how does and arcane warrior/blood mage wear heavy armor?

[DR0 GAS]

Hello i am new to the game and just got my first build up to where i get the arcane warrior specialization. I was under the impression that as soon as you did the quest for it and then spent your first point in it you could wear heavy armor as a mage. I am a wrong or do i have to wait a few levels? i have like around 38 magic btw

[Bek]

The first talent allows you to use your Magic instead of Strength to use gear; so assuming that when you said point you mean talent point and not specialization it should have kicked in although you might have to turn it on once.

[Bek]

The second thing is to double check that your Magic is high enough to use whatever gear you are attempting to wear.

[New Moon On Monday]

As noted above, choosing the Combat Magic spell- the first spell in the Arcane Warrior tree- will allow you to equip armor and weapons (using your Magic attribute instead of Strength to check the Strength requirements. Combat Magic does not have to be actually in use to equip armor and weapons.

(Combat Magic does have to be active during battle if you want to use melee weapons- at least if you want those melee weapons to actually hit something.)

Be wary of counting on armor to protect you get in melee range of enemies. I thought that on my first try at playing an Arcane Warrior, and I was very wrong. Your armor rating will be routinely debuffed, and you'll spend a lot of time stunned and knocked down and otherwise abuse from all the physical resistance checks you fail.

If you intend to tank or otherwise draw hostility to yourself, you may want to consider delaying the armor until you also have Shimmering Shield (and Arcane Shield and probably Rock Armor, and Miasma if you can but you may already have a lot going on with Blood Mage too). Until then, hang back a bit; or if you have to get close, continue to let someone else help you out with Taunts, and keep erasing Threat with Mind Blast if you have it.

[DR0 GAS]

thank you so much for the reply can link a guide to a arcane warrior/blood mage tank build? I followed a build online that was meant as a "beginner" build but it did not explain that much. I especially need help early game. If not can you recommend other arcane warrior builds or playstyles that are better or more allot more op? I already decided to min/max a arcane warrior build first since overall spell+melee builds are my favorite in RPG'S and I heard that those builds perform best in game. Seriously thanks for the insight it made me truly realize how horribly I mismanaged everything.

[New Moon On Monday]

I just played a game with an Arcane Warrior (not Blood Mage though). I played as a Tank to draw enemy fire away from companions while they did damage. Doing that though, you can't start tanking until 14th level (when you get Shimmering Shield), so you're a regular Mage level 1-13.

On Normal difficultly, levels 1-13 were challenged. After I got to 14th level and started figuring out strategies, the game got really easy.

Attributes I divided evenly between Magic/Willpower, with just a couple of points in Cunning to meet bare requirements of taking Coercion.

For Skills, I like getting all of Coercion (for Persaude attempts), at least the 2nd rank of Combat Training (for a small Mana regeneration bonus), picked up Poison-Making at 15th level to use poisons.

I took Arcane Warrior at 7th level.

First 16 levels of spells look something like this:

Levels 1-2: Rock Armor, Mind Blast, Weakness
Levels 3-4: Arcane Shield, Lightning
Levels 5-6: Paralyze, Force Field
Levels 7-8: Staff Focus, Shock
Level 9: Miasma
Levels 10-11: Arcane Mastery, Tempest
Levels 12-14: Combat Magic, Aura of Might, Shimmering Shield
Levels 15-16: Chain Lightning, Fade Shroud

That doesn't account for plot-based bonus spells, and tomes, so there will be one or maybe several extra spell slots in there.

Levels 1-13 you are a crowd-control mage, with Paralyze, Force Field, and Mind Blast.

Starting at level 14, you are a tank. That's when you put on the armor, equip a sword and shield (keeping a staff backup). Run Shimmering Shield, Rock Armor, Arcane Shield, and Miasma all the time.

Draw Threat by being the first person the enemy spots, or starting off with AOE damaging spells. Tempest is a good one if the enemy hasn't spotted you yet, you can cast it around corners and walls ant terrain. Otherwise Chain Lightning, which is the only party friendly AOE spell in Origins (the in-game spell description is incorrect). You can also use Force Field as a starter to tie up lieutenants and elites, Paralyze too. (Mind Blast erases threat, so you are never using it again.)

Cast your buffs and opening spells with your staff equipped, to increase spellpower. Once you have cast 1-3 opening spells in combat, then it's time to cast Combat Magic, then equip your melee weapons to engage. Because of the Combat Magic fatigue penalty, you don't want to do more spellcasting with that active.

At the end of battle, turn off Combat Magic and switch back to your staff so you are ready for the next battle.

Arcane Warriors are bad at managing threat, so companions need to avoid threat. Warriors can Disengage, Mages can Mind Blast, Rogues can use Master Stealth or Feign Death. They should avoid AOE damage attacks to avoid drawing too much threat.

Because of the heavy Mana drain of Shimmering Shield, you want equipment that adds Mana/Stamina, Mana/Stamina Regeneration, and Willpower. Fatigue reduction is also a great property to have in armor.

Shimmering Shield gets all five elemental resistances to the maximum possible at 75%, so you need no more elemental resistance. It gets you to 75% spell resistance, so you need just +25% to max that out, same with Mental and Physical Resistance.

