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Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow







Diablo II is the sequel to Diablo. It was released on June 29, 2000. It expanded immensely on Diablo's core mechanics and added a new quality of item and many new kinds of items, increased the number of selectable classes from three to five, vastly expanded the world of Sanctuary to explore, divided the game into four acts, and many other geatures.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, the game's expansion, was released on June 27, 2001. It introduced two new classes, a fifth act, a much larger stash size, two new item types, and added a new tier of weapons, armor, unique, and set items.

In this thread, you will find information about the classes you can play as, current patch notes, noteworthy side quests, technical information to improve your play, and links to other websites regarding Diablo II. And like the Diablo III thread, this thread is a living document. Although Diablo II patches are more or less done forever, there might be something that I missed or felt like including, so check back here for any changes to the opening posts.

Keep in mind that this thread will probably steer towards discussion of online play. Single player and multiplayer are so similar that it should work both ways. To my knowledge, the only things that are truly outside the reach of single player are Uber Diablo and accessing the portals to find the Prime Evils' organs and Uber Tristram (the keys still drop, but you can't use them to open the portals).

LINKS

The Arreat Summit - Blizzard's Official Diablo II website. You will find just about everything you need to look up here.
Blizzard Store - Buy Diablo II and the expansion here.
LOD Patch 1.14d - Patch 1.14d for Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.

inDiablo.de Skill Calculator - use this website to design your character's build
inDiablo.de Weapon Speed Calculator - use this website to optimize your attack speed

Eastern Sun Thread - a mod for Diablo II.


THREAD RULES

- Do not poo poo talk Diablo III. In fact, don't even bring it up. Keep your whining about how Diablo III sucks and Diablo II was way better, in the appropriate thread.
- This thread is for Diablo II as Blizzard sees it and not about mods. Feel free to share links to Diablo II mods, but keep discussion of it to a minimum. If you want to talk about Eastern Sun, take it to the appropriate thread. The Eastern Sun thread is deader than this one is. If you want to talk Eastern Sun, then go ahead. There is a new and improved Eastern Sun thread here. Discussion about Eastern Sun should go there, but it's no big deal if you talk about Eastern Sun in this thread.
- Do not discuss how to use bots in this thread. We all appreciate the bots with high-end hammerdins that do Chaos and Baal runs for us and loathe the advertising bots that flood our Trist runs and try to peddle their wares to us. I'm of the opinion that if you need a bot to play the game for you so you can make a few extra bucks on D2jsp, then you might want to rethink what Diablo II means to you.



General Information

- Thread Rules

Class Information

- Amazon
- Assassin
- Barbarian
- Druid
- Necromancer
- Paladin
- Sorceress

- Mercenaries

- Faster Block Rate Table
- Faster Hit Recovery Table
- Faster Cast Rate Table

Quests and End-Game Content

- Act I
- Act II
- Act III
- Act IV
- Act V

- Uber Diablo
- Hellfire Torch

Star Man fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Nov 28, 2016

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Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow


You are able to create a maximum of eight characters per account in Diablo II. New to Diablo II is the option to create a character for hardcore play. A hardcore character cannot interact with characters in "softcore" mode. A hardcore character that dies will stay dead and cannot be revived. In multiplayer games, you can opt for your body to be looted by party members in the event that you die. The items in your backpack, stash, and on your mercenary will be erased, but you can still save what you were wearing by playing with others.

Single player characters cannot be played with in Battle.net games. There you will have a separate roster per account. Creating an account is free and easy, so you can have as many characters as you want as long as you can keep track of your accounts. Single player characters can be played with in LAN games and on open Battle.net.

Exclusive to Battle.net play is the option for a character to play on the ladder server. The ladder server was introduced in 1.10 in 2004 and there were prizes for the player that could reach level 99 with a character first in softcore and hardcore. Those contests are long gone and the ladder itself is pretty meaningless now. The appeal of the ladder server is access to ladder-only items, ladder-only runewords, a slightly harder game, and the reset that wipes everything clean and everyone starts over again like it's day one of a release. Ladder characters and all of their equipment, items in inventory and stash, and quests and other achievements will be placed on the non-ladder server.

