Which Faction Should You Pick For Your Character In Dragon Age: The Veilguard?

Key Takeaways

• Lords of Fortune have cool outfits but lack narrative impact or strong mechanical perks.
• Veil Jumpers offer increased damage against specific enemies and useful critical damage buffs.
• Mourn Watch provides a unique narrative perspective, stacking afflictions, and increased damage against common enemies.

When creating your Rook in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, one of the things you’ll have to choose is their faction. You have six factions to choose from, and they’ll dictate your Rook’s backstory, along with some mechanical perks and exclusive dialogue options during the game.

These factions won’t make any significant changes in the storyline, so it’s okay to pick whichever one you think is more interesting. Still, some make you feel more connected to the events at hand compared to others, not to mention that some have better mechanical improvements than others. From a narrative standpoint to gameplay buffs, which faction is the better one?

6 Lords Of Fortune

For Gold And Glory

Despite having some of the best outfits, the Lords of Fortune sadly got the short end of the stick – especially since you can wear any outfit regardless of the faction.

Their faction has very little influence on the narrative, and aside from Taash and everyone involved in their storyline, you only have one character, Isabela, representing them. Sure, she’s a legacy character, but it’s still just her, and she doesn’t appear much anyway.

The mechanical perks aren’t the best, either. You get increased damage against mercenaries, a type of enemy that seldom appears in the game, and takedowns are easier to pull off, which is a nice bonus but a situational one. If your build revolves a lot on staggering enemies, this is really good. Otherwise, it won’t change the game much for you.

5 Veil Jumpers

Uncover The Past

Veil Jumpers already fare better as their group is more prominent within the story. You’ll meet them early on, and you’ll have quite a few missions involving them, even if not as much as other factions here. It’s a much better start anyway.

As for the mechanical buffs, you’ll cause more damage to fade-touched enemies (constructs and similar). They don’t appear often, but way more than the mercenaries. They’re also some of the toughest enemies, so increased damage against them is interesting.

Lastly, your critical damage hurts more, as does your weakpoint damage. This is also situational, but builds that rely a lot on these damage types will benefit from being a jumper – your rogue might like this one.

4 Mourn Watch

Keepers Of The Grand Necropolis

The Mourn Watch faction is less prominent than the Jumpers in terms of narrative, but it still has a few things going for it. Its members are all interesting characters, including a compelling companion with Emmrich, and its positive perspective on necromancy gives it a unique style compared to all others in the game.

Any affliction you cause on enemies will stack, which is another thing you may call situational, but this time, there are more builds that rely on it. Almost every class can cause some sort of affliction, after all, so it’ll be at least a bit useful regardless.

The last thing mourn watchers have going for them is increased damage against demons and spirits, two very common types of enemies. It’ll help against many encounters throughout the game.

3 Shadow Dragons

Viva La Resistance

Being part of a resistance group focused on liberating slaves and defeating evil mages is very compelling. It’s also extra compelling when one of the biggest decisions in the game revolves around your city. Regardless of your decision when the time comes, both options make the narrative interesting for your character since it’s more personal for them.

We also have legacy characters from this faction making appearances, but they’re not relevant to the story either.

Aside from the moment stated above, your faction won’t come up as often, but it’s still a strong positive for them. Along with that, they have increased damage against the Venatori, another type of enemy that appears often, so it’s a good bonus to have.

Your class-specific resource – rage for warriors, mana for mages, and momentum for rogues – regenerates faster than normal when you’re a Shadow Dragon, which is a nice perk to have regardless of the build.

2 Antivan Crows

Dragon’s Creed

A professional assassin is also an interesting backstory, even if the game is still combat-oriented and not a stealth game where you stab people from behind. The crows are an interesting group on their own, with a great supporting cast of characters, and their city is also involved in one of the biggest decisions in the game.

They cause extra damage against the Antaam, who appear often in the game and have quite a bit of health and armor, so it’s a nice bonus. They can carry an extra potion, which is useful at first, but healing yourself through companions is easy, and you can carry extra potions through items as well.

Essentially, the Antivan Crows are almost tied with the Shadow Dragons because the Crows are better in some areas while the Dragons are better in others. The reason the Crows win is basically because of more interesting NPCs.

1 Grey Wardens

In War, Victory

This is Dragon Age, and it’s hard to have a faction as impactful as the Grey Wardens here. Though they don’t have a big choice like the previous two, the Wardens as a whole play a big role in the story, so being one of them makes everything a lot more personal.

Along with that, all their bonuses work well. You’ll do more damage against darkspawn, and considering that the plot itself revolves around fighting elven gods using the blight to control the world, this extra damage is handy. Plus, fighting beings controlling the blight also makes the narrative more interesting for a Grey Warden.

You’ll also get a boost in your defense and your health, something that is helpful for any character from level one all the way to 50, unlike something that’s only helpful at first, like the extra potion. Their extra dialogue and even extra choice for one of the game’s main decisions make them more compelling, too.

If you want to have as many exclusive dialogue options as possible, we recommend a Grey Warden Elven Mage. Grey Warden for the reasons above, elf because they have some dialogue based on fighting their gods, and mage because you can talk about magic sporadically.