Dragon Age: Inquisition has quite a few different companions that you can recruit to your cause throughout the game, and three of those companions are Warriors: Cassandra, Blackwall, and Iron Bull. Warriors are melee-centric characters, but can fulfill a couple of different roles in your lineup.
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Cassandra’s unique skill tree is the Templar tree. These skills all revolve around area-of-effect abilities, either buffing Cassandra and her allies, or debuffing enemies, especially demons. These abilities can fit into a couple of different builds extremely well, and while Cassandra can fulfill both Damage and Tank roles, this build is going to detail a very effective Tank build.
How To Build Cassandra Into A Tank
It’s pretty easy to decide to put Cassandra into a tank role; she already starts off pretty close to that from the beginning, and her support-style abilities fit that role extremely well.
Keep in mind with all of these builds that Dragon Age: Inquisition has a lot of variety when it comes to builds. This build can be extremely effective, but feel free to branch off and experiment further.
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Best Skill Choices For A Cassandra Tank Build
The Weapon and Shield skill tree (and weapon) are a premiere choice for tanking. The skills in this tree revolve around Cassandra protecting herself from damage, limiting her vulnerabilities, and a couple of defensive-style attacks.
You can tank with a two-handed build as well; many of the Weapon and Shield passives work with any weapon equipped. It’s down to preference, but for this build, we’re using the Weapon and Shield.
What Are The Best Weapon And Shield Skills?
These are the most important Weapon And Shield skills to pick up:
While there are other skills that you’ll need to acquire along the way to getting these in the skill tree, and those extra skills you pick up can be useful, these are the skills that are paramount to this build.
|
Skill |
Description |
Upgrade |
|---|---|---|
|
Shield Wall (Active) |
Chevalier’s Step |
Allows Cassandra to block damage by using stamina. This would typically slow her down considerably, but with Chevalier’s Step, her movement isn’t reduced by quite as much, and it allows her to grant a 30% armor bonus to allies inside of a 4 meter radius. |
|
Turn The Bolt |
N/A |
Reduces ranged damage from the front by 50%, as well as providing Cassandra with +3 Constitution. (Constitution increases health and melee defense.) |
|
Warrior’s Resolve |
N/A |
The lower your health, the more stamina Cassandra recovers. Also provides Cassandra with +3 Constitution. |
|
Turn The Blade |
N/A |
Reduces all damage coming from the front by 20%, as well as giving Cassandra +3 Constitution. |
|
Payback Strike (Active) |
Sweet Revenge |
Recovers Cassandra from any stun-like condition to attack nearby enemies, dealing increased damage and staggering foes if Cassandra recently took damage. With Sweet Revenge, this also stuns Taunted enemies. |
|
Bear Mauls The Wolves |
N/A |
Ensures Cassandra cannot be flanked, and makes her more difficult to stagger. This also gives her +3 Constitution. |
Unless noted as active, all skills are passive skills.
- Total Skill Point Investment: 9
- Total Constitution Bonus: 12
All in all, these skills are going to passively increase Cassandra’s ability to keep herself alive, and in turn, increase her ability to keep the rest of her team alive. This skill tree does not yet help her taunt enemies, that will come in a different tree. But without these skills, taunting enemies would be much more dangerous for her.
What Are The Best Vanguard Skills?
The Vanguard tree is going to be where a lot of the tanking abilities come into play, allowing Cassandra to taunt enemies, forcing them to attack her instead of allies.