The greatest change from Diablo 1 to Diablo II was the skill system. All classes have their own set of skill to use. For every experience level that a character gains, they will gain five stat points to spend and one skill point to spend. Each class has three skill tress with active and passive abilities to spend points on. To advance through the tree, you will need to spend at least one point in a requisite skill in order to unlock others. Spending points on your character stats and skills are semi-permanent. They can be reset after completing the Den of Evil and speaking to Akara once per game difficulty. After that, they can only be reset with an item that you must craft from ingredients dropped by act bosses. So, it is best to plan out what you want to do with your character before spending points on it.

Each class not only plays differently, but benefit from certain stats in different ways. Every time a character gains an experience level, they will gain a little bit of life and mana in addition to the five stat points and single skill point to distribute. The stats that you can distribute points in are:

Strength - increases melee attack damage. Higher strength will allow your character to wear heavier pieces of armor.

Dexterity - increases attack rating, armor, block chance, and ranged attack damage from weapons. Higher dexterity will allow your character to wield certain types of weapons.

Vitality - increases life and stamina. Classes gain different amounts of life per point of vitality. Increased stamina will allow your character to run greater distances.

Energy - increases mana. Classes gain different amounts of mana per point of energy.

These stats are sub-stats that can be influenced by your main stats and the points that are acquired by spending stats and from items and skills:

Damage - displayed here is the damage of your left and right mouse button skills. Strength and dexterity will slightly boost the physical damage to skills that use your weapons. Skills that are cast spells benefit from items that boost the level of that skill being used, class skills, or all skills.
Attack rating - the chance that an attack with your weapon will deal damage to an enemy. Attack rating is only necessary with weapons. Cast spells ignore attack rating and armor.

Defense - the chance that you will be hit by an enemy's attack. Attack rating can be increased with higher dexterity. Do not confuse defense rating with resistances.

Block chance - By mousing over your armor, you can see the chance you will be hit by a physical attack and the chance to block. Shields come with a block chance depending on the type of shield and your class. Your character level, increased block chance, and dexterity are used to calculate the chance you will block a physical attack.

Stamina - the yellow bar at the bottom of the screen is your stamina. More vitality will increase it. The stamina meter runs down as your character runs if you have that toggled on and will refill when you stand still or are walking instead of running. This matters for maybe the first ten levels and afterward you'll never worry about it again.

Life - run out of life and you die, simple as that. Unless you need to spend stat points to increase your strength or dexterity to wield or wear items or increase your block chance, you will spend all of your points in vitality to gain more life.

Mana - the resource you will spend to use your skills. Never spend points in energy to increase this stat--ever. There is one sorceress build that will benefit from points spent in energy to increase mana, but gaining more mana to keep using spells and abilities will come from mana leech and items that increase your mana pool.

The maximum character level is 99. Reaching level 99 is a very time consuming task and you will lose a percentage of your accumulated experience every time you die in nightmare and hell difficulty (but you can never level down). Once you reach level 85, you will be more or less at maximum level for most of your needs for your character. Reaching higher levels is only really necessary to max out your skill synergies, gambling and crafting items, and occasionally to equip certain rare or crafted items.





Amazon Guide at the Arreat Summit

Homeland - Skovos Isles
Skill Trees - bow and crossbow, spear and javelin, passive
Class-exclusive items - amazon bows, amazon spears, and amazon javelins


Starting Attributes

Strength - 20
Dexterity - 25
Vitality - 20 (+3 life/+1 stamina per point)
Energy - 15 (+1.5 mana per point)

Hit points - 50 (+2 life per level gained)
Stamina - 84 (+1 stamina per level gained)
Mana - 15 (+1.5 mana per level gained)


Amazons are masters of archery, spear fighting, and javelin throwing. They are also capable of dodging and avoiding attacks with little warning and can even summon avatars of valkyries to aid them in combat. The most potent build for amazons centers around the skill Lightning Fury. Other popular builds use Cold and Freezing Arrow and Poison Javelin.





Assassin Guide at the Arreat Summit

Homeland - none
Skill Trees - martial arts, traps, shadow disciplines
Class-exclusive items - assassin katars


Starting Attributes

Strength - 20
Dexterity - 20
Vitality - 20 (+3 life/+1.25 stamina per point)
Energy - 25 (+1.75 mana per point)

Hit points - 50 (+2 life per level gained)
Stamina - 95 (+1.25 stamina per level gained)
Mana - 25 (+1.5 mana per level gained)


Assassins are mage killers that target mages that have gone rogue. They utilize traps and martial arts to eliminate their targets and utilize abilities that make them resistant to the magics of their targets. Assassins can be built around being a melee class or as a caster. Their most powerful build uses the Lightning Sentry and can destroy scores of monsters as quickly or more so than a lightning sorceress. Keep in mind that the speed that assassins lay their traps is based on their attack speed rather than their casting speed. Assassins also have the unique ability to open locked chests without keys. Assassins can dual-wield assassin katars, but no other type of weapon.





