Dragon Age: The Veilguardlets you play as one of three classic character archetypes: Warrior, Rogue and Mage. Once your character reaches level 20, you can spice things up by picking a specialization. Specialized characters gain access to new abilities, traits and even Ultimates. Players can only have one specialization active at any one time, but they can switch their build pretty much whenever they want since respeccing in Veilguard is free.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Best Faction to Choose
Let’s be honest, some of these factions are way more appealing than others.
If you’re playing a Mage, your specialization choices are Death Caller, Evoker and Spellblade. Each specialization has its pros and cons, so you can’t go wrong with any of them regardless of your choice. Having said that, in general, some specializations tend to be better than others in Veilguard, which happens to be true for the Mage class as well. Keep reading to find out how the three Mage specializations stack up against each other.
Speccing into Evoker essentially lets you play as a Frost Mage. Evokers are all about controlling the battlefield and using Cold damage to slow down opponents. This spec gets access to unique staff combos that allow Evokers to deal a lot more damage with projectiles than the other two specializations. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of relatively weak spell damage.
Evokers are great at setting up combos and kill zones, but they often need to rely on others to deal the finishing blows. If Dragon Age: The Veilguard had multiplayer, Evokers would probably be the best support class in the game. But since this isn’t a multiplayer game, you’re better off playing a spec that can deal most of the damage so you can let your companions take on the role of supports, instead of the other way around.
Preferred Faction
Fighting Style
Entropic Sphere
Vortex of Shadow
Shadow Dragons
Staff (Projectile)
2Spellblade
Spellblade is a powerful but somewhat awkward spec to play in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. While the traditional Spellblade archetype tends to be a combination of Mage and Warrior, the Veilguard variant is a combination of Mage and Rogue. This means you’ll have to spend a lot of time in melee fighting with Dagger and Orb while being only a little bit tankier than a typical Mage. On the bright side, you can deal a ton of damage as a Spellblade, making this spec a prime choice for players who love playing as a glass cannon.
The Spellblade is an overall solid specialization with a unique playstyle, but playing as a melee-focused Mage comes with some obvious drawbacks. First off, you can’t properly defend against ranged attacks unless you’re using a staff and then there’s the issue of having to rely on parries. Parrying and countering works surprisingly well in Veilguard, but only when you’re fighting against one or two opponents at a time, which won’t happen often. Unfortunately, there are few opportunities for dueling in this game since you’re almost always outnumbered.
Void Blade
Thunderous End
Antivan Crows
Dagger and Orb
Every Companion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Ranked
Seeking a reliable ally or someone to challenge your resolve? This ranking will help you find the perfect companion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
1Death Caller
Even though all three Mage specs are solid in their own right, Death Caller is the strongest of the bunch in our opinion. Speccing into Death Caller allows you to play as a Necromancer of sorts. You don’t get to summon skeletons or other undead minions, however, you do get to manipulate the forces of life and death as you see fit. Among other things, this means damaging and draining the health of enemies while replenishing your own. Death Callers also have the strongest Mage Ultimate in the game and it’s not even close.
Another reason why we think Death Caller is the strongest specialization is because it’s simple and doesn’t rely on any gimmicks. Once you’ve invested enough points into the Death Caller skill tree, you’re able to kill groups of enemies in seconds just by using your channeled staff attack. No combos or detonations to worry about. When you do need to bring out the big guns against bosses and other strong enemies, the Death Caller has powerful spells that can make short work of those too.
Spirit Bomb
The Crypt’s Herald
The Mourn Watch
Staff (Channeled)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Best Slayer Build
A specialization that is geared towards taking down enemies in the most brutally efficient ways.
