This is the starting guide for anybody wanting to get into Dragon Age Inquisition, or builders who would like a starting point, for their work.
Starting Off:
Dragon Age is a deep game, it has hundreds of different possibilities and so much customization and different equipment combinations that preparing a build might be a little complicated. This Guide will show you several of the key things to consider but will mainly focus on the Classes available in the game. Before going into that I have a quick check list of things that need to be included in a DA: I build
Equipment: Having a list of your character's equipment is very important. In Dragon Age each piece of equipment is critical to maximizing your character's potential and the amount of different crafting materials and effects can make this critical. Sectioning your Equipment into each separate piece and detailing what Runes or Upgrades are attached to them and if needed what materials went into making it is very important. Listing the bonuses each piece gives you is also important.
Skill Trees: Having a list of exactly what abilities and passives that your character has is the most important aspect of a Build. If you don't do this then your build will be deleted because it would be unplayable.
Party Members: In Dragon Age you generally create a Party based around your main character. The choices you make in your Party Members and their Equipment and Skills is nearly as important as your own. When listing Equipment you don't need to go into as much detail (mentioning at least what effects would be useful is needed and you can do more) but Skills will need to be talked about just as much as your main character. If you run solo then obviously don't bother with this.
Races:
The first decision of the game that you are going to make. At the start of the game you have the options to choose from 4 races, the Elves, Dwarves, Humans and Qunari are very different races that all have unique starting bonuses.
Elves have a 25% bonus to Ranged Defense at the start of the game.
Dwarves have 25% resistance to Magic but cannot become Mages themselves.
Qunari have a 10% bonus to Physical Defense at the start of the game
Humans gain one extra ability point at the start of the game.
Classes:
The second big decision of the game that needs to be made. Classes are divided between Warrior, Rogue and Mage. All Races can play any class that they want except for Dwarves are restricted by not being able to play as Mages. Each Race is divided into four skill trees and three different
Warriors:
The Warrior in Dragon Age is divided into Two-Handed and Weapon and Shield as the two weapon styles, these are your main sources of damage in the long run. A Warrior also has the Vanguard and Battlemaster ability trees which mostly deal with buffs and passive effects which improve your combat skills.
Skill Trees:
Weapon and Shield is the more defensive of the two styles and is based heavily around Blocking with the Shield Wall Ability and generating Guard.
What Guard does is very important to a more defensive character who might not be doing more damage. Essentially it acts as a second layer of Health, an enemy needs to break through your guard to take away from your health. At higher levels this can mean that it's actually a challenge for you to take damage from enemies, but it means a lot of your attention will be taken away from damage.
Key Abilities are Shield Wall, Bear Mauls the Wolves and Turn the Bolt early on, and picking up Turn the Blade later on might be one of the most important skills to pick up. Backing this type or Warrior up with high Health is very important and a lot of the Abilities it gains through the Vanguard Skill are immensely useful for supporting this character.
Two Handed Warriors focus on damage, ending fights quickly with massive hits before enemies can even fight back. It doesn't have something like Guard that it needs to generate to keep up but just hits hard with abilities and deals as much damage as possible.
For this skill there aren't really any Key Abilities like with Weapon and Shield. Picking up as many of the attacks as possible is a good start but the passives are just as useful. Flow of Battle and Shield Breaker are probably two of the more useful Abilities in the tree but I would say all of them are useful. This Skill goes well with both the Vanguard and Battlemaster Skills as they provide a little more variety to the character's skill set.
Vanguard is a rather interesting skill. It focuses on two things, increasing defenses and getting enemies to attack you by taunting them. Together these two factors make a character very capable of allowing enemies to attack him/her which gives your allies a chance to deal so much more damage. Because of this it goes well with the Weapon and Shield skill but can also be paired up with Two-Handed if you want a little more defense.
Key Abilities within this skill would most be War Cry, Untouchable Defense, It'll Cost You and Unbowed.
Battlemaster again is just such a varied skill that any Warrior could use it well. It is a slightly more offensive skill then the very defensive Vanguard but focuses more on tactical abilities and controlling the battle. Some of the abilities are designed to buff your allies and some harm your enemies, only one of the abilities actually buffs your character really.
Key Skills here are really dependent on the character, every character would focus on something different here. Coup de Grace is probably the most useful for any character as well as Deep Reserves.
