PROGRESSION · BUILDS
The Blood of Dawnwalker Best Skills & Builds
Points are shared, availability is not. This is the named upgrade order for Coen's three trees, the perks that carry each phase, and three complete loadouts — a daytime Witchcraft build, a night Blood Surge build, and the hybrid that keeps both halves working.
Spend your first points in Vampirism, because all 20 of its skills open on points alone while Swordmastery and Witchcraft lock 34 skills behind manuals. Then buy Sustained Focus, Master Fencer and Tactical Mastery to fund your abilities, and put the rest into whichever phase you actually play.
How the three trees differ
The three trees look like a power comparison and behave like an access comparison. They cost the same points; they do not cost the same preparation. Swordmastery is the only tree that works at any hour, which makes it the backbone of every build. Witchcraft only functions in daylight. Vampirism only wakes at night, and its powers also draw on health and Corruption rather than points alone.
| Tree | Skills / ranks | Manual-gated | Phase | What it actually gives you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swordmastery | 24 skills, 71 ranks | 18 of 24 | Any hour | Health, stamina, weapon damage and critical chance, activation charges, block and counter tooling. |
| Witchcraft | 21 skills, 50 ranks | 16 of 21 | Day | Damage-over-time, crowd control, debuffs, healing from kills, ability slots and cooldown control. |
| Vampirism | 20 skills, 50 ranks | 0 of 20 | Night | Claw damage, night health, healing, Corruption gain, movement, and the Blood Surge finisher. |
Two structural facts shape every decision below. First, buying all 171 ranks across the three trees is the only way to see every ultimate, and spreading points evenly across all three is the surest way to see none of them. Second, every catalogued skill in the trees is a passive modifier. The things you actively press — Blade Charge, the vampiric finishers, the witch spells that bounce — belong to the separate Focus and ability systems, which are slotted and upgraded on their own terms.
Because Coen is one character in two bodies, a hybrid is not a compromise. It is the deliberate use of a shared pool to give both phases a working answer. The cost is peak power in either one.
The order to buy in
This sequence assumes a fresh save and no manual shopping yet. It front-loads the things that make everything else cheaper.
Open Vampirism first
Razorsharp Claws, Nourishing Blood, Endless Hunger and Shadow Dweller are available the moment you have points, with no book and no level requirement. Twelve ranks of night health, claw damage and healing for twelve points is the only block of the skill system you can commit to on your first night out.
Take Sustained Focus
Of the eleven Swordmastery skills in the opening tiers, Sustained Focus is the one that does not demand a manual. It expands your activation charges, and every ability in the game draws on that pool, so it improves the day build and the night build at the same time.
Build the charge engine
Master Fencer opens four ability slots. Tactical Mastery reduces the activation-charge cost of every ability, Witchcraft and Vampirism included. Walking Fortress refunds charges and cuts cooldowns on every Perfect Block, and Dirty Trick both amplifies and cheapens your next ability. Together these turn a three-charge finisher into a one-charge habit.
Add one daytime tool
Mercurial Fervour costs a single point and gives daytime sprinting a Haste effect, which shortens every walk you take before sunset. After that, pick the Witchcraft effect that answers the fight slowing you down rather than collecting spells. See Skill Manual Locations for where each book lives.
Finish with defence and criticals
Vigour for health, Endless Effort for stamina, Second Skin II to wear heavy armour, and Fate's Favour plus Sharp Eye for critical chance and post-block damage. These are the perks that let a build survive contact with the boyars.
Build 1: the daytime Witchcraft build
This is the strongest human-phase loadout in the launch build. It revolves around critical hits feeding healing: every Witchcraft ability you land can bounce to a second target, every critical hit heals, and cooldowns fall as the fight goes on. The result is a Coen who out-sustains a group instead of out-bursting it.
| Slot | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Burning Blood | Bouncing damage-over-time that keeps travelling between targets and never really stops. |
| Active | Ravenous Flock | Deletes hordes quickly and sets up critical hits on everything that follows. With Tactical Mastery it costs a single charge. |
| Active | Soul Stigma | Large critical chance and damage boost that also bounces, so it pairs directly with Burning Blood. |
| Passive | Unholy Vitality | Pays back the health cost of Witchcraft abilities and heals further on every critical hit. This is the engine of the build. |
| Passive | Scarlet Shield | Heals on every block, and heavily on Perfect Blocks, which the rest of the build is already chasing. |
The perk priorities are equally specific. Witchcraft Mastery raises ability damage, Forbidden Sigils opens four Witchcraft slots so the passive package fits, and Aether Flow cuts Witchcraft cooldowns on every critical hit — which, with this much critical chance, means almost permanently. Blasphemous Echo scales damage with the number of hexed enemies, Lasting Malediction stretches durations, and Entwined Torment, the Witchcraft ultimate, makes the first ability you apply hit two targets instead of one. That single upgrade is what turns the bouncing effect from a bonus into the plan.
On gear, chase witchcraft ability damage and witchcraft cooldown, then stack every activation-charge restoration stat you can find — from Perfect Block, from attacks, from block, and passively. Maximum human health is a real priority here because Witchcraft abilities are paid for in health.