Barbarian Guide at the Arreat Summit

Homeland - Northern Steppes, Mount Arreat
Skill Trees - combat, war cries, masteries
Class-exclusive items - barbarian helms


Starting Attributes

Strength - 30
Dexterity - 20
Vitality - 25 (+4 life/+1 stamina per point)
Energy - 15 (+1 mana per point)

Hit points - 55 (+2 life per level gained)
Stamina - 92 (+1 stamina per level gained)
Mana - 10 (+1 mana per level gained)


The barbarian tribes that live in the Northern Steppes are unparalelled in combat. Their uniting cause is to protect the summit of Mount Arreat from those that try to reach the Worldstone. Barbarians are a melee class and make effective tanks. They gain more life per point of vitality than any other class. Barbarians are excellent party members and can boost the survivability of the entire party with their warcries by casting Battle Orders. There is also the option to build a barbarian around his warcries and make him a short-range casting class. Barbarians are able to dual-wield any kind of one-handed weapon they can carry and two-handed swords (with a damage penalty).





Druid Guide at the Arreat Summit

Homeland - Scosglen
Skill Trees - shapeshifting, summoning, elemental
Class-exclusive items - druid pelts


Starting Attributes

Strength - 15
Dexterity - 20
Vitality - 25 (+2 life/+1 stamina per point)
Energy - 20 (+2 mana per point)

Hit points - 55 (+2 life per level gained)
Stamina - 84 (+1 stamina per level gained)
Mana - 20 (+2 mana per level gained)


The druids are a splinter group of the barbarians, eventually settling in Scosglen after they broke off. Druids utilize the powers of the natural world and call the aid of nature spirits, animals, and can use the power of natural disasters to do their bidding. Druids can also opt for a melee build by transforming into a werewolf or werebear. Popular builds for druids utilize wind-based skills or focus on the raw power of their werewolf transformation.





Necromancer Guide at the Arreat Summit

Homeland - Eastern Swamps
Skill Trees - necromancer shrunken heads
Class-exclusive items - summoning, poison and bone, curses


Starting Attributes

Strength - 15
Dexterity - 25
Vitality - 15 (+2 life/+1 stamina per point)
Energy - 25 (+2 mana per point)

Hit points - 45 (+2 life per level gained)
Stamina - 79 (+1 stamina per level gained)
Mana - 25 (+2 mana per level gained)


Necromancers seek to bring balance to life and death. Their abilities allow them to revive the dead for a short while and combat the forces of the Burning Hells. Necromancers can also utilize their poison and bone magics to fight monsters and hex enemies with curses that reduce their resistances to the elements or confuse them into fighting each other instead of you and your undead army. Necromancer builds focus on either creating a powerful army of the undead or on their poison and bone skills.





Paladin Guide at the Arreat Summit

Homeland - Kurast
Skill Trees - combat, offensive auras, defensive auras
Class-exclusive items - paladin shields


Starting Attributes

Strength - 25
Dexterity - 20
Vitality - 25 (+3 life/+1 stamina per point)
Energy - 15 (+1.5 mana per point)

Hit points - 55 (+2 life per level gained)
Stamina - 89 (+1 stamina per level gained)
Mana - 15 (+1.5 mana per level gained)


Paladins are holy warriors that have splintered from the Zakarum church after it succumbed to the corruption of Mephisto. Paladins are powerful melee attackers and increase their potency with holy auras for themselves and their allies. Although paladins are primarily a melee class, the most popular paladin build is a casting build that is built around Blessed Hammer.





