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We break down everything you need to know about combat styles, weapons, and more in our combat guide for Dune: Awakening.
Arrakis, the desert planet of spice and sandworms, is a hostile world where survival depends on more than just your wits. From skirmishes with scavengers to clashes with rival factions, every encounter requires careful planning, strategic thinking, and quick reflexes.
This guide will walk you through the most important tactics and combat basics you need to get started in Dune: Awakening. We’ll explore the diverse weaponry, how to utilize the environment to your advantage, and the crucial strategies for engaging both human enemies and the terrifying wildlife. Prepare to become a force to be reckoned with in the unforgiving sands of Arrakis.
Combat in Dune: Awakening
Combat in Dune: Awakening is a dynamic and strategic experience that will require you to adapt to the harsh, desert environment of Arrakis. The game emphasizes tactical decision-making, where you must balance offense, defense, and resource management. Engaging in combat involves a range of activities, from battling hostile scavengers to clashing in PvP against rival factions.
As you progress in research and crafting, you will have access to a variety of weapons, including futuristic firearms and melee blades. Each of these has unique attributes suited for different combat situations. Additionally, the environment can play a significant role, offering opportunities for ambushes or using terrain features to gain an upper hand.
Surviving in the desert requires more than just firepower in Dune: Awakening. You must also manage your stamina, positioning, and cover. The game’s combat system rewards thoughtful engagement rather than reckless aggression, with an emphasis on leveraging the natural environment and maintaining control over resources.
Types of Combat in Dune: Awakening
In Dune: Awakening, combat is diverse and multifaceted, offering a mix of player-driven and environmental challenges. PvP (Player vs. Player) battles are intense, where you will band together with guild members to fight for dominance over resources and territory. This type of combat is the most rewarding but also the most dangerous, requiring both strategic thinking and quick reflexes.
PvE (Player vs. Environment) combat pits players against hostile scavengers and opposing factions, deadly wildlife like sandworms, and environmental hazards. PvE combat may be ‘easier’ against AI enemies, but will still require you to manage your resources and adapt to sometimes unpredictable threats.
Each type of combat in Dune: Awakening demands a different approach, blending strategy, timing, and environmental awareness for success. Consequently, you will likely want to respec your build’s weapons and abilities, depending on the combat situation you are heading into.
Weapons and Combat Styles in Dune: Awakening
There are a variety of weapons available in Dune: Awakening, but they can mostly be categorized into two groups: ranged firearms and melee blades. You will want to equip at least one of each when you play Dune: Awakening. Enemy types will vary, and some can protect themselves against one type of damage, but not the other.
Additionally, you can also attack enemies with abilities unlocked in skill trees. Moreover, later on in the game, certain vehicles can be used in combat, as well. Therefore, when putting together your build, you will need to consider four different elements of combat in Dune: Awakening:
- Melee – Hand-to-hand combat using bladed weapons.
- Ranged – Firearms used to attack enemies from a distance.
- Abilities – Skills learned from the Great Schools, which function like special attacks.
- Vehicular – Armed vehicles and tanks become significant in late-game combat.
Abilities and Combat Flow in Dune: Awakening
In Dune: Awakening, you will also be able to use special abilities in combat or even exploration. Abilities are unlocked in skill trees, and there is one skill tree for each Great School of the Imperium. There are four Great Schools in Dune: Awakening, tied closely with the original lore of the books.
- Bene Gesserit – “A shadowy all-female order with a deliberately obscure agenda. Adepts of the Sisterhood are prized by the nobility and feared by the rest of the Imperium.”
- Mentats – “A secretive and insular organization, the Order of Mentats conditions their adherents to store and analyze vast amounts of data at superhuman speeds.”
- Swordmasters – “Revered throughout the Imperium, Swordmasters of the fallen Ginaz School still represent the pinnacle of fighting prowess in the Known Universe.”
- Troopers – “Every Great House of the Landsraad fields its own standing army or House Guard, and the backbone of these formations are career soldiers known as Troopers.”
You will choose one of these as your background during character creation in Dune: Awakening. This will unlock the corresponding skill tree, along with the relevant abilities and passives. However, you are not restricted to one skill tree for your character. By finding trainers scattered throughout the world, you can unlock the other trees.
Using abilities during combat will require careful choice of your three active skills, and strategically using them in battle. For example, you may use a gap-closer or sniper ability to initiate combat, while keeping another mobility or stealth ability in reserve if you need to make a quick exit. You will likely not want to trigger all of your abilities at once in combat because long cooldown times will leave you vulnerable. To succeed in combat you’ll need to get a feel for the flow of battle and use your abilities strategically.
Ranged Weapons in Dune: Awakening
Ranged combat in Dune: Awakening is the use of futuristic firearms to shoot deadly projectiles at your enemies from a safe distance. In the early stages of the game, you will start with simple pistols and sharp darts. As you progress, you’ll get access to more powerful ranged weapons such as shotguns, rifles, submachine guns, lasguns, and even flamethrowers.
The downside to ranged weapons is that shields in the Dune: Awakening universe are very effective at protecting people from projectiles of all sorts. Therefore, while you may be able to start combat by firing a headshot at a scavenger, the others will turn their shields on immediately. This will often force you into a melee combat situation. However, some advanced weapons may enable you to deal area-of-effect damage through an explosion or fire. Taking out more than one enemy before you have to switch to a blade.
Melee Weapons in Dune: Awakening
The primary type of melee weapons in Dune: Awakening are various blades, but shields will also greatly influence melee combat. First, the blades you use in combat will start out with simple knives crafted out of scrap metal. As you advance in the game you’ll be able to wield stronger swords, rapiers, and daggers. Each will have their strengths and weaknesses. Daggers, for example, will likely have faster attacks, but deal lower damage. Swords swing more slowly, but deal greater damage and can hit more than one enemy at a time.
Additionally, it is highly likely that in the later stages of Dune: Awakening you will also be able to craft very powerful lore-based weapons. These could include pulse-swords, kinjals, and crysknives.
Secondly, the way that shields work in Dune: Awakening is heavily influenced by the lore. In this sci-fi setting, shields are used to stop molecules traveling at high velocities. This means that using a shield will generally fully protect you against damage from firearms, forcing melee-style combat. Both you and your enemies can wear these shields, and they will force you into melee combat situations regularly.
FAQs about Combat in Dune: Awakening
Can you fight in Dune: Awakening with only a gun?
No, you will not be successful long-term in Dune: Awakening if you try to use only a gun-specific build. There will be enemies who have shields, and can only be damaged with slow attacks via a melee blade.
Can you fight in Dune: Awakening with only melee?
A melee-weapon-only style of combat in Dune: Awakening is possible, but not always plausible or effective. When you are up against multiple enemies, attacking one by one will allow ranged attackers to easily overcome you from all sides.
Are you restricted to certain classes and skill lines in Dune: Awakening?
No, you are not restricted to only one skill line or playstyle when preparing for combat in Dune: Awakening. There will be a system in place for opening up additional skill lines, so you are not limited to only abilities and skills in a certain background.
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