PART 4: TACTICS

Here's the meat of the warrior strategy guide! I'll cover tactics when facing certain monsters or situations, how to use your spells, and other general strategies.

TELEKILLING - THE GREAT EQUALIZER - Ever been frustrated by the enemies who always turn tail and run from you just as you get close to swinging range? All warriors have. It's our major disadvantage, our lack of ranged attack. When facing groups of this kind, warriors who have ignored the importance of magic really suffer. We magic-using warriors, however, show no fear! We have the great equalizer - Telekilling.

To effectively use telekilling, you need a decent level of Teleport that won't suck up your mana in huge gobs. Level 8 Teleport and above uses the minimum amount of mana, 15, per cast.

Here's how it works: say you have a Hell Spawn annoyingly throwing blood stars at you from 10 squares away. If you run at her, she'll retreat around a corner where you bet there's probably 12 more of her friends waiting for you. What to do? Telekill! Activate your hotkeyed Teleport spell, and cast it when your cursor is highlighting your target. After you right click on the target, left-click so that as soon as you arrive, you'll swing your sword at the target.

As your character teleports, move your mouse cursor to around the middle of the screen to reaquire your target after the first attack, because that's where you'll arrive after the teleportation. As you arrive, click to swing your weapon. You should connect and keep the target in stun lock. You'll always appear to the south (southwest depending on how you consider the screen angle) of your target, UNLESS something is already there that blocks being there.

These are the positions that a warrior will end up teleporting to when completing a Telekill, numbered according to priority. In other words, he'll always wind up in Location 1 unless an obstacle is blocking that; if so, he'll appear in Location 2 and so on.

Another method is to implement the Shift key while teleporting. Hold it down and aim your cursor in the direction that the target will be from you (99% of the time it'll be up and to the right), and click as you come out of teleport. Keep the target in stun lock and finish it. This gives a higher accuracy in telekilling, but the disadvantage is that it uses up your other hand, and can cause the "stretch" as you try to hold down shift and hit a belt number for a quick healing or mana refill if necessary.

This takes practice to get it right. Don't get discouraged if you have trouble catching your target as you come out of teleport, keep trying. Telekilling is almost the ONLY way to kill a Soul Burner without using Stone Curse, because they won't stop to shoot at you once you're chasing them - you'll go clear across a level.

Why Telekill? After all, you can Stone Curse them and finish them off with ease. The answer is simple - Teleport takes 15 mana per cast and Stone Curse takes 40. You simply can't go around stoning everything efficiently.

TELEKILLING IN MULTIPLAYER GAMES - Be careful with this tactic when co-oping with sorcerers and rogues. Don't telekill an enemy they're shooting at or telekill right into their line of fire. Telekilling causes lag in that your position probably won't get reported to them correctly. Be careful and use some common sense. In general, if you're playing with someone adept at taking out ranged attackers, let them do it.

KILL EFFICIENTLY - This is a real "duh" to experienced warriors, but when you're faced with a group of melee monsters, make sure to kill one before moving on to the next! I sometimes see warriors, faced with 3 melee attackers, switch between the 3 as they swing. Finish one off before moving on - that way you have fewer attackers swinging at you at a time. There are three main exceptions to this "rule:"

a) you want to finish off a target that a co-op partner has injured.

b) a much tougher monster than the others has just arrived within melee range, and you need to kill it first.

c) the monsters have slow hit recovery times, so switching between them keeps them from getting enough time to swing at you.

HEALING - Use healing wisely. Healing should NOT be used when in a group of tough melee monsters! That's when I suck down a Full Rejuv potion, and not only replenish my hit points but top off my mana at the same time. Always retreat some FIRST and then cast Healing. A good rule for retreating is to walk back TWO steps from your enemy and cast. Drakes make this harder, as they perform a mini-charge to get back to you quickly. When you're out of mana, you can either drink a Full Mana potion or wait until your health is low and drink a Full Rejuv potion to get both your health and your mana back at the same time.

CORNERING - You don't need to Telekill everything that runs from you. In fact, most of the time you can corner them when you're in small rooms.

