Here’s how to decide if you’re going to have fun slinging spells or daggers in The Veilguard.
We’ve all been there: right at the end of character creation in the latest big RPG, staring at our choice of character class and wondering which is best. The good news is that there is no best class for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. And I don’t mean that in the wishy washy “pick which class suits your playstyle way”, it’s more genuinely true than most other RPGs.
The Veilguard has done a lot to really cut down on the fundamental differences between warriors, rogues, and mages in The Veilguard. All three, even the mages, have survivability at close range, plenty of AOE, and status effect application. On top of that, your party members are all just AI helpers, and you’re almost always going to be the center of attention in a fight, meaning there’s way less emphasis on party composition and more on making sure your crew brings skills that can apply or detonate the status effects in your own kit.
I got together two other PC Gamer writers with a lot of hours stacked in Veilguard already to compare and contrast our experiences with each class. Turns out that spellblade mages kind of feel like warriors, and both rogues and warriors are great at applying necrotic damage.Warrior
Best class for: Survival, staggering, fire and necrotic damage
Play if you like: Smashing things and staying tanky
Harvey Randall, Staff Writer: The warrior does what it says on the tin, but it does so with style—all three of your specialisation options (Champion, Reaper, and Slayer) are flavourful and manage to pack considerable oomph into basically every ability.
What the warrior really excels at is tankiness, something you’ll feel if you go towards the aptly-named “Survival” bit of your skill tree. Being able to snag multiple stacks of Deflect, which just eats the next source of damage you take, is great—especially when a lot of other warrior skills grant you that same buff, too. I get stacks of Deflect on killing enemies with control abilities, whenever I use a takedown, and I also get a free stack at the start of each encounter—and that’s not even taking my items into account. You cannot harm me in any way that matters.
I’m playing a Slayer myself, and my entire build revolves around applying bonkers amounts of stagger (helped by the Overwhelmed status, which a lot of warrior abilities trigger) and then, with the Call of the Hall ring (which you can get pretty early on from the Lords of Fortune arena quest) stacking random advantages on takedowns—which also happen to heal me, generate rage, and set my weapon on fire.
