15 Beginner Mistakes to Avoid in Enshrouded

Lastest Update: August 13, 2026, Categories: Enshrouded

I wasted 100 hours making these Enshrouded mistakes – from screwing up my base, not picking a build, upgrading my Flame Altar, and more – these are the 15 BIGGEST Mistakes to avoid in Enshrouded!

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Enshrouded Mistakes Overview

Enshrouded is a co-up survival action RPG game that sets you on a path of exploration, crafting, and combat. You are the Flameborn, awakened to the fog called the shroud which is corrupting the kingdom. You work towards reclaiming the area by removing the fog, expanding your base, and venturing throughout the world. However, it can be confusing on what to do, prioritize, focus on, and how to be effective in combat.

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After playing Enshrouded for hundreds of hours by now, I can tell you: I’ve made every mistake there is! This guide aims to help you avoid all the time consuming and stupid mistakes I made. We hope you enjoy playing Enshrouded us much as we do, and take the hard lessons we learned and save you countless hours of frustration.

Top 15 Mistakes that You Should Avoid While Playing Enshrouded

Rushing Main Story – Avoid focusing solely on the “Flame” or main story quests, as critical progression, powerful gear, and essential mobility tools (like the Glider) are often unlocked by exploring and completing non-main-story NPC quests.
Ignoring Flame Level – The core gameplay loop is upgrading your Flame Altar, which is necessary to survive and explore deeper into the more deadly areas of the Shroud; if you get stuck, prioritize gathering the materials (often monster heads or rare resources) needed to strengthen your flame.
Not Carrying an Altar – Always carry extra Flame Altars and a Workbench to allow for a “leapfrog” strategy, placing a new Altar as a fast travel point and respawn insurance before venturing further into unknown territory.
Nighttime Materials – Don’t skip the night cycle by resting, as certain essential materials (like Passionflower) only spawn after dark, and utilize tools like the Wisp of Light or a flame wand to illuminate your search.
Skipping Towers – Prioritize finding and unlocking Ancient Spires (towers) in new zones, as they are crucial fast travel points and offer high vantage points for exploration, and use nearby Ancient Obelisks to reveal their location along with Shroud Roots and Elixir Wells.
Not Marking Resource Routes – Use the map marker system (which allows over 1,000 marks) to label the location of hard-to-find resources (like Ore) and valuable Silver/Gold Chests, establishing routines for future farming runs.
Overbuilding Your First Base – Avoid spending too much time overbuilding your initial base near the starting area, as you will eventually want your main operational base near high-level zones for access to end-game materials, enemies, and relevant quests.
Using Default Scaffolding – For building, forgo the clumsy scaffolding items; instead, use the Rough Stone Block stairs from the Foundations section of the Construction Hammer menu, which can be placed mid-air and deconstructed for easy material retrieval.
Farming Chest Before Level 50 – Don’t waste valuable Runes upgrading weapons early, as you will quickly outgrow them; save your Rune investment for end-game weapons (level 45-50) and only begin chest farming in max-level areas, checking back every 30-60 minutes of in-game time for respawns.
Picking a Build – When designing your character, focus first on a primary weapon type (e.g., Wand, Staff, Two-Handed) and its corresponding main stat (e.g., Intelligence) while remembering that you can always respec and easily mix utility skills from other trees.
Ignoring Essential Mobility Skills – The most significant quality-of-life skills are Double Jump, Updraft, and Airborne, as they combine to grant immense mobility for travel and combat, allowing you to quickly cover ground and ascend rapidly.
Ignoring Rested Buff – The Rested Buff is essential for survival, granting a huge increase in Stamina and Stamina Regeneration necessary for gliding and fighting; always return to a cozy base (with shelter and fire) to re-establish the buff immediately after dying or before a long journey.
Comfort Level – Your Comfort Level directly determines the duration of your Rested Buff (1 Comfort point equals 1 minute of duration), so focus on placing the single highest-comfort item from every unique furniture category within your Flame Altar’s range.
Crafting Full Sets – Do not worry about crafting full sets of named armor for a set bonus, as only the individual piece bonuses apply; generally, focus on Head and Gloves for damage, and use Chest and Legs from other sets (like the Blacksmith’s armor) for better stats like raw HP.
Mining Inefficiently – To mine effectively, aim your pickaxe directly at the center of the ore vein to maximize your material yield, and invest temporarily in the Miner and Mason skills to increase speed and material output.

#1 Rushing Main Story

In Enshrouded, you have a series of quests just like other RPGs. As of the making of this guide, there are over 250 quests in Enshrouded! You have many different types, main story (flame), side quest, survivor quest, Lore Quest, and more. However, progression isn’t tied to the “main story” or Flame Quest and isn’t your entire focus of the game.

