Dragon Age: The Veilguard – How To Upgrade And Enchant Items

TL;DR

  • Caretaker Power determines your gear’s base level through memento collection and vendor purchases
  • Prioritize early Workshop upgrades to maximize long-term equipment scaling and enchantment options
  • Combine exploration for free mementos with strategic vendor investments for optimal progression
  • Manage resources carefully between gold and Etheric Remnants for maximum efficiency
  • Higher Workshop ranks unlock advanced enchantments and significantly boost all acquired gear


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Throughout your journey in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you’ll discover numerous equipment pieces including weapons, protective gear, and accessories that provide substantial stat improvements for your party members. However, the true potential of these items lies in your ability to enhance their capabilities through systematic upgrades and magical enhancements. This comprehensive guide explores the sophisticated mechanics behind optimizing your gear through the Caretaker’s Workshop.

The process for enhancing and enchanting equipment in Dragon Age: The Veilguard centers around the Caretaker, an enigmatic spiritual entity that provides assistance within both the Lighthouse sanctuary and the Crossroads dimensional spaces.

During the initial stages of your campaign, you’ll encounter the Caretaker’s Workshop situated in the Lighthouse courtyard area. This specialized facility enables you to improve your equipment utilizing gathered crafting materials. Shortly afterward, the enchanting functionality becomes accessible, allowing for additional magical properties to be imbued into your gear. Interestingly, this location contains several hidden elements worth discovering.

Critical to this progression system is obtaining mementos that provide Caretaker Power. This essential resource enables you to elevate the tier level of the Caretaker’s Workshop, which in turn increases the base level of newly acquired equipment and unlocks further enchanting possibilities.

To accumulate Caretaker Power within Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you must systematically collect mementos from diverse locations throughout the game world. These distinctive objects typically emit an ethereal blue-white luminescence and display a chalice symbol. The majority provide +50 Caretaker Power, while particularly rare specimens can yield up to +200 Caretaker Power.

Mementos can also be procured from merchant establishments. Frequently, these items are priced at 500 gold pieces. However, certain vendors operating within the Crossroads dimensional market offer these valuable items in exchange for Etheric Remnants, a specialized resource primarily obtained from verdant crystalline formations found in the Crossroads and other regions.

Caretaker Power: Mementos from exploration
Caretaker Power: Mementos from vendors

Advanced Collection Strategy: Prioritize exploring areas with high memento density during early gameplay. Focus on regions with visible spectral energy signatures, as these often indicate multiple collectible objects in close proximity. Time your exploration to coincide with story progression milestones that unlock new areas with fresh memento opportunities.

Resource Allocation Technique: Maintain a balanced approach between spending gold on immediate memento purchases and conserving resources for later, more valuable acquisitions. Consider that some vendors offer limited-time memento stocks that refresh based on story progression.

We strongly advocate upgrading the Caretaker’s Workshop during the earliest feasible stages and maintaining consistent progression. In fact, if your financial resources permit, we recommend purchasing all available mementos from non-player character merchants you encounter.

The rationale behind this approach stems from the fact that every equipment piece you acquire subsequently will have its base level automatically elevated according to the current tier of the Caretaker’s Workshop. Further details regarding this sophisticated mechanic are elaborated in the subsequent section.

Below demonstrates the operational principles of equipment level scaling in correlation with Caretaker’s Workshop tier progression:

Should you level up the Caretaker's Workshop early on?
Upgrading item levels

Strategic Investment Analysis: Early Workshop upgrades provide exponential returns as every subsequent gear discovery benefits from the increased base level. This creates a compounding effect that significantly outpaces delayed investment strategies.

Proactive Resource Management: Allocate approximately 30-40% of your initial gold reserves toward memento acquisitions, ensuring rapid Workshop progression without compromising essential equipment purchases.

Timing Optimization: Target Workshop upgrades before major story missions that typically yield substantial gear rewards, maximizing the value of discovered equipment.

Common Mistake Avoidance: Many players underestimate the long-term value of early Workshop investments, instead prioritizing immediate gear purchases. This approach ultimately limits character potential during mid-to-late game challenges where enhanced base stats become increasingly critical.

How does item rarity work?
The item enchanting system

Execution Timeline: Aim to achieve Workshop Tier 3 within the first 8-10 hours of gameplay. This benchmark ensures optimal gear scaling through the majority of the campaign’s critical path.

Advanced Technique: Coordinate your memento collection with vendor availability cycles. Some merchants offer discounted mementos during specific in-game events or after completing certain quest lines.

For players seeking comprehensive guidance on character development, our Class Guide provides detailed analysis of specialization synergies with enhanced equipment.

Efficiency Maximization: Focus on acquiring mementos that provide the highest Caretaker Power per resource investment. Prioritize +200 Power mementos when available, as they provide four times the progression value of standard mementos.

Action Checklist

  • Locate and activate the Caretaker’s Workshop in the Lighthouse courtyard during early gameplay
  • Systematically explore all accessible areas for glowing mementos with chalice icons
  • Purchase available mementos from vendors using gold and Etheric Remnants
  • Achieve Workshop Tier 3 within 8-10 hours of gameplay
  • Coordinate major gear acquisition with Workshop tier milestones for maximum benefit

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