One of the most-awaited computer-games ever is Diablo II. After my Power-Words about Dungeon Keeper 1+2, Pax Imperia and Birth of the Federation it is now time for good power tips for Diablo II.
General tips for gameplay
- First play Diablo II a bit without reading these Power-Words. Explore this fantasy-world on your own and with level 7 you should continue reading this. Remember, your first character wonīt be your final character.
- Basic strategies - every character has a different way of fighting: the Barbarian is the best fighter of DII and fights in direct contact to the enemies. The Amazon has good potential in long-range-fights with her bow, the Necromancer should combine summoning with curses and is a very interesting character. The Paladin should develop good fighting abilities combined with strong resistances (protection auras). Finally, the sorceress is a very interesting (and cute) character, but quite difficult to play. She should avoid direct enemy contact and develop strong specialized magic. More infos in the Sorceress Section.
- Skills: a very important aspect in DII is a well planned character-development. You may play for the exploration a just-for fun-character and then start a new one and plan a strong character. Specialiazing is one of the keys to get a strong character which can play even Act4 in Hell Mode. When you put too many skill-points into different spells you wonīt have spells which are really powerful. (I had to restart my Sorceress two times until I found out about the best skill-planning)
- For finding the best skill-developments read the strategy-pages of the DII-Sites. Or ask some high level players on the BattleNet. I also recommend to download the DII-character planner at www.wizz.de. For Sorceress- and Necromancer players I have some special tips in these Power Words.
- Navigating: many maps have a waypoint which teleports you to town and other places, you can use them also to warp to another Act (if you entered that before). When searching a place for a quest or a special plain remember that some plains have more then two exits. Navigating though dungeons: (if you donīt want to fight all monsters, but simply want to quickly solve the quest): many times the exit to another level or an important location is on the other side of the dungeon. So donīt search near the entrance, but rush fast to the other end of the dungeon.
- The Automap is activated with the TAB-key, run with CRTL. With the numeric keypad (num lock on) you can say something to your fellow players: 0 = "Help"", 1 = "Follow me.", 2 = "For you.", 3 = "Thanks.", 4 = "Sorry.", 5 = "Bye.", 6 = "Die!". With the PrintScreen-Key you get screenshots saved in the Diablo 2 directory.
- ESCaping very dangerous situations (it sounds simple but saves a lot of money & exp): learn to FAST hit ESC and "save game". The ALT key shows you all items on the floor with names; that definitely helps to find good items fast.
- Selling items: if you have found more expensive items you want to sell (good armors, rares, etc.) first repair then sell them - you get more money.
- Difficulties: in Diablo 2 you can play the whole game with all quests in three difficulty-levels: Normal, Nightmare and Hell - mode. When dying in Normal mode you will loose all money you carry (it lies next to the corpse) and a part of the money from your stash. In Nightmare and Hell you will also loose experience points. So be extra careful if you have a character which will get a new level soon. Especially in Hell you NEED lots of resistance (best go for prismatic amus / rings), because there is a high negative restistance bonus.
- When dead, your character rematerializes in town, but does not have the equipped items. The corpse of your character lies at the place where it was killed. You can go back to that place, hopefully kill the monsters and get back your items with clicking the corpse. Be careful with equipping new stuff. Many players lost items that way. If you get killed several times (and had re-equipped) you will loose items! I would never equip my char with any new stuff after it has just been been killed.(in BattleNet a disconnect sometimes deletes your items in corpses when youīve equipped new items...) After dying and game-restart the corpse will be in the town.
- Surviving: Rejuvenation-Potions ("life+magic"-potions) help in difficult fights / duels because they instantly regenerate life + mana points (normal potions let you regenerate slowly).
- Bosses: there are some monsters with blue name (stronger then normal) and be careful about the monsters with brown name (very strong monsters with special magical abilities). These monsters strengthen other normal monsters of the same type, try to kill the bosses first, then the others wonīt be so strong anymore. When fighting a tough boss (or a quest opponent like Mephisto) you should open a town portal. Concentrate your attacks or spells on one monster until it goes down, then attack another monster to its end.
- Traps: you will be warned that a trap is activated when you hear this creaking noise. Run fast then!
- Getting rare items: when you are not in "levelling up"- or "quest"-mode you can just fight for getting nice items: equip magical items for additional-chance% of finding magical items like ring-of-luck or Tarnhelm. Especially in Act-4 you will find a lot of rare stuff - exploit it first (fight many monster bosses and get their rare items) and trade with that stuff to get what you need. And then continue on in next mode (Nightmare or Hell) - you will see that good items are needed because every advance in mode makes the monsters much more powerful.
