Dragon Age: The Veilguard Best Skills for Champion

Discover the Best Skills for the Champion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard including the best Survival and Weapons skills.

The Champion Specialization from the Warrior class is the prototypical “hero” in this RPG series. Passives within this skill tree can cause burning, fire damage, and detonate weakened status effects. What makes this Specialization the most powerful is its ability to add AOE and fire damage to a powerful defensive-minded class. Bloody Advance, Blight Bane, and Driving Kick are the best abilities for dominating any enemy in combat. Pick your Passive, Greater Passives, Traits, and Ability Upgrade wisely as they’re the key elements to turn the tide of victory.

Everything About Champion Build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

A fitting name for a Grey Warden inspired build that focuses as much on protection as they do on attack. This Burning Heart character build has the strongest defensive options that allow the players to survive the toughest battles in the game. This one is for providing key enhancements to your parries and fire-based attacks in combat.

The Champion Build is probably closest to the Dualist or Spellblade builds from the other classes in terms of playstyle and comes with something of a higher risk. However, failing a Parry can result in taking a lot of damage but with immediate Traits like Counterblow, you should get well practiced in this very early. This build focuses on a one-handed weapon and shield with talents that increase their survivability and defend their team. The Champion helps to lean towards fire damage making the users good against Darkspawn. For the players who are looking for better defensive options along with the fire AOE damage and more survivability on the battlefield then this build is for you.

Best Champion Skills and Abilities

Bloody Advance is the best skill to utilize because it deals necrotic damage and also applies the Sundered effect. Blight Bane is the second in line because it deals fire damage and also detonates the Weakened effect. Driving Kick is the third choice for Champion Specialization because it deals physical damage and detonates the Weakened effect.

Here are all the best Champion Skills and Abilities in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

• Survival: Good Arm: Your damage neglects all resistances when hitting an enemy with a Projectile Ability
• Weapons: Decisive Finish: Increases Charged, Agile, Final attack by damage by 10%.
• Passive: Battle Cry: Enhances the player’s Health and Defense by 10%.
• Greater Passive: Heavy Armor Mastery: Enhances the player’s Defense by 20% while wearing a Heavy Helm and Heavy Armor
• Trait: Inspiring Guard: It makes unblockable attacks be guarded by a perfect defense, granting Rally Party afterward.
• Ability Upgrade: Critical Leverage: Strike Abilities inflict critical damage against enemies at least 10 meters away.
• Ability: Blight Bane: It throws a bomb that bursts into a cluster of explosives after a short delay.

Bloody Advance

Bloody Advance (Warrior Skill) is a class that can apply the Sundered effect and deal necrotic damage. This ability pairs well with Emmrich’s Final Rites skill or Bellara’s Fade Bolts, which detonate Sundered status effects. To enhance the effectiveness of Bloody Advance’s ability and detonate the sundered effect, you should pair it with Emmrich’s Final Rites. This combo can apply and detonate the Sundered effect to allow the target to take more damage in general.

The Final Rites ability summons an envoy of the dead who explodes in a blast of necrotic energy dealing 507 necrotic damage. Use the Bloody Advance ability to apply the sundered effect and then the Final Rites ability will detonate the Sundered status effect on an enemy and have a base cooldown of 38 seconds. This combo can destroy any enemy in their path. You can also add Scourge Rune that boosts Necrotic damage by 10% and all of your weapon attacks deal Necrotic damage for 20 seconds.

Blight Bane

Blight Bane is a Champion Specialization-specific skill that Detonates Weakened. This ability lets the players throw a bomb that bursts into a cluster of explosives after a short amount of time and deals massive damage (1,098 Fire). Applies burning to enemies in a shorter radius by launching multiple explosives.

Pair the Blight Bane with Bellara’s Enfeebling Shot to apply the Weakened effect on the enemy. Bellara fires a magic-infused shot from her bow and deals 222 electricity damage to the target. It applies Weakened status effect on an enemy and has a base cooldown of 36 seconds. Once this combo is finished, activate the Regroup Rune to deal additional fire damage that allows you to drain the enemy’s health quickly. Regroup allows you to use your companions’ attacks in quick succession. Use them, activate them, and then use them again. All of your weapon attacks deal Fire damage for 20 seconds.

Driving Kick

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.

