I'm a rank 1 warrior main. I have been playing League of Legends since 2012 and moved over to HotS after receiving the beta invite this spring. I like playing the warrior role because I enjoy being right in the middle of things messing stuff up. I've always enjoyed playing the off meta stuff because I find it more creative and less mundane.

Check out my stream if you want to watch some warrior play or ask some questions or some of my other guides listed below to learn about other warriors.

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Anub'Arak Guide

Stitches is right now one of the weaker warriors, but I think he is stronger than people give him credit for. He's not the best damage soaker for a tank, but can actually output a decent amount of damage and his hooks are game changing. I find him really fun to play because of the stuff you can do with hook and the surprising amount of damage he puts out.

Pros:
Lots of AoE damage
Can tank sustained damage
Hook is game changing
Fun to play

Cons:
No gapcloser
Needs his team to follow up
Hook is hard to hit

Vile Gas adds a deceptive amount of damage on an extended fight as long as you can stay alive. Helpful when doing camps and for early wavelear if you're laning too.

Hook is Stitches bread and butter. If you can't hit your hooks you shouldn't play stitches. Usually used to bring one of their squishies to your team to either eat or bodyblock until they're killed. Don't just throw it out as the zoning that the threat of hook creases can be as useful as hooking someone. Can also be used as a peeling tool in some circumstances.

Slam deals AoE damage in front of you on low CD and mana cost. Useful for waveclear and getting out AoE damage in an extended teamfight. Upgrading this skill from talents can make it an incredibly powerful spell.

Devour gives you a big burst heal with a little damage too. This is your only real source of tankiness other than your large health pool and regen until you have access to your level 20 talents. You'll only get one of these of in a fight so make sure you're either healing the full amount.

There are two main ways to build stitches with slight variations that are explained in detail in the talent section below. Whenever I pick Stitches I'll ask the rest of my team to play double warrior and I'll choose the damage build, but if they ignore me and we lack anyone else who can soak a little damage I'll go tank.

Tank

Stitches has several tools at his disposal to make him a formidable tank. Most of his tankiness is in the form of his health pool and heals making Amplified Healing an excellent talent for him. Stitches can build an incredible amount of regen by taking the two regen stacking talents, Regeneration Master and Savor the Flavor. Combined with amplified healing you'll have well over 100 regen even before you hit 20. This helps him tank sustained damage well and if you're also getting heals from your support you will be very hard to take down. For burst damage Hardened Shield combined with the heal on Engorge makes it hard to focus him down lategame. Block also helps if the enemy team has auto attack burst. Chew Your Food at level 1 is another alternative for a little extra burst healing.

Good tanks also need CC and Stitches has one of the best forms of it in Hook. He also has access to three slows through his talent choices in. Tenderizer is a great tool to hold whatever hero you pull into the fight close to your team so they can focus them down and gives you some CC to make you more of a threat when hook is down. Putrid Bile also comes with a minor slow and move speed buff, making it impossible for heroes without an escape up to get away from Stitches. The massive AoE slow on Pulverize is an incredibly strong form of CC that gives you a lot of control over the positioning of the enemy team and makes setting up hooks much easier. The slows are important on Stitches as you should be close to the rest of your team during teamfights which allows Stitches to have a lot of zone control even when his hook is down. This makes it hard for the enemy team to get to your squishies and keeps the enemy squishies closer. Some people will tell you to take Gorge for the extra CC, but I find the zone control on Putrid Bile to be better even on tank Stitches (I explain my reasoning further in the Talent Breakdown section).

Damage

This build centers around the talent upgrades for Slam. This build turns Stitches bruiser with a lot of AoE damage and CC and makes him a threat even without landing a hook. Heavy Slam and Putrid Ground turns Slam into a medium damage spammable AoE spell. Mega Slam makes the area affected by Slam huge allowing you to get several members of the enemy team in one Slam. Pulverize is what makes this build incredibly strong. It puts your damage spell on a 6 second cooldown and adds a massive 1 second slow to it. You'll hit multiple targets with this pretty much every time you're using Slam and can then pick out someone to hook and kill. Putrid Bile adds even more AoE damage to your build and gives you the movespeed to help keep you from getting focused down.

The goal in teamfights is to get an early Slam off to slow and follow up with a hook. After you can either use your movespeed to join your tank on their backline or use your incredible amount of CC to peel for your backline. Putrid Bile and Vile Gas will do a lot of damage over an extended period of time and your only form of tankiness is your health pool and Devour so you need to be close to the enemy team after your hook is down. Positioning is incredibly important on Stitches, especially with this build, and combined with the difficulty of landing hooks, Stitches can take some time to learn before you're good with him.

Hook

You can also build Stitches to really emphasize the Hook. I don't think this is a competitive way to build him, but it can be a lot of fun. I take Heavy Slam, Putrid Ground, and Relentless to give him the waveclear and positioning to set up hooks easier. Tenderizer and Gorge helps him keep enemies he hooks in dangerous situations. Bolt of the Storm can be used either to surprise them with a hook or to take the enemy you pull even farther from his team after Gorging. If both of the Hook talents weren't on the same level this build might be more viable, but you have to choose which Hook talent to take. Fishing Hook lets you hit those surprising long range hooks, but these are even harder to hit than a normal Hook. Not many people know this, but Shish Kabob lets you pull enemies through walls and will really catch the other team off-guard. Choose the talent based on which better fits your situation.

