No matter what kind of warrior you're running, this class is all about HP. You always want recovery first, and the rest can be supplementary.

Ideally you would want: HP recovery 3, HP&AP recovery 3**, Max HP 3, and Reduce Status Effect.
That is ideal buff set for the helmet, alternatively HP recovery 3 + HP recovery 2 is perfect.

Alternate set ups include Super Guard/Rocketman warriors. If this is your ideal QM warrior I would remove only the Max HP buff, it is the only buff on the primary list that is a luxury. Recovery saves lives.

Common things I hear about helmets:

"I use a Super Guard warrior in QM and I generally use more AP." - Great, swap out that Max HP for Max AP 3.

** "I don't have HP&AP recovery 3, isn't HP recovery 5 faster anyway?" - This is an excellent question. YES, HP recovery 5 is faster than HP recovery 3 + HP&AP recovery 3, by a difference of about 1 entire second. One of the great benefits of this buff is that your AP will recover much faster than it normally would. This means more charged attacks, more spinning blades, more smashes, more rocketmans, and faster super guards. Combine that with essentially the fastest possible recovery for your HP and you have an over powered recovery system.

"Why do I need Reduce Status Effect?" - Reduce Status cuts the time of effects in half. Reduce will save your life in countless situations. The most common deaths that are much more easily avoided: Stun, Ice, and Lightning. Stun takes forever to get out of, up to 3-4 entire seconds without reduce status. That is just enough time for you to get charged attack and hit the respawn screen. Ice is just plain annoying without reduce, if someone is close enough to hit you with a small ice attack they can easily repeatedly press RT and keep you in your cute little snowman form until you're at the respawn screen. Lightning mages are obnoxious, and with an increasing number of bot lightning mages your chances of survival are slimmer than ever without reduce. You can fight all you want, but if two people decide to attack you while you're stuck in Pikachu's Thundershock for 6 seconds, you're going to die. Albeit rare, I would absolutely consider this buff a necessity.

Effective QM armor needs two things Mobility and Lightning resistance.

Mobility should be your absolute essential first buff on any armor set. I want to briefly touch on a few buffs and their effectiveness.

Lightning Resistance 3: Will you still get affected by lightning? Yes. Will it be instant? Maybe. Will it happen as often? Absolutely not. This buff is a great way to get you away from many potentially deadly situations and drastically reduces the damage you take from a lightning based attack.

Ice Resistance 3: Will I still get affected by Ice? Barely ever. Does it reduce damage taken? Almost all of it. How effective is it? A good mage with a slayer wand using ice will seem like a dispelled mage running around with a target on his face. You are now basically invincible to them.

Stun Rate Down 3: Will you still get affected by Stun? Barely ever. Does it reduce damage taken? None of it. A bonus benefit to this buff, not only do you avoid death from one of the longest lasting effects in the game, but you also rarely have to worry about obnoxious Roar bots getting you killed in the middle of a fight.

Mobility 3+2: Am I faster than mobility 3? If you're the host, yeah. But Mobility 3 can outrun mobility 6 if the player with Mobility 3 has the host connection. Will Mobility 5 help me in a fight? Not at all. Will Mobility 5 increase my Guard Move Speed? No, this is a common myth that is absolutely non-existent. Is it worth having this extra mobility on my armor? Not even a little bit. In a battle between Mobility 3 and Mobility 5, starting from 1 castle to the other on Rainbow there will not be a significant difference in distance no matter who takes the lead. I hardly think a 10 foot gap over a half a mile race is going to be an essential buff for your armor. Remember - there is no acceleration in Happy Wars. You cannot walk slowly, the second you move you are already at top speed. Before you slap mobility 5 on your armor, remember that you're leaving yourself open to SOMETHING, whether it is Ice, Stun, Lightning, Wind, Fire, or whatever - at least with that mobility 2 gone you could absolutely eliminate a source of in game death vs hoping you're going to out run someone with your imaginary speed boost.

KO Rate Down 3: Will it reduce the number of times I get KO'd? No. Is this an effective buff? No. Is there any reason I should put this on my armor? No. If you desperately want a KO resistance you need to find yourself a reduce status effect. You can spin out of KO in under 1 second which renders the entire effect pointless.

