Conan Exiles Attributes Guide 2026: All Perks, Corruption and the Best Builds

The attribute system is the heart of every build in Conan Exiles. A Strength fighter clearing dungeons with a two-handed sword, an Agility assassin in PvP, a sorcerer who trades away part of his soul for dark power: they all live or die by how you spend your 60 attribute points. The system changed completely with the Age of Sorcery update, and with Conan Exiles Enhanced (the Unreal Engine 5 version) a lot of players are coming back who have never seen it. This guide explains Conan Exiles attributes from the ground up.

How the attribute system works

You earn attribute points as you level up and spend them freely across six attributes: Strength, Agility, Vitality, Authority, Grit and Expertise. You get 60 points in total, and each attribute caps at 20 points.

Every 5 points in an attribute unlock a perk. At 10 and at 20 points you pick one of two perks. So each attribute has four perk tiers (5, 10, 15 and 20 points), and tiers 2 and 4 force a choice. The perk effects below follow Funcom's official descriptions and established community databases. Percentages that only come from community sources are marked as such.

Since you only have 60 points, you can max out three attributes at most. That is rarely the best plan. Strong builds spread points across 3 to 4 attributes at different depths.

Attribute	What each point does	Best for
Strength	+5% damage with Strength weapons	heavy melee builds
Agility	more damage with fast weapons and bows, a bit of stamina	fast melee, archers
Vitality	+10% maximum health	every build
Authority	stronger followers, easier knockouts	thrall builds
Grit	more stamina and armor	heavy armor fighters
Expertise	more carry weight	farmers and builders

All 6 attributes in detail

Strength

Each point in Strength raises the damage of Strength weapons (two-handed swords, great axes, maces, hammers) by 5%. Agility weapons get a small 0.5% per point as well. Strength is the attribute for melee fighters who want to hit hard with heavy weapons. The full melee setup is in our Conan Exiles Strength build.

Perk at 5 (Heavy Blows): Heavy and special attacks deal 10% more damage.

Perk at 10 (choice): Either the last hit of a combo deals 20% more damage (Combo Master), or your equipped armor weighs 25% less (Second Skin).

Perk at 15 (Berserker): Below 50% health you deal 25% more damage and gain 100 armor.

Perk at 20 (choice): Below 25% health you can't be staggered or knocked down (Blood-mad Berserker), or your hits stagger enemies 25% longer (Crushing Swings).

Agility

Agility scales daggers, short swords, katanas, throwing weapons and bows. Each point raises your damage with these weapons and adds a bit of stamina. For fast melee fighters and archers, Agility is the main attribute. Which bow and blades are worth carrying is covered in our Conan Exiles best weapons guide.

Perk at 5 (Backstab): Attacks from behind deal 15% more damage.

Perk at 10 (choice): Projectiles fly farther and deal more damage at range (Dead Shot), or you get 10% more armor penetration at light or medium encumbrance (Precision Strike).

Perk at 15 (Defensive Posture): You take 15% less damage while blocking or attacking. In Enhanced, Funcom swapped this perk with Quickfooted, so Defensive Posture now sits in the Agility tree.

Perk at 20 (choice): A double jump (Extended Leap), or after a dodge your next attack costs no stamina and gets extra penetration, 25% according to community data (Rolling Thrust).

Vitality

Each point raises your maximum health by 10%. The bonus stacks, so later points pay off just as much as the first ones. Every build needs some Vitality. Even glass cannons need enough HP to survive a mistake.

Perk at 5 (Fierce Vitality): Passive health regeneration outside of combat.

Perk at 10 (choice): A one-time heal when your health drops below 50% (Resurgence), or 50% more healing from all healing effects (Fast Healer).

Perk at 15 (Robust): Your maximum health goes up by 100.

Perk at 20 (choice): At low health, negative effects are removed and you briefly get heavy damage mitigation (Last Stand), or you regenerate the damage you just took over a few seconds (Glutton for Punishment).

Authority

Authority decides how strong your thralls and followers are. Each point raises their damage and makes it easier to knock out new thralls. If you play with a thrall army, you need Authority.

Perk at 5 (Irritate): Your active followers taunt enemies, so they go after the follower instead of you.