Even with Combat Magic and high Magic you won't have an attack score with melee weapons that comes close to what Warriors can do, so it's great if companions can buff attacks (or debuff enemy defense).

I didn't take Blood Mage, I don't like the idea of draining my own Health while tanking. If you really pay attention to your Mana equipment you'll be fine for Mana. I eventually added Crushing Prison, Glyph of Paralysis, and Mana Clash (fun spell, but really it was overkill). But add what you like after 16th level, or with your bonus spells.

[New Moon On Monday]

Lots of good information on the Arcane Warrior[dragonage.fandom.com] section of the Wiki.

I also was using the Dain's Fixes mod[www.nexusmods.com], just the _Core and Bug Fixes folder, because it fixes a lot of bugged spells.

[New Moon On Monday]

A few other things to keep in mind (if using your Arcane Warrior as a tank):

You will still need a companion mage as a healer in Origins. You don't have the mana to be healing. (Wynne of course is the best healer. Her Rejuvenate spell is valuable to you. On top of that, she starts just a few spells away from Haste.)

You have no way of dealing with status effects that ignore Physical Resistance (some stuns and knockdowns.) That's not too bad- enemies can temporarily disable you, but they will still have trouble causing you damage.

Most AOE damage spells that you would want to use to start battle (e.g. Tempest, Chain Lightning) have 2s casting times and will be commonly disrupted by stuns (e.g. Scattershot). Again that's not too bad, as long as enemies are directing their alpha strikes at you and not your companions. Those spells are more about the threat than the actual damage. Just make sure your melee companions aren't running ahead of you while you are stunned.

Your high Magic score gives you a significant bonus using health poultices, and your overall Health is low because you are a Mage and because you are not investing in Constitution. You will never need to use a health poultice stronger than the Lesser Health Poultice, it will pretty much give you a full heal throughout the game (assuming you aren't using blood magic to drag down healing effects; I don't know a lot about the Blood Mage mechanics). That lets you save the stronger poultices for your Warriors- the Lesser Health Poultices quickly become worthless to them.

In a really long battle, you may feel the situation calls for you to cast some mid-battle spells. Combat Magic has a 10s cooldown. So you can turn off Combat Magic, switch to staff, cast a few spells, drink a lyrium potion if needed. If all that is done and Combat Magic is still on cooldown, continue attacking with your staff because your melee attacks are awful without Combat Magic. When cooldown is over, remember cast Combat Magic with staff in hand, switch to melee once Combat Magic is cast.

If an enemy dispels your protection spells (Shimmering Shield et al.), you are back to being fragile. In that case you have to immediately pull out of combat (dusting off Mind Blast if necessary) and send your Warrior in for tanking and taunting. There is nothing that prevents a Templar's dispel. Anti-Magic Ward prevents dispel from an enemy mage- but that situation is so rare, I'm not sure it's worth taking Anti-Magic Ward just for that.

I leave it to you to find helpful looted/quest equipment. When it comes to store-bought equipment, there is one item that stands out as must-have, and that's Andruil's Blessing (sold by the Circle Tower Quartermaster.) Save your money to make this your first big purchase. +2 Mana regeneration, +10 Physical Resistance, +2 to all attributes. You'll not find anything better for your belt slot, not even close.

Remember that any item giving a Stamina bonus will give you a Mana bonus instead. When an item has separate Mana and Stamina regeneration bonuses, you get both. (As far as I know, it does not work the other way around- Warriors and Rogues never benefit from Mana bonuses.)

I have experienced bugs in which item sets have lost item set bonuses. It happened right after I got the Warden Commanders Armor, and that's brutal because I really really needed the fatigue reduction. I fixed it with the Winter Forge mod[www.nexusmods.com] (and the Winter Forge user manual[www.nexusmods.com]). You can turn off all the crafting elements of the mod and keep the Item Set editing (and remodeling and coloring if you like). There are a lot of item sets that can really benefit you, and it would be hugely disappointing if a key item bugs out and loses its item set flag.

[ADEC Inc]

Arcane Warrior can use weapons but is still primarily a mage and should be casting whenever possible. Use elemental cone spells to deal damage and draw threat to multiple foes quickly - these are what normally cause a mage to need a tank in the first place. Powerful single enemies should be hit with Misdirection and/or Death Hex to draw extra threat and cripple them. Only after your mana is spent should you activate Combat Magic, and then swap from your staff to your sword.

Blood Mage is a great combo for Arcane Warrior tank. All blood mage abilities can be used with weapons drawn, and you only need to concern yourself with Magic and Constitution.

Blood Magic healing reduction is moot as you steal blood from allies and then they heal normally, bypassing the penalty. You can even have multiple blood mages take blood from each other as they gain double the health lost by the ally.

In blood magic mode you spend 20% less health than you would have spent mana (some items reduce this further), and with good Con investment you have plenty to burn.

Blood Wound is like an AOE Crushing Prison with lower cost and cooldown, no friendly fire, and it draws threat (especially if using bugfix mods that restore spell threat). Blood Control also provides good damage and threat to a single target, even if it doesn't "charm" them to your side.