The Slayer is one of three specialization branches of the Warrior class in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This specialization deals with dealing damage at close range, emphasizing stagger, guard breaking, and two-handed weapon damage.
In this guide, we will discuss the best class build for the Warrior Slayer, including the best faction and race to start with, the best skills, ultimate, gear to use, and more.
Warrior Slayer Build Overview
This build focuses on the strengths and inherent playstyle of the Slayer, letting you tank and deal damage in close-quarter situations and stagger your enemies. This build also emphasizes charging rage, the main resource through which the Warrior class uses its abilities. This lets you use your active abilities and ultimate more often in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
- Faction: Grey Wardens
- Race: Dwarf
- Active Skills: Titan Stomp, Whirlwind, Heroic Leap, Flashing Fist, Driving Kick, Fury of the Forge
- Ultimate: Flashing Fist, and For Gold and Glory
- Trait: Shield Toss, Explosive Toss, and Arc of Destruction
- Companions: Bellara and Lucanis
- Gear: Woodsong Cleaver, Bandit’s Bulwark, Elven Rockbreaker, Carastes Double-Hat, Orchestrator’s Long Coat, Tincture Kit, A Pale Reflection, Call of the Hall, and Twin Palladium
- Runes: Upend, Diminish and Fortify
Best Faction and Race
The best faction to choose for a Warrior Slayer build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the Grey Wardens. This faction grants you increased damage output and increased defense, going hand in hand with the class’ playstyle.
This faction also grants you increased damage against Darkspawn and increases your faction strength earn rate. While races don’t grant you any bonuses, we recommend using Dwarf as it goes hand in hand with this class’ tanky playstyle.
Best Abilities And Level Progression
You can branch into the Slayer specialization once you hit level 20 in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This will open you up to new skills and a new ultimate attack. For this build, we recommend going with the following:
Level 1-10
At this stage, your focus should be on getting Spectral Bulwark, your main ability. It surrounds you with necrotic energy and damages enemies in the melee range for 377 damage. You will likely have Driving Kick at this point, which helps give you some breathing space and send enemies flying back. Use this when you get piled on.
Now shift your focus on getting Titan Stomp, which does area damage of 312 and applies Overwhelm. It also massively staggers enemies caught in its radius. And after that, get the Flashing Fist ultimate, which does 2336 physical damage in 4 shockwaves.
Level 10-20
Keep Spectral Bulwark, but swap out Driving Kick for Whirlwind. The ability is pretty self explanatory and unleashes a whirlwind of steel that damages everything it hits and ends with a final massive blow.
Change Titan Stomp with Heroic Leap which you will get later on as you unlock the Slayer specialization at level 20. In this, you jump forward and deal massive damage on impact, and detonate weakened enemies.
When you do that, also swap out your Ultimate for For Gold And Glory. This deals massive damage to enemies and also staggers them.
Level 20+
At this stage, we’ll keep our abilities as is and there is no major change here. The only switch you can make is swapping out Spectral Bulwark for Fury of the Forge. But that depends on whether you prefer a super-aggressive approach or not. This deals 366 fire damage and inflicts burning on enemies. This can be handy against Darkspawn. Spectral Bulwark has more utility overall so if you decide to keep that, you’ll be fine.
Best Traits
You can pick one trait that lets you pull off a special maneuver. For the Warrior Slayer, we recommend going with Shield Volley at levels 1-10. Strike a shield toss with a shield attack, and it will bounce up to 3 times between an enemy and deal damage with each bounce.
From levels 10-20, go with Explosive Toss, which makes your charged shield throw explode on impact. And at level 20+, go with Arc of Destruction, which allows you to jump into the battlefield with a strong attack combo. This is unlocked with the Slayer specialization.
Recommend Companions
The best companions to pick for the Warrior Slayer build are Lucanis and Bellara. They work well with this class and specialization as they make up for its shortcomings.
- Lucanis: Lucanis works well with this class mainly due to his Abominate skill. This skill lets you quickly take out your enemies’ shields, leaving you open to deal massive damage to them without worrying about their armor. Adrenaline Rush is another great skill, as it increases your damage output for a short period.
- Bellara: Bellara’s most useful skill for this build is Galvanized Tear and Time Slow. The former lets you pull in enemies to a single point to deal damage to them, while the latter slows down. When both of these skills are used in tandem with the Whirlwind active ability, you have the potential to deal tons of damage.
Top Gear Choices
You have nine gear slots in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. For the Warrior Slayer build, we recommend the following items:
| Main-Hand Weapon | Woodsong Cleaver |
| Off-Hand Weapon / Shield | Bandit’s Bulwark |
| Two-Handed Weapon | Elven Rockbreaker |
| Helm/Vitaar | Carastes Double-Hat |
| Armor | Orchestrator’s Long Coat |
| Belt | Tincture Kit |
| Amulet | A Pale Reflection |
| Ring Slot 1 | Call of the Hall |
| Ring Slot 2 | Twin Palladium |
Woodsong Cleaver
Besides its high damage output, the main benefit of using this weapon is its emphasis on Rage generation. Not only does this weapon grant you +15% rage generation from the get-go, but it also provides +100% rage regeneration whenever you take damage. This weapon works particularly well with the Whirlwind skill.
Bandit’s Bulwark
Bandit’s Bulwark is an excellent shield to use for this build. It gives you +20% heavy attack damage and +25% damage against armored enemies. Additionally, it grants you immovable when breaking an enemy’s armor, which synergizes very well with Lucanis’ abominate skill.
Elven Rockbreaker
Like the Woodsong Cleaver, the Elven Rockbreaker grants you +15% rage generation. It also grants you an additional +8 rage on every kill and increases your maximum rage by +50. Additionally, every time you expend three bars of rage in a short period, your maximum damage output increases significantly for a short period.
Carastes Double-Hat
The Carastes Double-Hat grants you a +25% stagger on every ability use. This can be a game changer when coupled with Whirlwind and For Gold and Glory.
Orchestrator’s Long Coat
The Orchestrator’s Long Coat grants you +15% light attack damage and +25% final attack damage. Additionally, defeating one enemy applies 150 physical damage to all nearby enemies; considering how close you’ll be to your enemies, this perk is pivotal in giving you the upper hind.
Tincture Kit
The Tincture Kit belt provides an additional +20% healing while giving you one extra revival charge. Where it excels, though, is in its ability to reduce companion healing cooldowns by -30%.
A Pale Reflection
A Pale Reflection Amulet grants you +20% increased damage against enemies that are low health. When you upgrade it, the +20% damage increase applies to all enemies, letting you increase your damage output considerably. This amulet also recharges 5% of your ultimate for every enemy defeated.
Call of the Hall
Call of the Hall works increases your stagger damage by a staggering +50% and your takedown damage by the same amount.
Twin Palladium
The final piece of gear for this build, the Twin Palladium ring, grants you an additional +15% rage generation and an extra +4 rage on each kill.
Best Runes
Runes accentuate your ability and build in different ways. You can select up to three runes at a time. For the Warrior Slayer Build, we recommend the following:
- Upend: With Upend, you can turn all of your defensive stats and bonuses into offensive buffs for 10 seconds, letting you increase your damage output for a short while.
- Diminish: This rune weakens all enemies within a 6-meter radius of you
- Fortify: The Fortify rune makes you invulnerable, letting you tank damage with ease.
