Warrior Weapon Sets
Take advantage of your warrior's second set of weapons. Gear your first equipment set for your primary focus, and your secondary set as backup.
For example, arm yourself with an excellent two-handed weapon if your focus is in the Two-Handed school, and a crossbow in the second set for a little ranged damage.
If you want to broaden your fighting style, pair your main style with one other style. Use a few Archery talents paired with any of the other schools and you have a well-prepared warrior ready for ranged and melee combat.
Use Dual Weapons with Weapon and Shield when you want to shift focus from defending and attacking to becoming a whirlwind of attacks. Use Two-Handed with Dual Weapons when you want to go from that whirlwind of attacks to being able to take on giant foes.
Remember, though, as you level up, you'll gain access to specializations, so you'll want to spend points in those talent chains too.
Usually by level 20, you'd have enough talent points to max out your Warrior talent school, all but one weapon type talent chain, and all but one in a specialization talent chain.
Also remember that the secondary set of weapons (and accompanying talents for them) are meant to be a backup, so avoid splitting your talent points evenly between both styles or you'll be be decent at both but excel at neither.
Warrior Talent School
You have two choices: one for basic defense and one for basic offense. The chain that starts with Powerful leans toward defense (though both chains give you offensive and defensive options).
Powerful adds extra health and reduces fatigue, which means all of your abilities cost less. Even if you don't want to spec in the Warrior school at all, think about spending an extra point in Powerful because it's a great early ability.
The sustained ability Threaten is a must for tanks who get into the thick of things and need to keep threat on themselves. Bravery is all-around good, with its bonuses to damage, resistances, and critical hit chance. Death Blow restores stamina for each foe a warrior fells in battle.
The Precise Striking chain centers around increasing your attacking skills. You sacrifice attack speed with Precise Striking, but you gain a bonus to your attack chance and critical hit chance.
Taunt works as another excellent threat-magnet for tanks who want to suck in everything around them. It can also work with an off-tank to help them control enemies when they need to play the tank role.
Disengage reduces threat and allows the warrior to shed enemies when the pressure gets too great; this is another excellent ability for off-tanks who only want to hold a foe for a little while. Perfect Striking gains you a massive attack bonus for a short time.
Dual Weapon School
For those warriors who prefer dexterity, Dual Weapons gives you more offense without relying on strength.
You deal damage with two weapons simultaneously; alas, the drawback is that your defense suffers.
The focus of your passive abilities is on your second hand: you want to deal as close to normal damage as possible and score close to the same number of critical hits as your main hand.
You gain a bonus to attack and defense with Dual-Weapon Finesse. Dual-Weapon Expert gives a bonus to critical chance and lets you cause bleeding lacerations on your opponent, inflicting damage over time.
You may wield full-sized weapons in your off-hand while reducing the stamina cost of all dual weapon talents with Dual-Weapon Mastery.
Increase your attack damage with Dual Striking in the second chain. Score a two-hit combo with a possibility of stunning your opponent and scoring a critical hit with Riposte.
Cripple gives you a chance to score a critical hit and inflict your opponent with penalties to movement speed, attack, and defense.
Punisher is a three-hit combo that can score a critical hit, knock an opponent down, and cause penalties to movement and attack speed.
Dual-Weapon Sweep deals significant damage with each sweep. Flurry is a three-hit combo, while Momentum increases your attack speed with every hit. Whirlwind is a flurry of constant attacks: the signature of a Dual Weapon expert.
This talent chain can also be a deadly combination with the Warrior talent school. Draw enemies in and knock them down, stun them, cause damage over time, and inflict penalties to movement speed, attack, and defense.
Powerful and Bravery give you bonuses to attack, defense, and resistances while Death Blow restores stamina with each kill, making you a whirlwind of death... if you don't get hammered by arrows or spells from opponents.
Weapon and Shield School
Your standard warrior tank usually dips into the Weapon and Shield school a lot. In the offensive chain, Shield Bash deals normal damage and has a chance to knock an enemy down.
Shield Pummel is a two-hit combo that can stun an enemy. Overpower is a three-hit shield combo that might deal a critical hit with the third strike.
