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Diablo 2 Lord Of Destruction FAQ

Why the #$*!!! Do I keep on dying in Hell Difficulty? V.1.04
By: SupaTallgeese
E-Mail: nm486@hotmail.com
Created in October 5 2001

This FAQ is copyrighted by SupaTallgeese and cannot be copied by ANYBODY without my permission.I cant write those legal jargon companies do so well
;)

BEGINNER'S NOTE: This is my first FAQ, so bear with me, ill try to be as clear as possible and provide as much info as possible.

Ok, so as you all would know, this FAQ is designed to help you solve your
Hell Difficulty woes in Diablo: Lord of Destruction.  I will try to keep this FAQ somewhat general but I will go into character specifics for certain situations.  I will also assume that you know the very basics of Diablo 2.
I am not going to post specific skill information, if you want info on that go check the other 50 faqs on Gamefaqs.com.

VERSION CHANGES
1.01(October 31 2001)- Numbered the different sections.
-Added extra info(-resistance and global physical) to Section 1.

1.02(November 6 2001)- Added new Caster Druid report. (section 5)
-Added more monsters in Section 6.
-Added more Info in the Amazon Section re: Immolation Arrow vs. Freezing
Arrow
-Added new Section called Difficult Quests.  Replaces Final Statements for
Section 7 spot.

1.03(November 14 2001)-Added the MSLE Boss in Section 8.
-Small addition to Amazon Section in How to survive better in Hell
-Small addition to Sorceress Section in How to become popular.
-Small addition to Difficult Monsters and Quests: Act 4 Quest 3/Diablo

1.04(November 21 2001)-Added a new, and early version of Character Equips in
Section 9(unfinished).  Final Statements is now Section 10.
-A little bit more info on Baal (beating him, that is) in Section 7.
-Minor changes (mostly spelling and grammatical) here and there.

1.05(June 24 2002)-Whew!  It's been ages since I've updated this!  Anyway I thought I'd put this FAQ away a few months ago, but then I did get a few emails about a few things so I'll set it straight.
-Updated Necromancer section
-NEW character equip section (incomplete, and might stay that way if I don't have time)
-Miscellaneous changes that I forgot where they were


Ok, lets start, with some basic things:

1. THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR WHEN YOU ENTER HELL DIFFICULTY


-Monsters now have an immunity to at least one or more elements, including poison.
-Monster Levels are base level+66
-Unique Bosses and Super Uniques have 2 more modifications on them.
-Any special abilities they may have (i.e. charged bolts from lightning enchanted, Red Lightning, Fireball) are boosted by 7, so they do more damage and have more range, etc.
-You lose more exp(10%) and gold when you die in hell.
-Life Stealing and Mana Stealing are cut by half in Hell.
-Cold and Curse durations are reduced by 3/4 in Hell
-All resistances are -100%
-All monsters receive a global 50% physical resistance
-Life and Mana Steal are effectively reduced to 25% of your current percentage (lets say you steal 4% Life.  The 4% will be reduced by 25% in hell.)
-The super bugged, super powerful/impossibly powerful MSLE
(Multishot-Lightning Enchanted).  More into this later.
These are the most significant changes.


2. OK I KNOW THIS STUFF, CAN YOU TELL ME SOMETHING USEFUL?

Common Reasons why people die A LOT in hell:

1. You are too low of a level (by this I mean anywhere from lvl 40-50) if you are good, this means actual SKILL, good does not mean having 2 SOJ's and
a Leaf rune word J. level 50ish is OK to enter hell.  Level 40's will not survive long in Hell, especially the melee characters such as the barbarian and paladin.  Sorceresses may do decent in Hell but since they are so cheap and powerful im not surprised:)
2. Your resistances are REALLY bad.  By this I mean the negatives(-)  if you got really bad negatives then it's a good bet when you run into a Carver
Shaman or a Lightning Enchanted boss you're screwed.  Low negatives up to
-10 are not necessarily lethal, but as always try to get as high resistances as possible without sacrificing other areas.
3. Skill Points are put in all the wrong places.  This usually applies to first-timers.  If you have improper skill and stat placement then you are in trouble.  You may have a slim chance, but it's a REALLY slim chance.
4.  You don't play smart.  Playing smart is key, even if you have a less-than-average character build but you play smart, you could get by Hell with some difficulty.  I will go deeper into this later.
5. If you absolutely must insist on going into Hell low-level then please join an 8-player party

3. Uh-huh.

Another important factor in surviving Hell is your hireling.  While the hireling can't win the war for you, it can sure cut some weight off your shoulder.  Let's analyze the 4 different hirelings in depth, and how they will play into your game.

