The Veilguard Companion Ranking Thread [Spoilers]

Good: Emmrich
Dull but inoffensive: Davrin, Neve
Confusing: Bellara
Dull and offensive: Lucanis
Terrible: Taash, Harding

Emmrich is the only one that had a decent character development, while not being completely obnoxious or dull. While I think his companion quest should've had a more serious tone to break his odd Disney vibe, he is overall the breakout star. But can he actually compete with other companions from previous games..? I'm not sure yet.

Davrin and Neve are both quite dull, but they aren't downright offensive. Davrin is better just for having good voice acting while Neve's performance is more shaky, sometimes edging on amateurish and straight up bored sounding. Neve's quest was quite dull for me, and Davrin's quest was too tightly woven into Assan, and while Assan is cute, it was also too much. I think Davrin performs well in the overall main story though. Another thing about Neve, it's also sometimes hard to take her non-chalant cool sassy lady thing seriously, because I just can't help but compare her to someone like Vivienne, who is oozing charisma and diva-like strength, while Neve feels a lot more weak on that front. Either way, both Davrin and Neve are fine for the most part.

Bellara is incredibly annoying, I find her way of speaking ridiculous, but scenes where she gets serious and emotional are often pretty great. She is the furthest from a character I'd generally enjoy, but despite that she has her moments. Her personal quest starts really strong for me, but the ending... I'm not happy about it. Overall I flipflop on her a lot, and that's why I'd rank her lower than Davrin, but her strongest moments edge her a little over Neve. I think if I was just happier with how her quest turns out, I'd be happier with her overall. Annoying, but there's some promise, especially since she is one of the few characters that even acknowledges her Dalish culture and going against the Evanuris. It's not much or very interesting, but at least it's there.

Lucanis is offensive. There is so much promise in him as a character, but he is a complete flop in every way. You wouldn't think that a possessed Antivian Crow would be as boring as he is, but here we are. Seriously, what the hell happened? How do you have such good background material and come up WITH THIS? How is he so boring? Why is he such a loser? Why does he keep talking about coffee and saying MIERDA? Enough, you are a disgrace!

Harding doesn't exist. The DA:I Harding that is. Her quest was meant for Dagna, I'm sure? Everything about Harding just felt wrong. Her only redeeming quality is that with a few choices, you can give her a pretty cool albeit bittersweet character arc. So at least there is that. And Taash I have zero good things to say about, zero, nada, nothing.

Oh my gosh, you nailed it for me. Harding says the dwarfiest stuff sometimes which is such a friggen odd thing because she has canoncally been a surface dwarf her entire life with little interest in being dwarfy. As much interest as Varric ever had at the very least! ya, if I just think of her as Dagna then it makes sense. And then all the engineering stuff dagna would have done got shifted to Bellara after they decided Dagna would be harding.

I'm not sure how I'd rank them overall compared to the other games but:

Emmrich - I'm biased because the design and character is very appealing to me and I romanced him, but I just find him overall charming and enjoyable. His quest outcome choice actually made me think (and still mull it over days later), Manfred isn't as annoying as I expected, and the only real downside was how ill fitting and Disney fantasy some of his quest was. Otherwise, lovely fellow, well done.

Davrin - I actually didn't expect much but should have known better cause I love the sword and shield companions, they're usually some of my favourites (Avelline is undefeated). Do wish there was a bit more focus on him outside of Assan but Assan is rather adorable.

Neve - I feel like I needed to pay a bit more attention to her quest but because of spoiler reasons I think there are some mild issues with her and Lucanis' quests. I did like her, just wished she had a little more edge. Honestly, though, it's more that I found Emmrich and Bellara more useful in combat for me and that's probably why I missed a bit with her, I didn't use her much later on.

Bellara - I wasn't as annoyed by her as some of the others and actually quite liked her, though her writing could have used some work. Mostly some of the therapy speak (reminding herself that Neve is "just a person, got it"). Her quest started strong for me and fell off a bit but I liked the central theme of it. Again she just missed out on being used more for combat because Emmrich was there.

Lucanis - because of a certain choice I made, I didn't get as much development with him as I'd have liked. I think I missed a mission with him (though he did get loyalty). Does feel as though, judging by everyone else's feelings, he's a bit lacking in characterisation. Still, uh, nice voice.

Taash - couldn't stand them at first, was sort of okay with them by the end but that's not exactly high praise. Companion quest was a jumble and some of their inclusion came off really preachy. I kind of appreciated their role as the "don't think just hit things" character, it just takes a while to get there.

Harding - did they age regress her? They seemed to push her being cutesy to the point that she and Bellara being in the same party just annoyed me. Sorry girl, this ain't it.

