D2 Runes
Amn
Required Level: 25
In a Weapon: 7% Life Stolen Per Hit
In Armor|Helm|Shield: Attacker takes 14 damage
Ber
Required Level: 63
In a Weapon: 20% Chance of Crushing Blow
In Armor|Helm|Shield: Damage Reduced by 8%
Cham
Required Level: 67
In a Weapon: 32% Chance of Hit Freezing Target for 3 seconds
In Armor|Helm|Shield: Can not be frozen.
Dol
Required Level: 31
In a Weapon: 25% Chance that Hit Causes Monster to Flee
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +7 Replenish Life
El
Required Level: 11
In a Weapon: +50 AR, +1 Light Radius
In Armor|Helm: +1 Light Radius, +15 Defense
Eld
Required Level: 11
In a Weapon: +75% Damage vs. Undead, +50 Attack Rating vs.
In Armor|Helm|Shield: Lowers Stamina drain by 15%
Eth
Required Level: 15
In a Weapon: -25% Target Defense
In Armor|Helm|Shield: Regenerate Mana 15%
Fal
Required Level: 41
In a Weapon: +10 Strength
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +10 Strength
Gul
Required Level: 53
In a Weapon: +20% AR
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +5 to Max Resist Poison
Hel
Required Level: 33
In a Weapon: -20% Requirements
In Armor|Helm|Shield: -15% Requirements
Io
Required Level: 35
In a Weapon: +10 Vitality
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +10 Vitality
Ist
Required Level: 51
In a Weapon: +30% Better Chance of Finding Magical Items
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +25% Better Chance of Finding Magical Items
Ith
Required Level: 15
In a Weapon: +9 to Maximum Damage
In Armor|Helm|Shield: 15% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
Jah
Required Level: 65
In a Weapon: Ignores Target Defense
In Armor|Helm: +5% of total Hit Points
In Shield: +50 Hit Points
Ko
Required Level: 39
In a Weapon: +10 Dexterity
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +10 Dexterity
Lem
Required Level: 43
In a Weapon: +50% Extra Gold from Monsters
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +50% Extra Gold from Monsters
Lo
Required Level: 59
In a Weapon: 20% Chance of Deadly Strike
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +5 to Max. Resist Lightning
Lum
Required Level: 37
In a Weapon: +10 Energy
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +10 Energy
Mal
Required Level: 49
In a Weapon: Prevent Monster Healing
In Armor|Helm|Shield: Reduce Magic Damage by 7
Nef
Required Level: 13
In a Weapon: Knock back
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +30 Defense vs. Missile
Ohm
Required Level: 57
In a Weapon: +50% Damage
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +5 to Max. Resist Cold
Ort
Required Level: 21
In a Weapon: +1-50 Lightning Damage
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +35% Lightning Resistance
Pul
Required Level: 45
In a Weapon: +75% Damage to Demons, +100 AR against Demons
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +30% Defense
Ral
Required Level: 19
In a Weapon: +5-30 Fire Damage
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +35% Fire Resistance
Shael
Required Level: 29
In a Weapon: Faster Attack Rate (+20)
In Armor|Helm: Faster Hit Recovery (+20)
In Shield: Faster Block Rate (+20)
Sol
Required Level: 27
In a Weapon: +9 to Minimum Damage
In Armor|Helm|Shield: -7 Damage Taken
Sur
Required Level: 61
In a Weapon: 20% Chance of Hit Blinds Target
In Armor|Helm: +5% total Mana
In Shield: +50 Mana
Tal
Required Level: 17
In a Weapon: +75 Poison damage over 5 seconds
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +35% Poison Resistance
Thul
Required Level: 23
In a Weapon: +3-14 Cold Damage (Cold Length 3 seconds)
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +30% Cold Resistance
Tir
