Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Best Spellblade Build

The Spellblade is one of the strongest Mage specializations in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, capable of fighting mid-range and melee opponents, a powerful enough to cause huge chunks of damage to powerful enemies. If players want to take down High Dragons in less than a minute, then this build is what they’re looking for.

Using a combination of Fire and Electricity to burn their enemies to a crisp, the Spellblade is capable of doing incredible amounts of damage. This class is perhaps the most versatile combatant players will be able to build, especially if they pick up the right equipment. With that in mind, we’ve also come up with a recommendation for the best gear players can use to maximize damage to near-cheat levels. Let’s take a look at the Build first, to see which Passives are best suited for the Spellblade.

Best Build For Spellblade In Dragon Age: The Veilguard

The Best Build for Spellblade in Dragon Age: The Veilguard uses both Electric and Fire Damage in tandem, to cause Shock and Burning stacks, and also trigger Advantages such as Party Rally, Shocking Weapons, Quickened, and Elemental Damage Bonus. This build also uses Arcane Bomb, Affliction DoT, and Combat Advantage damage scaling. Pick the following Passives and Active skills to maximize damage output, prioritizing Detonating and Barrier Breaking:

• From Mage Core: Fade Strike, Quick Recovery.
• From Burst: Ability – Chain Lightning, Fade Conduit, Elemental Catalyst, Perfect Cast, Concentration, Energy Burst, Killer Instinct, Shocking Strikes, Catalyst, Wrath, Vile Projectiles, Precision Strikes, Reclamation, Ability – Tempest, Amperage, Enervation, Nexus Shock, Conductor, Shock Mastery, Spell Slinger, Debilitating Shocks.
• From Antivan Crow: Medium Armor Mastery, Deterioration, Bulwark, Imbued Reaction, Staggering Charge, Breacher, Staggering Strikes, Underestimated, Pressure Points, Baleful Blast, Shellbreaker, Finale, Spirit Blade.
• From Sustain: Essence Eater, Elemental Executioner, Velocity, Return Fire, Prolong, Bigger Blast, Demolisher, Flames of Inspiration, Bombastic, Deadly Providence.
• From Mourn Watch: Concentration, Imbued Duration.
• From Shadow Dragon: Meditation.
• From Spellblade Specialization: Ultimate – Thunderous End, Ability – Void Blade, Finale, Blast Efficiency, Spirit of Vengeance, Demolisher, Conductivity, Orbital Burst, Deterioration, Arcane Strike, Veil Flurry, Antivan Kiss, Electrical Burn, Shocking Tactician.

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Players should set their active skills and ultimate as follows:

• Chain Lightning: With +75% Damage vs. Barrier Enchantment – Use this skill to open up and set Arcane Bombs on all nearby Targets, the spell will bounce and apply all debuffs from the passives of this build, ensuring maximum output damage on detonation.
• Tempest: -15% Cooldown Duration Enchantment – Use this to set a kill zone where every Arcane bomb detonation will trigger a burst of electric damage. Every opponent who enters the zone will be immediately Primed for Detonation thanks to the passives we picked, and will also receive increased Electric and Fire Damage.
• Void Blade: +25% Ability Critical Damage – The Main Detonation skill, low mana cost, highly effective vs. Barrier and Armor, and does incredible critical damage to debuffed opponents. Players will want to spam this once targets are Primed thanks to Companion abilities, since it does increased damage.
• Thunderous End: Pick this ultimate to create a powerful AoE, with Heavy Damage, that also applies Burning, Shocking, and Detonates. It also generates “Super Armor” while casting it, turning the Spellblade invulnerable for a brief period.

