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The first few areas ofDragon Age: The Veilguardintroduce players to most of the game’s basic features. However, there are a few features they only touch on lightly, and some are skipped over completely. While many gamers will be able to figure things out from there, others may have trouble figuring out what to do.
Ability swapping is one of those features inDragon Age: The Veilguardthat couldstand to have more instructions. This guide will attempt to fill in the blanks, explainhow to swap abilities and skills for Rookand his companions, and outline how one can upgrade and improve these abilities.
How to Swap Rook’s Abilities in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
While you’re able to earn new abilities on the Skills tab, you’ll need to visit the Character tab to swap them in. On this tab, you should see the symbol of each active ability directly below your character. Click on any of them to change which ones you have equipped.
One important thing to note is thatyou can’t change your abilities during combat. The Character tab is unavailable while your weapons are out,so you won’t be able to change your equipment or your skills. If you have a bad loadout for a specific fight, your best option is to flee the combat, swap things around, and then come back.
How to Swap Companion Abilities in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
You can change companion abilities the same way you change Rook’s. The main difference is that you must do so from the Companions tab, andselect each companion individually.
Each companion has three damaging abilities,one healing ability, and one buffing ability. They also get a special non-combat ability that’s always active, and their main weapon applies a unique bonus when you tell them to “Attack My Target.” Finally, they each have a special “Hero of the Veilguard” skill that unlocks later on.
How to Upgrade Abilities in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
The skill trees for Rook and for companions are completely different. Not only do they have different shapes, but you also get points for them from different sources.
For instance, after spending two upgrade points on Fade Bolts, Bellara can choose betweenVeiled Courage(which doubles the Stagger caused) orDirect Current(which applies Shocked to nearby enemies). You don’t have to choose either upgrade, but picking one means you can’t pick the other.
Rook’s upgrades are less direct than their companions'. Each ability has one or two types (Control, Projectile, Blast, Strike, Duration, Area, etc.) and Ability Upgrades in the skill tree apply to every ability that shares the listed type. For instance,the starting ability for mages is Arcane Shot, which hasProjectileandBlast. This means that you can upgrade it withVeil BlastsandBombastic (Blast), along withMultiplicityandSupercharged (Projectile).
One last feature worth mentioning is thatyou can always refund your skill points for no cost. you’re able to refund them one at a time by clicking on an active node, or you can refund all of them at once by hitting the button in the lower-left corner of the screen. You can’t refund a node if other active nodes depend on it, but that’s the only restriction.
