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The Warrior
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Introduction
Over the years on AR and in other muds, many classes have been created and
swam or sank, but the first created of these was the plain old warrior,
and he will always be present in a mud in some form. He's the typical
fighter - he meets a foe bigger than he is, and then defeats it by slashing
it apart with a suitably large and powerful weapon. Warriors are often
the most important members of their groups, especially in the early levels,
because they alone have the necessary health and defences to safely take
the hits from the monsters for the rest of their party.
The warrior on Abandoned Realms often suffers from a bad reputation,
because he is quite powerful in early levels, and inexperienced warriors
often exploit this to bully other players (especially mages) who will be
recieving their powers much later. At the highest levels, a warrior is
at his most challenging to play, and there is much glory to be had for a
player who can do well on the grandest stage of them all - at the pinnacle.
I have tried to make this guide as exhaustive as I can, but this needs
to be stressed first. If you are having trouble fighting with a warrior,
your problem probably lies with the basics. Like, you forgot a purple
potion or your equipment isn't up to par. Get the basics down before
you move on to mastering the more complicated things, like grabbing a
style advantage to overhead crush after landing a dirt kick.
Review
Those of you coming in from other games or absence will likely know the
warrior as an "eq hog" kind of character. Dirt and disarm, and then
bash your opponent into the ground. Or sometimes, just plain bash them
into the ground. While this can work with warriors on Abandoned Realms
with a sufficiently large equipment advantage (and rest assured, if your
race has a vulnerability, its definitely happening to you sooner or later), skills
and other factors in the players control have quite an influence over
combat.
Before the guide may begin, here is a quick refresher on weapons and combat
styles:
| Weapon |
Type |
Attack |
Defend |
Attack (dual) |
Defend (dual) |
| Sword |
Blade |
High |
Average |
Average |
Low |
| Dagger |
Blade |
Low |
Low |
Average |
High |
| Axe |
Shaft |
High |
Low |
High |
Very Low |
| Mace |
Shaft |
Low |
High |
Low |
Average |
| Spear |
Shaft |
Low |
High |
Low |
High |
| Polearm |
Shaft |
High |
High |
- |
- |
| Staff |
Shaft |
Average |
Very High |
- |
- |
| Whip |
Segment |
Very High |
Very Low |
Very High |
Very Low |
| Flail |
Segment |
Very High |
Low |
Very High |
Very Low |
| Exotic |
Segment |
High |
Low |
High |
Low |
| Bow |
Segment |
Very High |
Low |
- |
- |
Weapon Type is a parry/disarm affecting matchup. If your weapon type is advantaged,
your opponent's chance to parry is lowered significantly (the same thing as
hitroll does). Its also easier to disarm the opponent's weapon.
blades > shafts
shafts > segments
segments > blades
This is not the be-all and end-all. A mace (high DEFEND) in a disadvantaged matchup
still parrys better than a whip. If you're tanking your vulnerability, the weapon
advantage will help, but the effect obviously isn't as big as that. This matchup settles
a lot of borderline cases though, and definitely helps make up for high strength difference.
Combat style is a dodge-affecting matchup for classes which learn the
"concentration" skill. Warriors have skills that depend on their combat
style matchup, so its especially important to focus on.
two-handed > dual wielding
dual wielding > shield blocks
shield blocks > two-handed
Get the advantage here, and you'll be beating the dodge defence a bit more
easily. Its just like hitroll. If your opponent is hobbled (can't dodge),
then some of your concentrated attacks do extra damage instead.
Prompt
If you want to be able to follow these variables effectively, you can
put the information in your PROMPT and then watch it in the battle.
Prompt options:
%a : Display your current weapon type matchup status (simple text)
%A : Display your current weapon type matchup status (descriptive text)
%b : Display your current weapon type matchup status (simple icon)
%B : Display your current weapon type matchup status (colored icon)
%u : Display your current combat style matchup status (simple icon)
%U : Display your current combat style matchup status (colored icon)
%w : Display your current combat style matchup status (simple text)
%W : Display your current combat style matchup status (descriptive text)
I use %B %U, because I find it easier to respond to color changes
than to trying to read words. Go with whatever works best for you.
Races
Ranging from highly dextrous elves to super-strong giants, the warrior
is made even more interesting because unlike other guilds, the class you
chose will make a big difference to your play style. Some skills will
be less effective, some will be more so.. health may be lower, but your
hits will come easier, and so on.
Warriors have TWO important stats, the others you will find are less
important. A bad constitution can really hurt your hitpoints at level
50 so of the others, that'd be the next important. Since every race
has quite different stats, the combination you have will definitely impact
your play style.
Strength: aids for parry/dual parry and performing skills like hobble, bash, disarm, combat skills.
Also, a good strength helps you loot people, since you can carry a lot of weight.