I agree. They have change her into a whinning and lacking in confidence character. She is going down the rankings and is now in area of character i ignore.
If the change would have come after a certain scene, i would find her more realistic.
Maybe i don't like her, because i don't like the start of the game and the Varric and Harding comics.

I liked most of the companions well enough, but no one stood out as great. I feel like most companions could have used a little something more. I also skipped the romance.

The one companion I hated was Bellara. Her dialogue was awful. She sounded like she was from a cartoon for very young children. No adult talks the way she does.

Here’s my ranking:
Lucanis
Davrin
Neve
Emmerich
Harding
Taash
Bellara

Hot take: There is no fan favourite on the Garrus Vakarian level among these companions.

I guess I'm looking at the companions from two different perspectives; The 1st is the one I'm speculating Bioware used: "what would be a cool concept for this character?" Unfortunately for me, I'm much more interested in "what is this character's connection to the main story?" Now things start to fall flat.

Bellara: Obsolete once the Eluvian network is up and running. Wants me to be invested in a story about her brother. Problem is, I've never met him and don't know his motivations.

Emmrich: Supposedly a Fade expert but the game never explains why we need him and we are already able to travel to and from the Fade before he is recruited.

Neve: Plays the Film Noir detective role nicely. Part of a major player choice "help companion A vs. help companion B". If you choose to help A you quickly figure out what the consequences of helping B will be, so no unique impact from this event.

Lucanis: The other companion in the choice above. Memories of earlier games shows the wasted potential of this character. Remember the Virmire Survivor? Loghain vs. Alistair? Anders burning down Kirkwall?

Harding: Our Dwarven exposition dump. Knowing both Varric and Solas, I guess she has a proper motivation for staying in the fight.

Taash: You can't choose between wearing pants or a dress? I couldn't care less.

Since I've been mostly bitching about every companion so far, lets end this on a positive note with

Davrin: It there's a Blight, we need the Wardens and this guy is a proper one. We actually get to see he's willing to fulfill his oath at the cost of his own life. He's an adult and self awere. The griffon dialogue with him also find the right balance between light hearted conversation and gravitas.

Two things that I reckon is important to take into consideration beforehand are: A ) Bioware has put a lot of work into the DATV companions, and they have gotten the best treatment when it comes to quantity of dialogue, quests and overall screen time out of any Bioware game so far; B ) they have seriously long character arcs that spam across multiple side missions (each one of them as long as a DAO/DA2 DLC, pretty much), and without completing them, you might very well be judging a book by its cover - I can tell that I was. These side quests are optional, so it is entirely possible to beat the game without getting to know these characters.

But lets not beat around the bush anymore, here we go (small spoilers ahead):

7. Lucanis: an assassin, a mafia family heir apparent, a demon possession that goes nowhere (and perhaps would make the character better without), plus an español accent that some might consider caliente, but I personally don't (everytime he says "mierda" I feel a severe immersion break). He is not bad, he is fine, just like any companion here (again, big effort from Bioware in these companions), but it just feels that he has lots of elements to him that ads up to nothing special in the end.

6. Davrin: he is an interesting character at first, with his no-nonsense approach early in the game when too many characters might still feel nonsensical. And then comes the griffons!
Davrin's only purpose in life is to provide a future to Assan (and the griffons), and that is his whole story arc. The world is ending but his focus in entirely on Assan. That is fine, I suppose, but I personally found it superficial and boring. I suppose there is an audience to be pleased, the virtual pet lovers and whatnot. And I am just not one of them.

5. Neve: Serious and sultry. Very focused on her job. Story arc is all about her job. She doesn't displeases me, though, but doesn't hit hard either.

4. Harding: Varric got 10 years older since Inquistion, and Harding got 10 years younger. Other than that, she is pretty good, genuine, friendly. Kind of the token nice girl companion you can expect in most RPG games, plus a rich story arc to spice her up.

3. Bellara: at first I didn't like her as a character, but I liked her role. I really like the entire Veil Jumper institution, honestly. Plus her story arc gets really deep and personal as you progress, which made me appreciate her as a character much more.

2. Emmerich: what I firstly interpreted as a questionably-designed Disney-ish Halloween-themed character made my jaw drop towards the end. His story arc is simply great, his voice acting is impeccable, and he just has so much charisma. One of the best companions in the Dragon Age franchise, period.

1. Taash: I must say I am not a DEI-person. Unfortunately DEI is all what some associate with Taash. But then again, don't judge a book by its cover. This character has a lot of depth. Miles more than I expected. Play their story arc to the end. They have one the deepest, most personal story arcs Bioware has ever created.

So got through Act 1 and as with my 'review' in the other thread I just did figure it would be fun to do a before and after opinion on each one of the companions and what not where they are and where they are going.