You advance the game by upgrading your Flame Level (more on this next), side quests and explorations can often lead you to key NPCs and craftspeople needed to progress or make new items, equipment, and gear. For instance, once you unlock the Blacksmith, you can progress his quest chain until you get a Glider and Grappling Hook. This will allow for more story options and movement abilities.

But it doesn’t stop there! You will continue to expand Craftspeople and NPC at your base and soon have tons of questing options. The point of this tip is, don’t just focus on the “main” story quest or Flame Quest. Often times progression, powerful equipment, or upgrading your Glider is given by a NPC not associated with the main story. Embrace what Enshrouded is all about, exploring and not rushing the main story because the game doesn’t reward that type of gameplay.

#2 Ignoring Flame Level

That leads us to the second mistake and that’s ignoring your Flame Level. The gameplay loop in Enshrouded isn’t completing quests as I mentioned, it’s upgrading your Flame Altar. While Enshrouded is listed as a Survival RPG, exploration is at it’s core and the developers want you to explore. As you venture out you will notice the Shroud, which will give you a timer countdown and staying inside will cause you to die. Deadly shroud, which is red, will count down rapidly giving you only a few seconds to leave. Your main goal is to upgrade your Flame Altar so you can explore the deadly shroud, which turns into just normal shroud.

You start to leap frog, going from a new area, unlocking new recipes and materials, then back to upgrading your flame altar, and yet back to the same process of exploration, new stuff, new quest, and so on. This is the heart of Enshrouded, exploration, not checking off quest on your list.

Therefore, after you get past the start of the game, always prioritize what you need to upgrade your altar. Or if you’re a returning player, what’s holding you back? It’s almost always one of two things; monster heads or materials. Usually you need to kill one boss in the newly discovered area like the Fell Dragon Youngling or a hard to find material needs to be collected en mass.

You can even pin the materials list so it’s constantly displaying what you need to find in your User Interface. The TLDR is this, if you’re stuck, upgrade your flame. Find a new area, gather new materials, and rinse and repeat until you reach the final area of the game.

#3 Not Carrying a Altar

Great, so you are ready to set out and explore conquering Enshrouded! Before you leave your first base, make sure you bring at least two items with you: another Flame Altar and a Workbench (for field repairs). As you progress your flame altar level, you will be allowed to use multiple Flame Altars (up to 10 currently). This helps act as fast travel points, not necessarily building every single base.

Therefore, before you venture out into a new area, make sure there is room for one additional Flame Altar. Go into manual crafting and build one alongside a Workbench. Explore until you are filled with materials, and place your Flame Altar. You can then travel back, deposit all of your stuff. You’ll want to again create another Flame Altar and deactivate the second one (furthest point). That way, you can keep exploring and placing the new altar the furthest point you traveled.

This leap frog approach allows you to constantly keep pushing your exploration further. If you die, no worries just go back to the Flame Altar furthest point and keep exploring. You just want to make sure to have extra Flame Altars in your inventory and deactivate the one you are only using as a fast travel point. To that end, make sure to activate “return beacons.” They look like little Flame Shrines but will grant you a revive point if you die. Often times, just walk up to them and they will give a bright glow and activate. This allows you to travel back as a respawn without having to use a Flame Altar. It’s insurance policy if you die randomly to fall damage (like me).

#4 Nighttime Materials

Next, you’ll start to explore and notice that Enshrouded has a day and night cycle. When the game first launched, most if not all of the materials were found throughout the day or night. Not anymore! In fact, I got stuck for hours and hours when Veilwater Basin came out looking for Passionflower. Well, now the game has specific materials that will only show up at night. So, if you’re stuck on a material to upgrade your altar, don’t skip night time by resting, it might just be exactly what you need.

An extra tip here is crafting and using Wisp of Light in conjunction with a flame wand. Sometimes your torch will run out of durability and you won’t be able to see a thing. Wisp of Light gives you five minutes of light in the darkness and it even works under water! These are crafted at the Alchemist and are super helpful throughout the entire game. Even bringing a small flame wand will shimmer a spark at the end, helping with visibility. It’s not going to be as good as a torch, but if you’re a beginner and get 30 seconds of torch time, equip that Polymath’s Wand to get a bit of a glow.

#5 Skipping Towers (Ancient Spires)

Once you reach a new sector of the map, one of your first priorities is to find and unlock the Tower or Spire. You will have to complete a small puzzle and typically a quest to unlock, but once you do, it acts as a travel point. You can fast travel, jump from a high point and explore the map much faster than sprinting on the ground.

