REPOST - Dragon Age: Inquisition Ability Builds

Let the grinding commence!

Let me know if you want explanations for the Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities.

Since I've pretty much conquered the game and had extensive time to practice with every class on every difficulty, I've amended the innumerable mistakes I made in theorizing potential builds and now have an array of solid ones that work on Nightmare. So without further ado, here are the fruits of three hundred hours of play time.

In an increasingly typical fashion, I figured I'd write out some of the hair-brained ideas that have been rattling around in my mind on character building in Dragon Age Inquisition.

Fair warning, I have a bias for Elves and Humans. It's simply the way of things.

All builds will finish at level 25 (since anything higher than that likely won't have anything left to fight against) and will broken down as follows:

Name - A stupid title, the race, and class
Build Order - the order in which the skills are learned
Bonus Skills - 5 other skills worth learning if you find skill tomes or go beyond level 25
Role - The extremely basic idea of what the build excels at
Loadout - The 8 skills mapped to the buttons
Usage - An in-depth summary of what the build does
Additional Skill Notes - The explanation for why the additional skills were chosen
Suggested Team Options - A brief idea of which team mates work well with the build
Variations - Small changes to the build that help it address specific issues.
General Spec Notes - Information that may or may not be obvious about the specialization itself

Also, note that I am operating under the assumption that one cannot go backwards in a skill tree except for the assassin class, as at the time of writing it is broken in favor of the player. Additionally, all build orders (excluding KE) are written with the assumption that the player is not using the Tacticians Renewal item to respec and acquires their specialization at level 10 (and thus can only begin to develop it at level 11).

The skill progression is also color coded for your convenience using the following rubrick (if you're color-blind don't worry about it, most of them have labels and the significant ones that don't are bolded):

Bold = an active ability that is fully developed
Black = an active ability that will later be developed
Red = a specialization ability
Blue = Passive abilities
Upgrades = upgrades to existing active abilities
* = Human Race bonus ability

Mage Builds

1. Master of Some: Human - Knight Enchanter

* – Barrier

1 – Immolate

2 – Fade Step

3 – Pre-KE: Passive: Winter Stillness (+3 Mag)/Post KE: Passive: Frost Mastery (+3 Mag)

4 – Energy Barrage

5 – Winter’s Blast

6 – Lightning Bolt

7 – Passive: Flashpoint (+3 Mag)

8 – Passive: Clean Burn (+3 Will)

9 – Upgrade: Winter’s Chill

10 – Passive: Conductive Current (+3 Mag)

11 – Spirit Blade

12 – Passive: Combat Clarity (+3 Con)

13 – Passive: Fade Shield (+3 Mag)

14 – Passive: Mana Surge (+3 Mag)

15 – Fade Cloak

16 – Upgrade: Decloaking Blast

17 – Focus: Resurgence

18 – Passive: Knight Protector (+3 Con)

19 – Passive: Static Charge (+3 Con)

20 – Upgrade: Wildfire

21 – Upgrade: Exploding Bolt

22 – Passive: Chaotic Focus (+3 Mag)

23 – Passive: Guardian Spirit (+3 Con)

24 – Upgrade: Defending Blade

25 – Passive: Veiled Riposte (+3 Mag)

Additional Abilities:

1. Passive: Pyromancer (+3 Will)

2. Passive: Frost Mastery (+3 Mag)

3. Mind Blast (Pre-requisite)

4. Passive: Strength of Spirits

5. Passive: Gathering Storm (+3 Will)

Role: Balanced (Control, Tank, and DPS)

Loadout:

A.                                           B.

1. Defending Blade                1. Decloaking Blast

2. Winter’s Chill                    2. Energy Barrage

3. Wildfire                              3. Exploding Bolt

4. Fade Step                            4. Resurgence

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Infused Vyrantium Samite: 10% chance to use Mindblast on Hit
- Silverite: +5 Guard on Hit

Usage: “A skilled tactician both dictates and responds to the flow of battle”

To those who played Dragon Age: Origins, this is basically Arcane Warrior mk.2. You don’t have any of the typical “nuke” spells, but your strong assortment of offensive abilities enables you to maintain a consistently high damage output while simultaneously controlling the battlefield and setting up Cross Class combos. Since the build is at least somewhat adept at everything, the order that you should cast your spells changes from fight to fight.

Generally, you begin an engagement with the Fade Step+ Defending Blade one-two punch to gain some barrier and draw enemy attention. Then use Winter’s Chill to set enemies up or disable problematic units, Winter’s Chill then Exploding Bolt to nuke clusters, Wildfire to also nuke clusters or just hurt something, Decloaking Blast whenever it’s available to burst down enemies, or Defending Blade again when you’re in the rare situation where every other spell is on cooldown or you are too low on mana to cast anything else.

It’s also worth noting that this situation is only rare because of the passives: Mana Surge, Fade Shield, Combat Clarity, Clean Burn, and Flashpoint. Fade Shield is essentially the KE’s claim to fame; it generates barrier every time you hit something, proportional to how much damage you inflict. Mana Surge triggers whenever a barrier cast on you runs out (both naturally and by force) and lets you cast a spell for free. So by consistently keeping your barrier at minimal strength with Defending Blade, you can cast whatever you want, regardless of mana cost provided it is off cooldown. This also lets you cast vastly more powerful versions of spells with Conductive Current by granting spells damage boosts greater than that of the spell cost. You won’t be able to exploit this often, but super charged (40+% damage boosted) Exploding Bolts are still very nice when they are available.

More practically, there’s Clean Burn which further synergizes with Defending Blade (as it has no cooldown) and lets you consistently hasten all of your spells, and Flashpoint which will almost certainly proc multiple time during an engagement since you almost never stop casting spells. And last but not least, there’s Resurgence to pick your allies back up if everything goes to hell. It shouldn’t happen often if you’re freezing/shocking anything dangerous, but better safe than sorry. In short: you can do everything at the very least competently (DPS, Tanking) and at the very best exceptionally (Control, Support).

Additional Ability Notes:

Since this is a jack-of-all-trades build it could theoretically be better at everything, so the additional skills are spread to improve various capabilities. Note that the order they’re listed in isn’t all that important. Pyromancer is for damage, Frost Mastery is for control, Mind Blast+Strength of Spirits is for sturdiness, and Gathering Storm is for if Bioware ever decides to fix the damn thing...and speed. If you have any particular problems choose a skill that best alleviates your issues. None of them will a make a significant difference, but they all help.

Suggested Team Options:

The build is designed to be self-sufficient and thus enables the player to synergize with any assortment of characters. The only gap in the build is the lack of Dispel due to it needing to avoid Peaceful Aura in order to keep aggro (though it’s only slightly problematic on Nightmare when clearing Fade Rifts). So, consider bringing another mage with you to fill that potential need. Since you can play virtually any role, you are free to make your party consist of roles that you don’t want to manage yourself, or whomever you happen to like.

Variations:

The skills chosen were all chosen and arranged for a reason. Immolate is always better than Flashfire for a jack of all-trades, as it damages groups. Energy Barrage is always better than Chain Lightning for a jack of all trades as it hits harder against individual enemies and isn't locked to a single element. Mana Surge is invaluable for KEs and is exclusively abusable by KEs. The spirit tree is generally not worth investing in, as endlessly chaining spells together leads to infinite barrier (and infinitely abusable Chaotic Focus) anyway. Ostensibly, there are no direct alternatives to this build. However, there are plenty of other ways to build KEs, most obviously focusing on one or two of the basic spell trees.

Winter is the ultimate control tree, containing three different spells dedicated to freezing enemies. Inferno is the ultimate DPS tree containing numerous DoT spells, situational damage boosters, and the strongest nuke in the entire mage class. Spirit is the ultimate support tree and has every directly defensive spell and support spell in the game. And then there’s Storm which borrows a little bit from all of the others (a jack-of-all-trees, if you will). However in focusing on any one of these trees, you always lose some very useful utility  (yes, even the Storm tree), so choose carefully if wish to do so.

General Knight Enchanter Notes: 

Blizzard is worthless on KE, don’t get it.

…Okay it’s not worthless but it doesn’t generate barrier anywhere near as fast as one might expect, because it doesn’t inflict very much damage. Even against a large group of enemies (8-10) with its upgrade, at best you’re getting returns on a swiftly shrinking 1500% DPS with minimal spell casting to supplement it (as you you’re mana is gradually dwindling over 10 seconds and can’t regenerate, but your barrier is too high to abuse free spells from Mana Surge). For reference, a single well-placed Exploding Bolt against a cluster half that size would generate roughly the same amount of barrier and set up all of the damaged enemies for a Cross-Class Combo in a fraction of the time it would take to freeze them all. What’s more, you would still have plenty of mana left to continue casting spells to push this boost further instead of being forced to use Spirit Blade (or worse attack) until your mana comes back. It doesn’t do much while it’s active and hampers you after the fact. So, no, it’s not awesome on a KE and you shouldn’t use it.

