Best Avowed Companions

Avowed‘s companions all have something to offer in battle, but not everything they bring to the table is necessarily worth using. Some of your pals in Obsidian’s new RPGs are better suited for combat than others, and while you can initially get by without putting much thought into party makeup, by the time you reach Shatterscarp, Avowed‘s third region, a well-balanced team is essential.

This guide ranks the best Avowed companions based on what they contribute in battle and how useful they are in more challenging encounters.

Giatta

Giatta is essential – so much so that it’s worth ignoring everything else in Emerald Stair until you reach the point in the Ancient Soil quest where she joins. She’s the only companion with healing and support abilities, and her Reconstruction skill even heals the party while she attacks. Purification is her standard skill, one that restores a sizeable chunk of the party’s health and, at higher levels, even knocks enemies back. 

There’s a barrier skill that provides a magic shield of sorts for a short while and one that increases the team’s movement and attack speed. Those buffs are helpful, though it’s definitely worth investing upgrade points in Giatta’s healing skills before fiddling with speed buffs. With proper timing and your own Godlike healing skill, you can keep the party’s health near full without having to bother using your food resources.

Yatzli

Yatzli and Kai are almost tied for usefulness, but Yatzli gets a slight advantage thanks to the debuff her abilities can apply and their broader range. Yatzli can slow enemies, which sounds basic, but having extra time to reposition makes all the difference in battles against waves of opponents. Her other offensive skills hit multiple enemies and deal explosive damage, and there’s even one that seeks foes out from a distance. 

If you invest multiple points in her Blast and Essence Explosion skills, they deal additional elemental damage types and inflict stun damage as well. There’s not a lot to Yatzli. She blows things up and slows opponents down. But that’s all you really need.

Kai

Kai is a solid choice with a spread of abilities that let him raise a foe’s stun meter and bolster his own survivability. The downside is that these are basically the only things he can do. Kai can rarely stun a foe alone, since his skills all have cooldown periods, so you have to coordinate with your own heavy or critical attacks to finish the job.

That said, he has a second wind ability similar to your own, so he can revive himself once with half of his health intact after an enemy defeats him. On top of that, he can also reduce incoming damage and generate bonus health for himself. Sure, his slow attack rate is a problem, and his skill cooldowns make it hard to max out a target’s stun meter. However, just having another body on the field as a distraction to keep enemies off of you is often more helpful than any of your companions’ combat abilities. That’s especially true once you reach Shatterscarp, where enemy groups are larger and deadlier. 

Marius

Marius is fine, but he’s more conditional than the other companions. His skillset includes an ability that roots enemies in place and one that hits multiple foes at once. Your skillset includes a godlike ability that roots enemies in place, along with a ranger skill that does something similar, and you can hit more enemies than Marius in the time it takes his multi-hit skill to finish its cooldown. His Shadow Step skill instantly kills most stunned enemies, but then again, so do you.

Marius is more useful if you’re running a build that has few or no ranged options, such as a warrior with melee weapons or if your only ranged weapon is a slow-loading arquebus. He offers decent support in these situations, but otherwise, it’s best to swap him out for someone who has more variety.

Avowed is available now for Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam.