Greetings, aspiring warriors!

I was once a heathen; I felt that only Sorcerers could truly be the kings of Diablo. I understood little about warriors, and how REAL warriors do battle with the creatures of Hell. I felt that the warrior was underpowered and severely weakened by his lack of ranged attack.

I slowly learned, however, that warriors are often poorly played by even the best of Diablo's heroes. This neglected class often leaves players frustrated when the going gets tough, when they are taunted by the powerful denizens of the labyrinth. This can all change for you if you've never seen a knowledgeable warrior do his stuff!

Welcome to my guide for high-level warriors. I'm here to outline what I consider the BEST way to play a warrior and what equipment you should be looking for as you move onward to the upper levels of the game. Bashing heads in Hell is much harder than bashing heads in the church, and it only gets worse as the difficulty rises.

Be sure to look for Armin's excellent treatise on the lower-level warrior's strategies! It's a fine complement to this compilation of strats.

Throughout this treatise, you'll see described many different ideas and tactics, many times followed up by MY OPINION. In other words, I want you to choose YOUR way. There are many other experienced warriors who will refute my claims. This does not make them wrong (heh). Learn from all. Observe how others play high level warriors and learn from them all, and then draw your own conclusions.

Why a guide for HIGH-level warriors? In my opinion, that's when the fun begins - when you start moving away from pure brawn to brains and brawn. You'll be using magic more and you'll be developing your character in order to kill smarter and faster than just walking up and swinging.

First off, some assumptions.

#1: You're playing Diablo Classic Multiplayer, version 1.08 (note that future versions may change or make some of these strategies out of date), NOT Hellfire or Diablo Classic Singleplayer;

#2: You're "high-level," which I consider arbitrarily to be over the level of 35 - Really high is 45+;

#3: Your stats have not been ruined by black deaths and shrines (more on that later in the guide);

#4: Your stats are getting to be around max or are maxed;

#5: We're NOT discussing dueling strategies, but strategies against monsters! If you want to talk about dueling, make your own post about it, as I'm not really interested. All throughout this guide I will be referring to the best methods against monsters and not other players;

#6: We're discussing general warrior strategies, not subclass strategies.

#7: You're legit. No dupes, no hacks, no trainers. Cheaters don't need strategy; there's no point in playing.

PART 1: SPELLS

Spells represent the most misunderstood and often misused element of warrior tactics. Basically put, those warriors who ignore the usefulness of spells, thinking mana to be totally unimportant, won't last long deep into the game. I've met many people who thought that way, and even convinced a few of how important your mana and spells are.

A warrior needs to have a high magical prowess in 3 spells: Healing, Teleport, and Stone Curse. These represent (although only slightly for Stone Curse) the backbone of the magical support arsenal for warriors.

A warrior's best friend in shrines is the Enchanted Shrine. The Enchanted Shrine raises all of your spell levels by 1 except for one spell, which gets lowered by 1 level (if the spell to be lowered is max, level 15, it gets lowered by 2 levels). Once you've reached the point where you can't raise your spell levels from book reading, these shrines are what I recommend you look for! Be sure to carry jewels of Wizardry to help you read as many levels of books as you can before you heavily search for Enchanteds.

HEALING - A warrior needs badly to get this spell to level 15, in order to maximize its usefulness. Its mana cost goes up as you rise in character level, so get it to level 15 as quickly as possible. Discussions on using Healing properly will be covered in the tactics section.

TELEPORT - This spell is a crucial one for traveling in Hell. It will allow you to kill the enemies who tend to run away from you, such as witches, more easily. You need to get this spell to level 8 in order to use the minimum mana per cast. Anything beyond that doesn't improve its effectiveness, so don't bother if you don't want to. Discussions on using Teleport effectively will be covered in the tactics section.

STONE CURSE - you won't be using this nearly as often as Healing or Teleport, but you'll find it comes in great handy occasionally. Just like Teleport, you need to raise this spell level to 8, and anything beyond that isn't improving its mana cost efficiency. Level 9 Stone Curse stones a creature for the maximum period of time, and any additional levels beyond that do not add to the length of the stone effect. Discussions on using Stone Curse effectively will be covered in the tactics section.

