Best Dragon Age: The Veilguard Death Caller Build

Discover how to create the best Death Caller 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 Death Caller builds in Dragon Age: The Veilguard and explain critical choices: factions, specialization, companies, skills, and more.

Everything About Death Caller Build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Death Caller build largely involves casting spells from a distance and chaining certain combos for the maximum effect. The Mage Necrotic Death Caller build leans heavily into compounding multiple stacks of Necrotic damage and unlike the duelist, this build is more or less entirely ranged. A key tactic is sustaining the beam attack whilst keeping the Mana as high as possible. It combines ice and necrotic abilities for the deadly mix of afflictions and HP regeneration.

Cripple your foes and freeze them in place with this build. However, these abilities and other skills require a long cooldown timer and offer medium range in combat. If you’re a Mage player and want to dominate the combat with the ice and Necrotic abilities, then this build is for you.

Death Caller Build Pros	Death Caller Build Cons
Survival	Medium Range
AOE Damage	Long Cooldowns
Heavy Attack Channel	Slow

Deather Caller Build Features and Mechanics in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

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

• Arcane Bomb: Arcane Mark builds up over time when you perform Light Attacks with your Orb. It turns into Arcane Bomb, which Heavy Attacks can trigger.
• Mana: Mana is the Mage class specific resource that generates automatically overtime.
• Block: Successful blocks will cost the Mage some of their Mana resource, which can get eaten up quickly.
• Heavy Attack: Shot a bolt of energy at your enemy, also used to trigger Arcane Bombs.
• Faction: Shadow Dragons
• Race: Elf
• Active Skills
  • Ability 1: Frost Nova
  • Ability 2: Dark Squall
  • Ability 3: Spirit Bomb
• Ultimate: The Crypt’s Herald
• Specialization: Death Caller
• Best Companions: Harding, Davrin
• Runes
  • Regroup
  • Crystallized
  • Overflow

Arcane Bomb

In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the Mage class can use their Orb weapon to inflict a target with Arcane Marks by hitting it with light attacks. After enough damage has been dealt, generally after about three hits, the Arcane Mark turns into an Arcane Bomb.

Then, you can use your heavy attack to trigger the bomb into an explosion of damage. This is something you should take advantage of in a close melee fight while you are waiting for you abilities to come back from cooldown.

Mana

Mana is the class resource that Mages generate and use in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and you can see the bar directly below your slotted abilities in the HUD. Some Mage abilities will have an associated cost of Mana, generally two ‘pips’ or more. Furthermore, using a skill will eat up your full bar early on in the game.

Therefore, you will not want to have more than two Mana cost abilities on your bar for the first half of the game. Your Mana bar will grown in size, but this will take time leveling. Additionally, as you level you want to look for passives and traits on the Mage skill tree which will help boost the generation of Mana.

Block

As a Mage you can block in two ways. First, if you are wielding your staff, a block will generate a magical orb of defense that surrounds you. Secondly, if you are using your orb and dagger, you will block with your physical weapon. These can both be triggered by the same block keybind, so don’t worry about swapping between weapons just for a block.

However, successfully blocking an attack will cost some of your Mana resource. Moreover, if you have to block successive attacks, this can entirely use up this precious resource. It’s best to only use a block if you have to. Retreat to range away from enemy mobs and let your mana regenerate.

Heavy Attack

The heavy attack action for Mage’s in Dragon Age: The Veilguard requires a longer animation and cast time, but generates a stronger hit. With your staff, you will cast a powerful charge of elemental magic depending on the damage type of your weapon. On the other hand, with your dual-wield weapons you will make a large slash with your dagger. Additionally, the heavy attack is what triggers the explosion of an Arcane Bomb. Therefore, be strategic about your use of the Heavy Attack and only fire it when you are trying to execute a specific effect like this.

Best Faction

Shadow Dragons is the best faction to choose because the Resourceful bonus grants you faster resource generation. This is a use bonus for any class but is highly recommended for mages with high-damage abilities. You will need a lot of Mana to cast your strongest abilities.

The secondary choice is The Mourn Watch, because of the Acute Afflictions bonus that allows you to apply an additional affliction stack on targets. A mage build can especially benefit from this by using various elemental spells that can inflict burning or chilling. Various abilities can also inflict Overwhelming and Weakening, which companions can detonate.