Dexterity: aids for dodge and performing skills like dirt, trip, follow-ups on disarm
| Race |
Strength |
Dexterity |
Innate |
Favored weapons |
| Avian |
Low |
Good |
Fly, Vuln Disease |
Sword, Whip, Whip off-hand |
| Drow |
Low |
V. High |
Sneak, vuln mithril |
Flail, Dagger, Dagger off-hand |
| Duergar |
Good |
Average |
Res magic, vuln water |
Flail, Axe, Dagger off-hand |
| Dwarf |
High |
Low |
Res magic, vuln water |
Axe (all) |
| Elf |
Low |
High |
Sneak, vuln iron |
Bow, Sword, Sword off-hand |
| Giant |
V. High |
V. Low |
Res weapon, vuln mental |
Polearm, Mace, Mace off-hand |
| Gnome |
Low |
Good |
Vuln bash |
Staff, Dagger, Exotic |
| Half-elf |
Low |
High |
- |
All |
| Halfling |
V. Low |
V. High |
res negative |
Staff, Exotic, Exotic off-hand |
| Human |
Good |
Average |
- |
Polearm, Spear, 2H Sword |
| Slith |
Average |
High |
Shed skin |
Spear, Spear off-hand, 2H Spear |
Perks (Racial Legacies, Innates)
As racial legacies are gradually being introduced into the classes
I thought it might be a nice idea to point out what I think are
some of the more useful legacies & innates available through race pick.
This may help you make your mind up if you are having trouble reaching
a decision. The racial legacies make it more attractive to play high-exp races
that normally wouldn't be quite as worth their salt as the traditional
human warrior.
Avian - dive charge is a splendid way to deal with flying AND mounted
opponents. Warriors will usually have a hard time keeping up with these.
Unfortunately charge is blocked by shield block, but wait! Your favored
weapons of whip and off-hand whip result in a most deadly barrage against
that. But beware of the disease vulnerability.
Half-elf - these guys get a 6/6 primary favored weapon and 5/5
secondary, with every single weapon. Very nice. Also half-elf
gets a boundless mastery legacy to grant minor healing when skills at
100% "improve" again. Definitely the one to pick if you are the
kind of person that trains obsessively.
Slith - a warrior-only race and for good reason, these guys have
a very high total str/dex and healthy con to boot. Often overlooked
is their ability to SHED their skin. When you're trapped in a
bad situation, like dropped sanc or can't flee due to hobbled/dirted,
this will break the fight and save your neck. Sliths can't kick, but they
make up for that with shed in spades.
Dwarf - very healthy and magic resistance makes this an excellent
choice for battling spellcasters with. The +10 damroll axe favored
is easily one of the best there is. Not bad at hobbling either with
their 22 strength. My favorite warrior race because of the magic
resistance (it saves carrying more equipment to wear than other races have to
deal with, and also lets you relax saves when you do need it, so you
have a better damroll when you take on spellcasters).
Duergar - Lacking the high strength/con of regular dwarves but higher
in dex, so if you think dex is better, then go for it. Personally I
like their favoured weapons - axe, off-hand dagger, and flail. All
excellent weapon types. Unfortunately after you play a dwarf (25 con)
the con of these guys just isn't as inspiring, especially with the
water vuln still present, but magic resistance is still present and
I already stated why that's a good thing.
Giant - they used to be the best, that's the past but they've
got some interesting perks. Their berserk does an elemental based
attack so save that up for when you're actually in combat. Favored
weapons of giants are ok, since one of them is polearm. If you play
a giant you will most enjoy their high strength for performing full loots.
The downside is the mental vuln, but you can protect yourself from it
greatly by using berserk, so being aggressive here pays off.
Cabals
Warriors are well-suited for cabals, being the guys that will take
the hits in the battle. If you join a cabal with a warrior, do not
be afraid of condeathing it, because they are always in the front
line and die first. This is not to say they are pawns, just that
they have to take the hits to keep their groups alive, and if a
group starts dying the warrior should be the one who died first,
or he just isn't doing his job right.
Justice - Warriors make good justices, but its a pain tracking
criminals due to movement issues, and also Justice doesnt really
need to war with other cabals much. A warrior isn't as fun if
you aren't going to be fighting with it. Still, a nice cabal to
join for the safety. Certainly a warrior Justice is the one who
will live the longest. A dwarf goes well with
the Justice cabal since the special guard can rescue you from the
vulnerability, and also since hitpoints will be so high because of
the 25 con and Justice shield, its easy to train some into movement
to cover for the mobility problems.
Legion - Being the most abused cabal is a bad place to be as a
warrior, with everyone chasing, the only time you'll want to
be a warrior Legion is definitely with support in some form. If
you can collect enough potions things should be better for you,
but remember that Legions get lots of enemies. Its going to get
killed a lot by that fact because of mobility problems, and of
course, getting heavenly wrathed by lots of furious paladins with
the most difficult class to regenerate with isn't exactly an easy life.
All the evil-only races (drow, fire giant, duergar) have either BIG
vulns or bad hit points, that dozens of people will be only too happy
to make the most of. So if you're going to make one, I'll honestly
have to recommend... slith. Shed your skin to get away from the
worst situations you end up in. Avian is a good second for the
reasons already mentioned.
Knight - A strong cabal for a warrior because stallions will ease
the mobility problems, keeping him alive a lot better. Although
the warrior will have problems getting kills, because most of the
players (and the ones you have to beat) are evil. This means that
they can all use protection to lower damage. Possibly even more
difficult than the Legion path, because there are fewer opportunities
to kill and the ones that come are made even harder by smart evils.
But stallions should keep you ticking longer of course. A storm giant
is a good fit for the Knight cabal (using stallions to overcome movement
issues caused by berserk).