Defense Up 3:Let's talk about this one for a moment. If you don't have an anti-warrior aid or an ambush reliever, I understand. This is an attractive and relatively rare buff that has long been a desired armor enhancement. After testing the effectiveness of a 2000 Defense warrior with Anti Warrior aid vs. a 1200 Defense warrior with Anti Warrior aid + Ambush Reliever 3, it is without a shadow of a doubt that I can say: DEFENSE UP IS USELESS. The difference between 1200 Defense with Ambush Reliever 3, and 2000 Defense as far as damage taken was just above HALF OF A FULL HP BAR at level 5. So does Defense matter? If you don't have an anti-warrior aid, go for it, no one’s going to look at you differently. However - if the difference between half a health bar, and death is just an Ambush reliever, I would definitely prioritize getting that on to my armor first.

Ambush Reliever 3: Mentioned above, it is without a doubt a very effective defensive buff. The difference between having and not having this buff is noticeably large.

Wind Resistance 3: In a warrior battle against a wind user, this buff is super effective at reducing the stagger and the damage. It's also pretty helpful in dealing with pesky wind mages. Would I prioritize this buff for any reason? No, this is a convenience at best if you have nothing better to use. The fact of the matter, although wind is a pretty powerful attack coming from a mage, it is much easier to avoid being killed by than getting iced repeatedly until death, or being held down by lightning until you eventually get dropped to your knees.

Smash Resistance 3: Will this prevent me from getting killed by players with Smash Effect? NO. This buff reduces the distance that you get smashed (especially by smash power-up users); it has NOTHING to do with the actual Smash Effect buff. Is this buff useful? Sure, if you want to be a Rush+ warrior on a bridge and you don't want to get Cycloned off the map by those pesky Zephyrs then this is the buff for you.

Fire Resistance 3: Is this buff useful? To an extent. Certainly it's more useful in a warrior battle than it is as an "All-around" buff in QM. Does it reduce damage taken from fire attacks? Drastically, this buff is almost on par with Anti Warrior aid for damage reduction.

Anti Tactical: Is this buff useful? On an anti-material warrior maybe. All around this buff is generally useless to a warrior unless part of your gameplay is standing in ballista shots.

Cannon Durability: If you've got a Cannon Accuracy 5+ Warrior that you plan to constantly rush cannons with construction speed 3, then this could work for you. Will it help you survive? Hardly, but it will make you more of a hassle to remove from a cannon if only 1-2 players come after you.

Anti Warrior Aid: The absolute KING Defense buff for the warrior class. This will absolutely help you escape tight situations with your life.

Anti Mage Aid: Don't waste a slot of your armor on this buff, especially on a warrior. Does it reduce damage? Yeah. Can you still be 1 shotted by a mage attack? Yes. What would be more effective against mages? Lightning and Ice resistance. Wind is avoidable, but those other two will absolutely be your death.

Your ideal QM armor: Mobility 3, Lightning Resistance 3, Ice/Stun 3, Anti Warrior Aid/Ambush Reliever 3.

Your ideal Warrior vs Warrior armor: Mobility 3, Element/Stun 3, Anti Warrior Aid, Ambush Reliever 3.

This section is concise and dry.

There are only a few things you really need to know about the shield: Guard move speed is essential, and Guard Power Ups in all forms are completely useless.

Guard Move Speed: Like I said, this buff is ESSENTIAL. Even if you need to use your 2 slotter Shield of Daring, make sure this buff is on your shield first and foremost. Everything else is a convenience buff, but this one in particular is a necessity.

Fast Guard Attack: Is this buff useful? Very, it's considered Over Powered by most. It increases the speed of your guard attacks and when combined with certain weapon effects can be more lethal to players and bots alike.

Guard Attack Up 3: Is this buff useful? Sort of. There really isn't a huge difference between having guard attack, and not having it unless you're running Guard Attack up 5. Is Guard Attack Up 5 worth it? If you do not have Fast Guard Attack, absolutely. Otherwise - no. Guard Attack 5 will never be anywhere as lethal or useful as Fast Guard Attack, but it is nice.

