The Warrior class in Dragon Age Inquisition gives players the option of becoming rock solid defenders, ever-present guardians, or rage-infested destroyers.
The options available through a total of 5 possible skill trees (4 default and 1 specialization) gives on a lot of options.
For more help on Dragon Age Inquisition, read our Party Builds Guide, Warrior Class Guide and The Fallow Mire Side Quests Guide.
Dragon Age Inquisition Warrior Class Builds
It’s hard to go wrong when building your character, but that doesn’t mean how you develop your party member won’t affect the ease and outcome of the battle.
For this reason, a good build for each member of your party is extremely important to have synergy, both individually and overall.
This guide will go across 5 different builds for the Warrior class – one for each specialization, and two that focus on the four basic skill trees. We’ll be using level 18 as standard for all the builds.
Note: Skills with the “+” sign indicate that their upgrades have also been invested in.
Warrior Class Build #1 – Berserker
Equipment: Two-Handed Sword
Two-Handed
- Mighty Blow
- Shield Breaker
- Whirlwind +
- Block and Slash
- Flow of Battle
- Pommel Strike
- Guard-Smasher
Battle Master
- Grappling Chain
- Crippling Blows
Vanguard
- War Cry
- Charging Bull
Reaver
- Ring of Pain
- Blood Frenzy
- Rampage
- Fervor
- Scenting Blood
- Devour+
- Dragon-Rage
The Reaver specialization unlocks some of the most offensively devastating skills for the Warrior. This build focuses on this specialization, utilizing all its major abilities and circling around it.
If you’re planning on specializing in Reaver, then there is absolutely no reason to take anything from Weapon and Shield – Reaver abilities are function are generally best performed with massive weapons, preferably Greatswords.
The Reaver has three core abilities: Ring of Pain, Devour, and Dragon Rage.
Ring of Pain is the first and foremost, and is a toggle skill that greatly amplifies the damage of your normal attacks, and massively enhances Devour and Dragon Rage.
You can initiate with Charging Bull, then perform a powerful Mighty Blow, followed by Ring of Pain, Whirlwind, then finishing off enemies with Devour and Dragon Rage.
This will allow you to play with the signature high-risk, high reward style of the Berserker, and with a proper tank by your side should give you enough breathing space to sustain the aggression.
That’s not where things end for you though; the core Focus ability for the Reaver is Rampage.
Though you’ll use it very rarely, it is probably one of the most offensively brutal abilities in the game. The Reaver goes into a Frenzy mode with it, and you could life-steal for every hit.
Since there aren’t many healing abilities in this game, this is one thing you should really look towards only when you are low on health, when your enemy is extremely powerful, and when you feel you have a chance to finish things off before they get out of hand.
Warrior Class Build #2 – The Wall
Equipment: Sword and Shield
Weapon and Shield
- Payback Strike
- Warrior’s Resolve
- Great Lunge
- Shield Bash
- Bear Mauls the Wolves
Vanguard
- War Cry+
- Untouchable Defense
- Charging Bull
- Cutting Words
Champion
- Lie in the Stand
- Resilience
- Bulwark
- Counterstrike
- Adamant
- Unyielding
- To the Death
- Siege-Breaker+
Do you want to build a pure tank? Look no further than the hardcore specialization that comes in the form of the Champion.
You’d expect this specialization to have some offensive abilities as well, but the Champion tree is the definition of defending and tanking.
This build is purely made for those purposes, primarily utilizing the passives of Weapon & Shield and Champion to put a wall in front of the rest of the allies.
Use this with the highest set of armor and you’ll almost never fall.
Your main actives will also come from those two trees, though for initiation and pure aggro you will use Charging Bull and War Cry.
War Cry is a basic yet highly useful build, and when used with a duel-dagger Rogue and a more aggressive Warrior alongside this build, it can give your team the necessary solidity and defensive structure to fight even the toughest foes on higher difficulties.
