Welcome to Diablo 2 & You, my review and guide to better playing of Diablo 2 and it's Expansion (Lord of Destruction).

Now you may be wondering why in the world would I be interesting in a title that was released 8 years ago in this age of War-crafted worlds, computer destroying crysis', and more duty than one could call for? Well, I assume you wouldn't be here if you weren't curious, so why don't you stop asking questions and just bear with me, Ok? In fact, i'll let you grab a drink and your reading spectacles, I'll wait.

Good choice in beverage, my fave too.

Diablo 2 was released in 2000 during my beginning years of teenage youth. I remember it being brought up over a round of dodgeball during summer gym. I was curious what the buzz was about and investigated to find a game that would eventually suck away 4 year of my life.

The game centers around you playing a new, plucky hero of the 'verse. The previous hero, driven mad by the soul stone so rightfully jabbed into his skull (I guess he never heard of a pocket) is now beginning his fall into becoming Diablo, Lord of Terror:

Hugs?

You choose who to control; the daunting barbarian, the brooding necromancer, the buxom amazon, the zealous paladin, or the "my shirt is defying the laws of physics" sorceress.

Seriously, I don't get how they stay in there...

The expansion pack later added the "I'm not emo, but I'll slash you with my wrists" Assassin and the *pedo-bear pun here* Druid. All 7 classes have their distinct leveling trees. These trees consisted of 3 tabs of different options of skills, such as the paladins combat, offensive, and defensive, and each having a heirarchy to reach more and more powerful skills.

The objective of the game is simple. Walk outside, you see enemy, you click on enemy until it dies. Once dead, you receive experience and loot which may either be gold or goodies, or both. Pick said items up,... rinse and repeat as necessary. The game progresses through 4 acts (5 with the Expansion), each with it's own quests sets that tie into the one and only storyline and ones that don't usually resulting in some sort of reward such as more skill points or even bonuses to elemental resistances. Completely the game is as easy as killing all the final bosses in each level and bam... complete.

So with that simple set-up, why in the world is this game such a hit? The reason being in that it is all polished to a mirror finish. The loot system alone features rare, unique, set, and crafted items, each with their own modifiers. The game features rings, amulets, gems, jewels, runes, and charms all boosts to various stats, with rings, amulets, jewels, and charms all having rare and unique (sometime crafted) options, as well. If collecting large piles of amazing weapons and dazzling armor, then this is certainly a game to fill those needs.

You better Two Hand my Flaming Balrog Blade,...

The maximum level in the game 99. To reach that, you not only have to master the game once, but three times in progressively difficult game settings. While you get the idea of the game in normal, the nightmare and hell difficulties truly bring out the big guns. The enemies hit harder, more attention needs to be paid to skill and items, but the rewards are even greater. Hell difficulty is extremely challenging with your resistances dropping to -100 and the enemies getting some seriously agonizing abilities,... but that is then when you find the most amazing stuff. After completing the hardest difficulty, you can continue playing the game to get more and more stuff while still being fairly challenged.

To better aid in getting around, the game features two quick travel systems. The first is the "Town Portal", or TP for short. The town portal allows you to cast a 2 way portal (now you're thinking!) to quickly return to town to sell less than desirable spoils or pack-rat away that item you may use down the road in your stash. Once you have re-entered the town portal, however, is disappears and cannot be used again as it is a commodity form of travel. The other form of quick travel is the waypoint system. Described as some ancient travel magic or w/e boils down to a series of checkpoints that, once activated, allows you to return to a certain level or field quickly without the use a town portal. These are immensely useful in saving time since town portals only work in the field.

So, now you are seasoned, have kicked some Diablo tail, have some magical loots, but find yourself a litte...

This is a required LOLCat photo per mandate 34.583B of Internet Code of Conduct

Yah, but thanks to a modern marvel called a modem, players can go online and ... do it all over again with friends!... What? No seriously, it's fun, don't doubt me. With online capabilities, you can begin using others' time to your advantage. You can begin in trading items, for one. Found that amazing long bow of awesome on your necromancer and wishing it was a wand of unleashed doom? Find an amazon in your same situation. But say that Amazon decides to jerk you around, want more for the trade, or is just lying to you and really be useless? Kill her!

Player vs. player adds quite a bit of depth after one is finished leveling their character. Tired of getting new loot or slogging through monster? Slog through your friends, instead! Melee duels, sorceress destruction, or Necromancer lag fests bring out the best in everyone. Player vs player kept Diablo 2 lively for me for many more years than I should admit to playing.

