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Best Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations RANKED

This Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations Guide will teach you all you need to know to pick the right Mage specialization for your party.

If you’re playing Dragon Age Inquisition, you know that choosing what class your main character is going to be is a huge decision that will have an effect on your entire playthrough. So, if you’re planning on playing as a mage, you’re going to want to know which of the Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations are generally considered to be winners and which ones you may want to avoid.

There are 3 different Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations to choose from.

First, you have the Necromancer, who can raise dead enemies in the form of ghosts that fight for your party. The Necromancer also gets powerful damage over time spells.

Next, you have the Knight Enchanter, who wields a magical blade and fights up close. The Knight Enchanter gains several bonuses to their survivability so they can go head to head with monsters in melee range.

Finally, you have the Rift Mage, which can use its control over space and gravity to knock monsters around, weaken them, and deal extra damage all at the same time.

Which of the Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations you choose is ultimately up to you, but there are definitely pros and cons to consider for each.

Here is how each of the Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations are generally considered to rank in comparison to one another.

3. Necromancer – Best Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations

best dragon age inquisition mage specializations necromancer

Because most of the utility for Mages comes from the regular Mage Skill Trees that are available to all Mages (Winter, Inferno, Storm & Spirit), Necromancer is a perfectly viable mage option.

As far as Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations go, however, Necromancer leaves a little bit to be desired.

It does get two amazing spells in the form of Spirit Mark and Walking Bomb, which deal significant damage over time, and the mechanic where Necromancers summon ghosts is interesting and fun, but the problem is that the most of the skill tree is underwhelming.

In order to gain access to the aforementioned Walking Bomb and Spirit Mark, you have to take every single talent in the entire skill tree, most of which are not useful at all.

The one skill that is useful, Power of the Dead, which increases you spell power, has no effect whatsoever during boss fights.

While there are plenty of specialties for any class that have useless skills, Necromancer is unique in that because of the way the skill tree is set up, you’re forced to take all of the bad skills to get access to any of the good one.

Even ignoring that major downside, the Necromancer doesn’t match the power or utility of either of the other Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations.

For those reasons, Necromancer is easily the weakest of the Dragon Age Inquisition Mage specializations. This shouldn’t deter you, though, if you like the theme of the Necromancer. It’s still a perfectly viable choice.

2. Rift Mage – Best Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations

best dragon age inquisition mage specializations rift mage

What makes the Rift Mage good in comparison to the other Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specialization is its combination of extra damage, crowd control and debuffs.

With a Rift Mage in your party, enemies are going to be constantly knocked down and weakened, which is extremely helpful. If you have a Rift Mage that’s also invested in the Storm and Winter trees, most enemies in random encounters will struggle to move, let alone deal damage.

Each of the Rift Mage’s 3 extra active spells either knocks enemies down, applies the weakened debuff or both. In addition to that, Rift Mages get access to a variety of great passive bonuses from additional damage to increased Mana regeneration.

In direct contrast to the Necromancer, ever single one of the skills in the Rift Mage skill tree is worthwhile and you’ll want to pick them all up.

Out of all of the Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations, Rift Mage feels like it has the fullest arsenal. The only reason it’s not #1 is that Knight Enchanter, despite lagging behind in terms of damage and utility, have a level of survivable that approaches gamebreaking.

1. Knight Enchanter – Best Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations

best dragon age inquisition mage specializations knight enchanter

Knight Enchanter is the most unique of all the Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations. Its skills totally change the playstyle of your Mage.

Whereas most Mages prefer to stay at a distance and lob their spells at enemies from afar, the Knight Enchanter is largely a mid-range option that will periodically jump into melee range to take advantage of its unique spells.

As you cast magic as a Knight Enchanter, you build up power for their Spirit Blade spell, which is a melee range magical sword that deals lots of damage when fully charged. To help Knight Enchanters get into range, they can use an ability called Fade Cloak that makes them impervious to damage. Fade Cloak deals significant damage when it expires in close proximity to an enemy.

So the Knight Enchanter playstyle tends to be that you hang around mid-range, using your spells as normal, and then when your Spirit Blade is charged enough, you release the double nuke combo of Fade Cloaking into an enemy and then blasting it with Spirit Blade.

This combo allows Knight Enchanter to keep up in damage with the Rift Mage and the Necromancer, but it definitely requires more player attention and a little bit more finesse. In other words, you have to work substantially harder to achieve similar damage.

So why is Knight Enchanter #1? Because in addition to its melee-range damage combo, it also gets significant boosts to its survivability. Its Barrier spell lasts longer, decays more slowly, and continually refills as the Knight Enchanter deals damage.

These Barrier improvements are not minor. With a Barrier active, the Knight Enchanter is practically invincible, with survivability that matches or even possibly exceeds the Champion, the Warrior’s tankiest specialization.

Knight Enchanters can go toe-to-toe with High Dragons far above their level and while they may not do substantial damage, they can slowly whittle away at them while shrugging off attacks that should not be possible to survive.

For that reason and the more interesting playstyle, Knight Enchanter ranks #1 when it comes to the Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations.


That about covers it when it comes to the best Dragon Age Inquisition Mage Specializations. Be sure to check out the Games Section or the Main Page for more game guides, or click here for more content related to Dragon Age Inquisition.

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  • Ryan Night

    Ryan Night is an ex-game industry producer with over a decade of experience writing guides for RPGs. Previously an early contributor at gamefaqs.com, Ryan has been serving the RPG community with video game guides since 2001. As the owner of Bright Rock Media, Ryan has written over 600 guides for RPGs of all kinds, from Final Fantasy Tactics to Tales of Arise.

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