Some general questions I have about the game

Hey guys, first of all welcome to everyone who joined from the reddit post today Hope you like it here. Keep those bug reports and contributions coming in, absolutely loving it right now

Right so, I have a confession to make. I'm not actually a very good D2 player, like at all. I picked up the game when I was 12-13 I think and played it to hell and back again as I was growing up, but like, I never really got any better at the game Coming back I realise how much knowledge I was missing (and still AM missing) about the game's more nuanced mechanics and end-game strategy.

For example, I never did Ubers, like, ever. I don't think I've even ever seen one of those portals being opened up (besides moo moo and act changes). So I basically have no idea how they work. I remember there's a message that says 'X amount of Stone of Jordan something something' and that's what people need to start the fights. But like, the number was in the thousands or something crazy like that - how did people get all those Stone of jordan rings? Or am I just remembering it wrong? It's just mad looking back on it that I never tried to learn anything better than a cookie-cutter Hammerdin lol.

I also remember feeling really confused about how much stuff was worth. There seemed to be all of these sort of arcane rules about what X is worth for Y and stuff - I think I just didn't really understand the items well enough to know what they could be traded for. Do you guys remember any common Pattern to that, or like what a really typical and well known exchange would be? Or a list of them? I just find it really interesting and it's something I want to delve into more as a player - getting that really super high level gear and running Ubers and stuff.

Then there's stuff like people's strategy and why everyone 'rushed'. I understood that people did it to level up characters super quickly, but what I didn't understand was the motive behind it. Was it for farming SoJs or some other economic incentive something? Like why were so many people intent on creating dozens and dozens of new characters? I remember being very happy with like maybe 4 toons. Was I missing something here?

Lastly, never even ventured into PvP, apart from getting ganked once or twice on Bnet lol (I mostly played LAN with one other friend). Overheard a Discord conversation the other day about duelling and it sounds SO complicated, they were talking about locking the other characters 'frames' and stuff. Mental.

Anyway, if the more knowledgable among you can answer some of these really silly questions for me I'd be very pleased Who knows.. maybe I won't be the only one to learn something. Also it'd be cool if you guys want to share some of your memories of playing D2 for the first time. It's been 20 years since then so I think a lot of us are feeling very nostalgic for that general time in our lives.

One thing I'd say is:

Quest Bug Andy - small thing, but pays off greatly as you MF in the beginning. It ensures you get quest drops each time you kill her.

Ubers are from farming Keys, which you combine to farm Organs, which you combine to get to Uber Trist to fight the Ubers and get a Torch.

Annihilus comes from people selling Stone of Jordan to merchants. The supply for that is generally because Botting is a big thing.

Trading is super confusing. Without JSP and forum gold, everything is subjective. High Runes are commonly used to value items. Trading one very valuable unique or base could be worth a couple of high runes, which you can trade to get whatever else you're looking for. Even then though, it's very subjective and based on how bad do you want an item.

Personally, I hate rushing. I like playing through the game. That's why I've kept playing for so long. People like to rush characters so they can try to level faster in hell so they can get to the endgame faster. Some people want their mules to have access to Hell difficulty games. Mules are a big reason to create tons of characters and accounts on bnet. Gotta store all that sweet loot somewhere.

I don't have much experience with PvP, not much more than you.

@Teebling Once upon a time, in a far away Sanctuary... Nah, I'm just f**king with ya

Ubers or

Uber Tristram is a special zone that can be accessed only during the

Pandemonium Event. It is an exact copy of the destroyed

Tristram that is found in Act I.

The first step is to gather the 9 Keys (

Terror x3, Hate x3 and Destruction x3) required to open the first 3 red portals.

Key of Terror: These are dropped by

The Countess, who is located on the 5th level of

The Forgotten Tower in the

Black Marsh, Act I. She is commonly run for her rune drops, and will drop a

Key of Terror about 8% of the time she dies on Hell difficulty.

Key of Hate:

The Summoner drops this one. He's found at the end of one of the four points of

The Arcane Sanctuary, in Act II. He will only drop a

Key of Hate on Hell difficulty, and even then only every few games.

Key of Destruction:

Nihlathak sometimes drops this

Key, but only on Hell difficulty. He's found at one end of the four-pointed

Halls of Vaught, the lowest of the three Halls levels reached through

Anya's portal in

Harrogath, in Act V.


Opening the Red Portals

Once you have the keys, stand in

Harrogath, on Hell difficulty, place one of each in your

Horadric Cube and convert them. A red portal will open to one of three locations; the

Matron's Den, the

Forgotten Sands, or the

Furnace of Pain. Which portal opens first is random, but if you do all three in the same game you will not get the same one twice. For this reason, it's recommended that you have 9 keys to begin with, 3 of each type, so you can do them all in the same game. It's also recommended that you stand in different places so you'll spread out the three portals, so they don't overlap. You'll be adding a 4th red portal once you've completed these three, to

Uber Tristram, so save room.

