Dragon Age: The Veilguard – best DPS rogue build for Veil Rangers

Dragon Age: The Veilguard best rogue build

The first important skill you want to grab is a trait called Bated Breath in the 4 o’clock position, which allows you to charge your arrows up another level, giving you bigger hits. 

Down and right from there is Keen Eye, a passive that generates extra Momentum — which increases attack speed — on arrow hits. This bonus is doubled when hitting a weakpoint. 

From that, a passive node straight down increases arrow regeneration by 20%.

From there, get the skill to the right called Reeling Bolt — a great skill for dealing damage and creating some distance, and the start of your specialization in Electricity damage. Grab the Traumatize passive to the right to create a branching path to the north and south of the skill tree that you can come back to later.

South of that, grab Precise Power, a greater passive that boosts your damage when you kill an enemy with a weakpoint hit. You can also grab Mortal Wounds from the node southeast of it for 10% more weakpoint damage.

The best skills for Veil Ranger

Now make your way toward the Veil Ranger specialization, grabbing all nodes along the way, granting you more electric damage, arrow regeneration, and a Trait called Hunter’s Focus, which allows you to slow time while aiming and charging up your bow. 

From here you can grab all Veil Ranger abilities, though some are level-gated (you can come back for these as soon as you’re able). Veil Ranger abilities boost bow damage, allow you to knock enemies over with attacks to the legs, boost bow damage on timed shots, increase electricity damage potential, and more.

• Related: Dragon Age: The Veilguard review — hollow and clinical with small flashes of brilliance

While you wait for the level gates, you can grab Lightning Quiver from the north for another electricity skill. Make sure you get the two nodes diagonally up and left and diagonally up and right from that skill for more weakpoint damage, charged bow damage, and damage increases when at a distance.

Next, grab the Defy the Elements passive from the northwest node from Hunter’s Focus. This will allow you to make your way up the left side of the skill tree and grab Swift Death, a greater passive that grants Quickened when you deal a critical hit. South of that, there’s an upgrade for Conductive Shot which boosts electric damage output.

Now make your way back to that branch you made on the east side of the skill tree. North of there you can grab Pounce, which gives you Momentum and arrow regeneration when you perform a takedown. Two nodes north of that is a Trait that allows you to fire an arc of five arrows for crowd control. Next to that, there’s a regular passive that gives you 15% Penetration on your arrows, but the important skill is the next one over: Some Motivation, a greater passive that adds 4% damage per your maximum arrow count. One node across you can increase your max arrow count by two. You can increase this further with equipment.

Best armor and weapons for rogue build

Here are some good armor pieces and weapons for this particular build (I played a Qunari, but there are likely helmet equivalents for the Vitaar face paints I list below).

Best Vitaars/helmets for rogue archers

• Tombstone Dust: gain Precision at low health, Precision hits leech 100% keeping your health topped up.
• Blood Writing: when an enemy dies, it spawns an apparition that attacks nearby enemies, dealing necrotic damage.
• Katari Handed: + 25% shocked damage and duration, +2 max shock stacks, shocked enemies cannot dodge.
• Vitaar of the Veil: +15% weakpoint damage, +25% damage vs barriers, +10% weakpoint damage relative to Veil Jumpers Allied Strength.

Best armor for rogue archers

• Duelist’s Coat: +4 maximum arrows, +20% hipfire damage, +300 stagger in every fourth arrow shot, you do not spend arrows when at max momentum.
• Jumper’s Deft Leathers: +50% arrow regeneration, +15% weakpoint damage, +25% charged bow damage, fully charged bow shots can disrupt nearby enemies.
• Wanderer’s Long Coat: +15% electric damage and resistance, using an electric ability clears all afflictions, gain Quickened when you take electric damage.

Best accessories for rogue archers

• A Pale Reflection amulet: +20% damage to enemies with low health, standard enemies are always considered low health, defeating an enemy grants 5% ultimate.
• Token of True Flight amulet: +20% projectile ability damage, +25% barrier damage from projectile abilities, gain momentum on projectile abilities that hit from a distance of 15 meters or more, when a projectile ability deals a crit, 50% of your weakpoint damage is added.
• Focus of the Veil ring: +15% electric damage, +25% electric resistance, +20% electric damage to barriers, 50% of your other damage type bonuses contribute to your electric damage.
• Twin Palladium ring: +4 momentum on kill, 15% extra momentum generation, +50 max momentum, damage increases with current momentum.
• Brass Root ring: +20% shocked damage, +20% damage vs shocked enemies, +25% shocked duration, one extra shock stack.

Best rogue bows

• Grip and Rip: +7 max arrows, -50% ranged damage, fires three arrows at once.
• Azure Bow: +25% hipfire damage, +4 max arrows, does not lose accuracy, +4 bow damage per max arrow capacity.

Best enchantments for rogue archers

• +15% charged bow attack damage.
• +40 electric damage.
• +20% hipfire damage.
• +1 max shocked stacks.
• +20% shocked damage.
• +2 max arrows.
• +25% arrow regeneration.
• +15% affliction duration.
• +20% electric damage.