Guard HP recovery 3: I hear about this one a lot. Many players that don't know how to quick hit find this buff to be a complete waste of space. I'm here to tell you that it isn't. This buff is by a very long shot one of the single most useful things you could have on your shield. If you are in a battle and you are low health but you don't have time to stop, as your HP comes back you can boost the speed of your normal recovery by QUICK HITTING (RT+X) and TAPPING your shield. If you're sitting there holding your shield, you are going to see nothing positive come out of this buff. This should be an -on the fly in the middle of battle- boost to your HP. Not a reason for you to sit in the corner and hold your shield while your HP stays ridiculously low.

Get Hit Gain AP 3: Not particularly useful for the warrior, certainly better on a cleric, but if you want it for your super guard warrior etc.; it's not a bad buff to have. Just remember Guard Move Speed is essential.

Falling Damage Down: For no reason is this to ever go on any shield you ever touch. There are simply not enough uses for this buff and it is an absolute waste of a slot. If this is on your shield, do yourself the favor and replace it.

Upper Cut 3: Great for clerics to knock players away from your cannon, not so useful on the warrior class unless you wanted to make a Smash power up 6 + Uppercut 6 class to mess around with players on bridge maps.

Due to the diversity of Warrior types (Anti-Material, Cannon, Rush+'ers) I'm going to mostly be discussing weapon configurations as they pertain to combat.

What would be my ideal weapon set up to be as lethal as I possibly can be?: EFFECT, ENCHANT, AMBUSH, SLAYER (If no slayer, work with charged attack/ambush 5).

** I run Attack up 6 and Warrior slayer, I do 1900 damage so my weapon is better: Damage matters to an extent, but if your weapon is missing an effect or an enchant, you are at a severe disadvantage to any player that can actually fight. Are you going to trample some scrubs in QM? Probably. Are you ever going to be able to beat a well-rounded player that is running a level 10 Battle Katana with Smash effect, Fire/Lightning, Ambush 3, and Warrior slayer? No, you're just plain out matched. And if you run into someone with a more versatile weapon like that and they actually know how to use it, you're never going to be able to consistently overcome that roadblock. Can you get the kill 1/10 times? Sure. Could you be WAY MORE EFFECTIVE using more effects and enchants? Definitely and without question.

While we're on the subject of attack damage, let's talk about the difference between having 1900 attack, warrior slayer, ambush 3 VS 1200 attack, warrior slayer, ambush 3. Does the attack damage make a difference? YES. The attack damage does make a difference. Is the difference noticeable: NO, in a test between a 1200 damage weapon with ambush 3 and warrior slayer vs a 1900 damage with ambush 3, attack 5, and warrior slayer, the difference in life and death was LESS THAN 1/10 of a health bar at Level 5.

There is a stackable set of damage buffs that do make a SIZABLE difference: Ambush 3 + Ambush 2. Any spinning blade/smash/Charged attack to the opponents back is far stronger than any Attack 3+Ambush 3 combo could ever dream of.

To recap, you never want to have a weapon that can be disabled by 1 buff. If you have a stun weapon with Attack 5 and Warrior slayer and you come across an opponent with an enchant, an effect, and stun rate down, you are going to lose the battle 9/10 times without question. Versatility beats damage hands down.

Experimental Environment: I've tested everything I mention to the best of my ability to ensure that I can give you absolute quality information. Every test was conducted between armor sets with matching buffs to ensure damage differentials were accurate. In most cases we used the strongest possible line of defenses (Anti Warrior Aid, Ambush Reliever 3, Mob 3, and Stun rate down to make sure elemental buffs didn't affect damage). In QM, you'll most likely be taking down weaker opponents, but for the sake of testing damage intervals, it is much easier to repeatedly establish damage differences between same sized HP bars and same level of defenses.

KO Effect: This is something I hear all the time, "There is no KO resistance so it's better than stun." False, a reduce status effect alone will shake this buff in under a second so you might as well be running around without an effect. KO effect is AMAZING for killing bots. It affects them almost instantly, and you can attack them from behind a shield with amazing success. KO crusher will also drastically help you with bot slaying. Player opponents however, are going to be much easier to dispose of running Stun effect or Smash effect. KO is just a weak Stun effect, Stun lasts at least a full 3 seconds, with that time you could write a book about your attack plan before you go ahead and start your combo on the effected player.