Uber Tristram

To create a red

Portal to Uber Tristram, place

Diablo's Horn,

Baal's Eye and

Mephisto's Brain (all 3 which you collected from the previous 3 red portals Bosses) in the

Horadric Cube, and transmute them while standing in

Harrogath in a Hell difficulty game. A red portal will open, the 4th in that area if you've done them all in the same game. It takes you to

Uber Tristram, where the real fun begins.

The main objective when the player reaches

Uber Tristram is to find and defeat

Uber Mephisto,

Uber Baal, and

Pandemonium Diablo.

Uber Mephisto has a

Conviction Aura, which causes -125% to all of your resists, and summons

Skeleton Mages and Archers everywhere, which can be challenging.

Pandemonium Diablo is a "tank" for

Baal. He has tons of life and summons Pit Lords which are immune to everything but Physical damage.

Uber Baal is pretty much the same as Hell

Baal. He has a little more life and summons Ghoul Lords and Ghosts, which are both Physical Immune.

Once you kill them, the last one to die will give you the

Hellfire Torch and the

Standard of Heroes. The

Standard of Heroes is a symbol that shows that you have completed this quest successfully (and not completely useless at all!).


Seeing the messages of Stone of Jordan being sold to the merchants related...
Uber Diablo or

Diablo Clone is a monster that spawns only on Hell Ladder games on Battle.net when a certain number of Stone of Jordan rings are sold to merchants. A notification is displayed on-screen whenever a Stone of Jordan is sold, indicating the number that has been sold. Once a certain number of these rings are sold (the exact number is unclear, but it is generally believed to range from 75-150), the whole screen shakes and the words "Diablo Walks the Earth" appear on the screen. This message means that Uber Diablo has spawned. He will spawn at the first Super Unique monster you encounter. So you can basically choose the location to fight Uber Diablo by selecting which Super Unique you want him to replace. He is similar in appearance to Hell Diablo and is a formidable challenge. When killed, Uber Diablo drops the

Annihilus.


Price Checking.
Very tough topic. Will be even tougher without the Bots/Hacks. All I can say is that Early Ladder things tend to worth more and "usually"

Ist is the Rune to go to for Trading purposes. There's no exact science, really. Softcore/Hardcore/Ladder/Non-Ladder will also affect the price.


Rushing...
No one [let me rephrase that], some people don't like to do the full story 3 times per character, multiple times per Ladder. What they like to do is having multiple characters with different purposes. Maybe 1 for Magic Find, maybe another for Ubers, or another one for PvP, maybe just one more to push Level 99, there's plenty of reasons.


PvP
Not my thing since I play Hardcore Ladder only, so I don't know much about it.

Wow, some great responses guys.

Shoresy wrote: 3 years ago

One thing I'd say is:

Quest Bug Andy - small thing, but pays off greatly as you MF in the beginning. It ensures you get quest drops each time you kill her.

By quest drops what do you mean exactly?

Stormlash wrote: 3 years ago

Ubers or

Uber Tristram is a special zone that can be accessed only during the

Pandemonium Event. It is an exact copy of the destroyed

Tristram that is found in Act I.

Wow, is there like a screenshot of it? I've never even been there before.

By the way, thanks so much for your post @

Stormlash - that was brimming with the juicy details.

Stormlash wrote: 3 years ago

When killed, Uber Diablo drops the

Annihilus.

Besides the profile flair and Annhilus is there any other reason people beat Uber Diablo? Or is it just for the sheer challenge

Stormlash wrote: 3 years ago

Price Checking.
Very tough topic. Will be even tougher without the Bots/Hacks. All I can say is that Early Ladder things tend to worth more and "usually"

Ist is the Rune to go to for Trading purposes. There's no exact science, really. Softcore/Hardcore/Ladder/Non-Ladder will also affect the price.

Arsteel wrote: 3 years ago

Trading is super confusing. Without JSP and forum gold, everything is subjective. High Runes are commonly used to value items. Trading one very valuable unique or base could be worth a couple of high runes, which you can trade to get whatever else you're looking for. Even then though, it's very subjective and based on how bad do you want an item.

In a way it's almost like something authentic will be lost from Diablo 2 in that respect. Sure the bots got on everyone's nerves right but like if they were so influential on the game's trading system and shaped the value of certain items that'll be one 'change' in it's own way. Will be really interesting to see how it plays out in Resurrected as you say when the supply for these items isn't perhaps as high.

Arsteel wrote: 3 years ago

Some people want their mules to have access to Hell difficulty games. Mules are a big reason to create tons of characters and accounts on bnet. Gotta store all that sweet loot somewhere.

Oh man I'm such a noob, of course I forgot how mules were a big thing!

@Teebling

Wow, is there like a screenshot of it? I've never even been there before.

