Dragon Age: The Veilguard beginner tips and tricks

Beginner tips and tricks that you'll want to know before starting Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / BioWare

As you start out on your grand adventure across Thedas, there’s a lot you’ll need to familiarize yourself with, so it’s easy for something to slip under your radar. It doesn’t help that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has a handful of small mechanics that are easy to miss, and taking full advantage of them can greatly enhance your character’s abilities.

Here are our ten beginner tips that you should know about before jumping into Veilguard for the first time. If you need more information as you’re starting out then check out our guides on the best background faction to choose in the character creator and how to access Veilguard’s Deluxe Edition content.

Return to the Lighthouse often

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / EA/Bioware

Your companions and their stories are one of the biggest driving forces of the game, both narratively and mechanically. They all have their own questlines and stories, but they can only progress when you interact with them at the Lighthouse. 

To keep moving things along it’s a good idea to, every now and then, fast-travel out and back into the Lighthouse every now and then. Every time you finish a conversation with them, then reset the Lighthouse, they might have something new to say, or a quest to give you depending on where you are in the story.

If you do this and nothing new appears, then that means you’re good to carry on without missing anything.

Side-quests before story

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / BioWare / EA

This game uses story missions as a big marker for when certain side-quests and activities unlock in the world. This is especially true of companion quests, which have to be locked behind the main story for narrative reasons.

This means that it’s a good idea to make sure you clean up every possible side-quest out in the world before progressing the main story, as that will unlock a whole bunch of new ones. Plus, there are even a few circumstances where some side-quests will become unavailable after major story events, so doing it this way ensures you won’t miss anything.

Bring a healing companion

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / BioWare / EA

When you unlock a companion, go to their ability loadout on their stat screen and double-check that they don’t have a healing skill hidden away. Many companions have them but don’t put them on their usable roster by default, which is a big mistake. Having your allies heal you in combat (both on their own and at your command) is a massive help in battle, as it supplements your limited supply of potions.

Experiment with companion combos

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / EA/Bioware

Staying with companions for a moment, try out lots of different combinations in your party because sometimes you’ll find that their skills can directly combo with each other. When you find one of these, you can have them each use an ability simultaneously to create an even more powerful attack than usual, which is a big help in draining boss’ giant health bars.

Save often when exploring

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / EA/Bioware

When you’re on a mission, even a side quest, the game’s auto-save system is pretty generous. If you fall in battle you won’t be set too far back. However, the same can’t always be said for when you’re just out exploring the world, finding secrets and hidden chests. Here the auto-save system can’t always be relied upon, so remember to drop a manual save every now and then in case you run into a tough fight.

Vendor items give stat boosts

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / EA/Bioware

This is a strange mechanic that the game keeps very quiet. When you find random items at vendor stands, a lot of them only exist to be sold for faction strength, but if you check their descriptions, occasionally you’ll find one that gives your character a permanent stat boost when you buy it, so keep an eye out.

Get to a specialization ASAP

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / EA/Bioware

With this game’s spider-web of a skill tree, you may be suffering from analysis paralysis when it comes to picking what direction to expand into. The best way to guide yourself is to check the three specializations you have access to and see what takes your fancy. You can only have one specialization active at a time, so going straight to your favorite is very helpful for when they unlock at Level 20.

You can respec any time

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / EA/Bioware

If you follow the advice above but find that you’re not really enjoying the build you’ve created, then there’s no need to stick with it. The game lets you refund all of your skill points at any time and completely rebuild your character from scratch. This lets you experiment with as many different builds as you want before you find something you like without any punishment from the game.

Sometimes the mean answer is best

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / EA/Bioware

Veilguard suffers from the classic dialogue wheel problem, where the few-word summary shown on the wheel often doesn’t reflect what your character actually says when pick it. Knowing this, you shouldn’t always shy away from the more aggressive or mean options on the wheel, as it’s very rare that your character will be outright cruel to someone, even if you want them to be. Experiment with each option so you can get a decent idea of what the tone is from each one.

Daggers are better than friends

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / EA/Bioware

Each character has their own special skill that can help navigate the world. Harding can move certain rocks, Lucanis can make platforms appear from the Fade, and so on. Rather than force you to switch party members constantly, the game has a handy feature where your Lyrium dagger can summon the power of any companion you’ve unlocked.

The unintended side effect is that doing it this way is usually much quicker than having the associated companion by your side, as you don’t have to wait for them to get into position. So if you know you’re going to need their abilities, it’ll be quicker to leave them behind.