Dual Wield Rogue Assassin Build - Shadow Minstrel - Dragon Age: Origins (DAO)

Dual Wield Rogue Assassin Build - Shadow Minstrel

The build offers a very powerful Assassin playstyle that utilizes maximum Cunning. This attribute is important thanks to Lethality and Song of Courage's talents. It will act as a damage boost instead of Strength. Moreover, Cunning also gives bonus armor penetration against those strong late-game enemies.

As a Rogue, you will also want to dip heavily into Dual Wielding. The build will use daggers. These offer very fast attack speed and with various buffs and good gear, you can dish out very high damage. The only thing that matters - is whether the enemy is paralyzed or whether you are using backstab attacks.

Rogue also comes with plenty of utility - Lockpicking, trap disarming, and stealth. I would also argue Coercion is one of the best picks due to how many skills you can obtain compared to other classes.

So let's get into the details.

Character Creation

If you are into optimizing there are a few things that you can do to optimize your build a bit.

Race

So, all the races can have rogue classes and have very interesting backstories for that. However, I do think for optimal setup two of those are better:

Class

The choice here is obvious:

Background

To be fair there are quite a few background choices. Elves and Dwarves get two of each. Here are my recommendations

Attributes

So for the game start it depends on what are you aiming for. There are different optimization paths here. What do I recommend? I would go with +5 Cunning. This is a bit counterintuitive at first, however, it will make sure you unlock all the chests in the starting areas, and you can do pickpocketing early on.

Moreover, there will be some traps in early areas, and they can be very irritating if not detected. This is not the optimal path in terms of "Damage" but it will not create that feeling of "FOMO" of missed chests and traps (which also give XP!). Cunning will also transform into damage later on in the game.

If you want a more damage-oriented pick, from the start, I would go with +5 Dexterity.

Skills

I recommend one of the below:

Talents

There are 2 main talents that I would prioritize.

Quest Priority and Locations

Once you have finished Ostagar and Lothering, the world will open up and you can visit multiple areas. Below I will cover some progression recommendations, to obtain a few core items needed.

1. Return to Ostagar - here you can obtain a very good Duncan’s Dagger, that can last till the late game.
2. Stone Prisoner - additional XP and one of the best helmets in the game - Helm of Honnleath.
3. 1 Main story quest - any story so that you would progress the world. Circle Tower is great, to get extra Strength points.
4. Explore the world and wait for a random world encounter where you can recruit Zevran. He is the one who can teach the Assassin specialization with good relations (approval of 27 or more).
5. Leliana can teach the Bard specialization, with good relations. Talk with her in camp often.
6. Your preferred quests

Full Build Setup

In this section, I will go with in-depth explanations of each important selection for attributes, talents, and skills. This will give you a better understanding of what role each decision will have on your overall build. The explanations can also be used to better decide your picks for optimizations.

Attributes

In this section, I would like to review the recommended attributes for Dual Wield Assassin Build. You will be required to pick them every level up, so optimizing and not wasting any of them will prove vital for the build.

There are a few major goals that should be reached:

Skills

The goal in my opinion is to get Combat Training and Coercion to a maximum. This will cover all the aspects that the main character would need in my opinion.

Specializations

The build uses two specializations which both improve the build:

Talents

There are many talents that you will want in the early game, so it might be hard to prioritize, but overall, you don't need many active ones.

One thing to note. Rogue will have a very fast attack speed late in the game, and with the amount of damage you deal most of the active talents will become useless.

Assassin

Bard Tree

Power of Blood

These talents are obtained automatically if you drink a blood vial in Soldier's Peak.

Rouge

Dirty Fighting tree

Below the Belt tree

Deft Hands tree

This tree is very important for exploration. You may wonder why. The obvious reason is chest unlocks. The more subtle reason is trap-disarming which will also provide some additional XP throughout the game. I also do not recommend picking all of the talents - only 2 or 3.

The last skill in the tree will be counteracted with a high Cunning of 40, so the talent point can be saved and put elsewhere.

Stealth tree (optional)

Dual Weapon

The main tree for maximum dual-wielding effectiveness.

Dual-Weapon Training tree

Dual Striking Tree

Due to the limited amount of talent points, I do not go deeper here.

Dual-Weapon Sweep Tree

Equipment

The gear you use with Dual Wield Assassin Build will play a crucial role in combat. There are various combos that you can go with.

Below, you will find the gear that should be used with the build. Generally, the lower the item is in the table the lower its priority and the earlier you can get it. So the top ones are the best picks.

Weapons

I do recommend only using Daggers. The build does not utilize Dual Striking, so a heavier weapon will not bring much benefit. Of course, you might be able to increase DPS like that, but to be fair, it is already overkill as enemies will melt.