2. Gul'dan (Dorian): Human - Necromancer

* – Barrier

1 – Energy Barrage

2 – Fade Step

3 – Immolate

4 – Passive: Winter Stillness (+3 Will)

5 – Passive: Peaceful Aura (+3 Will)

6 – Chain Lightning

7 – Passive: Conductive Current (+3 Mag)

8 – Passive: Flashpoint (+3 Mag)

9 – Passive: Static Charge (+3 Con)

10 – Static Cage

11 – Horror

12 – Passive: Death Siphon (+3 Con)

13 – Passive: Power of the Dead (+3 Will)

14 – Passive: Clean Burn (+3 Will)

15 – Passive: Pyromancer (+3 Will)

16 – Fire Mine

17 – Spirit Mark

18 – Passive: Blinding Terror (+3 Mag)

19 – Passive: Simulacrum (+3 Will)

20 – Walking Bomb

21 – Upgrade: Lightning Cage

22 – Upgrade: Virulent

24 – Upgrade: Searing Glyph

23 – Upgrade: Lingering Mark

25 – Upgrade: Energy Bombardment

Additional Abilities:

1. Upgrade: Wildfire

2. Passive: Guardian Spirit (+3 Con)

3. Passive: Stormbringer (+3 Mag)

4. Upgrade: Arcing Surge

5. Passive: Gathering Storm (+3 Will)

Role: DPS, AoE, DoT

Loadout:

A.                                             B.

1. Fade Step                             1. Chain Lightning

2. Energy Barrage                   2. Lightning Cage

3. Immolate                             3. Searing Glyph

4. Lingering Mark                    4. Virulent Walking Bomb

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Plush Fustian Velvet: 10% chance to use Hidden Blades on hit with 5 added hits

- King's Willow Weave: On kill: +30 to Magic for 10 seconds

Usage: "Now, Let Them Tremble"

It takes a while for the build to develop, but once it does you just blow things up, then cackle in the corner as they continue exploding. No, seriously. You initiate (ideally with a Barrier up) on a group of enemies with Lightning Cage, take out the weakest of the trapped pack with Lingering Mark and Immolation, and pick up a damage boost from Power of the Dead as well as an AI ally from Lingering Mark. Then, once the enemies begin to regroup, your spirit ally can draw the enemy attention while you trigger a Virulent Walking Bomb on the weakest of the pack. From there, all you do is sling spells (Energy Barrage, Immolate, and Chain Lightning), stay safe, and watch the fireworks as everything explodes from your explosive plague.

If engaged with a powerful enemy you can cleverly use Lightning Cage to paralyze it/them then lay a Searing Glyph at its/their feet for a tremendous amount of immediate burst (and gradual burn) damage. Lightning Cage sadistically assists this tactic, as it lets you set up a “kill box” where the enemies take an extra 50% damage from each DoT ability (Walking Bomb, Lingering Mark, anything Inferno related, etc.) and can’t flee without being frozen in place, thus making it even easier to chain explosions with Virulent Walking Bomb or hit a group of enemies with Searing Glyph. You should also be aware of the basic, but eternally viable combo Lightning Cage + Energy Barrage, as it hits for nearly the same amount of damage as a Searing Glyph and almost guarantees that Flashpoint procs for more spell spamming shenanigans.

If an enemy will get into melee range against you, Static Charge will punish them for attacking, and Fade Step lets you blink away before they even become a problem. You are the nightmare that haunts RPG gamers’ dreams; the enemy that continually spawns other enemies, has high damage, comes back to life as something worse (Simulacrum) when it dies, and is nigh on impossible to hit without severe repercussions. Enjoy.

Additional Ability Notes:

The build is D-U-N, DONE, so all of these abilities are largely superfluous and should be acquired after you’ve completed the main build. At the top of the list is Wildfire to make Immolate both stronger and more easily spammable, allowing it to alternate casts with Chain Lightning after all of the enemies are afflicted with their assorted malignant diseases.

Guardian Spirit is there for emergencies should they ever happen. The same is true of Stormbringer, though it’s a more proactive (and often hilarious) option. And finally, there’s the Arcing Surge upgrade which again is only there to make Chain Lightning even more awesome when the rare opportunity to attack a lot of enemies presents itself.

Oh, and Gathering Storm is once again present in case Bioware decides to fix it. 

Suggested Team Options:

You will need at least one mage for support and one warrior for aggro. This is a pure DPS build and as such, you are exceedingly vulnerable to all forms of attack. Your spirit allies will help divert enemy attention (ideally you’ll be able to sustain 2-3 spirits at a time) however, a Champion like Blackwall easily outstrips them in terms of drawing attention and keeping the enemies at arm’s length. And, since you lack both a revival spell as well as a means of dispelling buffs (sans bonus skills, of course), another mage like Vivienne can help break enemy defenses for you and keep you healthy.

Variations:

If enemies engaging you doesn’t prove to be a problem, you can swap the defensive skill Fade Step with Chaotic Focus. Doing so let’s you convert Barriers into more firepower (no pun intended), though it will cost you durability and both of your escape plans. Really, I don’t think there is another way to play this nuisance-style build; using winter as the secondary tree makes one too focused on direct to control to pull out the same degree of DPS, and Wall of Fire is rarely as effective as the other active skills listed. Lightning Bolt/Exploding Bolt is the only real alternative, though since Necros possesses so many DoTs it generally ends up inflicting less damage overall than Lightning Cage.

General Necromancer Notes: 

Try to refrain from casting Walking Bomb until after Flashpoint procs, so that you can spread it twice as fast. Energy Barrage and Chain Lightning should help you achieve this in a relatively short amount of time.

Also, you can toggle the Spirit Mark ability. So, if you get into the awkward situation where you end an engagement and the last foe is still alive as a spirit, just kill collect the loot and move on with your day. No need to stand around waiting for him to be “spirited away”…I’ll leave now.

3. Nature's Voice (Solas): Elf - Rift Mage

1 – Barrier

2 – Chain Lightning

3 – Fade Step

4 – Passive: Peaceful Aura (+3 Will)

5 – Passive: Winter Stillness (+3 Will)

6 – Winter’s Blast

7 – Flashfire

8 – Passive: Flashpoint (+3 Mag)

9 – Upgrade:Winter’s Chill

10 – Passive: Clean Burn (+3 Will)

11 – Veil Strike

12 – Stone Fist

13 – Upgrade: Shatter Stone

14 – Passive: Restorative Veil (+3 Mag)

15 – Passive: Smothering Veil (+3 Will)

16 – Pull of the Abyss

17 – Upgrade: Shaken

18 – Ice Mine

19 – Upgrade: Brittle Glyph

20 – Dispel

21 – Passive: Rejuvenating Barrier (+3 Con)

22 – Upgrade: Elegant Defense

23 – Passive: Encircling Veil (+3 Mag)

24 – Passive: Twisting Veil (+3 Mag)

25 – Focus: Fire Storm

Additional Abilities:

1. Passive: Frost Mastery (+3 Mag)

2. Mind Blast (pre-req)

3. Passive: Strength of Spirits

4. Passive: Stormbringer (+3 Mag)

5. Passive: Static Charge (+3 Con)

Role: Control, Support

Loadout:

A.                                                 B.

1. Shatter Stone                           1. Shaken

2. Chain Lightning/Flashfire      2. Winter’s Chill

3. Lightning Bolt                        3. Brittle Glyph

4. Fade Step                                4. Elegant Defense

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Royale Sea Silk: Abilities cost 20% less mana/stamina if not being hit for 5 seconds.

- Varghest Scales: +30% damage bonus if not being hit for 5 seconds

Usage: “Everybody gets one”

This is a control mage. It keeps enemies where you want them and boosts the rest of the team’s damage output. Because healers aren’t a thing in DA:I, this is about as good as it gets on the support front. Since almost every active ability is control oriented, let’s talk about the outliers first.

Barrier is primarily there to help you attain god-like mana regeneration, but it can also help your allies I guess. And, should you choose to be a more direct team player, Elegant Defense helps ensure that you are able to recast it as quickly as possible for other selfish purposes. If you take Chain Lightning you have a cheap spell that inflicts decent damage with a short cooldown. Lastly, Fade Step is your defensive positioning tool. No-brainer. Now for the interesting stuff.

