Companions



This Section will be about your comrades.
You are probably already familiar with your team mates, so I will
just introduce them briefly and go more into detail in the Character Builds Section.






Varric, Merrill and Anders will be our characters of choice.
Why? Mainly for two reasons:

1.  The most annoying, most difficult and longest companion quests require Varric, Anders and Merrill.
What's the point of having a perfectly balanced party with Fenris, Aveline and Isabela, if you have to drag Varric down the Deep Roads and climb the Sundermount with Merrill in every act?
On the other hand the quests of Aveline are more like "let's kill some easy street thugs." While Isabela's quests require like 2 fights throughout the entire game and Fenris doesn't demand too much either.

2. I find one meelee far more easy to micromanage than two. Mainly because of the friendly fire risk.
It happens all the time that I Shield Bash my companions during the Xebenkeck fight. And that's still harmless compared to what happens when you get hit by Fenris' Mighty Blow.

Also: Anders is a must have for healing. Varric can boost his Cunning early in game to to open chests and disarm traps.
Isabela's crowd control, area damage and general utility can't match the ones of a mage. Overall Aveline would still be the most viable choice of those three.


Anders supplies the necessary heal that lets us disclaim potions.
Merrill will provide a good amount of buffs crowd control.
Varric will mainly be shooting his crossbow and tell some stories.
But all three of them serve most notebly one purpose: Deliver some decent damage!

We will almost exclusively play with those three fellows.
However we are forced to play with other characters to complete their companion quests.







Fenris is a great damage dealer. But dual wield rogues and 2-hand-warriors just don't work well together on a Nightmare run. Due to the devastating area damage a warrior will deal with a single "Mighty Blow", the friendly fire would kill our Rogue or any other nearby standing companion pretty much with every hit.
So if you have to take Fenris for his quests, make sure you stay away from him. Even his normal hits can cause some serious damage.

Aveline is the typical tank. Not a bad character either, but overall it's a slower and in my opinion a bit more boring playstyle to drag a tank along. When she uses abilities like Scatter, she is also able to inflict some remarkable damage to nearby companions, so be careful.

Isabela is technically the light version of our dual wielding Hawke.
She hast no abilities like Assassinate or Vendetta but she makes for some eye candy and is fun having around for she delivers a load of burst damage.
However concerning sustained damage and utility she can't compete with Varric or let alone a Mage.

Bethany is a horrible character. She has no Primal Skill Tree, no Friend/Rival bonus and she leaves for good after act 1, so drop her as soon as possible.

Friendship and Rivalry

It's really easy to keep out three main companions happy and content.
Merrill and Anders share the same agenda, they want to see mages living free. So most dialogue options that support Mages or discredit Templars will lead to friendship points.
However Merrill is a little demon lover while Anders isn't too fond of the spirit inside of him and demons in general. Keep that in mind if you should fancy to deal with evil stuff.

Varric is your BFF and a funny companion.
He gains friendship points all the time: When you choose the sarcastic answers (always the middle ones), when you do good and decent stuff, when you help people, when you demand money and probably when you're clicking with your fingers.

The friendship bonus is really neat and the sooner you get your fellows on 100% friendship the better because you don't have to worry about angering them anymore.
For example if you have Merrill at 100% friendship by the start of act 2, you can destroy those Evil Tomes without getting rivalry points from her.

So bottom line: Be nice to your companions, it pays off.