The complete overview guide to shopping in Diablo 2 by Hastmannen

The complete overview guide to shopping in Diablo 2 by Hastmannen
Compiled by Fellowship

What this guide contains

Introduction

What this guide contains

Basic facts about Shopping

How do I shop?

End-Game Items Worth shopping

Ladder-Reset Items Worth shopping

Help me develop this guide

Thanks and Credits - contact me

Basic Facts about Shopping

Terms to know about

ilvl = itemlevel

clvl= characterlevel

alvl= affixlevel

qlvl= quality lvl

- You cannot shop Ethereal ( Eth) items.

- The ilvl (itemlevel) of items presented is clvl (characterlevel) + 5. This means that if you are characterlevel 10, items will be itemlvl 15, if you are characterlevel 15, itemlvl will be 20 and so on. Nothing weird.

- This isn't always true though, in normal difficulty there is a Cap of ilvls being shopped for all separate acts.

Act 1 normal has an ilvl Cap of 12

Act 2 normal has an ilvl Cap of 20

Act 3 normal has an ilvl Cap of 25

Act 4 normal has an ilvl Cap of 36

Act 5 normal has an ilvl Cap of 45

- Furthermore, vendors sell normal and socketed items up until ilvl 25+ (clvl 20+). This means that A1 and A2 normal always only sell normal / socketed items. After ilvl 25 vendors only sell magic items and no longer normal or socketed quality.

- If another player is in town, the shopping window won't update, even though you are exiting in and out of town.

- Different item types have different ilvl-requirements for the same affixes. What differs is the qlvl. For exampel, a regular Sash requires ilvl 51 to reach alvl 50, while a Vampirefang Belt requires ilvl 75 to reach the alvl 50. This however can easily be counted out by using: https://diablo3.ingame.de/diablodb/affi ... &patch=111

- Items sold by vendors are generally of normal quality, but beginning from Nightmare and ilvl 25 there is a chance they will be sold as exceptional quality, and from hell and on there is a small chance they will be sold with elite quality. Note though, that this rule doesn't apply to all vendors always. For example, Charsi in hell cannot sell any items of exceptional quality nor of elite quality, and no Elite Items can be shopped in A1 / A2 hell. Elite items can first spawn in A3 Hell. In order to determine what vendor can sell what quality and at what chance, use shopping calculator at http://members.iinet.net.au/~dcarson/shopcalc.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20170503170 ... pcalc.html

- Too complicate matters further, each vendor has specific normal quality items with tags called "nightmare upgrade" in nightmare, and in hell, "hell upgrade". These normal quality items with "nightmare upgrade" tag or "hell upgrade" tag will replace other normal quality items in that respective difficult. Items with "hell upgrade" tag are not eligible to exist with as exceptional or elite quality, which makes a lot of items never appear in the shop as their exceptional or elite quality version.

- A further rule to consider is that items will only appear when the qlvl of the item type is less than or equal to the ilvl of the shopped items (which is your character level + 5). So, for instance, Charsi in Normal difficulty can sell Ring Mail. But since the qlvl of Ring Mail is 11, you won't see any in her trade window until your character hits level 6.
How do I shop?

Depending on which npc you need to shop at, you can use several different strategies. For every npc in A1 you can use the Portal to the Secret Cow Level for quicker and easier entry in and out of town. Simply open the portal as near your preferred NPC as possible and go in and out of the portal. This same strategy can be used in A5, while using the portal to mini-ubers. Open the portal wherever you want to the npc you will shop from.

Otherwise, you simply have to determine which is fastest - running in and out of town opening or using the waypoint back and forth, or open a Town Portal and run in and out and open a new portal. For A2 and A1 , the design of the entry to town changes, and you can restart your game to get the preferred opening. For a1 though, cow portal is always faster.
End-Game Items worth shopping

This part of the guide will not include items good for LLD as that is a completely separate post, as well as items to buy for speedrunning, and other related ventures. This guide is both for PoD and Diablo 2, which means some items will be more or less useless in PoD, However, I will write that up. Remember, all chars can shop all items, so don't think you can't shop items just because they are class-specific.


