MeinMMO editor Sophia Weiss started completely blind in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Accordingly, she chose what she liked for her Rook. The result is the coolest elf of all time: Versatile, powerful, and with exciting lore flavor.
At the time this article is being created, I have already invested around 27 hours into the game. About three of those were spent only on character creation. In addition to designing my Rook, most of the time was actually spent on choosing the race and faction.
Currently, I am playing my first run with an elf and a former member of the Veilrunners. Although I am playing as a mage, probably the hardest of the three classes, I am effortlessly slashing through all enemies, and my background opens up many conversations that are closed off to others.
All of this is the perfect idea of a rebellious elven mage, and I highly recommend my build to anyone who wants to indulge in a similar fantasy.
I will introduce you to how my Rook is built here.
No idea about the lore? Time for something new.
When I say I went in blind, I really mean it. I didn’t watch any videos about the worldbuilding and even skipped over Benedict’s lore article about the earlier games. I just wanted to approach it with a fresh mind.
In fact, the initial entry was somewhat overwhelming. There is so much to read and learn. But since I wanted to play and not read, I just skimmed over the explanations.
Normally, I don’t play elves. They are usually too stiff for me. This time, I thought: Why not?
With the factions, it was more complicated. Grey Wardens, Shadow Dragons, Masters of Fate… Everything sounded incredibly serious and important.
In contrast, the Veilrunners are not a group that actively saves the world every day. They are a group of adventurers, scholars, and researchers navigating through long-abandoned elven ruins. To me, that sounds like Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and a bit like Eve from The Mummy (1999). And all three are pretty cool.
Fun fact: Although you start the game in Minrathous, the first real missions take place in the Arlathan forest. For a few hours, I thought that each faction had its own opening to the game. In Arlathan, the Veilrunners have their headquarters. I felt right at home.
Zooming across the battlefield – A class choice based on feeling
I am into physical fighters. Bastard swords, lances, war axes. Those are my tools of choice. Normally. The only deviation from this was in my very first Skyrim run:
Back then, my character always wielded a blade in one hand and a spell in the other. This way, I could weaken enemies as they rushed at me before they would then run into my sword.
This is why I was particularly drawn to the Spellblade. And it plays incredibly well.
Fights are easy and look amazing
For the Spellblade, you choose the mage subclass. This is automatically equipped with three different weapons: A magic wand allows you to cast ranged spells in a classic manner, while the second set consists of a dagger and a magic ball.
The aforementioned bowling ball
is already the centerpiece of the Spellblade: It comes in various strengths and damage forms. So far, I have unlocked fire, ice, lightning, and necrotic. If you attack with a light attack, your character will throw the ball at the enemy.
The dagger is your heavy attack and deals significant damage. However, it only really packs a punch when combined with the ball:
Every hit from the ball builds a stack. Once you have three stacks, you can make it explode with a dagger attack. This adds significant damage on top of your knife attack and is a quick death sentence for many mobs.
This is how my points distribution in the skill tree currently looks:
The only disadvantage is that you have to stay constantly in close combat. But you are quick enough to catch up to ranged fighters.
Your ultimate looks particularly cool by the way: Mages can standardly shoot a Kamehameha at their opponents. Once you unlock the full Spellblade specialization later, you can replace the energy beam with a lightning area that deals more than 2,000 points of damage to your enemies.
Varied and (almost) always at an advantage
So far, I have only played the Spellblade and have not tested any of the other classes. Therefore, I cannot say whether other classes can do this as well, but the Spellblade allows you to switch damage types within seconds.
This is super practical because different enemy types have various strengths and weaknesses against damage types.
My colleague Karsten has fully tuned his Rook for necrotic damage. This puts him at a disadvantage when he faces enemies that are resistant to it. However, it is incredibly satisfying when even light attacks chip away good portions of the enemy’s health bars.
Of course, you can also tune your companions to various damage types and cover them with your spells or attacks. But I still prefer to have an effective standard attack. So, during my quests, I pay attention to the enemy types I encounter and switch between my magical bowling balls as needed.
Being independent from companions? The Spellblade makes that possible
However, I don’t pay much attention to specializations with my companions. I always like to have someone who can control enemies and someone who supports me in close combat. A healing spell is also always a plus. My favorite combo is Neve and Lucanis.
In fact, I decide based on feeling and story: When I am in Minrathous, Neve comes with me. Bellara always supports me in the Arlathan forest and Emmrich, of course, in the Necropolis. I vary the second character depending on how interesting I find the combination.
For example, I often catch Bellara and Lucanis philosophizing about cooking at the lighthouse. During missions, I enjoy listening to their discussions about spaghetti carbonara.
But that’s also nice about the build: you are almost completely independent from your companions and can mix and match freely.
Now, I think you have a good first impression of the Spellblade. I wish you a lot of fun with it and would love to hear your feedback on the class in the comments. If you are just starting fresh in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, we have just the right article for you: Dragon Age: The Veilguard: 10 tips I wish I’d known beforehand