Specializations:
In Dragon Age each of the 3 main classes then have the chance to divide into 3 different sub-classes is the easiest way to describe them. The Warrior gains the Templar, Champion and Reaver Classes. You don't receive these until fairly far into the game but they add a whole new aspect to your character. Every Specialization has a Focus Ability which is a kind of final ability that uses it's own resource to power (Focus rather than Stamina/Mana)
Templars are mostly based around dispelling magic and buffing allies. They also focus heavily on dealing increased damage to Demons.
This Specialization can work very well with both Two-Handed and Weapon and Shield styles but fits the Defensive style of Weapon and Shield slightly more. The amount of buffs that the Templar has access to can be very useful when combined with the near untouchable state that higher leveled Weapon and Shield masters can have access to. Templars and Battlemasters are also good combinations because of the buffs and debuffs both have access to.
Spell Purge is probably the most important skill, it can really strip enemies of their personal buffs which makes killing them much easier and once you get the bonus to it can be very powerful. Blessed Blades, The Last Sacrifice and Wrath of Heaven are all very good abilities to go with.
Rally is the Focus Ability of the Templar and increases your Guard generation, Mana/Stamina and Damage Resistance.
Champion is again a very defensive Specialization for the Warrior. It focuses very heavily on Guard, it has no offensive presence but makes up for that by just being ridiculously powerful with defensive techniques.
Because of this it is extremely well suited for both Two-Handed and Weapon and Shield. Combined with Weapon and Shield it is just ridiculously powerful but it can add defensive prowess to a Two-Handed Warrior.
Bulwark, Adamant and Unyielding are three very useful abilities in the tree that go really well for any Warrior. They all pretty powerful effects especially Unyielding giving you invulnerability for 5 seconds.
Counterstrike is the Focus Ability of this specialization, it gives you the ability to counter all enemy melee attacks for 6, 12, 20 seconds.
Reaver is the sub-class to go to for pure physical damage. Exchanging Health for Damage is the name of the game with the Reaver and nothing is as amazing for pure strength then a Reaver with Two-Handed Weapons. It can work well with the Weapon and Shield combo because it can deal high damage and also have high defense.
Ring of Pain, Blood Frenzy, Devour and Dragon Rage are immensely powerful Abilities that can turn the tide in any battle and just give you a massive strength boost when low on health. Devour is almost unavoidable for this character because it allows you to heal Health based on how much damage you do, and the lower your health the more damage you do (which means more healed)
Rampage is an interesting Focus Power that increases attack speed, life steal and damage dealt. This can turn the Reaver from a ridiculously powerful Warrior into an unbeatable lord of damage.
Rogue:
The Rogue is divided into two weapon styles, Dual Wield Daggers and Archery. Both of these are quicker then the Warrior Styles but also naturally do less damage. However the abilities and skills that the Rogue gains are excellent for dealing massive amounts of damage under certain circumstances. Rather than direct combat the Rogue excels in Stealth and Ambush.]
Skill Trees:
The Rogue has poisons, traps, stealth mode. All of these cover it's bases as an indirect fighter either from afar or behind. The Archery and Double Dagger trees are the combat styles and their backed up by Subterfuge and Sabotage.
Double Daggers is the melee style that the Rogue has access to, it focuses on quick, deadly attacks that add all sorts of debuffs to enemies. Fighting in front of your enemy often will get you killed so you'll be wanting to flank around and attack from the sides or back.
Key Abilities for this tree are Flank Attack, Twin Fangs, Dance of Death and Sneak Attack. Dance of Death allows you to regain Stamina from killing enemies which allows you to use more of your offensive Abilities, all of those offensive abilities work better when going for a flanking attack, or with Flank Attack can make you a very strong attacker who disappears after an attack.
The Double Daggers tree works especially well with the Subterfuge tree which gives it a couple of options to increase Flanking Damage even more
Archery is the ranged option that Rogues have and works fairly similar to how Double Daggers does. It's all about crippling your opponents and staying out of harms way while also trying to flank your enemies.
Long Shot, Strafing Shots, Pincushion and Leaping Shots are some of the key abilities for this tree. They are some pretty interesting abilities that give you some options for both damage and movement.
Pairing this with both the Subterfuge and Sabotage really helps Archery by giving it more options to deal damage and weaken enemies.
Sabotage is a skill which gives you a lot of options based on poisons, traps and critical hits to increase damage, by itself you won't be doing much damage but when combined with either Double Daggers or Archery becomes fairly powerful and very interesting.
Really this tree has no key perks. Any ability in this skill can be used to great success without needing to completely specialize much. More then just about any other skill this one is very much up to player decision. Poisoned Weapons is an excellent one for any Rogue as is Fighting Dirty.