Sorceress Guide at the Arreat Summit

Homeland - none
Skill Trees - cold spells, lightning spells, fire spells
Class-exclusive items - sorceress orbs


Starting Attributes

Strength - 10
Dexterity - 25
Vitality - 20 (+2 life/+1 stamina per point)
Energy - 35 (+2 mana per point)

Hit points - 40 (+1 life per level gained)
Stamina - 74 (+1 stamina per level gained)
Mana - 35 (+2 mana per level gained)


Every seven years, the Zann Esu seek out seven-year-old girls who have the potential to be powerful sorceresses. These young girls eventually become masters of the arcane arts and wield cold, fire, and lightning spells with unprecedented skill. Their most valuable asset is their ability to teleport, making them the best class out of the box that can rush new characters through the game and reach locations very quickly. The most powerful builds only utilize cold or lightning skills, but until you can get the equipment that allows your sorceress to focus on a single skill tree, it is best to use a cold/fire or cold/lightning build.



In all acts but act IV, you can hire a mercenary to aid you and your party in combat. Mercenaries can only use certain weapons and wear only a helmet and piece of chest armor. Equipment that a mercenary uses will not use up durability, so they are best equipped with ethereal items. When a mercenary dies, you can have them revived in town for a fee. Under most circumstances, always hire your mercenary in normal difficulty. Mercenaries hired in nightmare have slightly lower stats, and mercenaries hired in hell difficulty have even lower stats. Be very careful if you decide to hire a different mercenary because the old one's equipment will be erased.

Rogue scout (act I) - rogue scouts are members of the Sisters of the Sightless Eye, who are a splinter group of the amazons and the same order that Diablo 1's rogue comes from. Rogue scouts will use either Cold Arrow or Fire Arrow and Inner Sight in combat. Rogues can equip bows that all classes can use.

Desert mercenary (act II) - desert mercenaries are the guards of Lut Gholein. They are the most popular mercenary choice because they all use an aura. Desert mercenaries are the exception to the rule that you should only hire a mercenary in normal difficulty because in nightmare they have different aura options than they do in normal and hell difficulties. Normal/hell desert mercenaries will use either Prayer (combat), Blessed Aim (offensive), or Defiance (defensive). Nightmare desert mercenaries will use Thorns (combat), Might (offensive), or Holy Freeze (defensive). Desert mercenaries can use spears and polearms as weapons.

Iron Wolf (act III) - the Iron Wolves may wield a sword and shield, but they are in fact spell casters. They will rarely swing their swords and instead cast lightning, cold, or fire spells, so it's best to give them a sword geared for casting spells instead of attacking.

Barbarian (act V) - the barbarians of Harrogath can be hired to aid you in combat. They use Bash and Stun while fighting. They can use one-handed or two-handed swords but cannot dual-wield and can wear barbarian helms.



All seven classes benefit from certain item affixes in different ways. Melee classes typically benefit more from increased attack speed while casting classes benefit more from faster cast rate. All seven classes will gain benefits from these boosts, but can only get so much. The tables provided detail how much of a certain stat is needed to get the most out of them for every class.

inDiablo.de Weapon Speed Calculator

Because there are so many different kinds of weapons and they all have different attack speeds depending on your class, it can't be listed in a small table. Use that calculator to determine your attack speed for your character.

The following links provide tables that plot out the number of frames it takes for an effect to happen and the amount of that stat you will need to reach those breakpoints.

Increased Blocking Speed

Faster Cast Rate

Faster Hit Recovery

Star Man fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Nov 11, 2018

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow


The way Diablo II is played is that once you beat the game for the first time, that character can then play the game again in a new game+ mode called nightmare. Nightmare difficulty is harder than normal, but you will gain more experience in nightmare, get quest rewards applied a second time, and access to better equipment. Beat nightmare difficulty and you can access hell difficulty. Hell difficulty is the hardest game mode, but you will get all of the quest rewards a third time, even more experience, and a chance for the best items in the game to drop.

The following sections are concerned with what places to run in order to farm items. Some places in the game are best farmed for certain kinds of items such as runes or jewellery. For these notes on the places to farm and for everything else, assume that it is all taking place in hell difficulty.



Act I Guide at the Arreat Summit

The Countess - located at the bottom of the Forgotten Tower. Take the Black Marsh waypoint and search for the tower in this region. The Countess will drop at least one rune, from El to Ist, every time you kill her. Any other runes that she may drop can be as high as Lo. The Countess is also where you go to farm for Keys of Terror.

The Pit - Pit runs are a good place to find plain items and socketed items for runewords and a great area for magic find runs in general. The Pit is found in the Tamoe Highland and best reached from the Outer Cloister waypoint. Just follow the path and you'll see the entrance to the Pit.