The final point in how this kept mine and many others' attention for so long is the fact, like cheese or wine, Blizzard games get better with age. With subsequent patches leading up to the release of v1.10, Blizzard continued in supporting a game that didn't have a subscription fee. v1.10 was vastly considered an expansion pack at no additional cost. The introduction of new items, new runewords, new sets and abilities brought the loot whores back in full force. Every character received a revamp to their skill trees bringing the strategists back in droves. Finally, the addition of synergies made many character skill sets, before under powered, back into the lime light. With v1.10, one could come up with their own creative cocktail blend of classes that were more viable than the straight cookie cutter builds of yesterday. Now flaming sword wielding sorceress', singing barbarians, and poison wielding necromancers were not uncommon. The days of having the best gear making the best player could be turned around with clever use of skills ( I remember making many Paladin's and Barbarian decked out in Gear that could take years to acquire be defeating by a Barbarian I devised that use gear at a fraction of the investment and had clever tricks... oh, and 10,000Hp didn't hurt, either!)

If you started Diablo 2 today, there livelihood of the servers have shrunk to meager proportions. World of Warcraft and the lure of other new hack n slash titles such as Titan Quest have pulled the players away. Others just found new interests in other games. With the announcement of Diablo 3, though, expect many to dust off their discs and dig back in. I would suggest anyone to travel to the Blizzard site and pick up a copy off their new digital store.

There are some things that Diablo 2 could be docked for... the loot grinding, a questionable level design during some acts (three comes to mind...) and the time spend waiting for v1.10 was horrendous, but looking back, I can safely say I had days where I spent hours just trading and turning off the computer happy... days of building new characters or typing OWNED at the top of my ... erm, keyboard? Recently, my friends delved back in and the multiplayer is still just as fun.

Should a game deserve a 10/10? That's best left to another thread, but even looking back so many years, I can firmly say this game was brilliance in a box.

Diablo 2: 10/10

Guide add-on: How to really play Diablo 2!

Recommended accessories:

Mice (2 or more)
-Clicking takes a great tole on your small, directionally orienting friend. Diablo 2 has been known to kill many mice and having a spare on hand is a good idea.
-Mice can also be broken when slammed or thrown due to the miss-click that lead you to get the arrows instead of the rare Ohm Rune.

Mario Teaches Typing
-You're going to have be able to type "Owned" and other such catch phrases at record speed to prevent death during PVP.

Alcohol
-... Do you need to ask why? Nothing like 4 friends all running boss runs completely plastered for loot. May cause need for more Mice (see previous reasoning).

A CRT from 1998
-The games resolutions are quite... old. But hey, nothing like nostalgia, right? Find them at your local garage sale today!

Time Machine
-I guarantee you are going to want one after you beat Diablo 2 and watch some content from Diablo 3.

Ways to play:

Don't be afraid to choose a cookie cutter, "over powered" class as your first character. These characters are going to be your bread in butter in leveling into Hell Difficulty to start finding loot that is amazing. Such classes are:

-Hammerdin:Paladin that uses blessed hammers and the aura Concentration with synergies to both
-Meteor Sorc: Sorceress focusing in Meteor and synergies. Teleport is a must
-Summoner: Necromancer focus in... cmon, seriously.
-Javazon: Lightning fury based amazon.

Sadly, Barbarians, Druids, and Assassins do not make the best starting characters.

and finally... do get a friend to play with your or make some online. The social aspect makes it much better and since Blizzard failed to ever implement a system to swap items from one of your characters to another online (I hope this is Diablo 3), you will need a friend to transfer items from one character to another.

I hope you all enjoy Diablo 2 as much as I did. Happy Clicking, all!

Shameless Plug:
The Commandomancer

The Commandomancer, my build of choice. Nothing like a Werebear Shapeshifting necromancer with 3 or more Paladin auras and barbarian battle cries that is able to teleport all while having a massive army of death! The guide was revised by a forumite after I stopped playing, my name is the notes.

buying the game, right now.
thank you :)

such an awesome game. I have 1, 2, the expansion and i'm so getting diablo 3

All heil D2! cause it's awesome, and proven so. been playing off and on for years xD

I've just started playing again as an assassin, but to be frank, every group I go with (or most) uses almost no teamwork. I was fighting Duriel and people entered the tomb whenever they felt like it, constantly going in, portalling it, coming back, dying etc. etc. And then when I scored the killing blow some ass took all the loot, as seems to be customary now.
Does anyone want to join a more controlled, loot-sharing, ass-kicking, European-servering, english-speaking group? I'm on act 4 normal right now, my game-name is Burld, just so you know.