Required Level: 13
In a Weapon: +2 Mana Per Kill
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +2 Mana Per Kill
Um
Required Level: 47
In a Weapon: 25% Chance of Open Wounds
In Armor|Helm: +15% Resist All
In Shield: +22% Resist All
Vex
Required Level: 55
In a Weapon: 7% Mana Leech
In Armor|Helm|Shield: +5 to Max Fire Resist
Zod
Required Level: 55
In a Weapon: Indestructible
In Armor|Helm|Shield: Indestructible
D2 Rune Recipes
Amn Rune
3 Thul Runes and 1 Chipped Topaz
Sol Rune
3 Amn Runes and 1 Chipped Amethyst
Shael Rune
3 Sol Runes and 1 Chipped Sapphire
Dol Rune
3 Shael Runes and 1 Chipped Ruby
Hel Rune
3 Dol Runes and 1 Chipped Emerald
Io Rune
3 Hel Runes and 1 Chipped Diamond
Lum Rune
3 Io Runes and 1 Flawed Topaz
Ko Rune
3 Lum Runes and 1 Flawed Amethyst
Fal Rune
3 Ko Runes and 1 Flawed Sapphire
Lem Rune
3 Fal Runes and 1 Flawed Ruby
Pul Rune
3 Lem Runes and 1 Flawed Emerald
Um Rune
2 Pul Runes and 1 Flawed Diamond
Mal Rune
2 Um Runes and 1 Topaz
Ist Rune
2 Mal Runes and 1 Amethyst
Gul Rune
2 Ist Runes and 1 Sapphire
Vex Rune
2 Gul Runes and 1 Ruby
Ohm Rune
2 Vex Runes and 1 Emerald
Lo Rune
2 Ohm Runes and 1 Diamond
Sur Rune
2 Lo Runes and 1 Flawless Topaz
Ber Rune
2 Sur Runes and 1 Flawless Amethyst
Jah Rune
2 Ber Runes and 1 Flawless Sapphire
Cham Rune
2 Jah Runes and 1 Flawless Ruby
Zod Rune
2 Cham Runes and 1 Flawless Emerald
D2 Shrines
Mana Recharge Shrine
Effect: +400% mana recharge rate
Duration: 96 seconds
Armor Boost
Effect: +100% Defense
Duration: 48 seconds
Combat Boost
Effect: +200% to Attack Rating, +200% min and max damage.
Duration: 48 seconds
Resist Fire Boost
Effect: +75% to resist fire
Duration: 48 seconds
Resist Cold Boost
Effect: +75% to resist cold
Duration: 48 seconds
Resist Lightning Boost
Effect: +75% to resist Lightning
Duration: 48 seconds
Resist Poison Boost
Effect: +75% to resist poison
Duration: 48 seconds
Skill Shrine
Effect: +2 to all skill levels
Duration: 96 seconds
Stamina Boost
Effect: Unlimited Stamina
Duration: 192 seconds
Experience Boost
Effect: 50% more experience per kill
Duration: 144 seconds
Refill
Effect: Fills health and Mana
Duration: -
Health Shrine
Effect: Fills health
Duration: -
Mana Shrine
Effect: Fills mana
Duration: -
Portal Shrine
Effect: Opens a portal to the Town in the act
Duration: -
Fire Shrine
Effect: All players and monsters lose 1/2 current HP when struck by the Fireballs Attack
Duration: -
Monster Shrine
Effect: The nearest monster becomes a Unique or Champion monster
Duration: -
Gem Shrine
Effect: Upgrades a Random Gem or Skull in your Inventory or gives a chipped Gem or Skull
Duration: -
Exploding Shrine
Effect: Gives player 5-10 exploding potions and tosses out 5 exploding potions in random directions/distances
Duration: -
Poison Shrine
Effect: Gives player 5-10 Poison gas Potions & Creates ring of Poison gas around shrine
Duration: -
D2 Bosses
The Big Boss and his little friends (or not so little)Andrial is the first boss creature which you will meet, she is rather large and imposing, especially when considering the size of the imps which have to be mowed down before being able to reach her (not merely one imp either, but legions of them!). She is rather tough when taking on with a character not high enough of a level, as she does have some rather impressive area of effect spells which are not to be taken lightly. But she is no match for a well balanced team, even if they are not the most powerful. Just beware of her poison attack, as it can be rather harmful. And for your own benefit, do run when she comes running after you. The minions which surround her should be taken care of, preferably before Andrial causes any trouble.
