How-To Guide: Warrior

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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 food 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 an Elvaan or Galka warrior.

Mithra[]

People envy a Mithra’s highest 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 sub-par 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 brick 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.

Equipment Choices[]

Weapons[]

Warriors have a huge array of weapons at their disposal. The only two weapon proficiencies 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 leveling your polearm skill or Dark Knight by leveling 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. Later on, you’ll be better off replacing your ranged weapons with items like the Smart Grenade or Bomb Core, since more often than not, you won’t be responsible for healing yourself or dispelling defense boosts, and those items are very useful for all situations.

Armor[]

Like with 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 will be happy too.

Walkthrough[]

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 at Lv.1, you’ll get Raging Axe, your first weapon skill once your axe skill reaches 5. 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 5, you get Provoke, the game’s most useful job ability. 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. It’s also not a bad option for pulling while soloing, but should only be limited to such. Provoke-pulling in a party isn’t a good idea.

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 (also known as a Buttersheep ) 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 steals anything. Once you hit Lv.16, the support job Blue Mage becomes quite very useful. Increasing your defense by 50%, adding Stoneskin, and healing yourself allow this to be a great support job if you have it leveled and have all of the spells. If you have Blue Mage to Lv.18, you can quite easily out-tank most others until about Lv.37.

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 or Blue Mage 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.

Your AF Weapon[]

You always have to do the quest as a prerequisite to doing your AF armor pieces. The Razor Axe, its sadly useless at level 40 due to the Combat Caster's Axe as an alternative.
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 Razor 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 50 to 70, 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.

[Do note that you need your Af weapon to unlock the rest of your Af gear.] But at lv 37 there is a better weapon than this or combat casters. It is called the "Horror Voulge" let's compare stats for a second here, Horror Voulge has 60 dmg, 489 delay, Vit +1 and Attack +8, with a Dps of 7.36 and a Tp% per hit of 13.2%

[Razor axe] - 31 dmg 276 delay and Str&Dex +2 with a Dps of 6.74 and a Tp% per hit of 7.3%

Now think closely "Horror Voulge" can be used 3 lv's before your Af weapon plus an attack bonus as well as vit and is a great axe [which is your A+ weapon]. The only benefit you get from Razor axe other than a str and dex bonus is that if your subbing Nin you can have another one handed weapon in the other hand up to you players the choice is yours. Hope this helps some new players decide.

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 great bonus of +4 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 at these levels, 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 10 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, giving the job some incentive to take hits. 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 while Ninja adds a lot of survivability and Samurai gives you massive damage-dealing skills. 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.

End-Game[]

Warrior is one of the best jobs to have at Lv.75 simply because you can merit and skill-up 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. It’s also currently considered the game’s second-best damage-dealer because rather than choosing between subbing Berserk or subbing Hasso, Warrior can sub Hasso and still get Berserk. (Please add information about Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, merit parties, etc.)

Support Jobs[]

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 can be used every 15 seconds to increase your attack power. It can stack, so you can use it in between fights. It’s also very useful to use right before a weapon skill to give yourself an extra increase to your damage. 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 activation rate that depends 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 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 or Blue Mage.

Dancer[]

Dancer as a support job actually makes a very viable replacement for a Paladin tank. You won't have as much defense as a Paladin, but Dancer replaces a lot of things Paladin gets on its own. These include Animated Flourish to replace Flash and Waltzes to replace the cures. Best of all, there's never any chance of interruption, and if you play your cards right, never any need to heal. Of course, this also works great when soloing. This combination could never fully replace a Paladin, but if there aren't any main tanks, or if you simply have a small party, this combination is phenomenal.

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 +3, increasing to +5 to all by level 70, and increasing accuracy by 3~5, and haste by 3~5% at level 50. This job ability makes the use of great axes unbelievably useful, since they are some of the hardest-hitting weapons in the game. Hasso also lasts virtually forever with a 5-minute duration and 1-minute recast. 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. By 70, Samurai provides one last ability called Seigan, which can be interchanged with Hasso to instead provide much higher survivability. Like Hasso, it can last virtually forever. And it basically does what Utsusemi does, as long as you use it alongside Third Eye.

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 as long as you are behind the mob. 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 begins to shine at 60, when you get Trick Attack, which gives your next hit the ability to give the person in front of you all the hate of that hit. That includes weapon skills, and can stack with Sneak Attack.

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 White Mage 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 battles, though, as you will just waste time that could otherwise be used to damage your enemy. When resting, MP heals faster than HP, so it gives 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 restored when curing yourself becomes too little to keep this combination viable.

Blue Mage[]

Any time after about Lv.16, this becomes an amazing support job for a tanking Warrior as a replacement for either Monk or Ninja support jobs. Using the spell Cocoon before every fight, and perhaps even Metallic Body will increase your endurance by an outstanding amount. Warrior's high defense, with good equippable equipment and a natural Provoke allows the use of this support job. Setting vitality, strength, and dexterity-boosting spells will also help quite a lot. The spell Pollen can also be used for minor healing and hate control. If you have this job available for subbing, it's a great alternative, especially if you have MP merits. This combination works well into the level 30-40 range, where Warrior's damage-dealing role is much more prominent. The enhancements and stat boosts can still work great as additional tidbits until subbing Samurai at 50.

Warrior as a Support Job[]

Warrior offers many things as a support job to a variety of jobs. It is an almost mandatory support job for anyone wanting to tank. The ability Provoke helps Paladins and Ninjas out a lot. Warrior also makes one of the best support jobs for damage-dealers due to the increased damage over time from Double Attack and high natural strength. Warrior also has the ability Berserk, enhancing the user's attack by an additional 25%. This is an easy job to level as a support job, and should not take very long to hit the required level 37. Best of all, it's one of the most widely-used and widely-accepted support jobs in the game.

Overview of Job Traits, Job Abilities, and Spells[]

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. This is especially useful to combine with weapon skills.

Job Abilities[]

Provoke - Like almost all MMO's, Warrior gets an ability to help them tank and generate hate; 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 for a lot 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. Berserk and Defender can stack, so there’s nothing wrong with having Defender on, using Berserk for a weapon skill, and then turning off Berserk to get your defense back.
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 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 hit 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. While this doesn’t increase the Warrior’s ability to tank (outside of enhancing enmity), it does give it incentive to be playing the role of a tank. The currently-known activation rate is just under 50%, so it’s really worth using.
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, therefore it is very effective for raising the damage on Steel Cyclone. It also only has a 15 minute recast timer that can be brought down to 5 minutes with full merits. Just don’t waste it.
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 physical resistances 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 damage. The Tomahawk can be thrown once every 3 minutes, and the special defense down effect lasts 30 seconds at first, but can be extended to up to 1 minute, 30 seconds when fully-merited.

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 50 TP, meaning a 100% TP weapon skill will have the effect of a 150% TP weapon skill.
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 +20, which can help with using crossbows’ Bloody Bolts or Sleep Bolts in sticky situations.