Dragon Age The Veilguard best Death Caller build

How to play Death Caller in Dragon Age Veilguard

Death Caller plays like a regular Mage in most regards, with two fighting styles - stave plus orb-and-dagger - and a reliance on Mana to cast skills instead of having to juggle cooldowns. However, the specialization does have a few important differences that could influence which skills you choose. It relies heavily on Area-type attacks and has a corresponding set of passives that increase the damage those deal, and, as you'd likely expect, its primary attacks and elemental buffs are necrotic in nature.

Since the Death Caller's ultimate, signature move, and Mourn Watcher skill are all necrotic, you'll run into some overlap if you bring Emmrich along on missions. His skills are also necrotic, which makes things a bit challenging should you run into enemies with necrotic resistance. If you want to have Emmrich by your side, make sure to equip either a weapon with additional elemental enchantments or add a non-necrosis skill to your arsenal before entering combat.

Dragon Age Veilguard best Death Caller skills

The start of our Death Caller build follows part of the same path as the start of our general Veilguard Mage build. Unlock Fire Wall, and start progressing up the Sustain group toward the Mourn Watch group. If you're struggling in combat with just two fire skills, spend the extra two points to unlock Chain Lightning.

Then, unlock every ability in the Mourn Watch section. That may sound excessive, but the buffs they grant fit perfectly with Death Caller skills, including increased necrotic damage and upgrades for Area attacks. Corrupted Ground and Trait: Channeled Thoughts are the standout abilities here, so aim for those first. The former deals necrotic damage in an area and inflicts necrosis, and the latter lets you regenerate Mana while your stave's shield is active. Once you hit Level 20, you can unlock Death Caller's ultimate and its signature skill.

Spirit Bomb is the Death Caller's highlight, a powerful blast-type skill that siphons energy from targets, then creates a necrotic explosion that affects a small area. The Siphoned status restores some of your HP, so it's a helpful way to maintain your HP without having to rely on potions or a companion's restorative ability. Blast upgrades are fewer in number than upgrades for other abilities, but since Spirit Bomb counts as an Area ability, you can unlock Area nodes to further augment the skill. The Mourn Watch section and the left portion of the Control section have several such nodes.

Death Caller might be your specialty, but you'll have to wait until Level 30 to access its later upgrades. Unlock the passives on either side of Spirit Bomb - these include a Duration upgrade and an Area upgrade, both of which give Corrupted Ground a nice boost - and then spend additional points until you reach Level 30 on nodes that augment your current build.

Once you do hit Level 30, we recommend unlocking Soulburn before Death Surge, as the abilities beyond Soulburn have more to offer the Death Caller and alter your playstyle. The passive Mortalitasi lets you consume health to cast skills when your Mana runs out. That won't happen often thanks to Channeled Thoughts, but if you're in a position where you can't guard and regenerate Mana, it's a useful emergency tool.

The other passive is Desperation, which increases how much damage you do when your health drops and based on how much health your target has lost. It's a risky gambit, but with Spirit Bomb's restorative abilities, you should be able to maintain safe levels of HP most of the time.

The passives after Death Surge are decent - a necrotic buff and turning your ranged attack into a necrotic attack - but inessential. Even if you do unlock them all, you'll still have a handful of skill points to spend by the time you reach Veilguard's max Level of 50. You could follow our general Mage build and invest in electric attacks, or Meteor, another Area attack, is a solid choice as well.

However, you could also ditch those options and branch into the Control section. Its basic attack lets you freeze enemies, which is handy for lining up an Area attack such as Spirit Bomb or Corrupted Ground, while its more advanced one deals heavy cold damage. Several passives around these will improve Area abilities, and there's even one - Clarity in Suffering - that restores Mana when you take damage.

Control abilities are generally a bit weaker than other abilities, but managing large crowds of enemies makes tough encounters a little easier to handle.

Dragon Age Veilguard Death Caller weapons

Like with a standard Mage build, your actual weapon matters less than the enchantments you put on it. In almost no circumstance is it advisable to keep a weaker weapon just to get a specific elemental alignment, and you should avoid having the same element on your stave, orb, and dagger.

However, having necrotic damage on one is a decent idea, since the Mourn Watch and Death Caller sections have two necrotic damage buffs. The buffs are small enough to where it's not absolutely essential, though, so don't fret if your strongest weapons aren't necrotic.

Veilseeker is a common-grade necrotic stave, but one that comes with some handy extra bonuses. It deals a high amount of additional stagger damage, while its first passive increases light attack damage - the kind of attack you'll use most of the time - and its second adds projectiles to the final light attack in a chain. Heavy attacks are great, but charging your stave for them takes time. This way, you still deal enough damage with light attacks.