Burld:
I've just started playing again as an assassin, but to be frank, every group I go with (or most) uses almost no teamwork. I was fighting Duriel and people entered the tomb whenever they felt like it, constantly going in, portalling it, coming back, dying etc. etc. And then when I scored the killing blow some ass took all the loot, as seems to be customary now.
Does anyone want to join a more controlled, loot-sharing, ass-kicking, European-servering, english-speaking group? I'm on act 4 normal right now, my game-name is Burld, just so you know.

I would actually follow my commandomancer link and crawl around that site. There forums on there were great to me back in the day for finding amazing people to play with. I suggest you find a community on a site dedicated to it or search around on Esapist for players as well.

TheKbob:
I would actually follow my commandomancer link and crawl around that site. There forums on there were great to me back in the day for finding amazing people to play with. I suggest you find a community on a site dedicated to it or search around on Esapist for players as well.

I will look around, but your commandomancer link seems to be broken, by the way.

I find it funny people are coming back to this game, because it is one of the main culprits on the MMO craze... This was one of those games that once you have your lvl 100 hardcore assasin named snuff (yeah cause snuff is the ultimate hardcore :P) you dont want to really see it again >.< It is a good game for its time, and i think alot of the new generation of gamers should give it a try so they can see where alot of the ideas for MMO's come from!

A pretty well written review, and I can see why you like Diablo, You don't go into any of the games flaws however. It does have them, every game does, and you review is a little more credible when you include them. Here's some I can think of...

1) The Problem of Online Patching: The game's online balance has gone to pot due to PvP balance issues, hence some classes have become nearly useless in PvM and the game is occasionally not fun anymore because of it. It's a negative shift which ignores one of the things that makes Diablo so much fun... Killing Tons of Monsters at a time.

2) Uneven Difficulty Curve: In places the game is heavily weighted towards Online Co-op play, and this harms offline play as certain areas are head smashingly hard at times and may drive you to quit the game. As well, Henchmen are useless and get killed very quickly.

3) Randomness: The game is VERY random, drops are very random, dungeons are random, enemy placement is random, it makes for some interesting times.

4) XP Loss when killed: You lose XP when you die, it can be frustrating when game lag kills you when you're THIS close to Level 99 and now you need to sink in another 10 hours to get back to where you were before.

PedroSteckecilo:
A pretty well written review, and I can see why you like Diablo, You don't go into any of the games flaws however. It does have them, every game does, and you review is a little more credible when you include them. Here's some I can think of...

1) The Problem of Online Patching: The game's online balance has gone to pot due to PvP balance issues, hence some classes have become nearly useless in PvM and the game is occasionally not fun anymore because of it. It's a negative shift which ignores one of the things that makes Diablo so much fun... Killing Tons of Monsters at a time.

2) Uneven Difficulty Curve: In places the game is heavily weighted towards Online Co-op play, and this harms offline play as certain areas are head smashingly hard at times and may drive you to quit the game. As well, Henchmen are useless and get killed very quickly.

3) Randomness: The game is VERY random, drops are very random, dungeons are random, enemy placement is random, it makes for some interesting times.

4) XP Loss when killed: You lose XP when you die, it can be frustrating when game lag kills you when you're THIS close to Level 99 and now you need to sink in another 10 hours to get back to where you were before.

1) Yes and no. Yes because melee paladins and barbarians are a lot harder to play in PvM, there are new classes like I threw up in the mini-guide that are far more capable in PvM.

2) Gloams. Agreed. Mercenaries? Different classes can use them, but you gotta be smart with em. Summoning Necros = Might and use life tap to keep em alive. Sorc can use a Holy freeze one. Melee characters can get an act 3 that uses cold, since they are casters and tend to stay back. Sorcs and Amazons can also use act 5 barbarians and just make sure to give them tons of life leech on their weapon and gear since they make the best defensive ones.

3) I'm hoping for one last patch that just increases the drops on all the goodies once Diablo 3 gets close. There is no reason for runes and uniques to be as rare as they are now. Back when millions or more played, I can understand, but now? Let the good times (and items) flow Bliz? Please?

4) Yah that sucks, but that's an archaic design from way back when. It really only hurts the power gamer and I think you only start to lose XP when you get to Hell difficulty or it scales with level. Obviously at 98 it sucks more than 5.

Always did like Diablo II, but I always felt it was flawed in quite a few respects. Didn't stop me playing, though. Great review, well-written, great layout. Success!

Note: Link should work now, guys. Sorry about that.

TheKbob:

There are some things that Diablo 2 could be docked for... the loot grinding, a questionable level design during some acts (three comes to mind...)

