The Evoker specialization controls the battlefield with their offensive gameplay in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This is why they use control spells and cold damage, inflicting slow and freezing effects for detonation.
This build merges detonation with cold damage to freeze even the hardest enemies and shatter them. The fun part is that you don’t need to depend on skill rotation. When your target is in range, use the staff’s ranged attack, followed by a combo with Harding and Dark Squall.
If you close the distance, group enemies with the massive Entropic Sphere radius and set them off with Ice Blast. You will rely on Entropic Sphere as often as possible, so keep an eye on your health bar. Don’t forget to rejuvenate with Harding and potions. Let’s go through the best Mage Evoker build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard with some of the best active skills, ultimate abilities, traits, companions, and gear pieces.
Mage Evoker Build Overview
The Mage Evoker build focuses on an offensive playstyle. Therefore, choosing the correct active skills, ultimate, trait, companion, gear, and runes is crucial to maximizing your damage output and utility.
- Faction: Shadow Dragons
- Race: Elf
- Active Skills: Arcane Shot, Frost Nova, Ice Blast, Dark Squall, Entropic Sphere, Wall of Fire
- Ultimate: Destructive Light, Vortex of Shadow
- Trait: Mortal Connection, Mind Blast, Knight of Staves
- Companions: Harding and Davrin
- Gear: Wintersbreath +10, Twist of the Veil +10, Glacial Rod +10, Carastes Double-Hat +10, Jumper’s Deft Leathers +10, Shadow’s Grasp +10, Token of True Flight, Band of Smoke, Maw of the Black City
- Runes: Escalate, Crystallize, Glaciate
Best Faction and Race
The best faction for Mage Evoker Build in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the Shadow Dragons. This faction grants faster Mana Regeneration perk. Since Mana is your main resource, the regeneration boost is a welcome addition to your capabilities and lets you cast your abilities more often. This faction also provides a passive damage boost against Venatori.
As for the race, we have chosen the Elf because of their strong connection with fade, making them a perfect choice for this build.
Best Abilities And Level Progression
This strong Mage specialization unlocks at level 20. Once you have Evoker unlocked, you can control the battlefield at range. Next, you must 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 freezes the ground around you in an area. Your third ability will be Dark Squall which deals 164 Cold damage upon impact, detonates Sundered, and applies Chilled on targets.
For your Ultimate, you will choose Destructive Light that does massive 2,416 Fire Damage. It also inflicts burning upon enemies caught in its stream of fire.
Level 10-20:
As you hit level 20, you will unlock the Evoker specialization. Swap out Arcane Shot for Entropic Sphere as soon as you do that. It launches a cold sphere towards your enemies and damages everyone before exploding in a devastating blast.
For your Ultimate, you will also swap it out to Vortex of Shadow. Yes, the damage is less at 1,632 Cold damage, but this is an AOE ability and can damage more enemies. So, the utility is greater.
Level 20+:
The abilities chosen in the previous milestone will work just fine beyond level 20. If you must swap something out, you can switch Frost Nova out with Wall of Fire. This deals 81 Fire damage and creates a flaming obstacle that damages enemies caught in its working area. Choose this if you feel like all your abilities are too frost-heavy, but otherwise, you don’t need to switch.
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 and deal damage based on your equipped staff. At level 20 and beyond, switch to Knight of Staves.
This trait pairs a heavy attack with two light attacks. The damage is also based on your staff’s level, so the higher the level, the more damage you’ll do.
What are the Best Companions for This Build?
We went with Harding and Davrin for the companions, as they combo well with this build.
- Harding: Harding easily breaks through the enemy’s defense while applying Sundered using the Shred ability. She primes enemies up for detonation which your abilities do. Additionally, she has Soothing Potion, which allows her to provide healing. She also has the Adrenaline Rush ability to increase base damage.
- Davrin: As for Davrin, we have used him mainly for his Death from Above ability, which detonates weakened targets; this will further weaken the remaining enemies. His Battle Cry automatically lets Davrin taunt enemies every 60 seconds where he takes aggro and takes the heat away from you.
Gear Choices
The gear selection for the Mage Evoker Build focuses on boosting cold and weapon damage while increasing the staff’s projectile count and chilled stacks.
| Main-Hand Weapon | Wintersbreath +10 |
| Off-Hand Weapon / Shield | Twist of the Veil +10 |
| Stave | Glacial Rod +10 |
| Helm/Vitaar | Carastes Double-Hat +10 |
| Armor | Jumper’s Deft Leathers +10 |
| Belt | Shadow’s Grasp +10 |
| Amulet | Token of True Flight |
| Ring Slot 1 | Band of Smoke |
| Ring Slot 2 | Maw of the Black City |
Wintersbreath +10
Wintersbreath legendary elemental orb inflicts 30% increased charge attack damage and 25% cold damage. This will buff your cold and frost abilities as they are your main damage dealers.
Twist of the Veil +10
Twist of the Veil dagger gives 25% increased damage and 30% charged attack while applying stagger.
Glacial Rod +10
This legendary elemental stave increases heavy attack damage by 20% and increases light start projectile counts
Carastes Double-Hat +10
The Carastes double hat is a legendary light helm that increases defense and gives 49% ability damage with 15% Mana generation. This stacks with the passive perk from your faction, giving you a total 30% bonus to Mana Regeneration.
Jumper’s Deft Leathers +10
This light armor gives maximum +50 Mana increase and +15% regeneration. This stacks with the regen bonus you have already allowing you refill your mana bar in moments.
Shadow’s Grasp +10
The Shadow’s Grasp legendary grenade belt adds cold damage to everyone in the radius. This belt also applies an additional chilled stack.
Token of True Flight
This epic amulet improves projectile ability damage, giving a boost to Entropic Sphere and Dark Squall. You will also gain 25 Mana with projectile abilities, but make sure to stay away from enemies.
Band of Smoke
The Band of Smoke increases cold damage, and you get a bonus for cold damage inflicted by this ring
Maw of the Black City
Maw of the Black City ensures your ability damage is always a critical hit. When you use the ability while equipping this ring, it will consume 20% of your max health
Best Runes for the Evoker Build
In terms of Runes, you will want to get ability damage, frozen duration, and cold damage for the Mage Evoker build; this is why we recommend using the following runes:
- Crystallize: With Crystallize, you can freeze all enemies within 10 meters of radius. You also get bonus damage with this freeze because of the active skills chosen for this build
- Escalate: Escalate is used to boost the influence of the next chosen ability to deal with higher damage or efficiency. This is why it’s paired up with Entropic Sphere to make it more damaging
- Glaciate: Glaciate increases the cold damage by 20 seconds, making Ice Blast more effective
