Arcane Warrior

There were once magicians who used their magic to improve their fighting abilities. An Arcane Warrior would channel magical energies through their bodies to become an unstoppable force on the battlefield. This magical art is thought to have been lost; however, it may still exist, hidden in some corner of the world today. Arcane Warrior is a specialization of the mage class.

Arcane Warriors in Thedas
The Arcane Warriors once widely existed amongst the Ancient Elves, after their fall, the art of the Arcane Warriors are seemingly all but lost.

Arcane Warrior: The Class
Specialization benefits for Arcane Warrior:
 * +1 dexterity
 * +5 attack

[[File:Spell-CombatMagic_Icon.png]] Combat Magic
While this mode is active, the arcane warrior channels magic inward, trading increased fatigue for an attack bonus and the ability to use Magic to determine combat damage. Aura of Might and Fade Shroud improve the effects. Additionally, regardless of whether the mode is active, an arcane warrior who has learned this spell may use the magic attribute to satisfy the strength requirement to equip higher-level weapons or armor.
 * Required Level: 7
 * Upkeep: 50 (not listed in-game)
 * Fatigue: 50.0%
 * Range: Personal
 * Cooldown: 10.0s
 * Attack Bonus: 5.0 + (Spellpower / 5.0)
 * Damage Bonus: Magic is now used in place of Strength for weapon damage (not spellpower, as per the game's description).

[[File:Spell-AuraofMight_Icon.png]] Aura of Might
The arcane warrior’s prowess with Combat Magic grows, granting additional bonuses to attack, defense, and damage while in that mode.
 * Required Level: 12
 * Cost: Passive
 * Upkeep: 0.0
 * Fatigue: 0.0%
 * Range: Personal
 * Cooldown: 0.0s
 * Attack Bonus: 5.0
 * Defense Bonus: 10.0
 * Damage Bonus: 5.0

[[File:Spell-ShimmeringShield_Icon.png]] Shimmering Shield

 * Required Level: 14
 * Cost: 0.0
 * Upkeep: 40.0
 * Fatigue: 5.0%
 * Range: Personal
 * Cooldown: 30.0s
 * Armor Bonus: 15.0
 * All 7 Resistances Bonus: 75.0
 * Mana Regeneration Penalty (exploration and combat): 10.0/s

The arcane warrior is surrounded by a shimmering shield of energy that blocks most damage and grants large bonuses to armor and all resistances. When active, however, the Shimmering Shield consumes mana rapidly.

Before Patch v1.02 it was bugged and did not cancel when Mana was over.

[[File:Spell-FadeShroud_Icon.png]] Fade Shroud
The arcane warrior now only partly exists in the physical realm while Combat Magic is active. Spanning the gap between the real world and the Fade grants a bonus to mana regeneration and a chance to avoid attacks.
 * Required Level: 16
 * Cost: Passive
 * Upkeep: 0.0
 * Fatigue: 0.0%
 * Range: Personal
 * Cooldown: 0.0s
 * Mana Regeneration Bonus (exploration and combat): 1.0/s
 * Attack Dodge Chance Bonus: 25.0%

Unlocking


This specialization can be unlocked while doing the Nature of the Beast quest line.

Location: Brecilian Ruins

Floor: Lower Ruins

Map: Middle Right; left section of two outstretching quarters.

Landmark: Broken Stone Altar; the section looks like a ruined library with a broken altar. If you see this land mark and it specifically says "Broken Stone Altar", then you are in the correct room.

Position: It 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 a PC press tab to highlight all interactable objects in the room.

Item: Phylactery. When you touch it 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. While the spirit of the elf has been imprisoned for so long that it forgets where the altar is located, the altar is actually right beside the phylactery. By destroying the phylactery, you unlock the Arcane Warrior specialization for the mage.

Mechanics and Tactics
Arcane Warriors can use their sustained abilities to get very high levels of defense/armor/spell resistance. This can be powerful, but can limit what the Arcane Warrior can do to basically being an auto-attacking machine with decent damage and great defense.

In all cases having an Arcane Warrior in your group gives you a lot of added flexibility, and removes to a certain extent the need to have a second warrior character with you for the purposes of soaking damage when fighting large groups of enemies.

