Undawn Roles Guide: Everything You Need to Know

In Undawn, there exists a system of roles. Roles are unlocked as your character’s level increases. Each role comprises a set of perks, which are also unlocked as your character’s level and the role’s level progress. At the time of writing this guide, the maximum level for each role is 30.

To level up a role, players must engage in relevant activities within the game. However, it’s important to note that each role has daily and weekly limits on the earned “proficiency” (experience). This is why it’s recommended to start developing your roles from the very beginning of the game, aiming to gain the maximum possible amount of proficiency each day.

Why Are Roles Needed in Undawn?

The primary value offered by roles is the enhancement of your character. After reaching level 30 in roles such as Logger, Miner, Gatherer, Hunter, Angler, Chef, and Scavenger, you gain the ability to unlock the “Balanced Strategy” perk. This perk permanently boosts your character’s attributes: +10 Max HP, +3 Damage, +3 Skill Strength (refer to a separate Undawn character stats guide for more details on these parameters; “damage” isn’t what it might seem to newcomers).

Furthermore, each profession provides unique Titles with various useful bonuses. These Titles might not be the absolute best in the game, but they can be quite beneficial for newcomers due to their availability.

Developing roles comes with other advantages as well. For example, by leveling up the Firearms Master role, you can craft more advanced main weapons. Progressing in the Chef role grants access to new food recipes and increases the amount of water your character can carry. Advancing in gathering roles improves the efficiency and speed of resource collection. In essence, if you’re aiming to become a skilled Undawn player, it’s crucial to level up all the available roles.

Roles, Their Progression, and Bonuses

Let’s examine each role individually, along with the methods to level them up and the bonuses they provide.

Logger, Miner, Gatherer, Hunter

These four roles are resource-gathering roles. I have grouped them together in one section since they share a common daily and weekly Resource Proficiency Limit. You can check this limit by clicking on the “Info” icon in the Esc → Roles interface.

Each of these roles can only be leveled up in one specific way:

• Logger: Chopping down trees using an axe.
• Miner: Mining ores using a pickaxe.
• Gatherer: Collecting plant fiber.
• Hunter: Skinning killed animals.

Axes and pickaxes can be crafted in the character’s crafting panel (hotkey “O“). Each region in Undawn has resources of its own level, and to gather them, you need to reach a certain level or have tools of the corresponding level. For instance, to gather resources in Koller Mines, your character must be level 60 or higher and have a level 3 or higher pickaxe/axe.

Let’s explore the perks associated with the gathering professions and what they mean:

• Strong Arms / Rockcrush Rhythms / Critical Gathering / Professional Approach: Increases the chance of “critical gathering” (up to a maximum of 10%). When this chance triggers, you obtain slightly more basic resources during gathering (e.g., meat, stone, wood, or plant fiber).
  
• Logging Tool (logger) / Mining Tool (miner): Enables crafting higher-level pickaxes/axes.
  
• Efficient Logging / Efficient Mining / High Efficiency Gathering / Efficient Hunting: Increases the chance of obtaining uncommon and rare materials during gathering.
  
• High Efficiency Rhythm / Smash / Dexterous Hands / Quick Knife Work: Accelerates the process of chopping trees / mining ore / gathering plants / skinning animals, respectively.
  
• Axe Maintenance (logger) / Pickaxe Maintenance (miner): Extends the lifespan of your pickaxe/axe. You can gather resources for a longer time before the tool breaks and you need to craft a new one. Repairing pickaxes and axes isn’t possible.
  
• Tight Belt (all roles): Reduces hunger drain during the corresponding type of gathering.
  
• Balanced Strategy (all roles): Permanently boosts character attributes: +10 Max HP, +3 Damage, +3 Skill Strength.
  
• Fitness Training (gatherer): Reduces the rate at which fitness is expended (up to 25%). The Fitness gauge is found in the Survive → Body section. It fills as your character engages in physical activities and slowly depletes if you don’t exercise for a while. A fit body provides extra energy points.
  
• Special Fitness (hunter): Increases the character’s critical damage resistance by 5%. This stat is most useful in PvP as it reduces the critical damage taken by the player.
  

Note that you can also craft a Hunting Bow and Arrows through the character’s crafting panel (hotkey “O“). However, this is only meaningful in the early stages of the game. Hunting mobs with a bow in regions 50+ becomes ineffective as you would need to shoot about 10 arrows into an animal before it finally dies. Sniper rifles like the R700 (main weapons, not heavy) are the best for hunting. They can kill almost any animal with one shot and degrade relatively slowly.

Leveling up roles also unlocks access to crafting various items for your Homestead. Click the “View” button next to the “Gallery” label in the interface of a specific role to see their list.

• Logger: Various furniture, floor paint.
• Miner: Various furniture, light fixtures.
• Gatherer: Light fixtures, furniture, carpets, wall wallpapers.
• Hunter: Indoor plants, trees, shrubs, light fixtures, ceiling wallpapers.