Perk at 10 (choice): Followers heal when you deal damage in combat (Commanding Presence), or they regenerate health passively outside of combat (Healthy Diet).

Perk at 15 (Attentive Care): Active followers receive 50% more healing.

Perk at 20 (choice): The attributes of your active followers go up (Well Trained), or you can bring one extra combat follower, but your own stats no longer boost their damage (War Party).

Grit

Grit raises your stamina and your armor. Every point means more stamina for dodging, attacking and sprinting. Grit is especially valuable for fighters in heavy armor, where the gear eats a lot of stamina.

Perk at 5 (Tenacity): +40 armor and +20 stamina.

Perk at 10 (choice): 25% faster stamina regeneration (Endurance), or bonus armor equal to one fifth of your current stamina (Stout).

Perk at 15 (Quickfooted): Jogging, climbing, sprinting, swimming and jumping cost less stamina and are faster. In Enhanced this perk moved from Agility to Grit.

Perk at 20 (choice): You can block unblockable attacks at a higher stamina cost and react twice as fast after a successful block (Shield Master), or a single hit can take at most 25% of your health (Steel Thewed).

Expertise

Expertise raises your carry weight and helps with crafting-related activities. Gatherers, builders and anyone hauling materials need it, especially on long farming runs. Pair it with craft from storage and you spend far less time sorting chests.

Perk at 5 (Survivalist): Tools and weapons last much longer, and hunger and thirst drop noticeably slower.

Perk at 10 (choice): The last hit on a resource node yields double the material (Efficient Harvest), or rare resources drop twice as often (Careful Harvest).

Perk at 15 (Hard Worker): You harvest resources twice as fast.

Perk at 20 (choice): You move and dodge at full speed even when overloaded (Beast of Burden), or the structures you build are more stable, by 25% according to community data (Structural Integrity).

The corruption system

Since Age of Sorcery you can corrupt three attributes: Strength, Vitality and Authority. Corruption replaces the normal perks with stronger dark versions, at a steep price: you permanently lose up to 50% of your maximum health and stamina.

To corrupt attributes you need Soul Essence. You get it by bringing a living human to a sacrificial stone and tearing out their soul. One Soul Essence corrupts one point, and you can only corrupt as many points as you have invested in that attribute. The deeper the corruption, the stronger the dark perks.

Corrupted perks fully replace the normal ones. A few examples:

Corrupted Strength (tier 5, Scourge): Your hits deal extra damage that grows with the number of corrupted Strength points.

Corrupted Vitality (tier 10, Twisted Flesh): You get a chance to deflect incoming damage. More corrupted Vitality means a higher chance.

Corrupted Authority (tier 20, Demon Lord): With some luck, an uncontrollable demonic creature appears during combat and attacks your enemies for a while.

Corruption is a glass cannon system: you trade survivability for raw power. Not recommended for beginners, but a big power spike for experienced players.

4 recommended builds for 2026

1. Strength warrior (PvE solo and dungeons)

Strength 20 / Vitality 20 / Grit 10 / Expertise 10

The classic melee fighter. Maximum damage with two-handed weapons, enough HP to survive boss fights and enough stamina for heavy armor. Expertise at 10 gives you enough carry weight for dungeon loot. Recommended weapons: two-handed sword, great axe, warhammer.

2. Agility assassin (PvP and fast fights)

Agility 20 / Vitality 15 / Grit 15 / Strength 10

Fast, deadly, hard to hit. Rolling Thrust at Agility 20 makes every dodge a threat. Light armor for maximum mobility and enough Grit for stamina in a fight. Since the Enhanced perk swap, Grit 15 also gives you Quickfooted, and Agility 15 now brings Defensive Posture. Recommended weapons: daggers, short swords, katana, a bow as backup.

3. Authority commander (thrall army PvE)

Authority 20 / Vitality 20 / Expertise 10 / Grit 10

Your followers fight, you direct. At Authority 20 your thralls turn into real killing machines. Vitality keeps you alive when things go wrong. This is the most relaxed way through PvE content, hard dungeons included. Recommended weapons: one-handed weapon and shield for defense, while your thrall does the damage. Which followers are worth it is in our Conan Exiles best thralls guide.

