Improving my survivability.

[Rustweaver]

I'm currently running a warrior through nm lvl 31, I can bash through all levels but get hung up in nm/hell. The reason seems to be that I get too crowded and I can't kill quick enough (or I can't take enough hits)

My stats are:

Str 79 = 98
Dex Max = 69
Magic Max = 79
Vit 66 = 113

AC 140

CtH 189%

Max resists

Life: 406
Mana: 151

weapon KSoV Perfect stats

Shield: Blessed shield of the tiger 16 armor and + 41 hp

Helm: Obs helm of tiger 40 resist all + 59 hp

Armor: Obs plate of harmony +31 resist all

Ammy: Jade of the stars 28 resist all +8 to all

Rings: +52 mana +28 vit
+11 to all

Any suggestions on how to improve my survivability would be great, I'm going to start with doing some runs for str/vit elixers and hopefully that will boost my chances...

Then I'll take a good look at my gear.

Thanks,
Rustweaver

[--Pete]

Hi,

I'm currently running a warrior through nm lvl 31, I can bash through all levels but get hung up in nm/hell. The reason seems to be that I get too crowded and I can't kill quick enough (or I can't take enough hits)

I suspect that part of your problem is the tactics you are using. Go to the Lounge's home page, follow the links from Diablo/Strategy and read a bit on how to play a warrior effectively. At clvl 31, you should be blasting through hell-caves and you should be able to clear hell-hell with only slight difficulty.

The most important stat for a warrior is dexterity. It effects your to hit, your armor class, and your blocking. While your 189% chance to hit is good, it still means you'll miss about 20% of the time at your clvl (IIRC). At your clvl, magic is mostly useless. And vitality just determines how often you need to drink. Strength is good -- it determines how hard you hit if you've the to hit to do it. Remember the old saying, "It makes no difference how hard you *miss* them".

But, really, read the strategy guides. The best gear is a good player.

--Pete

[Nystul]

I love to discuss warrior tactics, but I think the easiest thing would be to get a big old plate (something along the lines of blessed or saintly full plate mail) to stop those attacks. You have enough life to take a few hits, but with your current AC you are getting hit quite a lot!

[Foxhound3857]

You need a minimum of 285 AC to be valid against Hell/Hell monsters, otherwise you're basically considered naked. Also, for Dex the minimum required for perfect block at clvl31 is 158, and goes down by 2 with each level that you gain. Dex is everything for a Warrior.

I recommend you look for items along these lines.

Weapon: Kings/Speed or Kings/Haste sword. Preferably a basty, but anything works.
Armor: Awesome Full Plate. If you can find one with a Stars suffix (GOOD LUCK!), all the better.
Helmet: Royal Circlet. Period.
Shield: Obsidian/tiger or Emerald/tiger.
Rings: Mix them up with Obsidian and Drake or Dragon prefixes. If you need Dex, go for Perfection suffixes. If you need all stats, go for heavens or zodiac (zodiac only drops from mlvl30 monsters). Dragon/zod, drake/zod, and obsid/zod jewels only come around once in a blue moon, so don't expect to see one for a while.

Stop adding points to Vit and start adding them to Strength. To stun and to kill is to live. There's no need for life if your damage is so high that your opponent is dead before they get a chance to hit you.

[weakwarrior]

I assume you are playing MP.

Nystul's approach is probably the simplest. A useful site is http://www.dpsyche.com/ where you can see how much AC or dexterity is useful for your character. A quick look shows me that your AC is barely relevant against the lowest level creatures in NM/Hell. And your dexterity will only give you about 50% block (as Pete pointed out).

Regarding your setup - your shield gives you a bonus to AC (blessed) but your armor does not (obsidian). If you could reverse that you'd be much better off since blessed on the shield only gives you an additional 16 AC or so whereas blessed on a plate would give you an additional 60 or so. Another point is that since you have a jade ammy of the stars (28 res) you will still almost certainly need 2 items to get you to maximum resists. This means that while you have obsidian stuff (armor and helm), jade would do just as well. Since you need more dexterity the items you would be looking for would be jade or obsidian helm of the stars or precision and jade or obsidian shield (ideally with a wolf or tiger suffix - you are too high level to buy a jade moon/accuracy and finding them in the dungeon is pretty tedious). For your plate you want a + AC prefix, but lacking that a plate of precision or stars (no prefix) would also be o.k.. Some points here - you have enough hp so you don't really need an obs. helm of the tiger. Also, harmony isn't so useful for a warrior so it won't be a big loss if you have to drop that. So the setup you shouldn't have too much trouble getting to would be something like:

blessed/saintly/awesome plate (field/gothic/full plate) and if you can get a suffix with that so much the better (ideally stars or precision). You can settle for a prefixless plate of precision or stars until you find something better. This assumes your other items max your res.

jade/obsidian shield (ideally a higher base AC though that's not critical) and if you can get a suffix with that so much the better

jade/obsidian helm (ideally a higher base AC though that's not critical) with a stars or precision suffix.

I personally recommend using your lups on vitality and bother Adrea to get your Str elixers.

Also, you have +19 all from your jewels so if your Dex is max it should be 79.

Your dragon life ring is REALLY nice (so don't get rid of it) but temporarily you'd be better served by a ring of precision, perfection, stars, heavens, or zodiac - even with no prefix. Dexterity is king.

Like Fox said a King's sword of speed/haste would be currently more useful than the KSOV (which is also REALLY nice), though those are the only two swords which would be better. So you're probably not going to improve on that for a while either.

