Enshrouded: Best Early Game Builds

Enshrouded

By Marc Santos

Updated Jun 7, 2024

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Enshrouded

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Best Early Builds In Enshrouded

Enshrouded offers numerous ways to play, whether it's the hands-on melee approach, the stealthy archer style, the all-powerful wizard's way, or anything in between. Players can refine their playstyles by investing points in the game's web of passive and active skills that provide different ways to tackle challenges.

Enshrouded Currently Has a Leg Up on Palworld in One Major Way

Enshrouded is one of Palworld's biggest competitors at the moment, and it has a major feature that Pocketpair's title currently lacks.

The skill tree in Enshrouded may seem a little daunting at first, but it's actually fairly simple once you go through everything it has to offer. If you're not sure how to build your Flameborn as you're leveling up, here's a guide to help get started on the right foot.

Updated June 7, 2024 by Marc Santos: Enshrouded's big Melodies of the Mire update saw many changes come to the way combat balance is handled. Melee playstyles received significant buffs, mages got significant nerfs, and archers now have a new melee weapon option that synergizes with their bows and arrows. The following skill builds are all still viable, but this guide has been updated to provide players more insight as to what the update changed, and what they can do to adjust these early builds according those changes.

Best Early Builds In Enshrouded

Thanks to the open-ended, classless system in place, players have complete freedom over how they want to play in Enshrouded. The only real hindrance here is the limited amount of Skill Points (SP) you can get. Going for hybrid builds isn't a bad idea, but considering how few the Skill Points are in the early game, it's best to focus on one skill branch first before trying out the others. The following builds are designed with Level 10-15 players in mind with 30-50 SP available.

Best General Skills

Before diving into the role-specific builds, These skills are excellent quality-of-life improvements for any playstyle. You can get a ton of value from these, making them very SP-efficient. Getting these aren't mandatory, but consider doing so if you have any spare Skill Points.

Skill Name	Effect
Double Jump (Survivor)	Lets you jump again in midair.
Inner Fires (Survivor)	Increase your base Shroud timer by two minutes.
Dessert Stomach (Survivor)	Grants an extra food slot.
Well-Rested (Base)	Increases base Rested buff duration by five minutes.
Updraft (Assassin)	Gain extra height while gliding; costs 120 mana, and can only be used once per flight.

Early Game Fighter Build

If you prefer getting into the thick of a fight, you'll need extra Strength, Constitution, and melee-oriented perks to boost your odds of winning. The best generalist melee build for the early game involves the Warrior branch of the skill tree and all three passive lines that boost the damage you deal with Cutting, Piercing, and Blunt.

Priority Skills	Effect
Jump Attack	Perform a jump attack that deals 50% more damage in a small blast radius.
The Warrior's Path	Increase melee weapon damage by 10%.
Brute/Slasher/Thrust	Increase Blunt/Cut/Pierce damage by 10%.
Hammer Time/Butcher/Pierce	Increase Blunt/Cut/Pierce damage by an additional 20%.
Veteran	Increase melee weapon crit chance by 10%.
Swift Blades	One-handed swords and axes attack 10% faster.

The Melodies of the Mire update significantly buffed two-handed weapons. They are now much more consistent to use, deal more stagger damage when parrying, and can now perform overhead attacks that are stronger but have a limited area of effect. Additionally, parrying with melee weapons and shields is now stronger, and follow-up attacks with Merciless Strike now deal more damage to stunned targets.

Swords will be your best choice of weapon as a melee fighter using this build since they use all physical damage types, thus benefitting from all six damage-increasing nodes from the Warrior tree. A Level 18 Rare Sword will out-DPS a Level 20 Rare Axe, even when both weapons are fully upgraded.

As for armor, we highly recommend using the Level 13 Guard of the North set from Pikemead's Reach, which is one of the best early armor sets in Enshrouded. It increases your crit chance and damage with all weapon types while also providing extra defensive stats. It will cut your Shroud timer down significantly, however, so consider getting the Inner Fires skill as well.

Early Game Ranger Build

Melodies of the Mire has made low-tier Explosive Arrows available earlier in the game, giving archers more options to deal with crowds. Stun Arrows now increase the stun bars of enemies, much like how a parry would. However, bows can now break when their Durability runs out.

If shooting enemies with a bow is more your style, then the Ranger and Assassin branches are for you. Both skill lines improve your ability to deal ranged damage, and if you combine both, you'll be blowing up packs of enemies in no time.