Build 2: the night Blood Surge build
The night build is a one-trick answer to a real problem: Blood Surge is the hardest single hit Coen has, and it costs three activation charges that the Swordmastery perks above have already reduced to one. Everything else in this loadout exists to keep Coen healthy enough to cast it repeatedly.
| Slot | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Blood Surge | The finisher. Unlocked by drinking Xanthe's blood, or by using the vial of it found in Svartrau. |
| Active | Shadowstorm | Slows time for roughly six seconds of uninterrupted attacks, which is enough to rebuild charges mid-fight. |
| Active | Voracious Bite | Healing that resets its own cooldown on a kill, and a reliable way to keep raising Corruption. |
| Passive | Crimson Rush | Scales active-ability damage off Coen's health percentage — up to a 40% bonus for Blood Surge at full health. |
| Passive | Scarlet Shield | Night-side healing on every block, tied to the same Perfect Block loop the Swordmastery perks reward. |
The perk list is short and unglamorous. Endless Hunger raises night health so Coen can trade hits while setting up. Blood Theft heals back damage taken, which is the most reliable sustain in the tree. Vrakhiri Might adds vampiric ability slots so the three actives fit. Endless Ferocity reduces vampiric cooldowns passively and on critical hits. If you intend to fight with claws rather than a weapon, add Razorsharp Claws, Clawpierce and Dancing Claws; together they push claw critical chance high enough that you can drop critical chance from your gear entirely.
Vampiric powers draw on health and Corruption. Raising Corruption to open a power you never use is a straight loss. Take night abilities when they directly improve how you travel or fight after dark, and keep an eye on the health cost when a boss fight turns into a war of attrition.
Build 3: the hybrid that works in any form
If your route flips between day and night — and Court Activities will force that on you — build one dependable answer per phase and deepen only what earns its place.
- One sword answer. Sustained Focus plus OmniBlock and Perfect Block, so blocking and countering works at any hour and funds your charges.
- One day answer. Mercurial Fervour for travel and one damage-over-time effect for groups. You do not need the full Witchcraft critical package to make daylight survivable.
- One night answer. Endless Hunger and Blood Theft, plus Blood Surge once Xanthe is dealt with. Night traversal abilities such as Shapeshift also shorten every dark-hours trip.
- Two perks that pay both phases. Tactical Mastery and Master Fencer are the only upgrades that help Witchcraft, Vampirism and Swordmastery simultaneously.
Practice one response at a time. Duelist removes the on-screen prompt that tells you which direction to block, so a stable input habit and a short time budget beat a copied endgame tree every time — see the Trophy & Achievement Guide for the Duelist route.
Ultimates and the point threshold
Each tree ends in a small set of ultimate perks, and each has a different price.
| Tree | What the ultimate costs | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Swordmastery | 35 points spent in the tree, then 4 more for the ultimate. | Tactical Mastery is the one that also cheapens Witchcraft and Vampirism abilities, which is why it is in every build above. |
| Witchcraft | 35 points spent in the tree, then 4 more for the ultimate. | Entwined Torment makes your first applied effect hit two targets, which the bouncing day build exploits directly. |
| Vampirism | Corruption 15, then buy the ultimate. | No point threshold — the gate is blood. Drinking from any source raises Corruption. |
Because the two point-gated ultimates cost the same currency, one save can see two of them: bank enough points, buy one ultimate, then reload and spend the same points in the other tree. It is a completion trick rather than a build, but it saves a whole playthrough — the same logic applies to the three "unlock an ultimate" achievements listed in the trophy guide.
Gear stats that actually matter
| Stat | Priority | What it does for you |
|---|---|---|
| Activation charge restoration (passive, attack, block, Perfect Block) | Critical | Charges are the real resource. Every restoration source shortens the gap between abilities. |
| Weapon critical hit chance | Critical | Feeds the day build's healing, Aether Flow's cooldown reduction and Endless Ferocity. |
| Weapon damage and critical damage | High | Converts those criticals into actual kills. |
| Witchcraft ability damage and cooldown | High (day) | The whole day build is passive damage delivered through abilities. |
| Maximum human health / maximum night health | High | Witchcraft is paid in health, and the night build trades hits while setting up Blood Surge. |
| Perfect Block window | High | More chances to trigger the block family that funds everything else. |
| Block and dodge stamina cost | Low | Useful, but points are better spent on charges and criticals. |
Stuns and targeting: what changes in October
One quirk of the current build matters to any crowd-control plan. When Coen stuns an enemy, the camera lock currently slides to a different target, which is convenient in a packed fight but frustrating when you want to finish the enemy you just locked down. The developers have said the first major patch, scheduled for early October, will keep the lock on the stunned target instead and make a stun harder to break — the preview describes a three-hit buffer before the effect drops.
For the day build above, that is a straight gain. Burning Blood and Soul Stigma both reward holding an enemy in place while the damage-over-time keeps ticking, so a longer and more predictable stun window is exactly the setup those effects want. Until the patch is live, assume the lock will jump to a nearby enemy after a stun: open with the stun, then re-acquire the target you actually want to kill rather than trusting the camera to stay put.
Do not rebuild around the change yet. Keep buying charges, criticals and cooldown reduction in the order above; the stun update only makes the crowd-control half of the day build more forgiving once it arrives.
Build checklist
- Open Vampirism. It is the only tree you can invest in on day one without shopping.
- Buy Sustained Focus before any other Swordmastery perk — it is the only opening-tier skill that does not want a book.
- Treat Master Fencer and Tactical Mastery as mandatory. They upgrade every build, not one.
- Spend points where the phase uses them: Witchcraft by day, Vampirism at night, Swordmastery always.
- Do not spread across all three trees unless you genuinely play all three phases — 171 points is a full-run commitment.
- Plan your ultimate before you spend, not after. 35 points in one tree is a decision you cannot undo.