Chase an enemy into a corner and take them down like so:

In the situation to the right, the monster will not try to escape at all. You've got it cornered and you can kill it at your pleasure. So, an important thing to note if you get into this next situation (left):

ARMIES OF MELEE - It happens all too often that a warrior turns a corner and the next thing he knows, 10-20 melee monsters are charging straight for him! What to do? Brains over brawn, remember...

Retreat smart. Pull back and use corners. Use the shift key as described above to slow down a horde. The idea is to slowly, slowly pull back. When a monster tries to flank your position and become the 3rd or 4th attacker at once, it's time to pull back - and you only usually need to retreat 2 or 3 steps at most! Most importantly, though, use obstacles - walls are your best friend! Move down the length of a wall to severely limit their ability to surround you; melee monsters will "string out" into a chaotic line and actually get in each others' way trying to get to you. Take advantage of obstacles in Hell to use "virtual doorways" (thanks to Gore for this term) to stop your enemies short. If you stand right behind an obstacle (or behind and to the side), monsters will take longer to come around the obstacle and you'll usually only have to face two monsters at once!

Also, if you have a large group of attackers following you, planting yourself in a corner can help, as only three attackers can face you at a time then. It'll help keep from being surrounded. However, watch out! Doing this will eliminate your escape route, unless you can be lucky enough to cast Teleport or Phasing to get away (Phasing is faster casting than Teleport).

STONE CURSE - This spell is used rarely but can be useful in games where you can't hold an enemy in stun lock. If you don't have haste/speed or your to-hit isn't high enough, a monster can escape from your flailing and can become a tremendous pain. Stone Curse these monsters, such as Lazarus, to make it easy. In Co-op games, a monster can often wind up "teleporting" across the screen wildly, as the computers argue as to the true position of the enemy. Stoning them ends the debate. :-)

Last of all, Stone Curse should be used as an offensive spell aid. Since warriors have a really low magic stat, their magic missile chance to hit is very, very low. Using Stone Curse can save you time and mana. For example, Snow Witches are very susceptible to Fireballs, but a warrior will have trouble connecting a shot. Wait until you have a bunch right next to each other, Stone Curse one in the middle, and fire. The splash damage from the Fireball can kill 5 or 6 Snow Witches right away!

FIRE WALLS - Setting up defensive lines when you see a bunch of non-fire-immune monsters heading toward you can help kill them quickly. It's also great against Diablo. If you can line up a bunch of witches all in a straight perpendicular line, a Fire Wall can help weed them out while you deal with melee monsters. In the Catacombs/Church, casting it just inside a doorway while you stand in it can kill a large group quickly.

DEALING WITH DIABLO - I recommend you deal with this guy ALONE. Try to isolate him; it doesn't do good to get beat on by Blood Knights while trying to hold Diablo in a stun lock. That said, remember to keep yourself against a wall so that he can't knock you back away from him. Casting a Fire Wall in front of you for him to stand in will make it go faster. In my opinion, Warriors have the easiest time with Diablo, as they can keep him in stun lock if their AC/dex is high enough. Also remember to keep potions on "standby" by dropping them on the ground in a semicircle against a wall; that way, when you pull back there to face Diablo, you can restock your belt by picking these potions up off the ground. One way to bring Diablo out of his lair and not activate the other monsters is to use Holy Bolt - it will bother Diablo, but no one else. Chain Lightning works for that purpose as well; casting it will bring out only Diablo and a solitary Black Knight.

DEALING WITH LAZARUS - Lazarus and his posse always reside in a square room in the same place of level 15 - the north corner (or, if you tilt the map, the northwest corner). Laz and Co. can be tough to handle for a warrior. The first thing you should always do is separate the forces. Teleport in and immediately Teleport back out of his lair. This will activate the four witches - Black Jade, Red Vex, and two Hell Spawn. Wait for them around one of the corners, and either "peekaboo" kill them or Telekill them. With them out of the way, it won't be as hard. You should have a good number of Full Rejuvs on your belt, as you probably won't have time to cast Heal at first. Teleport in, kill Advocates, and be sure to Teleport back out if you need to restock your belt. Lazarus can be hard to keep in stun lock, so you may need to Stone Curse him.

