Warrior Guide(2010)

This is a basic character builds faq, and should show you how to make basic builds, with stat allocation. For Mages, this is quite hard, so I've just listed some good groups of spells. Basically, with mages, you don't have to have an overall goal with your character. Generally, just picking whatever spells you feel like works fine. There is nothing stopping your healer from getting some DPS or crowd control, for example.

WARRIOR BUILDS:

1) Weapon and Shield Tank

Weapon and Shield, generally known as SnS or Sword and Shield, is the best class for a tank. Basically, the goal of this character is to a) get aggro and b) stay alive for as long as possible.

Talents

Talents wise, like most warriors, you'll end up with pretty much every skill in the warrior/SnS trees. At low levels though, you need to chose. You have two real options at low levels. You can go straight for Taunt and Threaten, so your character keeps the aggro. However, you'll die fast. OR you can go straight for Shield Wall, to have higher armor and stay alive. Eventually, you'll want both.

You have two sustainables to chose between. Shield Wall and Shield Defense. Shield Wall gives you a big armor boost, so enemies do less damage. Shield Defense increases Defense, so you get hit less. It is really up to you. However, Shield Wall gives you immunity to knock down, with Shield Expertise. In my opinion, for a dex tank, Shield Wall is better at low levels, because your defense won't yet be high enough to dodge a lot of attacks. At higher levels, Shield Defense is better. But, against anything that does knockdowns, like Ogres, Dragons, etc, you want Shield Wall. Also, you should always have Threaten activated when you have it. Keep Shield Bash and Pummel off cooldown, to use as interupts for casters or grab/overwhelmers.

Specialisations

You want Templar/Champion, no doubt about it. Templar lets you wear Knight Commander Armor, for 40% spell resist, making Spell immunity possible with runes/spellward/ket to the city. The tier 2 Templar ability is also great for Curse of Mortality/Misdirection Hex. If your Mage has Glyph of Neutralization, though, it isn't necessary.

You want Champion for Rally+Motivate, which gives you a big defense and attack boost. It affects your whole party, too, which is awesome. Warcry+Superiority is also great, giving you an AoE knockdown, which can be used as an interupt.

Gear

Gearwise, it's simple. You want the biggest, strongest armor you can find. The best Armors are Juggernaught, for all-around usefulness, Evon the Greats is also very good (probably with Diligence gloves + boots) Knight Commanders, for casters, and Wade's Superior Dragonbone, for dragons. The Helm Corruption is brilliant for the final fight, with 75% spirit resistance.

Also, to meet 42 strength, you need the Ornate Leather Belt, Key to the City, Harvest Festival Ring, Helm of Honleath.

Weapons wise, use a dagger. That way you get increased damage from dexterity, which you'll be pumping anyways. For your shield, the best shield in the game is Howe's Shield, which you get during the Landsmeet part of the main quest. However this is very late in the game. Other good shields, which you can get earlier are Eamon's Shield, the Champions Shield*, and the Aeducan Shield*.

The best rings are the Key to the City, and Lifegiver. Ring of the Ages is also good, when you need fire resist. Spellward is imo the best Amulet, and the best belt is Andruils Blessing.

*Credit to Soteria, I had no idea of these. The Aeducan Shield requires you to be a Dwarven Noble. You can Pickpocket Vartag for the Champions Shield, which I'd say is the best pre-landsmeet shield in the game.

Stats

Stats wise, you want the minimum possible strength to wear the best armor, and everything else goes into dex. Lifegiver ring gives you plenty of constituition to survive grabs etc. I say 35 strength, because the gear I mentioned is easy to get (Key to the city, Helm of Honleath and Harvest Festival Ring) or cheap (Ornate leather belt). You could shave another 4 points off it with Vanguard and Andruils Blessing instead of the Ornate leather belt, but to get the Vanguard, you have to side with Caradin, making it not usable for everyone, and taking a long time to get, considering most people go to Orzammar last, that's a long way into the game. Andruils Blessing is really expensive, so I go with Ornate leather belt, which can be brought from Old Tegrin for less than a sovereign.

35 strength (including fade bonus)
Max dex
Base will
Base con
Base mag
Base cun

2) Two-handed Warrior

Thanks TheRage, and others, who've given information for this build.

2handed Warriors aren't the highest DPS class in the game, and they aren't the most defensive class. However, they have a lot of utility. For this reason, many have soloed nightmare with this class. Just a note for solos, utility is often more important than stats. For example, many who have completed solo nightmare with a 2h warrior have said they found Reaver better than Berserker. Because Reaver has utility instead of direct damage. In a normal class playthough, you don't need as much utility with other classes pitching in. As a result, many dislike 2h warriors, when they aren't actually that bad.

Also, consider using Heroic Offense on your 2h warrior early game, when you have a low hit rate. Late game, using Haste is a good idea, to speed up the 2hers slow attack speed. If you have a dual wielder in your party, though, maybe not.

Talents

Talents are the crux of the 2h build. Almost all of your damage comes from talents. Again, you'll eventually max all of your talents. Early game, though, you can't. Getting Precise Striking early on is recommended, because even pure strength, you'll miss a lot. Although at high levels, Precise Striking is often critisised, considering you hit most of the time anyway, it's actually very useful. Because it doesn't affect the speed of your active abilities. This makes is very nice, because of the increase in crit% and attack isn't really affected by the speed. The best Sustainable for a 2h warrior, and without it they'd be really bad, is Indomitable. This gives you immunity to Stuns and Knockdowns, which is awesome, especially against Dragons. As for active abilities, you want to get the Sunders asap. They might not seem awesome, but they actually attack twice. Other mentionable abilities are Critical Strike, which is great for shattering frozen/petrified opponents, and 2h sweep, a 360 degree attack, great for crowd control. Finally, Pommel strike. Don't use this against normal mobs, save it, so when your allies get grabbed/overwhelmed, you can save them. Also, powerful swings is good endgame, but don't bother getting it early, as your already low attack rating will become abysmal.

Specializations

Any specializations can work on a 2h warrior. It, again, depends on it's role. For pure DPS, Berserker is the best choice. Reaver is nice, for some utility, through Frightening apperance, and a little more damage. Champion is a very good choice, as Rally/motivate helps increase your low attack rating, and Warcry gives you another AoE move. Finally, Templar is good, for mages. Champion/Berserker is probably the best for team play, (assuming a team of a tank/mage/rogue/2h warrior), while either Reaver/Champion or Reaver/Templar is the best for soloing.

Gear

Gear wise, the best of the best is Warden Commander Armor. However, if you don't have the DLC, like me, you should go with Wade's Superior Dragonbone (thanks The Rage), because it gives bonuses to stamina regen and fatigue. In fact, if you're in a team where you're not the tank, Wade's Dragonskin could work, giving you a negative fatigue penalty. Other gear worth mention is the Harvest Festival ring, for +attack.

Weaponwise, the best are the Starfang, from the Wardens Keep DLC, and the Chasind Great Maul, for those without it. Keep in mind, the Chasind Great Maul is slower, but stronger. When you consider you'll be using active abilities most of the time, this speed doesn't matter.

Early game, you can get the Yusaris, from collecting the apprentices notes in the mages tower and killing the resulting demon. It has +10 damage vs dragons, making it a good choice for the High Dragon and Flemeth. There is also the Ageless, from defeating the dragon in the Orzammar Royal Palace.

Stats

For Stats, the 2h Warrior is the easiest. Simply, all points in strength. With the fade bonuses and armor, you should have plenty of stamina for your abilites. But if you really want more, you might want to put some points in willpower.

max str
base dex
base (or ~20) wil
base con
base mag
base cun

3) Dual Wield Warrior

The Dual Wield Warrior is the highest DPS Warrior class. Many believe it's better than a DW Rogue, but Rogues get a lot of utility. There are two main builds for Dual Wield Warriors. You can get minimum Strength for Massive Armor, and max dex, using dual wield daggers. This is the highest DPS on a warrior. Or you can go minimum dex for Talents, and max strength, using two full size weapons, to maximise your AoE damage.

Talents

Again, you'll max your Talents eventually. For a Dagger using Dual Wielder, you want to get Momentum Asap. You'll run Momentum, Berserk, Dual Striking all the time. For the Fullsized Dual Wielder, get Dual Weapon Sweep and Whirlwind as early as possible. You'll also want to use Punisher eventually. Focus of active abilities, rather than sustainables. You'll want to run into the battle, taunt, Whirlwind, Dual Weapon Sweep, Disengage, THEN activate your sustainables.

Specialisations

You want to spec Berserker, definitely. The last spec is up to the player. You can go Champion, for the AoE knockdown, Reaver, for a little more DPS, or Templar, to deal with mages. I'd recommend Champion, but it depends on the rest of your party.

Gear

Your Gear very much depends on what you're doing with your build. If you're tanking, with daggers, you should just use your Juggernaught/Imperial Legion/Knight Commander armor. If you're using two fullsize weapons, I'd recommend using Wade's Superior Dragonbone armor, because it has massive bonuses to Fatigue. I don't have Wardens Keep, so I can't vouch for that.

Stats

Again, like the SnS warrior, I'm assuming you'll use the gear I mentioned for the dex build. For the strength build, you have to have 36 base dex, so no items are necessary.

Fullsize

Max str
36 dex
Base will
Base con
Base mag
Base cun

Daggers

35 str +7 from items
max dex
base wil
base con
base mag
base cun

4) Warrior Archer

Many people overlook the Warrior Archer. I personally think it's better than a Rogue Archer combat wise in many respects, and is the best Mage-killer class in the game. You want Min Strength for armor, and Max Dex for Longbows*. I say this, because Strength and Dex both contribute 50% damage on Longbows. They both increase your attack. So once you have the strength for your armor, you should always max dex to get higher defense. Also, just fyi, I'm playing on console, so I don't have the Dex fix. For anyone else playing on the console, pump strength instead of dex, because the bonus from dex doesn't work. Imo, Strength/Longbow warrior is the strongest archer pre-dex fix.

*thanks BlackVader for testing Shortbows v Longbows!

Talents

For your Archery Talents, you want to get Arrow of Slaying ASAP. Imo the best way to build a Warrior Archer is to kill mages, and this is how you will do this. It does great damage on anything, and can easily hit over 600 damage. The next skill you want to get is Scattershot, your only real AoE skill. It is awesome on groups of enemies, particularly if you have a backstabber rogue. Especially because it doesn't have friendly fire. Also, you want to get Disengage, as you'll be wearing heavy armor and need a way to drop threat.

Specialisations

You want Templar/Champion for your Archer. Templar means you can get 100% magic resist, which is awesome, and further cemments this build as the best mage-killer in the game. You want Champion for Warcry, as the AoE knockdown is great when surrounded, and for Rally. Rally gives you a good attack bonus, which is important as bows miss a lot.

Gear

For Gear, I recommend going the 100% magic resist route, using Knight Commander's plate, 1 GM and 2 M Dweomer runes, and Key to the City. Harvest Festival ring is also good, for the +attack. For general play, use Evon The Greats' Mail and Wades Superior Dragonscale.

Attributes

Attribute wise, like most builds, it's really simple. Again, use the setup I described for the tank build to get +7 strength to wear heavy armor. You want to wear Evon the Great's Mail with Wades Superior Dragonscale for most of the game, but have the Knight Commanders Armor as well, for mages. Even with the penalty from Massive armor, it's worth it.

32 str
Max dex
base wil
base con
base mag
base cun

5) War Dog

I figure I might do a little section on Dog, since many people don't know how to build (it?). Dog can be a very valuable character. He hits high, and his Overwhelm ability is awesome. He is an awesome mage killer, as they almost never resist his overwhelm. Overwhelm should work on any human-sized character. Just don't try it on Uldred and expect it to work.