OFFENSIVE SPELLS - Don't waste your time! Obviously, these are nice to have at high levels to fool around with, but you'll find that a warrior's low magic stat makes their accuracy ridiculously low. Don't even begin to think you're a mage and start flinging fireballs or casting Chain Lightning in Hell/Hell (note: many warriors will use fireball from time to time to kill some ranged attackers; however, unless you raise your magic stat to a very high level it will be far more effective to use other methods). If you do enchanted shrine hunts, you'll get spells such as Fireball up there in level; just don't expect to use them much. There are some other spells that are "offensive" in nature and CAN help in particular situations, and I'll cover using those in the tactics/tips sections. The ones I recommend you develop are Fire Wall, Guardian, Elemental, Flame Wave, Holy Bolt, Charged Bolt, and Golem.

KNOW THE MONSTERS' RESISTANCES - Yes, warriors, you WILL have to learn the monsters' resistances and immunities. Early on, you don't even need to think about it, but as you get into the Hell levels the monsters will have various resistances and immunities and knowing what they are can save your hide. An example: casting a fire wall on a line of Soul Burners is simply a waste of mana. Knowing which spells work on what creatures can help you separate them to take on one type at a time (more on that later).

PART 2: EQUIPMENT

Being a high level warrior has its perks! You'll have access to high-end equipment as you dive deep into the pits of Hell time and time again. This allows us goons to pick and choose among the best equipment in the game. However, often times we may need to make tradeoffs. What items to keep, and what to throw away?

I'll divide this into Helms, Shields, Weapons, Armor, and Jewelry, and provide my recommendations for what to wear of each type. However, those are my opinions, which will probably be debated. :-)

Remember also that I'm covering the IDEAL equipment setups for a warrior. This is what you WANT to get. You will, of course, not find these fantastic items right away (or perhaps never), so improvise - take these recommendations and obtain the best equipment that you can of its nature.

HELMS

Here's where you'll find quite a lot of variety. There are a number of fantastic helms for warriors, and choosing between them can be tough! Here's a rundown of the various great helms that many warriors may wind up having to choose between.

#1: Royal Circlet

#2: Helm of Sprits

#3: Gotterdamerung

#4: Godly Helm of the Whale

#5: Obsidian Helm of the Suffix

HELMS: BOLTY'S RECOMMENDATION = I'd go with a Royal Circlet for a high level warrior. A great combination of AC and a significant mana boost to help you out. Once you get really high in level, over 45, the Helm of Sprits is the way to go. With other great equipment, you'll be able to afford the loss of AC and it allows you to clear whole levels without using any potions, depending on the monster spawn.

SHIELDS

A warrior has a couple of choices for a quality shield to help defend him from the monstrous hordes of Diablo. Here's a rundown.

#1: Stormshield

#2: Awesome Shield of the Mammal

#3: Emerald/Obsidian Shield of the Mammal

#4: Godly Shield of the Ages

SHIELDS: BOLTY'S RECOMMENDATION = Awesome Shield of the Tiger all the way. Great AC and the hit points are always a bonus. If I were into carrying a backup set of equipment, the Emerald/Obsidian Shield of the Mammal would be the way to go. Also, as you get really high in level (45+), you may want to try the Emerald/Obsidian Shield of the Mammal as you'll need AC much less.

WEAPONS

This is where the largest amount of debate breaks out. Many people have favorite weapon types and will defend them very well in debate! Here's a rundown, starting with King's Swords.

The King's prefix is the best one for one-handed weapons. Giving a whopping +76% to +100% to-hit bonus and an impressive +151% to +175% damage bonus, it is indeed a great asset to a warrior's arsenal. You want to find a Bastard sword version with this prefix, of course, but in general any sword type except the very weak ones will come in great handy.

The question arises as to what SUFFIX you should be looking for. I'll list the suffixes under the assumption that we're talking about a King's Sword, so the stats to them are already listed above.

