Dark Souls III features a multitude of classes to choose from. While some are more suited to seasoned veterans, classes like Warrior are specifically designed to cater to beginners instead.
However, the main strengths of the class lie in its ability to inflict decent damage through raw strength. While mowing on your enemies sounds like a worthy calling, the warrior instead tends to go above and beyond.
Unlike most Dark Souls III classes, the Warriors can abuse their lowest Attunement, Intelligence, and Faith stats for simplistic yet barbaric options. An exorbitant amount of build paths cater to this class. Therefore, it’s a good beginner choice.
With that said, there is only so much a player can do to survive the harsh Kingdom of Lordran. Therefore, we recommend you give a thorough read to devise a viable strategy of conquest.
Effective Warrior Combat
Your class effectiveness is directly proportional to your build path. It means that you might feel completely overpowered or you could have trouble lifting twigs depending on how you’re building your Warrior.
Stamina management can be a point of concern, but a decent amount of HP can offset the disadvantages. Needless to say, a warrior isn’t the best class to fight against agile bosses. Therefore, you might have a hard time depending on the boss you’re facing.
With that said, warrior combat is just a downgraded version of a Knight. You get to loosen yourself, but not to the point where you become a tank. Whenever you swing a weapon, just make sure to make it connect for utmost self-satisfaction.
Warrior Essential Steps
Warrior is one of the more “braindead” classes of Dark Souls III. Therefore, you don’t need to do much to make it work. However, that does not make it autopilot you towards victory, so getting a flavor of it before starting is recommended.
It is quite easy to optimize on Warrior mainly because of their high luck stat. Therefore, molding a warrior into STR / LCK-based settings is relatively easy. A warrior is only chosen if you want to practice the basic combat formula.
There are little to no avenues for you to think outside the box. Therefore, combat can be considered pretty simple to understand but difficult to execute. Nonetheless, the Warrior shines against brawl-type bosses.
As a starting class, the Warrior has no apparent weaknesses. Furthermore, it is the only class that can’t be disputed later on in the game. The reason for this is the high starting stats. With that said it will be quite hard to mold a Warrior’s build later on in the game.
Warriors do great in direct confrontations, but it is also possible to go for a semi-ranged build depending on your weapon of choice.
As a whole, the warrior class is quite sturdy and is backed by the will of iron. Therefore, it will be hard to seek death on this one. The agility is decent, and the high starting stamina is yet another icing on the cake.
While certain classes lean more towards the technical point aspect of playmaking, the Warriors instead focus on hitting where it hurts. Their punches can feel quite strong, even for the toughest bosses. Therefore, it would be a good idea to pick it as your go-to class.
Hollow/Luck Build
Despite having strength and vigor as its strong suit, you’d be surprised to know how much you can and cannot do with a hollow/lucky build. This build has been quite popular since the game’s release and possesses an uncanny level of compatibility with the Warrior class.
Despite being an easy late-game option, we recommend that new players pick up this build due to its hidden potential. While the waters might seem uncharted, we’re here to guide you on how it works. With that said, here is how it all works:
Attributes
The Hollow/Luck build does not require sticking to a single route. Instead, you can simply put 20 points for weapon damage while spending the rest ranking up multiple stats. It is up to you whether you want to go for a lot of health or stamina.
We recommend investing 5-10 points in stamina due to the class’s high usage. Other than that, you need to go for the following:
| Attribute | Stat |
| Vigor | 44 |
| Endurance | 40 |
| Strength | 28 |
| Dexterity | 28 |
| Luck | 35 |
Upgrading your stats on multiple fronts is what makes this build so good. However, that is not all there is to it. Rather, you can gain a lot of bonus stats through your equipment. Therefore, you don’t have to put a lot of points in the Luck stats.
With that said, you can tweak these stats according to your playstyle, so don’t hesitate to do so.
Equipment and Armor
- Anri’s Straight Sword
- Ring of Favor
- Chloranthy Ring
This build focuses on the generic aspect instead of a concrete path. Therefore, we recommend you build whichever luck and stamina-based equipment you desire. With that said, a Hollowfied Anri’s Straight Swords is by far the best luck-based weapon in Dark Souls 3.
It naturally possesses HP regen and Faith scaling, which can buff up your physical damage by a marginal amount. While hollowed weapons feel weak in the early game, their higher damage potentials make them just as big of a menace in the later portions.
The 3% max HP and 10% Stamina increase is nothing to scoff at when you’re using the Warrior class. However, it is not all it amounts to, especially in the later game. Having natural stamina regen can complement this item well.
That’s when the Chloranthy Ring comes into play. The 7 points of stamina recovery per second are nothing to scoff at and will make sure to get you going no matter what. With that said, you have the option to customize your equipment and armor according to your playstyle.
Spells
A Warrior has little in store due to its low affinity with magic. However, if you must go for some form of magic, you could try Iron Flesh and attack boost skills.
While they might suck the fun out of your melee adventures, they are still extremely useful if given the chance. The Iron Flesh can make a warrior even tankier. Therefore, adding it on top of your exceptionally high vigor will make the game feel rather easy.
The attack boost skills are also extremely important since having more damage is always welcome. With that said, you should pick your skills following your overall stats to get the most benefit out of them. Therefore, feel free to get creative!
Paladin Warrior Build
Faith/ Strength builds are among the better ones in Dark Souls 3. They give you the option of going for hybrid paths that can make the simplicity of the Warrior shine even more. This is due to the fact that you won’t have to stick to a textbook to make it all work out.