4. Sorcerer build (corruption)

Corrupted Strength 20 / Corrupted Vitality 15 / Authority 15 / Grit 10

The riskiest and strongest build. Corrupted Strength adds damage to every hit and weakens your enemies' damage. Corrupted Vitality deflects damage and, according to community data, makes you immune to bleed, poison and disease from tier 15. Your HP and stamina drop drastically, so one mistake can kill you. Authority at 15 gives you a strong follower as a safety net. Only for experienced players.

How to reset attributes

You aren't locked into your build. The Potion of Bestial Memory resets your attribute points so you can spend them again. You craft it at the Alchemist's Bench, according to community data from 1 Water-filled Glass Flask, 3 Yellow Lotus Blossom and 3 Blood.

According to the community wiki, the older Yellow Lotus Potion (10 Yellow Lotus Blossoms) also resets your attribute points, but it resets your knowledge points at the same time, so you have to relearn all your recipes. If you only want to respec your attributes, the Potion of Bestial Memory is the better choice. The Potion of Natural Learning is the counterpart for knowledge: it resets your knowledge points so you can learn recipes again, and leaves your attributes alone.

Feel free to experiment with different builds. A reset costs almost nothing.

Tips for spending your attribute points

Don't spread evenly. Ten points in every attribute is the most common beginner mistake. You end up average at everything and good at nothing. Pick a focus and invest deep.

Strength OR Agility, never both. The two scale different weapon types. Putting points into both wastes potential. Commit to one fighting style.

Vitality is never wasted. Whatever you play, at least 10 points in Vitality are a must. The regeneration perks keep you alive.

Don't underestimate Expertise. For solo players and long farming runs, the extra carry weight from Expertise 10+ is worth a lot.

Corruption only with experience. Play a normal build first, learn the combat system, then try the corrupted versions. The permanent HP and stamina loss is brutal if you don't know the mechanics.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions about Conan Exiles Attributes

How many attribute points are there in Conan Exiles?

60 points in total across six attributes (Strength, Agility, Vitality, Authority, Grit, Expertise), with a maximum of 20 per attribute. That means you can fully max three attributes at most.

Should I pick Strength or Agility?

Only one of them. Strength scales heavy weapons (two-handed swords, maces), Agility scales the fast weapons and bows. Doing both wastes potential.

What does corruption do?

It replaces normal perks with stronger dark versions (for example bonus damage or deflected damage), but permanently costs up to 50% of your maximum health and stamina. Only for experienced players.

Can I reset my attributes?

Yes. The Potion of Bestial Memory (Alchemist's Bench; ingredients according to community data: Water-filled Glass Flask, 3 Yellow Lotus Blossom, 3 Blood) resets your attribute points so you can spend them again. According to the community wiki, the Yellow Lotus Potion resets attributes and knowledge points at once. The Potion of Natural Learning only resets your knowledge points, not your attributes.

Where are Quickfooted and Defensive Posture in Enhanced?

Funcom swapped them in Conan Exiles Enhanced. Quickfooted is now the Grit perk at 15, Defensive Posture the Agility perk at 15. Older guides still show them the other way around.

Bottom line

Attributes in Conan Exiles Enhanced have real depth, from simple melee builds to risky corruption experiments. The key is specialization: pick your playstyle, invest deep instead of wide, and keep a Potion of Bestial Memory handy when you want to try something new. If you are coming from an older guide, check the Agility and Grit trees first, because the Enhanced perk swap changed both.

More Conan Exiles guides: Strength build · Thralls guide · Thrall professions · Thick Leather. All guides on the Conan Exiles overview.

As of October 11, 2026 (Conan Exiles Enhanced, patch 3.0.0 from October 6, 2026). Checked against Funcom's official patch notes and announcements (including the Age of Sorcery attribute rules: 60 points, 20 per attribute, a perk every 5 points, a choice at 10 and 20, and the Enhanced swap of Quickfooted and Defensive Posture) and the community-maintained Conan Exiles wiki. Percentages and recipe details marked as community data are not officially confirmed.