The key to Arcane Warrior mechanics lies in two tradeoffs, one defensive between armor and fatigue, and the other offensive between sword and staff. For the first, having the ability to wear the armor, which you acquire as soon as you get the Combat Magic ability, does not remove the associated fatigue increases on the mana cost of spells, and so heavy armor limits how many spells your character can use. Note that fatigue penalties also cause potions to become less useful, and you will lose significant amounts of combat time and so damage output by relying on them.

The second tradeoff is offensive, between sword, the preferred weapon for close-up combat, and staff; this affects which spells you can cast. Going the sword route is possible, but if you try to cast spells for which the sword must be sheathed, your character will sheathe the sword, then cast. This causes a mid-combat delay which can cause a significant amount of trouble. By pausing the game and using the weapon-switch ability you can avoid the time penalty (weapon switch becomes instant in this case) and so micromanage your way around this. However that requires a significant amount of player involvement. See Arcane Warrior Spellcasting for a complete list of spells that can be cast with a sword in hand.

The various sustained Arcane Warrior abilities tend to have very heavy mana cost, and so a common tactic is to leave them off until you are low on mana. This allows you to open a fight with heavy area damage like Fireball and expensive crowd-control spells, and since casting a sustained ability does not cost you mana if your max mana is low enough, it is essentially free. At what point you switch is down to personal preference - the longer you leave it, the more flexible your casting options are. Nevertheless the Arcane Warrior as melee-fighter is a good way to extend a fight, giving you a little extra durability when you need it (much like Shapeshifting's Bear form ability). The small delay while you turn on your abilities does not usually matter much.

Play Styles
There are basically three main styles you can follow. The 'mage' style arcane warrior relies on not over-doing the armor and primarily using a staff. A good armor level to aim for is to have no more than 15% fatigue. This type of mage is still largely a ranged damage dealer but can lead from the front, function as a second tank, and has a decent mana pool. You can manage a significant amount of casting, while being more robust than non-Arcane Warrior mages, but are not an all-out warrior replacement. Since Shimmering Shield doesn't require you to activate Combat Magic, you could also forego armor, stick to high mana regen gear, and just keep it up for the resistances and armor bonus. Mental and physical resistances top at 100 while elemental cap at 75.

Other people prefer more of a 'hybrid' build, based around engaging in melee while throwing out Cones of Colds and the like. This playstyle usually uses a sword. If you choose to go down this route it's advisable to become very familiar with the list of spells that are castable with a sword out, and specifically build your character so that you acquire a good selection before specialising. It's also a good idea to have a staff handy for when it's needed, and bind weapon swap to a hotkey.

The third play-style, as a very heavily armored 'tank mage', is really just mentioned for completeness here. The low effective mana pool caused by the heavy armor makes it hard to do enough damage to keep monsters attacking you, but it does lead to a very robust mage character, even if you tend to run out of mana within 4-5 spells.

Keep in mind, try to gear up an Arcane Warrior with "increase stamina" type of item, like the Executioner's Helm or the Eamon's Shield to see his mana pool grow instantly.

Combining With Other Specializations
Blood Magic is a popular second specialization choice for an Arcane Warrior - it can help to offset the disadvantages of a low mana pool at the cost of health, since it allows the Arcane Warrior to cast Blood Magic spells using health as mana. Presumably the heavy armor will give the Arcane Warrior enough headroom on health to do this, although a reasonable constitution would be highly recommended. The effective Blood Wound spell can also be acquired, which is an ideal choice for a more offensive Arcane Warrior. This would be the recommended combination for the 'gish' build mentioned above.

The other main choice, Spirit Healing, produces a mixed character with offensive and defensive magic and good durability. This combination works best with no more than medium armor, since a decent amount of mana is needed to power the high-level healing spells. Also worth noting is that Cleansing Aura can draw as much aggro as a Warrior with threaten.

Shapeshifting is an interesting combination with Arcane Warrior. There is a 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 Form 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 you cannot have Combat Magic active while in shapeshift forms.

Reference
Dragon Age: Origins - PRIMA Official Strategy Guide.

Links
Hollowness' Guide on the Arcane Warrior