Besides the profile flair and Annhilus is there any other reason people beat Uber Diablo? Or is it just for the sheer challenge

'Cuz it's fun! And rare!
Maybe not on D2R, we'll see what they come up with.

This post touches home for sure. This accurately depicts my return as well. I was young and played for a long long time but never grasped it in a way that you can as an adult with many experiences under your

Belt.

Thanks for posting this Teebs cause the replies are answers for me as well hahaah.

@

Stormlash with the map THANKS! and the plethora of other info.

@Shoresy I started watching peoples D2 youtubes almost a week ago and this was one of the things that came up, thank you!

@Arsteel wtf is forum gold.

Forum gold is a digital currency you can trade for items in Diablo 2 on jsp. It makes the transfer between items much more seamless on the open market.

Oh man for you guys that haven’t PVP’d before it’s pretty fun! I always considered PVP the real end game in D2.

This is where you really tweak your high level character, min/maxing every stat to win that barb v barb

Whirlwind duel, or pally v pally

Smite duel. Or just free for all 8 player matches where you test your skills against a variety of builds and opponents.

I have a lot of memories of PVP even from 15+ years ago. Running back and forth to the stash to equip resist gear for that one annoying sorc.

It’s also quite a bit more fun while Enigma is rare and everyone can’t tele around. Where paladins actually use

Charge and

Vigor haha.

Definitely worth diving into if you’re looking to take a break from the grind, even low level duels can be a blast.

Madman wrote: 3 years ago

Oh man for you guys that haven’t PVP’d before it’s pretty fun! I always considered PVP the real end game in D2.

This is where you really tweak your high level character, min/maxing every stat to win that barb v barb

Whirlwind duel, or pally v pally

Smite duel. Or just free for all 8 player matches where you test your skills against a variety of builds and opponents.

I have a lot of memories of PVP even from 15+ years ago. Running back and forth to the stash to equip resist gear for that one annoying sorc.

It’s also quite a bit more fun while Enigma is rare and everyone can’t tele around. Where paladins actually use

Charge and

Vigor haha.

Definitely worth diving into if you’re looking to take a break from the grind, even low level duels can be a blast.

Nice, the only PVP I have in D2 is open bnet, and we know what thats like. So how do the mechanics work for softcore when you die? I've watched about the 15 body count and the addition of a / command but dont know the gameplay aspect of it. I could yougle it but ya know....conversation sake.

@Teebling Quest drops make sure you won't get any White items,

Arrows/

Bolts, potions, or any other "trash" from the drop.

Greatly increases the chances of good drops, since those are removed from the loot pool.

To spawn

Diablo Clone, the SoJ's needed to be sold on a particular server. There was a way (a website IIRC) to see which server is close to spawn the clone. They (as a group) would create games until they knew they're on the correct server (I think this, too, required some rather shady 3rd party program), and when they were set, they'd sell the last missing SoJs and thus spawn the clone on all games currently hosted by that server. Tbh I'm really curious to see how they're going to implement the

Diablo Clone spawning in D2R, since the server system is going to be entirely different now and botting (= getting tons of SoJs easily) won't be a thing, at least in the same magnitude as back in the day. (I only saw the

Diablo Clone spawn once, and thanks to a friend I made a week earlier, was able to get a smiter to the game to kill the clone for me. The feeling of seeing

Annihilus drop and looting it was almost like losing virginity, awesome and frightening at the same time!)

Pricing gear isn't exact science and if I'd get a valuable drop (let's say a socketed superior

Eth item base, or a rare

Diadem with crazy stats), I'd consult some friends ingame / forums to determine the rough worth before selling it. Ofc certain commonly needed uniques will find their value quite fast, I suppose

Shako for example will be somewhere between

Um and

Ist after the first weeks of D2R release. Also the relative values of high runes is largely determined by their rarity and usefulness and will remain somewhat constant,

Ber and

Jah being the most sought-after and thus most valuable runes.

One reason to rush more and more characters to hell is to do

The Hellforge quest repeatedly and receive valuable runes constantly. Ofc, whenever you create a new character you'll propably want to get to hell asap, since the game practically begins after NM. No point wasting leveling in norm or NM if you've already "completed" the game with dozens of characters, hence the rushing.

PvP is its own world entirely, requiring you to design and prepare for different types of enemies, with different breakpoints (ias, fhr, fbr etc) being extremely important (frame locking refers to you being able to hit someone faster than they can recover from it, rendering them unable to do anything but tanking your hits with their face and ultimately dying). Needless to say, to really thrive in PvP, you need extremely expensive gears (5-5 facets, life skillers etc), and since PvP builds often are very ineffective in general PvM, you must have the correct mindset, tons of time and dedication to shine in the PvP charts. For some, this is D2 at its best, for most, too time consuming or uninteresting to ever get involved into.

@Teebling Something you might for to research for farming purposes is TC (Treasure Class).
It does however require you to study it a bit, since imo, it can be quite a lot of information to take in.