As one of your first major decisions in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you’ll have to choose to help Minrathous or Treviso. The choice pops up immediately after returning to the Lighthouse with Darvin, your griffon-guarding companion, in tow. The rest of the crew meets you and tells you about a pair of dragons attacking Minrathous and Treviso, and you’ll have to save one city or the other.
Our Dragon Age: The Veilguard guide will help you decide whether to help Minrathous or Treviso, along with some helpful advice.
First, finish side quests before choosing Minrathous or Treviso
Not really a spoiler, but a dragon attack is kind of a big deal for a city, so things are going to get messed up. Among those things is any available side quests.
If you have open side quests in whichever city you don’t choose to save, they’ll all automatically fail. Based on our testing, if you have companion quests for Neve or Lucanis, the one in the city you don’t save will also automatically fail if you don’t complete it.
Load up a save from before “A Warden’s Best Friend,” and go wrap up whatever you need to. The only exception, according to our testing, are the side quests involved with defeating a champion of the gods; those are higher-level quests, and remain available even after you complete “On Deadly Wings.”
Should you help Minrathous or Treviso?
Look, you’re dooming one city to pretty extensive damage, so this is really a call about which faction you want to help the most, the Shadow Dragons or the Antivan Crows (and, by extension, Neve or Lucanis respectively).
There’s a lot to consider here — any outstanding side quests, your relationship with the faction, your relationship with the companion, and the weight on your conscience. Most of the dialogue, the big bad you run into (aside from the dragon), and even how the fight plays out are the same, though.
This ultimately boils down to a choice between Neve and Lucanis. Whoever you don’t pick will leave the Lighthouse and your party for a little while (until after you finish both “The Dragon Slayer” and “Where the Dead Must Go”).
The change to the world is a little more obvious. While neither town will be outright destroyed, there will still be lasting effects.
- If you help Minrathous, the Shadow Dragons gain 150 faction strength while the Antivan Crows lose 250 faction strength.
- If you help Treviso, the Antivan Crows gain 150 faction strength while the Shadow Dragons lose 250 faction strength.
Additionally, your contacts in either the Antivan Crows or the Shadow Dragons will take a hit and you’ll lose access to their merchant. You’ll need to re-explore the city you don’t save and unlock fast travel beacons again. Your enemies — the Antaam and the Venatori — also make moves and gain power in whatever town you don’t help (which leads to new side quests).
There is, however, a more lasting consequence to consider…
Your choice Hardens an ally
Whoever you don’t help is understandably upset (and appears to be extra upset if you’ve allied yourself with their respective faction during character creation). You’ll lose them from your roster for a little while. More importantly, though, one skill will stop working and some of their other skills will become Hardened.
For whoever you don’t side with, either Neve or Lucanis will no longer be able to use their healing skill on your party (Replenish and Soothing Potion, respectively). If that’s a skill you use a lot, it’s worth considering.
At the same time, Hardening increases the strength of a handful of their skills. For Neve, it’s her cold damage against barriers and their cooldowns. For Lucanis, it’s his necrotic attacks against barriers.
Hardening also means that building your relationship with that character — like how you romance them — progresses more slowly.
For more Dragon Age: The Veilguard guides, here’s how to romance party members and how to recruit all companions.
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