Would I run KO as a default QM weapon? If you don't have stun, and you haven't gotten around to learning how to use smash effect, yes. It is super effective on bots and boss monsters.
Stun effect: Can be negated by Stun rate down. It is a highly successful combat buff and is considered "cheap" by most. If you were to combo Stun effect with charged attack+ on the same weapon, that is essentially a 2 hit combo. This effect pairs extremely well with ice, as they are stunned you can disenchant to stop them in their tracks for a second time and deliver your Smash, Spinning blade, or Charged Attack as you see fit.

Smash effect: Has no resistance. This is the only effect capable of breaking through an opponent’s shield. It is considered to be the most Over Powered because it is considered unavoidable. However, smash requires a much larger learning curve to use than the other effect buffs as its effectiveness is directly reliant on a players ability to use different combos. This buff + Fast Guard Attack is considered to be broken and unfair. You can juggle opponents using FGA to an extent, but a little extra combat knowledge will help you fight off the shied abusers.

Enchant Effect Combinations

Stun and Ice: I've seen people leave player matches just because they consider this combo to be broken and unfair. As a user myself I would have to admit, it is by far the easiest combination of buffs to get a kill with. It is unreasonably cheap and nearly impossible to escape. If you don’t land a stun combo you can always count on the ice combo (Open swing, ice the player, then disenchant to double ice). On the flip side, both effects are easily resisted with Ice/Stun rate down lv1. More often than not, you aren't going to see players running that sort of resistance which makes this combo lethal and an absolute inescapable drag for your opponent. Pair this combo with a charged attack+ on your weapon and you are going to make people rage.
(Less effective, but the same combo works for KO effect).

Stun and Lightning: Effective, but it gives the opponent a chance to block oncoming attacks when they’re affected by lightning. (Same story with KO). -Stun and Fire: Brutal and often lethal if you pull off a back shot. Against QM players with hardly any defense this combo is without question the strongest in terms of damage. (The same advantage works for KO effect).

Stun and Wind: Completely counter-intuitive. Wind has a 100% effect rate when you hit a player with an open X swing. Knocking your opponent away from you makes this element a difficult buff to work with in terms of Stun. (The same disadvantage works for KO effect.)

Smash and Fire: Excellent for damage. The disenchant in the middle of a juggle is often lethal. Fire is an excellent buff to burn players and causes them to drop their shield while you attempt to combo them. Burning opponents also causes extra damage.

Smash and Lightning: This is the only smash combo I would deem ridiculously Over Powered. Luckily most players run lightning resistance so this combo isn't necessarily broken, but all it takes is one lightning effect to walk behind someone or just go crazy on their shield using your smash effect to your advantage to end a fight.

Smash and Ice: This combo isn’t bad by any means. However it is counter-intuitive. Once they’re iced you’re essentially putting them back on the ground. It’s a great combo if you’ve juggled them long enough and you want to disenchant to deal a final A skill to them, but aside from that it is potentially a combo ruiner. If they’re iced before they get smashed and you A skill them, the combat cycle starts all over again until you finally get a smash combo going.

Smash and Wind: This is a decent combo that is often under-utilized. It takes some time to get used to staggering opponents, but a disenchant to someone’s back is a guaranteed free dash combo. A wind disenchant on a juggled opponent is also reasonably lethal.

Charged Attack+: Honestly I don’t know why this isn’t a more rare buff. Pair this with any sort of player stopping buff and you’ve got a 1 hit weapon in your hands.

Warrior Slayer: Adds 40% more damage. Take your attack damage and multiply it by 1.4 that is the damage you deal.

Damage in 500 increments myth: The idea here is that your attack damage is determined by what bracket of damage your weapon fits into. (500-1000; 1000-1500; 1500+). I cannot verify whether this is exactly true, but if you read the damage differential portion from earlier, it would seem that, while more damage is BARELY more effective in the 1500+ bracket, it is still verifiably more effective (even if that only means 1/10 of a health bars difference which would be virtually unnoticeable). So I would be inclined to believe that this theory is true based on previous testing, but there isn’t a way to know for sure down to the exact decimal point how much more or less damage you’re doing with 500 attack vs 600 attack and so on.

