How-To Guide: Warrior

Warrior Within
Damage-dealer or tank? You have to be prepared for both. The job whose abbreviation is “war”, you know can dish-out damage just as good as you can take it. Warrior is definitely the game’s most ‘real’ meat-shield early in the game, and one of the most basic damage-dealers later in the game. It doesn’t get any magic or overly-fancy moves, but it’s the best choice for a starting job for anyone going into any form of front-line fighter in the game. As a support job or as a main job, it can help parties out a lot. '''Please note: This is only a guide. Please add anything if it is needed, and take away anything that is either untrue or not needed.'''

Job-Race Combinations
Please note that race is the absolute last thing you should worry about when picking a job. Anything said here is seriously exaggerated. A single piece of gear can often make up for a race's negligible lack in a stat. Every race also gets "Race Specific Equipment", or "RSE", that will boost a race's stats to equal, or possibly even surpass other races.

Hume

 * Humes can move into either Warrior role with ease. If you’re a party’s damage-dealer and the tank looks tired, you can easily Provoke off of him or her without any worry, because you have a nice balance of HP, vitality, and agility and still maintain your good damage over time with your balance of strength and dexterity.

Elvaan

 * As an Elvaan Warrior, you can be a very fierce fighter. In the early levels, you can move right up to the monster with an in-your-face attitude and kick it around with minimal difficulty. Your high HP and vitality make you a great meat-shield, and your high strength make you a great damage-dealer. In mid to high levels and against some monsters in the low levels, your low dexterity will become apparent, and you will want to look for accuracy or dexterity boosting foods and equipment so you can hit more reliably.

Tarutaru

 * You may not be able to take hits like an Elvaan, but you can definitely avoid them more, and you can still dish out just as much pain. Warriors get high damage per hit, so a Tarutaru’s lack of strength is really made up with high dexterity. Higher agility means you can block with a shield a lot more as well as dodging attacks outright, and high intelligence means you can tank mage monsters without taking as much magical damage. In higher levels, your high dexterity will really help with weapon skill accuracy on such ones as Rampage. Due to the reasons above, and the large abundance of strength boosting gear and foods, you will have no trouble matching the damage output or tank of a Elvaan or Galka warrior.

Mithra

 * People envy a Mithra’s evasion and block frequency. It really helps nullify their lack of vitality and HP. They also happen to enjoy the highest dexterity out of all of the races, meaning more critical hits and more landed strikes, which certainly makes up for their lack of strength. Your only severely low stat is charisma, which doesn’t help Warrior at all. Otherwise, it’s actually quite well-rounded like Humes.

Galka

 * Galka Warriors define meat shield. They act as a wall protecting their parties admirably with the game’s highest HP and vitality. They also have high strength and average dexterity, so their damage over time isn’t hindered at higher levels either. They cant dodge as well as a taru or mithra, so you will be relying on your large capacity for punishment.

Weapon

 * Warriors have a huge array of weapons at their disposal. The only two weapon skills they don’t have are katana and great katana, so you can prepare yourself for any job with Warrior early on. You can prepare for Dragoon by levelling your polearm skill or Dark Knight by levelling your scythe skill. However, Warriors shouldn’t level those skills inside of party situations. If that’s the case, they should level Warrior to 37 and then level their skills in skill-up parties or on their own. Warriors should, instead, use axes and two-handed great axes. Using an axe in your right hand and a shield in your left, you could probably take that to at least Lv.30, then you should make sure you have your great axe ready. Having both available on-hand can really help your party out in a lot of situations. Axe/shield is a very good tanking set-up, and great axes are great for high damage over time, though you lack amazing weapon skills. It also really helps to have your marksmanship (crossbows) skill high. You can pull with crossbows, and lower the target’s defense (or even kill a defense boost buff on it) with Acid Bolts. Bloody Bolts act as a drain to help for soloing and especially with skilling-up. Sleep Bolts can help if you pull a link or need some time for something. In short, go with axes, great axes, and crossbows, and you’re good.

Armor

 * Like weapons, Warriors get a vast array of armor to wear. You don’t need dinky little mage gear with MP, mind, and intelligence buffs. Instead, you want to go for defense, and any other damage-dealing or tanking gear you can possibly have. You can easily wear harness, leather, scale, and even heavy plate armor. Get what you can and you’ll be happy. Expect your party to ask you to tank or damage-deal, or both. Be prepared for anything and your party’ll be happy too.

