10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is out now, a return to BioWare’s famed series after a decade. It has gotten solid enough reviews from critics, but now in fans’ hands, we’ll see what everyone makes of it.

I have put in 65 hours and a full playthrough into this game, thanks to my review copy, and I think I have some advice to share about my journey along the way. I liked the game going in blind, though there are a few important things I think you should know before you start. Here are ten things I wish I knew when I started Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

1) You Will Have More Skill Points Than You Think – I know the game makes it seem like you will be specializing in just one kind of fighting style, but there are fifty character levels and even more skill points with on-map wolf puzzles. As such, by the end, while I was say, focused on poison blades for my Rogue, between my gear and skill points I managed to become a killer archer as well. You can only pick one full specialization, but you can still become strong in other areas as well.

2) Vendor Shops Are A Hugely Important Loot Source – Obviously the biggest source of loot is going to be the 140 or so chests scattered around the map, but as you search for “dupes” to unlock rarity tiers and perks, you really, really need to keep checking in with reputation vendors as you level up the factions, as they will often have perhaps the exact thing you’re looking for in order to boost your build. Oh and remember to sell junk to vendors as that boosts your rep too.

3) Respec Everyone, Anytime – Dragon Age this time around is allowing you essentially total freedom. You can respec all of your skill points for no cost at any time. But past that, you can respec your entire companion skill tree too, and I frequently kept changing their “focused” skills (you can fully max out two of them by the end) to match my own build or the team synergy I was trying to make.

4) Match The Right Kind Of Primers And Detonations – Speaking of matching, it’s not just that you have a character with a primer and another with a detonator, there are different types. So for instance, one character would have to apply the Overwhelmed debuff on an enemy as a primer in order to be detonated by another character that can detonate Overwhelmed enemies. A character that detonates Sundered enemies won’t work, so you have to check.

5) If Combat Is A Slog, You Are Probably Underleveled Or Undergeared – I have seen people complaining about combat where you feel weak or like enemies are way too stacked with health. Not to go all “you’re playing the game wrong” but you are…probably playing the game wrong. Some bosses you find you will in fact have to go back to later unless you want to spend 35 minutes chipping their health down. Normal fights against enemies should not be a giant pain. You need to both level up in skill points but more importantly, start assembling an actual build, making sure to use gear with unlocked perks, but also things that synergistically work together. This will get more and more cohesive over time.

6) Don’t Go Insane Over Some Unreachable Chests – This drove me crazy a few times, as sometimes it will seem like reaching a chest on the map is impossible. Sometimes it…is impossible. If a chest puzzle seems too hard to be believed, there are indeed instances where either A) you simply have to go further into the level and you may wrap back around or B) you may have to return later when a path opens for a different quest. This may only happen 5-10% of the time, but it does happen.

7) Return Frequently To The Lighthouse For Great Character Moments – Stop by the Lighthouse every so often and go to both the “time expiring” rooms and the “yellow exclamation point bubble” areas. Exclamation points by themselves are quests, but the others can be fun conversations with your teammates, or often your teammates talking to each other.

8) Pick Up Literally Everything – I sort of don’t like the sheer amount of crap scattered on the ground here, but you will need it to level vendors, level up your enchantment guy and upgrade your gear. If you don’t get the vast majority of it, you can run dry pretty easily.

9) Don’t Forget To Enchant, And Keep Enchanting – Enchanting a piece of gear itself is free, and it’s a really big boost for your character in aggregate when you’re doing it across all your gear. My reminder here is both to do it in the first place, but also remember to keep doing it if you swap out your gear.

10) Do The Loyalty Quests – This one may be pretty obvious to BioWare fans, but if you want your teammates to live through…whatever’s coming, if you throw them into the fire without reaffirming their loyalty to you, things may go poorly. If you don’t care, so be it! But a lot of those quests are good in their own right.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Hero killer series and The Earthborn Trilogy.