The Blood of Dawnwalker offers a wide variety of Perks to Spend your Skill Points on. Resources like Skill Manuals and Time are limited, how you allocate these initial points significantly impacts your early-game combat and exploration. This guide breaks down the best early skills to prioritize across all skill trees: Swordmastery, Vampirism, and Witchcraft.
Use the Table of Contents, located in the left panel (top left button on the mobile menu) to navigate through this long guide more easily and quickly.
Overview of Best Skills
While a number of skills are covered in this guide, there are three core priorities we try to focus on: Combat, Exploration and Utility.
- Combat Priorities: Stamina Management, Damage, Defences
- Exploration: Mobility and Stamina
- Utility: Practical out-of-combat bonuses that affect gameplay and progression.
While we go deeper into each of the Skill points we recommend later, it’s good to keep these core priorities in mind as context. You may also choose to want to opt out of some recommendations depending on your playstyle.
What are Skill Points?
As you level up, you’ll gain Skill Points which can be spent how you see fit across the three different Skills Trees: Swordmastery, Vampirism, and Witchcraft.
You can learn many Perks by simply visiting a Shrine and spending the skill points. However as you go deeper into each tree or rank up each Ability and Perk, these will also begin to require Time, Manuals, or both in addition to Skill Points.
Active and Passive Skills are required to be equipped to the Active Ability Wheel to be used. While Perks are entirely passive once unlocked.
How Skill Manuals Work?
Many of the Abilities and Perks for the Swordmastery and Witchcraft Skill Trees will require a Manual to learn, or reach advanced ranks of them.
These can be found out in the world, often through combat and exploration. Once read, you’ll be able to allocate the Ability or Perk from a Shrine like normal.
Vampirism doesn’t quite have Skill Manuals, instead using it’s unique Corruption System, which progresses as you drink Human Blood, to unlock Perks and Passive Skills. While Active Abilities are predominately gained by drinking Vrakhir Blood. Once you’ve consume enough of the relevant blood, they will become available at Shrines like normal.
We’ll separate the recommendations here by their Skill Tree, to provide options for combinations of the three, that you can reference based on your preferred Combat Style(s).
Best Early Swordmastery Skills
Swordmastery is by far the most flexible, with its effects being available both day and night and complimenting the other Skill Trees quite well.
| Ability | Recommendation | Usage | Effect | Skill Tree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Endless Effort | Highest priority | Anytime | Increases Stamina | Swordmastery |
| Vigour | Important for Human Form | Anytime | Increases All Health Types | Swordmastery |
| Omniblock | Mandatory, at least 1 point | Anytime | Omniblock costs less Stamina | Swordmastery |
| Perfect Block | Exceptionally Strong | Anytime | Restoration of Stamina and Ability Activation Charges on perfect Block | Swordmastery |
| Sustained Focus | Very powerful Rank 2 | Anytime | Increases Activation Charges number | Swordmastery |
| Counterattack | High priority on higher difficulties | Anytime | Attack after Perfect Block deals more Damage | Swordmastery |
Endless Effort
Usage: Anytime
Effect: Increases Stamina.
Endless Effort increases your Maximum Stamina and can be ranked up to Rank 2 without a manual. This provides up to a massive 50% increase to maximum, all without costing Time or a Manual.
This is easily the highest priority here, regardless of your playstyle. You need Stamina for Attacking, Blocking, as well as many of your movement abilities outside of combat. An early 50% increase here is very hard to turn down.
Vigour
Usage: Anytime
Effect: Increases All Health Types.
Vigour increases your Maximum Health and can also reach Rank 2 without a Manual. This provides up to a 20% increase to Maximum Health to both your Human and Vrakhiri Forms.
This is more important for your Human Form, as many Witchcraft abilities will also use Health to cast. However, the Vrakhiri Form does have a couple of these as well, on top of it’s own health increase.
Outside of Ability use, more health does make it harder to die so it’s very beneficial, especially on higher difficulties where mistakes can be very punishing.
Omniblock and Perfect Block
Usage: Anytime
Omniblock Effect: Omniblock costs less Stamina.
Perfect Block Effect: Restoration of Stamina and Ability Activation Charges on perfect Block
Omniblock reduces the Stamina Cost of performing an Omniblock and can reach Rank 2 without a Manual. This provides up to a 20% reduction of Stamina usage by Omniblocks.
Unless you’re sticking with Omniblocks, or at least have the Auto-Block Gameplay Setting on (making missed directional blocks Omniblocks), then you’ll only ever need 1 point of this Perk.
One point in Omniblock is highly recommended, if not mandatory. This is because the Perfect Block, Perfect Riposte, Counterattack, and Sharp Eye perks are all locked behind this, all of which are exceptional combat perks.
