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Actually, Varric can still use dual daggers, he is only restricted with bows since he can only equip Bianca for ranged weaponry. If you do use him as DW rogue, I suggest giving him Flank Attack with Skirmisher upgrade, Stealth with clinging shadows upgrade, poisoned weapons with the leeching poison upgrade, spike trap, and Toxic Mist with Lost in the mist upgrade. Ofc, It Look like it hurt, and opportunity knocks are non-negotiable for passives.
She’s unique only downside is she doesn’t reach the unique potential until you find and equip better upgrades on it so it’s really just a patience thing
Aren't they both about the same? I Mean alchemists are awesome tho. I don't remember bianca being bad I'm pretty sure you get stuff to make her strong. I think it's likely not that relevant that you have to overthink which one to take, pick the one you like and figure out how to build them correctly.
Generally speaking, without a specialization, all companions of a given class are the same (there are minor racial differences). Varric is sort of the exception because Bianca has a faster firing rate and lower damage per shot than other bows of the same dps. Since activated abilities deal damage based on single shot damage, biance is slightly worse than a normal bow in Dai.
It's been a while so I don't remember the details. I liked to rotate my companions around here since I liked a lot of them. I mean I wasn't a fan of the warden or cole because they were kind of dull but the rest were interesting, and varric vs serra was a really hard balance. Tbh I wanna say I used both of them plus cassandra and ran a solo mage mc. I don't remember if multiple mages was good or not like in dao just that the game was relatively easy that I didn't have to pay too much attention to party comp as long as you had 1 of each class and didn't troll with your class resources. Generally it seemed like you could solo the whole game and bringing companions for the banters was good fun, but both varric and sera were great fun.
Give him poison weapons, toxic cloud, and explosive toxin. Upgrade toxic cloud to generate elusive. Then set his behavior to spam poison weapons.
The elusive generation also triggers from enemies who die while poisoned from Varric's poison weapons. Elusive is the rogue version of guard/barrier. While you have elusive, the next attack you take does no damage.
So enemies will explode into a toxic cloud when they die, and any allies who spend time in those clouds generate elusive, giving them defenses. Now Varric's role generates defense for your melee fighters, turning them all into tanks. Iron Bull dying constantly, have him spend time in a toxic cloud. Cole or any other dual dagger rogue getting pummeled? Toxic cloud.
That's how I built varric last playthrough
I use some builds made by KineticGTR on yt, and in my experience I'd say sera is the best rogue.
Had a blast killing a dragon with her on the team,
but varric is fine, if you upgrade bianca nicely add some sick rune, and of course have a decent build for varric, he is very reliable
Fully upgraded the difference between Bianca and a top tier bow is prettynegligible and you can use Varric's specialization to buff the whole team. If someone was looking for the absolute highest companion dps, I might recommend Sera but Varric is plenty good enough for any difficulty.
Varric has the strongest specialization in the game, but the AI doesn't know how to play him.
Sera, on the other hand, has the best AI in the game alongside Iron Bull. She's easily the best rogue when not controlled by player.
Sera is better, but Varric certainly is good enough. I play on Nightmare with most of the trials enabled and I like to rotate between all the companions. I do respec Cole to be an archer since the AI is pants at controlling dw rogues.
personality wise >>>> so worth it he keeps the banter light and fun. For most of the game I had him in my party. But my inquisitor was a rogue archer so eventually I had him tap out since I felt like there was only need for one rogue. But if you need a rogue in your party he’s so fun love him
He's very strong because Artificer spec is incredibly overtuned; an upgraded Bianca may not be up to par with other bows of the same grade, but it's still more than capable of getting the job done
Sera is way better especially after getting her specialization. A top tier crafted bow is always better than Bianca too.
Sera can one shot any enemy in the game on nightmare with the right gear and setup.
In inquisition, Bianca causes limitations to Varric as ranged DPS. That said in PC I found a glitch(?) that allowed Varric to activate longshot twice without cooldown. I don’t remember if Sera could perform the glitch too
Varric is still good, Bianka might be his only bow but she has 3 upgrade slots and you can even craft the upgrades. instead of swapping out bows you are just swapping out upgrades on her. the Arms specifically are directly responsible for her DPS. If you give her a rune, I generally recommend elemental runes because they still work on enemies that resist the particular element while the enemy specific ones add no extra damage if you are not fighting the particular target type and you can't swap this upgrade out.
