Whether you are picking up Origins for the first time, or are a long-term Dragon Age vet, a strong build for your class will be the difference between a clean, fun playthrough or rage quitting in the Deep Roads. We’ve researched and presented the top 5 builds that will have you nuking Nightmare difficulty to get you into the game and playing as soon as possible.
Note that the following builds are not in order of best to worst or vice versa. All these builds are beasts, and the mixture of classes and specialities will create a dynamic and powerhouse team to utilize.
Build 1) Apollo Archer Build
For those who wanted to be Legolas while watching the Lord of the Rings, this build is for you. This high dexterity build centred around the bow and arrow will rain arrows and pain upon your enemies.
While the archer rogue was once considered a tedious and slow choice of play, this build shows that it can pump out massive amounts of damage if given the correct stat priority and unlocked talents.
This complete list of preferred weapons and armour, skills, and talents to unlock and stat priority will leave every nearby enemy with an arrow in the knee.
Stat priority:
- Dexterity > Cunning > Willpower > Strength
- Dexterity will improve your chance to hit or dodge, as well as increase your attack and defence. Pivotal for a high damage character that wants a bit more defence than a typical glass cannon.
- Cunning is vital for rogues due to the armour penetration. It will also increase the effectiveness of your talents and act as a prerequisite for many of your skills.
- Willpower increases the stamina we have available to use more talents and more passive abilities before running empty.
Ideal Weapons and Armour:
- Bow: Far Song Bow. Far song is an excellent choice for this build as it provides the passive Rapid Aim, so your auto-attack is faster and increases damage. +10 attack and +10% critical damage. This increases the attack rating, so you’re more likely to hit, and a high percentage of your attacks will be crits, so it makes sense to improve your critical damage.
- Armour: The Ancient Elven set provides +5 defence, +4 armour, +2 dexterity and different types of resistance. Wearing complete armour sets will provide additional benefits, so if you can, always wear the entire set.
- Accessories: Andruil’s Blessing for the belt. The Spellward for your amulet. Harvest Festival Ring or Dusk Ring, and Key to the City.
Skills:
- Master Survival – bonus to nature and physical resistance.
- Master Coercion – important for unique dialogue options.
- Improved Poison-Making – allows you to throw grenades in times of low stamina.
- Master Combat Training – Compulsory for all classes to unlock the best abilities.
- Combat Tactics – Not necessary to skill up as you will be playing the character most of the time.
Talents:
- Rogue Tree: Dirty Fighting, Lethality, Evasion, all Stealth ranks.
- Bard Specialty: Song of Courage
- Duelist Specialty: Dueling (bonus to damage)
- Archery: Focus on Master Archer, then unlock all talents.
Build 2) Arcane Blood Mage Build
Is there anything better than mages kicking ass and taking names?
One of the biggest rules in the Dragon Age universe is that blood magic is evil, and only bad guys use it. So, what could be more ironic than the Hero of Ferelden using an Arcane Blood Mage build.
This build uses your health points instead of mana to cast blood magic spells for those who live life on the edge. The strength of the build comes from the crowd control available to help you dominate the battlefield. It’s an excellent build to use if you’re more interested in high strategy gameplay rather than a hack and slash, high DPS style of play.
Stat priority:
- Magic > Willpower (up to 20) > Constitution
- Magic is a mages bread and butter. This will increase the potency of all your spells and thus your damage.
- Willpower will aid your mana regeneration, and a mage is useless with no mana. Typically, more points would be placed into this as a normal mage build; however, the priority is instead on Constitution as a Blood Mage.
- Constitution is typically ignored in mage builds, as they don’t require a large health pool like a warrior. No one is supposed to be hitting you. However, in a Blood Mage build, your health is used in place of mana, so it’s essential to have enough health to see you through battles while using it for an abundance of spells.
Ideal Weapons and Armour:
- Weapon: Wintersbreath Staff. Provides more spell power and ensures all basic attacks never miss.
- Armour: Griffon’s Helm, Dwarven Heavy Gloves, Effort chest, Dwarven Heavy Boots. This may seem unusual as mages usually wear billowing cloth robes. However, the second specialization in this build, Arcane Warrior, allows you to use your magic stat as the prerequisite for how heavy an armour you can wear.
- Accessories: Belt of the Magisters Lords belt, Lifedrinker amulet, Morrigan’s Ring and Lifegiver rings.
Skills:
- Master Combat Training - Compulsory for all classes to unlock the best abilities.
- Skills are largely player preference in this build. Try and pick options you may be missing in your party.
Talents:
- Mage Tree: Arcane Mastery, Rock Armour, Stonefirst, entire Lightning Tree, Heal, entire Hex Tree, Drain Life, Death Magic, Curse of Mortality.
- Arcane Warrior Specialty: Combat Magic. Allows you to put on heavier armour and improve survivability.
- Blood Mage Specialty: Complete the tree, though you will mostly only use Blood Sacrifice and Blood Wound.
Build 3) Dual Wield Berserk Reaver Build
Dual Wielding may be one of the coolest skills across any game which features it. The ability to strike with not just one but two blades makes your character a truly efficient killing machine.