#1: King's Sword of Haste/Speed - Haste/Speed, quite simply, rocks. You'll swing much faster than the normal rate. Swinging faster means killing faster. It makes it easy to prevent a melee monster from recovering long enough to strike back, and thus cuts down on the number of times you get hit. It makes it tougher for an enemy who likes to run away from you to do so. And, best of all, it keeps the dreaded Advocates in stun lock (it also keeps Illusion Weavers stunned, which no other weapon does). Use the life stealing effect of the Helm of Sprits with this sword and you have one mean combination. Note that, due to a flaw in design, Speed is just as good as Haste in terms of frames used per swing, and is cheaper to repair!

#2: King's Sword of Vampires - Steals 5% mana per hit. This sword allows you to stay down almost totally indefinitely, as by recharging your mana you can use mana to heal yourself. This is a major advantage over Haste/Speed. However, it lacks the fast swing, so you can't stun lock Advocates, and you'll kill enemies much more slowly. The real key of this sword is that it cuts down on potion usage - I've heard of warriors clearing Hell/Hell without using a single potion thanks to this sword. I'll cover some strategies for using this weapon properly later.

#3: King's Sword of Blood - Steals 5% life per hit. This is along the same concept as a Helm of Sprits or a King's Sword of Vampires, as it will let you stay down much longer without using potions. However, I consider this to be less efficient than a King's Sword of Vampires for that goal. Retrieving 5% of a hit to mana will have a bigger impact than 5% of a hit to hit points, and you'll be swinging slower than a haste/speed sword.

#4: King's Sword of Carnage/Slaughter - Adds points of damage. Used to really brutalize your enemies, this sword can pack a wallop. However, without the features of the three swords above, I consider this sword to be the least useful of the King's line. Considering how a Haste/Speed suffix will do less damage, but do it faster, this sword would do less damage per unit of time than a King's Sword of Haste/Speed. Note that a perfect King's Bastard Sword of Slaughter is not possible to obtain legitimately.

#5: King's Sword of the Heavens - Having +to all attributes on your weapon can give an overall improvement which is impressive. Up to 30 more hit points, 15 more mana, and 15 more dexterity are possible here, adding even MORE to your to-hit%. You'll do more damage. All in all, a fine sword to have.

Now for non-King's prefixed Swords:

#6: Strange Swords of Any Suffix - Strange is a prefix that adds 101% to 150% to-hit to your warrior. Only buyable at Wirt, this powerful prefix can be hard to come by. Don't pass it up if Wirt is selling one - this prefix may be necessary for you to reach the high to-hit% values needed against monsters in Hell/Hell. Remember, at a high character level, most of a warrior's damage is coming from his extremely high strength stat, not his sword. Even a Strange Short Sword of Haste can be better than a King's Bastard Sword of Haste in Hell/Hell if you need to raise your to-hit%. Generally, if you have good equipment and a decent dexterity, a King's prefix is all you'll need. However, if you're not getting to 180% to-hit% and a Strange sword can get you to 200%, you may want to use the Strange prefix in Hell/Hell.

#7: The Grandfather

#8: Axes - Don't bother. Yes, axes pack a huge amount of damage, but they have one massive drawback: they prevent you from using a shield. This simply kills you in any game against melee monsters. Plus, even an Axe of Haste/Speed isn't fast enough to keep an Advocate in stun-lock; they'll keep getting away from you and you'll wind up doing the old chase-the-Advocate game. Only use axes when you're playing in a game or location of easier difficulty, one where you can get away with the lack of AC and blocking that a shield provides. It can help against magical monster levels to dispatch witches more quickly.

#9: Bows - Haha! No. Useless on warriors.

#10: Civerb's Cudgel

#11: Emerald Sword of the Suffix

WEAPONS: BOLTY'S RECOMMENDATION = The King's Sword of Haste/Speed is, in my opinion, simply THE best overall sword for a warrior. Easy stun locks even with low to-hit%, quick kills, and prevention of getting hit make this sword strategically superior. A VERY close second in my preference would be a King's Sword of Vampires, simply because you use so few potions while fighting with one. In a perfect world, a warrior would have both swords and could switch when the situation required it. This item type, the weapon, is the one argued about the most among high level warriors.