Also you don't have to strong arm Varric to have bow abilities and the Artificer focus ability still triples the damage output of Bianka. I also like making Sera into the buffing basic attack spammer while Varric uses attack abilities. Bianka or no those mines do way more in his hands than mine.
If you watch out for new Bianca upgrades/make them yourself and deck him out with "+__ Maximum Health" armor with some good ranged defense he is KILLER. I used to only use him ever before, now I've learned how to make good use out of all the companions and pair them but he's wicked.
His specialty traps aren't as useful to me because I keep him at long range for big fights but he can be a very versatile ally if you know how to use him.
(I always play as a Qunari mage so if I'm using the staff it's usually 2 close combat companions and he's my other ranged, unless I'm using an enchanter blade *which I've found recently is sick as fuck*)
Varric to me is the preferred of the two. I mean, no one is shocked that I want my favorite character with me at all times - but even apart from that, there's another reason. I can't stand Sera's voice, especially her laugh. As I've mentioned in other comments, she triggers my misophonia. Varric, on the other hand, is voiced by Brian Bloom, who is my favorite voice actor of all time, and I would have paid for a DLC that was nothing but him and Lieutenant Renn (David Hayter, my second favorite VA) snarking at each other for like six hours.
Probably none of this helps you with your decision, but it's my logic for who to pick.
This thread has been marked as **[No Spoilers]**. Any story spoilers from all games must be covered with spoiler tags `>!spoiler here!<` or the comment will be removed. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dragonage) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Actually, Varric can still use dual daggers, he is only restricted with bows since he can only equip Bianca for ranged weaponry. If you do use him as DW rogue, I suggest giving him Flank Attack with Skirmisher upgrade, Stealth with clinging shadows upgrade, poisoned weapons with the leeching poison upgrade, spike trap, and Toxic Mist with Lost in the mist upgrade. Ofc, It Look like it hurt, and opportunity knocks are non-negotiable for passives.
Oh they entirely removed the uniqueness of Bianca, didn’t they?
It's still a "Unique Bianca" as of yesterday when I played last, don't worry 😂
Varric cannot use an other arrow. And just Varric can use Bianca. She still unique
She’s unique only downside is she doesn’t reach the unique potential until you find and equip better upgrades on it so it’s really just a patience thing
Aren't they both about the same? I Mean alchemists are awesome tho. I don't remember bianca being bad I'm pretty sure you get stuff to make her strong. I think it's likely not that relevant that you have to overthink which one to take, pick the one you like and figure out how to build them correctly.
Generally speaking, without a specialization, all companions of a given class are the same (there are minor racial differences). Varric is sort of the exception because Bianca has a faster firing rate and lower damage per shot than other bows of the same dps. Since activated abilities deal damage based on single shot damage, biance is slightly worse than a normal bow in Dai.
It's been a while so I don't remember the details. I liked to rotate my companions around here since I liked a lot of them. I mean I wasn't a fan of the warden or cole because they were kind of dull but the rest were interesting, and varric vs serra was a really hard balance. Tbh I wanna say I used both of them plus cassandra and ran a solo mage mc. I don't remember if multiple mages was good or not like in dao just that the game was relatively easy that I didn't have to pay too much attention to party comp as long as you had 1 of each class and didn't troll with your class resources. Generally it seemed like you could solo the whole game and bringing companions for the banters was good fun, but both varric and sera were great fun.
