[DA2] Warrior Builds and Specializations | Video Games Open (2025)

I started my second game as a Weapon-and-Shield Warrior, with a vague intention of being something like the Hammer to Aveline's Anvil in combat. Kinda similar, but with Aveline being more Tanky, Hawke being more Damagey.

Any good tips for this?

Particularly, is it just me*, or does Berserker kinda suck? It seems to me that if you use it, you get a short burst of effectiveness followed by having to drop out of it because you're completely out of stamina, with no way of getting it back. It seems like Beserker might be workable for long or longish combats, but only if you've got points in damn near the entire tree.

Long fights tend to get really boring, because after the most Berserky part, I can pretty much only use standard attacks, as a practical matter.

Decided to respec to Templar after slogging through the end of Act I.

* Might very well be just me. I upped the difficulty to Hard on this playthrough, which goes OK in general, but I pretty much get my ass kicked in every boss fight unless I drop down to Normal.

Why not go for a 2-handed Warrior + Reaver if you want to be the hammer...?

It's what I did, and it seems to demolish everything on Nightmare so far.

I don't even have the benefit of someone else drawing off the aggro, since anyone else getting into melee gets killed by my swings...

If you're looking to go with a damage dealer rather than a tank, Two-Handed is the way to go.

Whirlwind and Might Blow are great for grouped enemies and the rush attack closes the battlefield fast.

Haven't tried Reaver yet but it's next on my list.

I suppose Berserker might work if you invested heavily in it, and quickly, particularly if you had talents like Second Wind that let you recover stamina. The investment cost of Berserker doesn't seem worth it though--it's certainly not something you can dip in like Reaver or Templar for a nifty ability or two.

I have only played through as a 2H Warrior, but I have no complaints about it. There doesn't seem to be another class/build more suitable for mowing down big groups of enemies. 2H was not as effective against single tough opponents, but that's what you have a party for.

Tanking seems to be more of a trap in this game than it was in DA:O. Party members are sturdier, and enemies are weaker this time around, so damage dealing is king.

You want to invest in every talent that gives you stamina back, and you want to concentrate on killing adds. Give Aveline the Rally talent, have her use it just before you kill a bunch of adds to refill your stamina pool. You get stamina back only on kills, which decreases your ability to sustain active ability use vs. single tough opponents, so in a spec based on active abilities you will have decent burst damage but relatively poor sustained damage.

Reaver is lovely for sustained damage; I haven't levelled up enough to get hold of its burst damage abilities yet.

I'm currently running with a build that burns down all its stamina then locks in a ton of useful sustained modes and sits there occasionally pressing Cleave. I'd have thought that Templar was even worse than Berserker for damage output, having many of the same problems but less raw damage?

I like tanking in this game, myself-my first game was with a sword and board Hawke and he did just fine. Didn't exactly hit like a feather either. (Fenris was my main damage dealer in melee.) Yeah, 2H does more, but if you take some good attacking and buffing abilities(the Vanguard tree has some nice stuff), you'll do just fine.

In other words, if you want to play S&B because you like it, do it. I'd concentrate on the S&B and Vanguard trees in the basic abilities for this, and then perhaps Reaver or something for some extra things.

Juriel said:

Why not go for a 2-handed Warrior + Reaver if you want to be the hammer...?

It's what I did, and it seems to demolish everything on Nightmare so far.

I don't even have the benefit of someone else drawing off the aggro, since anyone else getting into melee gets killed by my swings...

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I knew 2-Handed would probably be the ideal, but I prefer sword-and-shield mostly for aesthetic reasons (the 2H weapons look just a bit too goofily oversized for my tastes.)

Not necessarily looking to be a total death-dealing machine, but more like something between Aveline and Fenris. And to see if others thought Berserker was as craptastic as it seems to me. The really irritating thing to me about Berserker is how all the stuff that would seem to make it usable as a practical matter has restrictions like "requires 5 points in Berserker." Seems like there's an awful lot of suck to get through before you get anything approaching the good stuff.

suedenim said:

And to see if others thought Berserker was as craptastic as it seems to me. The really irritating thing to me about Berserker is how all the stuff that would seem to make it usable as a practical matter has restrictions like "requires 5 points in Berserker." Seems like there's an awful lot of suck to get through before you get anything approaching the good stuff.

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If you have a bunch of points to spend at once, you can at least get around wasting points on Adrenaline, and simply max out the Berserker Sustained and Barrage, by assigning a point to Adrenaline temporarily, maxing the others, and the removing the point again.

I found Barrage quite useful, but I also took it pretty late in the game. Early on, I'm pretty sure you're better off spending points in the 2H and Vanguard trees.
But, admittedly, you could just as well spend those six points in the Reaver tree and probably be better off.

The key to warrior burst is stacking Vanguard and Reaver. Frenzy gives you up to +200% damage as you get hurt, Sacrificial Frenzy doubles it, Cleave gives unconditional +100% damage for 15 out of 20 seconds. This also averages out to very nice damage over time.

Take Berserker only when you have the spare points to invest to make it worth using.

Fenris said:

In other words, if you want to play S&B because you like it, do it. I'd concentrate on the S&B and Vanguard trees in the basic abilities for this, and then perhaps Reaver or something for some extra things.

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This is basically what I'm doing right now, with all of S&B taken, some good bits from Vanguard, and (so far) just dipping into Reaver for the inherent bit you can take right off the bat.

I'm a much happier Hawke, able to keep up a good pace of damage-dealing with survivability. Still having more difficulty than I'd like keeping the mages and rogues alive, but that's another matter.