The Butcher (Diablo I)

"Ah... Fresh meat!"

- The Butcher

The Butcher is a monster encountered in Diablo I.

Diablo I
The Butcher is a Unique Overlord with a large Cleaver from Diablo I, and is the chief subject of The Butcher Quest. He resides in a room strewn full of mutilated corpses, the remains of Tristram's townsfolk whom the Archbishop Lazarus intentionally led to their doom. If the quest is generated in a game, a dying townsman outside the Church will ask the player character to avenge him and the others by slaying The Butcher.

For players possessing very low character levels, The Butcher is an extremely difficult creature and adversary to kill. He will relentlessly pursue a player and attempt to force him/her into close-quarter hand-to-hand combat, savagely hacking away with his cleaver - which usually ends with the player's sudden Death.

Tips
The Butcher's Strength does not allow an inadequately leveled character to face him in fair combat. It is advisable to gain some levels before taking The Butcher on. However, if the player wants to engage him from the outset, there are a number of tactics one can use.

A common way to defeat The Butcher is to lead him to the set of stairs to level 3 of the Cathedral, get him trapped in between the stairway, and shoot at him with a ranged weapon, like a Bow, from the other side of the stairway. Know that it will take a lot of shots to finish him off, depending on the character's damage output.

Another way is to lead him to a wall with bars. Find one in advance, then quickly walk through that door (if there is one), close it and get along the wall away from it to keep The Butcher in sight on the other side of the bars. He will just wander aimlessly left and right as The Butcher cannot open doors and his AI will not let him reach the opening either. Shoot with a bow or cast spells at him through the bars.

Finally, a player can open The Butcher's door and cast Firewall, then promptly close it again. The Butcher will walk into the fire and remain there. If you are lucky, he will die from the flames, or at least be severely damaged.

If a player seeks to fight The Butcher in melee, one would require 55 Dexterity to land consistent blows on him while only occasionally taking hits from him.

His melee attack is extremely fast and will most likely stun a player before they can attack. With a damage range of 2-20 (on Normal) and a melee speed of almost 1 hit per second, even a Warrior will find melee to be largely ineffective, unless that Warrior is better geared (possibly with a 1 handed weapon and a shield) and at a higher level (5 or higher).

Sorcerers and Rogues will definitely want to make use of Stone Curse (assuming the spell is available) if they intend on fighting him in an open environment with no protective barriers. If Stone Curse is not available, engaging The Butcher in this environment is highly lethal, unless the player has a very high level differential compared to The Butcher.

Only Rogues, with their high movement speed, can move faster than the Butcher.

Stats
Resistances: Fire, Lightning

Immunities: None

Life: 110

Dungeon Level: 2

Damage: 2-20

Quotes

 * "Ahh... Fresh meat!"

Development
The Butcher's room and The Butcher himself came about late in the development of that in Diablo I. One of the artists had created a very bloody room as the tiles were being laid out for the stage design. Upon seeing the room, the designers started joking about it, and turned it into a butcher's shop. A joke then developed that they had to create a monster called "The Butcher." As such, the developers followed through.

The demo version for Diablo I included a single level with The Butcher in it.

Upon entering the lair of The Butcher in the Cathedral, a cinematic was to be shown of him hacking the body of a dead villager and hooking it onto the wall. Accounts differ as to whether this was present in early releases of the game, or simply never included.

Diablo III
In the Anniversary Dungeon of Diablo III, players can fight the Butcher again, and obtain his weapon as a transmogrification choice, as well as a non-combat pet version of him:


 * The Butcher's Cleaver drops from The Butcher himself at Level 2 (it's a Magic quality item, so very easy to miss)
 * Mini-Butcher is awarded if the player beats the entire dungeon in one go with a fresh level 1 character.