During yesterday's State of Play broadcast, BioWare premiered two new Dragon Age: The Veilguard videos. One is a deep dive on the Mage class, and another is dedicated to a boss fight against a Blighted Ice Dragon. Producer Hilary Hidey walked Dragon Age: The Veilguard fans through her process of building the Mage character:
As a Mage, I can switch between two weapon sets: a staff for ranged attacks or an elemental orb and dagger for close-quarter combat. I'm facing off against an ice dragon, which is vulnerable to fire, so I've equipped Urthemiel's Ash as my elemental orb. It reduces enemy damage, makes burning last longer and do more damage, and increases the cap of burning stacks. My dagger, Thorn of Misfortune, gives me access to the physical damage type and synergizes with my affliction-based build, increasing the damage of Arcane Bombs, which I build up with repeated orb attacks. I've further powered up my afflictions by equipping this Death Mask, which will give me a nice damage boost.
Let's switch to my Dragon Age: The Veilguard character skill tree, where I further enhanced my ability to take on this ice dragon. Elemental Catalyst gives my abilities +15% bonus damage, in this case, fire damage, since both my staff and orb are fire-based. Inner Focus generates 25% extra mana from successful light attacks, and that number is doubled against enemies suffering from an affliction, like burning, so each time I attack my burning enemies, I'll generate 50% extra mana, allowing me to cast powerful spells like Meteor more often. The Spellblade specialization blends magic and melee. With the Electrical Burns passive, my fire attacks stack even more afflictions on my targets, applying the shocked affliction whenever I apply burning (and vice versa). Finally, my Spellblade Ultimate ability Thunderous End unleashes a massive amount of damage, shocking enemies in a wide radius.
The Dragon Age: The Veilguard producer goes on to show some synergizes and combos with the companions. Once the dragon is staggered, she primes the Sundered status with Lucanis and triggers it with her own character. Normally, she would have to wait a few seconds until Lucanis's ability is once again available, but the Regroup rune instantly refreshes companions' cooldowns, allowing her to repeat the combo right away. The dragon is then finished off with the aforementioned Ultimate ability, Thunderous End.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is out on October 31. Check out our recent coverage, including the hands-on preview, exclusive Q&A, and roundtable group Q&A.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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