Subterfuge is probably the most critical skill for any Rogue to pick up. Whether they're focused on Daggers or Archery. Most of the abilities have to do with Stealth, dodging or crippling effects.
Stealth is just flat out needed for just about any Rogue. It effects so many abilities that picking it up is almost critical. Evasion and Easy to Miss are also very good choices for any Rogue to pick up at the earliest opportunity.
Specializations:
The Rogue has 3 very different sub-classes. The Artificer, Assassin and Tempest Specializations.
Artificer is probably the most difficult to play as. Rather than focus on direct damage or even effects that debuff enemies, instead this specialization uses traps to harm enemies and deliver powerful effects. It isn't as straight forward as other Classes but can be a lot of fun once you get it down. Archery tends to work better with it because you can move around the field slightly easier and the range of Traps and Bows are a good combination. It can be used quite well with Double Daggers as well though.
Spike Traps and Elemental Mines are the main two traps that they Artificer has access to, they both deal large amounts of damage. Elemental Mines deal damage using Fire, Chill and Shock damage and effects. Fallback Plan, Tricks of the Trade and Set Them Up are great abilities to pick up and give some great other effects to your Artificer.
Hail of Arrows is the Focus Ability for the Artificer. Unfortunately this ability forces you to use Archery but it can be a very powerful ability. All offensive Archery abilities, such as Long Shot is fired twice instead of just once (dealing more damage). It's a fairly narrow Focus Ability but in the right hand very powerful.
Assassin is perhaps the most straight forwardly powerful of the three Specializations. Relying on Stealth and Critical Hits it works perfectly and is an extension of the Subterfuge Skill in just about every well. Combing it with Dual Daggers is the stronger option but it does work well with Archery to a certain extent.
Hidden Blades and Mark of Death are two very powerful offensive abilities that deal massive damage when combined with certain other Abilities and techniques (mostly Stealth and Double Dagger Abilities) Knife in the Shadows, Gaps in the Armour and I Was Never Here are all powerful passives that give you bonuses based on Stealth. All together they create a powerful offensive character.
Cloak of Shadows is the Assassin's Focus Ability and is an immensely powerful ability. It allows your entire party to enter Stealth mode for 3,6 or 9 seconds even when attacking. For the Rogue this means that you can unleash multiple Stealth Attacks in a row.
Tempest is the last of the Rogue Specializations and this is probably the most unique of the three. It can be used to great effect by both Archers and Dual Wielders. The basis of the Tempest Specialization is to use buffing effects to unleash some pretty interesting combos.
Flask of Frost, Flash of Fire and Flask of Lightning are your three main abilities with this tree. Each one increase various effects to create a very different character. Frost gives you more Armour and freezes enemies that attack you. Fire makes your abilities cost no Stamina (meaning you can use them more often) and you knock-back enemies. Lighting decreases the speed of all enemies near you.
Thousand Cuts is a very powerful attack that allows you to attack an enemy 12, 25 or 38 times for 300% of weapon damage. This is a pretty powerful attack that deals massive amounts of damage.
Mage:
Mages are quite different from other Classes because it doesn't have the same set out of two offensive skills and two back-up skills. Three of the skills rely on dealing Elemental Damage to opponents as well as inflicting various effects, these are Inferno, Winter and Storm. To back then up and to pair of quite brilliantly with all of them is the Spirit skill which focuses on defense and other boosts.
Barrier is one of the key bonuses that Mages get. Barrier works exactly the same as Guard but generally can effect the entire party, and it fades with time. Combined with Guard on a melee character it can be quite potent but Barrier is more difficult to generate and easier to lose.
Skill Trees
Inferno Magic is the most straight forward and powerful of the 3 Elemental Schools. It contains effects that produce Burning (Damage over time) and Fear effects and is home to some of the most powerful spells in the game.
Flashfire, Immolate, Fire Mine and Wall of Fire are the offensive abilities of the Inferno Tree and are all capable of dealing massive damage. Immolate is a kind of staple because it can have very low cooldown times and Flashfire is excellent for causing Fear. Pyromancer and Clean Burn are two very strong passive abilities that increase combat efficiency and are very useful for any Inferno using Mage.
Winter magic is another of the Magic Schools and focuses mostly on freezing enemies (which stops movement) and chilling them (slow effects). It's does less outright damage then Inferno Spells but can still be very powerful. It also works very well with the Spirit Tree because it has several passives which increase Barrier Effectiveness.
