Warrior

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Description

PC warrior.gif

Warriors are the epitome of a tank class. They wield weapons in both hands, wear finely crafted armors, and are able to absorb massive amounts of damage easily. They have high hit points and armor class right from the start. As they gain knowledge of the arts of war, they acquire the skills of Bash, Dual Wield, Double Attack, Parry, Riposte, Dodge and Disarm. They are the only class that learns all of these combat skills, and nearly always as soon or sooner than any other class.

Despite these combat skills, Warriors are not a class with a lifelong ability to solo. At low levels, they can solo easily, but when they enter their low twenties they begin to lose that edge. Since they have no magical abilities of their own, and a lot of hit points to lose, recovering after battle without the aid of a healer is a slow process. By level 25 they will not survive many White fights without a backup healer. Because of this, the Warrior needs groups. Fortunately, groups need Warriors just as badly.

The Warriors’ duty in a group is not only to absorb damage, but also to pull for the group. They have to absorb damage from a mob as they lead it to their group. In combat proper, a Warrior should be adept at keeping an eye on the rest of the group. He must keep the mobs off of the lighter-armored classes, or it can be disastrous for the entire group. While most of the combat functions of the Warrior are automated, this does not mean the Warrior is a boring class to play. The art of tagging and pulling mobs is in itself a challenging role, and a very important one at higher levels.

Warriors are a very straightforward class that rely heavily on their party in order to perform well. A Warrior will want to become good friends with a Cleric early in life, and develop a trusting relationship between them, as it will be the Cleric who keeps her alive in the levels to come. This class is a fun one to play — Warriors get to beat things up and laugh in the enemys’ face.

by Jason Mash, “Shyden ClawStinger”

Class Titles

Level 1-50 Level 51-54 Level 55-59 Level 60
Warrior Champion Myrmidon Warlord

Creation Guide

It is important to make good decisions on Race, Starting Stats, and Religion. These things combined will allow you to create the Warrior that makes you most happy.

Choosing Race

Male Warrior from Casters Realm ~2000

Choosing a race for any class can be a difficult decision--do not choose a race based on abilities alone. Choose the Race that provides you with the right mix of racial benefits, religion, cultural armor sets, and statistics that benefit your class.

Racial Abilities

See Character_Races#Racial Innates for more information.

Starting Statistics

It is important to note that each race has slightly different starting statistics. For Warriors, your STA is important for a larger number of hit points, and AGI contributes to your AC.

Race STR DEX AGI STA INT WIS CHA Bonus
Barbarian 113 70 87 105 60 70 55 25
Dark Elf 70 75 95 75 99 83 80 25
Dwarf 100 90 75 100 60 83 45 25
Gnome 70 85 90 80 98 67 60 25
Half-Elf 80 85 95 80 75 60 75 25
Halfling 80 90 100 85 67 80 50 25
Human 85 75 80 85 75 75 75 25
Ogre 140 70 75 132 60 67 37 25
Troll 118 75 88 119 52 60 40 25
Wood Elf 75 80 100 75 75 80 75 25

Each race gets 25 bonus points to apply to the base stats of their choosing.

Suggested Starting Statistics

The main focus of warriors is to sustain as much damage as possible. Here are our suggestions:

  • Barbarian: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Dark Elf: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Dwarf: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Gnome: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Half Elf: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Halfling: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Human: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Iksar: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Ogre: Add 25 to Dexterity.
  • Troll: Add 25 to Stamina.
  • Wood Elf: Add 25 to Stamina.

Min-maxing Starting Stats

Aside from Stamina, stats are relatively easy to max at end-game Velious, so it is recommended to dump as many points into Stamina as possible. A Shaman can only buff one spell to increase Stamina (Riotous Health 50 STA) while both Focus of Spirit (HP 405, STR 67, DEX 60) and Avatar (STR, AGI, DEX and ATK by 100) stack capping your Strength & Dexterity. Agility can easily be raised above the soft-cap of 75, additional agility provides only incremental AC bonuses.

Experience Statistics

Warriors get a 10% bonus to experience gains when leveling. However, race selection may involve additional modifiers to experience:

Race Modifier
Troll 20% penalty
Ogre 15% penalty
Barbarian 5% penalty
Halfling 5% bonus

With all factors accounted for, the actual experience modifiers for each warrior race comes out to the following:

  • Barbarian Warrior: +5.5%
  • Dark Elf Warrior: +10%
  • Dwarf Warrior: +10%
  • Gnome Warrior: +10%
  • Half-Elf Warrior: +10%
  • Halfling Warrior: +14.5%
  • Human Warrior: +10%
  • Iksar Warrior: -8%
  • Ogre Warrior: -3.5%
  • Troll Warrior: -8%
  • Wood Elf Warrior: +10%

What does it mean?

Certain races and classes require differing amounts of experience points to attain the same level. For example, a Halfling Warrior requires 85.5% of the experience that a Human Cleric would require to be the same level. An Ogre Warrior would require 103.5% of the experience that the Human Cleric would.


Note: Class-based experience penalties were removed in the January 17, 2001 patch on live during the Scars of Velious expansion. While this change was not explicitly mentioned in those patch notes, it was mentioned in the January 14, 2001 Producer's Letter in which Gordon Wrinn stated they would be "going in next patch." The experience bonuses for Rogues and Warriors was left in so that the changes wouldn't be interpreted as a nerf, and because they weren't enough to be considered unbalancing.[1]

Religion

Generally speaking being Agnostic is a fairly safe bet in Everquest. Religion serves only to get you into trouble in many situations. The disadvantage to doing this is that some items, such as deity-specific Cultural armor sets, and some quests can only be done by followers of certain religions. Following a religion will at worst get you killed in some areas, but generally you can avoid these. Following Innoruuk is probably the most dangerous religion as they have the most places in the game where they are Kill on Sight. In the end it will not make an enormous difference to your character which Deity you choose.