Combos, combos, combos galore! Stone Fist is an impact detonator; the only one in the entire mage specialization. As such, you can CCC with yourself for massive Soviet damage. Coincidentally, all of the skills that set enemies up for a combo also help lockdown groups of foes. As to which control spell to use, that’s fairly situational. Lightning Bolt is highly effective against melee enemies (particularly groups), but isn’t very effective against ranged attackers who generally spread out. Winter’s Chill on the other hand is extremely effective against said foes as well as tight enemy clusters, but doesn’t handle large groups at all. Brittle Glyph is effective against bosses and shield-bearing melee fighters. And lastly, Pull of the Abyss pulls enemies towards its epicenter (making melee attackers a non-issue) and Weakens everything affected by it with the Shaken upgrade, but like Lightning Bolt, is no help against ranged attackers. More often than not, you’ll initiate with one of the control spells based on the group you want to incapacitate, then add more spells as the fight progresses, detonating with Shatter Stone whenever possible.

Additional Ability Notes:

Strength of Spirits provides better barriers, and Frost Mastery improves all of his Ice-based control spells. The last two are absolutely negligible, but if you must take something, make it a passive. Again, it’s all pretty straightforward.

Suggested Team Options:

As a support he wants a tank and DPS for a solid party. He’s simply the glue that holds it all together.

Variations:

I personally prefer to use Lightning Bolt over Lightning Cage because Lightning Cage isn’t as immediate of a response as I like, but for strict control purposes, Lightning Cage is generally the better option. You could also use the Focus ability instead of Chain Lightning/Flashpoint, since you shouldn't be using them all that often regardless (though again, I prefer their immediacy).

General Rift Mage Notes: 

You should be spreading Weakness like there’s no tomorrow as your passives allow it to increase the damage you inflict (Twisting Veil), reduce the damage your team takes (Smothering Veil), dramatically hasten your mana regen (Restorative Veil), and improve your CC capabilities (Encircling Veil). Fortunately, every Rift Mage ability can do this, and this particular build uses the two most efficient weakness spreaders, so this shouldn’t be difficult to manage.

Warrior Builds

4. Blood Knight: Elf - Weapon and Shield Reaver

1 – Grappling Chain

2 – Shield Wall

3 – War Cry

4 – Shield Bash

5 – Passive: Hamstring (+3 Str)

6 – Combat Roll

7 – Passive: Bear Mauls the Wolves (+3 Con)

8 – Charging Bull

9 – Passive: Turn the Blade (+3 Con)

10 – Passive: Deep Reserves (+3 Str)

11 – Ring of Pain

12 – Passive: Blood Frenzy (+3 Str)

13 – Passive: Terrifying Fury (+3 Cun)

14 – Devour

15 – Dragon Rage

16 – Upgrade: Ravage

17 – Upgrade: Gore and Trample

18 – Upgrade: Roll with It

19 – Upgrade: Call to Arms

20 – Upgrade: Torrent of Pain

21 – Passive: Warrior’s Resolve (+3 Con)

22 – Payback Strike

23 – Passive: Turn the Bolt (+3 Con)

24 – Block and Slash (Pre-Req)

25 – Passive: Flow of Battle (+3 Str)

Additional Abilities:

1. Passive: Fervor (+3 Cun)

2. Pommel Strike (Pre-Req)

3. Passive: Guard Smasher (+3 Str)

4. Challenge

5. Passive: Trust the Steel (+3 Con)

Role: DPS + Tank

Loadout:

A.                                               B.

1. Gore and Trample                 1. Shield Bash

2. Shield Wall                            2. Call to Arms

3. Ravage                                   3. Devour

4. Roll with it                             4. Torrent of Pain

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Bloodstone: 7.5% extra damage for each enemy within 8 meters

- Volcanic Aurum: 10% chance to use Unbowed on Hit.

- Nevarrite: Chance to cast Pull of the Abyss on Hit

Usage: “…true focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity”

This was the most fun I had playing this game. It is strongly reminiscent of Dark Souls, but is a bit faster and not nearly as punishing (even on Nightmare). Use is fairly straightforward, though it takes a bit of creativity to maneuver around the inherent weaknesses of the Warrior class. Armor up with War Cry, Shield Wall, and or Charging Bull (preferably the latter to simultaneously knockdown some enemies), then Ravage all ranged units (and everything else) until they die or you hit 40% health (+30% damage with Blood Frenzy). From there you play it by ear. Activate Torrent of Pain if you want to set up more Ravages, start strategically using Shield Wall and Roll with it to keep your guard up, or taunt the enemies to hold aggro. You have legitimate options. And don’t forget that the Gore and Trample upgrade for Charging Bull can net you cost-free Devours if your stamina gets too low to use it legitimately.

Unlike most of the other characters and classes in the game, this build also doesn’t have to worry much about cooldown times. The three most commonly used abilities in the build (Shield Wall, Ravage, and Roll with it) all lack cooldowns entirely, while the others are either short (Shield Bash and Gore and Trample), so situationally useful that you’ll rarely notice them (Call to Arms), or substantially mitigated by the build itself (Devour).

As a result of this freedom, you have the flexibility to alternate between both offensive and defensive extremes at a moment’s notice, provided you have the stamina. Speaking of which, after much (read: WAY TOO MUCH) testing I’ve finally determined how to circumvent this as a sword-and-board Reaver: Deep Reserves and Warrior’s Resolve.

Since, as a Reaver, you have the luxury of recovering health without using a potion, you can take full advantage of Warrior’s Resolve by picking up small stamina boosts as Ravage gradually diminishes your HP pool. Then, after you recover with Devour you can convert that health right back into stamina with Ravage and so on and so forth. However, the cost of sustaining Aura of Pain, Gore and Trample, and even Shield Wall against certain enemies can still rapidly deplete your stamina before or during a killing spree. Thus, Deep Reserves offsets this by drastically speeding up your stamina regen whenever it falls below 50%. You may still have to attack to keep your stamina up, but rarely do you need a full stamina gauge in the first place, so it almost invariably works out just fine.

As far as Warriors go this is about as involved and skill-based as it gets.

Additional Ability Notes:

Fervor is almost a must since it can drastically speed up most skirmishes by making you a metaphorical demon after the first mook drops. Guard Smasher is next for making Ravage that much more badass during Dragon fights. And at the end there’s Trust the Steel which makes your guard that much harder to break, especially as a Shield warrior with a 50% damage reduction from the front.

Suggested Team Options:

The build synergizes best with a party of ranged attackers (e.g. Varric, Sera, and Solas), as you can be the only person on the frontlines and draw most of the aggro for them without needing to stop and refresh your taunt. This allows you to focus on inflicting as much damage as possible while indirectly protecting your allies. Additionally, your allies can help keep you defended by erecting barriers, and fueled by continually killing off the enemies.

Variations:

There are many possible alterations, but none are objectively better. The most easily implemented is using Payback Strike (plus its upgrade, Sweet Revenge) over Shield Bash since they both rarely see much use. However, in doing so you lose your only impact detonator.

Another option would be to use Challenge and its upgrade Throw the Gauntlet instead of War Cry and Call to Arms; you’d gain an instant full heal to stamina and lose a defensive option. On the lower difficulties this is actually a pretty nice trade, but on Nightmare it’s a lot less appealing. And you also lose your only means of directly Aggroing groups, so I tend to avoid choosing it.

Aside from those, you could try to use Grappling Chain->Give em the Boot and Crippling Blows to have a reliable one-two punch with Ravage against mages, but since human mages and archers aren’t exceedingly common or difficult to deal with as it is, this is largely superfluous. See? Not many great options here.

General Reaver Notes:

Aura of Pain deactivates automatically whenever you leave its radius. But, you can use this to your advantage. Since the ability takes a moment to dispel manually, leaving the circle is usually the preferred means of turning it off (especially if you’re fighting near its edge).

The game will also stop you from using Ravage when you can no longer pay the health cost, so feel free to keep spamming the ability if you have some guard up before using Devour, but beware that if you activate Aura of Pain you will instantly die.

Finally, with respect to Devour, do not feel forced to use it only when you have Aura of Pain up. Healing for a lower amount of health can be beneficial as it retains a higher damage boost, without necessarily prohibiting prolonged use of Devour (i.e. activate Aura of Pain after Devour if you want to play extremely aggressively, and activate it before Devour if you want to play more defensively).