ARMOR

This category's pretty brainless. Warriors need AC. They need as much as they can get. The highest prefix legitimately available for armor in Full Plates is Awesome, so that's what you're looking for. Awesome adds 131% to 150% AC to your plate. Awesome Full Plates with a suffix are extremely rare, so you'll usually wind up taking what you can find. If you do happen to get a chance to actually pick which suffix you want, I'd recommend a Mammal suffix to add to your hit points. "Of Stars" is also very useful to have, but that's even MORE rare. Don't overlook the Harmony suffix, as it would be a great addition to an Awesome plate, giving a warrior super-fast hit recovery.

JEWELRY

A warrior is no fashion nut, but even he understands the importance of fine jewelry. Know this - the four things you're looking for in jewelry are hit point adders, mana adders, dexterity adders, and resistance adders.

HIT POINTS - Jewels of the Tiger, the Lion, or of Life greatly help a warrior. Hit points are obviously necessary for survival, and the more you have, the longer you'll live. Note however that a perfect Zodiac suffix still gives you +40 hit points, so I'd recommend a Heavens/Zodiac suffix over an "of Life" suffix any day. You'll get somewhat less hit points but better stats all the way around.

MANA - You're looking for a prefix here. Dragon's, hopefully - which will add 51 to 60 crucial mana points. Having a Wizardry suffix can only add up to 30 mana on a warrior, so leave them for your sorcerer or rogue friends.

DEXTERITY - Dexterity is key for warriors, because of the three classes they have the least. Dexterity affects your AC, your to-hit%, and most importantly, your ability to block. The higher your dexterity, the greater the chance you'll block a hit that gets past your armor. Look for either Heavens/Zodiac suffixes or Dexterity suffixes such as Perfection.

RESISTANCE - If you're not using an Emerald/Obsidian shield, you'll need two jewels to maximize your resistance. Naturally, you're looking for two Obsidian jewels. The Constricting Ring, which maxes out all your resistances, can be nice - but I'd move to a somewhat better combination of two jewels when I find one. Side note: a Gotterdamerung cancels out a Constricting Ring's maximum resistance effect.

With Jewelry, the key is to find the best combination with the jewels you find. This would be easy if we all found Dragon's Zodiac and Obsidian Zodiac jewels, but naturally that doesn't happen. :-)

GENERAL EQUIPMENT NOTES

It's tough to find that perfect set of equipment we all dream of. You'll have to constantly make tradeoffs in your equipment setups, and may wind up going with different setups according to what monsters you face. Try to find the best combination of AC, hit points, mana, dexterity, damage per second, to-hit, and resistance you can. It's no small accomplishment. Check the Tips section for guidance on what AC, to-hit%, and dexterity you're looking to achieve for good results. What's also implied here throughout is that what's listed here is the BEST equipment of each type, and if you find something that has a similar effect but isn't as good, go with it. For instance, until you find an Awesome Full Plate of the Mammal, a Saintly Plate of the Mammal is just fine too. :)

DREAM SETUPS

While we're dreaming of the ultimate setup, here's what I feel it would be (warning, this is very much my OPINION!).

Awesome Full Plate of the Stars or Harmony
King's Sword of Haste/Speed
Royal Circlet
Awesome Gothic/Tower Shield of the Mammal (Tiger)
Obsidian Jewel of the Zodiac
Obsidian Jewel of the Zodiac (this jewel combo is next to impossible)
Dragon's Jewel of the Zodiac

A really high level warrior (around 45+) should replace the Royal Circlet with a Helm of Sprits. This would give a decent AC, around 250, max resists, haste/speed, high dexterity for blocking, and the life stealing effect of the Helm of Sprits. This would allow clearing of all-melee levels without using a single potion! That means faster clearing of Hell/Hell, avoiding having to go to town so much...

PART 3: TIPS

And now, some general tips for managing your warrior, and to maximize his potential.

SHRINES - These Shrines are good: Abandoned, Creepy, Cryptic, Divine, Eerie, Eldritch, Enchanted, Glimmering, Hidden, Quiet, Religious, and Spooky.