Durial: He is one of the most despised bosses of the game, this is because the area which characters must face off with him is rather constrained and can often lead to the death of many of them because they are overwhelmed as soon as they enter his tomb. He is protected by many of his followers, which must be dealt with at the same time as the big boss himself, otherwise players will be killed off due to attrition.
Mephisto is one of those guys whom everybody hates to fight against as not only is he rather tough for those facing him (assuming they are of the level which typically faces him) but he is also backed up by a horde of creatures which are rather pesky to deal with to say the least. The good thing is, if you have a high level of concentrated fire upon him, he won’t last all that long. But beware of his powerful lighting spells and his melee attacks, otherwise he will ravage the team without end (that is, until the characters die!) and make it rather difficult for characters to reach their body and stay away from harm until they are ready to fight again.
Diablo is the big boss man, often referred to as Big D and he serves the name quite well. Diablo is one of the tougher bosses the reach as you must attempt to pass through hordes and hordes of powerful creatures and following that, you must open the necessary seals which themselves release powerful creatures. After opening all the require seals, Diablo is released! He is a rather tough creature, as he can not only run extremely fast, but has many powerful spells at his disposal. The best technique is to try and pin him down and fire upon him from a distance. Barbarians and Paladins can try and lay smacking on him and they are typically able to deal quite a bit of damage, but they will also suffer a great deal at the hands of Diablo. The best technique for melee fighters is to try and deliver quick blows and then retreat, regroup and attack again. A tip for item hunters, when Diablo is about to die, chances are that everyone will attempt to get closer to him in order to quickly get near his corpse and pick up his dropped items, so be ready to do the same. If you are a sorceress, try using telekinesis to pick things up from a distance.
Baal: His area is filled with tough minions which must be dealt with before reaching his throne. Baal has an interesting ability, he can create duplicates of himself which technically have no value at all. If you attack the ‘fakes’, you are merely taking damage and you must try to locate the real Baal. As far as how difficult he is, he would be in the average range, but his minions are quite hard and need to be attended to carefully in order to not die before having even reached the last boss. Don’t forget, the drops some interesting loot.
D2 Trading Cheats
Trading CheatsPlayers have a fascination with items, they often spend days on end fighting the same missions over and over again to locate the best and rarest loot. That said, some individuals prefer using the easy way to procure items: cheating. Although, this system does not involve the typical use of programs or exploits, but rather obvious yet deceitful techniques. I will explain the most basic technique (I would hope this would be used to protect yourself against individuals using this system, instead of using it with wrongful intentions):
- A player initiates a trade with an other individual. The two trading parties place their items into the trading blocks, the items from both individuals are usually of respectable value and would be a fair trade.
- The cheater’s trickery begins when trade should be nearing completion. He/she will attempt to guess when the other individual is going to click the accept button (both individuals must press the accept button in order for the trade to go through, if there is a change in items after the accept button has been clicked, the trade is nullified), he will attempt to remove the item as the other individual is about to click. If he does everything correctly, he will have removed his own item exactly before the trade partner accepted the trade, hence the other individual has accepted to trade his item for no item at all.
- The cheater will do his best to click his own accept button before the trade partner realizes what has happened.
Tips: To figure out if this is being attempted on you: If the trade partner repeatedly is removing his own item and then putting it back. Chances are that he is attempting to swindle you. Don’t forget, if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is.
