This post is a part of an ongoing feature here at Nightmare Mode to provide you with an expert’s strategy guide on playing Dragon Age.

• Best Two Handed Warrior Build Dragon Age Origins
• Best Dual Wield Warrior Build Dragon Age Origins
• Dragon Age Origins Best Human Warrior Build

The Arcane Warrior is an interesting combination of concepts. It blends, quite seamlessly, the spells of a mage and the survivability of a warrior. Massive armour, damage from both spells and melee prowess and utility abilities makes the Arcane Warrior one of the most versatile classes in Dragon Age: Origins (henceforth DA:O). Warrior build to defeat loghain I have a human warrior/reaver with the odd berserk bit on the side, what is the best choices to have in his hot bar when he comes up against Loghain and in what.

For the Dragon Age newbies, playing as a warrior is probably your safest bet. The most versatile and easy to use class will serve as a good introduction to the game. Playing as a two-handed warrior is a fun damage-dealing way to romp through the game for a veteran player, too.

Since levelling up in Dragon Age is limited and there is no level grinding (which is one aspect that makes this game so awesome), knowing where to put your talent points is key for most classes. You are unlikely to go over level 22 even if you do everything you can in the game, choices pending of course. First time players are probably going to be tempted to even out the distribution of points–I highly recommend not doing that. Each class benefits greatly from plugging a couple of key attributes. Warrior is of course no different.

However I will say as I will with all classes, it’s worth it to pump your cunning at the beginning of the game to around 20-22, as well as getting your coercion skill up. Opening up conversation options and different choice trees makes for an entertaining experience.

So, how do we go about building a unstoppable tank of a Warrior, cutting through everything in it’s path?
The amazing guys who designed and created this game weren’t dummies. Fortunately for the gamer who uses their brain, common sense applies. In the case of the Warrior, the balance between strength and dexterity can be easy to figure out. Think about it: if you have a crazy strong buff Warrior, chances are he’ll have a killer swing, but he probably won’t land a blow every time. Conversely, if you’ve got a tiny nimbly-quick Warrior, he’ll be hard to hit, he’ll be great at parry attacks, but he isn’t going to deal that much damage. Taking this balance into account, you can decide what kind of Warrior you want to be.

The most important statistic for the Warrior is, unsurprisingly, strength. Over the course of the game, you want to get your strength to at least 60. There is a balance between strength and dexterity, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a sword-shield user, or a two-handed user. Get your dexterity to at least 30, there is nothing more frustrating or annoying as missing attack after attack.

Best Two Handed Warrior Build Dragon Age Origins

The one thing you do not need is magic. I was also going to say willpower is useless but that isn’t entirely true–it is a very minimal statistic. Using your special attacks doesn’t take up all that much energy after all. The catch is, you are probably going to want the kick-ass armour in the game, something like the Juggernaut set, Legion of the Dead set, or King Cailan’s set (if you’ve got the DLCs, which I highly, highly recommend). These things take up a lot of willpower by default, since they are heavy armour, their fatigue stats are much much higher. But don’t plug willpower points too too much, rather spread out a point here and there throughout the game. This serves two purposes: one, you want to reserve as many points as possible for strength and dexterity, and two, your willpower rises slowly as you get better and better armour.

Constitution is always a tricky stat for me to balance, no matter which class I’m playing. Primarily because I know that, at some point, I will get the Lifegiver, which gives a +10 bonus to constitution. Like willpower, once in awhile put a point into constitution. For Warriors, constitution is more important than any other class, if only because you’re on the front lines taking a beating. Every class has a stat like this, one that is kind of important but you only increase once in awhile. What I usually do is use the points you can purchase at various merchants for this extra statistic. Tomes and other things you can buy, different ones for 12-20 gold. It’s really crucial you save your rupees for these things and get them all.

Skills. What skills? Always always give yourself Coersion, until it’s maxed out. For the Warrior though, you’ll have to occasionally hold back on completing the Coersion tree as you’ll quickly run out of abilities to learn, which will require the Combat Skills tree. These are the two most important ones. After that, it’s up to you.

Lastly, party members. Choosing party members based on what you like might work if you’re playing on the easiest difficulty setting. If you’re like me and you live and breathe Dragon Age and you can play on something more difficult, you need to choose party members based on their attributes. Who you like plays into the strategy a little bit, as of course you don’t want to end up with someone who hates every decision you make.

Which characters are best to have beside your Warrior? Let’s go over what you need, first. As a Warrior on the front lines, you’re going to need yourself a medic. That would be Wynne. Let her sit in the back, fill out her spirit healer skills and every possible healing spell you can get. You’re going to need some backup support too, a sniper behind the lines so to speak. My recommendation would be Morrigan, and there hasn’t been a DA: Origins game that I have played without Morrigan. Make sure you get the Cone of Cold spell, and micromanage Morrigan to freeze a bunch of enemies at a time. As a Warrior, you’ll have no problem shattering frozen enemies.

So you do have options for your fourth character. You can go one of two ways, and take your personal preference into account. If you want a frontline support buddy, you need another Warrior. Either Alistair, Sten, or Shale (DLC) will do. I personally have affection for Shale, I like Sten and I cannot stand little whiny Alistair. You can also choose Ohgren if you choose to go to Orzammar early in the game, although this is not reccomended for new players.