Winter's Grasp, Wall of Ice, Ice Mine and Blizzard are the offensive spells that a Mage using the Winter Skill would have access to and each of them is an excellent supporting spell that can give your allies the ability to deliver tonnes of damage. Fade Step and Mana Surge are probably the two most useful abilities for giving your mage a little bit of variety and increase your Barriers.
Storm magic is a rather interesting school that has more unique spells then the Frost and Inferno Skills which have very similar spells. The Spells focus more on dealing damage to more then one enemy at a time.
Chain Lightning, Energy Barrage, Lightning Bolt and Static Cage are the four spells that a Storm Mage gains access to. All of them are excellent at dealing damage against multiple enemies and in some cases does more damage to larger groups. Stormbringer and Static Charge are both very powerful passives that actually deal damage to enemies, both deal damage to enemies that are close to you which can be useful for any character.
Spirit Magic is the only real support magic that the base Mage has access to. It has powerful defensive and healing techniques that I might say are nearly crucial to any party.
Barrier is without a doubt the main Spell to be picked from this skill and is great for any Mage to pick up. Peaceful Aura, Guardian Spirit and Rejuvenating Barrier are very useful passives for any Mage and together can create some really powerful Barriers. Revival is probably the most useful of late game Spells because it allows you to return your allies to consciousness in the middle of battle allowing them to fight on
Specializations:
The Mage has 3 very different specializations that all do something different and unique for the Class. They are all very different from the base Magic Skills and can create some of the most powerful combos in the game to make up for the Mage's problems early on.
Knight Enchanter is a very physically capable Mage, that's right physically. The Knight Enchanter gains a lot of abilities that turn it from a spell slinging mage into a kind of Battlemage. Honestly this is probably one of the most powerful Classes in the game when dealt with correctly.
Spirit Blade is the key to this change. Nearby enemies are attacked by this Blade and it inflicts massive damage to enemies who have Guard or Barriers up. Later on it can be boosted by being able to deflect projectiles. Fade Shield is a powerful passive to add to a Knight Enchanter's defense by increasing their Barrier based on how much damage the Enchanter is doing (yes the best defense is a good offense here) Veiled Riposte damages enemies who try and attack you when you have a Barrier up. This works very well with Storm Magic because of the effects there that deal damage to nearby enemies and Spirit Magic because of the usage of Barriers.
Resurgence is a very powerful Focus Ability which heals your entire party, even those that have fallen unconscious and then gives a passive healing effect.
Necromancer is a very interesting Specialization. I'm sure we all know the classic undead raising Mage. The Necromancer in Dragon Age deals with Fear effects, draining health and raising the dead as Spirits.
Death Siphon is a key passive that allows you to regain Health and Mana every time an enemy dies. Spirit Mark is the key spell here that allows you to summon the Spirit of a marked enemy after it dies. Walking Bomb (sadly not a Spirit Bomb) is a powerful spell that does a large amount of damage to enemies.
Haste is the focus ability of a Necromancer, it slows all enemies for 6-20 seconds allowing you to unleash more attacks on them. It can be an incredibly powerful ability when combined with high dealing companions like a Reaver.
Rift Mages mostly focus on passive buffs and pair that with high damaging effects. Many of the Spells and Abilities weaken enemies and deal more damage to those that are weakened.Pairing this with Spirit and Inferno Mages is a strong choice but as with any of the three Specializations can work with any
Stonefist and Veilstrike are the two main offensive spells that a Rift Mage has access to and both can deal some pretty intense damage. Encircling Veil increases the duration effect of any status on enemies that have the weakened status, Smothering Veil reduces the damage that those enemies can do and Twisting Veil increases your own damage against them.
Firestorm is the Focus Ability of the Rift Mage and it fires down 15/30/55 meteors on your enemies. Each meteor does high damage in large areas and is very useful for dealing with several weaker enemies while you focus on the tougher ones.
Resources:
This is a Skill Calculator that is extremely useful for starting your build off.
This is a quick beginner's guide for the Lore of Dragon Age, for those that either don't want to play the older games or can't, or just want to brush up on the basics then that is an excellent article to do so.
Dragon Age Keep is a fairly useful guide for the game. It's actually more useful for the first games because the decisions and choices that the Keep has there are pretty much the base of a build for Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2
The Dragon Age Wiki is an obvious choice for any information you need on skills, abilities, lore or anything else.
This Page has some useful information on status effects and what some of the abilities extra features do.
