Arcane Warrior

The Arcane Warriors once widely existed amongst the ancient Elves. However, after their fall, the art of the Arcane Warriors is seemingly all but lost. This is also a specialization of the mage class in Dragon Age: Origins.

Unlocking
This specialization can be unlocked while doing the Nature of the Beast quest line. It is located in the Lower Ruins of the Brecilian Ruins. Inside there, according to the map it is in middle right; left section of two outstretching quarters.

Inside a small chamber which looks like a ruined library, there is a Broken Stone Altar. The phylactery is hidden in the shadows of that room; it's not sparkling, so just use your controller on the area across from the broken altar, next to the headless statue if you are playing on a console. If you are playing on press Tab to highlight all interactable objects in the room.

When you touch the phylactery you experience the memories of the last elven arcane warrior who has remained trapped inside of the phylactery for centuries. He offers to teach you the secrets of the Arcane Warriors in exchange for setting his spirit free by placing the phylactery on an ancient altar. Although the spirit has been imprisoned for so long that it has forgotten where the altar is located, the altar is actually right beside the phylactery. By receiving the memories from the phylactery, you unlock the Arcane Warrior specialization for the mage as well as 250 XP. In addition, if you destroy it afterwards, you receive from Alistair.

In order to unlock the specialization, interact with the phylactery.
 * 1) {Touch the gem}.
 * 2) {Is this some kind of trapped spirit?}
 * 3) {Is there anything I can do for you?}
 * 4) {Yes. I will try to help you}
 * 5) {Approach the stone altar with the gem.}
 * 6) {Yes give me your memories}
 * 7) {Place the artifact on the stone altar.}, or toss it away while saying {Nah, you may have a use later.}

Mechanics and tactics
An Arcane Warrior gives flexibility to the mage and the party and allows the mage to equip most armor and weapons. Trading off on fatigue and mana managing allows the mage to be played as a hybrid weapon user and armoured mage. The mage can use sustained abilities to get very high levels of defense/armor/spell resistance, but at a heavy mana cost. This and high fatigue limit how many spells your character can use. Note that fatigue penalties also cause potions to become less useful. With equipment and attributes placed accordingly, an Arcane Warrior can mimic a Warrior or Rogue in base damage with auto attack but with mage abilities and spells. See Arcane Warrior spellcasting for a complete list of spells that can be cast with a sword in hand.

Play styles
Play styles for Arcane Warriors: Damager/Nuker, Defender/Tank, & Healer/Supporter, further customizations are referred to as Hybrids. Many recommendations to how to play an Arcane Warrior can be overwhelming but it is key to understand all mage Spells. Knowing how combinations work and what does not work together will give you an advantage.

Damager
A damager can be either melee with casting or casting with a staff. If you are going to use your Arcane warrior as dps, be sure to combine it with a better suited damage dealing specialization. The upside is that you can now equip your mage with some of the games strongest weapons for melee damage, and still be able to throw the occasional spell in to soften up enemies.

Defender
Arcane Warriors can be setup to tank with the ability to wear heavy armor and manage fatigue makes this caster extremely tough, at the expense of a weaker mana pool. One can take advantage of the specialization's strong defensive spells in conjunction with regular defensive mage spells. By activating Shimmering Shield, Rock Armor, Combat Magic, Arcane Shield, Miasma and other buffs, you can make an arcane warrior tougher than any class in the game. Be sure to enhance your Arcane Warrior's mana rate with proper gear and keep in mind that gear with stamina regeneration buffs also apply as mana for Arcane Warriors.

Healer
By using your Arcane Warrior as a healer, you give your party a huge boost in survivability. Most of the time you have to manage aggro carefully with the warriors so that your fragile healer isn't instantly torn to pieces, but by using the heavy armor available to this specialization you can give your healer a huge buffer to damage. This means that a sneak attack by some shrieks on your mage is no longer a dealbreaker on harder difficulties.

Hybrids
Hybrids are variations of play style, gear, attribute placement and role in the party. This is also what is considered when picking up a second or third specialization.

Blood mage
Blood Mage can help to offset the disadvantages of a low mana pool at the cost of health by allowing the Arcane Warrior to cast Blood Magic spells using health as mana. A reasonable amount of constitution would be highly recommended with this specialization combination. The effective Blood Wound spell can also be acquired, which is an ideal choice for both a more offensive Arcane Warrior and a tank drawing Threat.

Spirit Healer
Spirit Healer produces a mixed character with offensive and defensive magic and good durability. This combination works best with light and medium armor, since a decent amount of mana is needed to power the high-level healing spells.

Shapeshifter
Shapeshifter is fair bit of redundant overlap between the two, as they both offer exclusive options in melee, but a foremost Shapeshifter with secondary Arcane Warrior can use massive armor and Bear Shape and be incredibly hard to kill with weapons. The main problem with this is the fact that Shapeshifter overall does very poor damage because of the fact that, unlike what the tooltip for Shapeshifter says, it does not actually use magic to calculate damage.

Battlemage
Battlemage is an especially potent option as you can use the sustained and activated spells from the Battle Mage with the Arcane Warrior's ability to wear heavy and massive armor. This has drawbacks however, mana managing is even more intense and limits your use of sustained and activated spells. However, with good spell combinations can be very effective in damage and threat.

Another tactic with the battlemage specialisation would be to wear robes instead of heavy and light armour and use arcane warrior to gain access to high tier close range weapons, this allows your mage to take full advantage of spells like Elemental Chaos and Arcane Field, however, if you still want your mage to pump out weapon damage it is almost crucial that you activate Combat Magic making an extremely high fatigue, this can be lowered with equipment with the - fatigue enchantment and runes, or it can be countered late game with pumping four skill points into the clarity tree and putting a majority of your points in willpower (in some cases more than magic, depending on how many activated spells your mage will use). I should note that this tactic will leave your mage with little armour or defence so you should consider putting a fair amount of points into constitution if your tank and healer cant cope with keeping your battlemage from being overwhelmed, 20-30 should be enough, depending on how well your tank and healer work or even if you don't have them/one of them.

Keeper
Keeper is an area of effect and crowd control specialization with a passive health regeneration ability. This can be very useful for any play style. This can be a high threat combination and with the draw back of rooting with One With Nature and may want to be a third specialization.

Weapons
There is only one arcane warrior specialization specific item in the game:

Equipment

 * For melee close combat and tanking, equip armor sets with -fatigue, equipment/weapons with +stamina/willpower, +mana/stamina regeneration, +dodge, +damage and of course +magic/spellpower.
 * For casting unless wearing heavy armor in which case you can invest in fatigue as well. +magic/spellpower, +stamina/willpower, +mana/stamina regeneration, and reduced threat.
 * Any further equipment and gear choices can be customized to your play style.

Bugs

 * It says that the specialization bonus is on  but it normally applies the  bonus ingame.
 * While affected by the Combat Magic mode upgraded by the Fade Shroud Warden's eyeballs are visible from any direction but en face.