Best Dragon Age: The Veilguard Warrior Build

Discover how to create the best Warrior build for Dragon Age the Veilguard, including faction, skills, companions, level progression, and more!

BioWare’s fourth installment of their hit series, Dragon Age the Veilguard, features deep character customization and build options. Players can earn skill points from level 1 to 50, selecting active, passive, traits, and ultimate abilities. Each protagonist, “Rook,” can bring two party members (companions) in exploration and combat, each with their own skills and equipment.

This guide will walk you through the best Warrior builds in Dragon Age: The Veilguard and explain critical choices: factions, specialization, companies, skills, and more.

Note: This guide is a work in progress and will be updated frequently as we level it to 50.

Everything About the Warrior Build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

In Dragon Age: the Veilguard, the Warrior class fulfills the role of your sturdy and durable tank character. Like other RPGs, this class has a unique taunt mechanic that forces enemies to attack you. Additionally, the Warrior has unique buffs that aid the group in combat and is a great choice for players wanting to fight at the front lines in combat. Furthermore, BioWare gave you a range damage option with a shield throw. Thus, the Warrior isn’t entirely melee and uses a sword and shield, which can be swapped to a Two-Handed weapon.

The strength of the Warrior class is its high survivability, crowd control, and buffs to your party. However, you will have lower damage and a slower combat pace than the Rogue. The resource mechanic for the Warrior is the easiest to master, and it generates Rage when hit or hitting a target. Rage (like mana) fills up, and then you can use your skills. Mages and Rogues have a harder time using skills, so players need to be aware of this strength within the Warrior class.

Players should choose the Warrior if they like the prototypical melee damage dealer at the center of combat and the story in Dragon Age.

Warrior Build Pros	Warrior Build Cons
High Survivability	Lower Damage
Group Buffs	Support Focused
Crowd Control	Slower Pace

Features and Mechanics for the Build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

The following list presents all the essential Warrior Build Features and Mechanics in Dragon Age The Veilguard:

• Faction: Grey Wardens
• Race: Human
• Active Skills
  • Ability 1: Driving Kick
  • Ability 2: Bloody Advance
  • Ability 3: Blight Bane
• Ultimate: Warden’s Fire
• Trait: Shield Volley
• Specialization: Champion
• Best Companions: Emmrich and Bellara
• Runes: work in progress

Best Faction

The best faction for a Warrior build is the Grey Wardens because of the Vigilant Training passive, increasing base defense and health. Additionally, the Grey Wardens gain increased damage vs. darkspawn and fit the narrative of a heroic warrior battling monsters. A secondary choice is the Lords of Fortune because their Relentless bonus increases takedowns (stuns). The Lords of Fortune factions are adventurous treasure hunters and fit a character’s background who loves exploration and loot.

Below are all the bonuses for the Grey Wardens and Lords of Fortune factions in Dragon Age the Veilguard:

Grey Wardens Bonuses	Lords of Fortune Bonuses
Bonded in Blood: Gain reputation with the Grey Wardens more quickly	Together in Glory: Gain reputation with the Lords of Fortune more quickly
Blight Killer: Deal increased damage vs. darkspawn	Healthy Competition: Deal increased damage vs. mercenaries
Vigilant Training: Base defense and health are slightly increased	Relentless: Perform takedowns on enemies with slightly less effort

In Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd, factions give you three bonuses in character creation and reputation when you ally with them as part of the more significant conflict. There are six factions to choose from, and this choice cannot be changed once made. Faction reputation is used in the faction-specific stores to buy weapons and armor. Ultimately, players should select the faction of their choice based on story narrative vs. a small bonus in combat.

Best Race

The best race for the Warrior build is humans because of their widespread population, political dominance, and history in Thedas. Humans are traditionally Warriors and Mages in the series and fit nicely with the Grey Warden’s faction choice, providing a solid RPG character foundation. The second choice would be the Qunari, who look physically daunting and are skilled in martial arts. Qunari are a race governed by the Qun code, dedicating their lives to discipline.