VS. MELEE/RANGED COMBOS - These levels can be the most annoying - where groups of melee monsters are combined with groups of ranged attackers. The melee monsters will keep you busy while the ranged attackers eat you alive. What to do?

1) Use corners/doors wisely. Retreat to thin out the bunch. If the ranged attackers aren't followers, you can simply run into a room to activate the melee monsters and run back out, and wait for them.

2) If one group of monsters is immune to a magical form of attack while the other isn't, you can separate the two groups with ranged magical attacks from around corners. Guardians are useful for this, along with Flame Waves, Elementals, Charged Bolts, and Chain Lightning (be careful you don't activate too many at a time this way!).

3) Telekilling can let you draw a horde of melee attackers to you, and then flank them - telekill the ranged attackers who are behind them, and play a back and forth game. Once all the ranged attackers are gone, you can deal with the melee monsters at your leisure.

ADVOCATE/LEVEL 16 TACTICS - Diablo's Advocates are the toughest range attacker you can face, along with Soul Burners. They do vicious amounts of damage with their fireballs, and teleport away when threatened. In packs, they are positively deadly. Here's some hints as to how to deal with them.

First off, a dinky little dagger of Haste can be FAR better to use than a King's Bastard Sword of Carnage vs. Advocates. Why? Stun lock. Only a warrior using a one-handed weapon of Haste/Speed can put an Advocate in stun lock. If your normal weapon isn't a Haste/Speed suffix, you want to switch on level 16. If you don't, you'll simply have to Stone Curse every single Advocate or you'll be playing a long, frustrating game.

Let's say you turn a corner and sight a bunch of Advocates like so.  As they begin firing, the warrior has to make a quick decision. What should he do?

From here, it's over. The Advocates will stop trying to fire at him, and instead use the Flash spell - which is incredibly wimpy. The warrior can then finish them off without taking much damage at all. Note too that this is a great strategy when Blood Knights are on your tail. Just don't swing at the Advocates, and they'll stay there uselessly Flashing you. Not only are they then not firing at you, but they act as shields to help stop swarming!

If your to-hit% isn't high enough, Advocates will often escape your stun lock. What follows is something that I'm sure everyone's done from time to time: you watch the Advocate reappear, head toward it, and just as you're about to swing at him, he disappears again. Process repeats. How to avoid this? Timing.

When an Advocate is firing his fireballs, he's vulnerable. You can often Telekill him and catch him while he's firing to prevent him from escaping again. I find that a good timing is to cast Teleport just as he's reappearing. By the time you arrive, he'll be in mid-fire. You can also time this by walking in a zig-zag fashion, or simply Stone Curse the sucker.

Here's also where a Golem comes in handy! If you've cleared an area of Blood Knights on level 16 and there's just a pack of Advocates left, head in and cast a Golem next to a bunch if you can. What happens is that Advocates will NEVER fire fireballs at a Golem, and that pet of yours will walk up to them and attack. Since he's a melee attacker, the Advocate will try to use Flash to kill him. Flash is just as useless against Golems as it is against Warriors. Thus, your Golem will keep a bunch of Advocates from fireballing you while you deal with other Advocates.

Advocates tend to separate as time goes on. Often, if you enter an area and five to six Advocates are standing in a bunch, just retreat. Within 10 seconds, the group will many times break up, and that can help because their fire won't be as concentrated.

While on Level 16, it is very important to separate the two enemy types. You won't last long battling Blood Knights while the Advocates are picking you off from afar. One way to do this is to use fire-based spells which bother the Blood Knights but not the Triple Immune Advocates, such as Flame Wave, Guardian, and Elemental. Also, a fun tactic is the "Ring Around the Rosie - Run Like Hell" method, which involves running around in a zigzag pattern to avoid Advocate fireballs and yet activate the Blood Knights. Then retreat to a safe place and take the knights on.

AVOID TAKING FIRE - When killing ranged attackers, such as witches and mages, a problem you run into often is that as you're killing monsters, too many others are hitting you while you're making a kill. For solutions to this problem, I'll divide this into Happy Feet Tactics and Smarter Target Acquisition.

