Breaking Down the Inquisition - The Warrior

Playing as a warrior is one of the most common RPG moves that many players make. Warriors are strong melee centered characters and many of us just want to be up close and personal with the action without having to worry about getting stomped to death. The warrior class in Dragon Age: Inquisition is no different and I’m here to help you set up the best warrior class you can. So let’s get started.

First things first let’s go over a few of the useful skills you’re going to find in the Warrior class.

Bodyguard

This first skill, Bodyguard, is going to allow your warrior to soak up a percentage of the damage that is inflicted upon your other party members. This is an important skill for any tank-like warriors to have, and is going to play a very large role in your squishier party members (looking at you sir mage) staying alive.

Challenge

This second skill is going to help you keep enemies off of your weaker party members. Upon use, this skill taunts nearby enemies to attack your warrior. Just make sure he has enough health to take all those hits.

Grappling Chain

Grappling Chain is an important skill because it allows your Warrior to shoot out a chain and pull enemies to him. It’s extremely useful for pulling those pesky demons who get past you back to your warrior, and can sometimes mean the difference between life and death for your squishy allies on the battlefield.

Crippling Blows

This skill is going to cut your target’s damage output by 15% with each critical hit, which may not seem like a whole lot in the long run, but trust me, it’s going to make a difference. Just activate this skill and then hit your opponent for as many crits as you can get off to bring their attack down to harmless.

Shield Breaker

Shield Breaker is going to be your warrior’s best friend. Throughout the massive world of Thedas you’re going to run into some nasty enemies who have actually thought ahead and equipped armor. This skill will allow you to cut through that armor, reducing it by 20% while the ability lasts. This is going to be extremely useful against pesky armored Templars blocking your way.

Pommel Strike

The final skill I want to cover right now is the Pommel Strike ability which not only hits your target for 300% of your weapon damage, but it also stuns them for a total of three seconds, which means you get three seconds of pummeling your enemies with everything you’ve got. This is an excellent time to gang up on the target using the Tactical View.

Different Play Styles

Now that we’ve gotten the top notch skills out of the way I want to take a look at two varying play styles that you can use for your warrior. These aren’t going to be the only play styles for this class, but throughout all of my experience in the world of Dragon Age, it’s going to be two of the best.

First up let’s talk about the Paladin Warrior, or as I like to call it, The Tank.

This warrior style is going to focus heavily on defense and soaking up as much damage as possible. It’s going to make having skills like Challenge, War Cry, and It’ll Cost you very important. Most commonly this play style will be accompanied by a one-handed weapon and a shield, as you’ll want to have as much extra armor from the shield as possible.

For this play-style you’re going to want to focus on the follow skills – War Cry, Payback Strike, Shield Wall, Untouchable Defense, Chevalier’s Step, Call to Arms, Bear Mauls the Wolves, Challenge, It’ll Cost You, Unbowed, Grappling Chain, Shield Bash, Turn the Blade, Turn the Bolt, Still Standing, Give them the Boot, Trust the Steel, Cutting Words, Bodyguard – in that order.

Now let’s talk about the Barbarian Warrior, a class style that’s going to focus on inflicting as much damage as possible in as quick as fashion as possible. It should be noted that this play style of the warrior class should not be used as the party Tank, as the defense will not be nearly high enough to sustain all the damage that will be thrown at it.

Since you’re going to focus on damage so much skills like Crippling Blows, Mighty Blow, and Pommel Strike are going to be highly useful to you. However, if you’re wanting to run this play style at its most efficient you’ll want to pick up the following skills in the listed order: Mighty Blow, War Cry, Easy Target, Block and Slash, Flow of Battle, Pommel Strike, Shield Breaker, Whirlwind, Guard-Smasher, Grappling Chain, Crippling Blows, Clear a Path, Earthshaking Strike, Coup de Grace.

As I mentioned above, these aren’t the only ways to play as a warrior, but they are two of the most efficient ways to make use of the damage soaking brutes that Dragon Age has given us to work with. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little, after all this is an RPG, and the decisions are yours to make.

Good luck out there Inquisitor, may the Maker guide you.