Warlord - This used to be where a warrior belongs. Stance to lower
enemy damage saves the hardship of getting purples (which incase
you didnt know yet, can take away 25% of your moves in one go at
high levels, starting from the daycare). Forms adds HUGE damage
bonuses to your weapon attacks when applied properly. Its a
cabal made for warriors. The main drawback is that they cannot
use magic, but they will have skills for detect invis and a cabal
shop to buy the cures for some of the worst ailments. It isn't
necessary to join Warlords anymore because of the new skills, but
the long stance means its hard to screw up and let your protections
drop (unlike other warriors), plus Warlord foods save a lot of collecting
preps (which is a big deal for other warriors).
Weaknesses
Before launching into a full description of how the warrior class
works I figured I'd spare a few words for the people who are just
coming here to look for the ways to pile on the pain. So without
further ado here is a quick list, a warrior player will have to
be very careful not to fall prey to these problems:
Depending on preps
Preps are things like gyvels, purples. If you're a class with
scrolls (flight), summon, or a mage with spells, you can get
preps without much trouble. As a warrior, you're pretty out of luck
in this respect. Warriors need to stay near town to be able to keep
on getting gyvels, and if they want to get purple potions they've
got to compete with everyone else who gets them.
Consequently its pretty easy to predict that a warrior is going
to be walking to the large hobgoblins regularly. In fact you can
sit at the purples and tell a warrior "Its time to die!" and he'll
probably walk right to you. The spellcaster classes can also
locate for potions and find out if the warrior has low purples/no
gyvels/no detects. Its just a matter of learning what to locate
for. Best of all though, a thief can just blackjack him and
steal them all from him. Combine with use of invis elixirs and
this is a handicap for any warrior.
Another issue here is that the purple potions don't really last
very long. Cleric classes can easily run around and drain the
purple potions straight out of a warrior, with their curing
powers sustaining them.
Joining a cabal (especially Justice and Warlord) eases this problem.
Depending on equipment
Until you play a warrior class you might not really think about it,
but the class is very dependent on its items. If you want to fight
a shaman for example, you end up needing a bunch of saves, and that
forces you to drop damroll and hitroll, which just softens you up
for the kill. Low strength warrior races have a hard time
carrying everything they need, in particular. A lot of warrior
players just won't know what's the right attire to wear for the fight
anyway so they're handicapped. If you're a very high level warrior,
you'd want some strong rares before you get any ideas about fighting
anyone experienced. If you have a good set, you can definitely become
formidable. If you don't, you definitely can't. Pretty simple.
Mobility problems
Another huge problem for warriors. Basically if they use flight, it
messes up their skills - charge is disabled, bash and trip turn to
garbage, so does dirt. So to be effective in combat they can't. As
a consequence they have movement problems. You can run all the way
across the realms and recall all you want, and the warrior won't be
able to keep up with you. He's pretty good at keeping you *in* the
fight, of course, under the right conditions.
Spellcasters can take advantage of this particularly well because they
have weapon ward to protect them from skills already. The warrior
can use a flight potion and recall potions, with that considered, but
that's also a huge gold drain since they're both very expensive.
Health problems
Basically you'll have an easy ride against any warrior with a low
amount of hitpoints or an easy to exploit vuln. This is because they
can't recuperate well - they can heal a fair bit once with berserk, cutting
their movement points (and hence damaging their hope of running off), and
thats all they can do besides run like the wind, or eat a teleport pill and
risk exploding into pieces sending equipment flying all over Winter.
Because of this, one simple way to put the beats on a warrior is to just
dual backstab him first, removing most of his hp. The same idea goes with spells,
if its any sort of decent damage that goes around defences he won't be able to
handle it too well. Especially with no sanc. An invoker can rip a warrior with
ice shield and hellstreams, a very scary scenario especially from the neutral
or same alignment. Classes that can cure up better than warriors can
exploit this problem relatively simply.
That's it for the "killing warriors" tips, the rest of this guide is
intended to be useful for actual warriors.
Armor
It doesn't matter who you'll fight, as a warrior, you're going to have
to get equipment sorted out to be suitable for your opponent. Warriors
are a very equipment-based class.
These are the properties you're looking for on items:
Hitroll (to make sure your strikes connect)
Damroll (to make your strikes hurt more)
Save Throws (to help you resist the harmful effects of spells)
Stats (if skills/spells drop these, you won't be as badly affected)
Since hitroll bonus is based on dexterity, and damroll bonus based on strength,
you may find you have a natural ample amount of what you need. This means, when
you wear armor, you can go for the *opposite* of recommended. For example, a
halfling warrior (17 str/25 dex) will get lots of natural hitroll but has a poor
damroll.
There's some debate over which is better for a warrior - hitroll or damroll - and
there's no easy answer to that. When you're gearing for ranking, damroll always
seems better, and that's for a very good reason. Mobs almost always only have
one defence anyway. Also, if you just amass a big damroll suit, hitroll tends to
end up really high anyway.
The time to focus hitroll is when you have to fight against someone with
parry & dodge. This doubles the effect, which isn't far behind damroll to
begin with. Against two defences, hitroll leaves damroll way behind.
Shield block is NOT affected by hitroll.