** = Lowest possible lvl for to get affix(es)

*** = Recommended lvl of shopping

**** = Highest possible lvl breakpoint for highest possible affix

(Bad at shopping)= I added the (bad at shopping) to just show you shouldn't hunt these items actively, but lets say you are boosting a friend and need repair / pots whatever at said NPCS. Check if they have any of the items listen here, then move in. Usually its only 1-2 of those items in shopping window with pretty rare affixes, making it non-time efficient to hunt for them actively.

(Not for PoD)= Items that are good in vanilla, but bad in PoD.

Weapons for all Chars

Item (Weapon) Vendor Clvl req for shopping
Weapon of Life Tap ( Wand/daggers) Malah Hell, Drognan Hell 19**, 78***, 91****
Weapon of Lower Resist ( Wand/daggers) Malah Hell, Drognan Hell 30**, 71***, 94****
Weapon of Poison Dagger ( Dagger) Malah Hell, Drognan Hell 7*, 78***, 89****
Weapon of Weaken ( Wand/daggers) Malah Hell, Drognan Hell 7**, 78***, 89****
Weapon of Confusion ( Wand/daggers) Malah Hell, Drognan Hell 19**, 78***, 91****
Weapon of Telekinesis (staff, Scepter) Drognan Hell 19**, 78***, 89****
Weapon of Teleportation (staff) Drognan Hell 19**, 78***, 91****
Edge Runeword Base (bow/ Crossbow) Charsi Normal 1**
Black Runeword base ( Mace, Flail) Fara Normal 1**
Leaf runeword Base (staves), +3 firebolt/+3 Fireball/+3 enflame Drognan Normal, Akara Normal 1-13**
Crafting Blood Weapon, military picks Gheed Nm 54* 70** and craft at the same lvl (70 at least)

Armors for all chars

Item (Armor) Vendor clvlreq for shopping
Belt (any Belt) - Serpents / cobalt/jade/garnet/coral Belt of the whale (+20mana or +30 to a resist +100 life) Elsix Nm 65**(***)
Crafting casterbelt base ( Light Belt, Sharkskin Belt) Elsix Nm 20**, 72*** for lightbelt, 83*** for Sharkskin Belt (and craft at the same lvl)
Crafting Bloodgloves base ( Heavy Gloves, Sharkskin Gloves) Charsi Nm ( Heavy Gloves), Gheed Nm ( Sharkskin Gloves) 20** 69-72*** for Heavy Gloves, 76-77*** for Sharkskin Gloves (and craft at the lvls)
Crafting Hitpower Gloves base ( Chain Gloves, Heavy Bracers) Gheed Nm ( Chain Gloves), Fara Nm (heavy bracer) 20**, 69-71*** for Chain Gloves, 77-78 for Heavy Bracers (and craft at the same lvl).

Class-specific Items

Assassin


Item (Assassin) Vendor Clvlreq for shopping
Cunning Claws of quickness ( Claws) (+3 traps, +40 ias), (+3 Lightning Sentry / +3 Wake of Fire / +3 Blade Shield / +3 Blade throw ) Anya Hell, 75**, (Higher Equals better)


Amazon


Item (Amazon) Vendor Clvlreq for shopping
Lancer's Javelin of quickness ( Javelin), (+3 Javelin and Spear skills, +40 ias) Malah Nm/Hell 75**
Archers gloves of alacrity (gloves) (+3 bow and crossobow skills +20 ias) Charsi Hell, Anya Nm/Hell 55**, 68-74 Charsi hell, 75+ Anya Nm/Hell
Lancer's gloves of alacrity (gloves) (+3 Javelin and Spear skills +20 ias) Charsi Hell Anya Nm/Hell 55**, 68-74 Charsi Hell, 75+ Anya Nm/Hell


Barb


Item (Barb) Vendor Clvlreq for shopping
Echoing Weapon (Bo-stick) Charsi Nm, Malah Nm, Anya Nm , Larzuk Nm 55**, 75***