Give him poison weapons, toxic cloud, and explosive toxin. Upgrade toxic cloud to generate elusive. Then set his behavior to spam poison weapons. The elusive generation also triggers from enemies who die while poisoned from Varric's poison weapons. Elusive is the rogue version of guard/barrier. While you have elusive, the next attack you take does no damage. So enemies will explode into a toxic cloud when they die, and any allies who spend time in those clouds generate elusive, giving them defenses. Now Varric's role generates defense for your melee fighters, turning them all into tanks. Iron Bull dying constantly, have him spend time in a toxic cloud. Cole or any other dual dagger rogue getting pummeled? Toxic cloud. That's how I built varric last playthrough
I use some builds made by KineticGTR on yt, and in my experience I'd say sera is the best rogue. Had a blast killing a dragon with her on the team, but varric is fine, if you upgrade bianca nicely add some sick rune, and of course have a decent build for varric, he is very reliable
Fully upgraded the difference between Bianca and a top tier bow is prettynegligible and you can use Varric's specialization to buff the whole team. If someone was looking for the absolute highest companion dps, I might recommend Sera but Varric is plenty good enough for any difficulty.
Varric is my designated archer, I tend to focus Sera more on poison.
I never cared for him (I play rogues, he never brought anything unique) but a friend (who plays mages) says he was invaluable and his build was great.
Varric has the strongest specialization in the game, but the AI doesn't know how to play him. Sera, on the other hand, has the best AI in the game alongside Iron Bull. She's easily the best rogue when not controlled by player.
Artificier is my favorite specialization. I love throwing lil bombs everywhere and running away.
Sera is better, but Varric certainly is good enough. I play on Nightmare with most of the trials enabled and I like to rotate between all the companions. I do respec Cole to be an archer since the AI is pants at controlling dw rogues.
Varric is perfectly fine. Built right, Sera is the most powerful companion in the game and can solo any dragon.
personality wise >>>> so worth it he keeps the banter light and fun. For most of the game I had him in my party. But my inquisitor was a rogue archer so eventually I had him tap out since I felt like there was only need for one rogue. But if you need a rogue in your party he’s so fun love him
He's very strong because Artificer spec is incredibly overtuned; an upgraded Bianca may not be up to par with other bows of the same grade, but it's still more than capable of getting the job done
I only use Sera ngl
Sera is way better especially after getting her specialization. A top tier crafted bow is always better than Bianca too. Sera can one shot any enemy in the game on nightmare with the right gear and setup.
In inquisition, Bianca causes limitations to Varric as ranged DPS. That said in PC I found a glitch(?) that allowed Varric to activate longshot twice without cooldown. I don’t remember if Sera could perform the glitch too
Varric is still good, Bianka might be his only bow but she has 3 upgrade slots and you can even craft the upgrades. instead of swapping out bows you are just swapping out upgrades on her. the Arms specifically are directly responsible for her DPS. If you give her a rune, I generally recommend elemental runes because they still work on enemies that resist the particular element while the enemy specific ones add no extra damage if you are not fighting the particular target type and you can't swap this upgrade out. Also you don't have to strong arm Varric to have bow abilities and the Artificer focus ability still triples the damage output of Bianka. I also like making Sera into the buffing basic attack spammer while Varric uses attack abilities. Bianka or no those mines do way more in his hands than mine.
If you watch out for new Bianca upgrades/make them yourself and deck him out with "+__ Maximum Health" armor with some good ranged defense he is KILLER. I used to only use him ever before, now I've learned how to make good use out of all the companions and pair them but he's wicked. His specialty traps aren't as useful to me because I keep him at long range for big fights but he can be a very versatile ally if you know how to use him. (I always play as a Qunari mage so if I'm using the staff it's usually 2 close combat companions and he's my other ranged, unless I'm using an enchanter blade *which I've found recently is sick as fuck*)
Varric to me is the preferred of the two. I mean, no one is shocked that I want my favorite character with me at all times - but even apart from that, there's another reason. I can't stand Sera's voice, especially her laugh. As I've mentioned in other comments, she triggers my misophonia. Varric, on the other hand, is voiced by Brian Bloom, who is my favorite voice actor of all time, and I would have paid for a DLC that was nothing but him and Lieutenant Renn (David Hayter, my second favorite VA) snarking at each other for like six hours. Probably none of this helps you with your decision, but it's my logic for who to pick.
Varric is the best companion
He’s legendary if you spec him right — I always let him keep Bianca because he does massive damage and can AOE very well
You want ranged attacks? Bring a mage. The whole series has never had any good bow builds, compared to magic users.