This is a rough blow-by-blow for needs versus each class:
Warriors - use hitroll (2 defences AND blind fighting to overcome)
Rangers - use hitroll (2 defences AND blind fighting to overcome)
Berserkers - damroll (they rage, at which point its one defense)
Thieves - hitroll (2 defences)
Shadows - hitroll/save mals (blindness dust hurts, good defs but you can get by
them with weapon types/combat styles... shadows are pretty good vs warriors..)
Invokers - damroll/save afflictive (shield block isn't hitroll based
Illusionist - damroll/save mental (blur for defences, and illusions make dispel scarier)
Necromancer - damroll/save mal (zombies don't hit well, so you can flee from a dispel, but sleep hurts)
Healer - damroll (they cure so you need lots of damroll, take the dispels and flee to re-sanc with purple)
Shaman - a nightmare where you need everything!
Paladins - damroll/afflictive (good spell, good curing, but bad defences)
Dark-Knight - see shaman, but take out save mental
Hitroll sets:
silver/golden dragonscale
black-tear/tainted items
Damroll sets:
mithril/living wood
a mix of things with red dragon
Saves sets (sack):
blue steel, gold rings, mithril bracers, for save maledictive
red steel, thick marble rings, thick marble bracers, for save mental
crimson steel, bronze bracers for save afflictive
A lot of rare items are based on alignments. Your choices will be affected a
lot by that in the later levels. If you want the widest possible choice, go with
the chaotic neutral ethos. This way, you'll get to use the "wild" rare items that
are all chaotic-only, and also enjoy the freedom of choice in the non-rare items.
(Rares that aren't wild often require a dedicated alignment.)
Weapons
No warrior is complete without a selection of 3-6 weapons. You will need
at least a two-handed, a one-handed, something to dual wield, and a shield,
to be able to use all of the combat skills. Then if you want to worry about
weapon type as well (you will, with a low-strength warrior that the stronger warriors
can parry easily), you'll need additional weapons for that. Obviously use your
favored weapon if possible.
A list of some common weapons follows:
Blades
(2H sword) claymore
(sword) holy avenger
(sword) hell-blade, light enough to dual wield with holy avenger
(sword) a sword trapped in ivy
(dagger) a sai of lightning speed - dual wielding this boosts your dual parry skill
Shafts
(2H polearm) a notched polearm
(2H staff) a gnarled magius staff
(2H mace) a HUGE stone club
(axe) throwing axe
(mace) a baton of lesser disruption
(spear) a hell-spear
Segments
(2H exotic) any of the effigies
(exotic) a water cube
(flail) a wave churner
(whip) a whip of vines
(bow) an ashen longbow
Notes:
* If you choose the chaotic alignment you'll eventually be able to buy a good
selection of weapons from the darkhaven shops. These are special "wild" weapons.
Also, a number of the great rare weapons are chaotic only.
* A special mention goes to the Timaran weapon shops (take some bars from the
High Tower of Sorcery) since you can have the shop assistants craft you a
couple low-grade weapons, not bad if you don't know the good locations.
Levelling
1-4 arena
4-5 miden'nir
5-7 goblin village
7-8 troll den
8-9 elf valley/drkshyre wood
9-20 emerald forest/drkshyre wood
20-30 emerald forest/mansion of malevolent
Early ranks are pretty simple, being the mighty warrior that you are.
Rank to 4 in the arena and you'll be set for taking on the goblins.
Be sure to keep your face like stone here, and suppress any emotion
of enjoyment. That should get you into the warrior mood.
A related issue to levelling is where to spend your practices and
trains. This is pretty straight-forward though I'll cover it briefly
to be thorough:
1) Practices go into every skill available. Whatever you have left over,
convert it into trains. If you are dedicated, you can put one practice into
every skill and master them from low proficiency for more trains. It'll
mean having a more powerful character in the long run, but the work to get there
is very prohibitive, and you can look forward to getting pk'ed/mobdeathing due
to training so much. (For stone giants, 16 int means skills get to about 68% in
two pracs, with the third prac being worth only 7% anyway, it makes sense to
save it. For elves, you get 75% in one practice. This practice-saving thing is
pretty race dependent.)
2) Trains usually go into stats first. You can max stats with items, so not
always the case. If you don't max INT, that's not exactly a big deal since
warrior mana gains/regen is pretty moot anyway. The other stats are all
important to defences.
Max your str, dex to hit harder later (more +stat = more red dragon, etc)
Max your wis for the best shield block. If you want to rely on the
red dragonhelm for wis that'll probably work too.
Max your con for shield block & mana regen.
With con dropping 1 per 5 deaths, saving some trains to keep it decent is
a helpful thing to do.
Other things you can use trains for are health (pretty important for low-con
warrior races like elves, where hp gain is significantly lower than the
others) and movement (helps with mobility problems, although if you ever
use berserk, you've pretty much blew your movement anyway really).
Training
Since its gotten harder to train these days its worth spending the time on
it. Chances are if you fight some guy, they won't be trained up, so you'll
have an edge over them.
