Warrior PvP Guide for FFXIV

Warrior was widely considered one of the strongest jobs on release, with a short cooldown AoE stun, a grab for additional CC, and strong sustain. Despite a slight nerf, it remains as impactful as ever. Utilizing the limit break well can win teamfights on its own, not to mention continually applying a strong, high-uptime increased damage taken debuff on an enemy.

This page will focus on Crystalline Conflict. While bits and pieces may be applicable to other PvP game modes like Frontlines, it is not specifically aimed at them.

Strengths

• Strong, ranged AoE hard CC
• Targeted grab + soft CC
• Excellent sustain
• Applies a strong increased damage taken debuff

Weaknesses

• Can be focused down easily when defensives are not up
• Limit break requires high HP and MP reserves to be fully effective
• Some skills cost HP to use

Every job has access to a few common actions:

• Recuperate - This is your most important healing ability. For a quarter of your MP, you heal around a quarter of your HP. Use this liberally—nobody wants to be the guy dying while at full MP. If your MP is low, consider stepping back to Elixir. Keep your MP high before you look for a limit break, as Primal Scream makes you unable to use Guard for its duration.
• Standard-issue Elixir - This is your second-most important healing ability. It takes a while to channel, but restores all of your HP and MP (more MP means more in-combat healing with Recuperate). The listed cast time is 4.5 seconds, which means the cast is actually snapshotted as complete after 4 seconds, after which you can move and opponents can no longer cancel your elixir. It can feel bad to step out of the fight, but dying is much much worse than stepping out for 5 seconds to restore your MP.
• Guard - Grants 90% damage reduction and immunity to most crowd-control debuffs for up to 5 seconds. Using another action cancels this early. This is your strongest defensive cooldown, so try to play around it being up. In addition, avoid blindly relying on Guard to get you out of sticky situations alone; make sure to have a plan for staying alive afterwards, for example having extra MP to heal up, stunning your pursuers, or running behind a corner. It is sometimes correct to cancel Guard slightly early, since good players will time their CC or burst for the moment your Guard ends.
• Purify - Cleanses all common crowd-control debuffs and provides a 5-second immunity to further CC if it cleansed something. Use this to prevent yourself from getting CC-chained to death. If you have no Purify or Guard available, consider moving back to a safe area to wait for a defensive cooldown before re-engaging.
• Sprint - Toggle for increased movement speed. This is a GCD and using any other action cancels the buff, so be smart in using it. You can use Sprint in combat to stick to an enemy long enough for your CC abilities to come off cooldown. If you are using off-global abilities repeatedly while running away or chasing, you should try to late-weave them if you can afford to, to avoid canceling too much of the Sprint duration.

Warrior is most known for Primal Rend, a 15-second cooldown, ranged, targeted, instant-application, 2-second duration stun. This skill does it all, from engaging to bursting to locking down a kill by delaying a Guard for 2 whole seconds. Keep in mind that this is a gapcloser, so think twice before using it to plunge deep into the enemy team with no Guard or Purify available.

Blota is Warrior's other CC tool, pulling in an enemy from range and inflicting them with a 5-second Heavy. The movement speed debuff is strong and long enough to almost force a Purify on its own. Combo this before Primal Rend to yank a burst target in before stunning them for 2 seconds, or Primal Rend first to burn a Purify then later Blota them into your team while their Purify is on cooldown. Blota is sometimes the better option to engage with because it does not put you in the midst of your team. Keep your finger on your Guard to be ready when the opposing team tries to get you while you look for a good target to Blota.

Onslaught is your gapcloser, on a 10-second cooldown and costing 10% of your current HP, but dealing more damage the closer to full HP you are. Onslaught also inflicts a 10-second debuff causing the target to take 10% more damage. This effect is incredibly powerful and can make it drastically easier to lock down a close kill. Use this liberally on targets your team can hit.

Orogeny deals damage in an AoE around you on a 20-second cooldown. Like Onslaught, it both costs HP to use, and deals more damage when using at a higher HP total. It applies a debuff to everyone hit that reduces their damage dealt by 10% for 10 seconds. This is an incredible ability that can keep you and your team alive just long enough to finish someone off first, as well as dealing some serious damage (over 20% of an HP bar when you're at full HP).

Both Onslaught and Orogeny can actually apply their debuff through Guard.

Warrior has two main sustain abilities: the last hit of the basic combo, Storm's Path, and Bloodwhetting. Storm's Path restores a small piece of your HP, while Bloodwhetting makes your damage heal you for the next 10 seconds, as well as giving you a shield and access to Chaotic Cyclone.

Primal Scream is on a 90-second cooldown, and does several things.

• Makes enemies in a large cone pointing from you to your target unable to Guard for 15 seconds.
• Grants Inner Release, upgrading your basic combo ability, Primal Rend and Chaotic Cyclone, as well as increasing movement speed and giving immunity to most crowd-control effects.
• Gives Thrill of Battle, increasing max HP and healing by 20%.

Warrior limit break is on a fairly short cooldown, letting you use it many times in a single game. Use it to prevent Guards and secure kills for your team. If you are ahead in overtime, you can use it to force your opponents into a lose-lose situation where they lose if they do not stand on the point, and they lose when they do stand on the point and become unable to Guard due to your limit break.

Primal Scream is very powerful, but can also leave the Warrior quite vulnerable, since you are also unable to Guard. Because of this, try to have very high MP and HP going into your Primal Scream, to avoid being focused down quickly and end up wasting most of your buff.

With a 15-second duration, make sure to use Primal Rend and Bloodwhetting / Chaotic Cyclone at least once during the buff duration. If you Bloodwhetting more than 5 seconds before using limit break, you can use Chaotic Cyclone with the buffed potency twice instead of once.

There are many ways to play Warrior. Some people like to hold W and use their CC and sustain to keep going in deeper and deeper until they secure a kill. Sometimes it can be better to play safer and counter-engage on your opponent. Abuse your powerful CC in Primal Rend and Blota to lock down kills or make picks.

Use Onslaught a lot and keep an eye on your HP to keep it and Orogeny dealing big damage.