Below are all the bonuses for the Shadow Dragons and Mourn Watch factions in Dragon Age the Veilguard:

Shadow Dragons Bonuses	Mourn Watch Bonuses
Light in the Dark: gain reputation with the Shadow Dragons more quickly	Recognized Name: Gain reputation with the Mourn Watchers more quickly
Never to Rise: deal increased damage vs. Venatori	Return to the Grave: Deal increased damage vs. Undead and Demons
Resourceful: your class-specific resource regenerates slightly faster	Acute Afflictions: You can apply an additional affliction stack on targets

Factions give you three bonuses in character creation and reputation in Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd when you ally with them as part of the larger conflict. There are six factions to choose from, and you can’t change the faction once you select it. Faction reputation is used in the faction-specific stores to purchase weapons and armor.  Select the faction of their choice based on story narrative vs. a small bonus on a battlefield.

Best Race

Elf (Elves) is the best race for the Mage build because of their naturally strong connection to the Fade. The Elven people in the current Dragon Age games are descended from a formally powerful civilization that had once contained magical wonders beyond imaging. Even so many years after its destruction, the lineage of the Elves still makes them formidable Mages.

Your best secondary choice for race in Death Caller build is Humans. Humans are the most versatile race in Thedas, capable of being powerful warriors, cunning rogues, or adept mages.

In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, your choice of race will be mostly based on your roleplay choices, as well as what you like the look of best. In The Veilguard, no stat bonuses are connected to the individual races. Therefore, your race choice largely influences the story, dialogue choices, and how the world responds to you.

Finally, the Dwarven race is the one exception to the rule of ‘any race, any class’ in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. If you wish to play as a Dwarf, you cannot choose the Mage class. This is due to the lore and history of the Dwarven race, where they cannot dream and lack any magical ability.

Best Skills and Abilities

The best Death Caller skills in Dragon Age: The Veilguard are Frost Nova, Dark Squall, and Spirit Bomb.

Spirit Bomb is a duration blast type ability that apply siphon to an enemy and connects you to them dealing Necrotic damage before exploding the target dealing more damage the longer you are connected.

Dark Squall is another projectile spell that you can use as a crowd control skill. When it hits, it will knock back your enemy, and it is a great way to get an attacking enemy away from you. It does not have a Mana cost but has a long cooldown of 60 seconds. Therefore, you’ll need to make strategic choices about when to use it.

Frost Nova is a fantastic crowd control skill that bursts and area of frozen ground around you. This will inflict any enemy standing inside of it with Frozen, and will freeze them in place so you can your companions can get in some easy DPS. However, when you have the extra skill points you should grab with Wall of Fire ability. Swap this out for Frost Nova whenever you are facing enemies resistant to cold damage.

Mortal Concentration is the best trait for the Death Caller build because it enhances the player’s Ranged attack if sustained, for a maximum of 3 seconds.

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

• Abilities
  • Skill 1: Frost Nova
  • Skill 2: Dark Squall
  • Skill 3: Spirit Bomb
• Ultimate: The Crypt’s Herald

Best Specialization

The Death Caller’s build unique ability and ultimate:

• Spirit Bomb: Drain enemies’ health, then throw absorbed life back to enemies that create an explosion. Enemies will receive damage by hitting with the explosion and also deal 518 Necrotic damage.
• The Crypt’s Herald: When activated, it lets you hover around in the air, draining enemies around you in an AOE for Necrotic damage. This restores your health as you damage enemies, making it an ultimate ability for both offensive and defensive use. After its duration ends, you explode, dealing further Necrotic damage in an AOE.

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 at any time to redo your skills and specializations.

Level Progression

Our leveling progression section for the Death Caller build is to provide you with a step-by-step leveling guide, 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 advanced 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.

Complete a basic puzzle or interact with the altars to gain one skill point as a reward. You will gain 15 skill points by simply tracking down all 15 altars in the game. Unselect the purchased skills to refund individual skill points, which will not cost you anything. Once you reach a max level and get all the Fen’Harel altars then you will get a total of 67 skill points that help you to unlock 40-45% of the skill tree.

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. 