To train up at optimal rate, you need to fight mobs at a similar level,
or higher than you are. If they're a lot lower then you're going to be
penalised. Consequently some simple principles apply:
if you just "power rank", you'll have to train on hard-hitting
high level mobs. Defences will suffer noticeably. Either stop
and do it safely at a lower rank (which will take a long time) or tank as
much as you can while you level...
help out levelling groups to practice skills which you didn't bother with earlier...
use the surges to train - it saves time
Properties to look for are mobs that have extra defences, auras, and as
few offensive abilities (like dirt kicks, bash) as possible. These are
the common ones I think most people already know:
Level 5 - chickens in shire
Level 10 - hobgoblin soldiers
Level 15 - some mists
Level 20 - thalos cityguards (these have auras)
Level 25 - stone golems (very healthy)
Level 30+ - the bar rooms in Solace
Beyond that you're definitely on your own. Also, if you're going to train
a lot (i.e. obsessively), it'd be helpful for you to explore first to do the
quests, to get your rate a little better. You can also pick up some experience
doing that. Its good to do.
Potions
Potions are pretty useful since, well, warriors don't have any spells,
or the ability to recite scrolls, brandish staves, etc. This is the
only way a warrior can use magic. A good supply of potions used to
be the key to success with warriors. With the advent of combat styles
and weapon types, there are other ways to secure an advantage than
just "better equipment".
Common potions:
purple potions, sanctuary (the more the merrier)
potions of recall, 2 or more
gyvel potions, to cure blindness (4-7), keep them in inventory not sack
magic dust, for detect invis (8+)
spotted purple pill, to teleport (3)
anti-cyclops elixir
The sanctuary potion is by far the most important one here, due to its
large damage reduction. Find it, use it, and you'll find killing people
just got a hell of a lot easier.
Warcry
Warcry is some saves and hitroll, good to have that in affect all the time,
can't think of a reason why a warrior wouldn't just warcry at every available
opportunity.
Berserk
Berserk improves your hit/dam and mental saves, and heals you a bit, but it
makes your parrying harder. Why berserk? When the fight is close, and nearly
over, the hit/dam and heal is worth the short-term parry loss. Don't berserk
if you intend to run away because it cuts your current movement in half. Berserk
if they insist on fighting without sanc, that means your parry loss will be more
than worthwhile.
Berserk is something you can do as part of preparation, or you can save it
up for later. A lot of warriors berserk during combat, which is pretty
risky because failing one is incredibly damaging, but nevertheless many
experienced fighters still do that. Its obviously a good idea to berserk earlier against
match-ups where you really need the mental saves, especially for giants.
Reflex Mode, Riposte, and Kick
Reflex mode is a defensive state that:
makes your kicks "wind" the enemy, making him less effective
makes dirt kicks more likely to rub out sooner
increases your chance to riposte the enemy
limits you to one melee attack per round
Don't enter reflex mode just for the ripostes, thinking you'll riposte someone
to death. Its not going to happen. If you are attacked by a team of
people though, being able to riposte every attack is very useful. In
fact you can pump out an absolute ton of damage in that scenario, although it
will be distributed over the group. When you see an opening, you can then
snap out of reflex mode with any combat skill, bash, disarm, etc.
As for the riposte skill itself, that's a chance to launch a counter-attack
on the enemy when he attempts to strike. Its easier to do on someone who
isn't tanking you, and using overbear (double gripping a normally one-handed
weapon) also helps its success. Against opponents who just dual wield a lot,
and dual wielding back isn't a safe option (example, rangers that use double
disarm/bow alternately), it would be effective, so don't overlook it, even
though its not that useful all the time.
Combat Styles
This will just be a list of all the different things you can put
together and what they can do. It won't actually offer advice on how to
use them properly too much.
Dual wield: This is the offensive combat style, wield two weapons at
the same time for quite a few extra attacks. Enhanced damage does not
apply to attacks coming from a dual wielded weapon, for warriors. It
is possible to find a "dual parry" weapon that enhances that skill beyond
what it does at 100%. These weapons don't hit as hard as many of the
things that can be dual wielded, but its more damage than shield blocking
all the same. A more damaging option would be dual wielded flails
Dual wield is the style to use for the BARRAGE skill. (Prevents shield block.)
Two-handed: There's three ways to go with this, bows, regular and overbear.
Bows are hard counters for dual wield, blocked easily by shield blocking. So
they rip if you use them right (and its possible to soften the opponent up to
use them right). A regular two-handed weapon has an additional enhanced damage
bonus, but this won't put out as much damage as dual wielding (unless its a bow
in the right circumstances, of course). Pay special attention to "Overbear" - the
state of wearing a one-handed with double grip. This makes the weapon immune
to disarm, and causes arm distension when it blocks dual wielded attacks. An
overbeared vulnerablity weapon is formidable.
Two-handed is the style to use for the OVERHEAD CRUSH skill.
Shield block: The defensive style. Make sure you load up javelins when
your wear a shield. Then whenever you remove and wear the shield, the
javelins will equip with it. Javelins are thrown with the VOLLEY skill
whenever a shield blocking warrior attacks his opponent.
Shield block is the style to use for the SIDESWIPE skill.
Concentrate: This is a passive skill that makes it more difficult for
your enemy to dodge. It works only when you have a "superior" combat
style. If your opponent can't dodge for whatever reason, your hits
will damage more than usual when concentrate is applied.
Predicting your opponent's move
Before the fight begins you can make some predictions of the opponent's
weapon types and combat styles. These will be based mostly on the race
and class of your enemy. If your opponent is a mage or cleric, he should
have "weapon ward" in effect to prevent your skills anyway, so prediction
is less important.