Assault is a four-hit combo that diminishes in power with each strike. Use any of these with Shield Defense, Shield Wall, or Shield Cover to get in some good, solid hits while bolstering your defenses.
Use any of these with Threaten or Taunt in the Warrior talent school to pull enemies in and knock them back on their collective back sides.
Shield Wall or Shield Defense used with Taunt or Threaten from the Warrior talent school makes a great combination because you lure enemies in and beef up your defenses while resisting knockdown effects and shrugging off missiles.
The Shield Block passive ability eliminates your enemies' flanking advantage on your shield side, while the Shield Tactics passive ability eliminates your enemies' flanking advantage altogether.
This comes in very handy because hordes of enemies swarm your characters in many battles. When they flank you, they score bonuses to attacks and critical hits. Shield Cover and Shield Defense help you shrug off missile attacks.
This is very useful, for example, when hurlocks are swarming you while genlock archers are slamming you with arrows.
The many passive abilities in this talent chain give bonuses to the sustained and activated abilities, so they get stronger the more you progress in Weapon and Shield training.
Now, if only there were 300 more of these guys in your army at the end of the game...
Archery School
Another school for warriors who build up dexterity, Archery gives ample special effects for a ranged combat enthusiast. Melee Archer lets you fire while being attacked (eliminating some of the pain of being an archer).
Master Archer gives you bonuses to activated abilities and eliminates the penalty to attack speed when wearing heavy armor.
Aim reduces attack speed but gives bonuses to attack, damage, armor penetration, and critical chance. Defensive Fire gives you a boost to defense but slows your attack speed.
In the second chain, Pinning Shot is a necessity because it impales the victim's leg and either pins it in place or slows its movement speed.
Crippling Shot deals normal damage to an enemy and gives it penalties to attack and defense, and Critical Shot delivers maximum damage upon impact. The deadly Arrow of Slaying usually scores a critical hit, often dropping weakened enemies.
Rapid Shot increases attack speed, but you lose the ability to score critical hits. Shattering Shot deals normal damage and opens up an enemy's armor.
If a warrior finds open armor, its wearer will be in sore shape. Suppressing Fire is like Rapid Shot, but its foes now take penalties to their attack rating. Scattershot stuns a foe and then shatters, dealing damage to other enemies around it.
When you have room to breathe, Pinning Shot and Crippling Shot turn enemies into sitting ducks for mage attacks, deadly rogues, or more of your carefully aimed arrows. Shattering Shot is excellent against heavily armed foes.
Rapid Shot, Suppressing Fire, and Scattershot hack away at the collective hit points of enemy ranks.
Don't think an archer just scores a hit or two before having to engage an opponent in melee.
You can kill a couple enemies in a few hits while pinning others in place and continuing to fire while other attackers swarm you.
This turns you into a deadly sniper that enemies need to deal with or suffer the consequences.
If the enemy swarms you, switch to Defensive Fire while you have the passive ability Melee Archer. You can fire off arrows while being attacked and still have decent defense.
Two-Handed School
In this talent school, you get to deal massive damage, but you're slower moving and you don't have as much in the way of defense.
The Stunning Blows passive ability adds a chance to stun your target each time you strike. Shattering Blows gives you attack bonuses against golems and other heavily armored foes.
Destroyer means that every attack you deal has a chance to sunder an opponent's armor. Two-Handed Strength reduces your attack and defense penalty in Powerful Swings.
Indomitable gives you a bonus to attack while making you immune to stun or knockdown effects.
If you're in a swarm of larger enemies, use Indomitable to protect against getting stunned or knocked down, but careful with this because it uses a nice chunk of your stamina.
The Powerful Swings sustained ability gives you a nice bonus to damage but reduces your attack and defense.
Pommel Strike knocks an opponent to the ground. Critical Strike is a massive hit that scores a critical hit and sometimes kills a foe outright.
Sunder Arms targets an enemy's weapon, giving a penalty to attack, while Sunder Armor targets the armor, giving a penalty to armor and dealing normal damage to the unlucky victim.
Mighty Blow can deal a critical hit and reduce the opponent's movement, and Two-Handed Sweep hits enemies in a wide arc, dealing normal damage and knocking them down.