Priority Skills	Effect
Marksman	Increases all ranged weapons by 10%.
Sharpshooter	All ranged damage is increased by an extra 20%.
Skill Shot	Increases headshot damage by 20%.
Ranger	+2 Endurance +2 Dexterity +5 Stamina Regeneration +5% Critical Hit Chance +5% Critical Hit Damage
Airborne	Gliding consumes 30% less stamina.
Sniper	Increases ranged weapon crit chance by 10%.
Vitality Surge	Ranged weapon crits restore 5 stamina.
Bounty Bonanza	Defeating Fell enemies with headshots nets the entire group additional EXP.
Graceful Stride	Gain 1 Dexterity for every 2 levels of the Flame.
Ricochets	Increases the damage of Explosive Arrows by 1% for every enemy hit by the blasts.
Chain Reaction	Enemies hit by Explosive Arrows have a 20% chance of triggering a smaller, secondary explosion.

Unfortunately, you won't get the recipe for Explosive Arrows until you finish the following quests from the Alchemist:

An Eternal Spell
The Alchemist's Rumors
The Alchemist's Mortar
Carpentry Assistance
A Black Cauldron for the Alchemist
Scientific Instructions for the Alchemist

By the time you finish this quest line, you should be well beyond Level 15. Only take Ricochets and Chain Reactions after you complete all these quests. Until then, spend your points on getting skills in the Survivor branch or any other skill line you prefer.

Location of the ancient bridge in Enshrouded

For weapons, the best bow you can get early on is the Fell Commander Bow, which is a guaranteed drop from a Fell Thunderbrute stationed by the bridge to the west of Pikemead's Reach. Refer to the map above for its location.

The Melodies of the Mire update also added Dual Daggers as a new weapon type in the game. These mostly cater towards Rangers as their skills fall within that branch of the skill tree. New skills that affect daggers are:

Dagger Master: Increase damage dealt by daggers by 15%.
Slice and Dice: Dealing critical damage with a dagger increases the damage of your next bow shot by 50%.

Early Game Mage Build

Attacking with chain lightning in Enshrouded

Magic damage dealt by wands and spells cast by staves now deal slightly less damage. Additionally, players can no longer bunny hop with wands, nor can they cancel their attacks into a block. The following build shouldn't be affected as badly by these nerfs, though expect to feel the changes more once you reach the mid-late stages of the game. Once you do reach endgame, consider investing points in melee skills.

Being a spellslinging wizard is a viable build path early on in Enshrouded thanks to the variety of magical weapons at the player's disposal. However, building for max DPS as a mage is a bit more gear-dependent and less efficient with Skill Points compared to the other two archetypes.

Priority Skills	Effect
This is the Way	Increases damage dealt by magical weapons by 10%.
Quick Charge	Reduces spell charge time of Staves by 50%.
Arsonist/Thunder/Iceman	Increases the damage of Fire/Shock/Ice attacks by 10%.
Pyromaniac/Lightning/Sub Zero	Further increases the damage of Fire/Shock/Ice attacks by 20%.
Wizard	Increases magic weapon crit chance by 10%.
Chain Hit	On a successful magic weapon crit, a second enemy within 15 meters will receive 5 Shock damage per point of Intelligence you have.
Mass Destruction	Critical hits with a magic weapon will shock all enemies within 20 meters for 2 Shock damage per point of Intelligence you have.

Unlike in the fighter build above, investing SP in all the elemental damage nodes here is not recommended early on. While you can bring multiple staff charges or wands with you, spending points on skills you won't always be using is not efficient. Use those Skill Points elsewhere unless you really want to be versatile with your offensive options or if you have a weapon that scales off multiple elements. However, we do recommend taking the Shock damage line, as it scales the damage dealt by Chain Hit and Mass Destruction.

Pick one element to work with, then base your gear choices on it. This really only affects your choice of wand, as magic staves deal damage based on the spell you choose to cast. You can get the Eternal Ice Bolt after you do a quest for the Alchemist, which you can use as a reliable offensive option until you get the materials needed to craft other Eternal Spells like Fireball or Chain Lightning.

If you want to farm for expendable Spell Charges, you can do Enshrouded's chest exploit on any common chest for a shot at getting loot. To do this, open a chest, quit back to the main menu, then load back in again. Doing so will refresh every chest in the world, giving you infinite opportunities to get Spell Charges. There's a normal and silver chest in a house in the Lush Pasture POI (as seen above), and you can get decent weapons and armor here on top of consumables like arrows, bombs, and spells.