Warrior Class in Dragon Age: The Veilguard: All Warrior Skills Guide

Key Takeaways:

1. Warriors are versatile frontline fighters capable of both dealing and absorbing damage, making them essential in any party composition.
2. Specializations like Champion, Reaper, and Slayer allow Warriors to tailor their playstyle to suit offensive or defensive strategies.
3. Understanding core, survival, abilities, weapons, and specialized skills is crucial for maximizing the Warrior’s potential in battle.

If you’re diving into the rich world of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, choosing the right class can make all the difference in your gameplay experience. For those who love being in the thick of the action, wielding massive weapons, and leading the charge against foes, the Warrior Class is your go-to option. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about the Warrior’s skills, from core abilities to specialized techniques, ensuring you’re well-equipped to dominate the battlefield.

The Essence of the Warrior Class

Warriors are the backbone of any adventuring party. They stand on the front lines, absorbing enemy blows while dealing significant damage themselves. If you enjoy playing a character who can both protect allies and dismantle enemies, the Warrior is the perfect fit.

Why Choose a Warrior?

• Versatility: Warriors can adapt to various combat situations, whether it’s holding the line or breaking through enemy defenses.
• Durability: With higher health and resistance, they can withstand more damage than other classes.
• Team Support: Warriors can draw enemy attention, allowing ranged and support classes to perform their roles effectively.

Core Warrior Skills

Understanding your core skills is the first step to mastering the Warrior Class. These abilities form the foundation of your combat strategy.

Driving Kick

Unleash a powerful kick that channels all your strength into a single, staggering blow. It’s perfect for disrupting enemies and setting them up for a devastating follow-up attack.

Downfall

Execute a leap attack that guarantees a critical hit if the target is knocked down. This skill is excellent for capitalizing on enemies already on the ground.

Counterblow

Turn your enemy’s aggression against them. Deflect their attack and respond with a powerful counterstrike, dealing significant damage.

Rancor

Let your rage simmer longer. This skill increases the duration before your rage begins to decay, allowing you to maintain high damage output.

Focused Retaliation

After successfully defending against an attack, gain increased precision for a short time. It’s a great way to turn defense into offense.

Flashing Fists

Deliver a flurry of powerful blows, damaging a large area multiple times. Ideal for crowd control and thinning out groups of weaker enemies.

Tumbling Blades

Enhance your shield attacks. Striking your shield toss with another shield attack causes it to bounce between enemies, dealing damage each time.

Shield Volley

Quickly unleash a powerful attack immediately after performing a combat roll. This skill keeps you agile while maintaining offensive pressure.

Warrior Survival Skills

Survival skills keep you alive in the heat of battle. They enhance your defenses and ensure you can take a beating while dishing out punishment.

Conditional Surrender

Extend the duration of primers applied by control abilities and increase the damage of detonations. This skill makes your control effects more potent.

Bulwark

Increase your physical resistance. It’s a passive boost that helps you withstand more damage from physical attacks.

Battlefield Awareness

Your control abilities now deal critical hits against enemies recovering from being knocked down, allowing you to keep the pressure on.

Good Arm

When your projectile abilities hit an enemy, they ignore all resistances, ensuring maximum damage output.

Fortifying Shots

Defeating an enemy with a projectile ability grants you resistance, making you tougher against subsequent attacks.

Depth of Fury

Increase your maximum rage, allowing you to perform more rage-based abilities before needing to recharge.

Improved Throw

Enhance your shield toss damage, making it a more formidable ranged attack.

Improved Health

Boost your overall health, increasing your survivability in prolonged fights.

Groundbreaker

Smash the ground to create fissures that explode after a short delay. This area-of-effect skill is great for damaging clusters of enemies.

Providence

Extend the duration of advantages you gain in battle, keeping buffs active longer.

Necessary Steps

Increase the duration of primers, ensuring your enemies stay vulnerable for extended periods.

Masochism

Generate rage when taking damage, turning enemy attacks into fuel for your own power.

Reinforced

Defeating an enemy with a control ability grants you a deflection bonus, enhancing your defensive capabilities.

Refract

Increase the maximum stacks of deflect you can have, further boosting your defense.

Ready Guard

Start each encounter with a deflection bonus, giving you an immediate defensive edge.

