The Death Caller specialization involves detonating sundered enemies and using your ranged necrotic attacks to take down enemies in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This build uses highly damaging necrotic beams to increase damage over time. You can detonate your targets or siphon them to heal.
Use a companion to apply sundered on enemies with weapon attacks and detonate them. If enemies surround you, use corrupted Ground and hold down ranged attack mixed with light attack to boost the damage output.
When you’re running low on health, use potions, Harding’s ability, or start leeching to heal. This guide lists the best setup to define the best necrotic Mage Death Caller build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
Mage Death Caller Build Overview
This Mage Death Caller build is a nightmare build that focuses on an insane amount of damage and survivability. The weapons, shield, and gear perfectly complement their integral traits, allowing you to maximize your damage output and utility.
- Faction: Mourn Watch
- Race: Elf
- Active Skills: Arcane Shot, Frost Nova, Corrupted Ground, Meteor, Spirit Bomb
- Ultimate: Destructive Light, The Crypt’s Herald
- Trait: Mortal Concentration, Mindblast, Soulburn
- Companions: Lucanis and Harding
- Gear: Fadelight +10, The Point, Spiritcaller +10, Deathrattle, Striking Misfortune +10, All-Mother’s Copse, Watcher’s Hold +10, Graven Opal, Precious Decay
- Runes: Escalate, Hunger, Shatter
Best Faction and Race
The best faction for Mage Death Caller in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is Mourn Watch. This faction allows you to deal with increased damage and apply additional affliction stack on enemies.
As for the race, we went with Elf to get strong magical abilities and a close connection to the Fade. This makes them the best choice for inflicting necrosis on enemies to weaken and take them down.
Best Abilities And Level Progression
The Death Caller specialization unlocks level 20, and you can equip yourself with active skills and ultimate abilities. We recommend going with the following:
Level 1-10:
The first ability you will unlock is the Arcane Shot. This is your main peashooter ability and you will use this often at this stage. This does 453 fire damage and inflicts Burning upon your enemies on a hit. Next, you will go for Frost Nova. This doesn’t do much damage at 48 Cold damage but it freezes the ground around you in an area. Your third ability will be Corrupted Ground that does 204 Necrotic Damage with each cast. This is an area-duration ability that applies the weakened effect. It costs 2 mana points to cast.
For your Ultimate, you will choose Destructive Light that does massive 2,416 Fire Damage. It also inflicts burning upon enemies that get caught in its stream of fire.
Level 10-20:
At this stage, swap out your Frost Nova for Spirit Bomb, which you can access at level 20 after unlocking the Death Caller specialization. This deals 612 necrotic damage and detonates Sundered enemies. You will also swap your Ultimate to The Crypt’s Herald from the same specialization tree. This deals 1,836 Necrotic damage but affects all nearby foes instead of firing off a beam.
Level 20+:
The only change you can make here is to swap out Arcane Shot with Meteor. This ability does 378 Fire damage and detonates Sundered enemies. Aside from that, your abilities will remain the same.
What Traits Should You Choose?
Between levels 1-10, your Trait of choice should be Mortal Concentration. With this, sustaining your ranged attack gradually increases its damage the longer it is active for a maximum of 3 seconds. Between levels 10-20, your chosen Trait should be Mind Blast. While Defending, consume 50 Mana to unleash a shockwave 6 meters in all directions. Deals damage based on your equipped Staff and is exceptional in granting some breathing room.
Finally, at levels 20 and beyond, go for Soulborn as your main Trait. Soulburn creates a powerful surge in ranged attacks, which gives the power to detonate sundered targets. This is a great way of changing your playstyle as it detonates even without Mana.
Best Companions for the Death Caller Build
Companions aren’t the core of this build, but we recommend using Lucanis and Harding as companions for the Mage Death Caller Build for the given purpose:
- Lucanis: The first thing you want to get for Lucanis is Debilitate to inflict necrotic damage and apply sundered effect. This ability comes with a cooldown time of 30 seconds, and once active, it can be used to deal with high staggers. He will use Adrenaline Rush frequently without activating it, but he will mainly depend on Debilitate.
- Harding: Harding’s Shred ability inflicts physical damage while applying sundered effect. This is the main ability that deals with a high amount of stagger. Another ability by Harding that proves useful for this build is Soothing Potion, which helps you heal over time as you gradually lose health.
Gear Choices
The orb and blade used in the build are another way to regenerate health regarding damage and extra healing. The staff equipped here deals with excessive damage and is the main gear of this build, as it focuses on ranged attacks.
| Main-Hand Weapon | Fadelight +10 |
| Off-Hand Weapon / Shield | The Point |
| Stave | Spiritcaller +10 |
| Helm/Vitaar | Deathrattle |
| Armor | Striking Misfortune +10 |
| Belt | Watcher’s Hold +10 |
| Amulet | All-Mother’s Copse |
| Ring Slot 1 | Graven Opal |
| Ring Slot 2 | Precious Decay |
Fadelight +10
The Fadelight legendary arcane orb grants necrotic damage and stagger with 25% healing. This orb inflicts 25% increased light attack damage when you don’t have any potions left.
The Point
This unique spellblade lands charged attacks, inflicting physical damage and stagger with 40% increased necrotic damage.
Spiritcaller +10
This legendary arcane stave deals significant damage in ranged attacks. The Spiritcaller works best for this build because it leeches health on hit if your health falls below 30%. It gives 20% resistance at low health, and 20% increased ranged attack damage.
Deathrattle
Deathrattle is a medium helm that gives you precision to your attacks when your health drops to 40%. So as you get close to death, you become more deadly for your enemies.
Striking Misfortune +10
This light armor increases necrotic damage by 15% and resistance by 25% further buffing up your abilities. It also increases ability damage by 105% making a complete master of death.
Watcher’s Hold +10
The Watcher’s Hold is a rare grenade belt that applies necrosis to enemies when using potions. You also get increased necrotic damage with this belt.
All-Mother’s Corpse
This amulet increases your blast ability damage, that is Spirit Bomb and Meteor for this build. You also get 25 Mana when a blast ability deals critical damage.
Graven Opal
This is the core piece because you will be dealing with 20% more ranged attack damage and weak point damage. When you hit a weak point damage, you gain 10 Mana.
Precious Decay
This ring is used to increase the necrotic damage.
Best Runes
We went with Escalate, Hunger, and Shatter for the runes to increase damage and give you leech.
- Escalate: With Escalate, your Meteor ability is increased, allowing you to deal with higher damage.
- Hunger: Hunger increases weapon attack leech by 25% for 10 seconds.
- Shatter: Shatter increases ranged damage by 10%.