So collect some money on normal/Hell - where you will also load up on experience and lups and probably find a ring with some + dexterity on it and either shop Griswold for items (starting lots of new games) or Adria for Str elixers (using the Cat entrance).

The truth is with your current setup, which is mostly meaningless in terms of AC and only half good at blocking clearing NM/Hell should be pretty hard. It's pretty analogous to an LA2H (a little less damage but a chance to block).

[FireIceTalon]

I'm currently running a warrior through nm lvl 31, I can bash through all levels but get hung up in nm/hell. The reason seems to be that I get too crowded and I can't kill quick enough (or I can't take enough hits)

My stats are:

Str 79 = 98
Dex Max = 69
Magic Max = 79
Vit 66 = 113

AC 140

CtH 189%

Max resists

Life: 406
Mana: 151

weapon KSoV Perfect stats

Shield: Blessed shield of the tiger 16 armor and + 41 hp

Helm: Obs helm of tiger 40 resist all + 59 hp

Armor: Obs plate of harmony +31 resist all

Ammy: Jade of the stars 28 resist all +8 to all

Rings: +52 mana +28 vit
+11 to all

Any suggestions on how to improve my survivability would be great, I'm going to start with doing some runs for str/vit elixers and hopefully that will boost my chances...

Then I'll take a good look at my gear.

Thanks,
Rustweaver

Your dexterity is much too low. So even if u did have high ac, u will still get hit often due to your poor block. You dont realy need harmony on a warrior anyways, and using more +to all stat items is much more beneficial to you overall. Crank up that strength too, the faster u can kill, the better off youll be.

Also, Pete saying u should own hell/hell or hell/caves easily at lvl 31 is ridiculous. If you took your warr there right now with your stats and gear, you would get massacred very quickly. Sure, u can play it, but there is a difference between playing it having to "tip toe" through it, and actually being able to play it EFFICIENTLY. At lvl 31 you need like almost 150+ dex (which is almost impossible to d at your lvl) to get perfect block vs most monsters in hell/hell, not to mention your hp, mana, and damage/critical hit are far less then a warrior thats in his 40's, who most likely has maxed his stats and has better gear then you do.

The dream setup for a high ac warrior depends on your tastes kind of but the one I like best and find to be the most balanced:

Helm: RC
Plate: Awesome full Plate of the Stars (Lion is good too, and in your case u may want to consider Precision too, but even a Blessed or Saintly prefix should serve u quite well)
Shield: Emerald (or Obsidian) Tiger
Sword: I like Kings Vampires best but Speed/Haste is a must have too. At your lvl especially.
Jewels: 2 x Drake/Dragon Zodiacs, 1 Obs/Jade Zodiac

These are the really high end items of course, but if u can get a setup along these lines with even a nice Saintly Plate of Precison, and drakes/obs heavens jewels, u should be ok. Or u can go REALLY high ac and use Awesome/Holy Tiger shield, and 2 resist jewels. At lower lvls, this might be a better setup even then the one i mentioned above, though mine is certainly the best all around for a warr in his 40's. The bottomline is you need looots of dex and good dmg, keep raising str whenever u lvl up....dont worry too much about mana and life yet, those will come later.

[Rudra]

You need a minimum of 285 AC to be valid against Hell/Hell monsters, otherwise you're basically considered naked.

In NM with clvl 31, it's more than a maximum, not a minimum! Anything beyond 258 is wasted, because it doesn't make you better.

Apart from that I think your AC and Dex are your only real problems. Simply try to improve that. Vit is for noobs.:P
Secondly, you should avoid getting crowded. Keep an eye out for "bottlenecks" or corners with a spike, so that you have a base you can retreat to and get hit from max. two monsters at the same time. If you don't need to hurry, consider also taking a bow with you. Then you can bait monsters one by one.

[artanis]

I also have a lvl 31 warrior, thanks to some recent finds i have no problem clearing nm/hell. I can get through caves/hell alright, but hell/hell is a challenge (damn witches). This is pretty much my first time with the warrior.

Stats:
str: 133
mag: 69
dex: 155
vit: 112

AC: 306
to hit: 213%

Equipment
Gotterdamerung
Awesome shield of the Tiger 20 144% +42
Awesome plate 72 133%
Kings Sword of Speed 86% 170%
Amulet of Perfection +30
Ring of Perfection +28
Ring of the Zodiac +16

I've been on the look out for a new helm. I have garnet, ivory, cobalt rings of heaven that are begging to be used. So perhaps a nice obsidian helm. In terms of magic i hardly know any spells, which is killing me in hell.

[ucookie]

The only spells my warriors ever really use in hell/hell when fighting
-heal
-teleport
-stone curse
-chain lightning

I rarely ever get the chance to make many kills with fireball unless a mob of knights come my way and I can soften them up with fireball first, or I meet a corner full of snow witches.

If you're low AC then I will say that a high CL level is almost required to not have to retreat all the time. My LAW was having a hell (pun not intended) of a time until I finally found the determination to shrine run him to level 15 chain lightning. Every pack of lava maws forced me to run to the nearest choke point.

For the low level 30s my LAW got by with x3 perfection jewels, precison armor and helm. I think it gave him 157 dex at the end (first thing to be swapped out when he grew in levels was the helm for a Helm of Sprits). Three away from perfect block at level 30. It's just me but I can't play a warrior unless he has more than 90% block rate. Any lower and I begin getting annoyed by getting hit so much when just fighting two monsters at a time.