Andariel - Andariel is the act boss and is a great source of unique jewellery. She is in the lowest level of the Catacombs and thusly the Catacombs Level 2 waypoint is the fastest way to reach her.



Act II Guide at the Arreat Summit

The Arcane Sanctuary - the Arcane Sanctuary can be reached through its own waypoint. Defeat the Summoner and he may drop Keys of Hate, but reaching him is difficult. The sanctuary has four paths and the Summoner is at the end of one of them. Should you reach one of the dead ends, crack open all the chests in the area for a chance at high-end items to drop--even runes as high as Cham.



Act III Guide at the Arreat Summit

Travincal - the Council members all drop very large piles of gold, so it's a good place to go to for some quick cash. Travincal has its own waypoint.

Mephisto - if Mephisto isn't the most popular boss to kill, he is certainly the easier of the two best options. If you are playing with a ranged character, you can put the blood moat between you and Mephisto to keep him from being able to attack you. Just watch out for the Council members in the room. Mephisto is best reached from the Durance of Hate Level 2 waypoint. Travel along the edge to find the stairs to Mephisto.



Act IV Guide at the Arreat Summit

The Chaos Sanctuary - the best place to level up a character that has been glitch rushed into hell difficulty. Just stay out of the way of the player clearing the area and the monsters in the area. Diablo will appear once all five seals are activated and is a good boss to kill for good drops and can drop any item in the game. Diablo on normal difficulty is supposedly the best monster to kill to get a Stone of Jordan.



Act V Guide at the Arreat Summit

Shenk and Eldritch - these two super uniques are very close to each other. Going northwest from the Frigid Highlands waypoint will lead you to Eldritch and going southwest will take you to Shenk. Both of them are easy kills so include them on your magic find runs.

Pindleskin - another super unique that can be reached very quickly so long as you have the red portal to Nihlathak's Temple open in town. Killing Nihlathak will close the portal and your easy access to Pindleskin (and a place to quickly raise skeletons if you're a necromancer), but...

Nihlathak - Nihlathak is the boss you have to kill in order to get Keys of Destruction. His chamber is home to the tomb viper, whose attack is bugged and will stack damage so quickly that you'll die in a couple of seconds if you stand in the cloud. Not to mention that Nihlathak will cast Corpse Explosion on dead monsters to kill you. Blow up the corpses before he can if you are playing with a necromancer or remove the dead bodies with a paladin's Redemption aura or wear a Nature's Peace ring to eliminate the problem. Nihlathak can be reached from the Halls of Pain waypoint.

Baal - getting to Baal is a bit of a long affair. Once you reach his chamber from the Worldstone Keep Level 2 waypoint, you will have to fight five waves of enemies before you can fight Baal himself. Baal can drop any item in the game and is also one of the few monsters that are worthwhile to kill once your character has reached a high enough level.



The easter egg to end all easter eggs. Originally thought to be an April Fool's joke, the secret cow level is an acknowledgement by Blizzard of the rumor that clicking the cow in Tristram in Diablo 1 repeatedly would take you to a hidden level. Clicking on any of the dead cows in Tristram in act I will cause them to explode and damage you, so don't do it. If you want to reach the fabled secret level, you'll need some things to get there.

All you have to do to get to the cow level is to beat the game on the difficulty you are trying to reach the cow level on. Once you beat the game, you will need Wirt's Leg, which is always found when looting Wirt's body in Tristram. Once you have the leg, all you need is a tome of town portals. Put both of these items in the Horadric Cube and transmute them in town in act I to open the portal. Inside you will find a legion of polearm-wielding cattle out for revenge for their tortured friend from Diablo 1. As you go, you will face the Cow King himself. The Cow King is immune to lightning damage and is the boss of this realm. Killing the Cow King will check off the hidden seventh quest in act I as being complete for you and anyone else in the area and you and anyone else in the area will not be able to create a portal again, so don't kill the king if you want to come back.

The cow level is good for two things. In normal difficulty, this is the best place to level up a character from level 24 to level 25. Why level 24 is the bitch level is beyond me, but considering how experience yields are calculated, this is the one place in the whole game that you can get easy experience when you are at level 24. The cow level in hell difficulty is also similar to the Pit and other area level 85 zones so you can come here for white and socketed items for your runewords. Public cow level games are also pretty good places to go in nightmare and hell for some quick experience if you end up in those difficulties earlier than you intended to be in.