Agreed so frigging much. if it wasn't for the fact i was under the affect of alcohol and a sheer determination to finish act III before i passed out i would have never finished it.

Holy Moley, that commadomancer thing is amazing! my level 53 necromancer is pretty crap, i find skele warriors kind of useless because mine die in seconds, i use mages, fire golem and revives. I am going to go make a new guy ^^
Thanks for that.

yes D2 is awesome but im more amazed that sunny D is your favorite drink

Smyter:
yes D2 is awesome but im more amazed that sunny D is your favorite drink

Fun Fact:

Captain Morgans and Sunkist mixed just right tastes like a liquid Dream Bar.

;)

TheKbob:

Smyter:
yes D2 is awesome but im more amazed that sunny D is your favorite drink

Fun Fact:

Captain Morgans and Sunkist mixed just right tastes like a liquid Dream Bar.

;)

the the liquor barn then the mini mart

Diablo II was praised by many for its randomly generated dungeons/levels, one of the things that I liked about it.

snuffler:
Diablo II was praised by many for its randomly generated dungeons/levels, one of the things that I liked about it.

But the game is incredibly random, which is an important point to adress in a review as that sort of thing might not appeal to everyone.

My opinion of D2

I always hated that the shops were utterly useless after you hit act 5 or so. I had more money than Buddha; but it meant nothing.

Day 1 Bonemancer here (built one first time I laid eyes on the game years ago).

I only play non-battlenet for giggles really.
Currently mucking about with a ThrowBarbie.

It's such a shame that even with all the synergies and stuff a Pikazon is still an invalid build. Same goes for Titan quest, somehow these games always include spear skills but when it comes down to it it's an inferior choice.

Vortigar:
Day 1 Bonemancer here (built one first time I laid eyes on the game years ago).

I only play non-battlenet for giggles really.
Currently mucking about with a ThrowBarbie.

It's such a shame that even with all the synergies and stuff a Pikazon is still an invalid build. Same goes for Titan quest, somehow these games always include spear skills but when it comes down to it it's an inferior choice.

The realization is that the Spear, as a weapon, only works in formation fighting or mounted combat. It's too large to be useful in CQC. The only viable pike options in Diablo 2 are Chargadins, Were-Druids, or Whirlwind Barbarians. I have made successful versions of each. The Pikazon just blows all the time, though.

Yeah, Diablo 2 was good times. Too bad I think it's gonna be the high point of the series. Im seriously concerned about the way Blizzard is handling the development of D3. And for-god-sakes give me some better characters than the Barbarian (again) and the witch doctor (basically the bastard son of a nerco and a druid).

Goenitz:
... and the witch doctor (basically the bastard son of a nerco and a druid).

Well... I loved Necromancers and Druids and remember much rivalry between necros and druids (for fun) on the Diabloii.net forums. Oh great times during my high school years of forum pranks and jokes, lol.

Necro + Druid = Win, to me. So there is someone.

Your praise for D2 is resounded in my first two years playing the game, and then my first and last ten minutes after taking a long break from it.

The game stops being exciting without a great community and I'm afraid all of my friends have moved on. Pubbing and endless PvP's get boring, especially when I have a foolproof (muahaha) Barb strategy.

And dude, I started out with a Frenzied Barbarian as the ultimate punish0r of d00m. Leap Attack-Frenzy-Whirlwind-Whirlwind-Frenzy-win is how most things go. Try it. It's easy.

A Concentrated Barbarian was easily my second build and he turned out fine as well. Same sequence: Leap Attack-Concentration-Berserk-Concentration-Whirlwind-pwned.

Always specialized in swords; this is extremely useful as it always gives the possibility of carrying a shield, dual-wielding, or two-handing.

---

My Boned Necromancer (dirty bastard; likes it up the arse) did it all in PvP except against Amazons. Those cunts.

Kiko, thanks to a bug with minions (revives) and teleport, I could make my commandomancer immune to all sorcs and trap assassins because of the stack order upon teleporting. Plus, with all the skeletons, I could pretty much rock anyone that didn't use focus attacks.

Also, my Werewolf Druid has about 25K+ AR, 10k+ Health, but only about 1K damage. It didn't matter, though, because I used the life tap gloves (and didn't care) + a 4 Shael'd Set Caduceus which gave me an incredible attack speed. I buffed up my run/walk charms and got loads of life charms and had awesome war cry gear to get me the most health. I could easily chase down sorcs that teleported and killed many with... you guessed it, block/hit lock. Best of all, he was STUPID cheap to make.

