Overall best Warblade martial school(s)?

[Black_Zawisza]

Diamond Mind
Iron Heart
Tiger Claw
White Raven
Stone Dragon

Which schools are the best? Is it safe to specialize in two schools and still go for 9th level maneuvers?

[Shyftir]

The best schools are based mostly in flavor honestly.

Iron Heart is of course really good for any warblade.

Stone Dragon is a bit weak but the mountain hammer chain of maneuvers are pretty solid choices for a traditional 2h weapon build.

You want to be a battle field commander? White Raven.

Tiger Claw is a must for your average TWF/crit fisher build.

Diamond Mind is very good for a samurai/duelist type.

Strongest choices? I'd say Iron Heart and Diamond Mind. But honestly my vision of a warblade is of a much better Samurai than any actual Samurai classes I've seen. So the tough mentally and physically concept is very embodied by those two.

For a more raging barbarian kind of build, mix Stone Dragon and Tiger Claw.

The combat trickster type? Use White Raven and Diamond Mind.

As you can see there aren't a lot of bad options really.

[2xMachina]

I like

Diamond Mind
Iron Heart
White Raven

With good planning, you can qualify for 9th lvl manuevers in 3 schools at once.
And Stone Dragon's 9th has no reqs.
You just need to swap in manuevers wisely.
And remember to buy some of the Crown of the White Raven things.

[Soranar]

with a bard dip, definitely white raven: gives you inspire courage as a swift action through the feat song of the white raven and stacks your levels for it's strength

(basically, you always have a free inspire courage on while doing everything a warblade normally does: you don't need any charisma since you don't cast spells anyway)

you also pump all your companions at the same time through stances and inspire courage

without the bard dip, it usually depends on your group

the other stances are more selfish but make you a more effective part of the group, so it depends on how large your group is and what role you need to fill

iron heart can help you do battlefield control

diamond mind usually pumps your abilities and resistances which is very useful

tiger claw is usually a trap (encourages you to go TWF which is usually inferior to a twohanded route even with ToB,just like sneak attack it doesn't help with crit immune problems which are legion)

I don't really like stone dragon, too often it's situational and just won't help

as mentioned, you can easily up 3 disciplines so I suggest you ignore stone dragon and tiger claw to concentrate on the 3 you need (even without a bard dip, white raven is hardly bad but it's not as useful as iron heart and diamond mind at that point)

[Vangor]

Diamond Mind has the obvious replacing of saves with concentration through counters which is incredibly helpful. As well, many of the maneuvers will scale with you allowing multiplying damage and similar rather than preset dice, and a few give you better action control. Is an obvious choice to progress.

White Raven includes obvious advantages for a melee oriented group and positioning. You merely need a couple others for this to often be a great choice.

Iron Heart I feel has too many maneuvers relying on fighting larger groups. Be the vanguard facing off against multiple opponents and this is great to have, but the positioning of my enemies is rarely beneficial for me, and my experiences don't pit me against enough threatening melee foes to care.

[Master_Rahl22]

My Warblades tend to advance Diamond Mind, Tiger Claw, and Iron Heart or White Raven. Even if you're not using TWF, the Jump maneuvers in Tiger Claw are really cool and it's relatively easy to boost your Jump check. One of my favorites is the level 7 maneuver that forces the enemy to make a save with the DC = your Jump check or be stunned. I once used that and got a 43 on the Jump check.

[Draz74]

White Raven is the strongest Warblade discipline if you're in a melee-heavy party. Otherwise, Diamond Mind is the strongest.

I'd give third place to Tiger Claw. Iron Heart gets a lot of praise, but overall I find it kind of weak, especially in terms of offense. It's more of a defensive discipline, and just cherry-picking a few of its best maneuvers is generally enough.

That said, all five disciplines are good and I enjoy each of them in the right builds. And if you're very careful and/or have some magic item support, you can use all five on the same character without losing out on good high-level maneuvers.

[Zaydos]

I'd say it depends upon your group.

Diamond Mind is always great (save replacement maneuvers, and 2 full attack actions).