Perfect Block allows your Perfect Blocks to restore Stamina as well as Activation Charges and can reach Rank 2 without a manual. This will provide 30% increased Stamina Recovery at Rank 1 and 50% increased Activation Charge Restoration at Rank 2.
Once you get the hang of consistently performing Perfect Blocks, this is an exceptionally strong Perk to have early. Though, there’s no point in going to Rank 2 until you start getting more Abilities to use in combat. With just the 2-3 you start with and the length of their cooldown, you can often build up Activation charges between ability uses.
Sustained Focus
Usage: Anytime
Effect: Increases Activation Charges number.
Sustained Focus grants additional Activation Charges and can reach Rank 2 without a manual. This provides a second Activation Charge at Rank 1, and allows you to start Combat with an Activation Charge at Rank 2.
The Rank 2 effect is very powerful particularly if you’re leaning into more of the Witchcraft playstyle, as you’ll be able to cast an ability right away in combat. This allows for a lot of extra combo potential and once you get more skills, can lead to very potent damage to open combat with.
It can provide similar benefits to Vampirism Abilities as well, but those also have much longer cooldowns to deal with.
Counterattack
Usage: Anytime
Effect: Attack after Perfect Block deals more Damage.
Counterattack increases the damage of your next attack after a Perfect Block. However, this requires a Manual to learn, which can be gotten very soon after the Prologue by defeating the camp of Brencis’ Soldiers just outside of the gates of Laslea.
The wording of “Attack” means this applies to both Melee Weapons and your Vrakhiri Claws during the night.
This is one for those of you playing on the higher difficulties, where enemies are more aggressive and will provide more opportunities for a Perfect Block. With how early it’s accessible, it’s almost a night and day difference in combat. On lower difficulties, it may be best to take a single point to be able to reach Sharp Eye later on.
Best Early Vampirism Skills
Since unlocking much of the Vampirism Skill Tree is reliant on Corruption Levels, how quickly you get access to each Ability, Perk, or their respective Ranks can vary greatly. As a reminder Vampirism Abilities and Perks are only active at Night.
| Ability | Recommendation | Usage | Effect | Skill Tree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hastened Corruption | Must-have early on | Night Only | Corruption fills up faster | Vampirism |
| Endless Hunger | High priority | Night Only | Increase Health Segments number | Vampirism |
| Dimension Reach | High priority for exploration | Night Only | Decrease Planeshift Stamina cost | Vampirism |
| Shapeshift | Mandatory, ASAP! | Night Only | Shapeshift into a Wolf and gain Haste in exploration | Vampirism |
| Crimson Feast | High priority | Night Only | Grants Combat Buffs when drinking Human Blood | Vampirism |
| Wild Blood | Worth considering later | Night Only | Grants Ability Activation Charge Buffs when drinking Animal Blood | Vampirism |
| Razorsharp Claws | Good to get early, unlocks others | Night Only | Increases Claw Damage | Vampirism |
| Restless Claws | High priority | Night Only | Decrease Stamina cost of Claw Attacks | Vampirism |
| Clawpierce | High impact at Level 2 | Night Only | Chance for Claw Critical Hit | Vampirism |
Hastened Corruption
Usage: Night Only
Effect: Corruption fills up faster.
Hastened Corruption allows your Corruption Level to increase quicker, up to 50% at Rank 3. This becomes available at Corruption Level 1.
It should go without saying that if you’re leaning heavily into the Vampirism playstyle, this is a must have early on. It will help unlock many of your Vampirism Abilities and Perks much faster.
Additionally, at Rank 2, you can gain the Overfed buff when Drinking Blood at Max Health, providing additional health as well as a further bonus to your Corruption gain on top of the passive benefits of this perk.
Endless Hunger
Usage: Night Only
Effect: Increase Health Segments number.
Endless Hunger increases the number of Health Segments you have in Vrakhiri Form, up to a max of 5 at Rank 3. This also increases your Maximum Health in Vrakhiri Form, as well allowing you to take more damage.
This is a high priority to grab regardless of your Playstyle preference. More health not only makes you harder to kill, but more Health Segments also makes it easier to be out of the range of having Blood Cravings at night, which can accidentally kill NPCs you don’t mean to.
This makes the first point of this Perk, which is available as soon as you get out of the prologue, incredibly valuable regardless of how you want to progress.
Dimension Reach
Usage: Night Only
Effect: Decrease Planeshift Stamina cost.
Dimension Reach reduces the Stamina Cost of Planeshift, and is accessible from Corruption Level 2. This will reduce the cost by 100% at Rank 3, but doesn’t scale linearly.
At Rank 1 it provides an impactful 45% cost reduction. This makes a lot of Exploration objective, such as accessing Scouting Towers, much easier. It can also be useful for Combat, once skills like Death from Above are unlocked.
