The Dune Awakening character creation not only has you customize appearance, you also choose your Homeworld, Caste and Mentor for different buffs and abilities when you start. But should you choose to be a native of Caladan over Giedi Prime? Should you be a Pyon or a Bondsman? And will the student of a Mentat have a better chance on Arrakis over a Trooper or Bene Gesserit?
We’ll cover all the options below and what you get out of them once you start playing Dune Awakening, how to make the best character early on, and go into the various details of each outcome. If you’re wondering the best homeworld, caste and mentor to make your own, here are all the details.
Best choices in Dune Awakening character creation
If you’re choosing character creation elements in Dune Awakening, I recommend the following:
- Best Homeworld: 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.
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.
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.
© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.
