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At the start of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you’re given an option of which faction you’ll be associated with. Each faction has different perks and a different companion character that’s tied to that faction — and each faction also has a large open-world hub area where you can take side-quests and explore other activities. Leveling up your faction is important for the endgame, and for enjoying plenty of other benefits like purchasing new worthwhile gear.
There are six factions you’ll encounter in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and if you can’t decide which faction to join or focus on leveling up first, here’s a quick rundown on how factions work in the latest Dragon Age. Factions tell their own stories, and you’ll want to complete as much as you can before the endgame.
What Faction Should You Join?
There are six factions, and each faction has its own set of perks — each faction is associated with a character companion, so if there’s anyone you want to romance more, you may want to join their associated faction. Leveling up that faction will put you in constant contact with the associated companion.
Each faction has a set of perks — you’ll gain a bonus to your character and deal more damage to a specific enemy group. Here’s a quick rundown of every faction.
- Veil Jumpers: Bellara’s faction. Damage buff vs. Fade-Touched enemies. Increases critical damage to weakpoints.
- Shadow Dragons: Neve’s faction. Damage buff vs. Venatori blood mages. Regenerates class resources faster.
- Antivan Crows: Lucanis’s faction. Damage buff vs. Antaam invaders. Gives +1 max potion storage.
- Grey Wardens: Davrin’s faction. Damage buff vs. Darkspawn. Gives boost to Defense / Health.
- Lords of Fortune: Taash’s faction. Damage buff vs. mercenary enemies. Recharges takedowns faster when in combat.
- Mourn Watch: Emmrich’s faction. Damage buff vs. undead and demons. Applies additional debuff stacks on enemies.
Best Faction To Join?
During character creation, you’ll be prompted to select a lineage and faction. The faction determines your bonus damage against an enemy group and a starting perk. The enemy group damage is negligible and won’t really affect your experience in the game. The companions associated with the factions will also carry this buff.
- We joined the Antivan Crows for the +1 Potion upgrade. You can get this upgrade from other sources, but it is nice to get very early in the story.
- The Grey Wardens general buff to defense and health is also good — the bonus damage to Darkspawn is helpful, as you’ll be fighting Darkspawn constantly. This enemy group is being used by the Elven Gods and appears where there is blight.
I believe those are your best options for a starting faction, but no faction really matters enough to completely alter your gameplay experience. You can join any faction you want and get the same enjoyment from the story. There’s nothing critical here.
How To Increase Faction Rank
Faction Rank is increased by completing side-quests and other activities on the regions associated with each faction. From the hub, when you select a region to teleport to, a window will appear showing how much content you’ve completed in that region.
To level up your faction’s rank in the area, you need to complete as many tasks as possible on this window. Complete quests in the region, defeat enemies and find collectibles. Do everything you can to help out that faction and your rank will go up. New features will unlock at every star rating. You can earn up to three stars for each rank — and doing that is required if you don’t want anyone to die during the finale.