Talents

Talents wise, go straight to Overwhelm (top level of the War Dog tree). Then go for Nemesis. Any spare points should go into the top level of the warrior tree if you have it (it only seems to exist on a Human Noble for me (PS3) can anyone confirm when you get the warrior tree? I recall not having it at first, until Ostagar).

Gear

Gearwise, the best you can get is the Pure B*tch Braid, which you get from killing the High Dragon. As for the best warpaint, the best ones are the Kaddis of the Trickster (+3 damage) or the Warpaint of the West Hills, depending on if you want your dog to do damage or off-tank.

Stats

Easy, Pure Strength.

max str
base dex
base wil
base con
base mag
base cun

ROGUE BUILDS

1) Backstabber Rogue

The Backstabber Rogue is the most stereotypical Rogue Build. Imo it is one of the best builds in the game. Take a Dual Wield Warrior, take away massive armor, and replace it with utility through Stealth, Lockpicking, Traps (other classes can, but it's pretty useless on a warrior. You want to be able to use stealth and set them up.)

Backstabbers do some nasty DPS. Wether they do more than a Warrior is contriversial, but either way, it's very high.

Talents

Rogues are starved for talents. You can't max out all of your skills. I recommend you put only dex until you have 24 dex, and go straight for Momentum. Momentum is basically a flat 40% DPS increase, which is awesome. First level, though pick up Deft Hands as well as dual weapon sweep, as there are a lot of locks that you can pick in the origins. After Momentum, get Combat Movement, making Backstabbing much easier. Then I'd get Riposte, then get Deadly Strike before level 8. Then at level 8, you can take Lethality and Coup De Grace, which are cornerstones to this build. Then put your points into stealth. At level 13 you should have Master Stealth, Coup De Grace, Lethality, Momentum and Riposte. Then you can focus on specializations, after that, start putting points in the Dual Weapons line till expertise. If you're playing a Dex build, put the points from the Lethality line into lockpicking instead.

Specializations

For Specializations, the best one is the Assassin spec, for Mark of Death and Exploit weakness, although the others are worth getting. Then, you want to chose between Duelist and Bard. If you have another rogue who is a bard, take Duelist. If you're a Dex Rogue, take duelist for Pinpoint Striking. Otherwise, Bard is the best choice for a cunning rogue, as the songs are based off your cunning score.

Gear

Gearwise, you will be using light armor. You want gear to give you increase backstab damage.

Helm of Honnleath
Felons Coat
Red Jenny's Seekers
Silverhammer Tackmasters
Dusk Ring
Harvest Festival Ring
Andruils Blessing

The best Weapons are the Roses Thorn (main hand) and either the Crows Dagger (the t7 version with 3 rune slots) or the Thorn of the Dead Gods (t6 version)

Stats

We get 15 strength so you can equip light armor with easy to get/cheap items. Enough cun to open every lock on a dex rogue, or enough dex to equip the best daggers on a cun rogue.

15 Strength (including fade bonus, don't need any points if you're a human or a dwarf)
max dex (on a dex build) or 30 for a cunning rogue (for tier 7 daggers)
base wil
base con
base mag
30 cun (dex build) or max cun (cunning build)

2) Archery Rogue

Many consider the Archery Rogue to be one of the best damage classes in the game. They are also great for solo's. Most people don't understand that Solo playthroughs are all about utility, rather than damage, or stats. Backstabber Rogues/Dual Wield Warriors may be great at doing damage, but an Archer has the utility to shine in solo play. The Archery Rogue has two great skills, Shattering Shot, which stuns the target and all nearby enemies. And Arrow Of Slaying, which does extremely high damage, OHKOing most weak targets, especially useful for killing enemy mages. My personal suggestion with the Archery Rogue is to focus solely on combat until you have maxed most of the archery line and got Lethality. Otherwise, you may become one of many complaining about how Archers are underpowered.

There are two main types, once again. Dex or Cunning. Dex is better, damage wise, attack wise, and defense wise. But Cunning is the only choice on consoles. Cunning also has better Bard Songs, which will help your entire party.

