Dragon Age: The Veilguard Devs Think Veil Ranger Rogue Is The Best Way To Play

Summary

• Rogue is the most popular class among BioWare developers, with Veil Ranger being the most popular subclass.
• Unsurprisingly, the new Mage subclasses are more popular than the more traditional choice of Evoker.
• Nobody wants to play the tank, as usual.

Warrior, mage or rogue? This classic choice has been the foundation of Dragon Age's combat system since Origins was released in 2009. Dragon Age has had a lot of changes game-to-game, but BioWare has never wavered from these three classes forming the backbone of character creation.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is no different, albeit with new subclasses to suit the game's more dynamic combat system. BioWare recently held an internal survey of which class and subclass the development team most liked to play. Though exact numbers weren't provided, we can see which classes and subclasses proved the most popular.

Rogue is Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Most Popular Class Among BioWare Developers

The most popular class among the team is Rogue, with the most-played subclasses being Veil Ranger, Saboteur and then Duelist in that order. The Veil Ranger is a pure-ranged class, "built around charged ranged attacks, lightning damage, and stagger," is how game director Corinne Busche describes it. Coincidentally, Busche has also said Veil Ranger is her favourite build.

Every subclass in The Veilguard is associated with a specific faction. The Veil Ranger is associated with the Veil Jumpers, the faction that companion Bellara Lutare is a part of, though Bellara is a Mage, not a Rogue. We don't have as much information about the other two Rogue subclasses, the Duelist subclass appeared in both Origins and Dragon Age 2 - it's focused on dual-wielding while attacking rapidly. Meanwhile, Saboteurs use "traps and tricks," and are associated with The Lords of Fortune.

The second-most popular class is Mage. The only surprise here is that mage isn't the most popular, as the magic-wielding class has traditionally been the most diverse and beloved in the series. The Spellblade subclass, a melee class that uses empowered magical attacks, is the most favoured mage subclass among the developers. This isn't surprising, absolutely everyone fantasises about being a battlemage.

The Death Caller, as the name implies, uses necromancy and is tied to Nevarra's Mourn Watch, the faction of companion Emmrich Volkarin. The least-poplar choice, Evoker, is your traditional elemental mage, the kind of magic user that was popular in previous games.

Ah, the Warrior. These beefy front liners are often the least popular of the classes, despite being crucial to any party. The most popular pick was Slayer, a two-handed class that focuses on damage. Second is the Reaper, a life-stealing 'high risk' class. Then came the Champion, your stereotypical tank class that draws aggro from enemies and takes a lot of damage. Champion is the only class associated with Grey Wardens.

It will be very interesting to see how popular each class is with the general player base after the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard on October 31.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

WHERE TO PLAY

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.