Third Degree

Increase the maximum stacks of burning you can apply to enemies, enhancing your fire-based damage over time effects.

Supercharged

Your projectile abilities deal significantly more damage against barriers, making you effective against shielded foes.

Return to Sender

Reflect incoming projectiles back at attackers with perfect timing, turning their attacks against them.

Traumatize

Boost the damage of your takedown abilities, making finishers even more lethal.

Titan Stomp

Create a shockwave by slamming the ground, staggering nearby enemies and applying overwhelm, which makes them more susceptible to damage.

Warrior Abilities Skills

These skills enhance your combat abilities, making your attacks more effective and adding new effects.

Deadly Ground

Create a necrotic field that damages enemies over time while you’re inside it. It also grants you enhanced damage, making it a powerful offensive and defensive tool.

Critical Power

Gain enhanced damage on critical hits, increasing the impact of your high-damage strikes.

Arm’s Reach

Extend the reach of your smash abilities, allowing you to hit enemies from a greater distance.

Enduring Rage

Prevent your rage from decaying below a certain point, allowing you to maintain higher levels of power between fights.

Death’s Blessing

Increase your necrotic damage, making your dark magic-infused attacks more potent.

Explosive Toss

Charge your shield toss to unleash an explosive version, dealing area damage and disrupting enemies.

Enraged

Boost your rage generation, allowing you to use powerful abilities more frequently.

Enervation

Increase your damage against barriers, making you effective at breaking enemy defenses.

Killer Instinct

Enhance the stagger effect of your abilities, making it easier to disrupt and control enemies.

Inspiring Strength

Defeating an enemy with a smash ability rallies your party, boosting their performance.

Insidious Rot

Increase the maximum stacks of necrosis you can apply, enhancing your damage over time effects.

Shellbreaker

Deal more damage against armored enemies, making you a tank buster.

Salt in the Wound

Hitting enemies with duration abilities adds extra stacks to all active afflictions, worsening their status effects.

Time Management

Increase the effects of your duration abilities, making buffs and debuffs more powerful.

Spectral Bulwark

Enhance your defense significantly while active, and damage enemies who attack you in melee.

Shieldbreaker

Breaking an enemy’s armor or barrier with a smash ability grants you enhanced damage, rewarding aggressive play.

Wrath

Increase your critical damage, making your critical hits even more devastating.

Unyielding Focus

Using a duration ability grants you immovable status, preventing you from being knocked down or displaced.

Warrior Weapons Skills

Your weapon skills define how you deal damage and control the battlefield.

Cleaving Strike

Perform a sweeping attack that sends a damaging wave forward. The damage increases with distance, and it applies bleeding to enemies hit.

Breathing Room

Significantly increase the area of effect for your area abilities, allowing you to hit more enemies.

Bloody Vengeance

Apply bleeding with charged sword or axe attacks. Charged maul or shield attacks deal bonus damage to bleeding enemies.

Dazzle

Hitting multiple enemies with an area ability grants you quickened status, reducing cooldowns.

Critical Leverage

Your strike abilities are guaranteed critical hits against enemies more than ten meters away.

Concentration

Increase the damage of your charged attacks, making them more impactful.

Desolate Malady

Boost the damage of your afflictions, enhancing damage over time effects.

Decisive Finish

Improve the damage of your agile, charged, and final attacks, ensuring your combos hit harder.

Fury of the Forge

Rain down burning steel blades on enemies, applying burning and dealing area damage.

Fighting Dirty

Applying afflictions aligned with your weapon’s damage type when using strike abilities.

Determined Death

Hold down your final attacks to strengthen them. Releasing with perfect timing adds powerful weapon-specific effects.

Spill Blood

Increase the maximum stacks of bleeding you can apply, intensifying your damage over time.

Punisher

Deal increased damage with strike abilities against enemies with low health, ensuring you finish them off.

Incite Violence

Generate more rage from weapon attacks, especially against afflicted enemies.

Velocity

Increase the stagger effect from weapon attacks, making it easier to control enemy movements.

Underestimated

Deal more damage with light attacks against enemy health, making quick strikes more effective.

Staggering Finale

Boost the stagger effect of your final attacks, disrupting enemies even more.

Wear and Tear

Your area abilities gain penetration, ignoring a portion of enemy defenses.

