From Duels Content

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See also: Warrior

Contents 1 Warrior Builds 1.1 Arms Warrior 1.1.1 Skills 1.2 Sledgehammer 1.2.1 Skills 1.2.2 Attributes 1.3 Shield Slam 1.4 Barbarian Battle Cry 1.5 Fortified Armor 1.6 Charge

[edit] Warrior Builds

Stamina and strength are a warrior's key attributes. Adding your attribute points to stamina will give you more health and adding them to strength means you will deal more damage (strength also adds a little to health). As you progress as a warrior, both stamina and strength will play an important role in your high path skills. As you build your warrior you can choose the stamina path to become a super stamina warrior or you can build up strength to aid in big damage and quick kills or choose a combination of both. Dual Wield builds attempt to do the most damage in the shortest period of time but specializing in a single weapon will give you a better attack power earlier in the game.

[edit] Arms Warrior

An effective opener is Arms, a tier 1 skill available for the High Path of the Warrior. Arms works by adding up to 28% of your strength as separate damage to your successful attacks. Thus, by having 100 strength and five skill points invested in the Arms opener you would cause an extra 28 damage for every successful attack.

Since the release of Duels 2.0 and actions, Warriors can use the Berserk action. Berserk is an action only available to those who have chosen High Path of the Warrior. It has no cooldown period meaning it can be used every turn. Berserk increases the strength of the user by 19% for four turns, so now instead of having 100 strength and doing 25 Arms damage per attack, you have 119 strength and do 29/30 Arms damage per attack. Because Berserk stacks, using Berserk repeatedly can increase your strength exponentially. For example, in turn one (starting at 100 strength) you would have 119 strength, on turn two you would have 141 strength, and on turn three you would have 167 strength. Good weapons for this skill include The Maelstrom's Fury, Slotted or Enchanted Gleambreaker, Razan's Black Widowmaker, Razan's Decapitator, Razan's Throat Opener, Tong Lo's Katana, and Avika Krauss and the Kehran Blade (note that Avika Krauss can only be wielded on the off hand). If you perfer shields, good examples are Sanctuary of the Sphinx, and Razan's Iron Abhorrence. If you are on a budget, then good epics would be items like Retractable Mechanaguard, and Crest of the Phearaux for shields. As for weapons Blackwarder Hatchet and Blergonite Hatchet offer high strength bonuses.

[edit] Skills

Path of the Sword
Dual Wield	1/1
Ambidexterity	5/5
Blunt or Edged	5/5
Armor	5/5
Quickness	5/5
Fortitude	5/5

High Path of the Warrior
Arms	5/5

Because arms is a tier 1 skill, you save 10 points to spend in your base path skills. Many Arms Warriors will spec into Dual Wield to get maximum benefit out of the bonus damage. Many arms warriors also spec into Barbarian Battle Cry.

[edit] Sledgehammer

Sledgehammer is another popular tier 1 opener. The basic strategy is to use Sledgehammer when you know your opponent will try one of two things: they are going to try and deal as much damage as possible to you to end the battle quickly, or they're going to drag it out and wear you out over time. Beware opponents with high dodge: if you can't hit them then you're less likely to get critical hits and the Sledgehammer armor reducing effect won't trigger. Since you'll only be using one weapon, you'll be able to stack up on armor to help keep you alive. Use actions to your advantage that help you hit your opponent like Unbalancing Strike, Bash, and Berserk. Stack the armor debuff with Pierce Armor and remember that Double Swing cannot be used (you only have one weapon!) and that Concentration bypasses the critical hit trigger!

Sledgehammer can now be used with shields, which means absorbed bash damage can actually increase over the course of a battle as the sledgehammer armor decrease takes effect. Additionally, your normal hits increase in damage over time as well. It is recommended to maximize the number of times you swing and sledgehammer processes to increase its effectiveness.

It's also important to note the requirements: must use a Sword, Axe, or Mace; you cannot wield a second weapon in your off-hand (but you may use a shield), and you must have 100 or more strength.

Sledgehammer is useful for dealing a lot of damage quickly by getting a high number of critical hits complemented with high strength. It's best used with a higher base crit %, preferably above 20%. Every time you land a critical hit on your opponent, it will reduce their armor by 20% of its current value. This acts like a stacking effect that allows you to deal even increasing amount of damage as their armor decreases. With a high enough crit %, your critical hits will quickly become massive blows. It's not uncommon to see an opponents armor drop close to or below 0, allowing for incredible devastating blows.

