One of the first questions you need to ask yourself when it comes to creating your character in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is what class you want to play as. Unlike the actual design of your character, your choice here is permanent, even if you can respec you various abilities and Specialization at any point. Whether it be to take up the sword and shield, or go wild with a Great Axe, the Warrior is for those who like to wade into battle and cause mayhem to their foes. Keep reading to learn everything there is to know about the Warrior.

Table of Contents¶

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The Warrior’s Weapons¶

The first thing you have to decide upon when choosing the Warrior Class is whether you want to play as a more defensive melee combatant using a shield to protect yourself and make parrying much easier, or a Two-Handed destroyer that charges into battle to swing your weapon around and deal heavy area-of-effect damage. While you can respec at any time and switch between either weapon setup with a click of a button, you’ll still want to focus on one or the other.

One-Handed Weapon and Shield¶

The default setup for the Warrior is a Sword and Shield (or one-handed Axe) and this is the tank-style for Warrior. You won’t deal as much damage as other melee focused Classes, such as the Two-Handed Warrior or any of the Rogue Specializations, but you will soak up damage like no other Class. By holding down the [L1]/[LB] button, you can ready your shield and decrease incoming damage, better yet, time your button press just as a regular enemy attack is about to hit for Prefect Defense that opens up your foe for a counter. This is important for players focusing on this playstyle as many of the more defensive options for the Warrior revolve around getting various buffs during Perfect Defense.

When it comes to Specializations, the Champion is the natural fit for players that favor this more defensive playstyle. What’s more, you’ll unlock the Unbroken Finale Trait along the way, which adds a powerful Shield finisher to your attack combos. While using this playstyle, consider wearing full heavy armor for the mastery bonus, this will help you to become a more effective tank.

Two-Handed Weapon¶

For those of you who wish to forsake a bit of defense and go all out on offense, the Two-Handed Warrior is your playstyle. You’ll lose access to the defensive stance with your shield out, but you’ll gain powerful charge attacks that deal heavy damage if timed well and paired with Rage regeneration skills. The biggest hurdle to get over, especially if you’ve been playing with the One-Handed weapons a lot, is just how much slower the Warrior is, a necessary sacrifice for the increased damage you will deal.

Both of the other two Specializations for the Warrior is a good fit for those using a Great Axe or Maul, but the Slayer especially truly shines with this playstyle, with the Trait you unlock just before it, Rolling Thunder, adding a powerful finisher to your charged attacks that can deal massive damage, just be sure you have an opening first. When it comes to armor mastery, consider wearing full medium armor, you’re sacrificing further defense but the increase in damage across all of your abilities is well worth the trade-off.

Generating and using Rage¶

Like all of the Classes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you’ll have a Class resource to manage, and for the Warrior, that’s Rage. This resource is generated by attacking your enemies, and will gradually decline when not attacking an enemy or not in combat. In the early stages of the adventure, this will mean that generating enough Rage for your abilities will feel very slow indeed, but this is soon remedied as you progress.

One of the first things any Warrior should look to do is to learn the Enduring Rage Greater Passive skill, this can be found in the Abilities section of the skill tree (the bottom right). With this learned, your Rage will no longer drop below 50 out of combat, this doesn’t sound like much, but being able to begin every combat encounter with an ability makes a huge difference, especially if it’s used to detonate a primer.

Beyond this, there are many other skills you can purchase that either increases the speed of Rage generation or your maximum Rage in general. There are two passives in the Abilities and Grey Warden sections of the skill tree that increase generation, and two passives in the Weapons and Abilities section that increase maximum Rage, these should be priorities.

Finally, you’ll come across many pieces of equipment and enchantments that can offer ways to increase your Rage generation, if you’re a Two-Handed Warrior especially, these should be your highest priority on any gear you get.

Warrior Specializations¶

The three Classes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard all have three Specializations they can train in one they hit Level 25 and reach a specific part of the skill tree. While your choice is not permanent, you’ll want to consider spreading your points around in the general direction of your chosen Specialization so you can train it at Level 25.

Champion Specialization¶

This is the Class for you if you’re a big fan of the One-Handed Weapon and Shield style mentioned above. This is the defacto tank Class of Dragon Age: The Veilguard and as such, you’ll want to make sure you grab the Heavy Armor Mastery passive along the way. Many of the skills found in this specialization will also buff your Fire and Burning damage, so look to favor that with your gear too.

The Ultimate skill, Warden’s Fire, deals massive Fire damage over a large area, useful for when you’re up against large groups of Darkspawn. The new ability, Blight Bane, costs 100 Rage and will deal Fire damage over an area while detonating Weakness, handy if you bring Mage Companions along for the ride.

There will be two ways you can take your skills from that point, going up will focus on skills that increase the damage your Fire skills do and add more Burning stacks, giving you a lot more offense as the Champion. Heading down is all about defense, increase your overall defense and health, while also allowing you to use Perfect Defense on unblockable attacks. This is one of the strongest reasons to go for a Champion!

Reaper Specialization¶

The Reaper is the Specialization for those of you that favor the risk-reward playstyle of the Warrior. While you can perfectly get by with more offensive Two-Handed style, the One-Handed Weapon and Shield style works really well for the Reaper due to having abilities that increase the effectiveness of Shield Toss. The whole theme of the Reaper is to leech health from your enemies while applying Necrotic damage and enhancing projectile attacks.

The Ultimate skill, Necrotic Fury, deals large Necrotic damage over a huge area while inflicting Siphon on any enemy it hits, granting your health back from damage dealt to them. The aptly named Reaper skill will cost you 100 Rage and deal Necrotic damage over a large arc, also inflicting Siphon and detonating Weakness.

There are two paths you can take from here with the Reaper, with the upper path focusing on your projectile prowess. These skills will add afflictions to your Shield Toss, increase the overall charges of it and cause you to spawn a Necrotic projectile that follows enemies whenever you kill one. The path to the right will focus on skills that increase your leeching abilities, increasing how much you get back and the damage you inflict based on your current health.

Slayer Specialization¶

The Slayer is the Specialization for those of you that want to grab a big weapon and go wild with your attacks, favoring those that are using a Two-Handed weapon. The Ultimate skill, For Gold and Glory, will see you leap to an area of your choice and deal massive Physical and Stagger damage in a wide area. Heroic Leap is similar in nature to the Ultimate, but only costs 50 Rage and will disrupt your targets while also detonating weakness.

As with the other Specializations, there are two paths that you can take from here, with the left path focusing on increasing your Charged Attacks, such as changing Smash abilities to be recognized as a Charged Attack and generating more Rage from them. The path to the right focuses on increasing your overall Weapon Damage, adding a new Final Attack to sprint attacks and granting you the ability to recover health whenever you spend Rage.

There you have it; you now know the basics about the Warrior Class in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, this should help your choice paralysis during Character Creation on if the Warrior is the playstyle for you. For further reading, check out our build guides for specific Specializations.