5. Paragon of Her Kind (Cassandra): Human - Weapon and Shield Templar

* – Shield Wall

1 – Shield Bash

2 – War Cry

3 – Passive: Bear Mauls the Wolves (+3 Con)

4 – Challenge

5 – Passive: Turn the Blade (+3 Con)

6 – Grappling Chain

7 – Passive: Crippling Blows (+3 Str)

8 – Payback Strike

9 – Passive: Coup de Grace

10 – Horn of Valor

11 – Spell Purge

12 – Upgrade: That’s the Spirit

13 – Passive: Champions of the Just (+3 Str)

14 – Focus: Rally

15 – Passive: The Last Sacrifice (+3 Con)

16 – Passive: Turn the Bolt (+3 Con)

17 – Wrath of Heaven

18 – Upgrade: Chevalier’s Step

19 – Upgrade: Throw the Gauntlet

20 – Upgrade: Spell Shatter

21 – Upgrade: Embrace the Light

22 – Passive: Trust the Steel (+3 Con)

23 – Blessed Blades

24 – Passive: Maker’s Will (+3 Will)

25 – Passive: There is no Darkness (+3 Will)

Additional Abilities:

1. Block and Slash (Pre-Req)

2. Passive: Flow of Battle (+3 Str)

3. Passive: Untouchable Defense (+3 Str)

2. Passive: Hamstring (+3 Str) (Pre-req)

4. Passive: Deep Reserves (+3 Str)

Role: Tank, Support, Balanced

Loadout:

A.                                       B.

1. Throw the Gauntlet       1. War Cry

2. Chevalier’s Step            2. That’s the Spirit

3. Spell Shatter                  3. Shield Bash/Payback Strike

4. Embrace the Light         4. Focus: Rally

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Volcanic Aurum: 10% chance to use Unbowed on hit

- Dawnstone: 10% chance to grant Walking Fortress for 5 seconds on hit

- Volcanic Aurum: 10% extra focus for each enemy within 8 meters

Usage: “I stand for all of us”

Tanking should not feel like busy work. Thus, this build is far more hands on and fun than it could have been (which will be covered in the Variations). Your primary job is to keep archers and mages off balance/dead. To achieve this you have Challenge to directly draw their attention from a distance, Spell Shatter to annihilate casters whenever they attempt to set-up a barrier (or prevent demons from spawning), and Embrace the Light to nuke demons. All of which are fairly simple to use.

With that said, you also have the tools to defend or buff your allies after said enemies have been dealt with. Both Call to Arms and Challenge are available enabling you to draw attention from groups as well as individuals. That’s the Spirit delivers a very respectable straight 35% damage boost to all of your allies. Chevalier’s Step, enables you to directly shield yourself and indirectly protect nearby allies by raising their armor. If you’re desperate or scared, then Rally can buy the team 15 seconds of immortality. And Shield Bash and Payback Strike both knock down enemies, buying your allies time to escape.

Lastly, if you aren’t engaged with any demons or mages, you can use your various specialty abilities in clever ways to support the team. Embrace the Light also doubles as a 6 second(!) stun against surrounding enemies. Spell Purge can clear status ailments and is an Eldritch detonator, meaning that you can self-combo with Embrace the Light to spread weakness and massive damage. Shield Bash decimates enemies’ guard while, Payback Strike can pick you back up should you get knocked down, and Rally can be used offensively to give the team infinite Mana/Stamina. In case it wasn’t clear by now, you have answers for every eventuality and can sort of do everything, so fill whatever function your party needs.

Additional Ability Notes:

If there’s a weakness to this builds it’s the cooldown durations. The standard build has no means of mitigating cooldowns whatsoever, so the first and most important ability to pick up is Flow of Battle. It encourages you to play with an artificer and or spec your weapons to boost your crit rate, but it helps tremendously in maintaining flexibility. Second is Untouchable Defense. It’s not that important, since she already has a ton of defensive passives and actives, but more defense is always a good thing. And to round things off, there’s Deep Reserves to help deal with the potential stamina shortages that might emerge from the reduced cooldown times.

Suggested Team Options:

She's cool with anyone, so take her when you need a gap plugged.

Variations:

The goal of this build was to make a “fun” tank that doesn’t require you to open the tactical menu to do your job properly, and could also switch to an offensive or supportive role should the team need it. However, if you don’t want to personally use her, then you can use a more AI friendly version by upgrading Blessed Blades, Payback Strike, and Shield Bash in exchange for Chevalier’s Step, Embrace the Light, and Spell Shatter. The game will not use any of the latter three abilities at the appropriate time, leaving them all on cooldown when they are needed most, so the former three abilities help the piss-poor AI cope, without losing too much utility.

Another nifty change would be to pick up Charging Bull, it’s upgrade, and Combat Roll-> Roll with it, as the former offers a second way to abuse Coup de Grace, while the latter offers another means of negating status ailments and staying on your feet. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to make room for them, both in the build and your ability slots. The only suggestion I have is to replace Payback Strike/Shield Bash with Combat Roll, as more often than not a player specifically will be using them for the same purpose.

General Templar Notes:

Templar ignores the spectrum of Tank – DPS that most classes sit on and kind of does its own thing, so the class can be speced more specifically to compliment either play style. This build leans defensively due to the abundance of Vanguard skills, but it could easily swing the other way with Blessed Blades, Give em the Boot, and Lunge and Slash. Since I like to play on hard mode and up, I prefer it as it’s listed, but feel free to deviate and go 2-handed should you desire a more strictly offensive character.

6. One Beard Army (Blackwall): Human 2- Handed Weapon Champion 

* – War Cry

1 – Block and Slash

2 – Mighty Blow

3 – Upgrade: Flawless Defense

4 – Passive: Shield Breaker (+3 Str)

5 – Whirlwind

6 – Passive: Flow of Battle (+3 Str)

7 – Shield Wall (Pre-req)

8 – Passive: Bear Mauls the Wolves (+3 Con)

9 – Passive: Clear a Path (+3 Str)

10 – Earthshaking Strike

11 – Line in the Sand

12 – Passive: Bulwark (+3 Con)

13 – Upgrade: Shattered Ground

14 – Passive: Adamant (+3 Con)

15 – To the Death

16 – Upgrade: En Garde

17 – Passive: Resilience (+3 Con)

18 – Passive: Unyielding (+3 Con)

19 – Walking Fortress

20 – Upgrade: Siege-Breaker

21 – Upgrade: Easy Target

22 – Payback Strike (pre-req)

23 – Passive: Turn the Bolt (+3 Con)

24 – Passive: Cutting Words (+3 Str)

25 – Upgrade: Rising Winds

Additional Abilities:

1. Grappling Chain (pre-req)

2. Passive: Crippling Blows (+3 Str)

3. Passive: Coup de Grace (+3 Str)

4. (pre-req) Shield Bash

5. Passive: Turn the Blade (+3 Con) 

Role: Tank, DPS, Support

Loadout:

A.                                        B.

1. Siege Breaker                 1. War Cry

2. Charging Bull                 2. Easy Target

3. Rising Winds                  3. Shattered Ground

4. Flawless Defense            4. En Garde

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Bloodstone: 7.5% extra damage for each enemy within 8 meters
- Dawnstone: 10% chance to grant 5 seconds of Walking Fortress

Usage: "I stole the beards - all the beards. And the power they hold!"

Conceptually, this is the cousin of the Blood Knight build; you have a spec that performs one function (tanking) and a weapon tree that performs the other (DPS). And as with the Elf Weapon and Shield Reaver, the combination of offense abilities, defensive abilities, and support abilities makes Blackwall (or whomever is using the build) effective at everything Warriors are known for: taking hits, dishing damage, and maintaining aggro.

More specifically, War Cry and En Garde explicitly draw enemy attention, while the wide sweeping attack arcs and high damage output inherent to 2-handed weapons implicitly maintains it. En Garde softens up enemies, while both abilities simultaneously make Blackwall himself harder to kill. And speaking of impregnability, in addition to the former two skills, Flawless Defense and Siege-Breaker provide further means of generating guard and mitigating damage while Bear Mauls the Wolves removes the only inherent obstacle to doing so with a 2-handed weapon (flanking). Lastly, on the off-chance that he should go down, Unyielding affords “the warden” one last gasp to build another layer of armor and get back on his feet. So, in short, this wall is here to stay.

Offensively, he has Charging Bull to close the distance, followed by Easy Target for a simple one-two punch that’s available for most of the game. Rising Winds can deal with crowds drawn by War Cry. Shattered Ground excellently dispatches weenies and softens up most melee fighters provided you aim it properly. And to complement all of this, En Garde gradually raises your damage output against anything targeted by it, so all of these moves will eventually deal lethal amounts of damage. Whether you’re flying solo or bringing a team, he’ll get the job done.

Additional Ability Notes:

Crippling Blows is pretty much a pre-req, but it can further extend Blackwall’s already obscene survivability when he scores a crit, so it’s not bad. More importantly though is the ability after it, Coup de Grace. A 30% damage boost when attacking a downed enemy is nothing to scoff at, particularly when Blackwall has such an easy and reliable means of both creating said circumstance (Charging Bull) and exploiting it (Easy Target). And then there’s Turn the Blade which just takes his tankiness to another absurd and unnecessary (but totally awesome) level.

Suggested Team Options:

I enjoy running this build solo, but mages and other squishy fighters tends to make for the best party. Just think of him as the tank when composing your team, even though he can play DPS as well.