Moo!





Anyone that is familiar with Diablo II knows that the game is plagued (for better or worse) with duped items. Most of all, Blizzard knows this. In an effort to curtail item duping, Blizzard created Uber Diablo. Getting to Uber Diablo requires selling Stones of Jordan to the in-game vendors. As they are sold on a server, a message saying "x Stones of Jordan sold to vendors" comes up. Once enough Stones are sold, Uber Diablo will walk the earth and the screen will shake. To find Uber Diablo, you must be on a server that has spawned him (not the right realm, but the right host server's IP address). Uber Diablo will spawn in place of a super unique, so it's a matter of finding a super unique. Uber Diablo is a beefed up version of Diablo that will have the druid's Armageddon ability active. Otherwise, he fights the same as regular Diablo. Killing Uber Diablo will reward you with the unique small charm Annihilus. This is a very powerful charm with the following affixes:

Required Level: 70
+1 To All Skills
+10-20 To All Attributes (varies)
All Resistances +10-20 (varies)
+5-10% To Experience Gained (varies)


Uber Diablo drops only a single charm, so it's best to hunt for him in a private game if you are on a server that's about to spawn him. You can only have a single Annihilus in your character's possession and cannot store extras in your stash. For a time, trading an Annihilus was impossible through the trade window (you could still drop it and another player could pick it up), but trading it was enabled in 1.11 in 2005.



The Hellfire Torch is a similar item to the Annihilus and highly sought after. Getting one doesn't require being on the right server at the right time, but it is still a process to get one. As you play, you might come across special keys dropped by certain bosses. These keys open up portals to areas that will provide the keys to another realm where the Hellfire Torch can be obtained.

You will need three keys to open the portals. They are the Key of Terror, the Key of Hate, and the Key of Destruction. They are dropped by the Countess, the Summoner, and Nihlathak. It is best to get three keysets, because you will need three sets of keys to get all three organs in one run. Once you have the keysets, you can transmute then in the Horadric Cube in town in act V to open up portals to get the organs. Inside these portals are beefed up monsters and a boss that carries the organ. Lilith (uber Andariel) holds Diablo's Horn and is in the Matron's Den. Uber Duriel holds Baal's Eye and is in the Forgotten Sands. Uber Izual holds Mephisto's Brain and is in the Furnace of Pain.

Once you have all three organs, transmute them in the Horadric Cube to enter Uber Tristram. There you will find all three of the Prime Evils with very high stats and many powerful monsters. Defeat all three of them and a single Hellfire Torch will drop from the final Prime Evil killed and a Standard of Heroes for ever player in the game. The standard is nothing more than a trophy for your efforts, but the real prize is the Hellfire Torch, which has the following affixes:

Required Level: 75
5% Chance To Cast level 10 Firestorm* On Striking
+3 to Random Character Class Skills (varies)
+10-20 To All Attributes (varies)
All Resistances +10-20 (varies)
+8 To Light Radius
Level 30 Hydra (10 charges)


Hopefully it will roll the skill bonus for your class or one you play with. Otherwise trade it for something good. Like Annihilus, you can only have on Hellfire Torch on your character and cannot keep extras in your stash.

Good hunting.

Star Man fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jul 12, 2017

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Reserved if I need the space.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

sword_man.gif posted:

Any good reasons for War3 to connect to battle.net just fine, but D2 just stares at me and then gives "unable to connect to battle.net"?

That is weird and I can't think of why that would be. I was able to play D2 for a bit the night I launched this thread, so the servers are still up. Could it be a port forwarding issue?

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Why, you can use this one!

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

MoosetheMooche posted:

Is gubers still a thing? That is, glitching uber tristram to gain like 50 levels in a few hours?

No, that was patched out in 1.13. The only monsters in uber Tristram that give experience are the Prime Evils.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Diablo II and Lord of Destruction will run you $40 if you buy them digitally from Blizzard. The battle chest comes with Diablo 1 and runs the same price. You should be able to find it still at places like Walmart.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

THE BAR posted:

Although it won't have the Hellfire expansion, sadly.

Golly gee, I wonder why.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

THE BAR posted:

People might wonder where it went!

In the loving trash.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
The ladder for Diablo II is resetting on November 25th.

