10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’

Dragon Age: The Veil Guard is out now, a return to BioWare’s famous series after ten years. It’s gotten plenty of reviews from critics, but now that it’s in the hands of the fans, we’ll see what everyone thinks.

I’ve put 65 hours and a full playthrough into this game, thanks to my review copy, and I think I have some advice to share about my journey along the way. I enjoyed playing the game blind, although there are a few important things I think you should know before you start. Here are ten things I wish I knew when I started Dragon Age: The Veil Guard.

1) You will have more skill points than you are think – I know the game makes it seem like you specialize in just one type of fighting style, but there are fifty character levels and even more skill points with wolf puzzles on the map. As such, towards the end, while I was, say, focusing on poison knives for my Rogue, between my equipment and skill points I managed to become a killer archer as well. You can only choose one complete specialization, but you can also become strong in other areas.

2) Vendor shops are a hugely important source of loot – Naturally, the 140 or so chests scattered around the map will be the biggest source of loot, but as you search for ‘dupes’ to unlock rarity levels and perks, you really, really need to keep checking in with reputation providers. level up the factions, as they often have exactly what you’re looking for to boost your build. Oh, and don’t forget to sell junk to vendors as that will improve your reputation too.

3) Respect everyone, always – Dragon Age this time it essentially gives you total freedom. You can honor all your skill points at any time for free. But beyond that, you can also respect your entire companion skill tree, and I often kept changing their “focused” skills (you can max out at two towards the end) to suit my own build or the team synergy I was trying to achieve. to make.

4) Combine the right kind of primers and blasts – Speaking of matching, it’s not just that you have one character with a primer and another with a detonator, there are different types. So, for example, one character would need to apply the Overwhelmed debuff to an enemy as a primer to be detonated by another character who can detonate Overwhelmed enemies. A character detonating Sundered enemies will not work, so you should check this.

5) If combat is a slog, you’re probably under-leveled or under-equipped – I’ve seen people complain about fights that make you feel weak or like enemies have way too much health. Not to say “you’re playing the game wrong,” but you’re…probably playing the game wrong. Some bosses even require you to go back later unless you want to spend 35 minutes reducing their health. Normal fights against enemies shouldn’t be a huge pain. You’ll both need to level up in skill points, but more importantly start putting together an actual build, making sure you’re using gear with unlocked perks, but also things that work synergistically together. This will become more and more coherent over time.

6) Don’t go crazy over some unreachable chests – This drove me crazy a few times, as sometimes it seems like reaching a chest on the map is impossible. Sometimes it’s… impossible. If a chest puzzle seems too hard to believe, there are indeed cases where you should A) just go further into the level and wrap your way around it again, or B) you may have to return later if a path opens up for another quest . This may only happen 5-10% of the time, but it does happen.

7) Return to the lighthouse regularly for great character moments – Stop by the lighthouse every now and then and go to both the ‘time lapse’ rooms and the ‘yellow exclamation point bubble’ areas. Exclamation points themselves are quests, but the others can be fun conversations with your teammates, or often your teammates talk to each other.

8) Pick up literally anything – I don’t like the sheer amount of junk scattered on the ground here, but you need it to level up vendors, level up your enchantment guy, and upgrade your gear. If you don’t get the vast majority of it, you can run dry quite easily.

9) Don’t forget to enchant and keep enchanting – Enchanting a piece of equipment itself is free, and doing it with all your equipment is a really big boost for your character. My reminder here is to do it in the first place, but also remember to keep doing it as you change your gear.

10) Do the loyalty missions – This one might be pretty obvious to BioWare fans, but if you want your teammates to survive… no matter what happens, if you throw them into the fire without confirming their loyalty to you, things could go bad . If you don’t care, so be it! But many of those quests are good in their own right.

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Pick up my science fiction novels Herokiller series And The Earthborn Trilogy.