Dragon Age The Veilguard Skill Tree explained

Skill trees in Dragon Age: The Veilguard are crucial things to understand and utilise. After all, it's how you make Rook and their companions better prepared for the journey ahead. Many challenges will stand in your way, so giving your characters bigger and better skills is a must.

Also, skill trees are one of the ways you can customise your Rook and companioon builds during Dragon Age: The Veilguard. You can obtain and equip different skills and branches from the trees to create builds that suit your preferred playstyle.

Without further ado, here's everything you need to know about skill trees in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

On this page:

• Rook Skill Tree explained
• Companion Skill Tree explained

For more help on your travels across Thedas, check out our Dragon Age: The Veilguard walkthrough.

Dragon Age The Veilguard Rook Skill Tree explained

Rook's skill tree is different from your companion's one, and to access it you need to find the 'Skills' tab in your main menu (the one where you find your Map). Select this tab and you'll be brought to the first layer of Rook's skill tree (yes there's more than one layer here.)

The first layer of Rook's skill tree shows you several options, and where you go depends on what you want to improve:

• Class Skills
• Class Specialisation Skills

Class Skills

In the center of the menu is the core skill layout for the class you've chosen:

If you look at the top, lower left and lower right corner points of this section you'll see small descriptions such as 'Control'. These are showing you what kind of builds you'll be leaning towards if you follow the branches near that section, and what kind of skills you'll find around that area if you're looking to enhance Rook in a specific way.

Select the central portion of the menu here to enter Rook's skill tree and you'll find there are a lot of options to choose from to bulk out their skills. What's important to remember here is that the skills are all connected on branches from the central portion, meaning that if there's a specific skill you want, you'll need to unlock the ones on the same branch before it to be able to obtain it.

You can obtain skills on Rook's skill tree by spending skill points.

Skill points are gained through earning XP, which can be done by completing quests, killing enemies, exploring and helping the people of Thedas. However, if you really want to earn large amounts of XP quickly then you should focus on completing the main story quests.

You also get skill points by finding special altars that lead to wolf statues.

You can see Rook's current level and how far they've got left until they reach the next one in the upper left corner of the skill menu. Then, you can view how many skill points they've got to spend in the lower left corner of the screen, just above the option to refund skill points to respec Rook.

The shapes on Rook's skill tree are important to know about, as each shape shows you the type of skill you're looking at:

• Small Circle - Minor Passive or Stat Boost
• Medium Circle - Major Passive or Ability Upgrade
• Large Circle - Class Skill
• Small Hexagon - Trait Skill
• Diamond - Ability Skill

Now, let's go into a bit more detail about the skill types.

• Class Skills - These are to do with Rook's core skills and weapon proficiency
• Ability Skills - These skills can be assigned to an Ability slot
• Major Passive or Ability Upgrade - This modifies or adds effects to existing stats and Abilities
• Trait Skills - This modifies existing class skill such as counter-attack.
• Minor Passive or Stat Boost - This one increases the effectiveness of Passives, stats and Abilities

Also, to make things easier, you can just hover over a skill on the skill tree and you'll get a description showing you what type it is, the benefits of it, and whether it's got any extra useful effects for Rook.

Class Specialisation Skills

Then, also on the first layer, there are three outer points coming off the menu that each correspond to the specialisations your class can choose from further along in their skill journey. So Rogue, Mage and Warrior will all have different options here.

We chose the Rogue class so our Rook's skill tree shows the Duelist, Saboteur and Veil Ranger options.

Now, it's important to remember that the specialisation class skills won't be available to you right away, you'll need to work towards them as they unlock at unlock at Level 20.

You can switch specialisations as much as you want to throughout your journey, so if you find one isn't working for you then don't worry too much about that. It's worth experimenting if you can as specilisations give you access to some more active abilities, passives and a different ultimate attack.

Once you've unlocked a specialisation then select them from the first layer of Rook's skill tree and you'll be able to see that specialisation's skill tree. Here, you can purchase skills along the branches in the same way you did on the core class skill tree.

Be warned though, certain skills in Rook's tree won't be able to be used in line with others - often one skill will block out another. If you find that you've blocked out a skill you want, then you can refund your skill points and start the build again.

Dragon Age The Veilguard Companion Skill Tree explained

The companion skill trees in Dragon Age: The Veilguard are far simpler than Rook's one so there's a bit less to stress about, but there are still plenty of options to choose from so you can ensure your chosen party are the best ones to have at your side.

To enter your companion's skill tree find the 'Companion' menu and select the companion you want to enhance or which one you want to look at the skill tree for. Then, when on their individual page, use the prompted command in the lower right portion of the screen to enter their skill tree.

As we said earlier, the companion skill trees are less complicated than Rook's but there's still plenty to choose from. Just like Rook's tree, there are branches connecting the companion skills and, if there's a specific skill you want, you'll need to unlock the connecting skill before it on the skill tree.

Your chosen companion's level will be displayed in the upper left corner of the screen while their skill points will be displayed below this, just above the option to refund the points to respec your companion. The main way companions get skill points is by increasing their Bond.

Also, keep an eye out for these red marks on your companion's skill tree - again, they're showing you that you can't get a certain skill if you've already obtained one that clashes with them. For example, for Lucanis we couldn't have the Resentment Ability Upgrade because we already had Malice applied.

However, it's worth noting that certain effects on companions can also impact what skills you can use. For example, we made a choice later in the story that caused Lucanis to be 'Hardened' which ultimately took away his Soothing Potion skill

That's all for now! If you're looking for more Dragon Age: The Veilguard content, check out our pages showing you how to change your appearance and how to transmog.