In this section:
Green text means I'll take it almost every game for one of the viable builds
Yellow means situational
Red means don't take it

Level 1

Block is strong if you are going against champs that have AA buffs and helps with early harrass. If you're building tank and worried about their auto attacks grab this, otherwise go for one of the other talents here.

Chew Your Food adds a little extra burst healing to your Devour. Good vs burst damage but regen master is better sustained tankiness.

Heavy Slam adds 50% damage to a spammable spell and turns stiches into a legit damage threat and adds more waveclear to help set up your hooks. I take this skill every game on damage Stitches, but never if I'm going tank.

Regeneration Master adds a lot of sustained tankiness to stiches and combines well with amplified healing. Make sure you can gather the health globes during laning phase before you take this and having some sort of neutral source of health globes helps too.

Level 4

Take Amplified Healing if you're going tank build. Easy enough.

Because of pull you won't be tanking towers much and you won't be soloing many camps.

Vile Cleaver adds a little extra damage to your autos but if you're going damage slam build is the way to go, so I never take this one.

Putrid Ground adds a little extra damage to your spammable AoE skill. Take this if you're going damage.

Level 7

Tenderizer adds a slow to your autos. Keeps enemies in range of your damage dealers after a pull and helps peel too. Mandatory on damage Stitches, good on tank Stitches too if you want a little more lockdown.

Vile Gas just has no scenarios where it makes it a better pickup than the other talents here.

Maybe if the CD was shorter, but 15 seconds just isn't long enough and you'd have to last hit a hero in a teamfight to make it useful.

Savor the Flavor is an interesting talent that I've played around with. It can add upwards of 40 health regen late game when combined with amplified healing. There are three conditions that should be met before taking this talent: 1. The enemy team isn't going to focus and burst you during a teamfight You don't really need tenderizer You can keep stacking all game.

Level 10

Putrid Bile gives you AoE damage, a slow, and movement speed. This skill allows Stitches to stick to pretty much any target really well and put out his damage. Combined with pull and tenderize you have an incredible amount of control where one of their squishies goes in a teamfight. A must for damage Stitches or heal Stitches.

Gorge is I think the newbtrap that is a big reason why Stitches' win rate is so low right now. Gorge does a small amount of damage and swallows an enemy team member and allows you to carry them for 3.5 seconds before spitting them out. The combo here is hook someone, walk back into your team or towers with them and burst them down. The problem is that the enemy hero is immune while they are in your belly. This requires your team to have a window where your teammates can save their spells for the 3.5 seconds Gorge is active, which rarely happens. I would only take this in teamplay where you have voice communication and even then prefer Putrid Bile most of the time.

Level 13

Take Relentless pretty much every game on tank Stitches unless the enemy team has almost no cc. Even though Mega smash is hard to pass up on damage Stitches, take Relentless if the enemy team has a lot of cc.

Mega Smash adds more range and makes the cone on smash wider. Take this skill every game on damage Stitches unless the enemy team is loaded with CC and you need Relentless. If you don't need Relentless this skill is the next best choice on tank Stitches.

Indigestion creates a retchling with your devour that doesn't do much damage, has very little health, and a long cooldown. Don't ever take this talent.

Helping Hand allows you to pull your allies with hook. Your hook is your biggest threat and if you have to use it to save a teammate the teamfight is going to be lost, not to mention that you actually have to hit them with it. Don't take this talent either.

Level 16

Pulverize gives you a strong 1 second AoE slow on a 6 second cooldown. This gives him another source of CC and makes hitting your hooks really easy, especially if you took Mega Smash at 13, and really ups his damage. I take this every game on damage Stitches. On tank Stitches take this talent unless you need imposing presence.

Fishing Hook adds a lot of range to your hook. What I don't like about this talent is the speed doesn't change, making it really hard to hit the long range hooks. If you think you can hit the pulls this talent can be worth it, but I pass on it every game because pulverize is so good and it makes Stitches even more risky.

Shish Kabob is really only good for pulling through walls as you'll almost never be able to line up a hook to hit 2 high priority targets. The other talents here are much better.

Imposing Presence is a good skill to take if they have a lot of auto attack damage. If the enemy team has one really heavy auto attacker or a few heroes that will be autoing you a lot take this talent if you're building tank.

Level 20

Regenerative Bile makes your Putrid Bile last longer and heal you for 50% of the damage. The heal can be massive if you are sticking close to multiple targets in a teamfight. I take this almost every game on damage Stitches. If you're not getting bursted down early in a teamfight this is a good choice on tank Stitches too.

You'll almost never be able to use this talent effectively, so I never take it.

Hardened Shield makes you a proper tank for 4 seconds no matter what the build up until now. Unless the enemy team has almost no burst damage this is the better choice for tank Stitches. If you're getting focused down in teamfights on damage Stitches I will take this sometimes to make sure I can stick around to put out as much damage as possible.

Bolt of the Storm is good for making bolt into hook into Gorge plays or by bolting farther back after Gourging someone, but you're giving up a lot for low probability plays so I never take it.