After that it depends upon team build.
White Raven is probably the best if you have a lot of other melee characters in the party.

Iron Heart has some really good maneuvers, enough of which are based on being outnumbered that it's good if you are the only melee combatant.

Tiger Claw has some really nice jumping maneuvers so it's a nice 3rd school.

Stone Dragon: has mountain hammer line.

[Eldariel]

Diamond Mind and White Raven are easily Tier 1 disciples. Iron Heart and Tiger Claw are maybe Tier 1.5. Stone Dragon is the only clearly worse option. Though it's worth noting that they're all quite amazing; DM and WR are just maybe slightly more amazing than the others. But TC has probably the best damage early on and IH has IHS, IHF, Lightning Recovery, Punishing Stance and Wall of Blades, to name a few.

On low levels, Punishing Stance + Rabid Wolf Strike (full Power Attack) is pretty insane, for example, and once you get level 4s you can back that up with Lightning Recovery to make it a near-guarantee hit.

[Draz74]

Stone Dragon: has mountain hammer line.

That's really a narrow-minded summary.

Charging Minotaur is amazing at low levels, and never becomes entirely useless.

Stone Bones is pretty great protection at very low levels, though it becomes obsolete pretty quickly.

Crushing Weight of the Mountain is pretty awesome if you happen to be a grapple-focused Warblade. Hmm, come to think of it, pretty much any grapple specialist should pick this up via feat (after buying a Novice Stone Dragon Belt for the prerequisite maneuver).

Roots of the Mountain is very flavorful for a tank; it's a pity it's upstaged by Thicket of Blades.

Bonesplitting Strike is a perfectly acceptable massive damage strike against things that have Constitution scores, especially creature types with loads of Hit Dice for their CR (elementals, oozes ...). Same with its higher-level upgrades, including Mountain Tombstone Strike (a L9 with no prerequisite!).

Mountain Avalanche is just awesome, especially for a large monster to pick up.

Irresistible Mountain Strike may not live up to its name, but it's still a good debuff-strike.

Really, Stone Dragon is not so bad at all, as long as you can work around the "must be touching the ground" restriction. Which is generally not a problem at low levels, anyway.

[Fouredged Sword]

My most favored set for a warblade is devoted spirit.

I know, I know, it's not one of thier base set, but I love master of nine's ability to add tons of known and readied from any path.

You can draw master of nine out into a 13 level long progresion with legacy champion. That lets you have every strike you would consider useing readied at once (13 extra readied)

Devoted Spirit was balanced with the crusader makeing it unpredictable and unreliable. A warblade can pull out a heal every other round.

[FMArthur]

In my opinion, here's the way all the disciplines go, in terms of what they generally focus on and how good they are at it:

Desert Wind: good multi-target direct offense, good mobility
Devoted Spirit: great defensive support
Diamond Mind: great defense, good direct offense
Iron Heart: decent multi-target offense, good defense
Setting Sun: decent defense, good offense
Shadow Hand: good debuffing, great mobility
Stone Dragon: poor defensive support, good defense, decent offense
Tiger Claw: good mobility, great direct offense
White Raven: decent mobility, great offensive support

All disciplines have direct damage maneuvers but I'm only rating it for those that seem to focus on them.

[AslanCross]

White Raven can build up serious amounts of cheese, but in terms of straightforward goodness, I'd say Diamond Mind (balanced offense and defense plus some utility on the side) then Iron Heart (IHS, of course, and access to STORMGUARD WARRIOR.)

[The-Mage-King]

IRON! HEART!

KICK OUT LOGIC AND EXTINGUISH THE SUN IF YOU FEEL LIKE IT!


...

...Yeah, I'm a proponent of the IHS school of "Game-breaking".

[2xMachina]

Diamond mind + Iron heart combo is pretty good.

Stormguard Combat Rhythm + Avalanche of Blades + Lightning recovery + Time Stands Still.

2 round uber death.

Strike of Perfect Clarity is good for high AC targets. Cast Wraithstrike/Truestrike/use Deep Impact for +100 damage on a touch attack.

