The best early game build in Greedfall 2: The Dying World

Greedfall II: A Dying World offers players several different options at the start of the game, allowing you to customize your character and playstyle however you want. With nine pre-made launchers and the ability to fully customize one of your own if none suits you, it can be difficult to decide what to start with.

Greedfall 2: The Dying World has six different skill trees, with each of the prebuilt loadouts using two of them. This guide will break down what each skill tree offers, which skill trees your original companions have access to, and offer suggestions for which skill trees will give new players the smoothest early game experience.

Six skill trees

The six skill trees currently available in Early Access can be broadly divided into two categories: Paths and Weapons. Path skill trees are not tied to a specific weapon group and specialize in a general playstyle such as tanking, dealing damage, or healing and support. Each path skill tree starts with a posture skill that can be switched to gain benefits for that path's playstyle in exchange for penalties in other areas. Weapon skill trees are tied to a specific weapon category, such as blunt weapons, bows, or bracelets. They offer access to special skills when wielding the respective weapon, making these types of weapons more effective.

The six skill trees available in the current Early Access build are:

• Paths of Destruction (damage focused)
• Paths of protection (focused on refueling)
• Paths of Love (focused on healing and polishing)
• Teer Fradeean Bracelets (Magic Gauntlets with Healing and Destructive Powers)
• Weapons of War (Blunt weapons with stun effects and AOE attacks)
• Bows (bows with a combination of damaging attacks and skill debuffs)

Paths of Destruction

Serving as a damage-focused path, Paths of Destruction grants you abilities that make you better deal damage to the enemy, sometimes to the point of lowering your defense stats.

Ways of protection

As a defense and tanking focused Path, Paths of Protection give you abilities that allow you to gain aggro and boost your defensive abilities. Your attack stats will sometimes suffer in exchange.

Paths of love

The Healing and Buffing-Focused Path, Paths of Charity, offers abilities that help the user heal and buff their allies. However, this sometimes comes at the cost of increasing damage.

Weapons of war

One of the broader weapon skill trees, Weapons of War, provides skills and effects related to one-handed or two-handed maces and axes. These weapons (collectively called “impact weapons” in-game) tend to specialize in knocking enemies back, knocking them down, and generally interrupting enemy actions.

Teer Fradeean Bracelets

The Teer Fradeean Bracelets are the only enchanted weapon available in the current Early Access Build that offers a combination of offensive and defensive enchantments to help them aid the party.

Bows

As the only ranged weapon to have a skill tree in the current Early Access Build, bows provide a combination of damaging and debuffing skills.

Best early game build

Taking the skills we've talked about into account, let's build a build that complements the two party members we get at the start of the game and stays useful throughout the game. Our first two party members are Nilan and Sheda. Nilan is an archer who uses the Paths of Charity skill tree and his unique skill tree allows him to cast multiple healing spells even with a bow in hand. Sheda, on the other hand, wields the weapons of war and uses the Paths of Protection skill tree, focusing on defending Nilan and the protagonist by attracting the attention of enemies and tanking their attacks.

With this in mind, there are several strategies we could use. For the purposes of this early game build guide, we recommend a Paths of Destruction character that uses Teer Fradeean Bracelets as a weapon, giving this party a powerful damage-focused spell. (If you want to use a pre-made class that fits this niche, choose Spell Caster.)

Attributes

The most important attribute for this build is Will, followed by Focus and Perception. If you want some extra security in case an enemy gets through the Sheda to attack you, it might be worth trading a point or two of Focus or Perception for a few extra Stamina (although the build we've provided assumes that you will keep the Sheda between you and the enemy whenever possible.)

The will stat affects the damage dealt by the bracelet, which will be your weapon of choice in this build. Perception increases Crit Rate, while Focus is a stat used by light and medium armor and also reduces skill cooldowns. It also increases your maximum action points, which is important for reliably throwing out your damaging spells and providing some emergency healing. Stamina will increase your maximum health, but ideally you'll be standing behind your tanker teammates most of the time, and strength increases critical damage, so it's worth investing a bit into it.

Skills

We'll pick up the “Destroyer's Stance” skill from the Paths of Destruction skill tree to boost our damage, then add Bracelet Mastery and Bramble Shackles from the Teer Fradeean Bracelets skill tree to gain access to some powerful offensive skills and a way to prevent enemies from they got to us.

Make sure Sheda unlocks Taunt once she reaches level 2 to help take the pressure off you and Nilan in combat.

Combat strategy

In combat, you'll want to trap enemies with Bramble Shackles so they can't get to you, while Sheda draws aggro and Nilan provides additional damage and healing. Once the enemies are trapped, you can use Toxic Bloom to deal them damage over time and use Breath of Life if necessary to help Nilan and Sheda stay healthy. After leveling, you can get a Boost from the Paths of War skill tree to use a Mighty Buff to boost your damage, or a Devastating Throw to throw bottles and cause other negative status effects.