Soloing 1 to 10

 * Despite the fact that starting as Warrior, you get an Onion Sword, you’ll want to pick up an axe at either the auction house or a merchant right away. One axe, one shield, and you’re ready to travel to Gustaberg, Sarutabaruta, or Ronfaure and kill those monsters. You won’t get anything fancy early on, but by Lv.3, you’ll get Raging Axe, your first weapon skill. With that, you’ll be able to start dealing a lot of damage. Just don’t forget to get Signet before you go outside. Signet is your best friend at any point in the game (or Sanction or Sigil, depending on which areas you’re in). At level five, you get Provoke, the game’s most useful job ability, and possibly the biggest difference between Final Fantasy XI and other games. If you’re new, Provoke is your party’s trump card. It turns the monster towards you and makes sure no one but you takes attention. It gives you a set amount of spiked hate, so you take the hits. You probably won’t use this until you start partying, but early-level parties can be nice too.

Valkurm 10-20

 * Warrior is one of the most-leveled and most-desired jobs in Valkurm. You need a Warrior (or someone with a Warrior support job) to control hate. This is where you learn how to use Provoke properly, which really helps for when you’re leveling in any party, especially if you wind-up going as Paladin or Ninja later on in your game career. At this point, you’ll still want to keep your axe-and-shield combination, since you’re going to be a main tank throughout Valkurm. Please note that White Mage does not validate a proper support job. Just because it may seem like a Paladin, it really isn’t. Your best bet at this level is Monk, or if for any reason you don’t have that, then sub Thief. Monk sub works best because of its high vitality and HP at these levels, and spamming their 15-second job ability Boost really helps with hate control. Thief is your second-best bet because of the dexterity it gives for accuracy, and its five-minute ability Steal gives you hate, whether or not it actually works.

Mid-levels 20-40

 * Before you go to Qufim Island, please be sure to have your support job active, as many who level Warrior level it as their first job and don’t know sub-job importance. You can get the quest at level 18, and there is absolutely no downside to it. Anyway, from Lv.20 until Lv.33’ish, you’ll still want to be subbing Monk and using axes and shields, because you’ll be tanking your way until the end of Yhoator. Afterwards, I find it’s better to begin with a Ninja support job and using either dual axes or one great axe. Like I said in the weapons section, it’s best to keep both of them at a high skill level because you’ll be using them both a lot. Please don’t take my word for subbing Ninja, though. If you haven’t leveled Ninja yet, don’t go out of your way to level it to 18 just so you can ding Lv.37 as Warrior four levels later unless you really want to be the absolute best you can be. By Lv.33, you’ll more than likely be simply initial Provoking for your party’s SATA and/or damage dealing, and that’s more-or-less how Warrior rolls until 75. SquareEnix noted they wanted to make Warrior into a third main tank in the game, but that hasn’t happened yet. (If they do and I forget to change this page, please change it for me)

Your AF Weapon

 * You always have to do the quest as a prerequisite to doing your AF armor pieces, and that’s no problem because your weapon, the Razor Axe, is actually useful at its level, 40.
 * Talk to Phara at J-9 in Bastok Mines. Enter Davoi and head directly south, down a small, narrow path until you enter a larger area of K-9/K-10. Find the “Hide Flap” on one of the tents in that area. Clicking on it will spawn two notorious monster Orcs. Make sure to have some help for this. After both Orcs have been vanquished, find the “Hide Flap” again and click on it to get a key item. Take the key item back to Phara. Return to her the next game day (00:00), and you will get another key item. Bring the key item to Naji, one of the two guards in front of the President’s Office in the Metalworks. After a brief cutscene, you will have your Razor Axe. Congratulations!

Mid-High Levels 40-60

 * With your fresh, new axe in hand, you embark on the next, and hardest twenty levels in the game. These levels are when Warrior begins to shine as a true damage-dealer, as Lv.55 you get the powerful Rampage weapon skill for single-handed axes. It’s a five-hit weapon skill in which TP affects the chances to score critical hits with each blow. If all five are critical hits, that’s the same as dealing at the bare minimum ten times your normal damage. Unfortunately for Warrior, the absence of free Sneak and Invisible spells play a rough part on the limit break quests you’ll have to do every five levels from fifty to seventy, but that shouldn’t worry you. Until Lv.55, you’ll probably be using great axe a little bit more frequently now. If you have a Samurai support job, you acquire Hasso at 50, which really benefits you when you use two-handed weapons.