This is the starting guide for anybody wanting to get into Dragon Age Inquisition, or builders who would like a starting point, for their work.
Starting Off:
Dragon Age is a deep game, it has hundreds of different possibilities and so much customization and different equipment combinations that preparing a build might be a little complicated. This Guide will show you several of the key things to consider but will mainly focus on the Classes available in the game. Before going into that I have a quick check list of things that need to be included in a DA: I build
Equipment: Having a list of your character's equipment is very important. In Dragon Age each piece of equipment is critical to maximizing your character's potential and the amount of different crafting materials and effects can make this critical. Sectioning your Equipment into each separate piece and detailing what Runes or Upgrades are attached to them and if needed what materials went into making it is very important. Listing the bonuses each piece gives you is also important.
Skill Trees: Having a list of exactly what abilities and passives that your character has is the most important aspect of a Build. If you don't do this then your build will be deleted because it would be unplayable.
Party Members: In Dragon Age you generally create a Party based around your main character. The choices you make in your Party Members and their Equipment and Skills is nearly as important as your own. When listing Equipment you don't need to go into as much detail (mentioning at least what effects would be useful is needed and you can do more) but Skills will need to be talked about just as much as your main character. If you run solo then obviously don't bother with this.
Races:
The first decision of the game that you are going to make. At the start of the game you have the options to choose from 4 races, the Elves, Dwarves, Humans and Qunari are very different races that all have unique starting bonuses.
Elves have a 25% bonus to Ranged Defense at the start of the game.
Dwarves have 25% resistance to Magic but cannot become Mages themselves.
Qunari have a 10% bonus to Physical Defense at the start of the game
Humans gain one extra ability point at the start of the game.
Classes:
The second big decision of the game that needs to be made. Classes are divided between Warrior, Rogue and Mage. All Races can play any class that they want except for Dwarves are restricted by not being able to play as Mages. Each Race is divided into four skill trees and three different
Warriors:
The Warrior in Dragon Age is divided into Two-Handed and Weapon and Shield as the two weapon styles, these are your main sources of damage in the long run. A Warrior also has the Vanguard and Battlemaster ability trees which mostly deal with buffs and passive effects which improve your combat skills.
Skill Trees:
Weapon and Shield is the more defensive of the two styles and is based heavily around Blocking with the Shield Wall Ability and generating Guard.
What Guard does is very important to a more defensive character who might not be doing more damage. Essentially it acts as a second layer of Health, an enemy needs to break through your guard to take away from your health. At higher levels this can mean that it's actually a challenge for you to take damage from enemies, but it means a lot of your attention will be taken away from damage.
Key Abilities are Shield Wall, Bear Mauls the Wolves and Turn the Bolt early on, and picking up Turn the Blade later on might be one of the most important skills to pick up. Backing this type or Warrior up with high Health is very important and a lot of the Abilities it gains through the Vanguard Skill are immensely useful for supporting this character.
Two Handed Warriors focus on damage, ending fights quickly with massive hits before enemies can even fight back. It doesn't have something like Guard that it needs to generate to keep up but just hits hard with abilities and deals as much damage as possible.
For this skill there aren't really any Key Abilities like with Weapon and Shield. Picking up as many of the attacks as possible is a good start but the passives are just as useful. Flow of Battle and Shield Breaker are probably two of the more useful Abilities in the tree but I would say all of them are useful. This Skill goes well with both the Vanguard and Battlemaster Skills as they provide a little more variety to the character's skill set.
Vanguard is a rather interesting skill. It focuses on two things, increasing defenses and getting enemies to attack you by taunting them. Together these two factors make a character very capable of allowing enemies to attack him/her which gives your allies a chance to deal so much more damage. Because of this it goes well with the Weapon and Shield skill but can also be paired up with Two-Handed if you want a little more defense.
Key Abilities within this skill would most be War Cry, Untouchable Defense, It'll Cost You and Unbowed.
Battlemaster again is just such a varied skill that any Warrior could use it well. It is a slightly more offensive skill then the very defensive Vanguard but focuses more on tactical abilities and controlling the battle. Some of the abilities are designed to buff your allies and some harm your enemies, only one of the abilities actually buffs your character really.
Key Skills here are really dependent on the character, every character would focus on something different here. Coup de Grace is probably the most useful for any character as well as Deep Reserves.
