Specializations are an end-game progression system in Dune Awakening, introduced in Chapter 3. Specializations build upon the existing 'Skills' progression system to give players much more flexibility over how they develop their characters, and are a major source of player power.
Specializations are split between five major categories, each with distinct purpose. Do you want to be your Guild's artisan crafter (Crafting), or the member of your Guild dedicated to progressing the Landsraad (Sabotage), or do you just want your character to be as powerful as possible so you can push the new Challenge Mode Testing Stations solo (Combat)? You choose.
Quick Links
- How To Unlock Specializations In Dune Awakening
- Specialization Categories & Effects
- Earning Specialization XP & Unlocking Specializations
- Best Specializations & Specialization Tracks
How To Unlock Specializations in Dune Awakening
Unlocking Specializations in Dune Awakening requires multiple steps, each of which we will break down below.
Reaching Faction Level 5
In order to unlock Specializations, you must first unlock access to Landsraad Missions (another system introduced in Chapter 3). This means that you must reach Faction Level 5 with either the Atreides or Harkonnen Factions. Your Faction Level is shown on the Inventory Screen, as below:
Tip: If you haven't already progressed your Faction Level with Atreides or Harkonnen, grab the starter quest at the Anvil and work through the missions. Once you complete the Anvil quest chain, you'll need to work through the quests at Helius Gate (Atreides) or Riftwatch (Harkonnen).
Once you reach Faction Level 5, you'll need to speak with either Thufir Hawat in Arrakeen (Atreides) or Piter de Vries in Harko Village (Harkonnen), in order to receive the 'House Operator' title. Both locations are shown below.
Joining a Faction-aligned Guild
You must also be a part of, or join, a Guild that is aligned with your Faction.
Once you meet both of these conditions, you will gain access to Landsraad Missions, accessible from the 'Landsraad' Menu (L hotkey).
Accessing Specializations
You should now be able to access Specializations from the 'Skills' menu. Open Skills with 'K' and you'll see an option to open up Specializations in the bottom left corner, hotkey is G.
Now you're ready to get started!
Specialization Categories & Effects
There are five Specialization 'categories', these are: Crafting, Gathering, Exploration, Combat and Sabotage. Each of these provide a different set of skills (Traits) and passive abilities that enhance your character's prowess in different areas.
Some of the key bonuses for each track are outlined below:
- Crafting: Higher crafting yields, lower crafting costs and importantly, additional Augmentation slots for weapons & garments
- Gathering: Higher gathering yields, lower sandworm threat, lower tool power drain
- Exploration: More inventory slots, better vehicle fuel efficiency, speed & boost, better surveying
- Combat: Higher max health & stamina, higher damage & damage mitigation, more Skill points
- Sabotage: Higher headshot damage, Landsraad Scrip, bribe and contribution bonuses, lower enemy detection
You can check out every Specialization passive and Trait over at our Specialization Calculator which is also super useful for mapping out your preferred routes along each track and calculating just how much XP and Spice will be needed to get there.
Since you can only complete a maximum of 35 Landsraad Missions per week, it is valuable to try and optimize your routes to the most impactful nodes.
Earning Specialization XP & Unlocking Specializations
Earning Specialization Bonuses requires both Specialization XP and Spice.
Earning Specialization XP
In order to acquire any bonuses from Specializations in Dune Awakening, you must first complete Landsraad Missions. Every day you are awarded 5 Mnemonic Recollections. One Mnemonic Recollection can be turned in every time you complete a Landsraad Mission, to earn additional 'Recollection Rewards'. One of these rewards is Specialization XP.
The Specialization XP you receive for completing a Landsraad Mission will be for a specific Specialization Tree, determined by the Mission you select on the Landsraad Mission page.
As you can see in the image above, this Mission awards 125 Crafting XP. To earn XP for the Specialization you want to level up, make sure you select a mission that corresponds with that Specialization Category.
