Avowed: Best Giatta companion build

Wondering what the best build is for Giatta, your third companion in Avowed? Giatta is an animancer Wizard in Avowed - basically, someone who studies the energy behind souls and figures out ways to manipulate them. Those who played the Pillars of Eternity games are probably familiar with animancy, which is a controversial practice in Avowed's world of Eora, but if you haven't, all you need to know is that Giatta is an excellent healer who deserves a place in your group purely for her support skills. She's also one of Avowed's most intriguing companions, thanks to a sad backstory involving her parents, who have met a disturbing fate in her laboratory basement...

If you've been struggling with Avowed's hectic battles and bosses, Giatta's assistance will increase your survivability tenfold. In this guide, we'll list the best companion build for Giatta to ensure that she can heal you with her soul-borne magic.

Avowed: Best Giatta companion build

Each companion in Avowed has four main abilities, and each ability has a speciality that you can invest a point into. Giatta's best build is as follows:

• Purification (Boosted Essence)
• Barrier (Greater Barrier)
• Acceleration (Extended Acceleration)
• Reconstruction (Critical Restore)

This list does not include Spectral Jolt, another one of Giatta's abilities, since it's always on your in-game radial menu. Spectral Jolt allows Giatta to activate mechanical generators that are often scattered around dungeons. If you don't have Shock magic or grenades at your disposal, this is a useful ability to open up secret passages and find hidden loot. (See our guide to dealing Elemental and Explosive damage for more info on bypassing obstacles in Avowed's dungeons.)

Purification (Boosted Essence)

Purification (60 second cooldown) is a wonderful healing spell that affects everyone by 25% of their maximum Health. You don't have to be standing near Giatta to receive its benefits, either. Even if you're jumping atop a mushroom-infected bear a mile away, Giatta still manages to help you out, making this one of the best companion abilities in the game, as far as I'm concerned.

Most of Giatta's ability specialities either extend the effects of the skill they're attached to or offer up additional support buffs, such as damage reduction and the like. I've almost always gone with the simple extension - in this case, Boosted Essence, which lets Purification heal allies by 50% of their max Health. When it comes to healing, I'd rather have more of it above all else.

Barrier (Greater Barrier)

Barrier (20 second duration, 75 second cooldown) is another top-notch Giatta skill that gives everyone a temporary health shield for 20 seconds. Once again, you don't have to be close to Giatta to get the shield. This is highly useful when you're fighting large mobs or bosses, and if you combine it with Arcane Veil (one of the best Wizard abilities), squishy characters will find themselves lasting much longer than they otherwise would.

Greater Barrier increases the amount of temporary health granted by Barrier, and is my pick. My second choice would be Medic Shielding, which kicks in when Barrier ends, healing allies in proportion to the amount of temporary health they have remaining.

Acceleration (Extended Acceleration)

Acceleration (15 second duration, 80 second cooldown) increases the movement and attack speed of everyone for 15 seconds. This comes in handy especially if you're a dagger-user like me who loves to spam melee attacks in order to roll critical hits. Pop it when you're rushing an enemy and slash away.

Extended Acceleration keeps Acceleration going for an extra 10 seconds, which is my preference. The other options, Evade Attacks and Time Shift, respectively allow everyone to gain 15% damage reduction and reduce ability cooldowns by 50% when Acceleration is active. Those are decent, but I've found Giatta's Barrier ability to be just fine in terms of warding off damage, and I tend to not worry about cooldowns that much in Avowed. (Then again, my character is a Ranger/Wizard multiclass, so I can always rely on physical attacks when my abilities aren't available. If you're playing as a pure Wizard, you might find yourself more dependent on your spells, in which case Time Shift is good.)

Reconstruction (Critical Restore)

Reconstruction makes Giatta's attacks heal all allies by a small amount, which is short, sweet, and a good reason to keep her in your party at all times.

Critical Restore is my preference here, as it increases Reconstruction's healing to all allies below 20% Health. Overcharge, which grants temporary health to allies that are already at maximum health, is also a useful choice, though relying on Barrier is usually enough for my needs. You can probably skip Revitalize, which revives incapacitated allies when Giatta kills an enemy. Revitalize is nice, but as a support caster, Giatta has rarely been the one to deliver killing blows in my experience.

Despite her occasionally morbid fascination with souls, Giatta is a warm presence as your party makes their way through Avowed, and hopefully with her by your side, you can get to the heart of the ecological nightmare threatening the Living Lands. Now go take a peek at our other companion guides for Kai, Marius, and Yatzli. If you're more interested in your personal build rather than companions, check out our best abilities guides for the Wizard, Ranger, and Fighter. All newbies setting out in the Living Lands should also read our Avowed beginner's guide and our guide on all Avowed Treasure Maps. For the fashion-inclined adventurer, perhaps our guide on how to transmogrify will also be of interest.