The best Dragon Age Veilguard faction for Rook to pick in character creation is a tough choice because many of them offer interesting benefits. From the stealthy Shadow Dragons and Antivan Crows to the dauntless Lords of Fortune and Grey Wardens, each one comes with their own bonuses. Thankfully, it's not a huge deal and you'll be schmoozing with all six factions across the course of Dragon Age The Veilguard's story anyway, building up their Strength for the battles ahead, which will also get you access to their exclusive gear. With that in mind, we've explained all the advantages of all the factions in Dragon Age Veilguard and how you can increase their Strength.
Best Dragon Age Veilguard Faction to pick
Of the six factions available in Dragon Age Veilguard's character creation, I'd say the best is the Antivan Crows, mainly for their free extra potion slot, though it's a tight competition and that's only if pushed - the reality is that there is no clear standout among the six factions, and it's more contextual and about what you want to prioritize.
The factions don't offer much that you can't get in the game elsewhere, even the final extra buff in some cases - there's a Rune you can discover that grants an extra potion, for example. However, not having to worry about that by picking the Antivan Crows is a big help, and this bonus is equally valuable to any of the Dragon Age Veilguard lineages, classes, and builds.
Still, if there's a particular companion in Dragon Age Veilguard you want to appeal to, or a specific build you want to lean into (such as picking the Veil Jumpers when you're making a crit-heavy Rogue), picking the other factions is completely viable. None of them are seriously better or worse in any meaningful way, so feel liberated to choose more based on character concept than min-maxing.
All Dragon Age Veilguard factions explained
As mentioned, there are six Dragon Age Veilguard factions that the players can choose from in character creation. For whichever one you align yourself with, you gain the following benefits:
- Faster reputation building with that specific faction (referred to as Strength)
- Slightly increased damage against a particular kind of enemy
- Bond-building dialogue options with the relevant companion
However, each faction in Dragon Age 4 has some unique features and minor benefits. I've laid out the essential details on all the available factions below:
| Faction | Increases Damage Against | Ability/Buff | Associated Companion | Who are they? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grey Wardens | Darkspawn | Defense/Health Increased | Davrin | Paladin Knights who fight back the Blight |
| Veil Jumpers | Fade-Touched | Critical/weakpoint damage increased | Bellara | Scholars of ancient elven magic |
| Shadow Dragons | Venatori | Class specific resource regenerates faster | Neve | Stealthy resistance fighters keeping the Venatori blood mages at bay |
| Lords of Fortunes | Mercenaries | Perform combat takedowns more frequently | Taash | Bombastic treasure hunters and mercenaries |
| The Mourn Watch | Undead / Demons | Apply 1 additional affliction stack on enemies | Emmrich | Necromancers who study life and death. |
| Antivan Crows | Antaam | Hold 1 extra potion | Lucanis | Assassins who guard their home from the shadows. |
If you're going through character creation at the moment, there's a way you can discover how to change appearance in Dragon Age Veilguard later in the hub area, so if you want to customise your character's face again, feel free! However, there's no changing your starting faction after the fact - it's not like Rook has access to a time machine with which they can rewrite their own history.
Once you properly start playing and begin looking at your Dragon Age Veilguard class skill tree, you'll also notice that three of the six segments are associated with one of the above factions (for example, the Warrior has segments for the Lords of Fortune, Grey Wardens, and Mourn Watch). These faction names just serve as a way of adding flavor to specializations and categorizing certain skills and don't have any meaning beyond that. For example, choosing the Grey Wardens as your faction but ignoring their section of the skill tree in favor of the Lords of Fortune is completely fine.
How to increase Dragon Age Veilguard faction Strength
While you're limited to picking one of the Dragon Age Veilguard factions in character creation, all of them appear elsewhere in the game, and interacting with each one is a crucial part of the main story.
Every faction in Dragon Age Veilguard has a measure of Strength for the fight ahead. This is effectively a reputation system, where helping out a particular faction increases its Strength - similar to how collecting mementos in Dragon Age Veilguard helps the Caretaker strengthen their workshop.
As an example, the Dragon Age Veilguard Warden Vault side quest grants Strength to both the Grey Wardens and Lords of Fortune. However, be aware that some choices, such as the Dragon Age Veilguard Minrathous or Treviso choice can actually reduce a faction's Strength.
On the World tab of the map screen, you can see the Strength of all factions in a little sub-menu on the left. All factions start Weak, but you can increase the Strength of a faction by doing the following:
- Completing main quests and side quests associated with a particular faction (check the Factions and Regions quest section of your journal)
- Selling Dragon Age Veilguard valuables to a faction's merchant
The main benefit of increasing a faction's strength is that hitting certain Strength thresholds for a faction lets you pay to increase the rank of their merchant's shop, granting you access to new and better faction weapons and armor, helping you upgrade weapons in Dragon Age Veilguard.
It also has a minor impact on the game's finale, so it's a good idea to get as many of the six factions into a stronger position before going too far. Just remember that the faction you align yourself with in character creation gets a little boost to their Strength gains, so upgrading their shop should be slightly easier.
Many of the best RPGs incorporate faction mechanics and politics into their gameplay and stories, and Dragon Age 4 is no exception here. If you want to read all our glowing thoughts on it, check out our Dragon Age The Veilguard review.
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