First factor to consider is your opponents vulns. For example if you
fight a dwarf he'll be deathly scared of water weapons. Since almost all
of those are SEGMENT, the dwarf will use a SHAFT for the weapon advantage
over his vuln weapon. So you can show up wearing swords and daggers.
A similar affect occurs with giants and their mental vuln.
Next important factor is your opponents stats. A high wis/con means
you'll most likely find them wearing a shield, thus they'd possibly
be barrage bait. If they have a low con, for bad shield block, dual
wield is a more likely choice, for the damage bonus. This would mean
a bow ambush works pretty well.
Then there's whatever class they are. Rangers can either wield a bow
or dual wield to double disarm, shield blocking is the least likely
thing you're going to find (its completely open to barrage anyway).
A special note on warriors here ..warrior have race-based favoured
weapons, so you'll be able to make a guess at what weapon type you'll
find them using.
You can make predictions, and you can also think about what predictions
can be made about you, to decide how to open the fight.
Another thing you can predict is reactions. Its sort of preying on
people's own thoughtlessness. Like if you show up fighting a dwarf with
a shaft yourself, he might think to himself, "Oh! Time to wear a
sword to take that shaft out." And then you respond to his sword
use with wielding one of those vuln weapons he should be so afraid
of. Then kick dirt in his eye so he's stuck fighting it. Pretty
tough luck for him.
And then in addition to all that, if you fought the guy recently,
you have lots of time to adjust to what he was last using. Arrive
with the perfect set-up and hope for the best.
Two-handed is the safest set-up if you're worrying about being
predicted, but its also the least potent form of attack.
Ganks
Ganked (n. G-ANK-ETH-ED). To be caught with one's pants down, beaten
like a red-headed stepchild, fully looted, and left staring at the
screen in dumb amazement.
Ganks are very underhanded and will make you extremely unpopular with
other players. The motive behind the gank is assumed that its to win,
no matter the cost. Ganks are not "fair fights". People will complain
about you, any way they can think of. Make an evil character if you are
planning to gank everyone.
Warriors aren't very cut out for stealth so if you're going to gank
someone you'd need to be very quick. There's a few ways you can go
about ganking people with a warrior that work fairly well:
pay a visit to the training spots
bust them up while they're levelling or getting an item, not many
players are able to tank a mob and a warrior at the same time
attack people soon after logging in so that they haven't noticed
you yet and gone into protective shield / weapon ward / fly mode.
if someone has a vuln and you have the weapons handy, you can probably
annihilate them in 4-5 rounds (no sanc, of course) thanks to the warrior
wildness.
You might catch some other fighter by surprise using an invis elixir
to sneak up on them
Ganks tend to pay off better if you had good predictions (which has
a strong luck element), but can go horribly wrong if you made bad ones
against someone capable of concentration and with good reflexes. And
most ganks can be avoided simply by running, or using a recall potion.
Ganks are obviously easiest when you find an already hurt opponent,
since you can nuke them with charge and other finishing attacks (see
the section on finishing below).
Skirmishing (opening and closing battles)
When you first attack opponents, you get a round of attacks. They
don't. Simply put, skirmishing is the art of flee-murdering to
make that happen as often as possible.
Skirmishing is vital to use on clerics and spellcasters. These
classes use spells which deny your skill inputs (like bashing
or disarming them), and do a lot more damage than you through
their spells. You need to skirmish with them to make up ground.
Skirmishing is not so effective on people with good defences and
dirt/hobble to make fleeing a bad idea (i.e. warriors). Elves and
drows make pretty good skirmishes due to their autosneak ability -
this makes it difficult for your opponent to see you coming, or going.
The high dex makes it difficult to dirt them as well. However it'll
be wrecked and raped by hobble if you try it on a class with access to that.
Charge - this skill is possible with spears, polearms, but blocked by
weapon wards. It is an initation attack with long lag. This is more
of a "finisher" than a basic skirmishing skill because of its large
damage and long lag, and in the classes where charge is better than
murder (e.g. rangers, dark-knights) they'll dirt kick you to discourage
fleeing. So basically, you'd charge once to start the fight, and then
possibly charge again later to end it. Not really skirmishing.
Creating openings (mid-battle)
Skills make up the meat of fighting with other warriors and most rogue
races. A good place to start is to try to match combat style/weapon type
as your race dictates necessary (for example, a giant can bruteforce
his way with high strength for parry, but combat style helps him to
stop people dodging - a halfling has no problems with dodging but
needs weapon type advantage to get around people's parry). From there,
you may use hobble (str) and dirt (dex) to discourage the enemy from
fleeing (these are skills which usually collapse the opponent if he
flees, so they'll be chancing staying in the fight until they've worn off).
You will then have enough time to use a proper combat skill before the dirt
kick or hobble finally runs its course and they flee out (if that is
what they choose to do).
Dirt - dirt has a good duration, and despite negligible looking damage, they'll get
stuck unable to change combat style or weapons, so any advantages the opponent had
at the time stay. If they flee they just make it last longer, and maybe even
fall other. The major counter to dirt is to be on water, but that comes with
disadvantages of its own - can't dirt anymore, and high movement costs. So there
are good reasons not to use that counter, and instead stay potentially dirted.
Fortunately, blind fighting negates the attacking and defensive penalties
caused by dirt.
