Combat in Dragon Age: The Veilguard can get quite hectic, and apart from spells, skills, and regular attacks, players can also perform a stylish Takedown on enemies for a quick elimination. It's an incredibly useful technique, one that every player should be using, especially on higher difficulties.
Takedowns can play a big part in how you play your character in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Some builds can make excellent use of this mechanic, and if you're interested in adopting an execution-heavy playstyle, here's a guide covering some things you need to know about Takedowns.
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How to Do Takedowns in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
To perform a Takedown, you'll need to fill up an enemy's Stagger bar. This is the purple bar right on top of an enemy's health. Every hit you inflict with your weapons will inflict a certain amount of Stagger damage (on top of regular damage), and so will most offensive abilities. Once the bar is completely full, the enemy will get staggered — press the button prompt that appears over their heads, and Rook will hit them with a powerful attack.
Takedowns won't always finish off an enemy, and targets don't need to have low health either. With that said, you can do Takedowns even on big enemies like Hurlocks, Ogres, and other elite/miniboss-type targets without having to deplete their health bars.
All classes in Dragon Age: The Veilguard can perform Takedowns, but Warriors are the ones who specialize in it. Not only do they have passives that improve Stagger damage, but they also have access to Mauls, which deal significant Stagger damage at the cost of slightly lower health damage on average.
How to Deal More Stagger Damage
As mentioned, regular attacks will build an enemy's Stagger meter up by a decent amount per hit. However, the amount of Stagger you deal will vary depending on a variety of factors:
- Charged Attacks deal more health and Stagger damage compared to normal ones.
- Some weapons deal more Stagger damage than others.
- Weapon and Armor Traits may increase the amount of Stagger damage you deal.
- Some Abilities, like Driving Kick, deal massive Stagger damage.
Tips and Tricks
Once an enemy is Staggered, they take are vulnerable to damage. You don't necessarily need to do a Takedown on them as soon as they become Staggered — enemies will stay in that state until their Stagger bar depletes, which means you have a few extra seconds to deal extra hits with your attacks. Save Advantage effects like Precision for these moments.
If you're using a Warrior or Mage, you can swap weapons before performing a Takedown. This is useful if your other weapon deals bonus Takedown damage, counters the enemy's elemental resistance, or can trigger weapon buffs. Use this to your advantage.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
- Released
- October 31, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- BioWare
- Publisher(s)
- Electronic Arts
- Engine
- Frostbite
- Franchise
- Dragon Age
- PC Release Date
- October 31, 2024
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- October 31, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
- October 31, 2024
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
- Genre(s)
- RPG
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