Specializations:
In Dragon Age each of the 3 main classes then have the chance to divide into 3 different sub-classes is the easiest way to describe them. The Warrior gains the Templar, Champion and Reaver Classes. You don't receive these until fairly far into the game but they add a whole new aspect to your character. Every Specialization has a Focus Ability which is a kind of final ability that uses it's own resource to power (Focus rather than Stamina/Mana)
Templars are mostly based around dispelling magic and buffing allies. They also focus heavily on dealing increased damage to Demons.
This Specialization can work very well with both Two-Handed and Weapon and Shield styles but fits the Defensive style of Weapon and Shield slightly more. The amount of buffs that the Templar has access to can be very useful when combined with the near untouchable state that higher leveled Weapon and Shield masters can have access to. Templars and Battlemasters are also good combinations because of the buffs and debuffs both have access to.
Spell Purge is probably the most important skill, it can really strip enemies of their personal buffs which makes killing them much easier and once you get the bonus to it can be very powerful. Blessed Blades, The Last Sacrifice and Wrath of Heaven are all very good abilities to go with.
Rally is the Focus Ability of the Templar and increases your Guard generation, Mana/Stamina and Damage Resistance.
Champion is again a very defensive Specialization for the Warrior. It focuses very heavily on Guard, it has no offensive presence but makes up for that by just being ridiculously powerful with defensive techniques.
Because of this it is extremely well suited for both Two-Handed and Weapon and Shield. Combined with Weapon and Shield it is just ridiculously powerful but it can add defensive prowess to a Two-Handed Warrior.
Bulwark, Adamant and Unyielding are three very useful abilities in the tree that go really well for any Warrior. They all pretty powerful effects especially Unyielding giving you invulnerability for 5 seconds.
Counterstrike is the Focus Ability of this specialization, it gives you the ability to counter all enemy melee attacks for 6, 12, 20 seconds.
Reaver is the sub-class to go to for pure physical damage. Exchanging Health for Damage is the name of the game with the Reaver and nothing is as amazing for pure strength then a Reaver with Two-Handed Weapons. It can work well with the Weapon and Shield combo because it can deal high damage and also have high defense.
Ring of Pain, Blood Frenzy, Devour and Dragon Rage are immensely powerful Abilities that can turn the tide in any battle and just give you a massive strength boost when low on health. Devour is almost unavoidable for this character because it allows you to heal Health based on how much damage you do, and the lower your health the more damage you do (which means more healed)
Rampage is an interesting Focus Power that increases attack speed, life steal and damage dealt. This can turn the Reaver from a ridiculously powerful Warrior into an unbeatable lord of damage.
Rogue:
The Rogue is divided into two weapon styles, Dual Wield Daggers and Archery. Both of these are quicker then the Warrior Styles but also naturally do less damage. However the abilities and skills that the Rogue gains are excellent for dealing massive amounts of damage under certain circumstances. Rather than direct combat the Rogue excels in Stealth and Ambush.]
Skill Trees:
The Rogue has poisons, traps, stealth mode. All of these cover it's bases as an indirect fighter either from afar or behind. The Archery and Double Dagger trees are the combat styles and their backed up by Subterfuge and Sabotage.
Double Daggers is the melee style that the Rogue has access to, it focuses on quick, deadly attacks that add all sorts of debuffs to enemies. Fighting in front of your enemy often will get you killed so you'll be wanting to flank around and attack from the sides or back.
Key Abilities for this tree are Flank Attack, Twin Fangs, Dance of Death and Sneak Attack. Dance of Death allows you to regain Stamina from killing enemies which allows you to use more of your offensive Abilities, all of those offensive abilities work better when going for a flanking attack, or with Flank Attack can make you a very strong attacker who disappears after an attack.
The Double Daggers tree works especially well with the Subterfuge tree which gives it a couple of options to increase Flanking Damage even more
Archery is the ranged option that Rogues have and works fairly similar to how Double Daggers does. It's all about crippling your opponents and staying out of harms way while also trying to flank your enemies.
Long Shot, Strafing Shots, Pincushion and Leaping Shots are some of the key abilities for this tree. They are some pretty interesting abilities that give you some options for both damage and movement.
Pairing this with both the Subterfuge and Sabotage really helps Archery by giving it more options to deal damage and weaken enemies.
Sabotage is a skill which gives you a lot of options based on poisons, traps and critical hits to increase damage, by itself you won't be doing much damage but when combined with either Double Daggers or Archery becomes fairly powerful and very interesting.
Really this tree has no key perks. Any ability in this skill can be used to great success without needing to completely specialize much. More then just about any other skill this one is very much up to player decision. Poisoned Weapons is an excellent one for any Rogue as is Fighting Dirty.
