Dragon Age: The Veilguardis the first game in theDragon Agefranchise that truly gives players the freedom to experiment with their classes' build. With the player being free to refund their points whenever they wish, a player can easily experiment with the various abilities, passives, and traits tocreate the perfect buildfor their playstyle.
As a Mage, this may include creating a Death Caller that keeps to a distance using their ranged attack while siphoning away health or a Spellblade that instead focuses on melee combat. However, even on this large web of skills, there are some that the player can avoid investing in to better use their fifty levels to purchase something else.
8Ice Storm - Passive
Armor And Weapons Increase Damage Better Than These Passives
Ice Storm isn’tthe only elemental damagepassive that is available for players to purchase on the skill page, though it is a great example of many of these passive skills that players shouldn’t bother wasting their skill points on.
While every little boost of damage can help, there is also an assortment of weapons and armor available in Dragon Age: The Veilguard that increases the elemental damage done by a Mage, which means players can instead focus on purchasing other far more useful skills and leaving passives like Ice Storm to either never be purchased or at least near the end of the player;’s build.
7Wall Of Fire - Ability
Some Battle Areas Are Too Big For It
Every ability inDragon Age: The Veilguardhas its use depending on the build that the player is working towards. However, an ability from pastDragon Agegames that becomes somewhat useless inDragon Age: The Veilguardfor Mages is Wall of Fire. In previous titles, players would line up this ability to block themselves off from enemies or tactfully put the wall of fire into small spaces to hit multiple enemies.
However, inVeilguard, the majority of areasthe player battlesare much larger, where even the Burning affliction caused by the Wall of Fire doesn’t make the ability useful compared to the other fire abilities available to the player.
6Resistant Blasts - Ability Upgrade
Resistance Isn’t As Useful As Being Invulnerable
Resistance is another feature ofDragon Age: The Veilguard,which reduces the amount of damage the player takes from the brutal enemies they face throughout the game. However, out of the advantages available inVeilguard, Resistance is arguably one of the weakest available, with many players not truly feeling the effect of being resistant.
With many Mages already being built like glass canons, any damage taken can be the difference between life and death. Therefore, Resistant Blasts and ability upgrades like it aren’t worthwhile when the player would have a much easier time if they were invulnerable to all the damage instead of a reduced amount.
5Defy The Elements - Passive
Alongside advantages thatgive players resistance to all damage, Mages also have an assortment of passive skills, like Defy The Elements, which gives the player constant resistance to certain elements of damage, such as fire, cold, necrotic, etc.
Once again, this is only a small percentage of resistance to the damage that can be taken, and therefore, depending on the difficulty a player has chosen, even having 10% less fire or cold damage may not see the player survive. Instead, a player should instead invest in the other skills available on the web unless they need it to get to a more important skill.
4Spell Slinger - Ability Upgrade
Players Tend To Focus On What’s Close
Although Projectile Abilities tend to be used by Mages that attack from afar, many players in this action RPG will still tend to focus on foes that are closer to them due to them usually being more of a danger.
Therefore, using projectile abilities on enemies that are at least 20 meters away becomes incredibly unlikely. Any use of Spell Slinger would most likely be due to using this buff by accident occasionally. Players should instead focus on other ability upgrades available on the skill page that better improve damage, no matter the distance.
3Overdraw - Greater Passive
The Cost Isn’t Worth It
While players may be tempted to purchase every skill within a specialization, there are some moments where a player may wish to instead avoid purchasing a skill such as the greater passive Overdraw due to the cost of using it not being worth the reward.
Overdraw increases the Penetration of all the player’s abilities by 50%, which soundsincredible in the beginning. However, it also increases the cost of every ability by 50 Mana. With each ability requiring more Mana to use them, a player may instead find themselves using them less often due to not having the time to make the Mana, with even abilities that once cost nothing to use, not requiring Mana too.
2Catalyst - Ability Upgrade
Players Should Focus On Their Own Damage
Rally Party is another advantage mechanic inDragon Age: The Veilguardthat players may not wish to use as much as they first thought. By having the advantage of Rally Party from the ability upgrade Catalyst, the player is able to temporally increase the damage caused by the companions in their party.
A player may notice that the regular damage done by their companions isn’t a lot, and this boost does increase it by a slight margin. However, a player may wish to instead focus on increasing their own skills and abilities while using the companion skills to better improve the companions' damage.
1Light Armor Mastery - Greater Passive
Mixing Armor Is Far More Beneficial
There is an assortment of armor mastery skills available for all three classes inDragon Age: The Veilguard. By purchasing these greater passives, players receive additional buffs for wearing certain types of armor. Unlike previousDragon AgetitleslikeDragon Age: Inquisition, which only allowed a class to wear specific armor, inDragon Age: The Veilguard, the player can wear light, medium, or heavy armor even if they are playing as a Mage.
Although a player may be tempted to purchase Light Armor Mastery, there are plenty of other ways to increase the staff energy charge rate through other more valuable skills, so that players are still able to experiment with their armor and even try some medium or even heavy options.