These Shrines are either bad or not worth touching: Fascinating, Holy, Magical, Mysterious, Ornate, Sacred, Secluded, Spiritual, Stone, and Tainted.

Note that I consider Mysterious to be not worth touching since a high-level warrior should have his stats near maxed; thus, applying +5 to one attribute and -1 to the others could easily have a bad effect if the stat chosen for the +5 addition is maxed.

Shrines to ESPECIALLY avoid are Fascinating, Ornate, and Sacred! These shrines will reduce your mana PERMANENTLY! If you don't think it's a big deal for a warrior to lose, say, 20 mana, believe me - it is.

Also: NEVER, EVER, EVER TOUCH A CAULDRON OR GOAT SHRINE. These give a random shrine effect, which means that according to Murphy's Law, it'll be a mana-reducing effect. I don't care HOW lucky you are, it won't take long to trash your character if you can't learn to avoid these. Treat them as obstacles that need to be given wide berth - be careful when you're swinging near one so that you don't accidentally click on one.

On using Hidden Shrines: Hidden Shrines increase the durability of 3 of your items (assuming you're using a shield and weapon), but decrease the durability of 1. This is a GOOD thing, because over time all of your items will eventually raise their durability. However, before you touch a Hidden Shrine, make sure you replace any indestructible items you are wearing with another item of decent durability. It'll reduce the chance that one of your normal items gets the durability reduction.

BOOK READING - If you find jewels of Wizardry, keep them around to help you read books. If you can get one more level of a spell due to equipping jewels of Wizardry, it'll help in the long run.

BLACK DEATHS - Watch out for these yellow zombies! They can be found on dungeon levels 3 to 5. They move very slowly and have a low to-hit, so their chance of hitting you is low, but DON'T take the chance! NEVER get close to a Black Death. If one hits you, you lose one hit point PERMANENTLY! I suggest you use offensive spells against them such as Holy Bolt or Chain Lightning. If you see a group in a large room, cast some guardians in there to clean them out without having to risk entering and getting hit by a Black Death just inside the doorway. Another great tip is to hold down the Shift key and swing at them as they approach, to help keep them away from you (more on the Shift key later). Some warriors even skip the level or go to a new game upon sight of these dangerous monsters.

HOTKEYS - I recommend you ALWAYS hotkey Healing, Teleport, and Stone Curse in whatever order you're used to. MEMORIZE YOUR HOTKEY ORDER! This is VERY IMPORTANT! You shouldn't have to even THINK about what hotkey Healing is; the extra half second of finding the spell could kill you. As for the fourth spell, hotkey whatever seems useful for the situation, such as Chain Lightning in the Catacombs for killing groups of Night Clan archers. I recommend Golem for level 16 - more on that later.

BELT INVENTORY - I never use Red potions on my high-level warrior! Reds are inefficient! Since money isn't a factor to a high level character, you can afford to splurge on those Full Rejuvenation potions that Pepin sells - make sure to stop by his place and buy as many as you can. My belt usually contains 2 to 4 Full Rejuvs and 4 to 6 Full Manas. You want to use Healing to restore lost hit points because it maximizes how long you can stay down in the dungeons. If you can cast 4 to 5 Healings per Full Mana, that's saving 3 or 4 potions. More on this in the Tactics section.

For some reason, people give me a lot of flak over this. There's just no point, in my opinion, in buying Reds, when Pepin usually has enough Full Rejuvs to go around. What difference does it make? You should always have enough money to buy them, and they're much nicer in usage than simple reds. If you find yourself guzzling Full Yellows too quickly, you're being too aggressive. Pull back some when facing hordes of monsters. Only buy Reds when you're low on your Yellow supply and Pepin doesn't have any to sell.

GAINING EXPERIENCE QUICKLY - Nightmare/Hell is a great place for high level warriors (up to level 47 or so, when the experience you get there dries up) to gain experience and yet also have the chance to find good equipment. The two other great places to go for quick experience points are Hell/Catacombs and Hell/Caves. One advantage of Hell/Catacombs is that while gaining experience, you also have the chance to find Enchanted, Creepy, or Hidden Shrines, which are great for warriors.