Best Gear For Spellblade In Dragon Age: The Veilguard

• Mage’s Gambit: An Orb that can switch between Fire and Electric Damage (the only of its kind) it is especially designed for this build since it will also apply Burning and Shocking depending on the elemental type that’s active at the time. It will also increase Fire and Electric Damage by 15 %, and Final Attack damage by 20%. (Enchantment: + 40 Electric Damage).
• Thorn of Misfortune: It not only empowers Critical Attacks but makes Every Arcane Bomb Detonation a Critical Hit. Critical Hits will also apply afflictions based on the Orb Damage type, and since we are equipping Mage’s Gambit, this will alternate between Shocking and Burning. Finally, having this blade equipped makes Arcane Bomb trigger with only 2 Arcane Mark charges instead of 3. This synergizes with the Demolisher passive, which will greater an additional Arcane Bomb debuff on the enemy. This means two critical hits on a Final Attack, which is a lot of damage. (Enchantment: +25% Arcane Bomb Trigger Damage).
• Flamebranch: The ideal Stave for this build, while players have this equipped it will grant +50 Mana and +15% Mana Regeneration, and those are great passives. But its last passive is what makes it so good since it grants +25% Fire Damage for every 50 damage spent. This makes a potential 100% extra damage for Fire and Burning affliction when Mana is completely depleted. (Enchantment: +25% Staff Energy Generation or +40 Fire Damage).
• Helm Of Light And Shadow: All the passives improve Detonation Damage, and also reduce companion cooldowns when performing a Detonation, which creates a great opportunity to do a lot of damage, apply Primers, or get out of tricky situations, especially when Rook is out of health/potions. What’s best: Detonation damage bonus increases depending on Companions Bond level. The more they have, the more damage Rook causes. (Enchantment: +20% Advantage Duration).
• Garb Of Kinship: Another great piece of equipment that will buff all Advantages, increasing their effectiveness, duration, the amount of extra damage they grant. It also heals 5% of the maximum health each time Rook gains an advantage. (Enchantment: +10% Ultimate Generation).
• Twin Buckle Binding: Grants Quickened each time Rook uses a Potion, but also grants Enhanced Damage, another useful advantage. It also has a +10% increase in total Ability Damage, and heals 100 points of Health each time Rook casts a spell/ability when Quickened.
• All-Mother’s Copse: Grants 20% Increased Blast Ability Damage, and an extra +25% against Barrier. It will also replenish 25 Mana each time a Blast Ability deals Critical Damage (Arcane Bomb Critical activates this). Blast Abilities will also cause more damage when Shocking Weapons is active, so it’s a decent synergy. (Enchantment: +1 Extra Potion).
• Focus Of The Veil: Grants +15% Electric Damage, + 25% Electric Resistance, +20% Electric Damage vs. Barrier. But its greatest passive is the last one, which makes 50% of all elemental damage types contribute to the Electric Damage bonus. Needless to say, we are going to min-max thanks to this passive. (Enchantment: +25% Mana Generation).
• Warden’s Signet: Similar to the other ring, it grants +15% Fire Damage, + 25% Fire Resistance, +20% Fire Damage vs. Armor. Its final passive will also make 50% of all elemental damage types contribute to the Fire Damage bonus. And yes, this stacks with the Focus Of The Veil passive. (Enchantment: +25% Mana Regeneration).

To avoid long explanations, let’s say that this choice of gear will guarantee a constant supply of damage buffs, which escalate elemental Fire and Electric damage, and also trigger critical hits nearly every time Rook attacks, and also Shocking Weapons, which will increase Electric and Fire-type damage thanks to the synergy with the Energy Burst passive (which stacks twice for a +40% total damage, plus adds from other passives).

Best Strategy For Spellblade In Dragon Age: The Veilguard

The Spellblade is quite an abnormal type for a Mage, and as the name implies, it specializes in a close-quarter combat type of strategy. Many players are used to the classic spellcaster that spends most of the time out of danger’s reach and is also squishy and slow. The Spellblades are the absolute opposite of this vision, since they are fast, resilient, can self-heal as they attack, and generate a lot of buffs for themselves and the party.

Using the Arcane Flurry to counter groups of enemies and switch elemental types with Mage’s Gambit orb is a great way to alternate debuffs and damage types depending on the situation. It will also clear out any swarming ads (like Darkspawn Ghouls) that approach the Spellblade with ill intentions.

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Using Spirit Blade to launch a powerful Final Attack that triggers Arcane Bomb and causes heavy Critical Damage is a great way to finish heavy enemies or Stagger them, leaving an opening for a Takedown, which will also reset Advantages and other buffs.

Kill rank and file enemies to generate Rally Party, Precision, Enhanced Damage, and Quickened. Each advantage will increase total damage output by +10%, and with Shocking Weapons, and two stacks of Energy Burst active, this makes a total of +70% extra damage. Players will basically be buffing themselves automatically as they attack, as well as escalating damage with every Final attack of the chains, rotating between Fire and Electric damage.

Affliction damage will also increase total damage output, and the combination between Shocked and Burning will slow down enemy response, and make them an easy target for Companion Primers and Detonation abilities.

Use Fade Strike and Void Blade to close the gap, then follow up with a succession of Agile and Heavy attacks. Fade Strike also helps to dodge Powerful Strikes, while using Perfect Defense followed by Return Fire will also grant Shocking Weapons and reset all other Advantages, as well as reduce the cooldown of abilities thanks to Quickened and the passives from Helm Of Light And Shadow and Garb Of Kinship.

Since Shock will accumulate naturally and cause Stagger, enemies will be often open to Takedowns, and this is a great way to gain Super Armor since while the Takedown animation is being played, Rook becomes invulnerable.

As players might have noticed, this build will constantly push them to fight on melee range, while also alternating towards a mid-range attacker and AoE dealer. It’s a good kit for those looking to cause lots of damage and improve their chances of survival.

Franchise

Dragon Age

Released

October 31, 2024

Publisher(s)

Electronic Arts