Tier 1 (ish)

Bellara- She is utterly delightful. Cute. A mechanic. Wonderfully voice acted and in a way exactly what I was hoping from her as I understood the concept. I don't think its very fair to compare her to other characters...so I won't. But she is a source of great joy and compassion while she is grasping at the effects of what she is seeing.

Emmrich- A surprise addition later on and his episode of Vows and Vengence really added to his overall hype and glad to see those character traits have been carried over to the game. As I have referenced more then once he reminds me of Doctor Who, 10 and 12 specifically. A kind old man, wise, but also really adventurous on top of it as well. Just endearing and supportive and well just feel like he'll be more of a regular in my party in later playthroughs...assuming I use the A team format for any of these characters. Hmm Nightmare run if I do one will also make that complicated.

Tier 2-

Lucanis- During Tevinter Nights I hated him, during the Wake I cheered at the idea of him being dead (even though I thought it unlikely he'd stay that way) and just groaning as it was revealed he was in the party. But then slowly as the marketing campaign grew and I was seeing stuff from the preview event a bell weather changed, was growing increasingly curious to see where he was going to go from here given what he is and a few other things. Plus his The clicher has to be Zack Mendez's vocie work, probably the best in the game for the companions.

Davrin- Hard to really and honestly say about Davrin other then he does have a bit of a cool factor to him but also given the opinion on the rest of the roster this seems logical...

Neve- Award for the most dissapointing companion, so far, goes to Neve. Granted she is cool, likeable, and has tremendous combat utility as my battle mage...so so far she goes here because its fair. But her voice acting does sound a bit...phoned in sometimes? Its frustrating though because sometimes she does not either.

Harding- And the award for 'Dwarf companion who shows up in two games in a row who the writers don't seem to know what to do with.' Odd thing to have happened twice. And thise feels like the most tentative on this list, in the negative camp, because I now *know* in game that we are bound for one of my favorite settings in the entire series, plus a sub setting I've been waiting four games to see. And also her storyline seems directly tied into a very mysterious part of the lore that we don't know a lot on so she could easily shoot up the list.

Tier 3:

Taash- So again tenous position. I enjoyed her introduction a lot. It actually really reminded me of the Wednesday Adams meme between Wednsday and the brightly colored one and I did appreciate her vibe. Just Rook comes up all bubbly and she is all "hey". "Yep." Its delightful. Also carries on the Qwydion vibe in how she is really appreciative of Dragons so we aren't spending this entire game just killing Dragons. I do put her down here though because I fear that this attitude could...grate eventually? But then if she continues to be delightful she could raise higher. (And yes I know some things about where her arc goes but I'm not there yet)

I don't have a ranking, so I'll just evaluate them alphabetically.

Bellara - Her character writing in the first part of her personal quest chain was very human and relatable. I really liked the character. One nitpick is that she has a verbal tic, and once I started noticing it, I had a hard time concentrating on what she was saying.

Davrin - A decent character, but I think I mainly like him for his dog.

Emmrich - I like the concept of a kind necromancer. His personality is well defined and relatable. At one point, his personal quest gets a Disneyland Haunted Mansion vibe, which tonally clashes with the rest of the game.

Harding - I enjoyed her personal storyline, but her personality feels a bit underdeveloped. I can't really come up with any keywords to describe her.

Lucanis - Decent character, but I think his story arc ends too soon. (Edit: Turns out I missed an important chunk of his story because a choice I made in act 1 caused an entire quest not to trigger.)

Neve - My feelings on her are sort of neutral. She doesn't really stick out as particularly interesting for either the good or bad reasons.

Taash - I appreciate the inclusion of a personal story of self discovery. I think some of it was handled kind of clumsily, especially one particular scene where a certain event acts as a metaphor for Taash's experience , only for Taash to spell out the metaphor right after. This story felt more "young adult" than anything else in the game.

Finished the game yesterday. Most of what I thought of these characters didn't change. I had some discussion with people about whether it's the worst cast in the series or not, and after thinking about it some more, I think there are worse individual characters in previous Bioware games, lower lows, but while most characters here are not godawful none of them comes close to the best Bioware has to offer.
So here they are ranked from best to worst:


Emmrich - I think there is plenty of potential here, and when I hear about this character I'm really intrigued, a good necromancer? Sign me up! But they didn't do anything with it other than saying "yes he is good". As for his arc, he keeps saying he fears death, but nothing is really done with it until the very end. And it was... Fine I guess. But it's very sad this character is the best the game has to offer.

Neve - I initially hated her, her voice acting seemed terrible and I didn't believe she cared about anything in the game. But once I started playing and realised most characters don't seem to care about anything going in the game it is less harmful. She is also not annoying, she is talking mostly to the point and she even had some half witty lines. Her arc is extremely boring, but inoffensive.

