The Best Early Build For Your Dune: Awakening Character

Dune: Awakening offers four starting classes for you to choose from after you've gone through the character creator. These classes are Bene Gesserit, Trooper, Swordmaster, and Mentat. Each of these classes has its own ability trees, starting abilities, and stats that you can use to get through the early portion of the game. However, seeing as you're not given a ton of information about any of them, it can be difficult to know which one is the best starting class.

Today, we'll be going over the best overall starting class in Dune: Awakening. This class is primarily aimed towards beginners who are looking to get their footing in Arrakis. We'll also explain what build you should go for in the early game so you know exactly which abilities to target as you level up.

If you're just looking for the best classes in the game, check out our class tier list for Dune: Awakening.

Best starting class in Dune: Awakening​


When it comes to picking your first class in Dune: Awakening, there are a few factors to consider. The first, and most important, is how beginner-friendly the class is. While the more advanced classes will have more use in the long run and during the end game, you don't want a class with too much nuance, as that can harm your experience in the early game.

Another factor to consider is the starting ability of the class. Your starting ability can make life much easier in the first several hours of your playthrough, and some of the abilities are tailor-made for specific mechanics in the early game.

The final factor to consider is the ability trees for each class. Some of the ability trees don't help you out a ton in the early to mid-game, but some can make combat, traversal, and exploration much simpler as you start to understand the mechanics in Dune: Awakening.

With all of that said, our pick for the best starting class in Dune: Awakening is the Trooper.

The Trooper is a terrific starting class in Dune: Awakening.
The Trooper might not be the best class for the endgame, but it's one that's terrific for beginners who are looking to make the most out of their time in the early game. The Trooper has one of the best starting abilities in the Shigawire Claw, which is essentially a grappling hook that allows you to perform all sorts of actions.

The Shigawire Claw is extremely easy to use and gives you a simple way to escape sticky situations, stagger enemies so they can't attack you for a couple of seconds, and traverse around the map in a quick and seamless way. You can even use the claw on the sand in the middle of the desert to escape an incoming sand worm or make it to a cliff quicker.

Aside from the Shigawire Claw, the Trooper possesses all-around great abilities that allow you to increase damage in combat, both with melee and ranged weapons. The ability trees also give you ways to repair your gear quickly and increase its durability, which is great for any part of Dune: Awakening. You'll unlock a variety of movement abilities as well, all of which pair well with the Shigawire Claw.

Best starting build for the Trooper in Dune: Awakening​

The Trooper has access to three helpful ability trees
As the Trooper, you initially have access to three ability trees: Gunnery, Suspensor Training, and Tactical Tech. All three trees have useful abilities that you'll want to unlock, but here are some specific abilities you want to target within your first 20 or so levels in Dune: Awakening:

Gunnery

  • Ranged Damage
  • Center of Mass
  • Scattergun Damage
  • Field Maintenance

Suspensor Training

  • Suspensor Dash
  • Death From Above
  • Suspensor Efficiency

Tactical Tech

  • Battle Hardened
  • Attractor Field
  • Assault Seeker

After you reach roughly level 20, you'll gain access to some other classes' ability trees through the use of "trainers." These trainers allow you to unlock ability trees you previously didn't have access to.

The trainer that synergizes best with the Trooper is the Mentat. The Mentat class has abilities that coincide with some of the gravity abilities of the Trooper, but Mentats can also vastly increase their ranged damage. Seeing as the Trooper specializes in dealing damage with heavy machinery at range, you'll want to make use of those abilities from the Mentat ability trees more than anything else.

How to play the Trooper in Dune: Awakening​


Now that we have covered the Trooper's abilities and build, how should you actually go about playing the class when you arrive on Arrakis? Well, as we have alluded to previously, the class is built on the Shigawire Claw starting ability. This gives you a grappling hook you can use every 15 seconds or so, allowing you to easily traverse the map, pull enemies towards you, and even reach some high places if you want to build your base far above the deathly sand to avoid the sand worm.

The Shigawire Claw is a useful utility item regardless of how far along you are in Dune: Awakening. Its traversal mechanics are basically unmatched, and once you start to understand how the grappling hook works and where to place it to get the maximum amount of movement, you'll be able to fly around enemies and work the cliffs to your advantage.

Of course, the ability isn't just useful as a means of traversal. It also plays into combat, and allows you to pull enemies right in your face so you can stun them and deal free, close range damage. While this is a route you want to take often during the early game, it won't be your best bet strategy as you start to level up the Trooper. As we mentioned previously, the Trooper can eventually rely on heavy, long range machinery to deal damage to multiple enemies at once. This is the type of combat you want to benefit from with the Trooper, but only after you've unlocked the right abilities.

When it comes to equipping some primary weapons, stick to long range weapons that can deal damage from a distance. However, to make full use of your grappling hook, you can still have a melee weapon equipped as a backup. This comes in especially handy if you want to conserve ammo or if you're out of ammo after clearing out a large enemy camp.

Overall, the Trooper is a terrific class in Dune: Awakening with a ton of useful abilities that can be helpful in the early- and late-game. While you'll get the most use from the Trooper in the early portion of the game, the movement abilities and combat boosts from the Trooper's ability trees benefit you regardless of where you are in the game's progression.

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