Another technique follows a similar pattern, but the cheater will not attempt to remove his own item completely from the trade. But instead, he will try to replace it with something similar in appearance but completely different in statistics and value. A great example of something that has happened to me while being overly confident while trading is when I was trying to trade an item for a shako (a unique cap). The individual wanted some rather valuable item that I had, but it was a fair trade for a shako cap. The problem occurred when I was too eager to finish the process and I was not careful to what was happening in the trade screen. What I believe was a few seconds before the trade was to be accepted and completed; he switched the shako cap for a normal and worthless cap. I did not notice it as the items appear exactly the same. To make a long story short, I traded a valuable item for a cap and I was rather annoyed… but more at myself than anything as I had made a stupid mistake; something which I could have prevented if I was paying attention. From now on I understand quite clearly that no one should be trusted as the amount of individuals wishing to steal from you is rather great, almost scary. Remember, if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is.
D2 Items - Finding Items and Trade
Effective TradingTo be rather effective in the interesting ways of a Diablo 2 trader, a player must understand the fundamentals of protection and spotting good deals. A trader will understand the player economy’s value on the various items available and be able to spot the okay deals, the good deals and the plain rip offs (hopefully you will be doing the ripping off! That is without being a sneak). Remember, knowing each and every item is essential! You will not get anywhere without knowing them inside out, as you are liable to not correctly understand the value of items on the marketplace. Obviously, you don’t want to be selling the most valuable in-game item for a pet rock now would you? Also be sure to understand ways to protect yourself from individuals trying to steal from you, to get the better end of the deal. These individuals are called cheaters and unfortunately Diablo 2 has its large share of these despicable people. To find games where the individuals are participating in trading, merely lookout for games named ‘trading’ or something similar. Also watch the battle.net trade channel as some of the better stuff can be found there and in some instances, rather favourable trades can be accomplished with a bit of bargaining.
Finding the best darn lootDiablo 2 is as popular as it is now, years after it has been released, for a very simple reason: The loot. The general Diablo 2 population plays for one simple reason, to find the best darn loot available and show it off. I have to say, I play the game for the exact same reason, why else would I do the same mission over and over again? But, there is technique involved in finding the best items as they just so happen to be rather rare, almost like four leaf clovers. You see, for every superb item dropped, thousands of regular and worthless ones are found. The only way to beat the system is to try and play with the odds. The technique is rather basic, but it does the job. You must attempt to play as much as you can and kill all the creatures you face, but this must be done in the correct areas and difficulty. You see, the harder the opponents the more likely they are to drop killer equipment. An example is Diablo, he will often drop some okay loot on normal difficulty, good loot on nightmare and great loot on hell. The trick is to repeatedly kill these bosses at the highest difficulty you can (and are able to do it with relative ease and speed). These situations are called ‘runs’, you attempt to bypass all non-item giving creatures and reach the good stuff. The rather popular technique individuals have been using for quite some time now is the famous ‘Meph run’ (Mephisto run, act 3) as he is very easy to reach and not much of an opponent once you reach a high enough level. He almost always drops unique and rare items, although you probably need to do it rather often in order to pick up anything very valuable. It is often time consuming and after awhile it comes rather boring, but if you are dedicated to finding the best and rarest loot, doing ‘runs’ is the simplest and most effective to accomplish your goals.
D2 PvP
Player versus PlayerAs characters increase their level and find themselves some of the better equipment, they become rather potent players in PvE, but their ability to be successful in PvP match up increases substantially also. Players need to understand that the level of the character and the equipped items determine the success in PvP, as actual player skill has almost nothing to do with determining the final outcome. Those who have collected the best equipment will almost always overpower less potent characters.
A few tips to take in, remember that no one is your friend in PvP. It often happens that you are able to form unofficial alliances with individuals and team up to defeat a stronger opponent. Although, it would be nice to trust everyone, this is a huge no-no in Diablo 2 PvP. The individual wanting to be your 'friend' could actually be the other character's buddy and is just fooling with you, he is waiting for you to exit town and then turn hostile and pin you in sandwich. Obviously, this sounds a bit too paranoid for most, but the overall mood in Diablo 2 PvP is that of distrust. It is usually better to pair yourself with individuals you know personally or go at it alone.