Shapeshift
Usage: Night Only
Effect: Shapeshift into a Wolf and gain Haste in exploration.
This Ability doesn’t take up a common slot in the Active Abilities panel.
Shapeshift turn you into a Wolf and grants Haste, increasing your Movement Speed and is available from Corruption Level 1. This skill will drain Stamina in use, with later ranks reducing the drain and speed.
This is your main way of getting around the map at Night, and thus mandatory to get ASAP. Unless you’re sticking purely to the Daytime, in which case you can reserve your Skill Points for Mercurial Fervor in the Witchcraft Tree.
Thankfully despite being a Skill, it doesn’t consume one of our limited slots in Vrakhiri Form. Not having to choose between mobility and combat options is always nice to see.
Crimson Feast and Wild Blood
Usage: Night Only
Crimson Feast Effect: Grants Combat Buffs when drinking Human Blood.
Wild Blood Effect: Grants Ability Activation Charge Buffs when drinking Animal Blood.
Duration: 3 time segments.
Crimson Feast provides buffs that will last for 3 Time Segments when drinking Human Blood, and is available starting at Corruption Level 2. This effectively means you can have these buffs up the full night very easily.
At Rank 1, this already provides a meaningful 10% Attack Damage. As it ranks up this will include 15% Armour at Rank 2, and a massive 10% Critical Hit Chance at Rank 3.
Wild Blood works similarly, lasting for 3 Time Segments when drinking Animal Blood providing a different, but arguably less impactful buff for the early game, but worth considering later. Ability Activation Charge are nice, but since it’s only Passive restoration Rate, it won’t be impactful until much later.
Given that you’ll want to drink plenty of blood as a Vrakhiri for Corruption, this just provide more benefits to do so.
Claw Perks
All of the Claw Perks are great, and make your Vrakhiri Claws incredibly effective weapons and help them scale:
Razorsharp Claws
Usage: Night Only
Effect: Increases Claw Damage
The First Rank of Razorsharp Claws is available immediately, providing a small 5% damage increase for your claws, up to 20% by Rank 3. While this is arguably the least impactful of the claw effects, it’s good to get a point early to access the ones further into the tree.
Restless Claws
Usage: Night Only
Effect: Decrease Stamina cost of Claw Attacks.
Restless Claw’s First Rank reduces the Stamina Cost of Claw Attacks by a generous 15%, and is available from Corruption Level 1. The first rank here isn’t much but does allow for more aggressive play. You’ll definitely feel Rank 2 much more.
Clawpierce
Usage: Night Only
Effect: Chance for Claw Critical Hit.
Clawpierce increases the Critical Hit Chance of Claw Attacks, and is available from Corruption Level 2. Similar to the other Claw Perks, it’s a little weak but still impactful at Level 1. At level 2 however, it will start to really impact your DPS overall.
These three perks together can make your Vrakhiri Claws very potent weapons combined with gear. Definitely worth ranking up early if you want a quicker melee approach.
Best Early Witchcraft Skills
Witchcraft’s options are far more limited early on, as more of the perks require Manuals and almost all upgrades require Time Segments.
However, there are still a few good ones to mention. Unlike Vampirism though, Witchcraft does have a few Perks that work at Anytime, rather than being entirely restricted to Day Only.
| Ability | Recommendation | Usage | Effect | Skill Tree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astral Communion | Highly recommended | Day Only | Activates dormant magic in places of power scattered throughout the Valley. | Witchcraft |
| Compel Soul | Highly recommended | Day Only | Allows you to speak with restless souls. Use together with objects associated with the dead to obtain additional information | Witchcraft |
| Witchcraft Mastery | ASAP for Witchcraft builds | Day Only | Witchcraft Abilities deal more Damage | Witchcraft |
| Frugal Witchcraft | Highly recommended | Day Only | Defeating an anemy with a Witchcraft Ability restores Health based on the amount spent to cast it | Witchcraft |
| Unnatural Resilience | High priority, with 2+ Witchcraft skills | Day Only | Grants Armour when any Witchcraft Ability is active | Witchcraft |
| Bewitching Influence | Nice bonus | Day Only | Better Prices and special offers in stores | Witchcraft |
Astral Communion and Compel Soul
While these skills are granted immediately, they provide permanent Damage and Cooldown Reduction each time they they are used. As such it’s highly recommended to level these up as early as you’re willing to push them, as they’ll grow in power over time.
Some locations for these can also be found at Night, but due to Witchcraft being disabled at night, you’ll have to return during the day to claim them.
Astral Communion
Usage: Day Only
Effect: Activates dormant magic in places of power scattered throughout the Valley.
