These beginner’s tips for The Blood of Dawnwalker will improve your dawn-walking adventure in the vampire-ridden Vale Sangora. Don’t let Coen’s dual nature or the 30-day calendar intimidate you; once you understand the mechanics, questing, exploring, and gearing up will be a breeze.
Here are our best tips on how to handle the time mechanic, prepare for the final confrontation, unlock the best abilities, and boost the fun in The Blood of Dawnwalker.
Exploration before questing
In The Blood of Dawnwalker, time moves forward when you take certain actions, such as speaking with NPCs, battling enemies, and upgrading abilities. This means that spending time on one activity may not leave time for another, which is especially true during the game’s prologue. Luckily, the game always warns you of the time cost beforehand (see your journal or the time bar in the top right of the screen), so you’re free to explore an area, chat with several people, and obtain several quests before committing to a time-consuming activity.
Since time is scarce during the prologue, consider running around Laslea Glen, talking to everyone, before pursuing any of the quests you’ve obtained. You won’t be as hard-pressed for time in the open world, but it’s still a good idea to get a sense of available activities before committing to one.
Keep an eye on the clock
The same quest can feature vastly different gameplay depending on the time of day. For example, you may reach a certain goal by talking (daytime) or sneaking around (nighttime). Beware that this goes beyond the quest’s starting point; if you want to complete a quest through conversation, but you started late in the day, the first conversation may change the current time to night, after which all the relevant NPCs may have gone home.
While this isn’t necessarily a problem, be particularly careful when you’re counting on your vampire powers. If you sneak into an old tower using Shadowstep, for example, and time turns from night to day while you’re inside, you may not be able to sneak out!
Don’t worry (too much) about time
Although Coen has 30 days before Brencis kills his family, time isn’t all that scarce once you’ve finished the prologue. Sure, you should work toward getting stronger, obtaining allies, and weakening Brencis’ court, but you have a whopping total of 480 time segments to spend before doomsday. If you waste a bit of time learning the “wrong” abilities (like a skill you no longer need) or spend time on a few unimportant activities, it shouldn’t hurt your chances of defeating Brencis.
What will hurt your chances of defeating Brencis, though, is not spending any time on your abilities at all. Don’t be put off by the time requirement!
Try not to kill important characters
As a vampire, Coen is always thirsting for human blood. If it’s night, and he has less than one blood (HP) segment left while talking to a human, he’ll succumb to “feral hunger” and accidentally kill that human. Important NPCs do not get plot armor, so if you don’t wish to kill them, always make sure that Coen’s blood level is high enough before entering a conversation. During the day, as a human, the NPCs are quite safe.
I say “quite,” because it’s still possible to accidentally kill friendly NPCs through negligence or failure to help them. If an NPC dies in the early game, it may lock you out of certain quest lines. This also goes for important foes; if you kill a Vrakhir before unlocking their personal quest, you won’t be able to do that quest anymore.
Save, save, and save some more
Related to the previous The Blood of Dawnwalker tip, save the game frequently. It’s easy to pick a choice you’ll regret, so save yourself from suffering the consequences (and having to replay a quest section) by saving the game every 10 minutes or so. Accidentally murdered your love interest? No problem!
Unlock the haste skills first
The Blood of Dawnwalker‘s map is huge, but you don’t have to traverse it at human pace. Instead, you can use the “Shapeshift” and “Mercurial Fervour” abilities, which you’ll find in the vampirism and witchcraft skill trees respectively. They’ll unlock an enhanced sprint mode, allowing Coen to run across the map at a very high speed, making exploration a breeze.
You can unlock Mercurial Fervour at any shrine, as soon as you’ve completed the prologue. To unlock Shapeshift, drain enough blood to reach corruption level 1 (using Voracious Bite on a few animals will suffice). Both skills cost one skill point but require no time.
Focus on one skill tree
Although it’s wise to obtain a few reliable combat abilities for both day and nighttime, it’s best to focus on either witchcraft or vampirism. Most minor battles are somewhat unpredictable (you may run into unexpected enemies during quests or in the wild), but boss fights, especially against the Vrakhir, can usually be planned. So, if you want to be overpowered when you face Brencis, you might want to improve your vampirism abilities and make sure you meet him at night.
But when in doubt, go for swordmastery
Don’t feel pressured to choose between witchcraft and vampirism early on, though. As mentioned above, it’s useful to have decent combat skills in both, and on top of that, the swordmastery skill tree offers several abilities that are useful regardless of play style.
If you’re undecided, why not increase your stamina with Endless Effort? Or reduce the stamina cost of dodging by upgrading Fleet of Foot? Vigour (more max HP) and Sustained Focus (more activation charges) are also very handy.
Shadowstep is your safety net
Shadowstep, the vampire (night only) ability that allows Coen to teleport to high places and walk on walls, has a hidden quality you might’ve missed; it can prevent fall damage. Even as a vampire, Coen can die from fall damage, but if you press Shadowstep just before landing, he won’t get hurt. Very handy when you don’t want to climb down, or misjudge a wall’s Clawride suitability. Keep in mind that you still need to aim Shadowstep toward a flat surface; a regular floor will suffice, but a bumpy, slanted rock may not.
Crank up the difficulty level
As The Blood of Dawnwalker doesn’t force you through any quest lines after the prologue, you’re free to challenge Brencis any time. The only reason why you won’t run to Brencis’ castle right away, is because he should be too strong for you, a freshly turned dawnwalker. However, if you’re playing on a low difficulty level, you may be able to rescue Coen’s family very early on, thus removing the need to complete quests.
So, while you should feel free to beat The Blood of Dawnwalker any way you want, it may not be as much fun if your difficulty settings are too low. A difficulty level of “challenging” or higher should extend your playthrough significantly, especially if you’re adept at blocking.
The Blood of Dawnwalker is a time-sensitive, narrative RPG where your actions and decisions matter. If you’re just starting out, check out our recommended quests to do before mass. After the prologue, you’re free to explore Vale Sangora and take on Brencis’ boyars however you please, but the freedom can be a bit overwhelming. To help, here’s what we recommend doing after the prologue.