Although you might not play with such a build yourself, you might want to try this out with Blackwall, who can make an excellent defender through such a setup.
Warrior Class Build #3 – The Guardian
Equipment: Sword and Shield
Weapon and Shield
- Payback Strike+
- Warrior’s Resolve
- Great Lunge
- Shield Bash
- Bear Mauls the Wolves
Vanguard
- War Cry +
- Untouchable Defense
Battlemaster
- Grappling Chain+
- Hamstring
- Deep Reserves
Templar
- Blessed Blades
- Maker’s Will
- Rally
- Spell Purge
- There is No Darkness
- Wrath of Heaven
- The Last Sacrifice
When it comes to defending their allies, there is none better than the mighty Templars. They purge threatening magic from the surroundings, and protect their allies by sacrificing themselves.
Along with the Spirit Mage, the Templar specialized Warrior is the best support build in the game.
For this build you’ll once again want a classic Sword and Shield combo, utilizing Payback Strike and Shield Bash as your main offensive skills.
The point of these skills should be to shun away enemies from players who are threatened (such as mages), while War Cry should be your primary initiator after Grappling Chain.
Although maintaining aggro won’t exactly be necessary for a Templar, it is quite recommended as many of the specialization abilities actually aid allies when you are taking the damage.
The Last Sacrifice is an obvious example, and generally Templars are motivators and pure guardians, while Champions are absolute walls.
The subtle but decisive differentiation between the two is enough to earn them distinct individual trees.
Warrior Class Build #4 – The Crusher
Equipment: Two-Handed Maul/Axe
Two-Handed
- Mighty Blow+
- Shield Basher
- Whirlwind+
- Clear a Path
- Earthquake
- Guard-Smasher
Battlemaster
- Grappling Chain+
- Crippling Blows
- Combat Roll
Vanguard
- War Cry
- Charging Bull
Remaining
In specialization of choice
While the previous three builds were primarily focused on specialization, this build treats the specializations as auxiliary and primarily focuses on utilizing the standard 4 skill trees for creating its system.
Specializations are generally highly focused and lack sufficient flexibility to actually give you a more widespread role.
Though this build doesn’t exactly make you a jack-of-all trades, it does grant you abilities that will grant you movement, attack, and battlefield presence.
This allows you to have a more single-target aspect instead of pure tanking or pure aggression of the Berserker.
Instead, your job will be to cripple the most intimidating target in a certain battle, giving space to your party members to attack while the target is downed or temporarily unable to retaliate.
For this reason, you should try to use a Maul. The difference between Mauls and Swords is that the latter has wide swings that come in the form of AoE damage, whereas Mauls are single target vertical swings.
This will combine well with the likes of Mighty Blow, Charging Bull, and skills from the Reaver specialization.
Warrior Class Build #5 – Finesse
Equipment: Sword and Shield
Weapon and Shield
- Payback Strike+
- Warrior’s Resolve
- Great Lunge+
- Shield Bash
- Bear Mauls the Wolves
- Turn the Blade
Battlemaster
- Grappling Chain+
- Hamstring
- Combat Roll+
Vanguard
- War Cry
- Charging Bull
Remaining
- In Specialization of choice
Like the previous build, this experimental one utilizes the four primary skill trees available before the specialization is unlocked. This build is not exactly for tanking, but for more conventional hack-and-slash combat.
Those who prefer to move into battle and perform constant attacking through conventional action-RPG styled methods will enjoy such a build.
The use of the Sword and Shield allows you to deal damage faster, as the swings take much less damage.
Combine this with the agile abilities such as Charging Bull and Combat Roll (both upgraded), you’ll have a mobile warrior who can move in and out of combat with ease and finesse.
However, despite being flashy, you’ll certainly lack a bit when it comes to defense, so it is best to have a dedicated tank by your side who generates aggro.
Once that tank has initiated, you can move in to stack up the damage that is dealt on your foe.