Variations:

Investing in the Battlemaster tree is kind of the only other way to way to go, though you’d either have to trade some of his tanking or his offensive capability. The skills to look for are Roll with it (for an answer to status ailments), and either horn ability for a buff (Horn of Valor) or a debuff (War Horn).

General Champion Notes:

Despite how awesome it sounds, Line in the Sand is far too situational to invest in or add to your moveset. It should be obvious to those who have completed the game, but you don’t often find yourself fighting in narrow corridors or castle keeps. And (hopefully) unsurprisingly the AI pathing is adept enough to navigate around obstacles instead of hopelessly trying to breach it, so they typically just avoid your ghost wall rather than funneling towards Blackwall. I'd avoid it.

Also, To the Death is basically a better version of Challenge (sans the upgrade which serves as a stamina generator); it targets a single enemy from long range, perpetually raises your guard, increases your damage output against the target, and only wears off if you break range. It is extremely powerful and almost always worth using against powerful enemies.

7. The Horns (Iron Bull): Qunari 2-Handed Reaver

1 – Mighty Blow

2 – War Cry

3 – Charging Bull

4 – Block and Slash

5 – Grappling Chain

6 – Passive: Shield Breaker (+3 Str)

7 – Whirlwind

8 – Passive: Clear a Path (+3 Str)

9 – Shield Block (pre-req)

10 – Passive: Bear Mauls the Wolves (+3 Con)

11 – Ring of Pain

12 – Passive: Blood Frenzy (+3 Str)

13 – Passive: Terrifying Fury (+3 Cun)

14 – Devour

15 – Upgrade: Gore and Trample

16 – Dragon-Rage

17 – Upgrade: Ravage

18 – Passive: Hamstring (+3 Str)

19 – Passive: Deep Reserves (+3 Str)

20 – War Horn

21 – Upgrade: Break Their Spirit

22 – Upgrade: Flawless Defense

23 – Upgrade: Torrent of Pain

24 – Passive: Flow of Battle (+3 Str)

25 – Passive: Fervor (+3 Str)

Additional Abilities:

1. Payback Strike (pre-req)

2. Passive: Turn the Bolt (+3 Con)

3. Upgrade: Call to Arms

4. Passive: Untouchable Defense (+3 Con)

5. Upgrade: Rising Winds

Role: DPS

Loadout:

A.                                    B.

1. Gore and Trample       1. Whirlwind      

2. Ravage                        2. Devour

3. War Cry                      3. Break Their Spirit

4. Flawless Defense        4. Torrent of Pain

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Bloodstone: 7.5% extra damage for each enemy within 8 meters

- Nevarrite: Chance to cast Pull of the Abyss on hit

Usage: “Whenever you need an ass kicked, The Iron Bull is with you.”

It doesn’t get more straightforward than this. He hits stuff. It dies. He takes hits. It dies faster. Such is the way of the Reaver. If you personally are wielding the Iron Bull however, there’s a bit more finesse in his art to help stave off the madness. If you’ve read any or all of the warrior builds up to this point, you already know the value of Gore and Trample; earning free Devours allows you to leave Torrent of Pain active for a longer period of time, as well as letting your health tick lower than would normally be acceptable. As a two-hander however, your attack philosophy shifts from alternating between defensive and offensive postures to channeling your offense towards defensive purposes. Once again, this is where Gore and Trample shines by allowing you to knock a troublesome enemy down to buy time to recuperate, or charge past/through enemies into a safer position. In a lot of ways it plays like a slower, less god-like version of the Vanguard class from Mass Effect 2 & 3. You charge into an area, wreck shit, then charge into something else before you get overwhelmed.

Unfortunately, unlike Vanguard you don’t have infinite charges nor an auto regenerating barrier/Guard, so in order to maintain a second health bar for defensive purposes you’ll need to strategically use War Cry and Flawless Defense (in addition to Gore and Trample).

Now, contrary to what’s immediately intuitive, 2-handed warriors are not noticeably more powerful than their one handed counterparts. This is because the number of damage boosts a Reaver can reliably achieve will stack to such monumental levels that both weapon sets will reach a “critical threshold” where all standard enemies melt in 2-5 Ravages. And, since Ravage is so much more powerful than every 1-handed and 2 handed ability (with the exception to those that deal bonus damage to guard), both weapon sets effectively have the same offensive range and speed. All of this points to making 2 handed the generally inferior option as you lose out on so much defensive power as well as a fade-touched ability, by virtue of not having a shield. However, should you choose to use a 2 handed weapon then you must exploit your one advantage over shield users: Clear a Path.

Since 2 handed weapons have such incredible range they can easily be used to strike groups of enemies; something the shield based weapons are largely incapable of emulating. In doing so, the Clear a Path passive almost single-handedly allows you to circumvent the only major problem in the Reaver specialization: stamina shortages. Furthermore, your weapon tree has Whirlwind to further exploit this advantage by stacking a respectable amount of group damage while you generate stamina. So although survival is more tenuous as a Reaver you can still press some sort of sustained offensive advantage. And finally, unique to this build is the ability Break Their Spirit. 2-handers don’t have an ability analogous to shield bash and since becoming overwhelmed is unfortunately possible as a 2-handed warrior Break Their Spirit can be used both offensively to smite guards or combo with allies, and defensively to ward off melee enemies. I personally wouldn’t trust the AI with this build without keeping a watchful eye on it, but for players it is absolutely viable.

Additional Ability Notes:

Every ability with the exception of Rising Winds, exists to help you survive common combat scenarios. Turn the Bolt helps you deal with the many archers strewn throughout the game, Call to Arms is generally amazing and helps you tank groups, and Untouchable Defense extends your guard cap effectively granting you more health. And last and by all means least, Rising Winds helps whirlwind retain its usefulness in the late game. Since these abilities are all useful, I’d recommend picking them up in order via the Amulets of Power rather than hastening the build.

Suggested Team Options:

You need a support and a tank. If you like Warriors, Cassandra and Blackwall work together. If not, any mage (preferably Solas or Dorian) paired with Blackwall or Cassandra will do.

Variations:

As opposed to using Break their Spirit to crush guards, you can opt to use Horn of Valor to raise your offense in general. It’s trickier to reach without making some serious build modifications, since it’s on the opposite side of the tree and makes earning Deep Reserves cumbersome. However, many would argue that it is the better ability for general purpose combat.

Also in the battlemaster tree is Combat Roll, one of my personal favorite abilities. Some people don’t like it because it doesn’t inflict damage or buff you, but they often overlook that it also cures any status ailment, including Knockdown. As such, due to its spammable nature it is one of the best survival tools in the Warrior’s arsenal. With that said though, it is also hard to reach and the AI has no idea how to use it properly.

And then on the offensive side of things lies Earthshaking Strike. It is basically like combining Wall of Fire and Mighty Blow. It’s awesome but can be difficult to use properly. Unfortunately, like the other two abilities it is also difficult to spec for and requires making some cutbacks. Which is a shame, because I vastly prefer it to Whirlwind.

Rogue Builds

8. Red Arrow: Human – Melee Archer Assassin

* – Stealth

1 – Long Shot

2 – Passive: Easy to Miss (+3 Cun)

3 – Passive: Death from Above (+3 Cun)

4 – Leaping Shot

5 – Knockout Powder

6 – Shadow Strike

7 – Passive: Strafing Shots (+3 Cun)

8 – Caltrops

9 – Passive: Looked Like it Hurt (+3 Cun)

10 – Hook and Tackle

11 – Hidden Blades

12 – Upgrade: Overkill

13 – Passive: I Was Never Here (+3 Dex)

14 – Upgrade: Rolling Draw

15 – Passive: Knife in the Shadows (+3 Dex)

16 – Mark of Death

17 – Upgrade: It Beats Walking

18 – Upgrade: Quick Blade

19 – Twin Fangs (Pre-req)

20 – Passive: Dance of Death (+3 Cun)

21 – Passive: Sneak Attack (+3 Cun)

22 – Upgrade: Lost in the Shadows

23 – Upgrade: Mark of Doom

24 – Upgrade: Archer’s Lance

25 – Passive: First Blood (+3 Cun)

Additional Abilities:

1. Upgrade: Tread Lightly

2. Passive: Cheap Shot (+3 Cun)

3. Passive: Gaps in the Armor (+3 Dex)

4. Explosive Shot (Pre-req)

5. Passive: Pincushion (+3 Dex)

Role: DPS!!