|
Skill |
Upgrade |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
War Cry (Active) |
Call To Arms |
Taunt all nearby enemies, and gain 20% more guard for every enemy taunted. With the Call To Arms upgrade, she also increases her armor by 200%. |
|
Challenge (Active) |
N/A |
This is a ranged taunt, allowing Cassandra to pull the attention of an enemy that isn’t necessary close to her. This makes a big different in keeping ranged enemies off of your own ranged allies. This also improves guard by 10%. |
|
Trust The Steel |
N/A |
This improves Cassandra’s armor by 20% when she has guard active. It also improves Cassandra’s Constitution by +3. |
|
Cutting Words |
N/A |
This gives Cassandra’s allies a 20% damage bonus when attacking enemies that she’s taunted, as well as giving Cassandra a +3 bonus to Strength. (Strength increases a Warrior’s attack, and increases their guard damage bonus.) |
|
Bodyguard (Active) |
Not Today |
This transfers some incoming damage taken by allies to Cassandra, allowing her to protect allies being attacked by enemies that she hasn’t taunted. 50% of the damage is transferred, and 50% of that transferred damage is resisted by Cassandra with the Not Today upgrade. |
|
Untouchable Defense |
N/A |
This gives Cassandra a 25% maximum guard bonus, as well as increases her Constitution by +3. |
|
It’ll Cost You |
N/A |
This reflects 50% of incoming damage back at enemies, and increases Cassandra’s Strength by +3. |
|
Livid (Active) |
Still Standing |
This skill makes Cassandra more formidable, the more the deck is stacked against her. For every nearby enemy, her damage reduction increases by 10%, and for every enemy she hits, her damage bonus increases by 10%. With the Still Standing upgrade, she’ll also increase her guard by 20% for each nearby enemy. |
- Total Skill Point Investment: 12
- Total Constitution Gain: 6
- Total Strength Gain: 6
These skills work hand-in-hand with the Weapon and Shield skills; the Vanguard skills get enemies to attack her, and the Sword and Shield and Vanguard skills combined help her stay alive. These Vanguard skills also enable her allies to function slightly better, an effect that’s going to be further increased by her Templar skills.
What Are The Best Templar Skills?
The Templar skill tree is the one that’s unique to Cassandra, and what sets her apart from other characters.
|
Skill |
Upgrade |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Blessed Blades (Active) |
Lights In The Shadow |
This increases the damage of nearby allies, increasing in effectiveness when fighting demons. With the Lights in the Shadow upgrade, this will reduce the cooldown of Wrath of Heaven, which is also included in this build. |
|
Maker’s Will |
N/A |
Allied attacks have a 5% chance to weaken a target for 6 seconds; also increases Cassandra’s Willpower by +3. (Willpower increases attack and magic defense.) |
|
There Is No Darkness |
N/A |
Increases entire party’s damage resistance to Fire, Ice, Electric, and Spirit damage by 10%; also increases Cassandra’s Willpower by +3. |
|
Wrath of Heaven (Active) |
Embrace The Light |
Cassandra creates a pillar of light that stun enemies and stuns and damages demons. With the Embrace The Light upgrade, this increases damage on demons and stun duration on all enemies. |
- Total Skill Point Investment: 6
- Total Willpower Gain: 6
These skills are going to make a meaningful difference not just to Cassandra, but to her entire party. This is doubly true against demons, where these skills make a tremendous difference and make Cassandra one of the best party members to include when fighting demonic enemies.
What Is The Complete Cassandra Tank Build?
All told, this build costs 27 skills points total, which is usually around the maximum amount you can get for a character, without exploits. You can trim something here or there to make a different decision without changing too much about how the build functions, and give it some different points of strength, if you’d like.
The finished Tactics slots will include:
- Blessed Blades
- Wrath of Heaven
- War Cry
- Challenge
- Bodyguard
- Livid
- Payback Strike
- Shield Wall
Cassandra is going to have a ton of survivability with this build, particularly against large groups of enemies. Against single boss targets, she might have a little more trouble, but supported by Barriers provided by a Mage, she should be able to keep her feet.
What Are Some Cassandra Alternative Builds?
As a quick-look, you can also equip Cassandra to very effectively play a Damage-Dealer role by giving her a two-handed weapon and choosing different skills. The Battlemaster tree is going to be a bit more involved here, helping you stun enemies, and deal increased damage to them while stunned.
The Templar tree will still be involved, and that increased damage coming in even handier. The Battlemaster tree’s Coup de Grace skill is going to be paramount, and much of the build will revolve around dealing increased damage to stunned enemies.
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