17 replies to this topic

[GGTeMpLaR]

As far as stats ratios goes

 

Which 2 specializations I should get

 

and what abilities are core abilities

 

Also is it possible to be the group 'tank' as a DW warrior on lower difficulties? Or do I still need a proper warrior tank.

[capn233]

Here's my opinion, in reverse order since one leads to the next.

 

In the strictest sense, DW isn't ideal for a tank since it lacks knockdown and or stun resistance like SnS (knockdown) and 2H (both) can get.  However, a relatively dex focused DW warrior can get high armor rating and good defense late game, and has access to aggro abilities like Taunt / Threaten so it is workable.  Of course it is possible to go without a pure or dedicated tank in the party anyway, especially if you have experience with the game.  In a party setting, one run I turned Alistair into a DW dex pumped pseudo-tank like this and it was adequate.  Magic resist will depend partly on spec, partly on attributes (since some bread and butter spell effects check physical resistance).

 

Core abilities are going to depend on what weapon set you want to use, which are related to what attribute you want to pump.  Granted, you will probably get many of them regardless, but the importance of actives is lower for dagger x2 dex build vs strength dagger-full size or two fullsize.  In either case, you want DW training, then DW Sweep, Flurry and Momentum about as soon as possible, then the importance of the rest depends on what you are doing.  Momentum should be sustained when you are auto-attacking with any weapon style, so use a few talents and turn it on.  Dual Striking has a high miss rate for some reason, so it doesn't really double DPS.  If you are trying to tank, it might be worth trying to get to Threaten and Taunt, if not you can get to Bravery and fill in more DW talents.

 

The active talents are best with dual full size weapons, still good with dagger-full size, and weakest with dagger-dagger.  Auto-attack is good with dagger-full size and dagger-dagger.  Dagger-dagger with maxed dex has the best defense.  Riposte is a decent stun power, Punisher is an ok knockdown power.  Of course Riposte uses your cunning for the physical resistance check, so it might not work on yellow or higher enemies as a warrior; and Punisher uses strength, so if you are dex-daggers it probably won't work too often on yellow or higher.  Whirlwind is ok if you are surrounded by a lot of enemies, to balance out the high stamina cost.

 

Specs depend on the role.  Templar is really best if you want to get to 100% spell resist, which you can do with any race + 3 runes and gear.  Berserker is good for damage, and is a solid choice for DW regardless of role.  Champion is a good utility spec with party buff in Rally, and an area knockdown / cc power in War Cry when you get Superiority at the end of the tree, and is a solid choice.  I don't see much value in Reaver most of the time, but I suppose for pure damage it makes sense combined with Berserker.  Frightening Appearance is decent cc though.

 

Attribute allocation should depend on the weapon choice, but is relatively straightforward:

 

Dagger - dagger: Strength to something like 38-42 total after bonuses / gear to equip decent armor (Wade's, Evon's, Knight Commander, etc), rest into dex.  If you are in a party you can go lower and use lighter armor like Felon's coat, and get defense a little higher with the points you save from lower strength.  Either way, since you are mainly increasing dex, you end up with the highest defense of the three build types, which is helpful for tanking.

 

Dagger - full size: Dex somewhere between 26 and 30 depending on if you can live without Punisher (req 28) and Whirlwind (req 30), and then the rest into Strength.  At least dex investment for those talents helps your off-hand damage.

 

Full size - full size: You have to get 36 dex to wield two full size weapons (at which point you equip weapons where damage doesn't depend at all on dex)... rest into strength.

[SherryGold]

I'm surprised that people are not singing more praises for DW warrior. I've missed playing a DW warrior and on this round, I'm trying it out. And well, I love it. You are forced to give more dex, but at level 20, his defense rating is 100 with the help of some gear, which is meh for a rogue but pretty impressive for a warrior (with better health and better armor protection, that seems sufficient). Basically, I raised his strength first so he can equip a decent armor straight away, then raised dex till he gets momentum. All strength afterwards till he can wear night commander's armor. Then strength and dex in turn till he can wield two swords. Afterwards, all strength again. Sure, he can be knocked down when 2H warrior or S&S warrior doesn't have to be. But he has six rune slots instead of three and leaving one or two slots to hale runes will help him reduce the chance of being knocked down. Scatter shots will affect him unlike with a 2H warrior. He may not be faster than a rogue but he is fast enough and with frequent use of DW talents, which will not do much for rogues who are wielding daggers but can cause some serious damage with swords, his DPs is rather impressive (S&S warriors just can't get anywhere near, and he seems to comfortably beat a 2H warrior even though his highest damage is nowhere near that of a 2H warrior). He can wield two best swords that the game provides at the same time. Loads to admire.