Once you level up your Mourn Watch reputation to rank four or higher, you can purchase The Bargain from the Nevarra merchant, a unique-rank stave with high damage stats, a hefty necrotic damage buff, and a twist that suits our Death Caller build perfectly. It grants you 400 extra health at the cost of 50 mana, a natural fit with the Mortalitasi and Desperation passives in the Death Caller specialization.

If you want to use a necrotic orb instead, use the Glacial Rod as a complement. It deals ice damage, and its unlockable perks increase your heavy attack damage and add chilled stacks to heavy attacks.

If you do end up using that necrotic orb, make it the Veilsong, which deals extra stagger damage as well.

Mage Knife weapons are all physical by default, though one in particular lends itself well to any Mage build: The Spellcaster's Stilleto from Treviso's Crow merchants. It gives you additional Mana regeneration with its first passive and extra defense with its second - everything a spellslinger needs.

Although, remember to check your red-coloured unique weapons for any perks that work well with your build, but don't forget that, while these uniques can't be upgraded, they can be enchanted.

Dragon Age Veilguard Death Caller armor

Most Mage armor in Veilguard functions the same, with defense boosts and a secondary stat that increases your ability damage. Death Callers benefit from as much extra ability damage as possible, but seeing as enemies like to target you over your companions, high defense is always helpful as well. You can grab the Casings of Fortune heavy armor from the Hall of Valor, which grants you high defense and decent ability damage, with passives that increase how much damage your companions deal.

The Carastes Double Hat is a solid choice for the early and mid game, thanks to its mana regeneration, though it does offer slightly less defense than other helms.

Like with weapons, don't forget to keep an eye on your red-coloured armor for any perks which fit your build. These armor pieces, again like the red-coloured weapons, can be enchanted but not uprgaded.

Dragon Age Veilguard Death Caller accessories

Necrotic Jade should be one of your rings of choice, as it increases necrotic damage and then increases damage against enemies already suffering from necrosis. The Paragon's Knuckle is a solid second choice as well, with two defense buffs that help offset the lower defense from your Double Hat.

Most belts and wrappings do variations of the same thing, but in Nevarra, you can purchase the Watcher's Hold belt. The additional healing it provides is much lower than what you get from most belts, but it increases necrotic damage and, when you use a potion, applies necrosis to nearby enemies. It fits nicely with Necrotic Jade and helps whittle down close foes you might not be targeting.

Finally, for the amulet, you could opt for Sightless Skull, which increases damage from Control abilities.

It's also worth checking to see whether the perks for any red-coloured accessory you collect suit your build. Once again, red-coloured items can be enchanted but not upgraded.

Dragon Age Veilguard Death Caller runes

Runes are pretty flexible in Veilguard, but the Diminish rune in particular that works quite well with Death Caller:

• Diminish - Enemies within six meters become Weakened
• Pierce - Damage gains +100 percent penetration for 10 seconds
• Scourge - All weapons deal necrotic damage for 20 seconds

Dragon Age Veilguard best Death Caller enchantments

The best enchantments will depend on what weapon you're using at the time and what you need in a given situation. As with our regular Mage build, +20% armor damage on your dagger helps deal heavy damage to armor, and your stave and orb can take the increased damage modifiers until you unlock the workshop's fourth rank.

Rank four enchantments are elemental, but it's worth sacrificing a new element for your dagger to put the Arcane Bomb Trigger enchantment on it. Arcane Bomb Trigger increases how much damage you deal when you detonate three Mark stacks, which is always handy. Other elemental enchantments are useful if you're stuck on a foe with a specific elemental weakness you can't exploit, though they aren't essential.

Mage enchantments for skills

Put +50 Armor Damage on most of your non-necrotic skills to wear down tough foes faster. +Damage is best for Spirit Bomb, and Corrupted Ground should have a critical damage modifier.

Mage enchantments for armor

Ultimate Generation and Healing Received work well for your armor and helmet. Ultimate energy takes a long time to generate on its own, so every bit helps. If you're finding that you recover enough health from a single potion or ally ability, consider sticking Ultimate Generation on your helmet and armor to boost Ultimate energy even further. Rank eight enchantments are a bit too generic to warrant reducing your Ultimate generation for - a 10 percent defense or health boost - so you're fine to ignore them unless you desperately need a small defense or health increase.

Mage enchantments for accessories

You can enchant your amulet to increase your abilities' ailment damage or even get an extra potion. Extra potion is our top pick, since it frees your companions to use other skills, but extra Necrosis damage is also a solid choice if you don't need more potions.

Put Mana Regeneration on both rings until you unlock higher ranking enchantments. Then, we recommend adding Blast Damage to one ring, so help increase Spirit Bomb's damage, and the other can take +50 mana once you unlock rank nine enchantments.

Good luck playing as a Death Caller in Dragon Age: The Veilguard!