Loadout:

A.                                                  B.

1. Mark of Doom                    1. Rolling Draw

2. Quick Blade                          2. Overkill

3. Caltrops                                 3. Archer’s Lance

4. It Beats Walking                 4. Lost in the Shadows

Preferable Fade-Touched Abilities

- Royale Sea Silk: Abilities cost 20% less stamina of not being hit for 5 seconds

- Varghest Scales: +30% damage bonus if not being hit for 5 seconds

Usage: “I have a very particular set of skills…”

While not as awesome as I originally envisioned, this build is still shockingly effective against many of the enemies in this game, and absolutely competent against everything else. Before I begin, make no mistake, you can still perform your standard Archer duties competently. Archer’s Lance is extremely effective at long range and inflicts tremendous damage against tight groups or lines of enemies. Caltrops and Stealth can facilitate your escape, should enemies get in your face. And, as an Assassin, you have Overkill and Mark of Doom to stack tremendous ranged damage without requiring Full Draw. So if you want to be boring play traditionally, you absolutely can.

As for the fun people, It Beats Walking allows you to instantly swing into melee range against an enemy and follow it up with 12 hits to the face from Leaping Shot. Or, if you’re really clever, Lost in the Shadows. While this might seem like the antithesis to the archer’s ethos, it allows you to consistently flank enemies as an archer. This doesn’t sound like much, but combined with Sneak Attack, you can do something that no other archer can do: reliably score critical hits, affording you virtually infinite Stamina with Looked Like it Hurt. It’s not quite as OP as one would hope since you still have some lengthy cooldowns to worry deal with, but not having to worry about stamina costs makes Quick Blade far more valuable and staying in melee range essential to keeping the build running swiftly and smoothly.

Ideally, you’ll initiate combat against some poor mook who looked at you funny with Lost in the Shadows + Archer’s Lance and or Overkill to end his smug face, *Dance of Death activates leaving you with a flat 50 stamina, swing into action against your actual target with It Beats Walking, Enter stealth, then shoryuken him in the back with Quick Blade to refresh your cooldowns and do it all again against everything else.

This chain of events, while specific, is viable a surprising amount of the time and is the primary reason that this build is not only viable, but amazing. If you want an archer build that’s a bit more involved and a lot more unorthodox, then Red Arrow is exactly what you’re looking for.

Additional Ability Notes:

There’s nothing particularly noteworthy here since the build rounds itself out so nicely, but Tread Lightly has at least some substantive value in that it offers a comparable defensive alternative to Lost in the Shadows. You could also use it for passive damage via the second hit from Rolling Draw, but it’s gimmicky at best. As for the other three abilities, Cheap Shots makes your frequent crits even nastier, Gaps in the Armor makes dragon and annoying zweihander killing a little easier, and Pincushion makes your standard attacks just a tad better (though you shouldn’t be doing so too frequently).

Suggested Party Options:

You are the DPS, so consequently you’d like a tank and preferably a support to help you remain in the shadows. It’s also worth mentioning that because you have an unusually high critical hit frequency for an archer, you can partner up with Varric for all sorts of Artificer shenanigans that the AI is surprisingly capable of exploiting.

Variations:

Since Caltops is a bit situational, it is absolutely replaceable with Poisoned Weapons and would be if it didn’t cost one ability point too many. Unfortunately, that’s the only change I can come up with as everything else is too damn useful and doesn’t have a comparable replacement. The only gap that I’d like to plug is the build’s dearth of AoE damage, but you pick up Explosive Shot anyway if you get some bonus abilities, so you can just swap something (like Caltrops) out if you want it.

General Assassin Notes:

Contrary to the flashiness of Overkill and Mark of Death, the general Assassin playbook revolves around the passive I Was Never Here and Stealth. You should ideally be scoring one kill after a set amount of time then patiently waiting until you can do so again. Now THIS build says “screw that” and uses Stealth to maximize the utility of Quick Blade. You can still play like a traditional Assassin, but I’d only do so when an enemy dies well before you’ve run out of abilities to attack with.

Also bear in mind that, Hidden Blades and Mark of Death are both mid-ranged abilities, so do not feel compelled to move into melee range to utilize these powerful abilities.

9. Fortune Favored (Varric): Dwarf - Archer Artificer

1 – Long Shot

2 – Stealth

3 – Passive: Easy to Miss (+3 Cun)

4 – Passive: First Blood (+3 Dex)

5 – Explosive Shot

6 – Passive: Pincushion (+3 Dex)

7 – Passive: Death from Above (+3 Dex)

8 – Poisoned Weapons

9 – Caltrops

10 – Passive: Looked Like it Hurt (+3 Cun)

11 – Spike Trap

12 – Passive: Opportunity Knocks (+3 Cun)

13 – Focus: Hail of Arrows

14 – Upgrade: Infected Wounds

15 – Leaping Shot

16 – Passive: Set Them Up (+3 Will)

17 – Elemental Mines

18 – Passive: And Take Them Down (+3 Dex)

19 – Upgrade: Archer’s Lance

20 – Passive: Cheap Shot (+3 Cun)

21 – Fallback Plan

22 – Upgrade: Lost in the Shadows

23 – Passive: Tricks of the Trade (+3 Will)

24 – Upgrade: Rolling Draw

25 – Upgrade: Chain Reaction

Additional Abilities:

1. Twin Fangs (pre-req)

2. Passive: Dance of Death (+3 Dex)

3. Passive: Sneak Attack (+3 Cun)

4. Passive: Fighting Dirty (+3 Dex)

5. Passive: Explosive Toxin (+3 Dex)

Role: DPS

Loadout:

A.                                                        B.

1. Archer’s Lance                         1. Chain Reaction

2. Elemental Mines                       2. Infected Wounds

3. Rolling Draw                            3. Spike Trap

4. Lost in the Shadows                 4. Hail of Arrows

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Varghest Scales: +30% damage bonus if not being hit for 5 seconds

- Dales Loden Wool: 30% focus gain

Usage: “What would I do without my trusty dwarf?”

For those who played DA2, Varric (with Bianca, naturally) is likely to be a staple on your team. So, this build is here to make sure that he actually pulls his weight…and maybe a few dozen Qu’nari’s worth as well.

Archer’s Lance is your go-to spammable attack. It will almost always be off of cooldown and does good damage throughout the game, so if you need to take something annoying out, just blow several large holes in it (and anything else in the wrong place at the oh so right time). For groups, you have two options: Chain Reaction is great for breaking tight packs, and Elemental Mines is good against those spread wide. Note that Elemental Mines doesn’t actually inflict much damage on its own, but rather grants you more passive opportunities to get crits (and debuffs), which in turn nets you more stamina (via Looked Like it Hurt) and shorter cooldowns (via Opportunity Knocks) for Archer’s Lance and Infected Wounds. Speaking of, always, always start engagements with Infected Wounds and keep it active whenever possible. The 25% damage boost should be reason enough, but considering how many of your attacks can affect groups, you will almost certainly poison every enemy within a country mile as well. That much passive damage is too good to pass up. Oh, and your focus ability, Hail of Arrows is there whenever you want to just end something; literally anything.

Defensively, Rolling Draw triples as a spacer, insurance policy (with the next standard attack possessing knockdown), and Cooldown refresher since most of the twelve hits should be crits. And finally, Lost in the Shadows is simultaneously a buff and an escape tool. It also lets you run around incapacitating enemies with Spike Traps should you be so utterly sadistic cheeky. Dragons, Darkspawn, Red Lyrium abominations, etc. there is nothing this dwarf can’t handle.

Though the AI can control Varric surprisingly well if you set Archer’s Lance, Stealth, and Infected Wounds to preferred, and leave everything save for Hail of Arrows and any traps to normal, it only truly shines when you’re the one plugging dudes full of bolts. 

Additional Ability Notes:

Dance of Death completely solves any stamina issues (provided that it actually works). Sneak Attack gives you an incentive to position properly, since it can make your crit rate near perfect without having to craft crit oriented parts for Bianca. Fighting Dirty makes your poison more potent, and Exploding Toxin makes it fucking hilarious nigh unavoidable. Everything is awesome, so for the love of giant nugs, get those Amulets of Power ASAP (Hard in Hightown is a pretty great read anyway).

Suggested Team Options:

Artificer’s require a team with decent-perfect crit rates (DD rogues) to be overpowering. You could try to add +crit rate to everyone in the party’s weapons, or just take a DD rogue and call it a day. Both would still be preferred, so an ideal party would include Varric, Sera (for the banter), and a mage, warrior, or both depending on your specialization.

Variations:

If you want to be more adept at support you can use Full Draw with its upgrade Stunning Shot as a way to incapacitate a single nasty enemy before a fight starts. To do so, replace Rolling Draw and Chain Reaction. I don't like it (for reasons explained below), but I also don't like Full Draw.

General Artificer Notes:

For those unfamiliar with Artificer, the entire specialization revolves around the passive Opportunity Knocks (not traps, as the name implies). This ability shortens all of the Artificer’s cooldowns by 0.5 seconds per crit scored by anyone on your team and synergizes with And Take Them Down which boosts the Crit Rate of your entire party by 5%. While none of this sounds particularly impressive, it can lead to hilariously over-powered set-ups where your abilities are always off of cooldown, allowing you to spam powerful abilities until you run out of stamina, which itself regenerates in chunks of 10 every time you personally crit (Looked Like it Hurt) or 50 when you earn a kill (Dance of Death, when it works properly). Even more insane is its synergy with your Focus ability, Hail of Arrows.

