Early on in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you are given the choice (during the quest “On Blighted Wings”) to rush to the aid of either Minrathous or Treviso, where the Shadow Dragons or Antivan Crows reside, respectively. Among other consequences, depending on which you pick, the Faction Merchant in the other city with disappear from the game. However, locked behind the highest Shop Level of each is a Unique Weapon, one you will not be able to acquire from anywhere else. That means that it is required if you want to collect all 33 Unique Items in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
So, if you don’t get it before “On Blighted Wings”, you won’t be able to get it unless you are able to get the Shadow Dragons or Antivan Crows up to their maximum Strength, and can afford to upgrade them to the maximum Shop Level. In this guide, we will explain what you need in order to get the destroyed faction to maximum Strength and how to acquire the materials required for the upgrades before you won’t have the chance anymore.
What You Need to Know
Before we begin, it should be noted that this method is both time-consuming and reliant on specific loot drops to produce high yields (sometimes requiring reloading saves to avoid being locked out). Overall, this will require around an hour and a half of grinding, a complete focus on the faction in question, and the ability to reload saves just before certain loot stashes.
In addition, this method will only work in order to upgrade the Shadow Dragons‘ Faction Merchant, due to what materials are available by that point in the game (because the Crows require the rarer Vhenadahl’s Tear material to upgrade, and there aren’t enough drops in the early game to obtain enough). This means that, in order to purchase the Unique from every Faction Merchant, you need to upgrade the Shadow Dragons Shop, buy the unique, and then go to Treviso’s aid when given the choice, so that the Antivan Crows‘ Shop Unique is still available.
It should also be noted that, because Factions gain Strength faster if Rook’s background is with them, that selecting Shadow Dragon can speed up this process.
Obtaining Fade-Touched Crystals
In order to upgrade the Shadow Dragons‘ Faction Merchant to Shop Level 4 (the maximum), there are two major roadblocks: Faction Strength and the Fade-Touched Crystal rare material. And, while you can always find ways to increase Faction Strength, Fade-Touched Crystals are rare materials that have a hard limit by the point in the game when you make your decision on which city/faction to save.
Specifically, in order to fully upgrade either the Shadow Dragons, you will need to have 20 Fade-Touched Crystals. At the point in the game where the decision happens, if you collect every source of Fade-Touched Crystals, you can have anywhere between 18 and 23 of these Crystals, and so you may need to reload saves to ensure you get the largest drops.
Specifically, there are 5 places where you can obtain Fade-Touched Crystals prior to the factions being destroyed:
During the quest “The Singing Blade”, while you are at the Ritual Site, you can find a growth of 3 to 4 Fade-Touched Crystals near the magic beam early in the quest. This drop is missable, since you never return to the Ritual Site after the quest.
After defeating the Qamekmaster during the “A Slow Poison” quest, you will open a large chest that will give you 4 to 6 Fade-Touched Crystals.
So long as you recieve the maximum 6 Fade-Touched Crystals, you are guaranteed to be able to upgrade the Faction Merchant. So, if you get less when you open the chest, you should reload the auto-save and open the chest again until you get 6.
After defeating Quyn the Sparkwielder in Dock Town, you can find 5 to 6 Fade-Touched Crystals.
After completing the In Memorium quest in Dock Town, you will be rewarded 5 Fade-Touched Crystals.
This is the only drop that is not strictly required, if you acquired the highest amount from each of the other sources.
Once you have acquired at least 20 Fade-Touched Crystals, you will have all that you need in order to upgrade the Shadow Dragons’ Faction Merchant to maximum Shop Level.
Gettting Max Shadow Dragons Faction Strength
Now, here is where the grind comes in. In order to get the Shadow Dragons to their maximum Faction Strength of 3,200, which is required to upgrade them to Shop Level 4, you will need to do more than just sell them everything you find in the wild and complete all the quests they have available before On Blighted Skies. Even if you focus entirely on selling to the Shadow Dragons and complete every available quest before On Blighted Skies, you will still need around 2,000 Faction Strength to max out their bar.
In order to do this, you will need to farm for Valuable Items to sell to the Shadow Dragons in exchange for Gold and Faction Strength. In our experience, the best places to do this is at a ceramic pot storehouse in the Central Market district of Dock Town. In order to maximize your earnings and get an average of 60 Faction Strength worth of Valuables every minute, do the following in order:
Fast Travel to the Beacon to the North of the Central Market
Turn and head into the ceramic storehouse to your south.
Roll into every shelf with pots on it, trying to destroy as many pots per roll as you can.
Fast Travel to any Beacon far enough away from the storehouse (we chose to fast travel back to the Shadow Dragons’ Safehouse)
Repeat for approximately 60 Faction Strength worth of Valuables for each run.
1. Fast Travel to the Beacon north of the Central Market2. Go into the ceramic storehouse3. Roll into every shelf of pots in the storehouse4. Fast Travel to the Shadow Dragon Safehouse; repeat
It took us about an hour and a half of rolling into pots before we had the 3,200 Faction Strength needed to fully upgrade the Shadow Dragons’ Faction Merchant’s Shop Level to 4. Link and every FromSoft game protagonist would be proud.
Obtaining Pure Ore
Other than Fade-Touched Crystals, the only other upgrade material that you may find yourself short on is Pure Ore. While this can be obtained throughout the 3 areas you have unlocked by this point, you will likely need to purchase more in order to get the Shadow Dragons Faction Merchant to Shop Level 4.
Thankfully, the Novelty Sword Dealer in Treviso’s Grande Market sells Pure Ore. You can buy 20 Pure Ore at a time in exchange for 25 Heartwood, Imperial Thread, or Flawless Crystals, which you should have plenty of by the time you need to make the trade.
Buying the Shadow Dragons’ Faction Unique Armor
Once you’ve acquired enough Fade-Touched Crystals, rolled into enough pots to get the Shadow Dragons to love you, bought all the Pure Ore you need from a sketchy novelty sword salesman, and upgraded the Shadow Dragons’ Faction Merchant to max rank, you will finally be able to purchase the Shadow Dragons’ Unique Armor in Dock Town (Tevinter Knight for Mages, Imperium’s Resolve for Warriors, and Shadow’s Hold for Rogues), as well as any other shop items locked behind Shop Level 4.
With that Unique Item added to your collection, you can now progress the story and take on the “Warden’s Best Friend” quest. After it, make sure you choose to help Treviso when you are given the choice to save Treviso or Minrathous from the Blighted Dragon attack as part of “On Blighted Wings.” This will ensure that the Antivan Crows’ Faction Merchant in Treviso stays around, giving you the rest of the game to build up their Faction Strength and acquire their Unique Armor, the Plumage of the Mad Crow.
There are other effects of selecting Treviso over Minrathous at this point, but at least you won’t need to miss out on any Unique Items along the way!
After that extended process, you will finally be able to move on to other aspects of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Given the effort you put into this, it is safe to assume that you are probably interested in finding every Unique Item in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which we have a guide for. Or, maybe you need help with some of the bosses you need to take on in order to get those Fade-Touched Crystals, like Desmal or Quyn.
Whatever the case, we hope that this guide has been helpful, and that you can now go on to save the world from the Elven Gods decked out in the best gear possible (after all, what is heroism but style?).
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Graves
Graves is an avid writer, web designer, and gamer, with more ideas than he could hope to achieve in a lifetime. But, armed with a mug of coffee and an overactive imagination, he'll try. When he isn't working on a creative project, he is painting miniatures, reading cheesy sci-fi novels, or making music.