Subterfuge is probably the most critical skill for any Rogue to pick up. Whether they're focused on Daggers or Archery. Most of the abilities have to do with Stealth, dodging or crippling effects.
Stealth is just flat out needed for just about any Rogue. It effects so many abilities that picking it up is almost critical. Evasion and Easy to Miss are also very good choices for any Rogue to pick up at the earliest opportunity.
Specializations:
The Rogue has 3 very different sub-classes. The Artificer, Assassin and Tempest Specializations.
Artificer is probably the most difficult to play as. Rather than focus on direct damage or even effects that debuff enemies, instead this specialization uses traps to harm enemies and deliver powerful effects. It isn't as straight forward as other Classes but can be a lot of fun once you get it down. Archery tends to work better with it because you can move around the field slightly easier and the range of Traps and Bows are a good combination. It can be used quite well with Double Daggers as well though.
Spike Traps and Elemental Mines are the main two traps that they Artificer has access to, they both deal large amounts of damage. Elemental Mines deal damage using Fire, Chill and Shock damage and effects. Fallback Plan, Tricks of the Trade and Set Them Up are great abilities to pick up and give some great other effects to your Artificer.
Hail of Arrows is the Focus Ability for the Artificer. Unfortunately this ability forces you to use Archery but it can be a very powerful ability. All offensive Archery abilities, such as Long Shot is fired twice instead of just once (dealing more damage). It's a fairly narrow Focus Ability but in the right hand very powerful.
Assassin is perhaps the most straight forwardly powerful of the three Specializations. Relying on Stealth and Critical Hits it works perfectly and is an extension of the Subterfuge Skill in just about every well. Combing it with Dual Daggers is the stronger option but it does work well with Archery to a certain extent.
Hidden Blades and Mark of Death are two very powerful offensive abilities that deal massive damage when combined with certain other Abilities and techniques (mostly Stealth and Double Dagger Abilities) Knife in the Shadows, Gaps in the Armour and I Was Never Here are all powerful passives that give you bonuses based on Stealth. All together they create a powerful offensive character.
Cloak of Shadows is the Assassin's Focus Ability and is an immensely powerful ability. It allows your entire party to enter Stealth mode for 3,6 or 9 seconds even when attacking. For the Rogue this means that you can unleash multiple Stealth Attacks in a row.
Tempest is the last of the Rogue Specializations and this is probably the most unique of the three. It can be used to great effect by both Archers and Dual Wielders. The basis of the Tempest Specialization is to use buffing effects to unleash some pretty interesting combos.
Flask of Frost, Flash of Fire and Flask of Lightning are your three main abilities with this tree. Each one increase various effects to create a very different character. Frost gives you more Armour and freezes enemies that attack you. Fire makes your abilities cost no Stamina (meaning you can use them more often) and you knock-back enemies. Lighting decreases the speed of all enemies near you.
Thousand Cuts is a very powerful attack that allows you to attack an enemy 12, 25 or 38 times for 300% of weapon damage. This is a pretty powerful attack that deals massive amounts of damage.
Mage:
Mages are quite different from other Classes because it doesn't have the same set out of two offensive skills and two back-up skills. Three of the skills rely on dealing Elemental Damage to opponents as well as inflicting various effects, these are Inferno, Winter and Storm. To back then up and to pair of quite brilliantly with all of them is the Spirit skill which focuses on defense and other boosts.
Barrier is one of the key bonuses that Mages get. Barrier works exactly the same as Guard but generally can effect the entire party, and it fades with time. Combined with Guard on a melee character it can be quite potent but Barrier is more difficult to generate and easier to lose.
Skill Trees
Inferno Magic is the most straight forward and powerful of the 3 Elemental Schools. It contains effects that produce Burning (Damage over time) and Fear effects and is home to some of the most powerful spells in the game.
Flashfire, Immolate, Fire Mine and Wall of Fire are the offensive abilities of the Inferno Tree and are all capable of dealing massive damage. Immolate is a kind of staple because it can have very low cooldown times and Flashfire is excellent for causing Fear. Pyromancer and Clean Burn are two very strong passive abilities that increase combat efficiency and are very useful for any Inferno using Mage.
Winter magic is another of the Magic Schools and focuses mostly on freezing enemies (which stops movement) and chilling them (slow effects). It's does less outright damage then Inferno Spells but can still be very powerful. It also works very well with the Spirit Tree because it has several passives which increase Barrier Effectiveness.
