Companion Traversal Abilities

Master companion traversal abilities in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Learn how Rook, Harding, Neve, Bellara, Lucanis, Davrin, and Taash help you navigate the world and solve puzzles.

Over the course of your adventure you’ll recruit seven companions into the ranks of the Veilguard, and each one has a unique power that will help you traverse the environment one way or another. Some companions move blocks of stone or summon fade objects to serve as platforms, others can freeze objects to help you solve timed puzzles, repair ancient elven artifacts to power various devices, or ignite objects to cause explosions or melt obstacles. When direct intervention won’t suffice, an animal companion can be called to destroy or manipulate simple mechanisms and blight growths, or docile (if mischievous) wisps can be summoned to activate various puzzles.

Suffice to say there are lots of different types of puzzles in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, even if many of them are comprised of similar gameplay elements, and if you ever find your exploration at an impasse, recruiting new companions or otherwise advancing the story may be what you need to reach new areas… not to mention the numerous locations that are arbitrarily sealed off until some companion quest or side quest opens the way. Just another way companions are important to traversal, albeit not one which will be discussed on this page.

In addition to looking out for opportunities to use various companion abilities, you’ll also have to keep an eye out for other traversal elements - fallen trees or beams.

Rook - Lyrium Dagger

Rook has no traversal powers, aside from the surprisingly plentiful platforming you’ll need to do in this game. She can, however, use any of her companion’s abilities thanks to the Lyrium Dagger, which you’ll find during the main quest [The Singing Blade]. Why does this work? Don’t look a gift gimmick in the mouth, it saves us all the hassle of having to switch between characters while exploring.

While you don’t need any specific companions around to use their traversal abilities, you still need to know what to look for to avoid solving said puzzles from being more of a slog than necessary. One useful tip is just to hold down the [R1] / [RB] button from time to time and look around. This normally brings up the skill/ability menu, but it also tends to snap onto objects that can be targeted by companion abilities, allowing you to functionally scan the area for such devices. This won’t work on obstructed objects, and it obviously won’t help you spot objects that don’t require companion abilities - your own eyes will have to suffice here, and specifically you’ll need to be on the lookout for:

• Ledges you can sidle across, climb up or jump over to
• Levers
• Ladders (especially ladders with locks that can be dislodged at range)
• Explosive barrels, especially near destructible (cracked) walls
• Beams that can be pushed over and used as walkways
• Crystals which power barriers and buff enemies
• Blight cysts - red pustules that can be destroyed via normal attacks. Sometimes these are connected by tendrils and must be destroyed sequentially.

Harding - Stone Song

Despite the strange developments that Harding endures, she still remains a dwarf, so it’s fitting that the powers she develops allows her to control stones. Outside of cutscenes, this power is limited to moving cubes of stone a few feet in one direction, opening up passages, creating ledges you can climb or raising platforms you can jump across. These rock formations stand out and it’ll become second nature to spot them, especially since they don’t look much like natural stone. The only time these can be remotely tricky to spot is when they appear on cliffs underneath you or under water.

Harding can move blocks of stone with her “Stone Song” ability, creating passages and platforms you can use to reach new areas.

Neve - Frost Binding and Unbind Wards

Neve has two abilities that allow you to manipulate objects in the game world to solve puzzles and take down barriers. First she has “Frost Binding” - Neve can use her ice magic to freeze mechanisms, halting their progress - freezing gears to stop a gate from descending being one example. This ability is quite rarely used, seen a bit in The Smuggled Relic Case and playing a role in a puzzle in Minrathous, but otherwise not being terribly prominent. In addition she has the “Unbind Wards” ability which does what it says on the tin - this is usually used to take down barriers, and you’ve got to find smallish runes to target, but if you see a barrier without another apparent mechanism you might want to check around for an opportunity to use this.

Neve’s under-utilized “Frost Binding” ability can freeze mechanisms.

Bellara - Tinker

Bellara has spent considerable time fussing around with ancient elven artifacts, and many of these devices have not become more reliable with age, especially considering the elven diaspora and resulting loss of their history and culture over the past centuries. Simply put, these devices are often on the fritz, but Bellara can repair them. These ancient elven devices largely consist of power crystals, power crystal receptacle, and mana beam focusers - often it’ll be the receptacle or some other nearby device that’s malfunctioning, and once it has been repaired you can move the bea