Skip to main content

How to upgrade weapons and armor in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

dragon age the veilguard preview  4
EA

What kind of RPG would Dragon Age: The Veilguard be without plenty of loot? After you've picked your class, customized your character, and gotten into the thick of the adventure, you will start accumulating plenty of new armors, weapons, and accessories for your Rook. How powerful your gear is, no matter what type, comes down to two factors: its rarity and its level. The former you have little control over, but upgrading is something you need to do yourself. It takes a surprising amount of time before the option becomes available, and you need to know where to even look to start the process, so we'll give you the blueprints on how to upgrade your gear in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Recommended Videos

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

2 hours

What You Need

  • Complete your first mission after reaching the Lighthouse

  • Gold and materials

Upgrading gear in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
EA

How to upgrade gear

We will keep this as spoiler-free as possible so won't be detailing exactly what you will be doing before upgrading unlocks. Instead, know that you will reach a location called the Lighthouse early on in the game before leaving to go on a main quest. Once you return as part of the main quest, then you can start to upgrade.

Step 1: After going back to the Lighthouse for the second time, head out through the main entrance to the courtyard.

Step 2: Run straight ahead toward the fountain before the stairs and interact with a new prompt that says Workshop.

A tutorial prompt in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
EA

Step 3: A list of your current gear will appear on the left. Select the one you want to upgrade and you will be shown the required gold and materials to upgrade it, as well as how much the stats will increase.

tutorial prompt in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
EA

Step 4: You can only upgrade weapons based on the rank of the workshop, which you can do by finding or purchasing Mementos out in the world.

Step 5: Enchantments are also available for your gear as well as abilities after you go further into the story. Enchantments don't cost anything to apply, but you can only use each one on one piece of gear or ability at a time.

Upgrading your equipment at the shop will apply a +1, +2, +3, and so on to that specific item. If you want to upgrade its rarity you will need to either find or purchase a duplicate of that item and it will automatically upgrade itself to the next tier.

Also, make sure you check the other tabs here to upgrade your companion's gear as well so they can do their part in combat!

Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox has been a writer at Digital Trends for over four years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…
How to transmog equipment in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Dragon Age The Veilguard Rook standing between Bellara and Neve.

With the wide assortment of equipment and clothing your character can wear in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it's not easy choosing what you want your Rook to wear while venturing on quests and slaying enemies. Sometimes fashion comes before function, but luckily The Veilguard allows you to prioritize both with the transmog system.

Read more
How to respec in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
A character draws a bow in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

You can spend a long time making your character in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Between their race, appearance, background, and class, there are a lot of ways to customize the game to your liking. Once you do make your choice and get into a few battles, you will earn your first skill point and be prompted to spend it in the skill tree. That's all basic stuff for an RPG, but even seasoned veterans of the genre might get a little overwhelmed by the size of the skill tree here. It's more like a bush, and you will begin at the center and can carve any path you want toward the edges, where the specializations are. However, you will never have enough points to unlock them all. In fact, you will only be able to reach a single specialization at one time. While you could spend an hour reading and mapping the perfect upgrade path, why not just have fun and try things out and respec your points later? Here's how to reset your skill points in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
How to respec in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Respecing in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is easy, free, and can be done as many times as you like. When you want to refund your points after you've unlocked the skill tree and spent your first points, you have two options. The first is to simply select the individual skills you want to refund (as long as they aren't connecting two nodes) and refund them one by one. Or, you can start from a clean slate by pressing Y or Triangle on the controller to refund every single point you've spent.

Read more
How long is Dragon Age: The Veilguard?
A vista in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

BioWare RPGs are known for being lengthy adventures. Whether it is one of the Mass Effect games or older Dragon Age titles, you can expect a hefty playtime full of adventure, charming companions, and side content. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the first game in the series in 10 years and is far more action-heavy than previous entries, but does that mean it will lean on the shorter side? Or is this game a return to the old BioWare and something you can easily sink 40-plus hours into? There are a few ways to answer that question, and it will vary slightly from person to person, but here's about how long you can expect it to take you to beat Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
How long is Dragon Age: The Veilguard?

While it isn't quite an open-world game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is still huge, with expansive hubs full of side content to explore. It also features incredibly customizable difficulty settings that can vastly influence your playtime. All that being said, if you were to take a balanced approach to exploring, doing side content, and playing on a difficulty level that challenges you a bit, expect the game to last you around 40 hours. You can probably shave off around 10 hours if you mainline the story, and maybe a bit more if you set the difficulty to the lowest level to just experience the story.

Read more