With a high enough crit rate, you can easily grant yourself infinite attacks due to Rolling Draw hitting twice (24 hits = 12 second cooldown reduction) and all Archer abilities conveniently possessing 12 second or less cooldown durations. This is also why Full Draw is outclassed by Long Shot on Artificers, except as a debuff; it takes just long enough to come off of cooldown that you have to buffer it, inflicts exactly the same amount of damage as Long Shpot, and takes longer to fire. Even if used at the start of combat, the difference in damage is only one Long Shot, and finding the time to launch an extra one as an Artificer (read: with non-existent cooldowns) is effortless. So, yeah, don't use that.

10. Smoke and Daggers: Human - Dual Dagger Artificer

* – Flank Attack

1 – Stealth

2 – Passive: Easy to Miss (+3 Cun)

3 – Passive: Evasion (+3 Dex)

4 – Evade

5 – Shadow Strike

6 – Caltrops

7 – Passive: Looked Like it Hurt (+3 Cun)

8 – Hook and Tackle

9 – Upgrade: It Beats Walking

10 – Upgrade: Skirmisher

11 – Spike Trap

12– Passive: Opportunity Knocks (+3 Cun)

13 – Fallback Plan

14 – Upgrade: Bait and Switch

15 – Passive: Set Them Up (+3 Cun)

16 – Elemental Mines

17 – Twin Fangs

18 – Passive: Dance of Death (+3 Cun)

19 – Passive: Sneak Attack (+3 Cun)

20 – Deathblow

21 – Passive: And Take Them Down (+3 Dex)

22 – Upgrade: Quick Blade

23 – Passive: Ambusher (+3 Cun)

24 – Passive: Tricks of the Trade (+3 Will)

25 – Upgrade: Thrill of Victory

Additional Abilities:

1. Passive: First Blood (+3 Cun)

2. Passive: Cheap Shot (+3 Cun)

3. Upgrade: Hidden Step

4. Wombo

5. Combo

Role: DPS guerilla style

Loadout:

A.                                               B.

1. Skirmisher                             1. Thrill of Victory

2. Spike Trap                             2. Elemental Mines

3. It Beats Walking                   3. Bait and Switch

4. Evade                                     4. Quick Blade

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Varghest Scales: +30% damage bonus if not being hit for 5 seconds

- Royale Sea Silk: Abilities cost 20% less mana/stamina if not being hit for 5 seconds.

- Plush Fustian Velvet: 10% chance to use Hidden Blades on a hit, with 5 added hits

or

- Dales Loden Wool: 10% chance to drop Caltrops on a hit, doing 70%!?!? weapon damage per second (Seven times as strong as the actual ability...El oh el.)

Usage: “They never see me coming…”

You are a swashbuckling land-pirate swinging into action, making a glorious mess, and vanishing like a feather on the wind with your stolen booty. Such is the way of the Dual Dagger Artificer. You plan your assault (Bait and Switch), swing smack dab into a stocky enemy’s confuzzled face (It Beats Walking), tear him asunder (Ripping Fangs) before he can tell what time it is (spoilers: it’s stabby time. It is always stabby time), then get the hell out of there before the boat leaves (Bait and Switch again) with the enemy’s tasty booty ripe for the plundering (you should really read how awesome Bait and Switch is).

If you plan on staying ashore, you can eschew the pillagin’ and make ‘em walk the plank. Yet the key is not to be direct in your assault, but pervasive, like a mosquito with an AK-47. Skirmisher will be your greatest ally, allowing you to inflict damage and enter stealth without using the actual ability. From the cover o’ dark you can leave traps (Spike Trap) to incapacitate the foul curs (without breaking stealth I might add) or throw cares to the wind and shatter their puny bones with an uppercut that’ll send ‘em beyond the stars (Quick Blade). An’ if yer foes be feelin’ a wee bit weak in the knees, then feel the thrill o' vict’ry as ya send em ta their graves! Ya ha har!!

Additional Ability Notes:

Sorry, I’m not sure what came over me there. The thought of kidnapping booty just popped into my head and…You know, let’s just forget that even happened. There aren’t very many additional skills to talk about since the build is about as tight as it’s going to get. First Blood makes it easier to knock enemies into Deathblow range (likely via Ripping Fangs). Cheap Shot, is to help soften bosses and Red Templars. And Hidden Step gives evade some extra defensive utility. Everything else is just a toy doesn’t add anything substantive.

Suggested Team Options:

Honestly, anything works. For simplicity’s sake, I suggest having a traditional party of a mage, rogue, and warrior to assist you, as you are basically playing as the “wildcard.”

Variations:

You’re an artificer, so naturally, you’d want multi-hit abilities, namely Spinning Blades and its upgrade to exploit Opportunity Knocks right? In theory, yes. In practice, I refuse to float three ability points (Bloodied Prey, Unforgiving Chain, and Spinning Blades) for slightly faster cooldowns. It’s just unreasonable.

On the more realistic side of things is poison, which is ALWAYS reasonable! Poisoned Weapons-> Infected Wounds is not bad at all, I just couldn’t/wasn’t willing to make room for it.

General Artificer Notes:

Elemental Mines launches A LOT of mines, so the upgrade is rarely necessary, and the mines will not all hit the same enemy. However, in fights against very large enemies, like a dragon, you can reliably make all of them land if you stand close to it before launching, which should grant you many many crits if you land them while flanking, and thus instantly refresh all of your cooldowns. On this particular build (what with It Beats Walking and Fallback Plan), it’s as natural as breathing, but Archer Artificers can abuse this as well if they’re willing to move into melee range.

Also, in case it wasn’t self-evident the fact this is an Artificer build with Opportunity Knocks is what makes it so fun to play with. Dual Dagger cooldowns are already short, and Opportunity Knocks just makes them nigh unnoticeable, so you can quickly and efficiently respond to almost any circumstance without having to worry about cooldowns (provided you gear everyone up properly). Much like the Blood Knight build for warriors, it effectively turns the game into an ARPG.

11. Sera Says "Sod It:" Elf -Dual Dagger Tempest

1 – Twin Fangs

2 – Stealth

3 – Flank Attack

4 – Passive: Easy to Miss (+3 Cun)

5 – Passive: Dance of Death (+3 Dex)

6 – Knockout Powder

7 – Caltrops

8 – Shadow Strike

9 – Passive: Looked like it Hurt (+3 Dex)

10 – Hook and Tackle

11 – Flask of Fire

12 – Upgrade: Unquenchable Flames

13 – Flask of Frost

14 – Passive: Flask Master (+3 Dex)

15 – Upgrade: It Beats Walking

16 – Passive: Ride the Storm (+3 Dex)

17 – Flask of Lightning

18 – Upgrade: Skirmisher

19 – Upgrade: Quicksilver

20 – Passive: Sneak Attack (+3 Cun)

21 – Upgrade: Quick Blade

22 – Deathblow

23 – Upgrade: Ripping Fangs

24 – Passive: Fury of the Storm (+3 Con)

25 – Passive: Killer’s Alchemy (+3 Con)

Additional Abilities:

1. Upgrade: Thrill of Victory

2. Passive: First Blood (+3 Dex)

3. Upgrade: Bitter Chill

4. Passive: Cheap Shot (+3 Dex)

5. Whatever

Role: DPS

Loadout:

A.                                                  B.

1. Ripping Fangs                      1. Flank Attack

2. Quick Blade                          2. Quicksilver

3. Deathblow                           3. Unquenchable Flames

4. It Beats Walking                 4. Flask of Frost

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities

- Silverite: +5 Guard on Hit

- Bloodstone: +7.5% extra damage for each enemy within 8 meters

- Nevarrite: Chance to cast Pull of the Abyss

Or, if you are on Nightmare and fear for your safety:

- Snoufleur Skin: On hit: heal 1% of maximum health

Usage: “Sod it…”

This build has the tools to turn the tide of any battle, regardless of enemy or party composition, but it takes a bit of creativity, planning, and practice to become accustomed to them all. There is no way that I could cover all of the ways you can use this build, as Tempest is truly that versatile, but I can provide some guidelines on when to use your flasks.

First off, Flask of Frost is more useful when used offensively than defensively. While an 85% damage reduction is stupendous (and highly effective during dragon battles), the ability to freeze then instantly shatter anything near you (via Ripping Fangs, Shadow Strike, or Deathblow), and finish off entire crowds of targets without losing any stamina or triggering a cooldown (Deathblow + Dance of Death) is even more incredible. It is an exceedingly effective crowd control tool and renders Spinning Blades completely obsolete.