[edit] Skills

Path of the Sword
Shields	1/1
Edged	5/5
Armor	5/5
Offensive Power	5/5
Quickness	5/5
Fortitude	5/5

High Path of the Warrior
Sledgehammer	5/5

The remaining points can be put into another opener or shield mastery/bash

[edit] Attributes

Sledgehammer
Strength:	90
Speed:	0
Intelligence:	0
Perception:	0
Stamina:	40
Resist:	0

With these scores, you will do massive static damage with your Arms skill and still be able to hang in the fight for a while.

[edit] Shield Slam

Shield Slam is one of the standard builds but as of the 2.0 construct it is seen as less of a threat than some other warrior openers. A shield slam build will need at least 11 skill points invested in the high path of the warrior but to be really effective 15 points should be invested so as far as skill points are concerned it is one of the more expensive openers.

Previously unreliable against other warriors who effectively nullified the opener using the action 'shieldbreaker', recent changes updated Shield Slams to no longer be considered blocks. At the start of the battle, the block percentage that you have becomes your percentage of executing a Shield Slam. Thus, after the battle begins, your block percentage is no longer connected or relevant to your Shield Slams. Since Shieldbreaker modifies block percentages after the battle has begun, it does not stop Shield Slam. The same applies to Enchanted Shield and Parry actions.

It is possible to parry 'shieldbreaker' with the action 'rune of the void', although it is pretty random. The green shield wall action adds a great deal of damage to the build.

It is generally not a good idea to have a high dodge% as a shield slammer because every time you dodge an opponents attack you have missed a chance to shield slam them. Both dodging and slamming result in no damage to the shield slammer however shield slam is preferable as you would have avoided damage AND dealt damage. There are few items with the attribute "-x% dodge", these are ideal for "Slammers". It is better if you avoid actions like 'Trap weapon' because when doing it you are in fact reducing your chances of Slamming your oponent, since he will not attack. It's more advisable to use 'Bandage' to heal yourself and provide a little more endurance, for instance.

Also, keep in mind that speed pumps up your Slam chances (that's what makes Razan's Shield of Abhorrence one of the most used shields by Slammers). For every 25 speed, you get +1% block. So, it's not bad at all if you get your speed up to 150. If you are using a +14% block shield, you will in fact have a 30% chance to block your opponent and present him with a slam (14% from shield + 10% from Shield Mastery [skill you NEED to have to be a Slammer] + 6% from having 150 speed). The downside is that by raising speed you will also raise your Dodge. To fight this, I suggest the use of sink trinkets and masks (-130 power rating, also lower your Dodge by 2 each).

[edit] Barbarian Battle Cry

This skill is very useful against Mages and Druids as it dramatically increases the ability to resist openers like Fire Shield, Insects, Blast Wave and Ice Storm and is also highly effective against other resistable damage like wand attacks and some actions. With five skill points invested in Barbarian Battle Cry (BBC) you will add 70% to your initial resistance. The added resistance does not last for the entire duel, the number of turns is your stamina/30. Your strategy therefore should be to get the duel over with as soon as possible before your resistance returns to normal. With high stamina, a little luck and an initial resist of 20% or over (90% resist is the cap) it is possible to resist all openers and wand attacks and some actions for seven or more turns. This opener is very effective and should seriously be considered by all warrior builds considering the power of wands and openers like Insect Swarm.

[edit] Fortified Armor

Fortified Armor adds 40% + 900 to your Armor Rating meaning attacks on the Fortified Armor user will cause less damage. It also adds 10% to your Resistance. When combined with a high stamina build it can make a warrior very difficult to kill. Each piece of armour has its own armor rating and there are several weapons that also have an armor rating. Shields have a high armor rating but use up a weapon slot meaning you are more powerful defensively but may be less so offensively. Its important to know that you should put only as much points as you need to get to 85-90% (the cap) absorb. Otherwise, you will waste points that could be useful in the low path. Great weapons for a high stamina build would be Toh Defender, and Ankh of Life. Great Shields would be Sanctuary of the Sphinx, The Maelstrom's Crest, and an inexpensive legendary Avika Krauss and the Face of Gurp.

[edit] Charge

Charge is the Warrior direct damage skill. It deals damage equal to 80% of the defender's health in direct damage (susceptible to damage reduction) when they reach 50% health for the first time, it cannot miss or be resisted. It also stuns the target for 1 round. This skill is most useful against low HP, low absorb characters such as dual wielding assassins and direct damage mages. Since the damage from this skill can be reduced drastically by a decent absord build, it is only useful in some situations. Using this skill effectively requires a very high strength since it does damage at 50% of health. It is a decent counter for an arms warrior who would otherwise be killed quickly by skills such as Stinging Poison (see High Path of the Assassin), Talak's Transformation (see High Path of the Mage) or Feline Ferocity (see High Path of the Druid).