Best Dune Awakening Character Creation choices

The Dune Awakening character creation choices have you pick your Mentor, Homeworld and Caste, not to mention your character's appearance. But how much do these choices matter, and what do they impact? Some of these choices are relatively minor and focus more on the role-playing element, but others can substantially impact gameplay, especially in the early phases of the game.

To help you understand what you're choosing, we've got the best choices in character creation for Dune Awakening below, and what impact the Homeworld, Caste and Mentor have on your experience going forward.

Best choices in Dune Awakening character creation

If you're in character creation in Dune Awakening, I recommend choosing the following:

• Best Homeworld: Either Giedi Prime or Caladan
• Best Caste: Bondsman
• Best Mentor: Trooper

Of these elements, it's really only the choice of Mentor that makes a major difference, as that determines your initial Dune Awakening skills, skill tree access and abilities. Below we'll cover all these elements in more detail though, so if you're aiming for a certain kind of build or character, you know what to aim for.

Best Homeworld

Dune Awakening lets you pick between five homeworlds for your character, each with a different dialogue trait and unique emote.

• Giedi Prime
  • Dialogue Trait: Deception
  • Unique Emote: Harkonnen Curse
• Chusuk
  • Dialogue Trait: Cultured
  • Unique Emote: Chusuk Music
• Caladan
  • Dialogue Trait: Honorable
  • Unique Emote: Atreides Salute
• Kaitain
  • Dialogue Trait: Political
  • Unique Emote: Kaitain Bow
• Ix
  • Dialogue Trait: Technologist
  • Unique Emote: Ixian Secret

Of these, there isn't really a clear best, because the choice doesn't matter very much. Emotes are just that – ways to sign other players that have no effect on gameplay as I've found. Meanwhile, Dialogue Traits open up new lines of dialogue with NPCs, but in my experience these are rare and nearly always for flavor, rather than meaningfully affecting gameplay.

However, because the first factions you find are the Harkonnens and the Atreides, from Giedi Prime and Caladan respectively, having an in-road with them serves to marginally smooth out those introductions, so if you force my hand, I'd say those are best. It doesn't matter hugely though.

Best Caste

Dune Awakening has three castes to pick from that represent three tiers of society.

• Bondsman
  • Dialogue Trait: Bondsman
• Na-Familia
  • Dialogue Trait: Nobility
• Pyon
  • Dialogue Trait: Pyon

If you need a translation, this is effectively a choice between the peasant class, the middle class, and the aristocracy. And like the Homeworld choice, this isn't hugely important, as it just opens the occasional dialogue option that (from my experience) doesn't really do much to change overall outcomes with NPCs. However, if you need a firm pick, I'd say that the Bondsman is probably the best choice – there were at least a few interesting options that came up as a result of this – though ultimately it's even less significant than the homeworld.

Best Mentor

The choice of Mentor is the Dune Awakening character creation decision that actually matters to some degree, as it picks your starting ability and what skill tree you have access to.

• Swordmaster
  • Training: Swordmaster (Close Quarters/Melee/Aggressive)
  • Starting Ability: Knee Charge (Propel yourself forward into battle with a terrific knee charge into the enemy)
• Bene Gesserit Acolyte
  • Training: Bene Gesserit (Stat Control/Manipulation/Mind Control/Poison Effects)
  • Starting Ability: Voice: Compel (Use The Voice to force someone towards your position from afar)
• Mentat
  • Training: Mentat (Recon/Strategy/Mobility)
  • Starting Ability: The Sentinel (Deploy a suspensor buoyed dart protector that uses motion detection to cover a field of fire).
• Trooper
  • Training: Trooper (Offense/Demolition/Explosives/Ranged Combat)
  • Starting Ability: Shigawire Claw (Shoot a barb that attaches to a surface, then rapidly pulls you towards that position).

Of these, I'd definitely say that the Trooper is the best Mentor option. The Shigawire Claw is a great ability, a grapple hook that allows you to quickly move around the battlefield, but also helps in exploration, as you can scale objects much faster than climbing, or pull yourself up out of falls to help yourself. Not only that, but you can use the Claw to drag enemies towards you, staggering them in the process.

However, it's important to remember that all of these unlock skill trees that you can access later in the game through other NPCs. For example, if you pick the Swordmaster, you can find a Trooper in the Dune Awakening Griffin's Reach Tradepost who will unlock access to the Trooper tree (and thus the Shigawire Claw), so you're not locked out of anything permanently. There's also other trainers for skill trees that aren't even an option here, like the Planetologist teaching about crafting, exploration and vehicles in Dune Awakening.

If you want to find all the trainer locations in Dune Awakening, we can show you where to look! Keep in mind though that a lot of them are pretty far into the desert, and you won't find them all any time soon.

Want to get more of a foothold in the harsh deserts? Find out all the top 10 Dune Awakening tips for beginners, or check out how to survive the deadly Dune Awakening Sandworms. And if you're looking ahead for the tasty equipment of the mid-game, here's how to get all the essential Dune Awakening Carbon Ore to build it!

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