Herbology Best AoE Build - Hogwarts Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy has a potential for some creative builds… but how about something extra-creative? If you already spend some time with your Potting Table and don’t mind exercising that green thumb, you can actually turn your little hobby into quite a destructive build! Ever wondered why Professor Garlick mentioned that “Plants will take care of you as well”? Well, wonder no more: in this guide we will teach you how to play an AoE Herbology Build!

Build Talents

In the following tabs we will introduce you to the Talent Path that you will want to follow along. We will also offer some explanations behind our recommended Talent picks to assist you in making your decisions.

Remember that you can also view the Herbology AoE Build in our Talent Calculator!

Your first talent choices will often prove to be the most important! In Hogwarts Legacy, we will be able to select Talents once we get to level 5 and complete Jackdaw’s Rest. More often than not your first talent points will be spent in the Core section, to improve your build’s general functionality. Here is what we suggest for the build:

Level 5 – Basic Cast Mastery: The most important talent that you can acquire early on! This talent will allow your Basic Attacks to reduce the cooldown of your spells.
Level 6 – Spell Knowledge I: Since you will be using a variety of spells, you will want to get a new spell set slot, especially since it will get rid of a lot of pausing during combat.
Level 7 – Wiggenweld Potency I: You should pick up this talent early on to enhance the potency of your healing potions.
Level 8 – Spell Knowledge II: Adds yet another spell set slot to your arsenal, assisting you in creating a dedicated utility spell set.
Level 9 – Swift: This talent introduces a new game mechanic that will let you increase your overall survivability: it allows you to temporarily disappear and reappear shortly nearby. So, a small teleportation/dash skill, if you will.
Level 10 – Protego Absorption: Important to have very early on, but it can wait until Level 10, since you will probably get there quite quickly. Protego Absorption will grant you points towards your Ancient Magic meter whenever you use Protego. This talent will be especially powerful in our build since we base a lot of our gameplay on counters
Level 11 – Fertiliser: Now this is where our fun begins as a Herbology Build! This talent will allow you to summon an additional Chinese Chomping Cabbage. The more plants, the merrier!
Level 12 – Edurus Potion Potency: This is the talent that will make us invincible — it will be paired up with another talent later on. The Edurus Potion Potency talent will make us virtually invulnerable while using the potion and will deflect any projectile thrown your way for its duration.
Level 13 – Sense of Secrecy: A basic yet very strong talent: it allows you to reduce the detection rate of your enemies.
Level 14 – Human Demiguise: This talent will be very useful for getting through dangerous areas, as it allows you to sprint while using the Disillusionment Charm!
Level 15 – Levioso Mastery: Here is where the AoE fun begins. This talent will allow you to pick up several enemies at once with your Levioso Spell. A very powerful talent that allows you to create many combos later on.

Once you spend your first 15 Talent Points, you will gain access to stronger talents which will enhance your gameplay considerably. Here is the talent path we suggest for the build:

Level 16 – Headache: This will be the second essential talent for our Herbology Build. The Headache will increase the overall damage and the duration of the incapacitating effect of your Mandrakes!
Level 17 – Spell Knowledge III: Adding yet another Spell Set slot will be important: you will be acquiring quite a few useful Spells during your studies.
Level 18 – Revelio Mastery: You might actually find this one useful earlier on, but we chose to wait on it a little bit: this one will increase the range of your Revelio spell, letting you discover secrets and hidden items considerably easier.
Level 19 – Evasion Absorption: This talent will be very powerful, as it works in combination with Swift! Filling up your Ancient Magic meter faster will always be a great idea.
Level 20 – Wiggenweld Potency II: This talent further increases the potency of our healing potions. A must-have.
Level 21 – Stupefy Mastery: This talent will increase the stun duration of your Stupefy. Likewise a must-have, especially since we will rely on Stupefy later on for a very interesting effect.

Once you spend your first 21 Talent Points, you will gain access to the ultimate rank of talents in Hogwarts Legacy, unlocking the most powerful of effects that you can attain as a Wizard or a Witch. These talents usually come with a considerable change in your gameplay mechanics, too! Here is the talent path we recommend:

Level 22 – Noxious: Now here is where your gameplay as an Herbology Build will change entirely. Having a “Green Thumb” truly pays off in combat scenarios here, as your Venomous Tentacula will now deal increased damage and break enemy Shields! Yeah, you heard me right, our “mini-turret” now breaks Shields. Lovely.
Level 23 – Protego Mastery: This talent will be the cherry on top of the Noxious, since now your perfect Protego counters will also break enemy shields! A most welcome addition, especially on the Hard difficulty.
Level 24 – Stupefy Expertise: Now-now, we know that you have been used to using your Stupefy to merely stun your enemies… well, now it deals damage to them as well. Enjoy.
Level 25 – Transformation Mastery: Here is where the AoE component of our build gets really creative. Have you ever wished to turn Dark Wizards into living bombs? Well, now you can. Thanks to this talent and the Levioso Mastery talent, we now can have insane amounts of AoE damage.
Level 26 – Descendo Mastery: To further enhance our AoE capabilities, we will pick the Descendo Mastery here, which will create an AoE shockwave when Descendo is used. You can pair Levioso with Transformation and Descendo here to create a lovely AoE bomb.
Level 27 – Stunning Curse: Finally, this is where your Stupefy will truly shine. Remember how our build depends on our Plant Army and perfect counters? Well, your Stupefy now adds the Curse status to an enemy. What this does is enhance all forms of damage, especially those from your lovely plants. Relish the chaos.
Level 28 – Blood Curse: To make it even more fun for us, let’s throw the Blood Curse into the mix, shall we? We will now deal additional AoE damage to all targets afflicted by the Curse effect.
Level 29 – Enduring Curse: Now we will want to pick this talent as well since it increases the duration of the Curse status on our targets.
Level 30 – Curse Sapper: Remember how we told you earlier that the Edurus Potion Potency talent will make us invincible later on? Well, now you will also heal whenever an enemy afflicted by the Curse status dies.
Level 31 – Bombarda Mastery: We chose Bombarda Mastery because it contributes to your overall AoE potential, releasing a massive explosion on the cast.
Level 32 – Protego Expertise: Lastly, to further enhance your already overpowered build, you will should choose the Protego Expertise to start sending two Stupefy casts toward your enemies.

The remainder of 8 Talent Points can be applied to any talents of your choice. We suggest you spend them on spells and traits that favor your own playstyle or make exploration a little easier! Check out our main guide on Builds for some ideas.

Gear

Make sure that each of your Gear Slots has a Legendary Gear piece in it! This will allow you to get the most powerful Stats and Traits. It does not particularly matter which Legendary Gear pieces you obtain, however, the Traits you will want to acquire will be quite essential towards maximizing your damage!

You will want the following 4 Traits on your Legendary Gear:

Herbology III (Greatly increases the damage done by all of your Plants)
Deafening III (Greatly increases the damage done by Mandrakes)
Fangs III (Greatly increases the damage done by Chinese Chomping Cabbages)
Venom III (Greatly increases the damage done by Venomous Tentacula)

These last two are flexible, depending on the specifics of your build or playstyle:

Protego Shielding III (Greatly decreases damage received from Dark Wizards)
Concentration III (Greatly increases the Spell Damage of all of your Spells)

Spells

The Herbology build doesn’t depend as much on the Spells as it does on Potions and Plants, but you will still want to supplement that damage, targeting as many enemies as possible, as quickly as possible.

Our Talent picks will let us use quite a few Spells, so we will want to combine our “green friends” with some powerful Area-of-Attack spells. Keep in mind that this build will also make use of some Dark Arts Talents to boost your damage by afflicting your enemies with the Cursed effect (this will increase the damage they will receive).

Main Spells & Tools

Chinese Chomping Cabbage
Mandrake
Venomous Tentacula
Edurus Potion
Maxima Potion
Protego & Stupefy
Accio
Levioso
Descendo
Bombarda
Transformation
Disillusionment

Using the Combat Plants

(If you want to learn the basics of buying, growing, and using your green friends, check out our Combat Plants guide. We even have a location for some free Venomous Tentacula prepared for you there!)

If we dedicate to playing this build, we will need to adopt the mentality of a Summoner — let your beloved Plants tackle your enemies for you, and then aid your small plant army in conquering your enemies… with your spells!

Your approach should be using as many Plants as possible, while countering your enemies with Protego & Stupefy. Since we chose the Protego Expertise, Stunning Mastery, Stunning Expertise, and Stunning Curse talents, we will want to counter as many Spells as possible and use Stupefy to spread our Curse effect.

However, what brings this build together is not our Plants or Spells, but rather the Edurus Potion! Thanks to our Edurus Potion Potency talent, we will gain immunity to all forms of damage while also deflecting all projectiles back towards our enemies. This is extremely powerful — it practically allows you to become a walking fortress, deflecting anything thrown your way!

Always use Edurus Potions and couple it with Protego.
We will want to spread the Curse status as much as possible, since it will empower the damage done by our Plants.
It’s worth emphasizing that Venomous Tentacula will break all of your enemy’s Shields because of the Noxious talent — make use of it!
You can have up to 3x Chinese Chomping Cabbages or 3x Venomous Tentaculas around at the same time.

Our main goal will be to unleash our plant army as soon as possible while being in the range of our enemies. This can also be done while you are using the Disillusionment Charm. While you really can just throw plants to set up a trap before you engage your enemies, beware of using plants while in stealth near your enemies, as this will instantly reveal you!

While this is all fine and dandy, and your plants can take care of your enemies, you should still assist them with Accio, to bring enemies closer towards your plants and their attack range. Then, use Levioso & Descendo to deal massive AoE damage to your enemies, since we picked the Levioso Mastery talent, which picks up all enemies nearby to your main target, and the Descendo Mastery talent, which will create an AoE shockwave.

Bombarda can also be used as a form of instant AoE damage!

If this is not enough, you can also use Transformation to turn one of your enemies into a living bomb — this will add to the AoE damage, especially if the “bomb” is among the targets picked up by Levioso.

We sincerely hope you have fun playing our Herbology Build in Hogwarts Legacy! Let us know in the comment section below what crazy encounters you managed to defeat with this build. Share your own variations of the build and any tips we might have missed!