Your race choice largely influences the story, dialogue choices, and how the world responds to you. There are four playable races in Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Elf, Qunari, Human, and Dwarf. Each of these races has a rich history and lore within Thedas. Your race choice largely influences the story, dialogue choices, and how the world responds to you. Furthermore, you will not receive a combat bonus or passive for a given race. Your race selection is purely cosmetic and narrative, so feel free to deviate from our recommendation.

Best Skills and Abilities

The best skills are Driving Kick, Bloody Advance, and Blight Bane.

Driving Kick skill deals physical damage, costs one Rage, and detonates weakened status effect. This skill pairs well with your companion Emmrich’s skill, Entangling Spirits, or Bellara’s skill, Enfebbling Shot, which both apply on weekends. Another strength of Driving Kick is that it doesn’t have a cool down and stuns enemies. With both companions constantly debuffing enemies, you can frequently trigger a detonation and stun.

Bloody Advance is a projectile that costs one Rage and deals Necrotic damage while applying the Sundered status effect. Bloody Advance pairs well with Emmrich’s Final Rites skill or Bellara’s Fade Bolts, which detonate Sundered status effects.

Blight Bane is a champion specialization-specific skill that Detonates Weekend. This costs two Rage and does enormous damage in a large area. However, it also detonates Weakened, and it or Drivig Kick can be substituted for the Titan Stomp skill if you need AOE damage.

Below are the recommended skills, abilities, ultimate, and trait for Warrior build in Dragon Age the Veilguard:

• Abilities
  • Skill 1: Driving Kick
  • Skill 2: Bloody Advance
  • Skill 3: Blight Bane
    • Flex: Titan Stomp
• Ultimate: Warden’s Fire
  • Flex: Flashing Fist
• Trait: Shield Volley

Best Specialization

The Champion is the best specialization for the Warrior build because it gains defensive passives while obtaining damage ability and ultimate. The Champion passives increase fire damage, give area damage fire effect, and increase burning status effect. Therefore, you gain much more damage, aoe, and damage over time while retaining all the strength of the Warrior’s class.

The Champion’s unique ability and ultimate:

• Blight Bane Ability: An area projectile ability that costs two rages. It throws a warden Siege cluster bomb for fire damage in AOE.
• Warden’s Fire Ultimate: It unleashes a burning fire and finishes it with a rock from a trebuchet. It deals significant damage in an AOE and applies to burn enemies.

Starting at level 20, players can select one of three specializations from their class honeycomb skill tree. Specializations are similar to “subclasses,” adding one ability, one ultimate, and a variety of other passives to your build and character. Your specialization choice will be vital because it determines your character’s overall gameplay in combat. However, you can participate in the character screen anytime to redo your skills and specializations.

Level Progression

The premise of our leveling progression section for the Warrior build is to give you a step-by-step guide on which skills to take and why. However, this section is complex and requires many hours of gameplay. Therefore, this section will be a work in progress and will be updated and advance more in the game.

In Dragon Age, the Veilguard, level progressions are gained through experience points (EXP) through different activities such as completing quests and defeating enemies. You reach a higher level at certain levels of EXP, rewarding you with a skill point. The max level is 50, with 50 skill points to spend. The skill tree (honeycomb) comes in two main sections: Core class tree and specialization.

Each skill point can be spent on a variety of skills (abilities):

• Diamond Nodes: Active abilities, which you can slot three at a time
• Hexagonal: traits or passives. Traits require a button combination to execute an additional ability, while passives give you a passive bonus.
• Circular Nodes: these are minor passives like small stat points.

Therefore, each build can equip three active skills, one trait skill, and one ultimate.

Below, we have outlined our selections of skills at various levels to ensure you select the proper build. Remember that skills can be respec at anytime, so experiment if our suggestion doesn’t make sense to you and refer back to this guide at any time.

Levels 1 – 10

Work in progress will update soon.