Crushers: KO, Freeze, Stun, and Shock. For the Warrior class I only recommend using Freeze and Stun Crusher. The reason being, when they’re frozen or stunned, you have more than enough time to smash, charged attack, whatever before they’re out of the effect and reap that additional damage. With KO and Shock Crusher, there is simply not enough time/they can block the attacks far more easily and a separate buff would be more effective for your set up than a crusher. KO crusher does have 1 positive quality in that it works WONDERS on bots while you Fast Guard Attack them. Aside from that, avoid Crusher buffs.

Warrior Accessory

I only have 2 recommendations for this. - Parameter 6, Shorten Cooldown 3. - Parameter 5, Shorten Cooldown 5. I don’t notice any significant difference between shorten 3 & 5 other than team skill recovery and that seems nonessential to me on the warrior. I would much rather have 120+ to all of my stats.

Your ideal Mage set up is going to be similar to the warrior, but you are going to prioritize AP over HP.

Again, the same sort of recovery question holds true, AP recover 5 is faster than AP recovery 3 + HP&AP recovery 3 by about 1 entire second. However, using the combo recovery buff you reap the added benefit of getting your HP back faster than the average mage which can absolutely save your life.

The Hat: AP Recovery 3, HP&AP recovery 3, Max AP 3, and Reduce Status Effect.

As a mage you have very little defense. That reduce status effect is life and death if you are being assaulted by a warrior, an ice mage, a lightning mage, or any combination of buffs that could render you motionless.

Alternative hat set ups: Some people enjoy having a skill on their mage hat. In which case I always say – get rid of the luxury buff, in this case Max AP Up 3 for Napalm+, Lightning Strike+, Wind Trap+, or Blizzard+.

I’m going to only touch briefly on this because a Mage’s armor needs to be specialized in one of a few ways to be effective.

Priority #1: Mobility 3 needs to be the first buff on any armor you ever decide to use.

Anti Mage Aid: This buff deserves a small sub-topic. When compared to Anti-Warrior aid this buff seems almost unnecessary. With Anti-Mage you can still be 1 hit by a Mage’s super attack. When might this buff be useful? I find that it is MOST useful when designing an armor specifically to ward off other mages. Example: Mobility 3, Anti Mage Aid, Lightning Resist 3, and
Ice Resist 3. You can rest assured that no one is going to freeze you until you die, and the amount of damage you take from lightning is going to be drastically reduced, which only really leaves you susceptible to wind and fire. Fire is horribly inaccurate, so more likely wind is going to be your only real enemy for this type of armor set up.

Anti-Warrior Aid: This buff will absolutely increase your survivability. It is excellent in QM and can help you survive those pesky rush warriors. However – this buff is not a necessity. This is an absolute convenience buff. As a mage, you are a distance class. Unless you are salivating at the thought of smacking a warrior with your new smash effect wand, it’s not something that I would consider to be absolutely necessary. Great buff for the mage, and can be substituted in the set-up I mentioned above for Anti-Mage aid for a more effective QM armor.

Wind Resistance 3: I see this often on Mage’s. In my experience it got me killed a lot more than it helped me. With the reduced stagger it is easier for opponents to keep you close and continuously blast you with wind, it is easier to get blizzard combo’d with wind, and it’s easier to die from the X+RT wind combo. HOWEVER, it does reduce the damage taken from wind to some extent, and if you are quick on your toes and can manage to dodge other mage’s wind blasts, yes this buff will help you survive. Wind is much more easily avoided than being frozen until death or lightning’d to the point where some bots can surround you and end your life, so I would consider this buff to be useful, but not a priority.

Ambush Reliever 3: If you don’t have an Anti-Aid or a second elemental resistance, this is the buff for you. It significantly reduces damage taken from rush warriors and dash attacks, but don’t expect to survive a level 15 Satanist wand with ambush to the back.

Meteor+: If you’re using this on your mage’s armor, it’s highly suggested that this is a secondary class/team only class. It is useful, but it makes you vulnerable in at least 1 critical way.

Tornado+: Same story.

