FFXIV Warrior (WAR) BasicGuide & FAQ – Shadowbringers Updated!

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Welcome, wild Warriors! If you’re wanting to try out the WAR job, you’ll find a wealth of basic information and FAQs in our Warrior Basics Guide. Read on if you’re expecting to learn about unlocking WAR, Warrior Job Identity, trait and skill list, crafters and gatherers related to WAR, and link to other important Warrior info!

Warrior is a Tank job, and one of the OG nine jobs introduced into the game in 2.0 A Realm Reborn. WARs came out with the only other co-tank at the time, Paladins.

How to become a Warrior? Unlocking WAR:

First and foremost you need to have a Level 30 Marauder, and have completed the L30 MRD class quest, “Bringing Down the Mountain”. After doing this you can unlock the actual quest to become a Warrior, “Pride and Duty (Will Bring you Down the Mountain)” which is issued by good ‘ol Wyrnzoen in Limsa Lominsa – Upper Decks.

You also have to complete a Level 20 MSQ, “Sylph Management”, which realistically should be completed by the time you’re looking to unlock Warrior. 

Note that, upon completing Pride and Duty (Will Bring you Down the Mountain) you MUST EQUIP the “Soul of the Warrior” to actually formally BECOME a WAR. Interestingly, in the old days, unlocking Warrior required L15 Gladiator – that’s no longer the case.

Rushing to or want to know how to unlock a certain class? Learn more:
FFXIV Job Unlock & Requirements Guide.

Warrior Playstyle & WAR Job Identity

If you’ve asked yourself, “Why play, try, or choose Warrior?” – here’s my attempt at selling you the WAR class.

Ah, the quintessential bruiser. Warriors in FFXIV are that good ‘ol “Tanky DPS”. Resource management, cooldown timings, burst windows… Warriors play like a DPS! The infamous Fell Cleave changed tank players forever. Their tanking capability is still great – don’t be fooled! Their special “niche” to separate them from other tanks is their short defensive windows as a skill test.

Historically, while they’re known and designed for their DPS – they don’t always come out on top of all the other tanks (It really depends patch to patch). Warriors have some extremely tight timings which lurk under the seeming simplicity of the job, and can be a little hectic when optimizing.

Aesthetically and thematically, Warrior looks and feels like the wild frontliner it’s meant to be. The feeling of playing a Warrior is spot on – the FFXIV WAR changes the meaning of “Tank and Spank”.

What Crafters & Gatherers should Warrior level?

While it’s common in MMORPG’s to think you want to craft your own gear as you level up your WAR… I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT.

Leveling up your DoH and DoL jobs should be thought of as a different activity completely. To be honest, if you’re a newer player, simply ensure that you DO NOT OVERCAP Levequests (always have less than 100).

The only relation a combat job has to a crafter or gatherer class is “which classes do you need to repair your gear”? My advice, ultimately, is pretty much all or nothing – level up all DoH classes in tandem. As a separate project, level up all DoL classes in tandem (with the optional Fisher).

What’s the best race for Warrior?

Racial stats are (was?) a thing. However, I highly recommend not caring about it. The difference in performance between the “best” and “worst” race for you is not even 0.1%.

My advice? Pick for aesthetics. Will you stay the same job forever? If you change mains, will you race change? Ultimately, the difference is so microscopic that I cannot in good faith tell you that racial stats are an integral part of your character.

I won’t even link the Racial Stats Guide, as I haven’t checked up on this in a while – and I don’t want to cement the idea that the “best race” really matters.

Related Warrior Guides – Read More!

Here are a few useful links for you:

• General Leveling Guide for ALL combat classes / jobs
• Marauder Basics Guide & FAQ
• Marauder Leveling Guide
• Adding new links as we update them!

Upcoming Odds and Ends

Here’s a few things we’ll be adding on here in the near future:

• Adding a “links to further resources”, we’re doing a site restructure so once those links are set, they’ll go in here.
• Human-readable, newbie-friendly skill and trait list.
  > I used to have the in-game skill list here, but I found it useless as the in-game one is better… I’d rather have a new player friendly rundown.
• More descriptive job identity? Pics?
  > I dunno… pictures of the job gauges? A gif of some flashy skills?
• Feel free to suggest anything else via comment or socials!

Summary & Outro

Well that’s about it for a really, really basic guide that hopefully points some lost souls in the right direction, or answers some of your questions regarding Warrior.

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