Happy Feet Tactics - "Happy Feet," a term first coined by Woody, involves running in a specific way to avoid taking 95% of the shots fired at you. Used when advancing to and retreating from an enemy for warriors, it can help minimize the damage you're taking while you're not killing something.

The idea is to run in a zig-zag line, crossing over perpendicular to your enemies. An illustration:

You may want to walk a few paces at the edges of the zig-zag (in above case, the horizontal lines) until the ranged attacks are all headed to that point before moving to the other zig-zag edge.

Smarter Target Acquisition - Often times, just being smarter about which enemies to kill first can save you a potion or two when facing a bunch of ranged attackers.

Here's an example situation involving a group of witches.

Which point should the warrior teleport to (and Telekill one of the witches)? Answer: Location 2. Location 1 has only one Snow Witch to kill, so while he's killing the solitary witch all the others are firing at him. Location 3 would only put you next to 2 witches, as would Location 4. Teleporting to Location 2 will let you kill a witch and have three others flee (a smart warrior would kill the witch with the number 3 on it first). When a witch is fleeing, it's not firing!

One thing to note here is that witches don't always run from you right away. Sometimes, you can teleport to a position, kill a neighbor witch, and then pick off a witch who never moved from her position next to you. Be sure to take advantage of it when it occurs, as you're getting two kills per teleport.

The whole idea is to lessen the number of witches who shoot at you at any one time, and simultaneously herd them into corners for easier kills. Now, a warrior could also retreat to the east and wait for the witches to come around, killing one or two by the "peek-a-boo" method; then he could move out into the middle of the crowd to split them up. Both methods work well, although the quick teleport to position 2 will force the witches into corners.

VAMPIRE SWORD TACTICS - Using swords of Vampires changes the approach warriors take to killing the monsters. Using Vampires plus Healing magically in an efficient manner can make potions obsolete - some warriors have been able to clear Hell/Hell without using a single potion in this manner, using careful tactics.

When using Vampires, it helps to go with a good AC configuration (over one with lower AC but more hit points and mana, for example), since you'll want to be using your mana for healing as much as possible. That means more casting of heal in melee situations. However, try to get the most mana you can without sacrificing hit points.

You'll need to use the shift key more against creatures who like to run away, since you swing slower and they might try to dart off between swings.

MULTIPLAYER CO-OP TACTICS - When playing with other warriors only, it's a cinch to play a good, fun game. You won't get in each others' way, and telekilling openly causes no troubles. Just don't activate too many monsters at a time. The problems arise when you're playing with rogues and sorcerers, who use ranged attacks with bows and spells.

The idea is use your tank-like high AC status to help cover your friends and also not take up all the kills. Make sure that you give your rogue friends some good line-up shots, such as:

In this situation, kill the monster on the RIGHT first, and let your rogue friend whack the monster in her line of fire. I can't stress the importance of line-of-fire shots enough. Always stand to the side so that you and your partner can hurt the monster at the same time, and use the shift key to hold position before and after the kill.

If you hug the walls, you make yourself much less of a target for the rogues and mages, who can fire out into the open without fear of hitting you.

Also, a good thing to remember is to STAND STILL. Unless you need to retreat, you should use the Shift key to hold your position when fighting, to prevent you from running around in circles. This annoys the warrior because he gets shot at, the rogue because you keep getting in her line of fire, and the mage because he can't figure out where you're going to go, and has to hold off on his fireballs.

When playing with mages against Triple Immunes, the mages will probably need to Stone Curse a lot. If he's using a Civerb's Cudgel or a good melee weapon, let him take the kills that he's stoned. Don't be a hog.

Generally speaking, however, the whole point of teamwork is to cover for your partners' weaknesses. If you're playing with an Artillerymage (a sorcerer with low AC but powerful spells), you need to keep the melee monsters off his back. You also need to deal with the triple immunes. If you're playing with a bow-wielding rogue, let her take out the ranged attackers while you cover her on the melee. Common sense is what is essential.