Druid


Item (Druid) Vendor Clvlreq for shopping
Gaean Club of xx (+3 elemental skills + xx) (Bad at shopping) Gheed Nm, Charsi Nm 55** 71***
Keepers Club of xx (+3 summoning skills + xx) (Bad at shopping) Gheed Nm, Charsi Nm 55** 71***

Necromancer


Item (Necromancer) Vendor Clvlreq for shopping
White runeword base, any non-magic Wand with +3 Bone Spear/ +3 desecrate / Corpse Explosion (can only be item type Bone Wand or Grim Wand, neither Wand nor Yew Wand get 2 sockets from Larzuk). Drognan Normal 13**


Sorceress


Item (Sorceress) Vendor Clvlreq for shopping

Paladin


Item (Paladin) Vendor Clvlreq for shopping
Rose branded Scepter of the apprentice (+3 combat skills + 10 fcr) +3 Holy Bolt / +3 Fist of the Heavens Drognan Nm/Hell, Malah Nm/Hell 55** 65*** for Hell Drognan, 75*** for Nm Drognan, and Nm and Hell Malah
Marshal's Scepter of the (xx) (+3 Offensive auras, +3 Sanctuary) Drognan nm/Hell, Malah Nm/Hell 55** 65*** for Hell Drognan, 75*** for Nm Drognan, and Nm and Hell Malah

Ladder Reset Items

Weapons
Leaf runeword Base (staves), +3 firebolt/+3 Fireball/+3 enflame Drognan Normal, Akara Normal 1-13**
Steel runeword base ( Flail) Fara Normal
Malice Runeword Base


Armors
Ancients pledge runeword base ( Large Shield) Fara Normal
Stealth Runeword base (2os body armor)
2-3os Great Helm
2-3os Crown
2-3os Mask
Plated Belt +30 or more life

Is there a way to disable the automatic linking of things? For example, when talking about level cap, it keeps showing a Cap, which is distracting/hard to read.

Edit: Trying Teebling's method on the first word " Cap" above. It works!

m00 wrote: 4 years ago

Is there a way to disable the automatic linking of things? For example, when talking about level Cap, it keeps showing a Cap, which is distracting/hard to read.

Yes, use around words or sentences you don't want linked.

Teebling wrote: 4 years ago

m00 wrote: 4 years ago

Is there a way to disable the automatic linking of things? For example, when talking about level Cap, it keeps showing a Cap, which is distracting/hard to read.

Yes, use around words or sentences you don't want linked.

Lol i was wondering this exact thing but didn't think it was possible. sweet.

Teebling wrote: 4 years ago

m00 wrote: 4 years ago

Is there a way to disable the automatic linking of things? For example, when talking about level Cap, it keeps showing a Cap, which is distracting/hard to read.

Yes, use around words or sentences you don't want linked.

That worked, thank you!
I looked for this in the editor, even in the "advanced" section, and didn't see it. I am liking the linking by default though. Most of the time, it works great.
I also find it funny how many times might is linked. "I don't want to Confuse you, but I am feeling a Hunger, and might to go the pizza shop later."

m00 wrote: 4 years ago

I also find it funny how many times Might is linked. "I don't want to Confuse you, but I am feeling a Hunger, and Might to go the pizza shop later."

You've given me an idea...

I have seen that idea manifested.

I realize this is an old post but I've been trying to find, unsuccessfully, a list/calculator for item prices in shops. For example I'd love to know what a 2socket +3 Fireball & +3 Warmth would cost before I take the 10+ minutes to finally find it in the shop menu only to not have enough money because I though 50k would be enough.

insanebadger wrote: 1 year ago

I realize this is an old post but I've been trying to find, unsuccessfully, a list/calculator for item prices in shops. For example I'd love to know what a 2socket +3 Fireball & +3 Warmth would cost before I take the 10+ minutes to finally find it in the shop menu only to not have enough money because I though 50k would be enough.

When looking at orbs for your desired one in the vendor, did you not notice the price of the other ones and see they regularly go for >300k?