Item	Description
The Rose’s Thorn	The best dagger in the game giving good bonuses and three rune slots.
The Edge	One of the best daggers that you get very early. It gives a big direct damage boost and only needs 26 dexterity to wear.
Dead Thaig Shanker	Gives a significant boost to cunning - the main damage stat.
Duncan’s Dagger	Very good dagger, especially if you can obtain or upgrade it to a higher tier for 3 rune slots. The +10 damage to dragons is amazing against dragon bosses.
Thorn of the Dead Gods	This dagger depends on the tier at which you obtain it. At tier 6, it is one of the best picks.

Helm

Item	Description
Helm of Honnleath	One of the best helmets in the game, giving a +2 all-attribute boost.
First Enchanter's Cowl	Can be used together with other dodge items to greatly boost survivability.
Quicksilver Arming Cap	+2 Cunning is a direct boost to damage for the Rogue Assassin build.
Free Scout Arming Cap	+2 Dexterity boost. This improves your dagger damage and increases defense.
Longrunner’s Cap	A slight boost to stamina regeneration.

Armor

Item	Description
The Felon’s Coat	Boosts dexterity, increasing your damage. It will also increase stamina regeneration, allowing it to sustain Momentum for much longer.
Battledress of the Provocateur	A safer option, that also gives a +15% chance to dodge, giving a significant boost to survivability. In addition, you get bonus dexterity and armor.
Wade’s Superior Drakeskin Leather Armor	I only recommend equipping this together with Wade's Superior Drakeskin armor set. Just armor bonuses are quite disappointing and you need the whole set.
Shadow of the Empire	Not as good as the others, because provides only +2 dexterity. Moreover, it gives additional strength that is not as useful once you reach the required threshold.
Dalish Armor	Great armor early in the game. Can be bought in Dalish Camp. Moreover, you can equip it with other items for the Dalish Leather armor set bonus.

Gloves

Item	Description
Red Jenny Seekers	Gives +15% to critical and backstab damage.
Backhands	Similar to Red Jenny Seekers, however, gives only +10% to backstab and critical damage.
Wade’s Superior Drakeskin Gloves	Give's +1 to Dexterity. Best to wear with Wade's Superior Drakeskin armor set, but can be worn alone
Angled Strikers	Gives a 5% backstab bonus that is great in the early game, especially if you do not have the Dalish Leather armor set
Dalish Gloves	Use these gloves together with Dalish Leather armor set

Boots

Item	Description
Silverhammer’s Tackmasters	Overall, the best light boots for rogue builds with a +2 Dexterity bonus.
The Lion's Paw	Gives a 10% chance to avoid enemy attacks. Use it together with other similar items.
Cadash Stompers	Equip these if your Warden will have 22 strength. The additional armor and critical chance are a great minor boost.
Wade’s Superior Drakeskin Boots	Gives +1 Dexterity. They should also be worn with Wade's Superior Drakeskin armor set for maximum effectiveness.
Bard’s Dancing Shoes	One of the best defensive boots in the game. Gives bonus defense and reduces hostility.
Dalish Boots	Cheap boots, that provide +3 defense. This allows you to evade more attacks.

Accessories

Item	Description
Andruil’s Blessing	One of the best belts in the game, giving significant attribute boosts of +2. It also improves stamina regeneration, which is not as important but still somewhat relevant.
Guildmaster's Belt	Gives a significant boost of +3 Cunning for higher damage.
Cinch of Skillful Maneuvering	Gives +1 to all attributes and improves dodge chance. The only drawback is that this requires finishing the Witch Hunt DLC.
Dalish Hunter's Belt	Both of these belts give a boost to stamina regeneration. This is a low priority but still somewhat relevant, especially in the early game.
Dalish Leather Belt

Amulets

Item	Description
The High Regard of House Dace	The best amulet for rogues giving a big boost of +6 to cunning and +50 stamina. If you have a strong party with good control options like Sleep, War Cry, etc. I would pick this for maximum damage.
The Spellward	The amulet can be used to stack chances to dodge and improve survivability greatly. It also has a significant boost to spell resistance, making it easy to avoid some nasty surprises. I would say this is the best amulet if you do not have access to The High Regard of House Dace.
Pearl of the Anointed	The +1 to all attributes is a significant boost, especially at the start of the game.
Magister's Shield	Provides bonus defense and spell resistance.
Mark of Vigilance	Gives bonus spell resistance and defense to avoid enemy attacks.

Rings

Item	Description
Key to the City	It's one of the best rings in the game. It gives +2 to all attributes. It can be obtained in Orzammar
The Wicked Oath	Gives a significant boost to backstab damage.
Dusk Ring	+3 Cunning at the cost of -1 strength will boost the effectiveness of your auras.
Harvest Festival Ring	Improves strength, dexterity, and attack - these are all important stats to wear better gear and improve hit chance with defense.
The Lucky Stone	Gives +1 to all attributes, which in turn will improve dexterity, cunning and strength - everything that the build uses.
Ring of the Warrior	Improves Dexterity by 2 and gives bonus strength.
Silverleaf	+1 Cunning, which is a decent boost when you might have other rogues in the group.
Keeper’s Ring	+1 Dexterity for minor damage and defense boost.