The response on Twitter has been people whining about whatever issues WoW is having.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Which is weird considering that necromancers can go from normal to hell solo.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Using telekinesis to get into your stash or town portals from a distance was the coolest thing ever. No, this has nothing to do with an energy shield build, which is also I build I never ever tried to do.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

iamsosmrt posted:

Last night was the first time I'd actively done key hunting this season (in a 4 man group) and holy poo poo I can't agree more that it needs reforming. After about an hour we only got like 3 keys each from Acts 1 and 2 and maybe 4 each from Acts 3 and 4. Finally we decided to run the actual Ubers and I got 3 lovely forgotten souls. Considering we probably could've ran 10+ grifts in that span, I just don't see the reward being worth it when there's so many better, more satisfying things to do.

I just hope I get a good Mara's Kaleidoscope at this point or even less likely--a usable Xephirian.

Key hunting in Diablo III seems to be far less miserable than it was in Diablo II.

Also, I'd love it if we could get a group together the night of the new D2 season.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
If you have been able to get a staff with four sockets and the runes for it, would you have used Memory on your weapon switch for the boost to energy shield?

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Goo P-Nut Sack posted:

Nope, the ~40% damage reduction I was getting was good enough, the life tap wand on switch made this even remotely possible. The cryptic axe insight and +20% damage lionheart chestpiece on my merc gave him a top range of 2k damage and the lifetap on elites kept him alive during 95% of fights. The switch input delay/half dozen hotkeys took some getting used to but eventually I had it down pat and wasn't missing it. I actually did have the runes and found many a four os staffs to make that though.

Okay. I'm too terrified to play hardcore in any Diablo game simply because I have a tendency to live in places with less than stellar connections. Though I suppose I could do it in single player, but then I always get bored by the end of act one and just use a trainer to make and do ridiculous poo poo.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Kazvall posted:

Ah I misread. Yo, add me to steam as Kazvall and maybe we can plan some poo poo for the upcoming ladder reset.

Will do. My Steam is AstrumAevum

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Obscurity posted:

Yeah I know I exaggerated with that but hell any trip to d2jsp will tell you that everybody has everything except for you. :(

Anyways I don't have a working key for Diablo 2 & I was wondering if it is even worth it to buy a key or if I will play the game for a week and then stop.

You can get vanilla and LoD for $20 in all from Blizzard, so it won't set you back too much.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Of course I suggest getting a ladder group together and can't play because reasons.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Let's just say that a lot of people felt really strongly about Diablo III.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Ragnar34 posted:

Is the amazon skill fend still bugged?

In fact, was it ever? I heard it was, so I didn't bother to try it, but I just realized I don't actually know for sure.

It's still bugged and I'm told that it's always been bugged.

EDIT: Further reading suggests that there is a way around it. Don't hold down the mouse button while you attack monsters. If you click and release, then your amazon will dodge the attack and stop thrusting her spear. Click again to start another volley. You will avoid wiffing attacks, but you have to be more active in your play.

Star Man fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Nov 9, 2015

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Wow. I wonder if it's just bug fixes for newer systems or if they'll address old bugs like the Fend bug.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

natetimm posted:

Just coined to play Sludge Belcher and Coldarra Drake on turn 1. He played saboteur on turn 2 and I killed it with removal. He gets an Archmage out turn 3 and I answer with Rhonin. Gotta give him credit for playing it through to when he finally died on turn 5.

But enough about Mephisto runs.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

AugmentedVision posted:

Fair enough. Still doesn't answer "why".

Because if they're going to keep the game available to buy after all these years, then it makes sense to make sure it's compatible with current operating systems.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Is it possible to turn all that poo poo off and play it as it was in 1997?

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
That's all I want, though. Something that will let the game be played in Windows 10 without a bunch of extra features or at least the ability to turn them off.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Vakal posted:

Is there a reason why the Reaper's Kiss item can't be salvaged? It's just a regular white item as far as I can see.

You might be playing the wrong game.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Nurel posted:

i fuckin hate LOD and everyone wants to play that pos

I too hate everything that came out after 9/11.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Is Lower Restance not good enough?

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
:feelsgood:

I found a Zod rune in a public walk-to-Baal game once in 2006. I joined late and it was left behind near the waypoint on a monster's corpse. I also got an Ist rune once off of Eldritch in 2011. I've gotten more valuable items in vanilla Diablo III than I ever have in Diablo II.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Goo P-Nut Sack posted:

I always thought it was hilarious that people thought the drop rate in vanilla d3 was bad! D2 was way more punishing, or at least on par. I've posted this many times over the years but I'm one of the few people on earth that enjoyed pound-me-in-the-rear end diablo 3 vanilla italian hell. The game was great all the way up until the IAS nerf.

