Considering rolling a warrior?

[Ponch]

Since I'm bored, I'll write up a little thing about warriors since FE doesn't have many and some people might consider rolling one.

As with rolling any class, think of the end result. Warriors are tanks, plain and simple. At 60, in UBRS/MC/whatever, you will not be DPS, a crit machine - you will be a damage sponge. Not as easy as it looks, and comes with lots of pressure, but it can be rewarding to know you protected those sissy ass clothies. So, if you want to see fat crits or your name at the top of stupid damage meters, roll a rogue or warlock. In fact, as you move into 60 stuff, the priests should be at the bottom of the damage meters, and you right above them, assuming the rest of your party knows what the hell they're doing, and you don't have a Thunderfury or something. So in essence, you = damage taking bitch. Everyone else = DPS or healing. Or in case of paladins, dps/healing/buffing/cleansing/rezzing/because they're overpowered. (Just kidding!)

[Ponch]

So, you've started your warrior. What should you be expecting?

Well, warriors in solo PvE are pretty cut and dry. You swing a weapon at stuff. You wear mail, so you have a good range of survivability as you level.

Instead of energy or mana, we have rage. Rage is different, it starts at zero percent, and builds as you deal and take damage. Almost everything you do will cost some rage.

Some lower level abilities we have:

Charge: run up to an enemy from a distance. Use this all the time. It generates rage and saves time in the long run.

Heroic Strike: Your bread and butter at the lower levels, basically because you have nothing else. Eventually, you will rarely use this, if ever. I never use it anymore. Anyway, it boosts your damage on the next swing.

Rend: A minor DOT that you might as well use since you have nothing else to spend the rage on. Practically useless later on though, except when you're dueling rogues.

Thunder Clap: The laughing stock of warrior's abilities. A total waste of rage that could be used on a Heroic Strike. Keep that in mind.

Overpower: Probably one of the warrior's best abilities in any situation. When a player/mob dodges, and assuming you have the rage, you can bust this shit and deal a ton of damage. It can't be blocked/parried/dodged, so love it. I recommend putting the two talent points into improving this, giving it 50% chance to crit, meaning = wtfpwn. Rogues hate your ass for this.

There are tons more abilities you'll get as you level. Study the thottbot page to learn about em.

Stances are the core of a warrior's playstyle, and also a huge headache. We have three stances:

Battle Stance: your main stance for solo PvE.

Berserker Stance: some use in PvE, but primarily PvP.

Defensive Stance: your tanking stance.

Now, I say it's a headache because some abilities can only be used in certain stances, meaning if you want to do something that's in a stance you aren't in, you have to switch, and lose rage. However, you can put talent points into abilities to keep some rage during stance switches.

About talent points, put them all into Arms as you level. You'll want Mortal Strike (bottom of the tree) as soon as possible. Avoid imp Thunder Clap though. After you get MS, get 5/5 Cruelty in the Fury tree (+crit chance). It doesn't matter a whole lot in your 40s as long as you have MS, because you'll be respeccing to pick up some Protection stuff later if you want to be a good tank. Otherwise, 31/20/0 is a cookie-cutter, damage dealer build.

[Ponch]

Gear. I don't care what anybody says, we are the most gear dependent class in the game (but not by that big of a margin).

Why? We do two things: deal melee damage, and take damage. No buffs/nukes/spells/utilities. And there are so many different stats to consider when building gear sets, it's vital we pick the right bonus stuff.

Stam: your most important stat. This is your HP, enough said.

Def: extremely important for tanking, but until you're 60 and doing end-game, don't go nuts on it.

Str: second most important of the stats (not including defense). Buffs our damage done, and damage blocked by the shield.

Agi: somewhat important, but don't go looking for +agi gear unless you're doing lots of PvP.

Int/spi: borderline useless. Don't worry about it.

Now, for weapons, we have it pretty good. We can wield anything but wands I think, so you basically have your pick. Avoid using daggers, though.

Basically, what you want is NOT the highest DPS rate, but the highest top end damage rate. Example:

Weapon 1
32-64
Wep. speed 3.0
22.4 DPS

Weapon 2
24-32
Wep. speed 2.0
23.5 DPS

You're going to want weapon 1 because of the weapon damage being up to 64. (No I did not calculate the DPS, it was just an example). The reason being, is a lot of your abilities are based on weapon damage. For example, Mortal Strike, the big damage dealer for warriors, does weapon damage + whatever bonus it gives. However, when tanking with a one hander, you want a weapon that has 1.9-2.2 weapon speed, ideally, because of aggro and all that stuff. But that shouldn't concern you at this point.

[Ponch]

So, that should be enough to give you an idea what rolling a warrior is like. Note that, this is just a basic overview of the beginning of your character. Once you hit 40-50-60 and start actually tanking stuff, your entire game changes. This is when you really start to tank stuff, whipping out a 1h+shield, and being the damage taking bitch.

Is it fun? I bitch a lot about my warrior, but that's just me, because I suck ass. So don't listen to me.

It certainly is fun being tough as nails. Having tons of HP and being hard to kill is very nice. If you're a caster, you'll love that aspect of the class.

I do suggest trying it. I am more than willing to advise you on what to do and expect. Just ask.

[Debonair]

This is a good guide del. I thing I like to add is Resistances... get your resistances up particularly Fire, Nature and Shadow if you plan on going into high-end instances.

[Caesarmoo]

what about a pure +defense set? or pure +armor set?

[Ponch]

Deb: true. For tanking Ony/MC/BWL, you're gonna need a shit ton of FR. AQ is NR, and when the expansion hits, SR is going to be key.

Moo: Most plate is pretty high in armor itself, so you shouldn't forego the other stats just to get pieces of +armor gear. As for +defense, you gotta mix it in with high stamina stuff. Some higher tier gear and stuff from places like ZG comes with +defense, so that's a plus. The +10 defense we get at the top of the Protection tree is also handy.

[Debonair]

caesarmoo said:

what about a pure +defense set? or pure +armor set?

I carry a pure defense set (+407 defense) and it sucks... I have like barely +190 Str, so I can't do any damage so I mix and match. Pure armor sets are worthless because in ANY instance you will face a combination of melee, spellcasters and hybrids so all that armor is gonna do nothing against spells.

So I use a combination of Valor and other gear to give me more stats, at a cost of defense. So in the end I have like +360 defense.

Btw, I got my Handcrafted Mastersmith Girdle today on my Warrior w00t! Best AC mitigation there is for blue belts.