Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed shipped in February 2025 on PC and Xbox Series X|S, and its combat system asks one question above all others: which two of your four companions are standing beside you when a fight gets ugly. Because the Envoy can only travel with two companions at once, party composition is not a cosmetic choice — it is a build decision as meaningful as any point you spend in the Fighter, Ranger, or Wizard ability trees.
This guide breaks down what each companion actually does, how their kits interact with the three player ability trees, and which pairings hold up when you reach the hardest encounters in the Living Lands.
How the companion system works
Avowed gives you four companions, recruited sequentially through the main story: Kai, Marius, Giatta, and Yatzli. None of them are missable, and each fills a distinct combat role. You bring exactly two into the field, and your choice should be driven by the gaps in your own build — cover what your Envoy cannot do, rather than doubling up on what they already can.
Companion abilities have their own upgrade paths. Active abilities like Kai’s Fire and Ire or Giatta’s Barrier gain additional effects when you invest in them, and each companion also carries passive abilities that shape their behavior in every fight. Spending those upgrade points is as important as your own ability tree choices, because a maxed companion ability can carry a party through encounters that an unoptimized one cannot.
The four roles
Kai is the tank. His kit is built around taunt effects and self-sustain. Fire and Ire is a single-target shot that deals heavy stun and taunts the enemy for ten seconds; upgrades can ignite the target, boost the stun further, or halve its cooldown. Leap of Daring crashes him into a group, stunning and taunting everything nearby, with upgrade branches that widen the area or convert hits into temporary health or bonus attack damage. Unbending Defense gives him health regeneration and damage reduction, and his Second Wind passive revives him once when his health hits zero. Kai is the answer to a simple problem: if enemies are hitting you instead of him, your party is built wrong.
Marius is the controller. Binding Roots is his signature — it roots an enemy in place, and its upgrades branch into stun accumulation, a small area-of-effect version that catches multiple targets, or bleed accumulation on trapped enemies. Heart Seeker is a guaranteed-hit piercing shot with branches that chain it to a second target, punish low-health enemies, or cut its cooldown. Shadow Step teleports him between up to three targets (six when upgraded), and its assassin branch will outright kill most stunned enemies. His passive, Wounding Shots, applies bleed through his attacks, with upgrade options that reduce enemy damage reduction, slow hit targets, or reduce enemy damage output. Marius does not tank and does not heal; he decides which enemies are allowed to move.
Giatta is the support. She holds the three strongest party-wide sustain tools in the game. Purification is an active heal that restores a quarter of each ally’s maximum health, and its boost branch doubles that to half — with alternate branches that knock back and interrupt nearby enemies or grant the party damage reduction. Barrier grants temporary health to all allies, and its branches can increase the shield amount, convert leftover shield into healing when it expires, or make Giatta untouchable while it runs. Acceleration buffs party movement and attack speed, with a branch that reduces the cooldown of any ability used while it is active. Her passive, Reconstruction, heals allies a small amount every time she attacks, with branches that boost healing on low-health allies, overcharge full-health allies into temporary health, or even revive incapacitated companions when she lands a kill. On the highest difficulties, Giatta is close to mandatory.
Yatzli is the artillery. Her Essence Explosion bursts for explosive damage with branches for a bigger blast, fire accumulation, or a shorter cooldown. Minoletta’s Missile Battery fires seeking arcane missiles that can gain higher rate of fire, longer range, or shock accumulation. Arduous Delay of Motion slows a single enemy, with branches that intensify the slow, spread it into an area, or add frost accumulation. Her Blast passive makes her attacks explode on contact, with upgrade paths toward block-breaking explosive damage, extra stun, or a chance to apply Frozen, Ignited, or Shocked. She is the party slot you take when raw damage and ranged pressure matter more than safety.
Pairing companions to your build
The cleanest way to think about party composition in Avowed is coverage. Your Envoy already solves one problem; your two companions should solve the other two.
Fighter builds live in melee and soak damage by design. The standard pairing is Marius and Giatta. Marius’s Binding Roots holds packs in place so your combos connect without chasing, and his Wounding Shots bleed stacks with your own sustained pressure; Giatta’s Purification and Reconstruction keep you standing while you trade blows. The twist comes late: once your Fighter tree is deep enough — with its own bleed and stun options online — Marius’s crowd control becomes redundant, and many players swap him for Yatzli to close fights faster with her area damage.
Wizard builds are fragile and want the battlefield held at arm’s length. Kai and Giatta is the reliable core: Kai’s taunts keep aggressive targets off you while you channel and cast, and Giatta patches the chip damage that slips through. Her Acceleration is quietly one of the best picks for a caster, since faster ability cycling means more spells per fight. On lower difficulties, where dodging is less punishing, swapping Giatta for Yatzli stacks two magic damage dealers and burns encounters down before the risk matters.
Ranger builds fight at mid-to-long range and collapse in a brawl. Kai and Marius form the tightest combo in the game here: Kai opens with Leap of Daring to gather and taunt a group, and the moment that taunt window closes, Marius’s Binding Roots holds the same group in place. The enemies you are shooting effectively stand still from engagement to death. If the incoming damage is more than your dodges and parries can handle, swap Marius for Giatta to buy sustained survivability instead.
Endgame synergies worth building around
A few specific interactions outperform everything else once your companion abilities are upgraded.
Purification plus Barrier never lets a party die cleanly. With Purification’s healing boost and Barrier’s Medic Shielding branch — which converts remaining temporary health into healing — Giatta alone covers burst damage, sustained pressure, and recovery in a single rotation.
Leap of Daring into Binding Roots is the strongest opening play. Kai lands, stuns, and taunts; Marius roots whatever survives the taunt window. Ranged and caster Envoys get an uncontested damage phase at the start of nearly every encounter.
Killing blows matter more than they look. The Fighter tree’s Inspiring Triumph restores companion health on your kills and can even revive incapacitated companions at its higher rank, which pairs meaningfully with Giatta’s Reconstruction: Revitalize, which revives allies when she kills. A party built around both effects recovers from disasters that end other runs.
Acceleration scales with everyone. Giatta’s speed buff upgraded with the Time Shift branch — which halves cooldowns on abilities used while it runs — benefits her own rotation, Kai’s taunt cycle, and your entire ability bar at once.
Common mistakes
The most frequent error is doubling up on a role — bringing Kai and Marius and a defensive Fighter Envoy, leaving the party with no healing and no burst. The second is ignoring companion ability upgrades; an unupgraded Binding Roots holds one enemy for eight seconds, while the branched versions control groups, stun, and bleed. The third is treating Giatta as optional on higher difficulties: her combination of active heal, passive heal-over-time, shield, and haste has no substitute anywhere else in the party roster.