The threat to Thedas in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is greater than anything we’ve seen before. Solas, The Dread Wolf, is attempting to tear down the Veil, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg of problems your Rook will need to deal with. Needless to say, the odds are stacked against you and you will need to use every edge you can get to find a way to overcome the odds. While the game does offer plenty of difficulty options, learning the deeper systems and mechanics will let you compete and keep up with the difficulty as it ramps up without having to change any settings. There’s a lot to absorb when diving into this world, so we’ll help you prepare with these essential tips and tricks.
Pick your class carefully, but experiment with skills
While you’re making your character, the most important choice you have is which class you will be. The three options are Warrior, Mage, and Rogue and the one you pick here is the one you will be stuck with for the rest of the game. There’s no changing classes or controlling other party members directly like in past games, so don’t take this decision lightly. If you are having trouble deciding, we can help you decide which one is right for you.
Once you have settled on your class, feel free to experiment with your build. The skill trees in Dragon Age: The Veilguard are more like bushes in how branching and intertwined they are. Ideally, you will want to move toward one of the three specializations on the edges where you will get the strongest abilities and focus your build. But, thankfully, you are never committed to any build. You can refund individual or all your skill points for free at any time and redistribute them if you don’t like how your character is shaping up, want to try a different specialization, or purchase an ability that you end up disliking. You can even change up your skills to better counter certain bosses.
Also, don’t forget to level up your companions! You need to manually go through and distribute their points as you increase your bonds with them. Just like Rook, you can always refund their points too.
Break everything
It’s time to channel your inner Link because there are thousands of boxes, pots, barrels, and carts in Dragon Age: The Veilguard that you can dash, smash, and roll through. Gold is a surprisingly rare resource, which we’ll talk about more later, and you can occasionally snag a few extra coins this way.
Mostly, you will be getting sellable materials and crafting items from these destructables that will come in handy as you go. Not every pile of boxes will have something in them, but more often than not you’ll get one or two goodies, so dash through any that happen to be in your path.
Check in with your allies
The Lighthouse will be your main hub where you and all your companions hang out between missions. Whenever you finish a main quest, stop by and pop open your map to see who is available to talk and what icons are displayed. If you see a silver clock icon next to a character’s portrait on the map, do not do anything else before going to speak to them because that is a time-sensitive conversation that can be missed if you do another quest.
Exclamation marks are also important to start early because these trigger that companion’s personal questline, which is one of the best ways to improve your relationship with them. Speech bubbles are invitations to talk about important issues and an opportunity to increase your bond.
Use your companion abilities and focus on armor/barriers
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is far more action-heavy than any prior game so you might not think to use the tactical menu all that much until you hit boss that doesn’t go down so easily. When forming your party, try to pick two characters that have abilities that prime and detonate with one another. This is the best use of companion abilities since they deal far more damage than using their skills individually. They act on cooldowns, so get in the habit of pausing the action during boss fights to maximize their effectiveness.
Also, don’t ignore when enemies have armor or barriers. You will see either a gold or blue bar over many enemy life bars that indicate they have armor or a barrier protecting their HP. Normal attacks will chip away at these bars, but very slowly compared to abilities that target those resistances specifically. Focus on stripping those barriers first using abilities dedicated to that and save your stronger attacks for when they’re vulnerable.
Take advantage of the environment
Bigger enemies with armor and a ton of HP can feel like sponges sometimes, but there is a way to erase them from the fight. Every class has some form of ability that pushes or moves enemies in some way that you can use to tactically knock them off cliffs or into water. If you line it up right, you can drop-kick an enemy right off the map in a single hit. Of course, extra-large enemies won’t get knocked around like that, and you won’t always have a cliff nearby, but take advantage of them when you do.
Be thrifty with your gold
As mentioned, gold is very hard to come by in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. You don’t get any from most quests as rewards, find only a couple of coins in chests or pickups, and mostly have to rely on selling valuables at specific shops. Even if you are thorough, you probably won’t have enough at any time to buy a full set of new gear for yourself, let alone your companions.
To save gold, don’t purchase new armor or weapons in the early game. You will be finding a ton of each as you explore and don’t want to invest in something you end up not liking. Once you do decide on a weapon you like, use your gold to upgrade it at the Workshop and purchase any duplicates of it you find at shops.
As a general rule, don’t bother buying weapons or armor for your companions. It could help, but you’ll be doing the majority of the heavy lifting in combat anyway.
Take a detour
Finally, take a break from the main quest and do some side activities. Side quests are varied and have interesting stories, plus level up your reputation with factions. Companion quests are perhaps the best part of the game, especially if you’ve grown attached to your group of heroes. But don’t ignore the benefits simply exploring different zones can have. There are hundreds of chests out there, but seek out the Evanurias Altars specifically to increase your max HP.
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