All Dragon Age Veilguard factions and the best one to choose

Oct. 31, 2024

Each faction in Dragon Age Veilguard provides a perk and specific rewards, but which one is best?

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The best Dragon Age Veilguard faction for Rook to pick in character creation is a tough choice because many of them offer interesting benefits. From the stealthy Shadow Dragons and Antivan Crows to the dauntless Lords of Fortune and Grey Wardens, each one comes with their own bonuses. Thankfully, it’s not a huge deal and you’ll be schmoozing with all six factions across the course ofDragon Age The Veilguard’s story anyway, building up their Strength for the battles ahead, which will also get you access to their exclusive gear. With that in mind, we’ve explained all the advantages of all the factions in Dragon Age Veilguard and how you can increase their Strength.

Best Dragon Age Veilguard Faction to pick

Of the six factions available in Dragon Age Veilguard’s character creation, I’d say the best is theAntivan Crows, mainlyfor theirfree extra potion slot, though it’s a tight competition and that’s only if pushed - the reality is that there is no clear standout among the six factions, and it’s more contextual and about what you want to prioritize.

The factions don’t offer much that you can’t get in the game elsewhere, even the final extra buff in some cases - there’s a Rune you can discover that grants an extra potion, for example. However, not having to worry about that by picking the Antivan Crows is a big help, and this bonus is equally valuable to any of theDragon Age Veilguard lineages, classes, and builds.

Still, if there’s a particularcompanion in Dragon Age Veilguardyou want to appeal to, or a specific build you want to lean into (such as picking the Veil Jumpers when you’re making a crit-heavy Rogue), picking the other factions is completely viable. None of them are seriously better or worse in any meaningful way, so feel liberated to choose more based on character concept than min-maxing.

As mentioned, there are six Dragon Age Veilguard factions that the players can choose from in character creation. For whichever one you align yourself with, you gain the following benefits:

However, each faction in Dragon Age 4 has some unique features and minor benefits. I’ve laid out the essential details on all the available factions below:

If you’re going through character creation at the moment, there’s a way you can discoverhow to change appearance in Dragon Age Veilguardlater in the hub area, so if you want to customise your character’s face again, feel free! However, there’s no changing your starting faction after the fact - it’s not like Rook has access to a time machine with which they can rewrite their own history.

Once you properly start playing and begin looking at your Dragon Age Veilguard class skill tree, you’ll also notice that three of the six segments are associated with one of the above factions (for example, the Warrior has segments for the Lords of Fortune, Grey Wardens, and Mourn Watch). These faction names just serve as a way of adding flavor to specializations and categorizing certain skills and don’t have any meaning beyond that. For example, choosing the Grey Wardens as your faction but ignoring their section of the skill tree in favor of the Lords of Fortune is completely fine.

While you’re limited to picking one of the Dragon Age Veilguard factions in character creation, all of them appear elsewhere in the game, and interacting with each one is a crucial part of the main story.

Every faction in Dragon Age Veilguard has a measure of Strength for the fight ahead. This is effectively a reputation system, wherehelping out a particular faction increases its Strength- similar to how collectingmementos in Dragon Age Veilguardhelps the Caretaker strengthen their workshop.

As an example, theDragon Age Veilguard Warden Vaultside quest grants Strength to both the Grey Wardens and Lords of Fortune. However, be aware that some choices, such as theDragon Age Veilguard Minrathous or Treviso choicecan actually reduce a faction’s Strength.

On the World tab of the map screen, you can see the Strength of all factions in a little sub-menu on the left. All factions start Weak, but you can increase the Strength of a faction by doing the following:

The main benefit of increasing a faction’s strength is that hitting certain Strength thresholds for a faction lets you pay to increase the rank of their merchant’s shop, granting you access to new and better faction weapons and armor, helping youupgrade weapons in Dragon Age Veilguard.

It also has a minor impact on the game’s finale, so it’s a good idea to get as many of the six factions into a stronger position before going too far. Just remember that the faction you align yourself with in character creation gets a little boost to their Strength gains, so upgrading their shop should be slightly easier.Many of thebest RPGsincorporate faction mechanics and politics into their gameplay and stories, and Dragon Age 4 is no exception here. If you want to read all our glowing thoughts on it, check out ourDragon Age The Veilguard review.© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and raconteur with a Masters from Sussex University, none of which has actually equipped him for anything in real life. As a result he chooses to spend most of his time playing video games, reading old books and ingesting chemically-risky levels of caffeine. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at USgamer, Gfinity, Eurogamer and more besides.

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