While some towers are obvious, others are not so noticeable in the sky or at night time. That’s where Ancient Obelisk come in! These are lore objects that do more than give you a lore unlock, but they also mark points of interest on your map. Specifically, Shroud Roots and Elixir Wells as well as Ancient Spires. Sometimes you get quests for Obelisks or just discover them while exploring. Make it a priority because it helps find everything of note in the area.

Also remember, Shroud Roots and Elixir Wells give you skill points for destroying them (first time only). So, if you want the most skill points possible, it’s not about just reaching max level of 45, but clearing all the Shroud Roots and Elixir Wells in each zone.

#6 Not Marking Resource Routes

Another tip when you find that annoying Iron Ore deposit or a Coal Mine, make sure to mark it on your map. You need to label things in a system to make sense to you, but the developers allow over 1,000 map markers! What I recommend you do is mark each hard to find resource and color code it with a mineral deposit, but also mark silver and gold chests. While you won’t always need to farm the chest, it gets you in the habit of marking them so you can go and check if you are looking for specific weapons or need runes to upgrade other weapons in the future. More on chests later!

#7 Overbuilding Your First Base

The biggest beginner mistake I made was building my first base, the one just side of the intro quest, as my “main” base. I figured hey, I’m here next to another fast travel point, might as well build a flame altar as part of the intro quest? While yes that’s useful for the starting quest, the idea is, you want your main base either at an attractive location visually for fun, or practical near all the latest and greatest materials (currently Veilwater Basin).

After about 400 hours of gameplay, I moved all of my stuff from the original base and used it as a farm for growing crops and animal material harvesting. Now when I jump out of my main base, I find the best end-game materials, enemies, and relevant quest rather than level 1 stuff where I decided to lazily park my gear.

Another quick tip here, don’t overbuild non-magical chests. If you’re brand new to Enshrouded, regular chest (small chest) don’t recognize materials stored inside when you go to craft items. Thus, you have to go to each chest, pull out items in your inventory which is probably full already, craft, then store. Once you unlock magical chests early, the game will recognize what’s inside of those chests and save you countless amounts of time doing the chest shuffle, aka sorting through 100 tiny chest for a Chamomile flower to make potions.

#8 Using Default Scaffolding

When you go to build your base, you don’t need scaffolding to reach higher spots. What you do is create rough stone blocks at your workbench for stone. Pull up your Construction Hammer and enter build mode (tab). Go to the Foundations 4m section and build a stairs. You can build these in the air and jump, climb, cross and get all sorts of creative with the position. Once you’re done, simply deconstruct it and retain the materials without building goofy scaffolding so you look like you’re on a construction site.

Another pro-tip I learned from a friend is using Foundations to clear areas. With the Foundation blocks, ou can place it in the side of a mountain or hill as long as your flame altar is there, then remove it and retain the material. That area will then be destroyed along with anything in the way. Therefore, you can blow through massive amounts of material when at a new area or your main boss without having to manually dig, cut, etc through the terrain. Just build and remove foundations, then rinse and repeat to get the perfect symmetry for your new home.

#9 Farming Chest Before Level 50

You should be upgrading your gear as you progress via the Craftspeople and random drops you find. Craftspeople are best for upgrading armor while random drops from chest usually contain the best weapons. However, don’t freak out about min-maxing your build at level 12. You will out grow the weapon, gear, and items very quickly and likely result in a massive amount of time wasted.

Instead, wait until you are at the very end of the game and mark chest in the area (max level is 45 weapons, upgraded to 50). Then, you can loot the chest and check back every 30-60 minutes of in game time for them to be respawn. Also, don’t bother upgrading your weapons at the Blacksmith too often. The bonuses get progressively more expensive with Runes which are also used to respec and change skills. Maybe the first two are useful while leveling, but save those Runes when you can because they come in handy at end-game when multiple weapons need to be maxed out.

#10 Picking a Build

Next it comes to picking a build in Enshrouded and you should have a focus. Unlike other RPGs, you can pick whatever skills you want and use whatever weapon type. Think of builds as weapon usage first, then skills. So, if you’re going to use a Wand, focus on the Battlemage skill tree. If you like the Staff, use the Wizard. Two-handed Barbarian and so on.

You can also mix and match skill lines and there is a lot of cross over between the two. The Blink and Emergency Blink skill I suggest on every build because it dramatically increases your mobility. Also, Dessert Stomach from Survivor tree makes a huge difference at end-game getting one extra food slot. You can always use our build guides with step by step progression, but focus on one main weapon type, and one main stat to increase like Wand and Intelligence.