Bellara - this character has been a rollercoaster. When I first saw her I really liked her based solely on her design but the first few hours with her are so rough. When she is serious she is not so bad, and on an emotional level her arc is good. However, I might have missed something, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me, and felt like b tier soap opera. But I didn't hate her.

Darvin - I initially liked him the best, and he makes the best first impression I think, but the more I played the more I came to realise there is nothing to this character other than the damn griffin. I get it, cute animals sell, but it seems so cheap. Asan is cool don't get me wrong. But how about giving some arc for Darvin as well? The villain of his arc was pretty cool actually, but the pacing was awful.

Taash - people talked about them to death. They are fine, but I think a better writer would have made this character much better. I think the biggest problem here is incompetence. They just comes across as in your face and cringe. But there is a good character hiding here.

Lucanis - is this the first AI created companion? He feels like an alien played all the Dragon Age games and tried to write a companion. He has everything a companion needs to be cool and engaging, hot badass assassin with sexy accent and a demon possessing him, but all he does is drink coffee. This guy is so lame.

Edit: Damn forgot Harding. That's how meaningful she is in this game.

Anyway I think Harding is above Lucanis but somewhere on the level of Taash when it comes to ranking. I think her arc is not bad, but I just hate her personality. She is acting like she got smacked hard in the head and she is a child again.

I finished the game. I can see why people tier ranked rather than 1-7 it because I feel a bit complex about a lot of it.

Favorite character:
Neve remains #1 for being a professional I can rely on. She remained the most real character of the entire game and echoes Rook a lot in that this was a job someone else asked her to take that she regretted taking. But we were there, and it needed to be done, and we've got to do it. I also felt like her personal villain had some of the better dialogue and her NPC connections quite interesting, like Elek from the Threads. And Rana, although I missed out on some of that content because of the Act I choice.

Of course I love Assan, but Assan is a cute baby animal with no character arc.

The most surprising characters for me: Bellara and Harding

Thought Bellara was going to be awful. It didn't help that I thought her arc was going to be about the Nada Dirthalen but was actually about her brother and content with him WAS relevant , not irrelevant, to her arc. I thought it was a tacked on sob story until it clearly wasn't. She chilled out and became more somber the longer the game went. Because of end game choices, she really came through for me and I have a lot of respect for her.  

Harding's character was a mess. After the reveal, an early game scene that I was absolutely flabberghasted by originally made sense and now it was quite in character rather than absurd. When she got to BE just Harding, I liked her.  That said, being the mouth peice responsible for telling the player:

• what a devout andrastian thinks of the events
• what a dwarfy dwarf would think of the events
• what the Inquisition thinks of the events 
• what Bioware wants YOU to think of the events

was a hard burden to carry for one character. It rarely landed well for me. I am a little confused by the relationship with Taash considering the age and maturity gap. I made this connection during the end game that she became the hero that she'd always admired from a distance in the form of the Inquisitor and that got my respect in the end even if it was a ball of yarn of mouth piece delivery getting there.

So one went from hated to respected. and the other went from curious about, to confused, to disliked, to respected with some handwaving of all the words that weren't hers. Because that's a problem with the writing not her personality. 

No real complaints:
Taash and Emmrich. They seemed to be characters with motivations and problems completely outside of the main plot while having satisfying reasons for being there. AS satisfying as Rook's "I was there and now it has to be done" reason, anyway   I picked that line so I'm not complaining. I didn't find Taash's non binary story bad or good because to me, it was a tale as old as time. Parent wants you to be X, loves you deeply, but is bad at communicating. Kid is railing against expectations, loves parent deeply, but is bad at communicating. I found Emmrich's personal villain to be mostly a joke, not made better by becoming a yelling skull in his office.

Actually disappointed by Lucanis and Davrin:

Davrin: Is a solid warden who became a pet dad. Points for imagining a world for the Griffons beyond violence but otherwise I feel like literally any Warden could have stood where he stood. He was not unique in any particular fashion. Maybe they wanted him to be stable but maybe I was hoping for mature Alistair. There was also inconsistency in his writing. he was a really good dalish hunter & halla shephard. But he couldn't feed himself and joined the Wardens and became a monster hunter. And he also doesn't understand animal connections in spite of herding and singing to the hyper intelligent halla so we have to explain to him what connecting to a griffon is like. So which is it, Bioware? Is he a good hunter or not? is he good with animals or not?

Lucanis: suffers from the writers not caring about him? so much. Or maybe the ran out of time on making sure the results of the Act I decision would be appreciated? Maybe I'm bothered especially right now about his romance resolution. But he also has no reactivity to major Treviso plot line events. It's like you recruit him and he disappears between quests that aren't specifically marked for him. And then his entire reason for joining the Team is like being this god killer but he really sucks at it. I also found it disturbing that he'd be sipping on coffee during really tense group meetings, shockingly inappropriate for the vibe of most of the scenes.