Warrior Specializations

As you progress, you can specialize your Warrior into one of three paths: Champion, Reaper, or Slayer.

Champion Skills

Champions focus on defense and group support, enhancing their ability to withstand damage and protect allies.

• Bulwark (Penetration): Increase penetration to bypass enemy defenses.
• Blunt Force: Knock down enemies when their armor breaks.
• Executioner’s Gaze: Final attacks are critical hits against low-health enemies.
• Concussive Smash: Reduce enemy defense permanently with smash abilities.
• Heavy Hitter: Boost heavy attack damage.
• Guardian’s Reprieve: Heal yourself and gain deflection after performing a takedown.
• Flames of Victory: Gain flaming weapons after a successful takedown, increasing stagger from weapon hits.
• Overhand Smash: Deal additional damage and stagger with smash abilities against armor.
• Medium Armor Mastery: Enhance various attack types while wearing medium armor.
• Rolling Thunder: Follow up charged attacks with additional powerful strikes.
• Whirlwind: Unleash a spinning attack that damages everything around you, ending with a massive blow.

Reaper Skills

Reapers delve into dark powers, enhancing necrotic damage and afflictions.

• Breathing Room: Expand the scope of area abilities.
• Explosive Anger: Deal fire damage to nearby enemies when spending rage.
• Collateral Damage: Increase damage when hitting multiple enemies.
• Grappling Spear: Pull enemies toward you and follow up with disruptive attacks.
• Fiery Resolve: Gain flaming weapons on perfect defense.
• Pump the Primer: Enhance the effectiveness of overwhelm and sundered statuses.
• Heavy Armor Mastery: Boost defense and reduce the chance of being disrupted.
• Sly Strike: Deal bonus damage to afflicted enemies.
• Wildfire: Increase fire damage.
• Unbroken Finale: Add a powerful shield attack to your combos.

Slayer Skills

Slayers are agile and focus on ranged and tactical combat.

• Defy the Elements: Increase resistance to fire and cold.
• Carom: Enemies take more damage from environmental impacts.
• Bloody Advance: Throw blades that impale and bleed enemies.
• Eclectic Armorer: Gain various bonuses when wearing different armor types.
• Double Shot: Launch an extra projectile when using projectile abilities.
• Lingering Decay: Apply necrosis with duration abilities.
• Ignition: Gain flaming weapons after defeating enemies with weak point hits.
• Mortal Wounds: Increase weak point damage.
• Master Throw: Charge shield toss an additional level.
• Shot Chaser: Deal extra damage based on shield toss bounces.
• Staying Power: Reduce damage taken for each active duration ability.
• Staggering Toss: Convert rage into stagger with shield toss.
• Slam: Generate ultimate charge and rage after performing a takedown.

Maximizing Your Warrior Build

To get the most out of your Warrior, consider the following tips:

• Balance Offense and Defense: Don’t neglect your survival skills in favor of pure damage. A dead Warrior deals no damage.
• Use Control Abilities Wisely: Skills that disrupt or control enemies can turn the tide of battle.
• Manage Your Rage: Keep an eye on your rage levels to ensure you can unleash powerful abilities when needed.
• Adapt Your Equipment: Choose armor and weapons that complement your chosen specialization and playstyle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Which Warrior specialization is the best?

A: It depends on your playstyle. If you prefer tanking and protecting allies, go for Champion. Reaper is ideal for those who like dark magic and damage over time effects. Slayer suits players who enjoy agility and ranged tactics.

Q: How can I generate rage quickly?

A: Use abilities and attacks that have rage generation bonuses, like Masochism or Incite Violence. Engaging multiple enemies also helps fill your rage meter faster.

Q: What weapons are best for a Warrior?

A: Warriors can effectively use swords, axes, mauls, and shields. Your choice should align with your specialization—mauls and shields for Champions, swords and axes for Reapers and Slayers.

Q: How do I deal with heavily armored enemies?

A: Skills like Shellbreaker and Overhand Smash increase your damage against armored foes. Using abilities that apply Sundered can also reduce their defenses.

Q: Can I respec my Warrior if I choose the wrong skills?

A: Yes, you can visit a trainer or use a respec item to reset your skill points and redistribute them as you see fit.