Rogues are a mixture of close and long-range fights that rely on tools to control the battlefield Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Because of this nature, this build is made to stack constant crits and multipliers to get an insane bonus while ripping through enemies.
This Rogue Saboteur build allows you to snipe enemies from range, placing down a turret, setting up overwhelmed with Taash, and using an explosive trap to inflict damage on enemies.
In this guide, we will examine the best Rogue Saboteur build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, considering the best faction, race, gear, companions, and runes.
Rogue Saboteur Build Overview
The Rogue Saboteur build focuses on stacking up multipliers while landing constant critical hits in burst damage. The weapons, shield, and gear perfectly complement their integral traits, allowing you to maximize your damage output and utility.
- Faction: Veil Jumpers
- Race: Elf
- Active Skills: Static Strikes, Rain of Decay, Reeling Bolt, Pilfer, Explosive Trap, Fortune’s Turret
- Ultimate: Concussive Barrage, Fortune’s Fury
- Trait: Evasive Maneuvers, Bated Breath, Plague Arrow
- Companions: Taash and Emmrich
- Gear: Cordova’s Toothpick, Dark Shard +10, Azure Bow +10, Carastes Double-Hat +9, Duelist Coat +10, Twin Buckle Binding, All-Mother’s Copse, Maw of the Black City, Graven Opal
- Runes: Bombard, Ascend, Shatter
Best Faction and Race for Rogue Saboteur Build
Veil Jumpers is the best faction for Rogue Saboteurs in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This faction grants increased critical hit bonuses and weak point damage. The Saboteur is all about delivering high burst damage in one go and these bonuses make it easier to do its job effectively.
This faction also provides a bonus to damage against Fade Touched enemies. And since you’ll encounter these enemies frequently, this bonus damage helps you further. As for the race, the elves are known to have a stronger connection with the Fade, making them a perfect choice for this build. Most Veil Jumpers are also elves, so you’ll fit right in. There are no actual benefits for this choice, this is purely for role-playing purposes.
Best Abilities And Level Progression
The Saboteur specialization unlocks at level 20 and you will be able to equip active skills and ultimate abilities. We recommend going with the following:
Level 1-10:
At this stage, grab Static Strikes first and foremost. This is your basic peashooter ability, dealing 121 electricity damage with your strikes. It also applies Weakened. Next, work towards getting Rain of Decay, which deals 330 necrotic damage to enemies caught in its area. Finally, get Reeling Bolt, which doesn’t do much damage on a hit, but you want it for its potential to pull in enemies, shock them, and stagger them.
For Ultimate, go for Concussive Barrage, which has 1,760 damage and staggers enemies. If this hits any already staggered enemies, it extends the duration by 200%. Use this after you fire off a Reeling Bolt.
Level 10-20:
Swap out Static Strikes for Pilfer. This control-tool ability damages the enemy and heals you. It applies bleed on hits, which you can use to detonate Overwhelmed enemies. Now switch Rain of Decay with Explosive Trap which deals 224 physical damage and detonates Overwhelmed enemies.
You will now have access to the Saboteur specialization at level 20, so as soon as you unlock it, swap out your ultimate for Fortune’s Fury. This attack does 1,980 physical damage but the rate of fire is faster than Concussive Barrage.
Level 20+
Most of your abilities remain the same except Reeling Bolt, which you’ll swap out for Fortune’s Turret. This is accessed through the Saboteur specialization tree. You throw down a mechanized turret that targets the closest enemy and peppers them with projectiles. It deals 880 physical damage and has a 60 second cooldown between casts.
What Traits Should You Use?
Between levels 1-10, get and use Evasive Maneuvers. This allows you to launch an attack from an extended dodge. After you cross level 10, get Bated Breath, which allows your bow to be charged up an extra level. Finally, between levels 10-20, choose Plague Arrow which applies Necrosis to the ground if you fully charge your bow before shooting. With this trait, you get precision on every 8th arrow shot and AOE damage on every 5th arrow.
Recommended Companions
Companions aren’t the core of this build, but we recommend using Taash and Emmrich as companions for the Rogue Saboteur Build for the given purpose:
- Taash: Taash can quickly apply overwhelmed with their ability Spitfire, allowing you to increase damage output. Their Dragon’s Roar is ideal for taunting large groups, as enemies cannot target Taash. Since your explosive trap is AOE, you will hit two weakened enemies for a combo using Taash.
- Emmrich: Emmrich uses Entangling Spirits to inflict weakened status for Taash to detonate. You need to max out his Replenish ability to apply healing effect.
Top Gear Choices
You have a total of nine gear slots in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. For the Warrior Champion build, we recommend the following items:
| Main-Hand Weapon | Cordova’s Toothpick |
| Off-Hand Weapon / Shield | Dark Shard +10 |
| Shortbow | Azure Bow +10 |
| Helm/Vitaar | Carastes Double-Hat +9 |
| Armor | Duelist Coat +10 |
| Belt | Twin Buckle Binding |
| Amulet | All-Mother’s Copse |
| Ring Slot 1 | Maw of the Black City |
| Ring Slot 2 | Graven Opal |
Cordova’s Toothpick
The Cordova’s Toothpick unique saber is the best weapon for this build as it will give you a ton of bleed effect on hits, that’s your mainstay with this build. With every strike from this weapon, you will stack bleed by 6%, causing a 25% additional stagger.
Dark Shard +10
Dark Shard legendary longsword increases heavy attack damage while providing additional damage on low health or when breaking the enemy’s armor.
Azure Bow +10
This legendary short bow fires three arrows at once, maximizing damage an extra 4% damage per arrow, giving you a 104% damage potential overall per shot. The best part about this bow is that it does not lose accuracy in favor of damage.
Carastes Double-Hat +9
This epic light helm gives your abilities a 30% damage boost.
Duelist Coat +10
This legendary medium armor gives more maximum arrows to increase damage, hipfire damage for panic situations, and more stagger. When at maximum momentum, you won’t consume arrows.
Twin Buckle Binding
This rare utility belt enables you to get quickened on potions, which enables you to use abilities more often, which means you do more for longer and faster. This means you can use Pilfer to heal more if needed.
All-Mother’s Corpse
This legendary amulet grants tool bonus damage and momentum on critical hits abilities.
Maw of the Black City
This ring makes ability damage a critical hit, but it does take 20% of your max health as physical damage when you use it.
Graven Opal
This ring improves ranged damage and weak point damage, giving your benefit to your ultimate ability. It also boosts momentum.
The Runes You Should Use for This Build
For the Rogue Saboteur build, we recommend using the following Runes:
- Bombard: Bombard lets you have infinite arrows when you enter Time Dilation, which lasts 10 seconds and enables you to line up multiple shots simultaneously.
- Shatter: It allows you to obliterate enemy defenses for 10 seconds when using ranged attacks.
- Ascend: gives you increased damage and necrotic weapons while your momentum is restored for 10 seconds when your health drops to a point where you can’t heal anymore.
