borrowed Instinct	Active	Costs Focus. Strips a target's Accuracy and all Defenses by 20 for 12s; you gain those stats instead.	A double swing — your target becomes less accurate and easier to hit, while you temporarily become more accurate and harder to hit. Best used at the start of a boss fight. The combined swing is +20 to your offense and defense simultaneously.
Reaping Knives	Active	Costs Focus. Summons spectral blades that orbit a target, dealing Attack × 30% damage with each melee hit against that target for 12s.	Strong sustained damage on single targets. Cast on a boss, then deal melee damage — each of your hits triggers the spectral blade damage separately. Scales dramatically with fast weapon attack builds.

Master Combo Reference

All named combo interactions in one place. Abilities marked with ⚡ throughout this guide are documented here.

Combo Name	Setup	Trigger	Result
Frozen Shatter	Chill Fog → wait for Chilled	Amplified Wave on Chilled target	Target becomes Frozen. Any attack on a Frozen target deals 3× damage.
Oil Fire	Slicken (Prone + oil patch)	Any fire spell on the oil	Oil ignites into persistent AoE fire. Prone enemies can't escape. Corridor fights become trivial.
Burning Shatter	Fan of Flames → Burning applied	Fireball on same group	Extended Burning duration + 15% increased fire damage taken for 6s. Fire damage stacks.
Treason Burst	Whisper of Treason → Charmed	Party focuses all attacks on Charmed target	Target takes 50% increased damage while Charmed and is killed by its allies simultaneously. Effective free kill on standard enemies.
Paralysis Window	Mental Binding → Paralyzed	Coordinated party burst	Paralyzed target cannot dodge, deflect, or retaliate. All attacks auto-graze at minimum. Stack party cooldowns here.
Prone Cleave	Knockdown → Prone	Cleave on the Prone target + group	Prone target takes 25% extra melee damage. Cleave hits all targets around them. Adjacent enemies take AoE with the Prone bonus applied to the original target.
Stealth Shot	Conceal → Stealth entered	Aimed Shot from stealth	Attack × 300% effective damage on a single target before combat registers. Opener that one-shots standard enemies.
Crit Burst	Merciless Gaze active	Minoletta's Minor Missiles	Each of the 5 missiles can independently critical hit. With 30% Crit chance from Merciless Gaze, expect 1–3 crits per cast. Highest single-ability burst for pure Wizard.

Abilities & Skill Trees