Diablo 2 Walkthrough -> Tips and Tricks
I've been meaning to bring this up for a while, and finally decided to. I think this community lacks information that experienced gamers could share with others. After all, sometimes you play for a long time, but you learn the rules "in the field," as you go. But you never get around to reading the descriptions on the game's website, especially since everything there is written in English.
Altars of Jewels
Gem altars can not only drop a chipped gem, but also upgrade one of the gems in your backpack by one level! However, the gem falls to the ground, so it's more difficult to use in team play—you need to find such an altar and make sure there are no other players nearby.
They're convenient for obtaining, for example, perfect amethysts, which are especially valuable in trade (since many craft caster items, particularly amulets). The savings are obvious—instead of three Flowless (flawless stones), you only need one.
Death of a Persian outside the city
If you pick up your corpse in town and re-enter the game, you lose all the XP you've lost. However, if you run to the place where you were killed and pick it up there, some of your XP is returned.
This, on the contrary, is more difficult if you're running solo—party members usually try to clear the area and place a portal next to your corpse. Running alone, naked and without gear, into a crowd that managed to kill you even with your gear is tantamount to suicide... However, there's a chance, especially with a good merc and the ability to summon someone to distract the enemies.
Creating a game on the server
To prevent the game from immediately disappearing, the character who created it must log in for at least five minutes. After that, the game remains online long enough for another character to safely re-login (even from a different account) and transfer items by simply leaving them on the ground—provided they only have one SD key (and therefore cannot log in with two characters at once). Naturally, the game must be password-protected.
About characters, items, and skills
1. Assassin is the only class that doesn't require keys to open locked chests. Their innate talent for lockpicking provides the added convenience of having an extra slot in their backpack and not having to worry about keys at all.
2. Mana and life steal work not only with short-range damage but also with long-range damage (bows and darts). But the Paladin's Shield Slam (Smite) only steals life if the enemy is cursed with Life Tap. This skill has many of its own tricks—a whole list worth exploring...
3. The Iron Maiden's curse only works for melee attacks, not ranged combat, and only returns physical damage (the same applies to "thorns" - some monsters like Spike Fiend, spiky little animals like porcupines, have this property).
The scariest thing for any melee hero is that you die from your own damage—it's the only thing that can kill a character of any level, even on normal. Accordingly, the Amazon can use a bow or darts against Oblivions, but it's dangerous for her to draw a spear.
There's no point in a Necromancer casting this curse on Skeleton Archers. Barbic has his own trick against Oblivions: Berserk, which deals only magical damage, not physical damage.
4. A Druid CAN cast Armageddon in wolf or bear form—the only elemental spell. But the catch is that to unlock this skill, you'll have to unlock ALL the other skills in the elemental tab. However, starting with version 1.10, every elemental fire skill (except Armageddon) adds a whopping 22% fire damage to Fire Claws!
Ethereal things
Ethereal items DO NOT lose durability when used by a merc (well, everyone probably knows that). Therefore, it's even better to choose an ethereal item for a merc because: firstly, weapons have 50% more damage, and armor has 50% more defense, and secondly, their Strength and Dexterity requirements are reduced by 10.
Update 1: They say that after upgrading an ethereal item, for some reason the 50% bonus stops adding up. I don't know, I haven't tried it myself yet. It might be a bug.
upd 2 There is also a known bug that appears if you use an ethereal item in a cube with a different formula - for adding sockets: the item somehow gets an additional 50%!
Update 3: As it turns out, this bug only works for armor and shields (not weapons). Although, maybe it's not a bug at all, but a feature...
It's a known fact that things lying on the ground disappear after a certain amount of time. But how long exactly? Battle.net has some precise information:
- 10 minutes - gold and regular items (vials and scrolls belong here too, as I understand it).
- 20 minutes - Magic (blue).
- 30 minutes - Rares (yellow), sets (green) and uniques (gold).
It's a shame there's no mention of the runes' category. I think they belong to the latter, based on my practical observations.
Yards to Pixels Ratio
I've been wondering for a while while studying calculations: what are these yards used to measure distance in the game? So, to give you a rough idea, here's some information about screen sizes in yards:
- 18x13.3 at 640x480 resolution.
- 23x16.7 at 800x600 resolution.
Source: Diablo 2 Community (by Melissa from Lut Gholein).
See also:
Horadric Cube Recipes in D2 (LOD)
Sequential passage of half
A guide to leveling a druid in Diablo