Avowed Game Wiki: Weapons & Equipment Guide – Stats, Upgrades & Best Builds

I spent my first twenty hours of Avowed hoarding every weapon I found. My inventory was a mess of common swords, random axes, wands I'd never use. I kept thinking I might need them later. I didn't. By the endgame I was using the same upgraded axe I found at level 8, and everything else was just dismantling fodder. Honestly I felt pretty dumb when I realized how much time I wasted managing junk. That's the first thing to understand about Avowed's gear system. You don't need to collect everything. You need to find something you like, commit to it, and pour your upgrade materials into making it stronger. The game rewards loyalty to your equipment more than constant swapping. Let me walk through how weapons actually work in this game, because tbh the tutorial doesn't explain it well. There are six weapon types. Swords are the middle ground. Decent speed, decent damage, no special properties. They work with any build. Axes are slower but hit harder and ignore some armor. Against heavily armored enemies like Steel Garrote knights, axes outperform swords by a noticeable margin. Maces are the slowest one-handed option but they stun. A mace with a high stun chance can lock down a single target almost indefinitely. Daggers are fast. Very fast. They have the highest critical hit multiplier in the game. If you're building for crits, daggers are the play. But their base damage is low. You need those crits to land or you're hitting enemies with a toothpick. Bows are ranged physical damage. They scale with Perception. A well-built archer can kill most enemies before they close distance. The drawback is ammo management and vulnerability when swarmed. Then there are magical implements. Wands fire quick magic projectiles that cost a small amount of Essence per shot. They're the magical equivalent of a bow. Grimoires are spellbooks. You equip them in your off-hand and they let you cast spells without spending skill points to learn them. They have limited durability and specific spell sets. You can carry multiple grimoires and swap between them for different situations. Two-handed weapons exist across multiple categories. Greatswords, greataxes, warhammers. The tradeoff is always the same: much higher damage per hit but much slower attack speed and no off-hand item. No shield, no grimoire. Just you and a very large weapon. Fun but risky. The upgrade system is what makes or breaks your damage output. You upgrade at a camp workbench using materials. Each weapon has five quality tiers. Common is base. Fine is the first upgrade. Then Exceptional, Superb, Legendary. Each tier increases base damage significantly and at certain thresholds you unlock enchantment slots. Enchantment slots are where you add elemental or status effects. Fire damage, ice damage, shock damage, poison, lifesteal, critical chance bonuses. And so on. Enchantments are crafted from materials and applied at the workbench. You can replace them but the old enchantment is destroyed. So think before you commit. The materials economy is the real progression bottleneck. Iron chunks are common. You'll have hundreds. Steel is rarer, found mainly in Emerald Stair and beyond. Adra is the legendary-tier material. Limited supply. You get maybe enough for two or three full upgrades in a single playthrough. Don't waste adra on a weapon you're not sure about. I made that mistake. Upgraded a unique sword to Superb in Shatterscarp, then found a better weapon two hours later and had no materials left. Had to grind for hours to catch up. Learn from my pain. Unique weapons deserve special attention. They have fixed enchantments that can't be changed but are usually stronger than anything you can craft. And they often have hidden properties that the description only hints at. I found a unique bow in Emerald Stair that deals double damage to Scourge-infected enemies. The description just says "effective against corrupted creatures." The actual multiplier isn't shown anywhere. I only figured it out by testing. Unique locations are mostly fixed. Some are quest rewards. Some are in hidden chests. Some drop from specific bosses. A few are sold by merchants. You know, the usual spread. The merchant in Paradis sells an early unique wand that's very good for mage builds and it costs almost nothing. I missed it on two playthroughs because I never checked what that merchant was selling after the initial tutorial visit. Armor is simpler than weapons. Three weight classes. Light armor has low protection but no movement penalty. Medium has moderate protection and a small speed reduction. Heavy has high protection and a significant speed penalty. The hidden stat is stamina consumption. Heavy armor makes dodging and blocking cost more stamina. So a heavy armor build needs high Resolve to compensate. Armor sets with bonuses exist but they're not common. Most of the time you're mixing pieces based on what has the best stats and enchantments. The one exception is a set in Galawain's Tusks that gives a set bonus to elemental resistance. Useful for the final boss. As for builds, I've tried a few. Pure Fighter with a greatsword and heavy armor is the safest first playthrough. You tank hits, deal consistent damage, and your companions can focus on support. The downside is that some fights drag on because you lack burst damage. Pure Wizard with wand and grimoire is the highest damage output. Yatzli plus a wizard player character can clear rooms before enemies reach melee range. But you're fragile. Very fragile. If you get caught in melee without Essence for defensive spells, you die fast. Ranger with bow and light armor is the most tactical playstyle. You control engagements from distance. With Marius as a second ranged companion, you can kill most things before they touch you. But enclosed spaces are a nightmare. There are dungeon rooms where you simply can't maintain distance. The hybrid build I ended up liking most was Fighter/Wizard. Heavy armor for survival, a one-handed sword enchanted with fire, and a grimoire in the off-hand for crowd control spells. You lose some top-end damage compared to a pure build. But you gain so much flexibility. You can handle any situation. And in Avowed, where you don't always know what's behind the next door, flexibility matters more than optimization. Food buffs deserve a mention because they're easy to ignore and genuinely powerful. Cooked food gives temporary buffs that stack. Health regeneration, damage resistance, stat increases, elemental resistance, the works. Before any difficult fight, eat three different food items. The difference is dramatic. A tough boss becomes manageable. A manageable boss becomes trivial. I ignored cooking for way too long. Don't be me. And one last thing about the respec system. You can respec at any camp, any time. It costs gold that scales with your level. First respec is cheap. Later ones get expensive. So experiment early when the cost is low. Figure out what you like. Then commit. By late game, respeccing costs enough that you'll think twice.