Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon provides players with a Skyrim-inspired Skill tree to invest their skill points into, which they earn via level-ups. However, due to the large number of available choices, players often find themselves conflicted when deciding where to put their skill points, especially during early levels when every decision matters more.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon Review
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon delivers a bleak, immersive RPG experience, though its clunky combat and unbalanced gear system hold it back.
The game does differentiate available skills into different skill trees divided by attributes, but certain skills are universal while others aren’t. Players won’t know the difference until they look and compare, which can get very overwhelming very quickly. This list covers the best skills to get during the first few levels in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.
9 Frequent Exercise
Gain 7 Max Stamina
- Attribute: Endurance
- Skill Tree: Stamina
Stamina forms the basis for all movement in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon and increasing it should be a priority of every player, regardless of playstyle. Since Frequent Exercise only costs one point and can be picked up at level 2, there is no reason not to get it out of the way early.
Unlike some other skills in this game, Frequent Exercise isn’t a gateway to better skills. In fact, after spending one point in the Stamina tree to get a free boost to max stamina, players should avoid the rest of the skill tree until mid to late game when they have a surplus of skill points to spend.
8 Mercantile Skills
Selling Items is 20%/30%/40%/50% More Profitable
- Attribute: Practicality
- Skill Tree: Crafting & Trading
While gold is relatively easy to come by in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, it can be spent just as easily. Purchasing good weapons and armor costs an arm and a leg, and that’s if the merchant is in a good mood.
Mercantile Skills allows players to make the most out of the loot they find while out exploring, and since everything can be sold from Stash, there is a lot of selling to be done. While players shouldn’t go all in on Mercantile Skills right at the start, Combat skills are more important. However, they should keep it in mind as they settle into the game.
7 Arcane Teachings
Your Spell Power is Increased by 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%
- Attribute: Spirituality
- Skill Tree: Combat
Spell Power dictates how hard spells hit, directly boosting the amount of damage a fireball does by the specified percentage. Players going the magic build route facing damage issues should pick up Arcane Teachings at the very first opportunity.
6 Things Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon Does Better Than Skyrim
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is an open-world ARPG heavily inspired by Skyrim, but instead of simply copying, it improves upon the formula.
Best of all, Arcane Teaching opens up the door to a lot of excellent mage skills like Imbibed by the Elements (elemental damage build-up), Elemental Shock (Spells are 15% more effective against full health enemies), and others.
6 Quickened Strikes
Increased Attack Speed by 2%/4%/6%
- Attribute: Dexterity
- Skill Tree: Attack Speed
Quickened Strikes is a must-have for any melee build, as it affects all weapons, not just daggers. Even though 2% doesn’t feel like much, it stacks with other sources of attack speed and is a requirement for lightning-fast dagger builds.
More attack speed is always great to have, especially for large, slow weapons like greatswords. Quickened Strikes also transitions into Tools of the Trade (Reduces the time it takes to change weapons by 50%), which is a game-changer for builds that specialize in multiple playstyles.
5 Mana Battery
Gain 10/20/30/40/50 Max Mana
- Attribute: Spirituality
- Skill Tree: General & Buffs
Mana Battery is even more important for mage characters than Arcane Teachings because the rest of the skills in the General & Buffs tree provide major power boosts, and Mana Battery is the gateway.
Invigorating Energy (Your health is increased by 10% of your max mana) solves all health problems, Power in Swiftness (Movement speed multiplier increases spell power by the same amount) rewards wearing light armor in a tangible way, and Unbound (Movement speed penalty while casting a spell is 50% lower, but uses up stamina) prevents mages from becoming easy targets.
4 Respite in Cruelty
Critical Hits Have a 20%/30%/40% Chance to Fully Restore Your Stamina
- Attribute: Perception
- Skill Tree: Critical Hits
For builds revolving around landing critical hits on an enemy in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Respite in Cruelty is a game-changer. With this skill, one in every five critical hits (on average) fully restores the player’s stamina, allowing them to continue fighting as if nothing happened.
8 Beginner Tips for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a massive open-world ARPG with tons to do, which can get overwhelming at times. Here are some tips and tricks to
This skill shows its full potential when used with daggers, as their fast moveset and relatively low stamina cost means they can consistently trigger critical hits, and when Respite in Cruelty triggers, they can continue attacking continuously instead of stopping to take a breath. Combined with powers like King Arthur’s Slow Time, this can turn even high-health bosses into pincushions.
3 Parry King
Your Parry Window is Increased by 0.1/0.2/0.3 Seconds
- Attribute: Dexterity
- Skill Tree: Parry
Parrying is incredibly difficult to pull off in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon because the window of opportunity to successfully parry is incredibly small. It’s even more difficult than parrying in games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Parry King solves that problem by loosening the restrictions and making parrying more forgiving.
After the Parry King skill node, the Vampiric Riposte (Parrying increases Lifesteal by 10% for the next attack) should be the next pickup from this tree, as it provides a major buff to the Parry playstyle. The rest of the skills in the tree should be left for later in the game, as the benefits they provide are only useful in certain scenarios.
2 Godly Physique
Increase Melee Damage by 5%/10%/15%
- Attribute: Strength
- Skill Tree: General
In terms of universal upgrades, Godly Physique is a no-brainer pickup for every build that uses any form of melee damage. The only exceptions are pure ranged or magic builds. This is one of the few skills that players can dump all their skill points into right from level 1.
After getting Godly Physique, Last Stand (When below 30% health, increase melee damage by 30%) should be the next pickup, as it opens the path towards Deadly Fury (Increase your physical damage by 1% for every 5% of missing health). Combined, these two skills heavily reward the berserker all-in playstyle.
1 Agility
Dash Cost 20%/40%/60% Less Stamina
- Attribute: Dexterity
- Skill Tree: Movement
Dashing in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is one of the most important mechanics to master during combat. Weaving in and out of attacks, dodging arrows and spellfire while dashing toward an enemy is something all characters will have to learn to do, even mages.
Agility reduces the cost of dashes, solving one major problem quite a lot of players run into when they overcommit on an enemy and have too little stamina to dash away. This Soulslike-inspired mechanic can be the difference maker between life and death, and making it easier to pull off is a huge quality-of-life improvement.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 77 /100 Critics Rec: 71%
- Released
- May 23, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Questline
- Publisher(s)
- Awaken Realms
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Action, RPG, Open-World, Survival Horror
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