Pair the Driving Kick with Emmrich’s Entangling Spirits to apply and detonate the Weakened effect on the enemy. Emmrich summons spirits to entangle and hinder the enemies dealing 243 necrotic damage with high Stagger. It also applies a Weakened status effect on the enemy and has a base cooldown of 36 seconds. Once this combo is finished, activate the Ravage Rune to enhance the damage against enemy health, making it the best one to take down enemies in no time.

Best Specialization  

Champion is your one-hand and shield defensive Specialization that can focus on fire damage. Be the shield. Shrug off damage while summoning righteous fire down on enemies. The Champion relies mostly on fire damage and can use that element to provide buffs to the team. This Specialization primarily focuses on using improving, the perfect parry defense, and gaining an upgrade that allows the shield to absorb normally unblockable hits.

This one has some very flashy and cool moves with things like the Warden’s Fire Ultimate. Combine them to call in a barrage of arrows and then some kind of ballista or catapult strike, lots of AOE’s, and cool moves in this. If you want to lean into being more tanky and the bull walk of your team then this Specialization needs to be picked.

Using it as your main character, Rook ensures you’ll have great survivability, group utility, crowd control, and buffs for your party. This is substantially easier to manage than a Rogue which has to hit a target in combos to fill their Momentum resource. Furthermore, this one will emphasize defensive gameplay with skills to increase fire damage and fire AOE. The only downside to this Specialization is the limited range of options besides your shield and some skills.

• Faction: Grey Wardens
• Race: Human
• Active Skills
  • Ability 1: Bloody Advance
  • Ability 2: Blight Bane
  • Ability 3: Driving Kick
    • Flex: Groundbreaker
• Ultimate: Warden’s Fire
• Specialization: Champion
• Best Companions: Emmrich, Bellara

Best Survival Skills for Champion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Depth of Fury (Passive), Slam (Greater Passive), Return to Sender (Trait), Battlefield Awareness (Ability Upgrade), and Groundbreaker (Ability) are the best Survival skills.

Below are all the best Survival skills for the Champion specialization.

• Depth of Fury (Passive)- Increases Maximum rage by 50.
• Traumatize (Passive)- Increases Takedown by 15%.
• Slam (Greater Passive)- Grants an additional 20% Ultimate and 50 rage when performing a Takedown.
• Ready Guard (Greater Passive)- Grants you Deflect at the beginning of encounters.
• Return to Sender (Trait)- Deflect enemy projectiles back to them by hitting Perfect Defense.
• Battlefield Awareness (Ability Upgrade)- Grants you a 15% bonus damage every time you interrupt an enemy’s attack with a control ability.
• Good Arm (Ability Upgrade)- Allows your damage to ignore all resistances when hitting an enemy with a Projectile Ability.
• Groundbreaker (Ability)- The first strike opens the ground in a line in front of you dealing fire damage. The ground explodes open dealing fire damage and applying the burning effect.
• Titan Stomp (Ability)- An area control type ability on a 60-second cooldown. It stomps the ground dealing physical damage to those around you applying the Overwhelmed effect.

Best Weapons Skills for Champion

Decisive Finish (Passive), Incite Violence (Greater Passive), Determined Death (Trait) Fighting, and Dirty (Ability Upgrade) are the best Weapon Skills. Cleaving Strike (Ability) is also no exception to it for the Champion.

Below are all the best Weapons skills for Champion specialization in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

• Decisive Finish (Passive)- Increases Agile, Charged, and Final attack damage by 10%.
• Staggering Finale (Passive)- Increases Stagger from Final Attacks by 20%.
• Incite Violence (Greater Passive)- Increases Rage from Weapon Attacks by 15% and another 15% if the weapon attacks are targeted at Afflicted enemies.
• Executioner’s Gaze (Greater Passive)- Allows you to count final attacks as Critical Hits vs enemies with Low Health.
• Determined Death (Trait)- Allows the player to charge their final attacks, strengthening the attack. Releasing with perfect timing adds a powerful effect depending on your weapon type.
• Fighting Dirty (Ability Upgrade)- Applies Affliction by hitting enemies with a Strike the Ability, the Afflition will be aligned with the Ability’s damage type.
• Punisher (Ability Upgrade)- Increases damage against Low Health enemies when using Strike Abilities by 25%.
• Cleaving Strike (Ability)- It sweeps in a large cone in front of you dealing physical damage based on how far the targets are. The further out they are the more damage it does and also applies bleeding on hit.
• Fury of the Forge (Ability)- A strike projectile type ability that costs one rage. You summon burning steel blades to strike at enemies at range dealing fire damage and applying the burning effect.