Levels 1 – 10

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

Level	Skill	Tree	Type
1	Mortal Concentration	Center	Trait
2	Charging Spirit	Center	Trait
3	Frost Nova	Control	Ability
4	Frostbite	Control	Passive
5	Frost Shield	Control	Greater Passive
6	Shellbreaker	Shadow Dragons	Passive
7	Imbued Takedown	Shadow Dragon	Greater Passive
8	Underestimated	Shadow Dragon	Passive
9	Dark Squall	Shadow Dragon	Ability
10	Meditation	Shadow Dragon	Passive

Levels 11 – 20

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

Level	Skill	Tree	Type
11	Bulwark	Mourn Watch	Passive
12	Death Frost	Mourn Watch	Greater Passive
13	Death’s Blessing	Mourn Watch	Passive
14	Imbued Duration	Mourn Watch	Greater Passive
15	Necessary Steps	Mourn Watch	Passive
16	Corrupted Ground	Mourn Watch	Ability
17	Insidious Rot	Mourn Watch	Passive
18	Channeled Thoughts	Mourn Watch	Greater Passive
19	Save	Mourn Watch	Ability
20	Death Caller The Crypt’s Herald Spirit Bomb	Death Caller	Spec Ultimate Ability

Levels 21 – 30

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

Level	Skill	Tree	Type
21	Death’s Blessing	Death Caller	Passive
22	Restless Spirits	Death Caller	Greater Passive
23	Fade Strike	Center	Greater Passive
24	Quick Recovery	Center	Greater Passive
25	Elemental Catalyst	Burst	Greater Passive
26	Fade Conduit	Burst	Passive
27	Breathing Room	Mourn Watch	Greater Passive
28	Time Management	Mourn Watch	Greater Passive
29	Enervation	Mourn Watch	Passive
30	Collateral Damage	Mourn Watch	Greater Passive

Best Companions for Death Caller

The best companions for a Mage build are Harding and Davrin because of their ability to combo sundered and overwhelm. Harding can deal with a lot of staggers with her abilities and also has a damage buff ability. She’s critical for your combos and can detonate your overwhelm infliction and apply sundered.

Davrin can play defense for your whole party by using the skill Battle Cry to taunt enemies and keep pressure off of you. Additionally, his skill ‘In War, Victory’ can provide Rook a temporary invincibility buff to keep you alive. A more damage-focused tank would be Taash, though it would have lower survivability.

Companion 1: Harding

• Active Skills and Abilities
  • Ability 1: Adrenaline Rush
    • Flex: Seismic Shot
  • Ability 2: Heavy Draw
  • Ability 3: Shred
• Primer Ability: Shred (for applying Sundered)
• Detonator Ability: Heavy Draw (for detonating Overwhelmed)

Companion 2: Davrin

• Active Skills and Abilities
  • Ability 1: Battle Cry (Taunt)
  • Ability 2: Death From Above
  • Ability 3: Heroic Strike
    • Flex: In War, Victory
• Primer Ability: Heroic Strike (Overwhelm)
• Detonator Ability: Death From Above (Weakened)

Best Equipment, Items, Weapons

Look for items that boost your mana regeneration, elemental damage, and resistance.

Gear Slot	Best Item	Best Upgrades
Main Hand	Glacial Rod	Weapon Damage
Off-Hand	Spellcaster’s Stiletto	Barrier Damage
Alternate Weapon	Veilsong	Stagger
Helmet	Carastes Double Hat	Mana Regeneration
Armor	Dalish Wraps	Mana Regeneration
Belt	Tincture Kit	Healing
Amulet	Sightless Skull	Boosts Control Abilties
Ring 1	Glacial Talus	Mana Regeneration
Ring 2	Band of Smoke	Cold Damage

Best Runes

The best Rune for the Reaper Mage build in Dragon Age the Veilguard is Surge because it has both an active and passive trait that greatly boost your mana regen. Secondly, Vivify not only passively boosts your mana regeneration but triggers the active effect that will instantly restore all of your ability cooldowns. Additionally, using your next ability is free.

Finally, the Overflow rune is a great choice for survivability, with a great passive that increases the amount of potions you can carry by one. Crystallize is also a good rune for mages that helps with crowd control, acting as a free cast of Frost Nova. Another flex option is Regroup, which refreshes your companion’s cooldowns instantly.

The best runes for a Reaper Mage build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard are:

• Vivify
• Surge
• Overflow

Build Summary – Death Caller

FAQs About Death Caller Build in Dragon Age The Veilguard

Question 1: What faction should I pick for a Death Caller build?

Answer: Shadow Dragons is the best faction to choose for the Death Caller build your class-specific resource regenerates slightly faster and deals increased damage in combat.

Question 2: Does race matter in Dragon Age the Veilguard?

Answer: Race is a part of Rook’s identity as their Dragon Age class or faction, and their ancestry can affect dialogue choices in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The selection of race to play will also determine the story and how the world at large responds to you.

Question 3: Can builds be changed in Dragon Age the Veilguard?

Answer: There are certain things like appearance that you can change. However, you are unable to change the faction after picking up one and you can change the specialization but not the class.

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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