Talents

Basically, either go for Shattering Shot, or Arrow of Slaying, straight off the bat. To do this, you will need to pump dex for your early levels. Basically, I'd go for Arrow of Slaying early, if you're playing in a party, or Shattering Shot for a solo game. You will want both of them in time. If you're going Cunning, you should also get Lethality ASAP, or you will suck.

Specializations

Archers will have a poor hit-rate, particularly if you're playing a cunning build. You will want to rectify this. You can either go with Duelist or Bard. Bard is nice, for Song of Courage, increasing your damage as well as your attack. Duelist gives you the Dueling Stance which boosts your attack, and Pinpoint Striking, which AFAIK can only be activated with a melee weapon. So you can switch to your dagger, activate it, then back to your bow. I recommend Bard, for Cun rogues, but it's your choice. You should definitely go Ranger for your second spec. No spec will give you more DPS than a pet, and your hit rate will already be taken care of.

Gear

Gear-wise, archer's are not dissimilar to backstabbers. You will get plenty of crits, through Critical shot, which has a low stamina cost, and a fast cooldown.

Helm of Honleath
Felons Coat
Red Jenny's Seekers
Silverhammer tackmasters/Bards Dancing Shoes/Cadash Stompers
Harvest Festival Ring
Dusk Ring
Far Song (if Cunning) Whitewood Bow (if Dex)
Adruils Blessing
Spellward (for the Willpower boost)

Stats

15 strength (for top tier light armor)
30 dex (if cunning) max dex (if dex)
base wil
base con
mase mag
max cun (if Cunning) 30 cun (if Dex)

Mage Builds:

You can’t really write out a “perfect” build, for a Mage. The thing with Mages, is that they’re all about Utility, rather than raw power (although they can certainly do that). You can’t min/max them like other characters. You can’t
do tests with a mage to compare builds, like you can with a dex v con based tank. Mass Paralysis might be a better spell than sleep, but it doesn’t have the Nightmare combo, it has a longer cast time. It’s all up to the player.

And then it matters on the player’s party. If they have Zevran, Oghren and Leliana, with a PC Mage, perhaps it’s best to go with an Arcane Warrior to add some kind of tank. But if your party is Alistar, Shale and a Dex-based
Zevran, perhaps it’s best to go with a crowd control caster.

So I’ve put down my thoughts on each specialization, on stats, on gear, and on the best spells for each job.

Stats

There is only one real way to build a caster mage, which is very simple; every point into magic. The only character who may not want this is an Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage, who may want about base 20-25 con, so they can cast spells using their health without as much risk (caster Blood Mages should only use health for casting Blood Wound, then they should switch back, as they are too frail to risk being low on health: a stray arrow could kill them, whereas an Arcane Warrior has the highest defense and armor in the game).

str - base
dex - base
wil - base
con – base OR 20-25 on a Blood Mage/Arcane Warrior
mag - max
cun – base



Gear

Mages don’t rely on gear nearly as much as other classes. Mages get a far bigger boost from a new spell, like Blood Wound, than they do from another 5 points in spellpower from a staff. Gear does help though. The best robes for a spell caster would probably be the First Enchanter’s Robes, although the Reapers Vestments are good for an Arcane Warrior character that doesn’t want to wear armor. Wear the Blood Ring + Lifegiver + Blood Gorged Amulet for an Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage, otherwise just wear the Key to the City + Ring of the Ages
+ Spellward.

Arcane Warriors should wear Evon the Great’s Mail + Wades Superior Dragonscale gloves and boots, as the stamina and fatigue bonuses transfer to mana bonuses. The Warden Commanders Armor is a solid choice too, but I can’t really comment as I do not have the DLC. The best weapon/shield for an Arcane
Warrior is the Spellweaver and the Fade Wall.

Staff - Staff of the Magister Lord
Robes - First Enchanters Robes/ Reapers Vestments/Robes of the Magister Lords
Amulet - Spellward/Blood Gorged Amulet
Rings - Ring of the Ages, Key to the City/Blood Ring + Lifegiver
Belt - Andruils Blessing

Credits to:Kelandria