[capn233]

Yeah DW fullsize does the best talent damage, DW fullsize-dagger isn't too bad either.

 

I imagine they thought 2H had a lot of other utility such that it wouldn't be quite fair if it did the most damage.  Lot of knockdowns and some stuns available, and it has knockdown and stun resistance itself.  CGM is the best weapon available, and the high AP isn't necessarily useful against everything.

[SherryGold]

Yeh, I love seeing him doing whirlwinds and punisher. But what is CGM? He currently has starfang and veshialle (pretty good damage and plus one stamina regeneration).

 

[straykat]

Yeah DW fullsize does the best talent damage, DW fullsize-dagger isn't too bad either.

 

I imagine they thought 2H had a lot of other utility such that it wouldn't be quite fair if it did the most damage.  Lot of knockdowns and some stuns available, and it has knockdown and stun resistance itself.  CGM is the best weapon available, and the high AP isn't necessarily useful against everything.

 

Hammers are ugly.. don't encourage it

 

@SherryGold: Chasind Great Maul

[capn233]

Yeh, I love seeing him doing whirlwinds and punisher. But what is CGM? He currently has starfang and veshialle (pretty good damage and plus one stamina regeneration).

 

Yeah it was CGM.  I was just talking about weapons available.  CGM is a lot better than most of the other options, but it probably isn't as great relative to other things as Vehsialle or Rose's Thorn.  Especially when you get to do something like take Veshialle and Starfang or Rose's at the same time.

[Saburau]

I'm playing through with a DW Human Noble Warrior at present. Wielding two swords now, with first specialisation Berserker, then Champion as my second. Attributes tend to level out, but for skills Berserk and Momentum work for me. I'm not designed to tank but did complete the Circle Tower as the only warrior with Wynne, Morrigan and Leliana in the party - rather than take the damage on behalf of the party the focus is more on killing enemies before they threaten the rest of the party.

[SherryGold]

I've just completed the round on the nightmare difficulty, and am pretty pleased with the result. Number of injuries throughout the entire game: Warden - 0, Zevran -0, Morrigan -3 (well, there should always be a room for improvement), Wynne - 0. Didn't lose any allies during the final battle although I'm not sure what was the number of casualty of dwarves whom I called upon at the second stage of the archdemon battle. (Usually I lose a stone golemn or a few mages/templars when I use them at the palace district.)  Felt pretty bad about leaving Loghain behind, yet again, but ah well, the warden went to the redcliff village without Wynne and thought someone should look after his stamina. Plus double haste always makes fighting so much easier and I don't particularly want a S&S warrior in the team.

One of the advantages I found for playing a DW warrior is that it's easier to deal with mages before I can send Zevran to do the job (and I won't dare send him until he learns combat stealth and riposte, because dirty fighting may stun but it causes no damage and you don't want the enemy mage to recover before you finish the job). My DW warrior learned riposte pretty quickly and applied it to mages and archers, whose physical resistance tends not to be great, and that was one advantage over a 2H warrior who struggle to land a hit before the enemy mage can cast a spell on him. He did a pretty good job as a tank. With Morrigan and Wynne both wearing bards' dancing shoes and his armor rating the highest, he will become a main target in any case. Plus as soon as he unlocked threaten, he switched on that mod for every battle. I'm pretty sure with his higher defense rating, he made a pretty good tank (one not only draws aggression, but also one who can survive it), too..

[capn233]

As 2H I like to open against enemy mages with Pommel, then you should have time.  Also can even mix in 2H Sweep as a knockdown if needed.  If you have Champion with War Cry / Superiority you can of course knock them off their feet before you even get into melee range.  Templar obviously has it easiest since you can just use Holy Smite, or potentially ignore them altogether.

 

DW dex does make a decent enough tank, as long as you still get enough strength to get a decent armor rating.  They just don't have quite the same utility for knockdowns / stuns as the other two IMO.

[SherryGold]

Ah the good old pommel. I nearly forgot. It sure helps but I think riposte has the advantage, because it causes damage itself and also a DW warrior's subsequent attack will be faster. My 2H was not too worried about mages as he could get 70% protection (spellward + night commander's armor) at level 8, but it was more the case of his team being hit by a fireball or the other mage manage to cast a spell of crushing prison or misdirection hex on him (you can resist it most of the time, but not always, because you never get 100% protection.) But of course the rogue is best equipped to do the job because he can approach the mage without being seen. With warriors it's usually a matter of not getting hit before you can get to the melee range.

And yes, it's kind of fun to see the effect of War Cry when you have superiority (one of the reasons I choose the champion as a second spec along with a rally). Holy smite is useful but I usually leave it till at a fairly late stage because my team by then is well prepared to deal with mages anyway.