Hobble - this doesnt have a good duration, but its a much better damage skill and
longer lagger than dirt. There is no counter to hobble (other than weapon ward,
unfortunately), but it requires at least even combat style to be able to use it
on another player. If you have to stay out of it, stay out of that scenario.
You would definitely need to put effort into avoiding getting hobbled with those
high dex races - losing dodge is a bigger deal for them since its their best defence.
It has a short duration, but fleeing from hobble is made more dangerous by combat-style
advantage dependent attacks that are incorporated into the concentration skill. So
you'd definitely not want to just flee from it right away.
While you are dirted or hobbled, the thing to worry about is the skill follow-up
that's going to happen next. The usual response to dirt is to try it in return,
but if your race is pretty high strength the better response is hobble, since
thats more likely to work. With hobble, you can actually see, so you can get out
of the inferior combat style, then try to do it yourself. There's plenty of
time to do that since your attacker will still be in a delay.
If the opportunity already presents itself, it is sometimes better to go straight
to using the combat skill if they're already open to one, because those
have much better effects.. like shutting down shield block, disarms, damage
and of course lagging the opponent. Especially with dirt, which has little
effect besides stopping them switch. Barrage also does that (it causes an arm
distention that leaves them unable to use two-handed or dual wield).
NOTE 1: It is possible against novice players to kill them with these
"opportunity makers", because they do not know what they are doing and
they will try to flee out of it. If you see someone getting pawned by flees
at this stage, do keep in mind, you might be screwing over a newbie because
its usually a big mistake. This can be thought of as the "basics", there is
a hell of a lot more potential to a fight than just hobble and dirt.
NOTE 2: These can be very dangerous skills because getting trapped in a
fight is doubly punished when you have a sanc and they don't.
NOTE 3: You might want to get these skills done fast against classes that
are strong skirmishers. Rangers are a good example, because they can repeatedly
go shield/javelin-murder for extra attack, and then go bow-flee for a parting
shot as they go away again. And also races that autosneak, they're much less
annoying once they stop fleeing. Make them stop!
Follow-ups (Combat style skills, Disarm, Shield Disarm)
After you have pinned the opponent in the fight with dirt kicks / hobbles, you
now have an opportunity to use one of your good skills before he flees. If he
actually does flee, you are probably in a good position to use your finishers,
so skip the rest of this section.
There are two ways you can go - the combat style route, or the weapon type
route. Seize the opening to secure an advantage, and then milk it before
he recovers. It is possible to secure BOTH advantages at once, that's a little
advanced, but the rewards are there if you're able to do it.
A word of warning - while these skills can definitely help turn a disadvantage
in equipment around, its not true for the preps. Sanctuary/No sanctuary is
a vast difference. If you're tooling around here and let your sanctuary go,
you're one dirt kick away from getting manhandled. Stay conscious of that
affect's duration.
Combat style route
This includes:
Overhead crush, or switching to bows (two-handed vers dual wield)
Sideswipe, or equipping javelins to volley (shield block vs two-handed/bow)
Barrage, followed by shield disarm (dual wield vs shield block)
Securing a weapon type advantage makes overhead crush and sideswipe work
even better. They'll work well without one, but that can help.
Note that ALL of these skills are blocked by spellcaster weapon wards.
Weapon type route
Disarm:
Disarm's primary attribute is strength
Disarm is heavily dependent on weapon type advantage
Warriors get "favored weapons" helping predict their weapon choices
Most people trigger wield so generally you need to dirt first
1) Warriors can "spin bash" if they disarm with combat style advantage,
to lag the opponent. This is a dex based attack. Since dex races
are less effective with the combat skills for strength reasons, it
works out better for them to go the weapon type route.
2) If you are one of those high strength warriors eating a vuln, disarming
the weapon saves you pain for a while, so its more of a defensive skill.
Overbear (wielding a normally one-handed weapon):
Immune to disarm
Arm distension caused when parrying an off-hand attack / parried by off-hand
Riposte bonuses
Combinations
"Combinations" - attacks you can string together in succession for
an effective result. And no, its not just bash, or flee/charge, flee/murder
etc. Here are some good combinations to try for you.
Dirt/Disarm: Since the opponent is blind, he can't re-wield his
weapon, and won't be able to parry. Or do damage much.
Hobble/Bash: After the hobble, he's unable to dodge and won't like
fleeing. He's also more susceptible to bash. Punish him.
Hobble/Murder: The guy is standing in the battle not wanting to
flee. This doesnt mean you can't flee and get some nice murders in.
Barrage/Bow: The arm distend breaks shield block, leaving the
opponent wide open to bows. This will be a lot of damage, if
you can get enough done before barrage wears off.
Finishing off hurt opponents
Finally we come to the end of the fight. Use these kind of tactics
when you have the fight comfortably WON, to finish off the opponent.
But how will you know that?
First of all you need to recognise when your opponent has gone into
"flee mode". This means that he is no longer reacting to whatever you
intend to do to him, and likely just fleeing instead. Essentially its
back to skirmishing again. For this reason, you'll probably want to
switch to dual wield for as much damage as possible. You should have
a comfortable lead anyway. Of course if you feel the battle is going
to be won comfortably as things are, there's no reason to change.
Secondly the lag skills, bash and trip.