I didn't like the punishing difficulty at all, but I was too stubborn to quit when everyone else did. The attack speed nerf stunk, but 1.0.4 onward was a real turning point. I still miss being able to trade with people, but I'm okay with it if it means that d2jsp is out of the picture.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
I'd be pretty livid if I lost a hardcore character with a Vex rune I found.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Oh man, I didn't realize that Blizzard put out a new patch for Diablo II.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
The CD keys can be registered to your Battle.net account and enable you to download them anytime after.

Diablo 1 is not available digitally because the game never used a CD key for installation. Strangely enough, WarCraft II: Battle.net Edition does require a CD key but doesn't have a digital edition.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Max Wilco posted:

Is there a reason why they don't just make DIablo 1 a freeware title, though? I remember that Blizzard has (or at least had) a lot of their older games like Lost Vikings and Blackthorne available free to download. Is it a licensing issue or something?

I have no idea. My educated guess is that unlike those games, Diablo 1 runs in Windows and not in DOS. You can get Diablo 1 to run in Windows 10 with some mods, but the game doesn't seem to ever run without them.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
I just want to play regular old LoD :smith:

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Now is not a good time. I get to spend my week of Thanksgiving at home working on my senior capstone portfolio.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
I found this screencap from 2007. I still can't believe that I crafted something that good.

Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow
Nothing in the game is completely invincible. In late Nightmare, you'll start finding enemies with an elemental immunity. In Hell difficulty, nearly everything has at least one immunity. Fire immunity is the most common, which is why there are no purely fire skill builds for any class out there. Act bosses have no immunities, but they still have high elemental resistances. The only time you will encounter monsters with a stack of immunities is in Uber Tristram.

There are ways around immunities. One is to not rely completely on a single damage type. If your main skill has synergies in another element, that can help you get around most immunities, but sometimes you will see a monster or elite group that have the combination of immunities that are everything you have. The other way is to have something that breaks immunities. A paladin can break fire, cold, and lightning immunities with a high enough level Conviction aura (level 25 is the cap for its effects, so don't put in very many skill points in it when stacking skill level buffs). A necromancer can break physical immunities with an Amplify Damage curse (at any skill level. Higher skill levels only boost the area of effect) and elemental immunities with Lower Resistance. These curses can be found on wands as charges, so any class can use them and weapon switch to activate a curse. You can find wands with curse charges from vendors. The runeword Infinity grants a Conviction aura to the user and is a popular item to give to an act II mercenary. The runes for Infinity are very rare and expensive to trade for, and you only want to make the runeword in an ethereal elite polearm like a colossus volge to give to your act II mercenary.

The only damage immunity that can't be broken is immunity to magic damage. Magic damage skills are uncommon. The most common ones are the necromancer skills Teeth, Bone Spear, and Bone Spirit; the barbarian skill Berzerk; the paladin's Blessed Hammer (this used to ignore magic immunities against undead and demons, but this was removed in 1.13); and the amazon's Magic Arrow.

Star Man fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Dec 16, 2016

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Star Man
Jun 1, 2008

There's a star maaaaaan
Over the rainbow

Max Wilco posted:

So I managed to finish Belzebub last night, and I've started Diablo 2 with the Sorceress. So far it seems like it's paced a lot better. The freedom of movement feels like it speeds things up considerably.

With the Sorceress, are you limited to using staffs, or are other weapons viable? I ask because I learned that the classes in D1 had disadvantages when using skills that don't pertain to their class (ex. the Warrior can't cast magic as fast as the Sorcerer, but the Sorcerer has the slowest melee attack), and I was wondering if the same sort of rules applied in D2.

Also, I looked to see if there was a way to get Diablo 2 to run in higher resolutions, but I read that you can get banned for using mods to adjust the resolution (I guess because it assumes you're using cheats).

If you are playing with the expansion, then each class has access to a class-only item. The sorceress gets access to sorceress orbs that can be swung like any one-hander. But unless something says "(Class Name Only)" in an item mod, your class can use it as long as you meet the level, strength, and dexterity requirements.

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