 

I did my DW warrior as a dalish origins and I think he could wear the night templar's armor by level 11 or so. Because he is more agile than a 2H, I didn't feel much the effect of inferior armor rating (he seemed cope pretty well with just battledress of provacateur, although Zev kept asking when he could have that) until I got him a proper warrior armor. He didn't need forcefield more than once, while my 2H needed it a few times at earlier stages of the game.

 

The funny thing is though even though he did a great job throughout and the play was pretty smooth, you never feel as safe as with a 2H, who cannot be knocked down or stunned.

[SherryGold]

CGM. Is it better than dragonbone cleaver or 2H starfang? My 2H used the cleaver because it gives you extra willpower, but the CGM properties look pretty good. What about attack speed? Isn't a sword faster than an axe and an axe faster than a maul?

[capn233]

Greatswords aren't really faster enough to matter once you have enough strength since mauls have the 1.25 attribute modifier instead of 1.1 like the other two 2h weapons.   Early-mid game 2H Starfang may be about as good, or a little better than CGM since base damage is similar, and you don't have enough strength for the attribute modifier to matter as much (edit: actually had to recheck that, CGM sort of has higher base damage when you factor in the +5 damage), and Starfang boosts attack.

 

The 2H Axes actually swing slower than mauls.   They usually have a little more crit chance though.

 

edit2:  Oh and it might be worth running Dragonbone Cleaver in Origins, at least early.  In Awakenings the CGM did more damage than that version, which has slightly higher stats than the Origins one.  Of course my Awakenings warden was over 100 strength.  I imagine Cleaver may be better than Starfang for the most part.  I only got all the dlc recently, so maybe someone else can chime in.

[Mike3207]

Veshiialle duel wielded, posion added, with the appropriate elemental runes will do a,lot of damage on a strength build. You still need 36 dex to wield two full size weapons. It's very difficult to get that much money early without selling DLC gear, but if you can get both Veshialles that dual wield warrior will be a force to be reckoned with.

 

My experience is that Starfang is the best 2h weapon in Origins, both for the strength boost, and the high attack boost. Keep in mind though I use it for my shapeshifters, as attack is always a issue for both arcane warriors/shapeshifters. Warriors will have less of a issue with attack, but I still haven't seen a better 2h weapon in origins.

[SherryGold]

Before I got dragonbone cleaver, I always used starfang. Both seem to do the job nicely, and my warriors never have problem with attack score (It seems more of a problem for rogues for whatever reason. Dex should provide the same attack score boost as a strength and I never spend too many points on cunning when I play a rogue. So, attack score shouldn't be a problem, but it seems to be especially with double haste.) so the willpower boost was what made my 2H stick with the cleaver because he didn't want to invest any points on willpower and still wanted to activate three passive modes plus using talents. But I can see how you find starfang better for a arcane warrior (although when I play arcane warrior, I always use Cailan's arms set (plus 10 stamina regeneration used together is what I was told and rapid mana consumption is always a major problem for arcane warriors). One thing I never try is a shapeshifter. Is that any good? I mean my mages use haste, telechinic and flaming weapon modes all the time and would you be able to keep that mode active if you turn into say a bear?

 

I might well try CGM next time when I play a 2H at the later stage of the game. How do you get it?

[capn233]

I might well try CGM next time when I play a 2H at the later stage of the game. How do you get it?

 

You have to buy it from Gorim after 3 treaty missions for 137 gold.  Starfang and Dragonbone cleaver are certainly cheaper.

[SherryGold]

You have to buy it from Gorim after 3 treaty missions for 137 gold.  Starfang and Dragonbone cleaver are certainly cheaper.

Thanks for that info. I'll give it a try.

[Qis]

Sword & sword is my favorite DW warrior, Imperial Edge are enough for me, fully enchant-able of course, but these two only appear after getting into the Alieneage. Otherwise Saw Sword is fine. There's not much of good swords in this game, the bonuses are just meh for me...

 

Invest Dex only enough to get DW mastery that is 36, just invest up to 32 and Fade bonus fill the rest. Then max Strength, the rest invest in Willpower for momentum and all other sustains also to activate skills, some Constitution for not becoming too fragile. Wear armor depends on role-play. Then wreck havoc.

 

Templar and Beserker need more Willpower because of Holy Smite, Rage and Final Blow, if sustaining momentum, your stamina could run out rapidly to make use all these talents to it's full potential, especially if there are those annoying lightning mages around...

 

If want a Paladin-like tank i suggest Templar-Champion, if want a DPSer then Berserker-Reaver, if want a role-play an "ordinary" warrior then Champion-Berserker