Your Artifact Armor

 * Your first piece is acquired at Lv.52, your feet, and probably the most useful AF armor you will acquire. They give you a slight HP and Enmity boost, but where they really shine is the enhancement to frequency in Double Attack. Your Lv.54 pieces, your hands, would be a lot more effective if Warrior spent more time as a meat shield. They give bonuses to your skill in shields as well as Enmity. They also give a fairly nice bonus of four strength. At 56 you get your head piece, which is slightly useful in its dexterity bonus and Enmity boost, but other than that, there are better pieces out there. Lv.58 are your leg pieces, and they give debatably good stats. All damage-dealing jobs benefit from the accuracy bonus on them, but there are other pieces I’ve seen Warriors wear. Finally, your body, which is a marvellous tanking piece acquired at 60. Unfortunately, Warriors aren’t used for tanking right now, so it’s not very useful. Most Warriors use Scorpion Harnesses at this level and beyond. All-in-all, it’s always best to get all five pieces, but your feet (and leg pieces) are about the only useful ones.

High Levels 60-75

 * With your hardest ten levels behind you, it’s pretty much clear-sailing from here. As expected, Warrior still plays a damage-dealer and secondary/backup tank. Warrior gets its final job ability at Lv.60, called Retaliation. What this does is puts Warrior into a form of counterstance, only it's quite different from Counter. Retaliation will help you tank, as it will strike the target after you've been hit, giving you additional TP and enmity. Samurai, Thief, and Ninja are all applicable support jobs for the last fifteen levels of your career. Subbing Thief makes you more of a damage-dealer and far less of a tank, though Provoke is still an option to save a party member’s life. Your final limit break quest against Maat is easier than most, since you pretty much win after one quick self-skillchain (assuming you can get one off). When you finally hit 75, you’re off to the end-game. Have fun in Dynamis!

End-Game

 * Warrior is one of the best jobs to have at Lv.75 simply because you can merit yourself into almost any non-magical job in the game with absolute ease. Even if it’s so much as raising one weapon skill to a higher level, that can and will make a huge difference. (Please add information about Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, merit parties, etc.)

Monk

 * The best choice for anyone early in the game playing Warrior. It can give you a fair boost to your vitality and HP for tanking even by your first parties. At Lv.10, it gives you the job ability Boost, which has half the cool-down time and generates half of the enmity of Provoke, meaning you rarely lose hate. Plus, it’s useful just before weapon skills because it raises your attack stat for your next hit. At Lv.20, it will give you the trait “Counter”, which will nullify a hit and strike back, giving even more enmity and taking less damage (though it has a fairly low proc rate depending on your accuracy).

Ninja

 * This is the most often-seen support job in the game for Warrior. At Lv.20, you get Dual Wield, which allows you to hold two weapons (usually axes) at once, to further benefit your stats, and at Lv.50, increasing your damage over time slightly. At Lv.24, you would get the Ninjutsu spell “Utsusemi: Ichi”, which can nullify three attacks directed at you. And with Warrior’s naturally high meat-shielding skills, it can make a very efficient, yet expensive tank. However, it’s not wise to sub Ninja pre-30, simply because it’s not as effective of a tank as simply subbing Monk. I still don’t get why some Warriors sub Ninja in the 10-20 range of levels…

Samurai

 * Though not very useful until Lv.50, it becomes an invaluable choice when the time comes. Any level above 20 gives Samurai support job some value of usefulness because it will increase your overall TP gain by 10%, though it wouldn’t be a good idea to sub it until 50, because other support jobs add more. Hasso is acquired at Lv.50. What it does is as long as you have a two-handed weapon equipped (And the ability active), it will increase your strength by three, accuracy by 3, and increase attack speed by 3% at level 50, increasing to +5 to all by level 70. This job ability makes the use of great axes unbelievable, since they are some of the hardest-hitting weapons in the game. At Lv.60, a Samurai support job will give you two more nice benefits- another TP-gaining boost and a TP-gaining job ability called Meditate. Meditate gives the user a quick boost of 60% TP which can allow the Warrior to pull-off amazing feats of damage.