Best Champion Passives

Battle Cry (Champion) is the best Passive to use because it increases the player’s Health and Defense by 10%. Depth of Fury (Weapons) is the second-best Passive because it increases Maximum rage by 50. Desolate Malady (Weapon) is the third in line because it only increases Affliction by 10%.

Best Champion Greater Passives

Heavy Armor Mastery (Gray Warden) is the best Greater Passive because it increases the player’s Defense by 20% while wearing a Heavy Helm and Heavy Armor. Sly Strike (Gray Warden) is the second-best Greater Passive to use because it grants 250 health and 10% Ultimate when successfully performing a Takedown. Ready Guard (Survival) is the third in line because it grants you deflect at the beginning of encounters.

Best Champion Traits

Inspiring Guard (Champion) is the best Trait to use because it makes unblockable attacks be guarded by a perfect defense, providing Rally Party afterward. Reverb (Champion) is the second-best Trait because it triggers a shockwave after a successful Perfect Defense. After that, it applies burning to enemies. Unbroken Finale (Gray Warden) is the third in line because it allows you to do a Shield Final attack at the end of their Attack Chain.

Best Champion Ability Upgrades

Critical Leverage (Weapons) is the best Trait to use because it guarantees Strike Abilities inflict critical damage against enemies at least 10 meters away. Breathing Room (Gray Warden) is the second-best Ability Upgrade because it increases the scope of Area ability greatly. Falter (Gray Warden) is the third in line because it increases Stagger when using Control Ability attacks vs enemies with high Health, by 100%.

Best Champion Abilities

Blight Bane (Champion) is the best Ability to use because it throws a bomb that bursts into a cluster of explosives after a short delay. It also detonates the Weekend status of effect on the enemy. Grappling Spear (Gray Warden) is the second-best Ability to use because it launches off a spear at range that deals fire damage and then pulls the target towards you. This Ability also applies the Overwhelm effect on the target. Groundbreaker (Survival) is third in line because it shatters the ground using the player’s weapon. It creates cracks that explode after a short delay.

How to Play the Champion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

The Champion excels at blocking incoming attacks, rewarding you with a “perfect block.”  Players will see a yellow halo above your character, press the block button the moment the yellow becomes brightest. This will knock back the enemy and give you passive bonuses. Dodging is another way to create space and avoid incoming damage.  Unlike other RPGs and action games, Dragon Age the Veilguard doesn’t have a stamina meter. Thus, you can infinitely spam dodge.

Overall, if your timing is good, perfect blocking should be your primary defensive mechanism as a Warrior due to the passive bonuses with the perfect defense. The resource used to cast abilities and skills for the Warrior is Rage, which is gained when doing or taking damage. Rage decreases after a few seconds of not doing or taking damage, so stay aggressive. The range attack option for the Warrior is Shield Throw, which is activated by pressing the Q button on the PC.  The Shield Toss can be aimed and charged depending on your specialization and skill, and even hit weak points.

The Stagger mechanic rewards players for filling up the purple bar under enemies’ health by attacking them with light and heavy attacks. Once filled, players can execute a “takedown” which is a small cut scene where you do a “kill shot” or increased damage.

Pair your abilities with the Emmrich and Bellara for some additional damage and for the explosion that causes a specific effect, it can either be Sundered, Overwhelmed, or Weakened based on your selection of the abilities. Once the combo is finished, you can either activate a Rune for additional buffs or use other abilities to drain out the health bar of the enemies.

Conclusion

Champion is the Rage resource mechanic, which gives you skill resources when attacking or being attacked. Bloody Advance, Blight Bane, and Driving are the best abilities to use while in a boss fight or trying to defeat a powerful enemy. Pair your abilities with your Companion’s abilities to deal additional damage and create an explosion. Emmrich and Bellara are the two Companions that work well with the Champion in any scenario. Decisive and Incite Violence are the best skills that you can use to change any situation in combat. Once you’re finished with the combo, activate the best Rune to deal additional damage or use any other ability after the combo.

FAQs About the Champion Skills in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Q1: Which are the best abilities for the Champion in Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd?

Bloody Advance, Blight Bane, and Driving Kick are the best skills to use while playing as a Champion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Q2: What do you get when you pick a specialization?

You will get access to multiple unique abilities, Passes, and traits when you pick a Specialization by consuming a skill point.

Q3: Which Companions work with the Champion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard?

Emmrich and Bellara are the two best Companions that work well with the Champion due to their unique abilities to apply or detonate the special effect on the target.

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