I loved coming up with kookie builds that destroyed awesome geared people with silly tactics :P

I cannot wait for that pleasure again in Diablo 3. I just hope they realize if they make runewords, they either need to squash duping flat or just make the runes drop a lot more to make it fair to everyone. I think at the end game at higher levels, the items should be a bit easier to get to make the PvMers happy and make the PVP grounds about skills and tactics and less about gear.

TheKbob:

I loved coming up with kookie builds that destroyed awesome geared people with silly tactics :P

... I think at the end game at higher levels, the items should be a bit easier to get to make the PvMers happy and make the PVP grounds about skills and tactics and less about gear.

D3 is definitely a game I'm waiting for. I'll meet you on the field? :)

I agree about the gear thing. I had a Salvation/Defiance Smitadin who had decked out armor and was seriously hard to hit for most cases, and survived most Sorc's easily. I used Charge a lot to get in close quickly. Of course, block-rate had to be maxed out. Since Smite ignored defense and was fast as hell, he was extremely successful; plus Pally shields are practically weapons tailored for that build, with naturally high block rate. While that's cool, it made my easy-to-build Paladin poonage in a box. Too successful, some might say. He was the answer to Amazons that my Necro never had :P

On the Bonemancer, I don't think it was patched, that if you clicked on the very edge of the screen AT the person with Bone Spirit (the homing one), they have a chance to be invisible to the other person due to some coding issue, which could be a way to get those annyoing amazons... They tend to stand and shoot when they think they don't have to move ;)

You should go uber classic and play Diablo 1.

TheKbob:

Goenitz:
... and the witch doctor (basically the bastard son of a nerco and a druid).

Well... I loved Necromancers and Druids and remember much rivalry between necros and druids (for fun) on the Diabloii.net forums. Oh great times during my high school years of forum pranks and jokes, lol.

Necro + Druid = Win, to me. So there is someone.

Necro's own max out summons u get rich and u dont have to do any work :D

TheKbob:

Also, my Werewolf Druid has about 25K+ AR, 10k+ Health, but only about 1K damage. It didn't matter, though, because I used the life tap gloves (and didn't care) + a 4 Shael'd Set Caduceus which gave me an incredible attack speed. I buffed up my run/walk charms and got loads of life charms and had awesome war cry gear to get me the most health. I could easily chase down sorcs that teleported and killed many with... you guessed it, block/hit lock. Best of all, he was STUPID cheap to make.

I loved coming up with kookie builds that destroyed awesome geared people with silly tactics :P

My werewolf has the exact opposite problem: I do a shitload of damage, but not much else (Roughly 10k AR and 3-4k life).

Anyway, It is indeed a great game, the only problem I see with it is the monsters that are "Immune to X." This game should be easily playable and beatable by any single character if they wish to play alone, and the "Immune to Physical" monsters, while rare, are crippling to most non-funded physical-damage-based characters. I think if they want to make the game challenging, Blizzard should make Diablo 3's monsters have more resistance to general damage, but throw out immunities completely.

Diablo 2 is like the flu to me, every year or two it just pops back into my life and i start over again. Autum last year I had my latest infection but maybe i will feel the neet for the game another rime before 3 is unleashed.
One thing about diablo that might just be a personal preference but i say no other game of the genere (Titan Quest, Sacred and many others) don't get that awsome killnoise when you mow through your enemys. it is just a !thud! noise and the loot droping noises ading to it but even with a level 1 club wilding Druid it is such a satisfing thing. Every other game lacks of it and so it dosn't feel right and after the second goblin that "just" died you wish to be playing Diablo 2 instead.

Enigmers:

Anyway, It is indeed a great game, the only problem I see with it is the monsters that are "Immune to X." This game should be easily playable and beatable by any single character if they wish to play alone, and the "Immune to Physical" monsters, while rare, are crippling to most non-funded physical-damage-based characters. I think if they want to make the game challenging, Blizzard should make Diablo 3's monsters have more resistance to general damage, but throw out immunities completely.

I think these immunities where a genious idea. Sure i spend a lot of time cursing it but that idea made the game that much more chalenging. In hell you just had to be creative, rely on your friends or raise a mercinary. Its just awsome how you get to be an epic hero capable of slaugthering hundreds in seconds with powerfull spells and than to be shown your limitations in such a drastic way. I played all sorceress types once and they were probably the class to suffer most but so you had to be flexible. Newer games just make such mistakes of a boring difficulti curve; Sure they get to be darn difficult but all you need to do is to get better in what you already can do fine instead of truely adopting to a new chalenge.

Diablo II is a great game that will last a very long time and Hopefully DIII will live up to its name.

Dommyboy:

My opinion of D2

Get the expansion, then you can do endless pindle runs instead.