Deity Specific Armor

  • Cazic-Thule-only Warrior Armor
  • Rallos Zek-only Warrior Armor
  • Innoruuk-only Warrior Armor

Skills

Berserker Frenzy

Going into a berserker frenzy is an innate, passive ability of the warrior class that is present from level 1 onward. Anytime a player character warrior's health falls too low, he or she enters a berserker frenzy, converting all of his or her critical hits into more powerful crippling blows.

A warrior will go berserk when falling below 40% health and will remain berserk permanently until his or her health reaches 45%. While berserk, the warrior will score a crippling blow whenever they would normally have scored a critical hit. Going berserk is accompanied by the message, "Soandso goes into a berserker frenzy!" which will appear in the chat boxes of both the warrior and any other nearby players. "Soandso is no longer berserk" signals the end of the effect.

Berserking is a hard-coded mechanic of the class and stacks with all buffs, disciplines, etc.

Magic Resistance

Warriors will gain a progressively stronger resistance to magic as they level, at a rate of +1 MR every 2 levels.

Primary Hand Damage Bonuses

This is the same for all melee classes, but listed here for reference.

Level 28: 1

Level 31: 2

Level 34: 3

Level 37: 4

Level 40: 5

Level 43: 6

Level 46: 7

Level 49: 8

Level 52: 9

Level 55: 10

Level 58: 11

Combat Skills

Level Skill Trained Pre 50 Cap Post 50 Cap Oct 8, 2001 Patch
1 1 Hand Blunt No 200 250
1 1 Hand Slashing No 200 250
1 2 Hand Blunt No 200 250
1 2 Hand Slashing No 200 250
1 Archery No 200 240
1 Bind Wound No 175 210
1 Defense No 210 252
1 Hand to Hand No 100 100
1 Kick No 149 210
1 Offense No 210 252
1 Piercing No 200 240
1 Slam No 220 240
1 Taunt No 200 200 230 at lvl 60
1 Throwing No 113 200
6 Bash Yes 200 240
6 Dodge Yes 140 175
10 Parry Yes 200 230
13 Dual Wield Yes 210 240
15 Double Attack Yes 205 245
25 Riposte Yes 200 225
35 Disarm Yes 200 200

Miscellaneous Skills

Like all classes, Warriors can raise the following skills:

Level Trained Skill Pre 50 Cap Post 50 Cap
1 No Alcohol Tolerance 200 255
1 No Beg 200 200
1 No Fishing 200 ?
1 No Sense Heading 200 200
1 No Swimming 200 200

Disciplines

Discipline Name Level Obtained Description Duration Reuse Time Expansion
Resistant Discipline 30 Grants +3 to all resistances increasing to +10 at 50th level 1 Min 60 Min Veliousicon.gif
Fearless Discipline 40 Immunity to "Fear" and all spells that cause "fear" 11 Sec 60 Min Veliousicon.gif
Evasive Discipline 52 Places you in a evasive combat stance, increasing your chance to avoid attacks [25%?], but also lowering your hit rate. [25%?] 3 Min 15 Min @L52 to 7 Min @L60 Ruins of Kunark[2]
Charge Discipline 53 Increases your chances to hit with any melee attack. 14 Sec 30 Min Ruins of Kunark[2]
Mighty Strike Discipline 54 Fills your arms with rage, causing every attack to land as a critical hit. 10 Sec 60 Min Ruins of Kunark[2]
Defensive Discipline 55 Places you in a defensive combat stance that causes you to take less damage [35%], but also lowers your damage output. [35%] 3 Min 15 Min @L55 to 10 Min @L60 Ruins of Kunark[2]
Furious Discipline 56 Allows you to perfectly time your counter attacks, riposting every incoming blow. 9 Sec 60 Min Ruins of Kunark[2]
Precision Discipline 57 Places you in a precise combat stance that increases your hit rate, but also lowers your chance of avoiding attacks. 3 Min 30 Min @L57 to 27 Min @L60 Ruins of Kunark[2]
Fell Strike Discipline 58 Fills you with acute rage, increasing the damage done by your attacks. 12 Sec 30 Min Ruins of Kunark[2]
Fortitude Discipline 59 Heightens your combat reflexes, increasing your chance of evading attacks. 8 Sec 60 Min Ruins of Kunark[2]
Aggressive Discipline 60 Places you in an aggressive combat stance that increases your damage output, but also causes you to take more damage. [%? increase] 3 Min 27 Min Ruins of Kunark[2]

Warrior-Specific Quests

Original:

Original - Plane of Sky Era

Kunark:

Velious:

  • Warrior Thurgadin Armor Quests
  • Warrior Kael Armor Quests
  • Warrior Skyshrine Armor Quests

Gearing

Best in Slot

References

  1. January 14, 2001 Producer Letter. Available online from the Internet Archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20010124043300/http://everquest.station.sony.com/news/letter.shtml . Last accessed on February 27, 2022.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Everquest: Ruins of Kunark - Prima's Official Strategy Guide (Revised & Expanded!)