The fun of RPGs comes from working your way towards that perfect build and unleashing devastating damage to anyone who stands in your way. If you have your eyes set on the Ice Mage build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, we have put up a detailed guide here that goes through every section of the build to give you a better idea of what equipment and skills you should focus on.
Best Race & Class For Ice Mage Build
Almost all races can learn magic but only one exception.
While you have four choices to pick the race you want to play as, if you want to be an Ice Mage, you need to skip the Dwarf Lineage for one major reason. Dwarves are not allowed to be mage in Dragon Age Veilguard, they can’t use magic. When it comes to class, choose the Mage Class. A complete no-brainer, avoid the other classes here in the section, and head straight to the Mage Class.
Best Faction For Ice Mage Build
Faction will impact your dialogue options and will offer some impactful gameplay changes as well. So bear that in mind, when you are choosing a proper faction for your character. There are six factions in the game:
- Grey Wardens
- Veil Jumpers
- Shadow Dragons
- Antivan Crows
- Lords of Fortune
- The Mourn Watch
For the mage build, we are going for the Shadow Dragons. It sounds cool and it does offer an increased class resource recharge rate. This means we will gain a significant boost to the Mana recharge rate for our character. If you are running a Mage build, Shadow Dragon is a must.
Best Skills For Ice Mage Build
The max cap in Veilguard sits at 50, so you will have plenty of points to spend on skill points and focus on the core mage tree. Our advice here is to diversify your skills, stacking the same elemental skills one after another might sound good but when you are in the battle facing an opponent with resistance to all of your specific elemental skills, you are going to have a bad time.
- Frost Nova: Freezing AOE spell for all the enemies you are battling. Leaving them vulnerable to other attacks
- Entropic Sphere: With the upgrade the projectile that comes out of your hand will be massive and it will ruin anyone standing in its way. A great skill for the end-game fun.
- Ice Blast: A great solo-damage skill but it does a decent AOE damage as well. But the highlight here is the Weakened status it inflicts on enemies, this gives our companion a small window to land a good blow to deal massive damage to the enemy.
- Vortex of Shadow: Create a giant vortex in the middle of the fight to deal the heaviest damage to the enemies. This is going to be our ultimate skill on the list.
Good Alternatives:
A good alternative to the skills will be Spirit Bomb for the ultimate move, it deals a good amount of damage and simultaneously restores your health. Another skill that should get some love is the Chain Lightning: A perfect fit for AOE damage, as it automatically hits all the nearby enemies, and staggers them. The chain lighting also leaves Overwhelmed status to make the enemies stun last even longer than usual. Another handy skill is Perfect Cast will be perfect if you are overly reliant on your Light attacks.
If you are early in the game and want the Mage skill set to reflect the initial encounters in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, then you will need to think about switching between these skills:
- Faded Strke: Heavy damage attack after dodge
- Quick Recovery: Regan mana 25% quicker
- Mind Blast: Staff recharges outside combat
- Charging Spirit: Defending releases shockwave.
You will need to head to the skill tree to make the skill or abilities more powerful.
Right Skills To Level Up From Skill Tree
You will start with Destructive Light and Arcane Shot. but you will need to work your way to the skill that supports the element we have enabled under skills. On the top of the skill tree, we will find Frost Nova and Ice Blast, both of which are excellent for ice-based mage gameplay.
Any skills around the Ice Blast or Frost Nova act as a passive buff to the skill ability in the skill tree section. So if you are interested in a skill, after unlocking it focus on the skills around it to make it better. Grab all the passives to deal more than good damage with the skills. Passives such as Breathing Room, and Shattering Control for Frost Nova will be incredibly helpful.
For Chain Lighting, passives such as Precision Strikes and Shocking Strikes will help immensely in the battle.
When you are reaching the end game, and your character level at around 30 or 40, you will need to work at the higher level skills at the skill tree, their location is always far away from the starting location. Here the same rule is followed, once you unlock the skills that we have mentioned above Entropic Sphere, buy other passive skills around it to make it more powerful in the battle.
Note: Always focus on the passive skill list, the cooldown reduction is always in the passive skills, they are usually found right next to the ability skill. Obtaining them is the best way to reduce cooldown and deal more damage in combat.
Best Weapon For Ice Mage Build
Here we will lean more towards the effect more than anything else. The game throws plenty of weapons for the mage, but as a mage, it is better to equip a weapon that suits our style and helps us in different ways. Here a weapon like Flamebranch might not sound great but the passive increase in Mana regeneration will help us tremendously in the combat.
Some weapons are tied to skills, such as Timeworn Mageknife, which can heavily influence the damage and stagger time on Arcane bombs. But later in the game, you might have to focus on gear such as Twist of the Veil to get more bonuses and land a heavier blow on the enemy.
Best Armor For Ice Mage Build
When you are picking the armor in the Veilguard, focus on the damage resistance and the perks that could benefit our abilities.
Leaning on more ice build, we are going to focus on the armor with Cold Damage perks such as Shadow’s Grasp, It is about benefitting the skills we are using the combat, the armor and the rest of the gear should always complement our frequent used skills in the battle. Armors such as Wanderer’s Long Coat or Enlighted Helmet will help our ice abilities.
Early on, you want to set your eye on Casing of Fortune armor to get some good ability damage and some companion perks. Initially, you need to set your eyes on survival, and skills surrounding the survival aspect of the game: Healing, Mana Regeneration, and Passive skills. Eventually, you will need to make your move to the damage dealing and ability passive.
Here we have other Armor that suits our mage style, equipping them will raise our Mana generation and add more staggering damage. Equipping items such as Carastes Double Hat early on will help our gameplay, getting decent Mana regeneration mixed with the stagger abilities can make your ability skills last longer and reload quicker.
Best Accessories For Ice Mage Build
Initially, you want to focus on Mana regeneration then work your way to projectile damage, Barrier Damage, and more benefits. Early on, we recommend you tie with Glacial Talus and Paragon’s Knuckle Ring, both of them provide good defense and mana regeneration.
Here we found Token of True Flight has the edge you need in Amulet. For ring, you can switch to The Last Resort, which gives you the perk of gaining 20% more damage and defense after you use the ability.
Note: As you progress in the game, the accessories will have come with their fair share of pros and cons, for example in the Last Resort ring, you will gain 20% damage and defense but at the same time, you will lose the special bonus if you defend or dodge.
Keep that in mind, when you are shooting for higher-level gear in the game. While it could easily empower you the cons also take a heavy toll.
Enchant Your Equipment & Abilities
Here you can experiment with the enchantment that works the best for you. In Veilguard you can enchant both the armor & weapon and abilities as well. While enchanting Armor and Weapons, you can raise the defense or damage boost, preferable to your play style.
If you are fond of some skills, such as Frost Nova, here adding Apply Chilled on Hit enchantment will make the skill ability much more powerful than the default attack power. If your mostly used abilities have a higher cooldown or not doing enough critical damage, Enchant is the best place to rectify those errors the abilities.
Ability enchant will unlock more of the passive abilities, here we can add more elemental effects on the abilities such as Apply Chilled on Hit 15%, Cooldown Duration, or 75% Stagger, this enchantment can be a game changer, especially if you are overly reliant on the skills in the game.
And with that, your Ice Mage Build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is complete and all set to rain down damage and destruction in your wake! Also, don’t forget to keep an eye out for the Fen’Harel Wolf locations to grab those extra Skill Points in the game.
