Avowed Companions Guide: Approval, Abilities, and Best Party Setups
Where to find Kai, Marius, Giatta, and Yatzli, how approval works, and which two companions fit each build.
Avowed keeps the party small on purpose. There are four companions in the whole game, and you only take two of them out of camp at a time, so the lineup matters more than it looks. One's a walking shield with a blunderbuss, one's a tracker who never misses, one's the only real healer in the game, and one's a pocket-sized wizard with way more firepower than her frame suggests. All four join through the main story, so there's no way to lose any of them. There is a big gap, though, between a companion you've dumped ability points into and one you've been ignoring since act one. That gap is what party setup comes down to: who joins when, what they bring, and which two belong in your slots.
Meeting Kai, Giatta, Marius, and Yatzli
Recruitment order runs Kai, then Marius, then Giatta, then Yatzli, spread across the first three regions. You'll never fail to get one, but knowing the timeline helps you plan a build around who's actually available.
Kai joins first, and it's not close. After the tutorial (where two temp companions, Garryck and Ilora, tag along briefly), you walk into Claviger's Landing in Dawnshore during the main quest Message from Afar. Kai's standing next to Militia Captain Cynric. You need to find a missing ambassador, he needs to find a missing claviger, and he offers to team up and split the work. Take the deal. He's a coastal aumaua fighter, an ex-Rauataian soldier turned mercenary who wandered to the Living Lands looking for some kind of peace. If his voice sounds familiar, that's Brandon Keener, Garrus from Mass Effect.
Marius shows up before you ever leave Dawnshore. During An Untimely End, head down into the Underbelly beneath Paradis and you'll find him getting leaned on by two locals named Maili and Caldurn at the Grinning Balarok tavern. Step into the conversation and back him up, and he signs on to help track the assassins you're hunting. Marius is a mountain dwarf ranger raised near Solace, a Pargrun stronghold up in Galawain's Tusks, and he has a rep as the best hunter and guide anywhere in the Living Lands. Quiet guy, slow to open up, worth the patience.
Giatta comes along in Emerald Stair during The Animancy Method. She's outside Governor Ignasi Vidarro's manor when you arrive, and she'll invite you to her home. Help her pull the phantasmal focus out of her basement and she joins up. Giatta Castell is an ocean folk wizard and an animancer from the Fior mes Ivèrno community, carrying on the soul research her parents died pursuing in a lab accident. She's also the only companion who heals the party, which turns out to matter a lot.
Yatzli is the late one. You can cross paths with her around Emerald Stair before that, since she lives at Fior mes Ivèrno with her partner and spends her days digging through ruins, but she doesn't officially join until Face Your Fears in Shatterscarp. Find her near the Fleet Master's Perch in Thirdborn, talk her into heading to Ryngrim's Domain with you, and she's in. She's a hearth orlan wizard, fully self-taught, and the game's foremost Godless expert, which mostly means she's been slinging spells and talking trash since long before you showed up.
Since you can only run two at a time, the moment Giatta or Yatzli joins you'll have to send someone back to camp. Swapping the lineup is free at any party camp (camps double as fast travel points), so there's no good reason to run the same pair all game.
Raising Companion Approval Effectively
Avowed doesn't hand you a friendship score to stare at. Approval builds quietly through dialogue reactions and camp conversations, and it pays out in a few specific places: training bonuses, Kai's romance, and the ending slides each companion gets when the story wraps.
So what actually moves the needle?
Talk to everyone at camp, every single time. Companions get fresh dialogue after most main story beats, and camp is where most of their character actually lives. This one habit covers most of the system. It's also how training unlocks and where Kai's romance option eventually shows up, so it's doing triple duty.
Let them talk about themselves. When a dialogue option appears that's basically "ask Kai about his past," take it. The game notices whether you've bothered, and the late-game payoff scenes only hit if you have.
Make calls they can live with. Companions pipe up after big decisions, and they make it pretty clear when something rubs them wrong. Nobody ever quits over it, either - side with the Steel Garrote and the whole crew turns on you so uniformly there's an achievement for it, literally called Everyone Disliked That, and they all still stick around. But the reactions stack up into how each companion's ending treats you.
Be decent during their quests. Comforting Kai through Battle Scars instead of brushing him off feeds straight into his ending slides, and into whether the romance window opens at all. More on that in the last section.