As said before, be careful that you don't teleport right into a line of fire. And, most of all, DON'T be the usual warrior who activates a ton of monsters! If you see two Blood Knights headed your way, don't walk up to meet them - let them come to YOU. For, sure enough, there are probably 10 more behind them, waiting for you to activate them - and then you have a mess on your hands. This is why warriors are often called Golems by the other classes...show that you thugs DO have brains. :-)

In the end, however, the single BEST way to become a better co-op player is to play the other two classes. Know how the classes operate in all situations. If you can think like a rogue and a sorcerer, you'll know how they'll act, and you can predict it. Someone who only plays warriors is really lacking in this area, and won't understand why rogues and mages can get continually frustrated playing with them.

ITEM RECOVERY - Warriors have the hardest time with item recovery, in my opinion. Since their major strength is in melee fighting, and they need high AC to pull it off, they're in trouble when they lose their good plate mails.

I find that playing mage-style is your best bet for item recovery. If you've done the Enchanted Shrine hunts, they'll pay off now. Also, if you've kept around a set of equipment (such as jewels) to assist in book-reading, equipping these to help recover items is a smart plan. Leave your gold in town - no need to keep losing half your gold each time you head down for your precious equipment.

Stealth is useful in item recovery. If you can decrease your light radius, and walk one step at a time, you'll probably only face one monster at a time. Use Infravision scrolls to keep abreast of what's waiting for you: if you can see them before they see you, you've got a key advantage. Keep that in mind if you find a Gotterdamerung and you feel that you won't use it, or if you find a jewel of the Dark. Remember that maximum stealth is -80% light radius, which only attracts monsters who are one square away.

Here's where Stone Curse REALLY comes in handy! You should be able to cast two Stone Curses per mana ball without equipment, and with your naturally high damage you can kill just about any monster in the time it takes for one Stone Curse to wear off.

Always walk ONE STEP AT A TIME. See if you activate a monster, and if not, go on with another step. Avoid having to face the mob that killed you again.

Telekinesis is your best friend. Use it when you can see your equipment on the other side of a wall where a mob lies in ambush. You can pick up your equipment without having to face them.

If you die near the stairs, use successive town portals to slowly move the mob away from the stairs so you can eventually walk down and pick up the items in peace. Another tactic is to cast Phasing as you appear on a level; it'll very quickly teleport you to a random direction, and just might save you. Yet another tactic involves WHERE you die - if it's on levels 4, 8, or 12, you can try an alternate route by going to the level BELOW it and taking the stairs up. It's slow, but it'll let you appear on the level that you died without being mobbed.

Using spells that hang around after you're dead are a good plan, too. Guardians and Fire Walls can kill a monster long after you've died...

THE ULTIMATE STRATEGY TIP - Read the Diablo Strategy Forum every day. Look for other experts' opinions. Ask questions. Learn.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND LINKS

I'd like to thank Jarulf for his wonderful Guide to Diablo and Hellfire, a MUST-GET informational tool for all Diablo fans; it was used for 90% of the statistical information here.

Want more Warrior Strategy? A good Battle.Net bud of mine and a master of warriors, .Gore., has a very good illustrated warrior guide.

And don't forget Armin's Guide to new warriors.

The Diablo Strategy Forum, where this guide was originally written, hacked to shreds, re-written, nitpicked to death, and eventually completed...

I'd like to also thank Sunset`Warrior and Johnxxxx, who showed me that Warriors are more than just Golems, and inspired me to play on with what I thought at the time was a useless class.

Last but not least, all the people who contributed in large or small ways to this strategy treatise: Da O'Toth, concre+e, Crystalion, P(IG), Varaya, Lissa, Wagon Dragon, WarLocke, Armin, Pete, Gyrefalcon, Dragledite, Gore, TheCla, Charles Warren, Skyth, OrkinMan, Bostic, Cormac, Chris Clarke, Sourceror, Lord-Supierion, Woody, Seal, Van_Damned, Belgarath, Code Myster, Boots, Argus McFrugal, Moriah, Holte, Corwin, Lord Satorius, and Fortuna.

Greetings to the Angels of Hell, the Diablo Strategy Forum and its regulars, and legits everywhere. Fight the good fight.