Keep in mind that leveling up resource-gathering roles takes longer than others due to shared limits and the need for even progression in all four roles. I recommend always farming experience for these professions up to the limits to avoid slowing down your overall progress in the game.

Chef Role

The Chef role is one of the most useful roles in the game as it allows you to efficiently cook various dishes that temporarily boost your character’s attributes and significantly affect their effectiveness. There is already a comprehensive guide on cooking in Undawn available on the website, and I recommend you take a look at it to better understand all aspects of this profession.

To level up the Chef role, you need to cook various dishes. The role has its own daily and weekly experience limits. Here’s a list of Chef role perks and an explanation of how they work:

• Double Food: Provides a 6% chance to produce 2 portions of food instead of 1 during cooking. Note that this chance is calculated separately for each portion. In other words, while cooking 10 portions of food, you might get 11 or even 14, but you’re unlikely to get 20.
  
• Cookery I: Unlocks the recipe for flower vegetable noodles (flower + flour).
  
• Portable Water Bottle: Increases the amount of water your character can carry by 250 units. This water is stored in the Survive (U) → Drink section.
  
• Cookery Expertise: Food restores 10% more HP. The description of each food item indicates how much it restores and how long the effect lasts.
  
• Cookery II: Unlocks the recipe for Japanese Fried Bullfrog (bullfrog + flour).
  
• Nutritionist: Food restores an additional 10% of hunger and health. Note that Health and HP are different indicators.
  
• Professional Water Bottle: Further increases the amount of water your character can carry by 500 units.
  
• Cookery III: Unlocks the recipe for Cold Flower & Aloe Vera Drink (flower + aloe vera).
  
• Balanced Strategy: Permanently boosts character attributes: +10 Max HP, +3 Damage, +3 Skill Strength.
  

These Chef role perks enhance your ability to prepare various foods with different effects. As you progress in this role, you’ll be able to create more potent dishes that provide valuable benefits to your character’s survival and performance in the game.

Angler Role

The Angler role is leveled up solely through fishing and has its own daily and weekly experience limits. There’s a detailed fishing guide in Undawn available on the website that you can review for a better understanding of the process. From the guide, you’ll learn how to craft fishing rods, where and how to catch fish, and other useful information.

Here are the perks of the Angler role and explanations of how they work:

• High Efficiency Fishing: Reduces the waiting time for a bite during manual fishing by 25%.
  
• Fishing Tool: Unlocks the ability to craft higher-level fishing rods (1, 2, 3, 4).
  
• Auto-Fishing: Unlocks the option for auto-fishing (your character will cast the fishing rod and catch fish automatically).
  
• Master Fisherman: Unlocks the ability to purchase Unique Fish Bait from the Ingredient Shop (Esc → Market → Raven Shop → Ingredients). Using this bait increases your chances of catching rare fish.
  
• Casual Fishing: Reduces the waiting time for a bite during Auto-Fishing by 25%.
  
• Efficient Fishing: Using Unique Fish Bait increases your chance of catching rare fish by 30%.
  
• Balanced Strategy: Permanently boosts character attributes: +10 Max HP, +3 Damage, +3 Skill Strength.
  

Scavenger Role

The Scavenger role has its own daily and weekly experience limits. There are three methods to level up the Scavenger role:

1. Begging: After unlocking the role, each player receives a Panhandler’s Cardboard. Use this item in one of the settlements (e.g., Raven’s Shelter) to start begging. You will gain profession experience when other players donate to you.
   
2. Lockpicking: In the open world, you’ll come across locked doors that can be picked. Use lockpicks created through the character’s crafting menu (hotkey O) to open these doors. Locks for picking are quite rare, so this might not be the primary method for leveling up the role.
3. Settlement Mission: The daily quest for XP can be completed in one of the listed settlements, and there’s always a Scavenger Settlement among them. If you complete the quest in this specific settlement, you’ll receive a significant amount of Scavenger role experience, and you won’t have to resort to begging. Personally, I maxed out this role using this method.
   

Here is a list of Scavenger role perks and explanations of how they work:

• Master Lockpicker: Allows you to craft higher-quality lockpicks, enabling you to pick more complex locks.
  
• Melee Expertise: Increases melee damage by 2.5%.
  
• Scavenging Skill: A unique perk that lets you find up to 5 “sundry treasures” daily while chopping trees. Essentially, when chopping trees, you randomly discover containers with additional basic resources (wood, stone, etc.).
  
• Critical Hit Increase: Permanently increases the character’s Critical Hit parameter by 2.5%.
  
• All Hoped Up: Permanently reduces the energy drain rate by 15%. This means you’ll spend 15% less energy on any actions that require it, such as jumps and rolls.
  