This build is perfect for those who want to live the fantasy of a quick on their feet, spinning and whirling blade of death. So naturally, it’s built around high damage input and survivability.
Stat priority:
- Strength > Dexterity > Willpower > Cunning (only to 16) > Constitution
- Strength increases your melee damage as well as your chances to hit. It also allows your warrior character to wear the heaviest armour available.
- Dexterity is equally essential for a dual-wielding build and the chance for both weapons to hit.
- This build contains a lot of sustained skills which will require a deep pool of stamina to utilize. Willpower will help to increase the amount we have available.
- Cunning only needs to be 16 to improve your Survival skill to a higher rank.
- Constitution only needs to be around 18-20 to ensure you aren’t exceptionally fragile. Also, it’s important to remember that lower health increases your damage in this build.
Ideal Weapons and Armour:
- Weapons: Keening Blade and Blightblood.
- Armour: Griffon’s Helm and armour, boots, and gloves of Diligence. Large flat armour increase.
- Accessories: Andruil’s Blessing belt, The Spellward amulet, Lifegiver and Key to the City rings.
Skills:
- Master Coercion
- Master Survival
- Master Combat Training.
Talents:
- Warrior Tree: Max out Death blow tree, Precise Striking,
- Berserker Specialization: First three talents.
- Reaver Specialization: Max out tree.
- Dual Weapon: Complete the first three trees.
Build 4) Champion Templar Tank Build
If you want to play at higher-end difficulties, a powerful tank is essential for success. This build is perfect for someone who wants the strength and command of battle that a tank can provide while also competing with damage numbers to avoid being just a target dummy.
Stat priority:
- Strength > Dexterity > Willpower > Constitution
- Get up to at least 42 Strength in the base game. This will allow you to wear all types of armour.
- Dexterity will increase your attack and decrease at a 1:1 ratio (1 point spent = 1 point added to defence)
- Willpower gives us a larger stamina pool and improved mental resistance.
- Constitution should be levelled purely to increase your health pool.
Ideal Weapons and Armour:
- Weapon and Shield: Dumat’s Spine and Large Grey Warden Shield. Prioritize powerful passives and runeslots. These are more interchangeable than other builds.
- Armour: Grey Warden Plate set. Look for armour that is heavy and has passive bonuses.
- Accessories: Panacea belt, Seeker’s Chain amulet, Mark of the Divine and Ring of the Warrior rings. Focus on resistances and dexterity.
Skills:
- Master Combat Training
- Master Coercion.
- The rest of the choices are highly individual for your character. Choose whatever you feel you may need.
Talents:
- Warrior Tree: Powerful, Threaten, Bravery, Precise Striking, Taunt
- Champion: Max out the tree. Useful for crowd control and bonuses to attack and defence.
- Templar: Max out the tree. Drains mage mana, helps to remove negative effects and improves mental resistance.
- Weapon and Shield: Max out the entire tree.
Build 5) “Sword of the Night” Build
Taking a sharp turn away from the other builds in this article, the “Sword of the Night” is crafted around the weapon Starfang. It’s meant to push the limits of just how much damage a tank character can provide and can be used for either role.
While it’s meant to be a broader build to fill multiple roles, it remains a fun and useful build for higher difficulty playthroughs.
Stat priority:
- Strength > Dexterity > Willpower > Constitution
- No different from the other builds, Strength should be prioritized to unlock all heavy armour. The target should be 42 and above.
- The minimum Dexterity should be 26 to allow you to learn every Sword and Shield talent, alongside the advantages of Dexterity mentioned before. In addition, the defence bonus from Dexterity helps this build fill a tank position in the party.
- Since this build is about playing two roles, you need a stamina pool large enough to accommodate damage and defence-based talents.
- Constitution will be important to beef up the character when it needs to serve as a tank.
Ideal Weapons and Armour:
- Weapon and Shield: Starfang and Fade Wall. Fade Wall provides a flat +3 defence increase, stamina regen and an increase to healing received. Perfect for a tanking character.
- Armour: Wades Superior Heavy Dragonscale set. This entire set provides stamina regeneration, defence, and passive bonuses. An alternative set would be the set of Diligence. Again, it provides many defences. Helms you can use include Helm of Honnleath and Executioner’s Helm.
- Accessories: Andruil’s Blessing belt, The Spellward amulet, Key to the City and Lifegiver rings.
Skills:
- Master Coercion
- Master Combat Training
- Rank Two Combat Tactics
Talents:
- Warrior: Max the first tree and three skills on the second tree.
- Champion Tree: Max the entire tree.
- Berserker: Only the first three talents are necessary.
- Sword and Shield: Max all skills.
Conclusion
Dragon Age: Origins remains a timeless RPG for many people, and it’s not hard to understand why. As these builds above clearly show, replaying Origins should never be a tedious chore. The use of different classes and builds can help to provide a new player experience each time you pick up the game, especially if you’re looking for a challenge by playing at greater difficulties. These builds are guaranteed to impress any player and crush any enemy.
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