With that said, here is how the Paladin build comes together for the Warrior class:
Attributes
Bumping STR/ Faith to 30 is the way to go. Since these are the core stats for this build, you can also choose to go 60 Faith if you want stronger miracles. With that said, your main focus is to go for lightning and healing attacks.
Therefore, it is quite common for you to feel a marginal difference from early on. Furthermore, you will also need to invest accordingly in the strength and intelligence department. However, they can also be adjusted depending on your weapons and skills.
We recommend you refrain from going down the path of a tank since you will have to fill the damage offset one way or another. Therefore being hard to kill won’t amount to much if you don’t have the necessary damage to kill the boss by yourself.
Needless to say, the STR and Faith values can also be fine-tuned according to your equipment and armor. Therefore, there is no need to commit to constant values instead of maintaining a general ratio.
Equipment and Armor
- Ring of Favor
- Ring of the Sun’s First Born
- Lightning Clutch Ring
This build’s primary source of damage is from the Faith attribute. Therefore, the Ring of
Favor’s max HP and Stamina increase will greatly benefit in keeping you running. You will experience around a 3% base increase in your maximum hp and a whopping 8.5% increase in your max stamina.
Being able to attack continuously is not the only charm of this build. Therefore, having a 20% increase in miracle damage is a huge plus that can easily be obtained from the Ring of The Sun’s First Born.
With that said, it won’t be responsible for boosting healing miracles; only the damage will be modified from this ring. Stacking bonus miracle damage with the Dark Clutch or Lightning Clutch ring is possible.
However, we are looking to go for a lightning-based build. Therefore, let’s focus more on how the final piece fits into the puzzle. The Lightning Clutch ring can increase lightning-based attacks by 15% in PvE and 8% in PvP, making it a cornerstone in any lightning-based build. However, finding it can be a bit hard.
Spells
This build is highly reliant on spells to dish out damage. Since Faith works best with only a few attributes and equipment, it is better to rank up your spells instead. With that said, here are the spells that utilize this build exceptionally well:
- Lightning Blade: This is a miracle-type spell in Dark Souls 3 that is used to buff up your weapons to deal damage of the lightning attribute. With that said, the lightning damage multiplier equals to Spellbuff with a 0.95 factor. In simpler terms, the lightning damage is only 95% of the Spellbuff.
While a 95 is always smaller than 100, it still deals a considerable amount of damage which is applied each time the enemy is hit with the weapon. - Sacred Oath: Similar to the Lightning Blade, the Sacred Oath is also used to boost attack damage. However, it can be considered as a multi-purpose buff due to its group effect. An overall multiplicative increase of 10% is a great deal especially when you’re getting a 10.0 absorption as well.
With that said, the duration of this buff is 60 seconds. Therefore, make sure to benefit while it lasts. - Great Heal: This miracle spell pairs well with the paladin build path. The scale of this spell is depended on your Faith stat. Therefore, it is quite easy to go on a tank /f aith path from here onwards.
- Sunlight Spear: It is also an extremely useful miracle that can be cast by using a Chime, Talisman or a Special weapon. This spell requires you to have a minimum of 40 Faith. Therefore, it might not be accessible to everyone. However, the flat damage it’s able to deal is extremely worth the extra 10 points.
The spell works by dealing 2.6 * Spell Buff damage and creates a second hitbox for melee range. This newly made hitbox can apply bonus 67% damage that can be extremely helpful while dealing with tanky opponents.
You will have to obtain the mentioned spells from their relevant sources before being able to cast them. Some of the mentioned spells can be considered a vital part of this build. Therefore, we recommend you spare the appropriate effort for an easier Dark Souls experience.
The Best Overall Options for Warrior Builds
The warrior is a simplistic yet flexible class that can be molded into any build. Therefore, you can choose to use any meta build on him for maximum efficiency. Alternatively, he will also do wonders with certain unconventional builds.
With that said, you can focus on a single stat like Vigor, Endurance, and Strength as your basis for building for Warrior. They serve as a balanced base model to implement your innovative shenanigans.
Therefore, invest at least 10 points in each before proceeding with a specific stat. However, the requirements aren’t as strict as they might feel. Ultimately, it is a warrior class, so everything is mostly automated for you.
If you want to embark on the path of a warrior then the following builds might lend a hand in your arduous journey:
- A 66+ Strength-based build.
- Strength and Dexterity hybrid builds.
- Faith and Hollow builds.
All of the mentioned paths have their own unique, strong points that can aid you in defeating even the toughest bosses with a little effort. Therefore, we recommend you play to the Warrior’s strengths when considering a viable build.
Ultimately, you can also choose weapons like the Moonlight Greatsword, Lightning Lothric Knight Greatsword, etc., to thrive against new and inexperienced players. Regardless, the Warrior is a good class with an adequate supply of weapons and skills. Therefore, the build won’t matter if it’s sticking well with the basics.
Wrap Up
Overall, the Warrior is a great class to start with. While the initial mechanics might feel too simple for a few players, all of her will come loose once you start to fight against real Dark Souls 3 bosses. Therefore, we recommend you make the necessary preparations beforehand.
The build upgrade paths for a warrior are rather smooth and would require little to no effort. Therefore, we recommend this class for beginners as getting started is usually considered the toughest aspect of Dark Souls 3.