Deck building and specialization in Shroud of the Avatar

Shroud of the Avatar has no classes. What you play is decided by two things you can change: the deck of glyphs on your combat bar, and the two skill schools you have specialized in. This guide explains how both work after the 2026 overhaul, then shows how to pair decks with specializations so one character can play as two different "classes" without rerolling.

If you are new to the game, read the character creation guide first. It covers the skill schools, how experience works and what attunement is. This page assumes you know those words.

What a deck is

Every active skill you have learned exists as a glyph. A deck is the list of glyphs you want the game to deal to your combat bar during a fight, plus the rules for where they land. Innate skills (passives) are always on and never go in a deck; there are 191 of them, so a large part of your character is in effect no matter which deck you carry.

Glyphs come from 21 adventuring schools: seven combat schools (Blade, Polearm, Bludgeon, Ranged, Light Armor, Heavy Armor, Shield), nine magic schools (Sun, Earth, Life, Water, Moon, Air, Death, Fire, Chaos) and five strategy schools (Tactics, Focus, Bard, Subterfuge, Taming). A deck can mix glyphs from any of them.

New characters start with a Blades deck already equipped and learn how decks work from Anaïs on the Isle of Storms.

Deck size

There is no maximum deck size. You can put in every glyph you own if you want to.

There is a minimum, and it grows as your character does, topping out at 23 glyphs. If your deck is smaller than the minimum, the game pads it with Slugs: blank glyphs that only ever land in slots you have left unassigned. In practice that means a thin deck wastes draws, so build to the minimum once you can.

Consumable cards such as potions and bombs are the one exception to the no-maximum rule. You can carry at most five copies of a consumable in a deck.

How many copies of a glyph you can run

The number of copies of one glyph you can put in a deck depends on the skill's level. Each extra copy unlocks at a higher level, and the last copy needs the school to be one of your specializations. Catnip has not published the exact level for each copy, so the deck planner will warn rather than block when you add copies; the Edit Deck window in game shows the real limit per skill.

More copies of a glyph means it comes up more often and stacks more. Fewer copies means it rarely shows up, so you will usually lock it instead.

The combat bar: locked, assigned and open slots

Your combat bar has ten hand slots. Each slot is one of three things:

• Locked. The same glyph sits there permanently and comes back after its cooldown. In many schools a locked glyph has a shorter cooldown than the same glyph drawn from the deck; Deflect, for example, is 15 seconds locked and 30 seconds unlocked.
• Assigned. The slot is reserved for a particular glyph. When that glyph is drawn it lands here first.
• Open. Anything the deck deals can land here.

A locked glyph charges only from the copies you left out of the deck, so locking a glyph and also running five copies of it in the deck works against itself. Unplayed glyphs stay on the bar for 19 seconds, less if you have draw-speed bonuses, then get discarded. When the same unlocked glyph is dealt twice, the copies stack into a stronger version, and some pairs of glyphs combine into combos.

A common starting layout is three or four locked slots for the skills you always want (a heal, a defensive, your main attack), two assigned slots for the skills you want early, and the rest open so the deck can do its job.

Linked equipment and pet gear

A deck can carry a set of gear with it. Open the deck, choose Link What I Am Wearing, and the game saves your armor, weapons and jewelry on that deck. From then on, equipping the deck also equips that set, as long as the items are in your inventory. If one piece cannot go on, that slot keeps what you are wearing and the rest still loads.

Inventory search understands this too: deck:<name> lists the items linked to a deck, is:deck lists everything linked to any deck and -is:deck lists what is linked to none.

Tamers get the same for their pet. In the deck builder, set Pet Gear to Follows Deck on a deck that has linked equipment, and the deck also saves the collar, toy and accessory your pet is wearing. Swap the deck and the pet changes outfit with you. The default, Stays On, leaves pet gear alone.

Three more things live on the deck rather than on the character. Right-clicking a glyph lets you set Always Cast on Me, Always Cast on My Pet or Target Normally, per deck. Magic Warding can be switched off per deck, which drops both its resistance and its attunement penalties while that deck is equipped. Decks can be filed into folders without changing their numbers or Equip keys.

Swapping decks in combat

You cannot create or edit a deck while you are in combat, but you can equip one you built earlier. Use the Equip Deck keys or the Equip button in the Combat Decks window. Swapping in combat costs Focus; the key and the button cost the same. Out of combat a swap is free. Catnip has not published the Focus amount, so budget for it rather than planning around a number.

If the swap removes your armor type, the matching buff goes with it: a Heavy Armor buff ends when the new deck's linked gear is leather, and a Light Armor buff ends when it is plate.

Deck codes

Every deck can be shared as text. Share Deck copies a code to your clipboard; Import Deck turns a pasted code into a new deck. The code holds the deck's name, its cards and how the hand slots are locked and assigned. It does not carry linked equipment or consumable inventory ids. If you import a deck that uses glyphs you have not learned, those are left out and chat tells you how many.

A full 23-card deck with every slot set is roughly 270 characters, short enough to paste into Discord. The same codes work on the Community Hub at play.catnipgames.net, which checks them against the game's 168 player-learnable combat glyphs and 223 consumables.

