10 Worst Bioware Companions In Company History

#9. Varric Tethras

Oh man this one kinda hurts. As far as personality goes, surface Dwarf Verric Tethras is easily one of my favorite characters. He’s fun and charming and has an extremely well-developed backstory. Even his running commentary is great. So you constantly want him in the party because his dialogue often brings a lot more fun to the game.

The problem with that is as a party member, Varric is a hassle compared to nearly everyone else. I mean yeah he’s an archer and in Dragon Age II the only companion who is a Rogue, but he’s so hard to keep alive, and the various magic-users in both Dragon Age II & Dragon Age: Inquisition are better long distance and area of effect attackers. And honestly in Dragon Age games I usually like being the Rogue class so Varric can seem a little redundant for me personally as well.

But the clincher for me in what makes Varric a terrible party member is Bianca, his beloved crossbow. It’s got a cool story that is hinted at but never fully explained. That’s great. But unlike every other character in Dragon Age, it’s pretty much all Varric can use as a weapon, and is overly complicated to upgrade compared to say just buying some new weapons. Which everyone else can do. So often you are left with Varric being super under-powered unless you’ve gotten the right schematics, attachments, etc. which just seems like a lot of extra work when you can just swap in anybody else and it’s less hassle. Again, Varric is one of my favorite Bioware characters personality-wise, but he’s a giant liability when it comes to being in your party and too much work to make truly useful.