- Retrieving items: when the monsters get you and it is too difficult to kill them to get back the stuff from your dead body, better leave game and enter another game, the body is back in town.
- In one quest Charsi offers to magical transform a basic item. Donīt use it too early, better wait until Act-3 (better until another mode like Nightmare Act-2) or when you find better basic items. The best is to "imbue" an armor because a (good) rare armor has great worth for use and trading in BattleNet. You can only transform basic items (white name).
- The Horadric Cube (to be found in Act-2, halls of the dead) is a special magical item you will need in Act-2 and Act-3. With this cube you can transform segments of quest items to the final quest item. And you can do some other magical transformations with the Horadric Cube: here are not all, but some interesting combinations:
- 3 gems (same type and grade) = 1 higher grade gem (same type)
- 3 Health-Potions + 3 Mana-Potions = 1 Rejuvenation-Potion
- 3 Health-Potions + 3 Mana-Potions + 1 gem = 1 full Rejuvenation-Potion
- 3 perfect gems (of any type) + 1 magical item = 1 new random magical item ( same type)
- 3 Amulets = 1 Random Ring
- 3 Rings = 1 Random Amulet
- 6 Gems and 1 sword = 1 socketed Long-Sword
- The secret cow level: in Tristam you will find Wirtīs leg (search his corpse). After defeating Diablo on this mode (Normal, Nightmare or Hell) you can open a portal to this sectret map: place wirtīs leg and a town-portal-book in the horadric cube and transform them. Enjoy the funny cows. :-)
- Diablo II has more and more modifications with every new patch. Especially the power of some spells will be changed. These Power Words are written in Oct-2000, and in future some details about DII might be changed.
- Open BattleNet: "doesnīt exist" for me (you can easily cheat and duplicate items) many cheaters / playerkillers are out there. So the more fair and real challenge is the closed Battle-Net, because up to date there is no cheat in closed BN.
- Playing in Battle-Net: In closed BattleNet the char is saved on one of Blizzards (free, but slow) servers and until now cheating is impossible. Letīs hope it stays this way - because creating a good char here and finding / trading good items takes quite some effort.
- Parties: you can play alone like in single-player mode, but the fun is being in a party with different chars. (press "P" for party screen). When you are in a party you share the experience and taken gold with all members if you are on the same map. So donīt do the fights alone while others search only gold and items.
- Trading: be careful about your trades when you are a beginner. Some advanced players like ripping off newbies (giving much less worthy stuff for good uniques). Read the offers and postings in the trade channel and the reactions of the other players. If you have special wishes or special items for sale leaving messages in the trade channel is faster then just randomly meeting other players in trading games. "Spamming" / "Flooding" (= repeating long messages very fast) wonīt bring you much friends in trade channels - a constant, but changing slow flow of messages is much better. My way of getting good deals is having a text-file (in Windows) with my offers like:
"offers rare amu 6%-life-steal + fast cast rate + some Res"
"offers Tarnhelm or Nightsmoke for Culwens Point"
"seeks FROSTBURN offers WORMSKULL"
"trades Rare+2Staff-Sorc(20-45 dmg) / BONESNAP nice Unique Hammer
"trades MILAGREBAS-Scepter(+1Pala) / IRON JANG BONG (good +1Sorc Staff)"
"offers SILKS / SIGONS Shield / MAGEFISTS / Rare +2-Staff-Sorc (20-45dmg) / Pala+nec+1Amu-with-4%Mana-steal"
"seeks rare MagePlate AC300+"
"needs 1h-sword dmg 50+"
(and bring them *not too often* with copy (CRTL-C in textfile in Windows) and paste (CRTL-X) into the trade channel screen)
- Item Trading guide: - forget trading Basic Items (white): - Magical Items (blue): donīt have much worth (maybe some good items from Hell mode, like armor and helmets with high AC = ArmorClass).
- SET-items (green): most beginners are after them. Wizzard just says: waste of energy! Some SETs are maybe useful with level 16-24 or so. If you play well you will fast advance and donīt need them. Good rares are in many cases better then any SET. Even most complete SETs donīt have much worth.
- The only SET-items I can recommend (up to 20s Levels) are: +1-Weapons like Arcannas Staff, Infernal Torch, Milagrebas Scepter and Sigons Shield (the only SET-item with some worth even for higher players) (If you have a SET complete, it will add a special bonus, for example more armor).
- Rare Items (yellow): a good rare crown/armor/weapon is often more worth then the a uique crown/armor/weapon!
- Unique items (gold = dark yellow): it may sound strange, but many uniques are worthless for trade and use! Most weapons have too low damage or shield have too low AC. So donīt think in trading that every offered unique has value. But there are some very good unique items.
