Galaxy Freeze Evoker Mage Build Guide – Dragon Age the Veilguard

Key Takeaways

1. This powerful build maximizes control and cold damage, making it ideal for dominating on Nightmare difficulty.
2. Leveraging staff attacks, companions, and massive AOE abilities, it ensures enemies remain weakened and chilled.
3. Companion synergy and efficient mana usage make this build a powerhouse for both offense and survival.

Invoker Veilguard Build for Nightmare Difficulty: Control, Chill, and Conquer

Are you ready to unleash a build so powerful that it chills enemies to their core, keeps them in a weakened state, and clears the battlefield with screen-filling AOE attacks? This invoker build is designed to tackle the hardest challenges, taking full advantage of staff-based attacks, companions, and chilling control abilities to wreak havoc in Nightmare difficulty. Here’s a full breakdown of how to get this powerful setup running from early game to endgame, including skills, gear, and playstyle tips.

Setting Up the Core Skills

The strength of this build lies in carefully chosen skills that maximize AOE damage, weaken enemies, and control the battlefield. Here’s a look at the essential abilities and progression:

1. Skill Tree Progression
   • Start in the Middle: Begin with Frost Nova as your temporary crowd-control ability.
   • Advance to Ice Blast: Once you reach Ice Blast, you’ll start dealing cold damage with control. This attack costs two Mana Pips, making it manageable early on. Ice Blast is also essential for applying both weaken and chill effects.
   • Upgrade to Greater Authority: This passive change speeds up cooldowns for control abilities and gives Ice Blast a 40-second cooldown instead of costing Mana, allowing you to prioritize mana for more potent attacks.
2. Evoker Specialization
   • Around level 10-15, access the Evoker Specialization for Dark Squall, a key AOE ability that detonates chilled enemies, triggering additional damage. This works well with Ice Blast and allows you to conserve mana for key attacks.
   • Breathing Room and Area Enhancements: Pick up abilities that expand your AOE radius, maximizing your screen-wide damage reach.
3. Ultimate Ability: Vortex of Shadow
   • Once you reach higher levels, Vortex of Shadow becomes your ultimate AOE weapon. This skill pulls enemies in, allowing you to unleash your chilling abilities on entire groups, compounding their damage and control effects.

Enhancing Staff and Projectile Abilities

Central to this build is boosting your staff’s light and heavy attacks. By focusing on chill effects and projectile count, you’ll get more value out of each attack.

1. Heavy Attacks: These become critical against frozen enemies, especially with chill applied through Ice Blast.
2. Projectile Boosts: Add extra projectiles to your staff attacks for added damage output. With Dark Squall and Ice Blast as projectiles, you’ll maximize every attack.
3. AOE Enhancements: Breathing Room passives expand the AOE of entropic sphere, letting you control enemies across the entire battlefield.

Optimizing Gear for Maximum Control and Damage

Your gear will play a significant role in optimizing mana use, control effects, and cold damage. Here’s how to outfit your character:

1. Weaponry and Armor
   • Glacial Rod: Boosts heavy attack damage and applies additional chill stacks, crucial for maintaining control.
   • Light Armor Mastery: This increases mana regeneration and grants an ability cost refund on impact, which helps maintain mana.
   • Shadow Grasp Belt: Adds cold damage and chills enemies in a radius, ideal for maintaining your control over the battlefield.
2. Accessory Choices
   • Token of True Flight: Enhances projectile ability damage and regenerates mana when hitting distant enemies.
   • Band of Smoke and Black City Maw: Boost cold and critical damage, essential for maintaining high damage output.
3. Enchantment Priorities
   • Area and Projectile Damage: Increases entropic sphere and Dark Squall impact.
   • Cooldown Reduction: This enables frequent casting of your main skills, letting you keep up relentless pressure on enemies.
   • Chill and Affliction Duration: Extends the effects of chill, giving you more time to apply damage to weakened enemies.

Companions: Harding and Davin for Powerful Synergy

This build shines when paired with the right companions. Harding and Davin bring significant advantages, both in crowd control and enhancing your AOE damage.

1. Harding for Control and Healing
   • Shred and Spontaneous Shred: Harding’s Shred skill applies a sued effect, enabling you to detonate chilled enemies more frequently.
   • Heal and Adrenaline Rush: Offers a steady flow of healing, essential for offsetting the health costs of the Black City Maw.
2. Davin for Damage Amplification and Taunts
   • Battlecry and Detonations: Davin’s Battlecry adds rally effects, boosting the party’s damage during detonations.
   • Cooldown Reduction: His Defender specialization enhances your uptime on detonations, essential for managing swarms of enemies.

Mastering the Playstyle: Strategic AOE Control

While this build isn’t a simple rotation, here’s how to approach fights for optimal efficiency:

1. Range Attacks First: Start by assessing enemy positions and hitting them with ranged staff attacks to weaken them.
2. Group Control with Dark Squall and Vortex: Once enemies are in range, cast entropic sphere to pull them in, followed by Ice Blast to apply chill.
3. Detonations: Use Davin’s taunt and Harding’s sued effects to maximize the impact of detonations on chilled enemies.
4. Maintain Range: Stand near your entropic sphere to maximize safety, avoiding damage by keeping enemies out of melee range.

FAQs

Q: Why focus so much on cold and chill effects?
A: Cold effects and chill control give you constant crowd control on Nightmare difficulty, ensuring enemies are consistently weakened and taking critical hits from your entropic sphere and staff attacks.

Q: Can I use different companions for this build?
A: Yes, but Harding and Davin are ideal for maintaining weak and chilled statuses on enemies. Substituting them can reduce efficiency.

Q: How does this build handle bosses?
A: It excels against bosses by maintaining distance and repeatedly applying chill, keeping bosses in a weakened state for high sustained damage.

Q: Is this build effective for all stages of the game?
A: Yes! By prioritizing mana conservation early and enhancing AOE control later, this build remains effective from early game to endgame.