Specialization XP Table & Optimization
Every subsequent level in any Specialization track requires more XP than the level preceding it. This is illustrated in the cumulative XP table below:
| Level | XP | Level | XP | Level | XP |
| 1 | 100 | 34 | 7,419 | 67 | 23,608 |
| 2 | 205 | 35 | 7,777 | 68 | 24,220 |
| 3 | 315 | 36 | 8,143 | 69 | 24,838 |
| 4 | 431 | 37 | 8,518 | 70 | 25,462 |
| 5 | 553 | 38 | 8,902 | 71 | 26,086 |
| 6 | 681 | 39 | 9,295 | 72 | 26,710 |
| 7 | 816 | 40 | 9,697 | 73 | 27,334 |
| 8 | 958 | 41 | 10,107 | 74 | 27,958 |
| 9 | 1,107 | 42 | 10,525 | 75 | 28,582 |
| 10 | 1,264 | 43 | 10,951 | 76 | 29,206 |
| 11 | 1,428 | 44 | 11,385 | 77 | 29,830 |
| 12 | 1,599 | 45 | 11,827 | 78 | 30,454 |
| 13 | 1,777 | 46 | 12,277 | 79 | 31,078 |
| 14 | 1,963 | 47 | 12,736 | 80 | 31,702 |
| 15 | 2,157 | 48 | 13,204 | 81 | 32,326 |
| 16 | 2,359 | 49 | 13,681 | 82 | 32,950 |
| 17 | 2,570 | 50 | 14,167 | 83 | 33,574 |
| 18 | 2,790 | 51 | 14,661 | 84 | 34,198 |
| 19 | 3,019 | 52 | 15,163 | 85 | 34,822 |
| 20 | 3,258 | 53 | 15,673 | 86 | 35,446 |
| 21 | 3,504 | 54 | 16,191 | 87 | 36,070 |
| 22 | 3,757 | 55 | 16,717 | 88 | 36,694 |
| 23 | 4,017 | 56 | 17,251 | 89 | 37,318 |
| 24 | 4,285 | 57 | 17,794 | 90 | 37,942 |
| 25 | 4,561 | 58 | 18,346 | 91 | 38,566 |
| 26 | 4,845 | 59 | 18,907 | 92 | 39,190 |
| 27 | 5,137 | 60 | 19,477 | 93 | 39,814 |
| 28 | 5,438 | 61 | 20,052 | 94 | 40,438 |
| 29 | 5,748 | 62 | 20,632 | 95 | 41,062 |
| 30 | 6,067 | 63 | 21,217 | 96 | 41,686 |
| 31 | 6,393 | 64 | 21,807 | 97 | 42,310 |
| 32 | 6,727 | 65 | 22,402 | 98 | 42,934 |
| 33 | 7,069 | 66 | 23,002 | 99 | 43,558 |
| 100 | 44,182 |
As you can only earn a maximum of 625 Specialization XP each day, you can get more bang for your buck by spreading your progression out amongst multiple Specialization trees. For example, to go from Level 99 to 100 is 624 XP, whereas to get from Level 1 to Level 5 it's only 553 XP.
To max out any single Specialization tree will take around 70 days (assuming optimal use of Mnemonic Recollections) and so to max out all five trees will take just under a year.
Unlocking Specialization Bonuses (Traits & Passives)
There are two different types of Specialization bonuses, which are Passives and Traits. Every Specialization provides a different passive bonus that increases with every level you gain in that Specialization tree (even the levels that look like they only award Traits).
Passives are also awarded passively as you reach each new level, and do not have any acquisition cost.
Specialization Traits on the other hand are represented as much larger nodes on each tree, and these must be actively purchased with Spice Melange. The Spice cost of Traits increase as you get deeper into each Specialization tree and generally provide very powerful effects.
You can see that the Trait in the image above costs 2 Spice to unlock. It costs around 750 Spice Melange to max out all the Traits in a Specialization Tree (so around 3,750 Spice Melange total for all trees) but remember that you must first earn XP up to the level of the Trait to purchase it.
Best Specializations & Best Specialization Tracks
So now you know how to unlock Specializations and how to acquire Specialization bonuses, but you are probably wondering which Specialization tracks to pursue and which nodes to aim for. While we will provide some general advice here, the truth is that it will really depend on how you are playing the game and what your goals are.
Playing Solo
If you are playing solo, I'd recommend looking to max out your Crafting and Combat trees first. This is because you will find the new Challenge Mode Testing Stations difficult otherwise, and they are essential for end-game item progression.
An example starting path might be:
- Crafting to 10 (for 1st Augment slot in each item type)
- Combat to 28 (for +17 Skill points)
- Crafting to 42 (for 2nd Augment slot in each item type)
Playing With A Small Group
If you are playing with a small group, then you will likely want to assign dedicated members of the team to three different tracks, being Gathering, Crafting and Combat.
One member of the team should aim to max out Gathering first, allowing them to farm Spice Sand and Ores much more efficiently for the group (at Level 100, passive bonuses provide +50% yield alone).
Another member of the team should aim to max out Crafting, to maximise the yield from each craft. The other 1-2 members of the team should focus on Combat and Crafting (similar to the Solo suggestion) so your group can push higher difficulties in the Challenge Mode Testing Stations.
Playing With A Guild
If you are playing as part of an active Guild, then another track might become relevant: Sabotage. In general Sabotage is much less useful than Crafting or Combat for general play, but it does provide (up to) a 40% reduction in the cost of bribing Landsraad Envoys.
It's likely that you'll have a few Guild members who'll progress Crafting and Gathering first, with the rest focusing on Combat and Crafting.