#11 Ignoring Essential Mobility Skills

If there are three skills to make your life in Enshrouded better it’s Double Jump, Updraft, and Airborne. Every build I take these three skills because they make such a difference in quality of life. Double Jump specifically, seems obvious but double jumping even at a low level means you can spam jump to get away from enemies and reach higher ground. You can then slam down with a melee build and the Crash Down skill, giving you an early advantage.

Airborne helps with infinite gliding from Ancient Spires and exploration while Updraft gives you a boost mid air with mana. You can combo all three of these skills while standing still, exploring on a flat surface. Double jump in the air, glide, and immediately hit glide again to trigger Updraft. Your character will zip up into the area and travel much faster than simply running. And if you have the mana pool to do it again, you can and rinse and repeat, making a much faster way to travel which is super useful on every single character.

#12 Ignoring Rested Buff

The rested buff in Enshrouded is one of the best ways to increase your movement and or survivability. This buff gives you increased stamina and stamina regeneration, useful in every movement like gliding, sprinting, or dodging. Without it, your stamina bar feels small and recharges slowly, making combat, escaping the Shroud, and long-distance travel very difficult.

To gain the buff, you must be in an area that meets three conditions:

Shelter: You must have a roof over your head (inside a player-built house, a pre-existing structure, or even a small cave).
Warmth: You must be close to a source of fire (like your Flame Altar, a Campfire, or a Fireplace).
Comfort: You must have at least 1 point of Comfort (provided by basic furniture or your Flame Altar).

Once these conditions are met, the Rested buff (and its timer) will appear on your screen. Also remember, the Rested buff is removed immediately upon death. This is why dying makes the game suddenly feel much harder; you lose your best mobility advantage. So, upon death or if you run out of time, go back to your base and re-establish your max Rested Buff before setting out.

#13 Comfort Level

How long you have rested is determined by your Comfort level. Each level of comfort adds one minute to the rested buff, and it can be increased with unique furniture category within the range of your flame altar. Meaning, you can build objects to increase your comfort in your house which will help you in combat. Here’s a list of some comfort items to build:

Category Example	Item Example (Higher Comfort)	Comfort Provided
Beds	Large Boreal Wood Bed	+7
Chairs	Elegant Armchair (Tall)	+10
Side Tables	Boreal Wood Bedside Table	+6
Trophies/Paintings	Skull Trophy	+6
Fire/Illumination	Snow Lantern (or Chandelier)	+6
Base Bonus	Flame Altar (Base Comfort)	+5

Make sure to place the highest level comfort item in your main home where you rest. For instance, there are tons of monster heads to craft and hang on the wall. But the game will only take the highest per category. So if you have 20 +3 monster heads, it’s only going to increase the total by 3.

All this to say, if you have extra materials, build a fancy looking bed and put it in the corner even if you don’t use it. Things like this or even petting your dog can give you extra temporary boost and shouldn’t be skipped.

#14 Crafting Full Sets

Unlike other MMORPGs, crafting a full set of “named” gear doesn’t provide a bonus in Enshrouded. Meaning, if you craft the five pieces of the Guardian armor set, you won’t get a secret bonus. Only the bonuses listed on the individual pieces matter in Enshrouded.

Why this matters is, most of your damage comes from your hands and head slots. You find increased critical chance, and critical damage, as well as specific weapon type damage increase on these specific armor parts. Your legs and boots usually have some type of regeneration bonus leaving your chest which is mainly for stats.

Therefore, it’s often best to use a chest and leg piece from the Blacksmith even if you’re playing a Wand Battlemage build. You will gain a massive boost to HP at the cost of some mana which you likely aren’t going to need anyway. So when gearing your build, look at what we recommend on this website, or focus on head and gloves for damage, chest for stats, feet and legs for recovery.

#15 Mining Inefficiently

One of the busy work chores you have to do in survival games is harvest materials. And the one that causes you the most time consuming busy work will be mining (trust me I love digging for hours). However, there’s a right and a wrong way to dig like a pro.

First, mark your map with veins for annoying materials. Second, aim the pick axe to the center of the material not the edge. This has the highest chance to get you a big chunk of material. Also, look to take the center skills Miner and Mason which will help dig faster and a chance for extra materials. Remember you can respec specific skill points now, so if you’re going to harvest for a bit, drop a couple of combat skills for Miner. Also, always look to the blacksmith to upgrade your mining equipment. Using a Gilded (gold) Pickaxe vs. Scrappy Pickaxe is a night and day difference, not only in damage but stamina cost!

Eventually you can find items that help with Mining, even the Miner Helmet crafted at end game.

Check out More Builds for Enshrouded

Looking for the best Enshrouded builds? We’ve got you covered here!