The Last Gambit is a crucial quest in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and potentially a deadly one for your companions. While the last quest saw you make an unavoidable decision, this time the choices you make can lead to happy endings, as long as you make them correctly and have the strength to back it up.
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However, it’s not all about the choices here. There’s also a fiendishly difficult boss battle at the end of this, and your options may be limited on who you have by your side. However, we’re here to stay you through, and make sure you can get that The Ones That Last Trophy/Achievement for keeping everyone alive.
Who Should Support The Factions?
As with the choices in The Isle of Gods, we have a full breakdown of all the choices you can make in these endgame quests and their consequences. But for now, lets focus on the three choices (actually four, because this also picks your companions for battle) that you make at the start of The Last Gambit.
As explained in the earlier guide, the ideal situation here is to have every faction at three stars aside from the Shadow Dragons or Antivan Crows (depending on whether you saved Minrathous or Treviso), which should be at two. Every character should also be a Hero of the Veilguard.
If this is true for you, congratulations – it’s very simple to keep everyone alive. If you either have everyone at two stars, or don’t have Heroes of the Veilguard, things are tough. We ran this quest a few times and death is not guaranteed in this scenario, but when combined with poor choices, it is likely.
So let’s get into the right choices. For taking down the magic wards, it should be Emmrich, Neve, or Bellara. Obviously one of Neve or Bellara is captured, so that narrows down the choice. That’s also a factor in the next two choices.
For taking out the Venatori leader, it should be Neve or Lucanis, and for disabling the Juggernaut, it should be Taash or Bellara. This means one of Harding or Davrin will be in your squad for this quest. Since Elgar’nan’s Wrath is Vulnerable to Necrotic and Resistant to Lightning, the ideal team features either Emmrich or Lucanis alongside Harding or Davrin.
That means if Neve was captured, the order should be: Bellara wards, Lucanis Venatori, Taash Juggernaut. If Bellara was captured, it should be: Neve or Emmrich wards, Neve or Lucanis Venatori, Taash Juggernaut. And obviously one of the two ‘Neve or’ choices should be Neve.
If your Rook is a Death Caller Mage or a Duelist Rogue with Necrotic Abilties, you should send Emmrich and Lucanis while keeping Neve as she will be useful for area control and fighting Venatori.
After this, you’ll see a long cutscene which will reveal the fate of your companions, though with these choices you should be fine. You then have a similar linear combat gauntlet to The Isle of Gods, facing Darkspawn and Venatori. Neve, Davrin, and yourself as the Necrotic fighter is the ideal combo, but it’s no tougher than what you’ve faced before.
A key thing to remember is to take out the ranged attackers first, using Heavy attacks on Armor and ranged Weakpoint attacks on Barrier. If your companions have healing Abilities, prioritise using these over your potions, unless you can keep them topped up by finding new ones.
How To Defeat Elgar’nan’s Wrath
Elgar’nan’s Wrath is a Blood Prime, which you will have fought at least once before in Blood of Arlathan. But here, you need to watch out for several key attacks.
- Fire breath (window of opportunity explained below)
- Mace swings (can trap you, dodge sideways immediately and run away)
- Stomp (dodge back when ground glows red)
- Earthquake (basically a bigger stomp attack)
- Melee (dodge or parry)
The best way to fight Elgar’nan’s Wrath is to use some Ability to hold it in place (Neve’s Blizzard being the best option, but Detonations also work enough) to rush it with Heavy attacks to remove its Armor. After this, you should keep your distance and use Nectrotic Abilities. When it breathes fire, there are two main ways to hurt it.
The first is to rush to the side as it will temporarily not attack you until the fire breath ends. This allows you to land Heavy attacks without it defending itself. The other is to aim inside its ‘mouth’ with a ranged attack. When the grill is open to shoot fire, this is the only time Elgar’nan’s Wrath has a Weakpoint. You should also save your Ultimate for this moment, or use it to thin out the crowd.
It’s also worth noting that you can parry the circular mace swing attack. However, getting this wrong traps you in a long cycle of constant heavy damage, so it’s not usually worth the risk.
While this is going on, several Venatori and Darkspawn will also attack. While you want to thin out the herd here, the battle ends when Elgar’nan’s Wrath falls. Therefore, we suggest keeping the Necrotic companion (or yourself) on Elgar’nan’s Wrath, and using the rest of the party to either set up Detonations on Elgar’nan’s Wrath or use area Abilities to damage a lot of the mobs collectively.
Though the weaker enemies can still pack a punch, it’s mostly when you get trapped in by Elgar’nan’s Wrath that things get dangerous, so the other creatures shouldn’t be the focus here. Once the battle is over, you get a cutscene with Solas, and prepare yourself for the final assault.
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