The most eye-catching ability Flask of Fire/Unquenchable Flames, on the other hand, is actually quite situational. Reducing all cooldowns and ability costs to zero is very powerful, but the long cooldown on the flask and relative ease that you dispatch enemies without it, behooves you to only use it against bosses, Keep bosses, and very large enemies like giants and abominations. When the opportunity presents itself you are best off spamming Ripping Fangs or Quick Blade; Ripping Fangs if your abilities are off of cooldown and Quick Blade if they aren’t (for the 4 second cooldown reduction).

Finally, Flask of Lightning/Quicksilver has clear utility as a defensive tool, but not an offensive one. You don’t generate aggro when flanking thanks to Easy to Miss, and have Skirmisher to take you to the enemy’s rear instantly. What’s more, you have It Beats Walking to take you straight to an enemy regardless of where you are, so there’s no need to use it to initiate combat or reach a ranged attacker from behind a wall of melee units. Collectively, there’s almost nothing to gain from using this ability offensively as it slows down your entire team. However, it still shines when you need to escape from a crowd or give your cooldowns free time to recuperate.

Plan, practice, and find your own path.

Additional Ability Notes:

Thrill of Victory and First Blood both make Deathblow easier to use and more reliable of a finisher. Bitter Chill facilitates the dream scenario of freezing and shattering an entire mob with one attack. And Cheap Shot makes your crits even more effective (though unfortunately, you’ll have to craft one of your daggers to gain a high crit rate to begin with).

Team Options:

A tank and a support. Pretty straightforward.

Variations:

You can replace one of the attack abilities with Thousand Cuts, but it’s generally not worth it. Partially because, like Flask of Fire, there aren’t many targets worth using it on, and largely because it’s not very good (or at least not much better than Mark of the Rift which is free).

In contrast, Poisoned Weapons is quite useful since you’re always hitting stuff, but it makes the game even more about cooldown management than it already is.

Parry is also a pretty decent option in general, since you spend almost all of your time in an enemy’s face. Again, you’d have to trade an offensive ability for it (and learn how to use it properly), but it works. My only problem with it is that it doesn’t help you deal with ranged attackers; you can’t parry projectiles.

General Tempest Notes:

I basically covered all general discussion about Tempest in the Usage section, so here’s some info on Archer Tempest: Flask of Frost is virtually useless since you are almost always far enough away from combat to where you shouldn’t ever be targeted. Flask of Fire is excellent, for bursting down enemies with Long Shot or stacking critical hits with Leaping Shot (though the constant movement will likely become problematic), but not much else. And Flask of Lightning has the same utility as it does for this build, so read that if for some reason you made it this far without doing so. Also, Thousand Cuts is not weapon specific, so you can use it with a bow.

That’s unfortunately the extent of my thoughts on Archer Tempest. There doesn’t seem to be nearly as much value to be gained from the flasks (read: the entire specialization) as there is for its Dual Dagger equivalent. Why Bioware made Sera an archer by default, I will never understand.

12. Whispered in a Lullaby (Cole): Human – Dual Dagger Assassin

* – Stealth

1 – Passive: Easy to Miss (+3 Cun)

2 – Flank Attack

3 – Twin Fangs

4 – Passive: Evasion (+3 Dex)

5 – Evade

6 – Passive: Dance of Death (+3 Dex)

7 – Upgrade: Skirmisher

8 – Passive: Sneak Attack (+3 Cun)

9 – Shadow Strike

10 – Deathblow

11 – Hidden Blades

12 – Passive: I Was Never Here (+3 Cun)

13 – Passive: Knife in the Shadows (+3 Cun)

14 – Upgrade: Overkill

15 – Mark of Death

16 – Upgrade: Lost in the Shadows

17 – Upgrade: Mark of Doom

18 – Upgrade: Quick Blade

19 – Upgrade: Hidden Step

20 – Upgrade: Ripping Fangs

21 – Caltrops (Pre-req)

22 – Passive: Looked Like it Hurt (+3 Cun)

23 – Passive: Throatcutter (+3 Dex)

24 – Passive: Gaps in the Armor (+3 Dex)

Or, if the Assassin tree doesn’t let you go backwards anymore:

24 – Upgrade: Thrill of Victory

25 – Passive: First Blood (+3 Dex)

Additional Abilities:

1. Passive: Cheap Shot (+3 Cun)

2. Passive: Ambush (+3 Cun)

3. Doesn’t

4. Even

5. Matter

Role: DPS
Loadout:
A. B.
1. Skirmisher 1. Quick Blade
2. Ripping Fangs 2. Death Blow
3. Overkill 3. Mark of Doom
4. Hidden Step 4. Lost in the Shadows

Preferred Fade-Touched Abilities:

- Lurker Scales: +75% faster movement speed when in stealth
- Varghest Scales: +30% damage bonus if not being hit for 5 seconds
- Royale Sea Silk: Abilities cost 20% less mana/stamina if not being hit for 5 seconds.

Usage: “Rogues do it fro¬– ”*is shived………………from behind*

I had more fun putting together the tagline and title (Opeth references!) than I did playing as a Dual Dagger Assassin. To me, it is the most boring way to play Dragon Age: Inquisition. There’s no subtlety or nuance, no crazy array of calculations happening in the background, no comically overpowered ways of moving or avoiding damage. You just stealth, kill something, and repeat. End of story.

More specifically you activate Lost in the Shadows, then score a crit off of 2700% damage with Overkill (1800% x1.5 because of Stealth). If whatever you’re attacking is dead (which it probably is), re-stealth. If not, use Deathblow if it’s at or below 50% health or Skirmisher, Quick Blade, then Deathblow (in that order). While you’re waiting for Overkill to come off of cooldown, use standard attacks and Ripping Fangs (sigh) from behind (cue groans). If you ever need to get out of trouble, Stealth will almost invariably be available. If not, use Skirmisher against a nearby enemy to enter it regardless. And if you’re fighting a boss, use Mark of Doom, run down the list of everything stated in this paragraph until the moment before it expires, then pull the trigger and the boss will be dead.

That’s all there is to this build. If you are a new player who doesn’t want to engage with too many gameplay mechanics or just wants to faceroll the game with little difficulty, this is probably the build for you (as it sure as hell isn’t the one for me).

Additional Ability Notes/Armor Penetration:

Cheap Shot makes your guaranteed crits from stealth soften enemies up for later and Ambush gives you 50% armor penetration when exiting Stealth. Great. Now let’s talk about something you might’ve been curious about that's actually interesting: armor penetration.

As the name implies armor penetration is the percentage of armor that your attacks ignore. Therefore, its usefulness is determined by how much of it you have, the strength of your weapon, and most importantly the amount of armor the enemies possess. Unfortunately, most enemies in Inquisition don’t have much armor. In fact, the ones that have an appreciable amount can all be listed: “Warriors (shield bearing and two-handed),” Red Templar Commanders (or whatever they're called), Abominations, Giants, and Dragons. Everything else in this game is fairly squishy. So, against these specific enemies attacking from Stealth with Ambush and Gaps in the Armor will appreciably raise your damage output, but against anything else, the stat is negligible. As a rule of thumb then, do not stack armor penetration on your weapons as an Assassin. You get 75% of it from your abilities, and that in and of itself is overkill in most circumstances.

Suggested Team Options:

You need someone to draw aggro, so any warrior will do. I prefer to take Cassandra around so that you can see her motherly side (assuming Cole is running the build), but Blackwall is the ideal. Other party members are up to preference as you have no support options yourself, nor do you need them.

Variations: 

The above build largely ignores the Sabotage tree, but there are some interesting options in there. Infected Wounds for extra damage is what most people use to make their burst even better, but you usually only have enough time to enter stealth then activate one ability in the ideal circumstance, before it expires. It’s appropriate for the assassin playstyle, but further reinforces the boring passive gameplay.

You could also take Hook and Tackle for some extra mobility and more active combat, but it has no synergy with stealth whatsoever, breaking it upon activation and offering an enemy enough time to turn around and retaliate. Besides, you can just use Fade-Touched Lurker scales for super speed during stealth, and that's even useful outside of combat since it's faster than the mounts (though granted, that isn't saying much).

Lastly (at least as far as useful options go) you could take Throwing Blades so that you don’t have to enter melee range to kill stuff (Stealth->Throwing Blades (4 crits = +40 Stam)->Overkill). I very much like this ability as it makes you more versatile, but it costs three points to both reach and upgrade which is a little steep (though it could fill in the last three bonus ability slots).

General Assassin Notes: 

You always want to trigger Mark of Death manually. It inflicts significantly more damage than when the ability expires naturally. Getting the timing down, however can be tricky, so I recommend finding something that can help you keep time, until it becomes intuitive. I personally, hum a section from “Killing is My Business." Whatever works, man.