Here’s a list of skills to select from levels 1 to 10 with the Best xxx Build in Dragon Age The Veilguard:

• Level 1:
• Level 2:
• Level 3:
• Level 4:
• Level 5:
• Level 6:
• Level 7:
• Level 8:
• Level 9:
• Level 10:

Levels 11 – 20

Here’s a list of skills to select from levels 11 to 20 with the Best xxx Build in Dragon Age The Veilguard:

• Level 11:
• Level 12:
• Level 13:
• Level 14:
• Level 15:
• Level 16:
• Level 17:
• Level 18:
• Level 19:
• Level 20:

Levels 21 – 30

Here’s a list of skills to select from levels 21 to 30 with the Best xxx Build in Dragon Age The Veilguard:

• Level 21:
• Level 22:
• Level 23:
• Level 24:
• Level 25:
• Level 26:
• Level 27:
• Level 28:
• Level 29:
• Level 30:

Levels 31 – 40

Here’s a list of skills to select from levels 31 to 40 with the Best xxx Build in Dragon Age The Veilguard:

• Level 31:
• Level 32:
• Level 33:
• Level 34:
• Level 35:
• Level 36:
• Level 37:
• Level 38:
• Level 39:
• Level 40:

Levels 41 – 50

Here’s a list of skills to select from levels 41 to 50 with the Best xxx Build in Dragon Age The Veilguard:

• Level 41:
• Level 42:
• Level 43:
• Level 44:
• Level 45:
• Level 46:
• Level 47:
• Level 48:
• Level 49:
• Level 50:

Best Companions

The best companions for a Warrior build are Emmrich and Bellara because of their skill combos from Weakened and Sundered status effects. Emmrich fills the role of range DPS with a powerful healing ability called Replenish. Moreover, Emmrich can snare, stagger, slow time, and apply weakened while detonating sundered.

Bellara, too, fills the role of a range damage dealer with a unique suck-in skill called Galvanised Tear. She also can combo Weakened and Sundered. An alternative character would be Harding, a ranged bow using Dwarf that gives a damage buff to the player and a small heal.

Companion 1: Emmrich

• Active Skills and Abilities
  • Ability 1: Final Rites
  • Ability 2: Entangling Spirits
  • Ability 3: Replenish (heal)
• Weapon: Staff
• Primer Ability: Entangling Spirits (applies Weakened)
• Detonator Ability: Final Rites (Sundered)

Companion 2: Bellara

• Active Skills and Abilities
  • Ability 1: Enfeebling Shot
  • Ability 2: Fade Bolts
  • Ability 3: Galvanized Tear (AOE Pull)
• Weapon: Bow
• Primer Ability: Enfeebling Shot (applies Weakened)
• Detonator Ability: Fade Bolts (detonates Sundered)

Best Equipment, Items, Weapons

The section is a work in progress during the release week of the game.

Beginner: Starting the Game

Gear Slot	Best Item	Best Stats	Best Properties
Main Hand
Off-Hand
Alternate Weapon
Helmet
Belt
Amulet
Ring 1
Ring 2

Advanced: Endgame

Gear Slot	Best Item	Best Stats	Best Properties
Main Hand
Off-Hand
Alternate Weapon
Helmet
Belt
Amulet
Ring 1
Ring 2

Best Runes

The section is a work in progress during the release week of the game.

Build Summary – Warrior

FAQs About Warrior Build in Dragon Age The Veilguard

Question 1: What are the main strengths of the Warrior class?

Answer: The main strengths of the Warrior class are its high survivability and crowd control. The Warrior in Dragon Age, the Veilguard, also has shield throw capabilities, giving you some range damage. Moreover, the Warrior has group buffs that can aid everyone in the party, making them critical to any party combinations.

Question 2: What weapon types can Warriors use?

Answer: The Warrior uses a Sword and Shield and can bar swap to a Two-Handed weapon like a Maul or Greatsword. Two specializations, Champion and Reaper, focus on Sword and Shield gameplay. Meanwhile, the Slayer specialization emphasizes using Two-Handed weapons for all-out damage.

Question 3: Is the Warrior class good for beginners?

Answer: The Warrior is an excellent class for beginners in Dragon Age the Veilguard because of their high health, defensive, and ease of gameplay. Specifically, your resource to cast skills and abilities, Rage, is generated when hitting an enemy or being hit. Therefore, it’s the simplest of all three classes to create resources and use skills frequently.

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• Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Backgrounds (Factions) Explained
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard – All Companions and Everything We Know
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard Classes and Specializations
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard – All Playable Races