BE YOUR OWN BANK - 5,000 gold is the most you can carry in one inventory slot, right? WRONG! With Diablo's economic system, you can easily carry items that are worth more than their inventory space in gold. The most common "gold items" are jewels that you don't use on your character. Classic gold items would be jewels of the Heavens or such. You can collect jewels that are worth up to 10, even 15 thousand gold. This lets you carry around a lot of wealth without having to lug tons of cash around every game - plus it impresses your friends. :-) Other good gold items are Demonspike Coats (worth around 65,000, more than double its inventory gold space), Good Prefixed Staves of Blood Star, Constricting Rings, etc.

STEALTH - Stealth Mode involves using items with reduced light radii to prevent activating many monsters at a time. Diablo's monsters are attracted to your light radius. If you use stealth items and use scrolls of Infravision, you'll be able to see them WAY before they see you. Important note: when using items that decrease your light radius, they have to be on as you enter a level for stealth mode to work. If you ever remove your stealth items (thus increasing your light radius) and put them back on, you'll still have your light radius reduced as before, but monsters will now be activated according to the higher light radius you had before you put the stealth items back on (a bug in Diablo). With maximum stealth (-80% light radius), a monster will only see you when you're right next to it. Stealth mode is great for item recovery, mind you...

HOW MUCH AC SHOULD I HAVE? - A question often asked. The fact is that as a warrior climbs in level, he needs AC less and less. A really high-level warrior (45+) can do with under 230 AC if he's got a high dexterity for good blocking. Here's a handy table (thanks to Da O'Toth for calculating these values) to help you decide if you need more or (yes, it happens) LESS AC than you currently have.

Maximum AC Values Needed in Diablo

As you can see, it goes down by 2 every level up. Note that this is the MAXIMUM, so attaining it isn't everything in the world. This is the AC you would need to defend yourself against Blood Knights on Hell difficulty. Any additional AC over this amount is a waste of resources. Also, no matter HOW high your AC is, you'll still be hit by monsters occasionally. AC is not everything in the world - if you keep your dexterity high, you'll do fine.

HOW MUCH TO-HIT% SHOULD I HAVE? - Experienced players generally have a "feel" for what a good to-hit% is, but this table of data (thanks to concre+e for these calculations) gives a straight idea as to what you'd need. If you have over the maximum amount you need, you're wasting - you'll always miss 5% of the time, no matter how high your to-hit%. A high level warrior with a King's sword will usually be over these values.

Maximum To-Hit% Values Needed in Diablo

As you can see, it goes down by 1 every level up. These to-hit% values are needed against Diablo's toughest melee monster, the Blood Knight, in Hell/Hell. Attaining them isn't necessary for survival, but if your to-hit% is too far below the values listed above, you'll have a hard time.

DEXTERITY AND BLOCKING - Blocking attacks is crucial for a warrior. Since no matter how high your AC is, you can still be hit, the shield is your last line of defense before you are injured by an attack. You want to be able to block attacks 100% of the time, ideally.

Maximum Dexterity Values for Blocking in Diablo

Note: You need these values to ensure 100% blocking of enemy attacks. It's not easy to reach, which is the way it should be. In fact, 150 dexterity is nigh unreachable realistically. Only until around level 45 will you have a chance of reaching the needed dexterity - and that's exactly when warriors can start concentrating on AC MUCH less and gain power in other categories. If a 45+ level warrior can lower his AC and keep his dexterity high, he can perform quite well! Don't go crazy trying to reach these values, just remember that even a dexterity increase of 5 can make a big difference in your blocking percentage vs. tough melee monsters.

Also, "100% blocking" can be a misleading term. If your character is swinging or standing still, he will block an attack. If a monster hits him while he's blocking, he WILL be hurt. If a monster hits him while he's recovering from a hit, he'll be hurt again. "100% blocking" means that you will block every attack as long as you don't get swarmed and you don't move your warrior around.