Thief

 * Thief gives a nice boost to your dexterity and agility, meaning higher accuracy, critical hit rates, evasion, ranged accuracy, and shield proc rate. But that’s not at all the biggest reason for subbing Thief. At Lv.30, a Thief support job gives the player access to the job ability Sneak Attack, which makes your next attack a guaranteed critical hit and giving it 100% accuracy. Though it’s more of a damage-dealing job ability (and support job in general), it can help keep a high level of attention on yourself as opposed to fragile mages. The support job really beings to shine at 60, when you get Trick Attack. By that level, a Thief in the party will not need you to initially Provoke, so you can use Trick Attack to simply give the tank a higher level of hate.

White Mage

 * Do not, and I repeat, do not sub White Mage because it looks like a Paladin. Paladin is far more than just a Warrior with White Magic, and it really doesn’t help the party to have enough MP for one, maybe two or three cures. The only purpose for this support job is for use in Besieged or for getting around with Sneak and Invisible post-50. It does have Situation specific Uses during endgame though, and while you will not use it often, all warriors should take WHM to 37 once they reach endgame.
 * White Mage can be a viable option before level 10. Being able to cure yourself between fights lets you wait longer before resting.  Don't try to cure yourself during fight though, you'll just was time that you could be using to damage your enemy.  When resting, MP heals faster than HP, so it give you the option of resting for a shorter period of time and using cure to bring your health up the rest of the way.  After level 10, the amount of HP you can restore when curing yourself becomes too low to keep this combination viable and you're better off subbing something to increase your raw HP and damage.

Your Two-Hour Ability

 * Mighty Strikes is both very useful and not very useful. Often nicknamed “Mighty Misses” because of how it doesn’t increase your accuracy, yet it expects you to land hits with it active for it to work. What it does is turns every single one of your attacks for the next thirty seconds into critical hits. Critical hits, of course, increasing your attack damage by a minimum of 2x. This is useful in Valkurm parties when you try to pull hate, or later on when accuracy gear becomes far more abundant.

Job Abilities

 * Provoke - Like almost all MMO's, Warrior gets an ability to help them tank and generate threat; in FFXI that ability is Provoke. Provoke is a job ability that has thirty-second timer that has no purpose other than to pull enmity towards yourself. Unlike what many people think, Provoke does in fact stack, since all enmity stacks. Many people assume you should only use Provoke when another party member is under attack. However, that’s not the case. Provoke can be used usefully by any Warrior or person subbing Warrior, especially for tanks. It draws a large spike of enmity towards the tank for keeping hate, or for other party members for saving the tank or other party members in case something goes wrong. With Dancer’s “Animated Flourish” and Paladin’s “Flash”, Provoke isn’t the only useful thing for stealing hate. However, it is the lowest-level of all hate-grabbing abilities and also has the lowest re-cast time, so it will always be the best tanking ability of all time.
 * Berserk is one of the major reasons people use Warrior as a support job. It simply increases your attack by 25% at a cost of your defense being lowered by 25%. It can be used every five minutes and has a duration of three minutes, meaning it can be active most of the time. It is definitely not a good idea to use this job ability for anything more than weapon skills if you are tanking. If you are NIN/WAR, it is a good idea to use, since defense isn’t very important, but keeping enmity is. Otherwise, your Lv.25 ability, Defender, is more useful.
 * Defender is the exact opposite of Berserk. It lowers attack by 25% and increases defense by 25%. The difference is it has a three minute re-cast, so it can stay on infinitely. This is the most useful thing for Warrior or Paladin tanks, since hate control isn’t much of a problem, and the less damage taken, the better. It is learned at Lv.25, or Lv.50 if Warrior is the support job. Very useful.
 * Warcry is learned at Lv.35. It enhances every party member’s attack within an area of effect by 5.25% for thirty seconds, and has a cool-down of five minutes. This is best used just before a fury of weapon skills, and most definitely just before skillchains to deal the most damage possible. The more party members it lands on, the more enmity given to the user. If all six are hit, you will likely gain enmity equal to that of Provoke. Unless you want to take hate, it’s not a good idea to use if you can’t handle the damage taken. Paladins and Ninjas both benefit from this job ability at Lv.70 as another possible way to acquire hate.
 * Aggressor is another job ability like Berserk, but earned at Lv.45. It increases accuracy by 25, and lowers evasion (possibly between 25 and 35, but it is unknown at the moment). Also like Berserk, it lasts three minutes and can be used every five minutes. With that said, it can be used in conjunction with Berserk, increasing attack and accuracy, but lowering defense and evasion, so caution must be taken. It works great with Warrior’s two-hour ability, Mighty Strikes.
 * Retaliation is Warrior's first stab at the ability to tank later in the game. What this does is puts the Warrior into a position where after he is stricken with an attack, he will immediately retaliate with his own attack. Unlike a normal counter, Retaliate will only work if a hit is successfully landed on the user, will give TP to the user, and can actually activate on a countered attack. Retaliation also rests on a three minute re-cast while simultaneously lasting just as long, allowing the Warrior to always have it active. The only downside to Retaliation is it will lower the Warrior's movement speed slightly.
 * Warrior’s Charge is a very formidable job ability that can be merited at Lv.75. What it does is turns your next attack into a double attack, guaranteed. It may not sound like much, but note that “next attack” can also refer to weapon skills. Imagine using Mighty Strikes (guarantee critical hit), Berserk (+18.75% attack), and Warcry (+5.25% attack), and then using the weapon skill “Steel Cyclone”. Just ponder that for a second. Very, very powerful. It also only has a fifteen minute recast timer that can be brought down to ten minutes with full merits. Just don’t waste it. That’s all I’ve got to say.
 * Tomahawk doesn’t really make sense to a lot of people. They see its effect saying “special defense down” and wonder what it means. It doesn’t mean that it will lower the target’s defense or remove a ‘defense bonus’ buff on it. Instead, it means it will lower any special defenses the target may have. For example, a Skeleton’s resistance to slashing and piercing damage will be far less noticeable, or a Slime’s resistance to all three kinds of weapons. The Tomahawk can be thrown once every three minutes, and the special defense down effect lasts thirty seconds, but can be extended to up to one minute with full merits.

