The Blood of Dawnwalker is finally here, and players are finally unleashed to explore Vale Sangora with abandon, reckless or otherwise. Coen’s quest to save his family spans a fairly large world, but time isn’t on his side since he only has 30 days. And while you could play it by ear – maybe even challenge Brencis close to the start – there are other ways to find success.
Here are 15 tips to keep in mind and become an efficient Dawnwalker, starting with…
Always Check the Hourglass
Very quickly, it becomes apparent how precious time is as a resource. 30 days may seem like a lot, but between quests and other commitments, it can disappear very quickly. Explore to your heart’s content, but when committed to specific quests, always check whether they’re time-sensitive. Your journal is especially useful for this, since it indicates whether they require completion during the day or night via the sun and moon icons. Prioritize which quest to complete first rather than taking on several and hoping they remain available indefinitely.
Rescue Persons in Danger for “Free” Skill Points
Skill points are almost as valuable as time, so earning as many as possible is ideal. One of the quickest methods is to rescue people in danger. They’re littered throughout the map, day or night, and remain available. Even better, they don’t advance the deadline and immediately provide skill points for knocking some heads around.
Skills Cost More Than Skill Points
That being said, unlocking and upgrading abilities requires more than just skill points. They need – you guessed it – time. As a result, you should think carefully about whether an ability will actually be useful. Don’t be afraid to upgrade an often-used skill, especially if it provides an edge, but it’s not a bad idea to sit on a bunch of skill points and use them when the right ability becomes available.
Buy Shapeshift and Mercurial Fervor ASAP
If you want something immediately useful from the get-go, pick up Shapeshift and Mercurial Fervor. Shapeshift enables Coen to transform into a wolf at nighttime for quicker traversal. The latter boosts your movement speed during the day, which can make exploration feel better given the lack of mounts.
At Night We Live
Picking up Shapeshift serves another important purpose: Mapping the world. Since it’s only available at nighttime, use the opportunity to explore and check the world for different points of interest – the added speed comes in handy. You should also unlock Shadowstep for easily climbing structures at night, making it much more practical for scouting. As much as we would have preferred being able to transform into a bat and simply flying around at night, these two skills are the best alternatives.
Prioritize the Towers Early
Yes, The Blood of Dawnwalker features a well-worn open-world genre trope. And like in the classic Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed games of yore, they’re extremely useful and worth prioritizing. Upon climbing one – which Shadowstep also turns into a trivial task – they’ll unfog the map and reveal collectibles, activities (including the aforementioned people in need of rescuing and quests). Granted, they’re denoted by question marks, so you’ll still need to discover them first-hand, but that’s where wolf form comes in handy. If nothing else, treat these as a planning tool, giving you more agency over where things are on the map rather than blindly running around.
Reward vs. Time Investment
Now, you could set about clearing the map in the traditional open-world OCD fashion that would make you overleveled in no time (which isn’t exactly the case since time is a resource for upgrading skills). So you’re better off checking the rewards for different open-world activities and whether they’re worth clearing instead of trying to tackle everything, everywhere, all at once.
Unlocking New Sword Mastery and Witchcraft Skills
Earlier, we mentioned time and skill points, but other factors must be considered for new skills to even become available in the first place. You have three separate skill trees: Sword Mastery, Witchcraft and Vampirism. Sword Mastery and Witchcraft both require manuals. The former is bought or discovered, while the latter is found in ruins or with practitioners of the dark arts. Once again, exploration can be worthwhile just to find these, but make sure you have enough coin on hand, in case you run across a vendor selling them.
Vampirism and Corruption
Vampirism is a different beast altogether because it doesn’t require manuals. Instead, it relies on Corruption, which increases when drinking blood. To that end, you can bite and feed off enemies or animals to quickly increase Corruption, unlocking access to those vampire skills earlier. That’s another good reason to venture out and explore at night – more easily discovering prey to bolster your Corruption.
Control the Hungry
Whether you’re treating Vale Sangora like an all-you-can-eat buffet or act like a picky eater, it helps to keep Coen’s hunger under control. Failure to do so will cause him to enter a frenzy and feed on an NPC, whether you want to or not, sometimes even killing them in the process. This can become a problem during quest steps or important narrative events, so grab a quick snack ahead of time, just in case.
Avoid Killing Non-Hostile NPCs
There are games with failure states, and then there’s Dawnwalker, which lets you keep going, seemingly with bated breath to see how you can screw things up further. So despite the sheer freedom to kill nearly anyone, try to spare the quest givers lest you lose access to their content (and rewards) for the rest of that playthrough. And if you need to let loose now and again, at least save scum before doing so.
Omniattack and Omniblock
Don’t let all those years on the Path fool you into thinking Dawnwalker’s combat is the same. Blocking and parrying blows involve directional input, so you’ll need to read enemies carefully when attacking and defending. Alternatively, you can enable Omniattack and Omniblock, which automatically decide the attack direction and make it easier to get a feel for the mechanics.
Why You Should Master Directional Combat
So why even bother with directional combat in the first place? For starters, manually blocking in the right direction won’t cost stamina and timing it perfectly can stagger a foe long enough to unleash hell. In that same vein, directional attacks deal more damage. You’ll also unlock skills over time where critical strikes deal more damage with directional attacks. So treat Omniattack and Omniblock as a primer, but don’t let them become a crutch.
Choosing the Ideal Weapon
Coen’s skill lies in swordplay, but there are multiple options in that department (and a few non-blade weapons) to choose from. You’ll be tempted to choose the weapon that deals the most damage, but also consider the attack speed, especially with how important timing can be. Our advice would be to get comfortable with all types and learn them in the process, if only to find one that’s most comfortable.
Dismantle Brencis’s Court
Last but certainly not least – take down Brencis’s Court. Each member of the court – Ambrus, Bakir and Xanthe – is in charge of different facilities that ultimately make the big bad so strong. If you’re having trouble challenging him at any point, try targeting their facilities. This builds Infamy, causing Brencis to enact different measures to make life miserable (though it can also have benefits, like intimidating others in conversations). Challenging the court is optional, however, so if you don’t want to – or want to become stronger and face a full-power Brencis – have at it.