• Fester Resistance: As explained in the Undawn Character Stats guide, “festering” is a debuff that zombies can inflict on your character. It lasts for several seconds and causes the character to periodically lose health bypassing Max Armor. This perk reduces the likelihood of receiving this debuff from mobs when your character takes damage.
  
• Strong Body: Permanently reduces the Health drain rate by 10%. This means you’ll lose Health points (not to be confused with character HP) 10% slower in situations where your character’s Health is at risk, such as being exposed to Acid Rain (which periodically occurs in the Central Plains region) without protective gear.
  
• Tough Frame: Permanently increases the character’s maximum energy capacity by 5 points.
  
• Balanced Strategy: Permanently boosts character attributes: +10 Max HP, +3 Damage, +3 Skill Strength.
  

Clearly, the Scavenger role offers numerous beneficial perks that impact both PvE and PvP aspects of the game. Therefore, I recommend actively leveling up this role to make the most of its benefits.

Firearms Master Role

The Firearms Master role allows you to craft various main weapons. Role perks unlock as you level up both your character and the role itself. The role has its own daily and weekly experience limits. To level up the role, you need to craft any equipment, not just weapons; crafting clothing and armor items also counts.

Each role perk unlocks the ability to craft a specific type of main weapon. However, you’ll need to purchase formulas using gold every 10 levels. For example, at levels 60-69, you’ll need one formula to craft the Vector, and at levels 70-79, you’ll need to buy a new one.

Truth be told, a significant portion of the “advanced” weapons at the time of writing this guide are ineffective in both PvP and PvE. The most versatile and powerful weapon was and still is the AK-47, and this is not just about DPS, but also about a special weapon perk that slows down enemies’ movement speed.

The CZ762 has a good chance of becoming the most effective PvE weapon, as this assault rifle accelerates the reload of your Heavy Weapon by a whopping 30%+ when landing a critical hit. However, this effect lasts for only 15 seconds and comes with a 30-second cooldown. In practice, this means you can use the M134 Heavy Machine Gun much longer in boss battles, which is likely more effective than just higher DPS and bleeding effects from using the AK-47.

Apart from this, the role doesn’t offer anything particularly useful, and I wouldn’t recommend specifically focusing on leveling it up unless you’re interested in earning gold through crafting (relying on randomness, of course) or obtaining the CZ762, which (in legendary quality) will likely be much cheaper to craft than to buy.

Highwayman Role

As of the writing of this guide, the Highwayman role is still unavailable. It is presumed that it will be unlocked on August 24, 2023, when players reach level 70. Since there is an Eastern edition of Undawn that was launched much earlier, updates for it are released ahead of those for the Western edition. Consequently, I used an Indonesian player’s YouTube channel to “peek into the future” of Undawn, and here’s what I found.

The Highwayman role will be related to car racing. The update will introduce the ability to compete with friends and NPC racers. Role perks will enhance the efficiency of your cars and their components. You’ll be able to change some car parts and purchase gasoline in a special shop using a new currency. The game will also feature a racer ranking.

It’s worth noting that we can’t be certain that the Western edition of Undawn will receive exactly what was implemented in the Eastern edition. There might be some changes. I’ll update this section after the role is unlocked and its details are revealed.

Troubadour Role

The role of Troubadour becomes available at level 75 for your character after completing the corresponding tutorial mission, which will automatically appear in the “Mission” section. From this point on, players gain the ability to play specific music to receive various positive effects for 30 minutes.

Upon unlocking certain talents within this role, you will receive CD discs with music. Each such disc bestows different positive effects on the character for 30 minutes, such as increasing Skill Strength or Armor Piercing.

To play a disc, you must click the “CD” button in the interface of the corresponding musical instrument (e.g., an electric guitar).

In the interface window that appears, you can select a disc from your list and play the music.

Initially, you will need to press several buttons in the correct sequence for the music to play. When the disc’s proficiency reaches its maximum (simply keep playing), this will no longer be necessary, and the melody will play immediately upon pressing the button.

The simplest way to quickly level up the Troubadour role is to play discs. You will receive your first disc immediately upon unlocking the first talent in this role.

Also, unlocking the Troubadour role gives you the ability to record a limited sequence of notes or a limited time of melody. In the first case, the notes will simply be played sequentially with an equal interval between sounds. In the second case, the melody will be played at the tempo at which you played it on a musical instrument during recording (actually, this feature is currently not working correctly and improperly records your melodies, significantly distorting the tempo).

To record, you should press the “Record” button on the left side of the musical instrument interface, and then choose either “Note Recording” or “Time-Limited Recording.”

Conclusion

If I haven’t forgotten anything, this is all the information I have about roles in Undawn at the moment. If you have any additional useful information, feel free to share it in the comments of this post. Also, don’t hesitate to ask questions if you have any. I’ll do my best to assist within the scope of my knowledge.