When starting Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning, you may be unsure exactly what build to use. Perhaps you prefer to slink into the shadows, attacking from a safe distance, or you have an affinity for hard-hitting attacks that take enemies aback with the force of the blow. There are some excellent builds you can create, and each one will cater to a specific gameplay style.
You'll want to plan out your build in advance, so you can figure out where to place your skill points without immediately regretting the choice, and by doing so, you'll be in with an advantage.
Updated September 16, 2022, by Nico Dagny: Character builds will always be subjective, especially as more newcomers pick up a game. So, we've added a few more options to take for a test drive. Under each entry, you'll also now find the best weapons to use to take advantage of the role you're playing.
10 Ranged Coercion - The Bow Is Your Best Friend
- Best primary weapon: Daggers
- Best secondary weapon: Longbow
People love playing the ranger for the adrenaline rush after successfully hitting a weak point while using a bow from afar, or silently taking down opponents. While this isn’t the preferable option in Amalur, it gets unnecessary slack and is fantastic for early-game areas. In addition, you’ll gain the advantage of quicker movement speeds from wearing light armor.
Upgrading persuasion, lock picking, and detecting hidden enemies will be a great help for all of this. But the real fun comes from firing a barrage of arrows before your foes have time to react.
9 Master Of Persuasion - It's Not Immoral If It Works, Right?
- Best primary weapon: Any
- Best secondary weapon: Any
All the greats of the RPG world have some persuasion system implemented, like in The Witcher 3, where Geralt can use the Axii sign to control others, or just generally being a bit of a nuisance in Skyrim through means of that silver tongue of yours.
The most valuable thing you’ll gain from this build is uncovering additional information that would otherwise stay concealed. Unfortunately, persuasion has little use in combat, so playing this alongside a rogue build is recommended.
8 Potion Heavy Universalist - Preparing For Everything
- Best primary weapon: Staff
- Best secondary weapon: Sceptre
The Universalist is a bit of an all-rounder, letting you pick and choose which attack method you want to use, when you want to use them, and to be equally skilled in all areas. In this build, you’ll also be going all in on alchemy, specifically sticking with potions.
There are ones that increase the power of your spells, heal your character, and provide resistance from damage, among many other things. There's pretty much a potion for every situation. You’ll also earn the ability to harvest all reagents, which quickly becomes beneficial, especially since there are few you can efficiently gather at the start.
7 Might-Finesse - Dependable Melee Combatant
- Best primary weapon: Longsword
- Best secondary weapon: Daggers
Greater difficulties call for stronger builds, precisely what you'll find via might-finesse. Essentially, the idea is to use the strongest weapons and armor you can find, favoring strength over magical ability. Every skill point and upgrade should be placed into things that will increase your weapon strength, armor defense, and skills, providing boosts to debuffs inflicted on the opposition.
This style allows you to deal bundles of damage without worrying about getting hit in the process. By the game's closing hours, you'll be a powerhouse no one dares to face.
6 Weapon Class Build - Mixing Weapons
- Best primary weapon: Any
- Best secondary weapon: Any
With a weapon class build, you play a bit like a Universalist, but instead of focusing on potions and being average in everything, you’ll make your character as strong as possible. Placing all your points into might and any other corresponding sections that will increase the damage of your attacks allows you to become adept with all types of weapons, which you can switch to whenever you want.
You’ll no longer have to set aside a weapon in later stages of the game out of fear of being too weak, as you’ll have steadily upgraded your attack through the game.
5 Might-Sorcery - Staves And Fists
- Best primary weapon: Greatsword
- Best secondary weapon: Staff
Might-sorcery combines Amalur's heavy hitters, providing equal opportunity to play as both a skilled melee fighter and mage. The greatsword works well for bosses who are slow with attacks, as it gives you just enough time to land a hit and dodge without taking damage.
And when fast enemies are on the board, you can back away and instead use a chakram to attack. You’ll need to place points into might and sorcery equally, so you’re not underdeveloped in either aspect; you don’t want to be struggling as the difficulty increases.
4 Finesse-Sorcery - Daggers And Chakrams
- Best primary weapon: Daggers
- Best secondary weapon: Chakram
Through a finesse-sorcery build, you'll plan out your attacks more meticulously, focusing on stripping away opponent defenses before trying to defeat them. And many of the finesse skills revolve around bleeding and poison, which will make damage against enemies greater.
You can play through the entirety of Kingdoms of Amalur by hitting everything that moves, but with a finesse build, you can take your time and observe your options before heading into a fight. Daggers as your primary weapon and chakrams as your secondary is the way to go, as daggers let you close in on your enemy, and chakrams allow you to attack from mid-range.
3 The Nightblade - All About The Critical Hit
- Best primary weapon: Faeblades
- Best secondary weapon: Longbow
Critical hits are the type of mechanics that serve you best near the end of Amalur’s story, so this is a build to strive towards if you want to make later missions fly by effortlessly. For nightblade you’ll need to put everything into finesse. Every single skill should go towards upgrading your finesse to the max.
Once unlocking the nightblade destiny, you’ll earn a 30 percent boost to ranged attack, a 60 percent boost to damage resistance while dodging, 30 percent extra piercing damage, and improved critical hits and evasion. Enemies will have difficulty getting their hands on you, and with the critical hit benefit, you’ll finally have a reason to try out stealth.
2 The Shadowcaster - Elemental Damage
- Best primary weapon: Sceptre
- Best secondary weapon: Chakram or Staff
The shadowcaster presents a steep learning curve as you’ll have nothing going for you in the might department. All of your skillful woes will be specific to finesse and sorcery. To make the most of this build, you need to stand at medium to long-range distances at all times and use sorcery weapons.
With the shadowcaster destiny comes a 34 percent boost to elemental damage, a 20 percent increase of piercing damage, a 12 percent extra chance for a critical hit, and additional bonuses surrounding magical abilities. Like nightblade, you won’t be able to use shadowcaster until the very end, so use this preceding time to pin down powerful elemental combinations.
1 Magic Meister - Powerful Spell Work
- Best primary weapon: Staff or Sceptre
- Best secondary weapon: Chakram
One of the first things you’ll encounter is the spell work available, and much of Amalur plays out with magic in mind; there's plenty to use. The main weapons you'll be looking for are staves, sceptres, and chakrams, all of which are tuned to a particular type of magical play style.
Your upgrades should be for strengthening your spells and maxing out top-tier magic, aiding you in healing and debuffs. A sorcery build is your best option because it’s not only the most reliable but is exhilarating to use. There are also entertaining combos to chain together and fates that are interesting to explore.