What elemental spell tree do you like for each of the companion mages?

I’m a big fan of Lightning for Solas, though there are differing opinions on that. Lightning combines with Weakness to create the Sleep effect, which is a great combo primer. But on the other hand, it does remove the Weakness effect, which a lot of his passives benefit from. Personally, I get more benefit from Sleep, but that will differ based on playstyle. From a pure story perspective, I also enjoy giving lightning to the guy whose name is the elven word for “pride”.

I’ve heard Knight Enchanters do well with fire because they have tons of barrier. There’s a passive that lets mages spend their barrier to make fire spells stronger. I haven’t played around with it much myself. While I like Viv, I never had much place in my team for a KE.

Dorian is probably the least tied to a specific element. Though, because his death passives benefit from pairing with rogues, it might make sense to give him ice. Rogues + Frozen does a lot of damage. From a story perspective, he’d probably be specialized in fire due to the obvious preference for that element among Tevinter mages.

Considering I play on Normal or Hard, I'm never touching Nightmare.

Dorian mostly uses Fire, but I give him a Lightning-element staff, so as to live up to Varric's nickname of "Sparkler".

Solas gets a Fire staff and Immolate, but also keeps the Winter's Grasp ability he starts with for me. Fire seems "required" since a couple of his banters refer to him using it, but I like the idea of him taking a "generalist" approach to magic. He also gets the Fade Step spell from Winter, despite it being terrible with the AI, because how could I not give Solas a spell with the word "Fade" in the name.

Vivienne I've experimented with in various ways. I like focusing a lot with her on Ice, given her introduction scene. Outside of that, I either give her Fire/Ice Mines, or make her even more of a generalist (since she actually claims to use all four elemental schools in her banter).

I give Dorian the fire/lightning build and ice/lightning for Vivienne. Solas in under house arrest but whenever I do take him along. I also fill out their spec trees with the exception of bottom left spell for Dorian - don't see the use of it.

Dorian mostly gets the fire tree and his own Necromancy tree, Viv Lightning and Knight Enchanter, SOlas Ice and Rift mage. All get barrier, because it's usefu, and Innqui is mostly a mixture of fire and lightning plus RIft mage (I do use Dorian and Viv often, but seldom Solas and Rift mage is great)

I thought stuff like that was patched.

Dorian: Lightning

This is due to his noted penchant for "flashy" spells (according to Varric), which is why he got the nickname "Sparkler" given to him.

Vivienne: Ice

She already shows a mastery of ice spells in her introduction and this tree suits her cold, "Ice Queen" demeanour.

Solas: Fire

Solas' rift mage tree includes Firestorm, he often describes being "hot-headed" in his youth and dialogue with Vivienne mentions him accidentally setting his robes on fire, all of which make me think he favours this tree.

(With all three I throw in some Spirit, both for better mana regen and barrier being a must on higher difficulties)

Dorian with fire because of the sparkler nickname and other party banter, Vivienne with ice because of her intro scene and lightning (or no element at all) for Solas.

I gave Solas lightning magic, while Dorian has fire spells and Vivienne conjures ice.

I do not know. All I know is I give mage companions one elemental tree, the spirit tree and their specialization tree.

I usually give the companions specialization and 1-2 other threes but anything specific I do not know.

Dorian's element is fire, because he is lit.