The second option is using a Rogue. There are only two options, Leliana or Zevran. Both have their ups and downs. Zevran comes with the Assassin tree and a headstart on the Duelist skills, but no lock-picking skills. Leliana comes with some handy Bard songs and basic lock-picking, great for early in the game. Despite these basic starting differences, by the end of the game they’re pretty much identical. If you’re going Rogue as your fourth Character it’s all in who you like, baby.

So to recap, recommended party: Wynne, Morrigan, and Leliana.

Recommended final stats: Strength 58

Dexterity 35

Willpower 15

Magic 12

Cunning 22

Constitution 26

Best Dual Wield Warrior Build Dragon Age Origins

This Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations Guide will teach you all you need to know to pick the best Warrior specialization for you.

If you’re playing Dragon Age Inquisition, one of the biggest decisions you have to make is selecting the class for your main character, not to mention picking which companions to bring on your adventure.

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If you’re planning to make your Inquisition into a Warrior, you’re going to want to know which of the Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations are generally considered to be the best and which ones are the worst.

As with the other classes, there are 3 Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations to choose from: Champion, which is focused on tanking skills and survivability; Templar, which has a combination of support skills and demon-specific spells; and Reaver, which deals greater damage at lower HP.

In addition to getting to know the Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations for the sake of your Inquisitor, you should also be aware that there’s a party member available for each specialization. Blackwall is a Champion, Cassandra is a Templar and Iron Bull is a Reaver.

With that introduction out of the way, let’s get on with the Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations Rankings.

3. Templar – Best Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations

Templars are generally considered to be the weakest of the Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations, primarily because almost all of their skills only work against demons.

If their skills had their full effect against all enemies, Templars would probably be considered to be pretty good, but that’s not the case: although Templar skills do have an effect on non-demon enemies, the effects are greatly reduced to the point of being nearly useless.

The good news and bad news about the Templar’s demon-specific skill arsenal is that, good news, there are a lot of demons in Dragon Age Inquisition. Bad news, none of the demons are the toughest monsters or bosses, they’re all mostly repetitive trash encounters.

The only skill that Templars get that has universal utility is a 15% damage buff for the party, which is actually a fairly decent skill. Just not decent enough to take a whole specialization to acquire.

Oddly, one of the best things you might say about Templars is that since their skills are so unattractive, they have the opportunity to max out more of the standard Warrior skill trees than the other specializations, all of which are actually pretty good.

Templars aren’t terrible. You can definitely get through the game as one and have a good time, but compared to the other Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations, they definitely leave a lot to be desired.

2. Champion – Best Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations

Choosing whether the Champion or the Reaver is #1 among the Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations is difficult, because Champion is invaluable and definitively the best class for tanking available in the game.

In fact, you’re probably always going to want a Champion in your party, unless you’ve played through the game a few times and you’re just sick of having Blackwall around all the time.

The reason I’m putting Champion at #2 instead of #1 is because, when it comes to picking the class for your own main character, the tanking playstyle is passive and not terribly fun.

Dragon Age Origins Best Human Warrior Build

Unlike an MMO, supporting your AI teammates doesn’t have very much gratification to it and since the AI will never deal as much damage as a DPS oriented player character, you’re going to end up going through the game much slower if you’re maining the party’s tank.

Additionally, Blackwall manages tanking perfectly well under the control of the AI, meaning the only reason you’d ever really want to play a tank yourself is if you have a personal preference for the tanking playstyle, in which case Champion is definitely #1 among the Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations for you.

Champions get a ton of tanking bonuses. They get several passive survivability increases, including additional guard and more armor. They also gain active skills that impede enemy movement, give them temporary invulnerability, and an extra taunt.

Between the Champion’s invincibility active skill and their passive skills, they’re basically impossible to kill. You should definitely be rolling with one, whether it’s your own Inquisitor or Blackwall, if you really want an optimized team.

1. Reaver – Best Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations

Again, choosing between Reaver and Champion for the #1 slot among the Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations is a difficult choice to make. For your Inquisitor, I think the Reaver is downright the best option. Among your party members, Blackwall is, in my opinion, much more useful than Iron Bull.

Out of all the Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations, Reaver easily deals the most damage. If played right, it’s also nearly impossible to kill. Reaver deals increased damage at low HP and has a powerful attack called Dragon Rage, which costs HP to use. It has another unique attack called Devour, which deals damage and mostly refills the Reaver’s HP.

Because of Devour, which is essentially an infinite potion on a short cooldown, it’s very difficult to die as a Reaver if you’re paying attention to what you’re doing. Meanwhile, you also put out an amount of damage that almost comes close to what a Rogue is capable of.

That means for your Inquisitor, Reaver is a no brainer. It’s an exceptional class and can even do a decent job as a tank if you choose to go that route.

Unfortunately, the AI doesn’t do a great job at handling the HP management required to excel as a Reaver. Iron Bull will chug all of your potions unless you set his AI to never use potions, in which case he’ll die much more often than you’d like.

Still, since this isn’t a ranking of how well the AI handles each of the Dragon Age Warrior Specializations, but a ranking of the specializations themselves, Reaver is an absolute beast. If you’re going to make your main character a Warrior, you should definitely consider making him or her a Reaver.

That about covers it when it comes to the best Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Specializations. Be sure to check out the Games Section or the main page for more game guides, or click here for more content related to Dragon Age Inquisition.