How to use the Build

In this section, I would like to go through some general tips on how to correctly utilize the build.

Main mechanics

In this part, I would like to go through the core mechanics of the build. Using them you can construct your preferred playstyle and utilize everything that the various talent and equipment picks have to offer.

Sustained Talents

The build needs a few sustained abilities as they will give a huge improvement in terms of damage.

1. Momentum - improves attack speed by 30%, mandatory talent from very early.
2. Song of Courage - improves attack, damage, and critical chance, based on the cunning attribute.

Optional sustained ability:

1. The Tainted Blade - excellent talent to further boost damage based on cunning. It does drain health and inflicts more damage than intended with Dual-Weapon Expert. This is a bug, but one you should be aware of.

Cunning - Damage, Lockpicking and Traps

The main stat of this build is Cunning. Thanks to Lethality it is used for damage calculation instead of strength. Why is this important?

• It improves armor penetration which results in more damage against heavily armored enemies.
• Improves the Song of Courage effect giving even more boost to damage.
• Improves Exploit Weakness from Assassin tree, giving even more damage.
• Increases the lockpicking and trap disarm capabilities.

So as you can see, with a single talent the build receives a significant boost to damage and utility during world exploration.

Backstabs

The main idea with Rogue is that you can get guaranteed backstabs which inflict a similar amount of damage as critical hits. They are technically different so some effects will not apply. But overall, the damage amount will be similar.

This encourages you to go behind enemies and use every chance you get to exploit this weakness. This creates an interesting and engaging playstyle, where you think of ways how to safely reach targets and exploit this.

However, for the late game, when you will be very powerful with plenty of runes, high damage, and fast attack speed I would use a different approach. For normal enemies use auto attacks without backstab, as they only need a few hits to be killed. This does not waste any time with movement. And for stronger foes exploit the backstabs.

Coup de Grace and stunned targets

One of the talents that you will obtain is Coup de Grace. It will allow you to inflict backstabs on stunned targets. This is important as you can use Dirty Fighting or mage Paralysis, Glyph of Paralysis, etc. to not waste time with movement and instantly attack for maximum damage.

Maintaining high attack speed

So I already mentioned this a few times, but there are various bugs with dual wielding and in general attack speed. The main one is that if your attack speed reaches above 50% percent you start hitting slowly. This can happen easily:

• Momentum - 30% attack speed
• Haste - 25% attack speed

For rogues, there is no in-game fix for this besides disabling one of them. However, if you are on PC you can install recommended mods that address this issue.

High Dodge chance

One of the aspects of the build is the need to survive. You will probably run many times as the first one into combat. Before your tanks can build Threat and mages apply control you will be hit a lot. Generally, Dexterity can help with this. However, the build puts all points into Cunning to get the maximum damage value.

To overcome this there are a few items that you might be interested in using to stack Dodge chance:

• First Enchanter's Cowl - +10% Dodge Chance
• Battledress of the Provocateur - +15% Dodge Chance
• The Lion's Paw - +10% Dodge Chance
• The Spellward - +10% Dodge Chance
• Dark Passage - unique talent from Soldier's Peak with +5% Dodge Chance.
• Cinch of Skillful Maneuvering - +10% Dodge Chance.

So in total, you can reach 70% Dodge chance, without accounting for the defense values of your rogue. So you will avoid 7/10 hits, making you a very sturdy and robust frontline combatant. Of course, this is not mandatory, and just an option if you find a need for this and your healer might not be doing a good job of keeping you alive.

Early Game Combat

The start of the game might be a bit difficult as you will be limited by equipment and survivability. However, with each level, it will be easier and easier. Here are some recommendations for the early game:

• Make sure to use Dual-Weapon Sweep, as it hits multiple enemies and is effective early on.
• Activate Momentum for improved attack speed.
• Dirty Fighting is excellent for stunning Lieutenants or casters, which you can then attack from the back.
• Go for the enemy's back to inflict backstabs with maximum damage.

Late Game Combat

• Always have active - Momentum and Song of Courage for maximum damage.
• Riposte can be used to stun stronger targets like lieutenants or bosses.
• Whirlwind and Dual-Weapon Sweep can be used to hit multiple enemies surrounding you.
• Use Mark of Death on bosses to drastically improve damage.
• Tainted Blade can be activated for extra damage if you do not forget.
• Auto-Attacks are your bread and butter and I would mostly rely on them.
• Don't waste time on moving behind the backs of weak enemies just attack them directly.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the Dual WIeld Rogue Assassin Build, post for Dragon Age: Origins. This build offers a mix of Assassin and Bard with maximum Cunning investment. This is one of the highest damage builds in the game offering true destruction of enemies in the direct meaning of the word.

Feel free to leave feedback below.