This Ability doesn’t take up a common slot in the Active Abilities panel.
+0.4% total Witchcraft Abilities Damage gained per use. (+1.6% per use when maxed)
Compel Soul
Usage: Day Only
Effect: Allows you to speak with restless souls. Use together with objects associated with the dead to obtain additional information.
This Ability doesn’t take up a common slot in the Active Abilities panel.
-0.5% total Witchcraft Abilities Cooldown gained per use. (-1.5% per use when maxed)
The best part of this, is they don’t require Manuals or Time Segments to do so, only Skill Points. Going out of your way to find all of the locations you can use these Spells will be very beneficial to your Witchcraft in the long run.
Witchcraft Mastery
Usage: Day Only
Effect: Witchcraft Abilities deal more Damage.
Witchcraft Mastery provides a damage increase as well as a chance for Witchcraft Skills to deal extra damage. It can brought to Rank 2 without a Manual and granting 15% extra damage and 50% trigger chance for the extra damage.
If you’re leaning into Witchcraft, you’ll definitely want Rank 2 of this ASAP, as the added damage makes early Witchcraft far more potent. While it’s only a chance, it’s a 50% chance which is more than reasonable enough. This bonus damage also scales with level, keeping it fairly potent throughout the story.
Frugal Witchcraft
Usage: Day Only
Effect: Defeating an anemy with a Witchcraft Ability restores Health based on the amount spent to cast it.
Frugal Witchcraft refunds a portion of the Health cost spent on Witchcraft skills that defeat enemies. This skill does require a manual to unlock, but is well worth doing so early.
Even at Rank 1 , it already recovers 40% of the Health Cost, which is massive for some abilties. Combined with Witchcraft Mastery, it makes it much easier to start weaving more abilities in as you start getting lower and lower cooldowns.
This is highly recommended once you have at least two Witchcraft skills, as the initial Burning Blood Skill doesn’t have an exceptionally high cost, and therefore restores less as a result.
Unnatural Resilience
Usage: Day Only
Effect: Grants Armour when any Witchcraft Ability is active.
Unnatural Resilience grants increased Armour while a Witchcraft Ability is active. It can be allocated immediately, but further points will require a Manual.
With the longer durations of some Witchcraft Skills, it can be very easy to have this up at all times in combat. This provides a sizable 25% Armour boost just for a single point, making it well worth getting as soon as you have a second Witchcraft skill to provide more uptime on the effect.
Bewitching Influence
Usage: Anytime
Effect: Better Prices and special offers in stores.
Bewitching Influence reduces the price of items at shops, makes them offer more for sold items, as well as opens special offers at it ranks up.
As with most RPGs, money can be a little tight early on, and this certainly helps alleviate that. As this works at all times, it’s a nice bonus. The Special Offers don’t come up too much, but can be quite valuable items.
Tips for Combining Skills
While the Perks above are general recommendations meant to be more broad, and focused on early power, you may want to avoid certain ones if you have a distinct playstyle in mind.
Weapons and Claws
One important distinction to learn when reading the perks is that your Melee Weapon and Vrakhiri Claws are two separate things, with individual stats. This means two very important things.
First, if a perk specifies either Weapon or Claw alongside Attack, Crit, or Damage, it does not apply to both in any circumstance. This means Perks like Counterattack from the Swordmastery tree will work, but Fate’s Favour will not.
The other is much the same, but regarding Abilties. While you could assume all of the Swordmastery skills could extent to the Claws, this isn’t the case. Only Dirty Trick and Charge will work with Claws. Which means if you wanted t focus on Claws, Broad Swing and Artery Strike are not worth prioritizing with Skill Points and you’re better off focusing on the passive skills more.
Managing Health Costs
Naturally, while having more Health is good in most cases, many Vampirism and Witchcraft skills cost Health as well. While you would be more vulnerable with less Health, those skill will also cost less, making it easier for consumable to replenish it early on.
However once you get further into progression, Perks like Frugal Witchcraft and Lasting Blood can offset this extra cost just as well. Just be careful to also not over do it with healing Perks either. As you get better at blocking attacks, you’ll only ever need to recover the Health you spend yourself, which is much less compared to the healing needed when taking damage.
Dirty Trick
Being one of the earliest Active Skills you get, Dirty Trick is exceptionally good for all playstyles. But get far more value when paired with other Active Abilties, particularly those of the other Skill Trees.
For example, you could use it to boost a handful of Melee Attacks, or it could boost something like Burning Blood, which would get amplified damage of each damage tick, but consume only one hit. This assuming the initial application and damage ticks don’t count as individual hits, which would be strange.
If you end up getting it early, the AoE version of Dirty Trick and Blood Surge or Ravenous Flock also be an exceptional combos to quickly damage groups of foes.