Be careful for body poppers, after killing your character they will deliberately allow you to return to your corpse but they shall be waiting near and as soon as you pick up 'some' of your equipment, they will attack and kill you. They will be attempting to pop the equipment out of your corpse.
Only fight in PvP if they are fair matchups, if your are level 50, try fighting those roughly your level. If you are level 90, find those who are your level (or… bellow).
Always make sure that you have reached the next level and that you are roughly zero experience into your level. As when you die, you will lose a percentage of it. (if you have just levelled, you will almost nothing as you cannot go down a level)
Be careful of amazons, they are probably the most potent of PvP characters as they can attack from a huge distance away. Their arrows will appear out of nowhere and easily kill their opponents, the best way to deal with them is to never let them leave your screen. They are especially problematic for barbarians as their arrow knockback reduces their speed advantage.
The sorceress is one of those pesky kill them all type of characters, her attacks usually do not focus on any single character but rather blast the whole screen with enormous (and effective) spells. They are the ultimate crowd control characters. Be careful, as many sorceress will attempt to be rather sly and appear to be AFK just inside of town but as you exit and enter the wilderness, they will jump out and blast the area with a spell (usually frozen orb).
Player Killing and being afraid!Every Diablo 2 player will encounter, at some point or another, the infamous player killers (a.k.a PKs). These are individuals who participate in griefing and who love to annoy other players. They often are individuals with very high level characters, able to fight with the more powerful types and come out on top. They will join a game and attempt to figure out where everyone is located and once they have gathered the required information? They change their status to hostile and immediately run outside the town and track down their prey. They will attempt to kill as many as they can and also prevent them from reaching their bodies. If they have the chance, they will also attempt a body 'pop' (a situation where a player who has only half picked up the items from his body will drop all in-inventory items upon his death). The easiest way to stop any player-killer encounters is to join passworded games, where you personally know all the individuals (and which reduces the chances of player killer, unless it is done as joke which is also likely of happening). If you do find yourself running away from a hostile player, attempt to reach the town as quickly as possible as it is the only true safe zone available to you. Another option would be to try and hide in the deepest regions of the map, as obviously (unless he is using hacks, which he may be) he cannot search every single area in due time. If the player-killer searches for individuals yet is not able to find any in a reasonably amount of time, he will most likely leave the game and move onto another preying ground as if his element of surprise is removed, it becomes rather difficult and frustrating for him to do much of anything.
Lord of Destruction
Lord of Destruction (most commonly referred to as LOD), was released a few years ago and was an instant hit as it expanded upon the already widely popular Diablo 2. One of the immediate changes players grew to love was the addition of a higher gameplay resolution: 800x600. It may sound silly, but this was seen as a great 'gift', as players had grown tired of playing at 640x460 resolution. The new look increased the quality of the graphics drasticly and in a sense, sparked new life into the game [but obviously, it was already doing very well without it].
Content wise, there were a lot of updates and new material to play with. Two new classes were made available to players, the Druid and the Assassin. The Druid seemed to be a bit of a mix between a necromancer and the Barbarian as he was able to summon but was also quite effective in melee combat. The Assassin was a bit more difficult to categorize, as she seemed to be more complex and using relatively new gameplay/combat concepts. The use of traps, although interesting, was totally new to gamers and it took a little while for players to notice many Assasins roaming around [one of the perks people found very enticing was her use of claws. Rawr.]
Probably the most important and highly anticipated new content would have to be the latest act, act 5. Pitching players against Baal in, what was, a totally new environment and landscape filled with incredible creatures and interesting quests. The difficulty level of this new content was seen by many as being bellow act 4, but appeared by many as being more fun.
Other anticipated additions were the inclusion of a load of new items and as well all know by now, items are what have kept Diablo 2 so popular. People just love item hunting, finding the rarest and greatest loot known to mankind. The extra equipment was a godsend for many hardcore gamers. [and the increased stash size was also a welcomed development]
The addition of runes was an interesting one, as it did add extra items to be found and also allowed the improvement of all items [including pre-Lord of Destruction].
