Celtic Heroes

Teaweasel's Primer for Warrior's for Update 3

I know warrior's have been looking for a guide for a long time.  I can offer a few tidbits of knowledge, but really nothing compared to what full time Warrior beta testers can tell you.  The fact is making a build in terms of stats is something that's quite personal in terms of Tank or DPS.

I can tell you how the game has changed for the warrior moving forward and how this may affect your build.  But I can't at all help you build one, because I just honestly lack the experience with the class in beta.

Skills in General

I should have written this when I wrote all my other guides but the fact is, I didn't know.  The skills we are testing in beta are the skills all slated for the classes.  But they aren't the skills you are going to have as soon as you load into Update 3.  Each Class has 1 skill they quest to get in the otherworld, and their other skills are drops.  Where do these skills drop?  How often?  Yeah, I have no idea.  I can tell you what is coming for your class, but really you will be dealing with your original skills until you get more.  Which is why skill changes should be more your concern than new skills.

Skill Changes:

Shield Bash (Vitality)

Shield Bash is a legitimate Tank's Saving Grace.  It's a 5 second stun that literally freeze another player from using even their map screen, they are frozen unable to do anything for 5 seconds.  Same with bosses, if not deflected a series of 6 Tanks could time their bashes to freeze a boss indefinitely.  Now this is highly unlikely since bosses can dodge your skills, but the fact is, it could happen.  In PvE Shield Bash Taunts as well, in PvP it freezes the target for 5 sec, which isn't huge if you think about the casting times for your other skills, but it does interupt any spell or skill being cast, including a Druids Touch.  The cooldown for this skill is 30 sec, and it skill up/lvls up the mob's or players it effects, more points, higher lvl effected. It's DMG runs on vitality, the only tank DMG ability to run on vitality.
  Shield Bash = Tank's Secret Weapon.

Skills

You will see quickly that the Warrior is now firmly divided between DPS abilities and Tank abilities, now obviously both builds uses STR and VIT, but Warriors with more VIT will find their Tanking Skills much more effective, and Warriors with more STR will find DPS skills more effective... Please study the list of skills and their stat attribute variable.  Skills with a * are new.

Giant Swing STR
Pummel STR
*Sweeping Blow STR
Defensive Stance VIT
Frenzy STR
*Enduring Guard VIT
Taunt VIT
*Warcry VIT
Shield Bash VIT

Additional First Aid Skills

Bandage Wounds VIT
Rejuvenate VIT
Meditate FOC

Weapon Delay and Skill Casting Time

A new degree of skill casting is in all Melee classes (Ranger, Rogue, Warrior) casting times.  Well not all but the skills that contain it.  For Warrior its Giant Swing & Sweeping Blow.  These skills casting time is relative to 75% of the weapon delay they are using, but the DMG of their same weapon will show up in the DMG of the skill.  What this means is = slower more powerful weapons will hit harder with Giant Swing, but cast slower.  This doesn't effect gloves of haste or anything like that, we tested it in beta, a warrior with gloves or without still swings same as their 75% weapon delay.
Admin has explained that with the new skill system that more powerful weapons threatened to destroy the balance so they tempered the skill times of using these weapons.  This allows for further addition of more powerful weapons than winterking (probably DragonScale) tempered by the same constraint.

We have tested the Winterking weps, and you will notice a slower cast time, but you will also notice a higher skill hit.  It will depend on the situation whether it's better to rock a King wep or a meteoric, and warriors will need to figure that out on their own.


New Skills

WarCry (VIT)

Your AoE Taunt.  Honestly I view this as more important for lvl 130+ Warriors adventuring thru the lava fields to meet the dragon and the sick aggro of those areas.  The Otherworld in general has ballooned aggro, and you may need to protect your more squishy teammates at times, but largely it's a skill that has use, but at the same time won't be in your initial skills to begin with, so I would take note of it's existence and roll on.

Sweeping Blow (STR)

Interesting Skill.  It's an AoE attack but the AoE seems most concentrated in front of you.  I have charged into a pack of mob's and hit them all but the ones in a 180 degree arc in front of me take the brunt and those behind take a 10% of DMG pittance.  It's an effective mop up skill if a Mage's Firestorm explodes over a ton of mob's and your War Cry is on cooldown.  Also once you grab it it's not a bad leveling tool.  The bad issue however is the cooldown, it's a full 30 sec.  So you can't in any way use this repeatedly in any context.  In PvP in the Arena however, it's a freaking killer.  A Winterking Hammer Sweeping Warrior might take a long time casting, but they will wreck shop in the arena with this skill.  This is a skill that has it's uses, and if your warrior has plenty of strength it is effective, but it's not gonna win any cooldown awards, and WarCry is probably all a tank needs if you don't have the STR to support it's use.

Enduring Guard (VIT)

This skill raises the Physical Skill Evasion resistance for the Tank.  Which means that bosses/mob's/players that use Pummel, Giant Swing, Sharp Shot, Beatdown etc etc physical skills to attack a tank.  This skill raises your chances to deflect those and render them negated for no DMG.

Important to note that all classes have the ability to quest for Fortitude the ability that raises your Physical Skill Evasion resistance naturally.  But along with a high vitality a tank can become very very resistant to physical skills and it's quite useful staying alive in boss fights or in pvp vs other warriors, rogues or rangers.  Please note that Rend, Barbed Shot and other DoT's aren't effected by this skill, just the direct DMG abilities.

Also note that it only lasts for 30 sec and the cooldown is a full minute.  So you can pop this up (almost instant skill cast) and use it and then go back to being vulnerable again, and time when you use it based on when the boss uses their attacks.

Conclusion

Listen, as you have seen in my other guides I would argue for both tanks/dps not to push their skills past 17-18/25. The energy needed is truly insane.  I say this knowing that you have an offhand and a regen ammy and at least full warden, the fact is the energy will pwn you past 20/25.  So in terms of builds, how much Focus does a Warrior NEED?  The truth is, I have no idea.  I made a warrior to test the skills in beta, but I don't play one in beta.  I know that healing warriors fighting Otherworld bosses, they were using restoration pots to heal energy not health, it's that extreme.  I would guess you need more than 80 energy, but it's my guess not my knowledge.  Aileron, Frank, Deuce, LordDragoon, Paddy they would all know, I simply don't.

I think you will find that the Warrior class remains a standard fun class to play.  With high temerity, and also if chosen high dps.  You will need some focus though, and I leave that up to you to figure out.

I can answer some basic questions, but I really don't know jack, I had research this report.

Thnx tea I know u worked really hard on these posts so I think u deserve a good thank u from the community

Great job with all of your guides Tea, and thanks for putting so much effort into them

Omfg

I spilled noobsauce all over myself writing this primer, for some reason I thought Sweeping Blow was called Whirlwind Attack, and then playing Beta tonight I found a Warrior +1 ring to Sweeping Blow on my Druid and I was like omfg, you noob!!!

So yeah, no whirlwind attack, it's a sweeping blow.

Thanks tea!! Totally AWESOME guide!! You definetly put a lot of effort into it, good job!!

Thnx tea I know u worked really hard on these posts so I think u deserve a good thank u from the community

+1

Thanks tea for that

Wow tea... u r one of the most helpful players i know... these guides are great!

One thing, it's Protective Stance, not Defensive Stance. Everything else looks great

Now shield bash is working with STR. It is not correct!