Job Traits

 * Defense Bonus is great for a Lv.10 job trait, since Warriors generally tank starting at this level. It will increase your defense by 10, which is quite significant at that level. It’s equal to that given by Protect, but sticks around forever. With a Warrior’s vast selection of armor, it’s the perfect attribute for any tank.
 * Resist Virus is another of the ‘resist’ line of job traits that a lot of jobs get. This job trait helps to resist both Disease and Plague. Disease is a harmful effect that doesn’t allow the player affected to rest HP or MP. Plague is more harmful for a Warrior, as it will actually gradually wear at his or her TP (and MP) over time. Four total upgrades will be acquired throughout a Warrior’s time playing, starting at Lv.15. It may completely resist the effect, or it can just greatly lower its duration.
 * Double Attack is Warrior’s most prominent job trait. It allows the Warrior to occasionally combo two attacks in one attack round. Or, if the Warrior is using two weapons (or hand-to-hand), he will simply just add one more attack to his round. It has approximately a one-in-ten chance of activating. If it activates, you will get TP as if it was another normal attack (assuming it does connect). This is one of the many great reasons people sub Warrior as well.
 * Attack Bonus is acquired at Lv.30 and will grant the Warrior an increase in attack power of +10. Around Lv.30 is when Warrior starts moving closer to the damage-dealer end of the spectrum, and that just further helps the fact. It also gives Warrior yet another purpose to be subbed even after Lv.60.
 * Savagery grants a TP Bonus to Warcry. This doesn’t mean it gives everyone in its area of effect TP, it simply means it will give everyone within Warcry’s area of effect a little extra “oomph” with their weapon skills. Though not very prominent for most weapon skills, it really does help with ones that truly require high amounts of TP to work. Each additional merit grants +10 TP Bonus, with a total of 30 TP, meaning 270% TP will deal as much damage as it would at 300%. (Can someone confirm this for me?
 * Aggressive Aim simply gives a ranged accuracy bonus to Aggressor. Though, Warriors don’t exactly use ranged weapons all that much, it does have its purposes. Each merit gives +4 ranged accuracy to a total of +12, which can help with using crossbows’ Bloody Bolts or Sleep Bolts in sticky situations.