WT: War Master's Charge is good paired with a summoner. Let them summon up a lot of mooks, and then charge. High to hit, and then maybe stun.

[Draz74]

Stormguard Combat Rhythm + Avalanche of Blades + Lightning recovery + Time Stands Still.

2 round uber death.

I prefer to leave out Lightning Recovery in favor of Moment of Alacrity. Turns the 2-round uber death into 1 round. Assuming your spot in the initiative order was well-placed beforehand (via Delay).

Gets even better if you throw a boost, e.g. Raging Mongoose, onto the Time Stands Still.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Diamond mind + Iron heart combo is pretty good.

Stormguard Combat Rhythm + Avalanche of Blades + Lightning recovery + Time Stands Still.

2 round uber death.

Strike of Perfect Clarity is good for high AC targets. Cast Wraithstrike/Truestrike/use Deep Impact for +100 damage on a touch attack.

WT: War Master's Charge is good paired with a summoner. Let them summon up a lot of mooks, and then charge. High to hit, and then maybe stun.

Combine it with a Manyfanged dagger, and you got yourself a 400 damage

[dgnslyr]

Combine it with a Manyfanged dagger, and you got yourself a 400 damage

Za Warudo!

[2xMachina]

I prefer to leave out Lightning Recovery in favor of Moment of Alacrity. Turns the 2-round uber death into 1 round. Assuming your spot in the initiative order was well-placed beforehand (via Delay).

Gets even better if you throw a boost, e.g. Raging Mongoose, onto the Time Stands Still.

Get both lol. 6th lvl manuver only costs you 15k and a ring slot.

[Draz74]

Get both lol. 6th lvl manuver only costs you 15k and a ring slot.

Action economy, friend. You can't use two boosts in one round (unless you're a L20 Swordsage ...)

[Greenish]

Action economy, friend. You can't use two boosts in one round (unless you're a L20 Swordsage ...)

Or an RKW.

[Reynard]

Touch attacks (Some Diamond Mind strikes) ignore DR. So, that's a plus, and another reason SD can be overlooked easily.

[Zaydos]

Touch attacks (Some Diamond Mind strikes) ignore DR. So, that's a plus, and another reason SD can be overlooked easily.

I've never seen that rule. Touch attacks target touch AC instead of regulard that's the only difference between a normal attack and a touch attack that I know of.

[2xMachina]

Well, Lightning recovery is only as backup. Don't want a 1 to ruin your run.

Also, Stance of Alacrity.

[Draz74]

Also, Stance of Alacrity.

Touche! That will work.

[Reynard]

I've never seen that rule. Touch attacks target touch AC instead of regulard that's the only difference between a normal attack and a touch attack that I know of.

DMG, page 292.

Damage reduction does not negate touch attacks, energy damage dealt along with an attack (such as fire damage from a fire elemental), or energy drains.

[Zaydos]

That's a quote out of context, though, the paragraph is talking about secondary effects that are carried on an attack that's damage is stopped by DR. The next paragraph lists what types of damage DR doesn't work on.

[TimeWizard]

IRON! HEART!

KICK OUT LOGIC AND EXTINGUISH THE SUN IF YOU FEEL LIKE IT!

Combo that with Tiger Claw for the bonus to jumping and YOURS IS THE FAVORED WEAPON:DRILL THAT WILL PIERCE THE HEAVENS

[Bad Situation]

My favorites are Iron Heart, Diamond Mind, and White Raven. Tiger Claw is pretty cool too though.

[Elfin]

Generally, I favor Diamond Mind and Iron Heart: both are really just chock-full of goodness. Tiger Claw is a great school, but White Raven is very nice as well - especially if there are other meleers in the party (plus, you know, White Raven Tactics). Stone Dragon I tend to ignore - other than Mountain Tombstone Strike, of course - unless I'm building a Deepstone Sentinel or somesuch.

As for your latter question, as a single-classed Warblade it doesn't take too much of an effort to get 4/5 9th-level maneuvers, especially since the Stone Dragon one has no prereqs. And hey, even if you can't get all the 9ths, there are maneuver-granting items for a reason.