Don't sleep on training. Each companion offers exactly one training session at camp, unlocked by keeping up your conversations (Marius's is the one people tend to miss, so keep asking him about the region you're in). You pick one of three rewards:
| Companion | Option 1 | Option 2 | Option 3 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Kai | +2 Might | +2 Constitution | +1 Might, +1 Constitution | | Marius | +2 Dexterity | +2 Constitution | +1 Dexterity, +1 Constitution | | Giatta | +2 Intellect | +2 Resolve | +1 Intellect, +1 Resolve | | Yatzli | +2 Perception | +2 Intellect | +1 Perception, +1 Intellect |
That's a free permanent stat bump for your own envoy, once per companion, and finishing all four pops the Training Arc achievement. There's no scenario where skipping that makes sense.
And then there's Kai. He's the only companion with a romance, and the window opens at camp after Battle Scars wraps. Pick "I've got questions about you," then "I feel like we've really gotten to know each other, haven't we?", tell him you've come to really care about him, and then actually confess you have feelings. Any other branch parks him firmly in the friend zone, and nothing warns you. Works no matter what your envoy looks like, for what it's worth.
Unique Companion Abilities and Combat Roles
Every companion carries one exploration command, three active abilities, and one passive. You can trigger their actives yourself by binding them to your quick bar or firing them from the radial menu, which you should absolutely do - a companion you're directing does way more work than one left to its own judgment. They earn ability points as they level alongside you, one point per ability or upgrade, and you can pay gold to reset their points in the abilities menu if you regret your picks.
The commands shape exploration more than combat, so know them:
- Kai's Firestarter burns away webs, brambles, and other flammable blockades.
- Marius's Hunter's Sense pings nearby enemies and loot through the terrain with a red and maroon glow. It's basically a loot radar, and it's the command you'll use most.
- Giatta's Spectral Jolt charges up essence generators for puzzles.
- Yatzli's Dispel Illusion drops illusory walls hiding chests and side paths.
| Companion | Class | Combat role | Signature ability | Cooldown | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Kai | Fighter | Tank, taunts, self-revive | Fire and Ire (stun + 10s taunt) | 40s | | Marius | Ranger | Ranged control and single-target damage | Binding Roots (8s root) | 20s | | Giatta | Wizard | Healer and support | Purification (party heal for 25% max health) | 60s | | Yatzli | Wizard | AoE spell damage | Essence Explosion | 40s |
Kai: the wall
Fire and Ire is a blunderbuss blast that deals heavy stun to one target and taunts them for 10 seconds, and the Quick Reload upgrade halves its 40 second cooldown. Unbending Defense gives him 30 seconds of health regen plus 25% damage reduction, and the Iron Will upgrade pushes incoming damage down to half while it's active. Leap of Daring is the fun one: he crashes into a pack and stuns and taunts everything nearby, which sets up every AoE in the game. His Second Wind passive revives him at half health when he'd otherwise drop, and the Refreshing Wind upgrade resets all his cooldowns on the revive. For one phase of a boss fight he's basically unkillable. Unlock his whole tree for the Luckier Than They Know achievement.
Marius: the lock
Binding Roots holds one enemy in place for 8 seconds on a short 20 second cooldown, and the Grasping Roots upgrade spreads it to a whole group - one of the best control buttons you get. Heart Seeker is a guaranteed-hit arrow that punches straight through obstacles, and Twinned Shot makes it hit a second target for free. Shadow Step is his flashy button, a smoke-and-daggers teleport flurry that hits up to three times (six with Shadow Mastery). His Wounding Shot passive stacks bleed on everything he fires, and the Exposing Shots upgrade shreds enemy damage reduction on top of it. Point him at anything with a health bar and it starts leaking.
Giatta: the reason you survive
Purification heals the whole party for 25% of their max health, and the Boosted Essence upgrade doubles that to 50%. Barrier hands everyone temporary health for 20 seconds, and Medic Shielding converts whatever shield is left into a heal when it expires. Acceleration is party-wide move and attack speed for 15 seconds, and its Time Shift upgrade cuts the cooldown of any ability you fire during it by half, which is nasty with a big burst rotation. Her Reconstruction passive trickles healing to the party every time she attacks, and the Revitalize upgrade makes her kills revive downed allies. Most of the community ranks her the best companion in the game outright, and on higher difficulty she's close to mandatory. Unlock her full kit for A Little Power Goes a Long Way.
