I'm new to the game, I'm playing as a barbarian with the Belzebub Diablo 1 HD mod so I'm not sure if many people can help me here but I figured the play-style is close enough to the warrior so any advice probably applies here too.

So, I'm getting kited by the ranged mobs a ton and it's driving me insane. With the slower movement speed of this game and at times weird pathing, I'm starting to lose my patience. They don't seem to ever come after me if I LoS them around a corner or through a door, so I just chase them for way too long, many times only to get pulled into a large mob.

If there is any good advice or reason to play warrior instead if it means having an easier time with ranged mobs, I'd appreciate any advice there too and then I can just reroll warrior.

Without question dealing with archers that back away when approached calls for specialized tactics. With the skeleton archers fortunately they don't back up much before they stop so it's only a matter of kiting any melee mobs out of their line of fire. But with Goatmen archers it's somewhat more of a problem. There are techniques to draw them to you such as hiding just inside one side (or the other or switching from one side to the other with the changing circumstances) of a doorway (occasionally hiding just around a corner will work) out of their line of sight and killing them as they come through the door, though it is not as effective on Flesh Clan or Stone Clan as it is with Fire Clan and Night Clan. Otherwise it is a matter of herding them into a corner or backing them against a wall and coming in straight at them. Generally getting close enough that they take a shot without moving holds them in place long enough that you can close and attack.

Sorceror NPCs are another issue. Zhar the Mad can be herded into a corner or between the lamp posts at the bookcase and with you next to him he can't teleport away. So for him one's first move after clicking on the bookcase is to run around him so he'll teleport toward a corner or to the bookcase. With the Charge Bolt using Sorcerors in Hell that teleport one can usually tell where they will reappear and be there to "greet" them.

Then there are the Snow Witches and other varieties of succubi that recycle the Goatmen evasion tactics and generally fall to the same assault tactics.

In all cases a weapon of speed or haste so that one can stun lock a mob is almost essential.

A warrior has it somewhat easier as Lightning (at first I used Fire Wall to deal with Goatmen and still with any variety of spitting dog other than the fire immune Lava Maws) is a useful skill for him with a relatively low mana cost (6). Standard issue for me with the warrior is three Full Mana Potions in his bag just for this very purpose. This also allows him to take firing positions that make good use of the the fact that in certain instances lines of fire are not reciprocal so one can take their time aiming, making repeated casts and replenishing mana without taking hits.

An alternative to using magic is using a bow. Downside is that Barbarians are just terrible with bows and it would help enormously if the bow was something like a Gold Long Battle Bow of anything that increases damage or hit chance.

Wearing armor and jewelry (and in Hellfire anything with Thieves on it) that reduces damage (Health, Protection, Absorption, Deflection, Osmosis) is of great benefit especially if one has to go into a library filled with archers.

As an aside perhaps only interesting to me is that this business of herding mobs reappears in World of Warcraft, sometimes the quest is done on foot other times it is done mounted on horse back or some other species of riding mount. In most cases the mobs are not hostile to you and you're not the one that does the killing but rather you herd them to a killing zone where NPCs do the killing (pesky spiders) or to a point where they are gathered (wayward kittens).

Some minor additions to the advice above:

Mages (Counselor, Magistrate, Cabalist, Advocate) don't exactly teleport. Rather, they run an animation that makes them nearly or completely invisible, then they "walk" somewhere else, then fade in. Their walk animation is only 1 frame long, so they can move very quickly. This is an important distinction though, because even though you cannot keep up with their movement rate, they are still bound by normal pathing rules. They can't go through walls or other solid objects.

Another useful aspect of the monster AI is that retreating, which Jarulf's Guide refers to as "Walk away from target", cannot retreat into a tile that is non-diagonally adjacent to the player. Therefore, if you herd the monster into a corner, and you stand at a diagonal to the monster, then it cannot leave. It cannot walk into your tile, because you are in it. It cannot walk into either of the tiles you could hit without moving, because those are adjacent to the player. It cannot walk sideways or backward, because it is in a corner and those tiles are impassable walls. However, if you herd into a corner, and stand at a non-diagonal to the monster, then it can walk away by moving to the tile that is diagonal from you.

Figure 1:

***
*Mx
*xP

* is a solid wall. M is the monster. P is the player. x is a passable player-adjacent tile. The monster cannot leave, because both passable tiles are player-adjacent.

Figure 2:

***
*M_
*Px

The monster can move to _ because that tile is diagonally adjacent to the player. The monster cannot move to x because that is non-diagonally adjacent.

Thanks for the reply. Before you responded it finally dawned on me to try a bow. I'm used to games that don't give you the freedom to use other types of attacks if they don't typically fit the class. I'm not named an Archer class or something so I didn't bother trying. While yes you are right about barbarians missing a lot, it still helped. I'll keep all this in mind though.

My experience with the various mods for D1 is that the melees don't start out very well. The original game had ranged mobs that were relatively easy to kill and deal with. Their AI was simple and it slowly ramped them up.

The mods seek to close the difficulty gap and use the later game AI for its early ranged mobs and so you simply don't have the gear to deal with them effectively. Without mods, by the time you start dealing with that AI as a Warrior, your level and gear will make it so most attacks are mitigated or simply miss due to your armor values.

I'm not sure when melee gets good in the various mods. But they seem to work well in a multiplayer environment. Where you can work with a friend to keep the tougher melee mobs off them while they deal with the ranged. Since you're on Belzebub instead of Tchernobog, it means this isn't an option unfortunately.

I don't remember if those mods support weapon swapping, but you could consider using a bow if your class allows it. I know Warriors are not bad archers in a pinch.