Ice, Fire, and Lightning resistance all work as described previously in warrior armor section.

Stun Rate down: If you don’t have a second element, ambush reliever, or you find yourself dying because of Roar bots, this is not a terrible buff for a mage. I say that because, if someone is going to strike you with stun, whether it’s a cleric, a warrior, or a mage, they’ve got a LOT of time to deal a critical blow to you and there is absolutely zero chance that you can defend against that on a mage. Recommended? If it is personally desirable to you, it is a suitable replacement for Ice resist 3 in my priority buff list.

Anti Tactical: Refer to warrior section. Mages are usually the ballista breakers so I hardly find this to be useful.

Smash Resistance: Excellent – for a zephyr that sits on the bridge and wants to spam cyclones the entire game. Aside from that, use it if you have absolutely nothing else in your inventory.

I’m only going to briefly touch on this as well, given the different types of Mages, Smash Zephyrs, Farther Lightning Mages, and Ice Mages etc.

Slayers: They are amazing for a Mage. A double Slayer wand (Warrior+Mage) is brutal and makes for plenty of 1 hit blasts. Single Slayer wands are also highly effective in that it makes room for an Ambush attack 3 on the wand, which is an absolute slaughter to any class’s back.

Ambush: Is highly effective on a Mage and is conducive to 1 hit back-attacks with lightning/wind. Mage and cleric weapon effects go off more often than warrior effects. Both classes swing faster than the warrior as well.

Smash Effect: Hands down the best weapon effect for the Mage. Excellent for handling warriors and getting them into an X+RT combo with wind or ice. Hitting clerics with lightning on your weapon also makes this effect really deadly.

Stun Effect: Same as the warrior, better than KO and can leave an opponent easily susceptible to critical attacks, but can be easily resisted.

KO Effect: It occurs often using the mage and cleric class, making it slightly more effective than it is on a warrior. It does not pair well with wind, but ice or lightning makes this effect rather lethal.

Magic Attack Up 3: I prefer using this on my wand in place of Ambush 3 if I don’t have an extra slot for it. I find that hitting people in the front works a little more effectively when you use Magic Attack Up 3 vs. just the Ambush Buff. And for the most part, 1 hitting people in the back is basically just as easy.

Smash Power Up 3: This buff has a dirty little secret. If you put this on a Zephyr in combination with smash effect, while using wind you can perpetually X+RT combo another player and they CAN NOT escape. Sometimes they can break-away and run with no Smash power up, but once this buff is on your wand they absolutely cannot escape that X+RT combo. They bounce the perfect distance away to be hit with another wind shot, and they also bounce the perfect distance to where the opponent can’t spinning-blade or do anything really before they get hit by your next attack. Also this makes your cyclones more deadly on bridges.

Elemental Enchant +: I don’t recommend having these on your wand unless you need it for a farther lightning mage or an ice mage. Wind can easily be obtained through using the Zephyr class, so any Wind enchant+ is a potentially wasted slot.

Elemental Effect: You don’t want this on your weapon unless the previous circumstance applies. The effect will be on your weapon, but you may not necessarily be able to enchant yourself with it. You might as well just have the enchant+ so you can always switch back to it if someone else enchants you.

Crushers: The only difference between a Mage and a Warrior is that Shock Crusher is now slightly more effective. Would I put a crusher on a wand? No, there are way better buffs to use. Extra Ambush damage would even be far more lethal. If you have nothing else are crushers cool? Sure, Freeze and Shock Crusher should prove to be rather effective vs an empty slot.

Again, I only have a few recommendations for this as it is reasonably basic.
Parameter 5, Conserve AP 5.

Shorten Cooldown 5, Conserve AP 5.

Shorten Cooldown 6, Conserve AP 3 (Smash Zephyr that spams Cyclones).

If you have a question about something, feel free to ask. If you think I’m wrong about something and you want to test it yourself just make sure you have controls. (Same defense/buffs, same accessory, basically make sure everything is identical EXCEPT the variable in question. You don’t want to test damage on someone with Max HP 5 when you have No Max HP buffs. That isn’t sensible).

I hope these guides help you to be more effective in combat.

Visit www.reddit.com/r/HappyWars for more.