Every build on this site ships as a deck code you can import straight into the game.

Specialization: two slots, changed at any trainer

A character has exactly two specialization slots. Two schools can be specialized at once, never more; the limit is enforced server side.

You change which schools fill those slots at any skill trainer or at an Oracle Confirmatory, including the ones in player-owned towns. Use the Change button beside Specializations in the Skills window, or pick Specialize in this school from the skill tree menu. It costs no experience and there is no lock-in: your decks and glyph counts update the moment you confirm.

Picking a school as a specialization is a separate decision from training that school's Specialization skill. You can train and keep any number of Specialization skills, but only the two schools in your slots pay out. If a slotted school's Specialization skill has been unlearned, it stops paying until you train it again. Every Specialization skill is bought from a trainer; Focus and Subterfuge Specialization are Tier 4 and only their master trainers sell them.

What a specialized school gives you:

• School mastery, about +1.3 % per Specialization level, which changes individual skills in that school: longer durations, extra effects, bleed clears and so on. Skill tooltips print the exact contribution, in gray with "Requires X Specialization" when you lack it.
• School attunement for magic schools, worth up to 16 points at mastery 80.
• An extra deck copy of the school's glyphs.

Unlearning and resets cost nothing but time

Unlearning a skill returns 100 % of the experience you drained into it to your pool. Two ways to do it: set the skill to Unlearning and it drains a little on each experience award, or right-click it and pick Instant Unlearn to a chosen level, which shows the experience you get back. Instant Unlearn needs an Obsidian Item of Unlearning unless you are inside a free window: ten minutes after asking a town Oracle to unmake one skill, or seven days if you are returning after 90 or more days away. Train to Level stops a skill at a target level without unlearning anything.

A town Oracle also offers a free full reset of adventurer skills, producer skills or both, each half refunding into its own pool.

So the cost of trying a different build is a trainer visit and some patience, not lost experience.

Named specialization pairs

Every pair of specializations has a name. It shows in the Skills window, on the Stats tab of your character sheet and when another player examines you. With 21 schools there are 210 pairs, and all 210 are named.

Confirmed examples:

Names are in English in every language for now. We will publish the full list once it is confirmed; the archetype library names each build's pair as we verify it.

The class swap: two decks, two specializations, linked gear

Put the pieces together and one character can play two roles.

1. Pick your two specializations. One for each role, for example Heavy Armor and Fire Magic. That pair is your character's name tag and sets which schools get the mastery bonus, the attunement bonus and the extra deck copy.
2. Build a deck for role A. Heavy Armor, Blades and Tactics glyphs, locked slots for your taunt and heal, open slots for the rest.
3. Link your plate and sword to deck A with Link What I Am Wearing.
4. Build a deck for role B. Fire Magic and Focus glyphs, locked Fireball, open slots for the rest. Turn Magic Warding off on this deck if the ward's attunement penalty is costing you more than its resistance saves.
5. Link your cloth and staff to deck B. If you fight with a pet, set its gear to Follows Deck on both.
6. Bind each deck to an Equip Deck key. Out of combat the swap is free. In combat it costs Focus and your heavy armor buff drops when the plate comes off.

Why the gear link matters for a caster deck: worn armor slows Air spells and raises their focus cost, full plate by about 46 % on Blink, chain by about 27 %, leather by 14 % and cloth not at all. Fire and Death spells take half that penalty; the other schools are unaffected. And hostile spell damage scales with the attunement gap between you and your target, with no cap on the bonus and a straight-line loss down to zero damage at 110 points behind. The mage deck wants cloth and the attunement bonus from its specialization; the tank deck wants the plate. Linking gear to decks is what makes the swap honest.

If you want a third or fourth role, build the decks anyway. Swapping decks is instant, but moving a specialization to a different school means a trainer visit, so roles that share a specialization pair swap in combat and roles that need a different pair swap in town.

Ready-made examples of this pattern are in the archetype library, each with its deck codes.

FAQ

Is there a maximum deck size in Shroud of the Avatar?

No. A deck has a minimum that rises with your character to 23 glyphs, padded with blank Slugs if you fall short, but no maximum. Consumables are limited to five copies per deck.

How many copies of a glyph can I put in a deck?

It depends on the skill's level. Extra copies unlock as the skill levels, and the last copy needs the school to be one of your two specializations.

Can I change my specialization?

Yes, at any skill trainer or Oracle Confirmatory. It costs nothing, there is no lock-in, and your decks update at once.

Do I lose experience when I unlearn a skill?

No. Unlearning returns all of the experience to your pool; slow unlearning only costs time, and instant unlearning needs an Obsidian Item of Unlearning outside the free windows.

Can I swap decks during a fight?

Yes, with the Equip Deck keys or the Combat Decks window, for a Focus cost. You cannot build or edit a deck in combat.

How do I share a deck?

Share Deck copies a text code; the other player uses Import Deck. The code carries the cards and slot settings but not your gear.

What is a specialization pair name like "Paladin"?

The name the game gives to a combination of two specializations. Heavy Armor plus Life is Paladin, Fire plus Life is Phoenix. All 210 pairs have one.