Bashing and tripping dizzy your opponents off balance, preventing them from
doing anything ..obviously including fleeing the arena. These skills
are what make warriors deadly, because if an opponent is near-death,
a bash will make sure he stays where he is and dies on your weapon.
Keep in mind though that these sort of skills are not effective
enough to just spam from the start - they have a good chance of missing,
and then you will be left wide open to the rest of your opponents skills.
Lagging mages and clerics will kill them easily, however they have skills
to protect them from this, so only incompetence wins you that fight.
Of course, it happens... so its worth trying occasionally, but if they
are really badly hurt, its probably not going to happen.
Lagging warriors and rogues is a bit tough with bash and trip because
they have dodge. Its easier to miss. Because hobble is such a good
lagger on fleeing targets, it may work better in place of a lag skill
versus that kind of class. Look out for warriors using berserk to
get some last-minute healing and hit/dam though, this can (and often
will) swing a fight that appears to be over.
There is no point in lagging if you are not outdamaging your enemy.
Unless your lag skills are going to provide enough damage to turn the
fight in your favour. If you are unsanced vs sanced and spam bash, obviously
you're going to lose, without your opponent having to even do anything, because
he's still going to do way more damage than you.
Lastly, charge.
If the opponent is hurt really badly, and has a reasonable
change of blocking a nice dual wielded flee murder, then by all means,
try to finish him off with charge. This works on flying
opponents that have forgotten their weapon wards, because they get
lagged. Against other opponents, might not be as successful. Its
something to try though.
Group Warfare
Fighting in group vs group doesn't totally change your warrior's playing
style (you're probably still going to tank), but there are some things that
require special mentions..
Warrior groupmate
A very race-dependent group, here you'd both play to your strengths (if you
have strengths), you'll probably be trying to chain lag. Of all the group
combos I can think of, this one is probably the last I'd really want to try.
Pros:
Double the warriors is double the damage
Stacked dirt/hobble is high chance of lag for anyone trying to flee - the
first attack may also be the last
Cons:
Won't do well against mages who can just protect with spells and word
Vulnerable to big AOE thanks to time-consuming hp regen for warriors
Takes a lot of potion consumption to keep going, so you'll be by the purples
Once your groupmate is dead/looted he's seriously out of the game
Can be difficult to decide who should lead
Mage groupmate
Things that go together absolutely GREAT are dispel magic (strips all
spells from the opponent) and lagging skills. If the guy you're fighting
has to tank an unsanced warrior with no sanctuary, he's going to die real
fast. Skills that lag him are absolutely deadly in that situation,
since once dispel hits, mages will put out the damage with AOE as well. All
you have to do is keep someone there to take it. Warrior/Mage groups are
not to be messed with.
Pros:
The mighty dirt/dispel/(hellstream, acid blast, whatever)
Warrior sweet tanking complements mages amazing damage spells
The mage can enhance the warrior with spells
The mage leads while the warrior readiesattacks - its straightforward
Cons:
This group doesn't have dedicated healing
A mage under attack will quickly be forced to abandon the warrior (you
need to rescue him if you don't want to lose him)
Cleric groupmate
Clerics have healing, but they also have dispel magic. The clerics don't have the
same big damage spells as mages, and they usually have a lot of DISABLING spells like
curse (no recall), faerie fire (no hiding), insomnia (no sleep), blindness, blasphemy,
etc, so they forget the good old dispel magic. You will probably
have to remind them to forgoe that stuff and just dispel magic to make the enemy
die in a few rounds.
Pros:
If your group is wounded its easy to back off and heal and then bounce
back all ready for more
An attacked cleric fares better than mages (rescue won't be necessary as
long as he's smart enough to flee behind)
Since clerics are pretty safe, they can command without pressure, even
in the heat of battle
Cons:
Lacks the finishing power of other combinations
Thief groupmate
Not much to offer in the melee department (thieves take a hit to health
and attacks for their stealth skills), a thief is probably most useful
for picking off the opponents resources. He can steal sacks, potions
of recall, purple potions, lights. Once the battle begins, you've got
the dilemma of a groupmate that has mage-like hp without the dispel
magic. Its hard for them to be useful beyond kicking dirt and stealing.
* warriors are not high-maintenance for preps, all you'll need is a few
purples and gyvel potions, occasionally detect invis, and its good to go.
* use the colored icon prompts, they may be the hardest to start with but
the easiest to use in the long run (its much easier to respond to colour
and shape changes than trying to read the matchups)
* warriors rely on their physical force to win
battles - both training your warrior and improving your equipment are both
quite important steps to making a successful character.
* warriors have mobility problems, and flying harms their skill success
rates, so its important to learn the land to be able to use movement
effectively. Also, try to sleep to recuperate it when the opportunity is
available
* warriors get killed! You'll die, that's a trade-off for being such
a lethal weapon. Pick yourself up and don't whine about it.
There's probably plenty more I can impart and things that can be improved
on but, hopefully, I have achieved my goal of showing you that there is
much more than plain ol' hack n' slash to this boring old class, and
convinced a few more people to try them out seriously at the pinnacle.
-Siathanz, Challenge of Warlords (warrior)
-Thremus, Arbiter of Justice (warrior)
-Aranoth, pirate navigator of the Seaforth (ranger)
-Maxlhorn the Mad Cow (berserker)
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