Yatzli: the artillery
Essence Explosion is an AoE burst on a 40 second cooldown, and Concentrated Essence widens the blast. Minoletta's Missile Battery sprays five seconds of homing missiles at everything nearby. Arduous Delay of Motion slows a target for 10 seconds, and Exhausting Field turns that single-target slow into a field that tags a whole group. Her Blast passive makes every attack splash, and the Explosive Blast upgrade breaks enemy blocks, cracks destructible walls, and shatters frozen enemies for bonus damage - so she slots into a frost build weirdly well. Full tree unlock gets you the Slay! achievement, fittingly.
Best Companion Pairings for Different Builds
The rule of thumb is simple: bring what you're not. A squishy ranged envoy wants a front line. A melee envoy wants crowd control and healing. Here's how it shakes out per build.
Melee and warrior envoys: Marius + Giatta
Binding Roots pins groups in place while you swing, and Giatta's Purification and Barrier let you stay in someone's face instead of backing out to heal. The one swap worth knowing: by late game your own gear is probably stacking bleed and stun, and Marius's kit starts feeling redundant next to it. Trade him for Yatzli at that point and fights just end faster.
Wizard and caster envoys: Kai + Giatta
Kai's Fire and Ire taunt is the whole point of this pair. It yanks melee attackers off you so you can stand still and cast, and Giatta keeps everyone topped up while he tanks. On easier difficulty settings you can trade Giatta for Yatzli and simply delete rooms before anything walks into range. That trade costs you the safety net, but on normal you barely need one.
Ranger envoys: Kai + Marius
Leap of Daring dumps Kai into a pack and gathers everything up, Grasping Roots locks the group down as the taunt wears off, and you get to shoot fish in a barrel from 30 feet away. If you're still dying, swap Marius for Giatta and trade some damage for a safety net. This is also your default pair through Dawnshore regardless of build, since it's the two you have.
The short version
Kai answers "things are hitting me." Marius answers "things won't stand still." Giatta answers "I'm low on health," and Yatzli answers "things aren't dying fast enough." Figure out which question your build keeps asking, then fill the other slot with whatever covers your second-biggest problem. Swaps at camp are free and instant, so rotate freely - Marius's Hunter's Sense on a looting day in a fresh region, Giatta for a boss, Yatzli when a dungeon is packed with trash mobs.
Companion Quests Worth Prioritizing
Only two companions get formal personal quests, so the list here is short, but the stuff hanging off it isn't.
Kai's Battle Scars
Unlocks automatically right after An Untimely End, so early. You'll search Tama's Cabin in Emerald Stair, recover Tama's Badge around Shark's Tooth and Sailor's Rest in Shatterscarp, and finally visit her cairn out in the Great Sand Sea. Tama was Kai's old flame from his navy days, and the quest is him making peace with losing her. Comfort him at every step - kind answers here feed his ending slides, and the romance confession at camp only opens once this is done. If romance is the goal, this quest is the gate. Simple as that.
Marius's Chorus of the Lost
Auto-starts the moment you enter the Lost Village in the northeast corner of Galawain's Tusks, so it's easy to stumble into under-leveled. A corpse at the village shrine holds the Long-lost Amulet that belonged to Marius's mother. That threads you through Iancu, then Razvan's hut, then Razvan himself, and ends with a kill-or-spare call. Sparing him is generally read as the better outcome. The camp conversations Marius unlocks afterward are some of his best material in the game, which is saying something for a guy who mostly communicates in shrugs.
Giatta and Yatzli don't get quest chains
Their arcs ride the main story and camp dialogue instead, which is exactly why the "talk to everyone at camp" habit matters double for them. Their big personal beats are the companion moments in the Garden during the optional main quest Pulling Back the Veil: Marius and Iancu at a gazebo near the Maegfolc Graveyard, Kai at a manifestation of Tama's room by the graveyard, Giatta in a locked plant-filled room off the Broken Aqueduct, and Yatzli with the Librarian at the aqueduct's tower. One trip covers all four, pops the We're All In This Together achievement, and it's all optional content you'd walk right past otherwise.
The priority order
Battle Scars before the final act, since the romance flag flips at camp afterward. Chorus of the Lost whenever Galawain's Tusks opens up. Training sessions whenever they appear, because free stats are free. And never ride out of a camp with dialogue icons still floating over anyone's head - Kai's confession line only appears if you've kept up with him all game, and if you miss it, nothing ever tells you it was there.