Winter's Grasp, Wall of Ice, Ice Mine and Blizzard are the offensive spells that a Mage using the Winter Skill would have access to and each of them is an excellent supporting spell that can give your allies the ability to deliver tonnes of damage. Fade Step and Mana Surge are probably the two most useful abilities for giving your mage a little bit of variety and increase your Barriers.
Storm magic is a rather interesting school that has more unique spells then the Frost and Inferno Skills which have very similar spells. The Spells focus more on dealing damage to more then one enemy at a time.
Chain Lightning, Energy Barrage, Lightning Bolt and Static Cage are the four spells that a Storm Mage gains access to. All of them are excellent at dealing damage against multiple enemies and in some cases does more damage to larger groups. Stormbringer and Static Charge are both very powerful passives that actually deal damage to enemies, both deal damage to enemies that are close to you which can be useful for any character.
Spirit Magic is the only real support magic that the base Mage has access to. It has powerful defensive and healing techniques that I might say are nearly crucial to any party.
Barrier is without a doubt the main Spell to be picked from this skill and is great for any Mage to pick up. Peaceful Aura, Guardian Spirit and Rejuvenating Barrier are very useful passives for any Mage and together can create some really powerful Barriers. Revival is probably the most useful of late game Spells because it allows you to return your allies to consciousness in the middle of battle allowing them to fight on
Specializations:
The Mage has 3 very different specializations that all do something different and unique for the Class. They are all very different from the base Magic Skills and can create some of the most powerful combos in the game to make up for the Mage's problems early on.
Knight Enchanter is a very physically capable Mage, that's right physically. The Knight Enchanter gains a lot of abilities that turn it from a spell slinging mage into a kind of Battlemage. Honestly this is probably one of the most powerful Classes in the game when dealt with correctly.
Spirit Blade is the key to this change. Nearby enemies are attacked by this Blade and it inflicts massive damage to enemies who have Guard or Barriers up. Later on it can be boosted by being able to deflect projectiles. Fade Shield is a powerful passive to add to a Knight Enchanter's defense by increasing their Barrier based on how much damage the Enchanter is doing (yes the best defense is a good offense here) Veiled Riposte damages enemies who try and attack you when you have a Barrier up. This works very well with Storm Magic because of the effects there that deal damage to nearby enemies and Spirit Magic because of the usage of Barriers.
Resurgence is a very powerful Focus Ability which heals your entire party, even those that have fallen unconscious and then gives a passive healing effect.
Necromancer is a very interesting Specialization. I'm sure we all know the classic undead raising Mage. The Necromancer in Dragon Age deals with Fear effects, draining health and raising the dead as Spirits.
Death Siphon is a key passive that allows you to regain Health and Mana every time an enemy dies. Spirit Mark is the key spell here that allows you to summon the Spirit of a marked enemy after it dies. Walking Bomb (sadly not a Spirit Bomb) is a powerful spell that does a large amount of damage to enemies.
Haste is the focus ability of a Necromancer, it slows all enemies for 6-20 seconds allowing you to unleash more attacks on them. It can be an incredibly powerful ability when combined with high dealing companions like a Reaver.
Rift Mages mostly focus on passive buffs and pair that with high damaging effects. Many of the Spells and Abilities weaken enemies and deal more damage to those that are weakened.Pairing this with Spirit and Inferno Mages is a strong choice but as with any of the three Specializations can work with any
Stonefist and Veilstrike are the two main offensive spells that a Rift Mage has access to and both can deal some pretty intense damage. Encircling Veil increases the duration effect of any status on enemies that have the weakened status, Smothering Veil reduces the damage that those enemies can do and Twisting Veil increases your own damage against them.
Firestorm is the Focus Ability of the Rift Mage and it fires down 15/30/55 meteors on your enemies. Each meteor does high damage in large areas and is very useful for dealing with several weaker enemies while you focus on the tougher ones.
Resources:
This is a Skill Calculator that is extremely useful for starting your build off.
This is a quick beginner's guide for the Lore of Dragon Age, for those that either don't want to play the older games or can't, or just want to brush up on the basics then that is an excellent article to do so.
Dragon Age Keep is a fairly useful guide for the game. It's actually more useful for the first games because the decisions and choices that the Keep has there are pretty much the base of a build for Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2
The Dragon Age Wiki is an obvious choice for any information you need on skills, abilities, lore or anything else.
This Page has some useful information on status effects and what some of the abilities extra features do.