THE ROGUES OF SIGHTLESS EYE (a.k.a. the Archer) Found in Act 1
These pretty little girls use bows, not crossbows.  Keep that in mind when choosing a weapon for her.  The most important thing for her is Damage.
Find the strongest weapon you can find.  Ignore attack rating and other mods on the weapon for more damage.  As for other items, find weapons that contribute to Attack Rating, and for armour, find the highest defense armour you can find.  Other mods are a bonus.  How heavy an armour is (light, medium, heavy) does not affect her.  If possible, try to find items that add to strength and dexterity so that she can equip the best bows as soon as possible.  Keep her out of melee range, if that means you have to re-position yourself to do so, do it.  She does not have much life at all.
Another feature she has is Inner Sight, which highlights all enemies in a certain radius and decreases the monsters' defense.  She uses this often, even though she occasionally casts it twice in a row.  All in all, a good long-range fighter.  Barbarians, Paladins, Druids, Assassins and
Necromancers can use her help well.

DESERT MERCENARIES (a.k.a. the Aura-fighter) Found in Act 2
These men use Spear and Polearm-type weapons.  Choose the Spear weapons, because weapon speed does not affect the hireling's rate of attack.  You can achieve MASSIVE damage (well over 1000) with these guys, when equipped with
Pikes/Lances/War Pikes.  Another feature of these guys are the built-in auras.  Depending on which difficulty you hire them from, they can have
Prayer, Blessed Aim, Might, Thorns, Defiance, and Holy Freeze.  Be careful though, they do not have as much life as you think, and these guys can go down pretty fast sometimes.  Depending on what aura the merc you hired has, you can use him well.  For Barbarians, they can make good comrades just for the aura alone, might is good.  The auras make them usable by all classes.

IRONWOLVES (a.k.a. the Mage) Found in Act 3
These hirelings are useful because of their magic powers.  They come in three varieties, fire, cold, and ice.  They can only have one element.
While you equip them with one-handed swords and a shield, they rarely swing their sword if never so damage is no concern.  Find a "caster" sword for best effect, and prismatic shield with good caster mods is preferred as well.  They are generally weak with little life and defense, so try to avoid having them in a melee situation as much as possible.  Otherwise they are useful.  Melee characters will find the Ice mage very useful.  Necromancers should avoid Ice Mages because dead frozen monsters leave no corpses.

BARBARIANS (a.k.a the Warrior) Found in Act 5
These hirelings are the most versatile hireling warriors you can hire.  They use Swords, one handed or two handed makes no difference.  While they may not be able to beat the Mercenaries in final damage (Spears typically do more damage than swords), Barbarians have better attack skills, much more life, more defense, and barbarians have the most Strength and Dexterity averaged out, out of all hireling classes.  They last long and can hold their own well.  These warriors are optimal for Sorceresses, Necromancers, and Amazons, but any class can use a versatile melee fighter at their side.

4. Yawn, is this another boring, useless FAQ?

No it isn't.  I guess I will get to the chase, go into some character specifics.

***BARBARIAN***
All right, you think you're tough and all that, you got a meaty 150+ weapon backed up by weapon mastery, with some Battle Orders.ya, life was easy in
Nightmare.  Well its not the same anymore, buddy.  It's called PHYSICAL
IMMUNE.  Physical immune screws over your leap attack, whirlwind, frenzy.Oh no!  What shall our hero do??  Don't worry, blizzard is one step ahead of you: BESERK.  Know it well.  It will become one of your best friends in hell.  Why, you might ask?  Well it DOESN'T count as a physical attack, it counts as magical.  Beserk greatly adds to your attack rating, damage and speed, but at the cost of losing your defence for a very short period of time.  Beserk and War Cry are the only Barbarian remedies to physical immunes.  A few other worries for the Barbarian: Mana Burn.  This will totally screw over Whirlwind Barbs so bad it isn't funny.  What can you do?
Well, switch to normal attack, and if you score a hit, you will gain some mana.  What do you do next?  Well, unless you got high mana steal and really high dmg, you probably won't get enough for whirlwind.  Maybe not even Leap
Attack.  Try using bash.  Costs only 2 mana, does decent damage.  Its not going to be pretty, so have some super healing pots to back you up.  Or, if you're really messed, if you're in a party, get someone to help you out.

How to be Popular with your party members:
Use all the beneficial warcries on your party.  If you have all of them (shout, battle orders and battle command) use them in the following order:
BC, BO, and Shout.  Having more defense and more maximum mana and life makes everybody else happy.  Another thing to stay cool is don't be a big coward.
You're a Barbarian!  Don't be afraid to die once or twice.  Show that you're willing to commit as a party member.  This usually applies with everybody, don't be a leacher/slacker.

HOW TO SURVIVE BETTER WITH YOUR BARBARIAN IN HELL DIFFICULTY:
-If you're surrounded, use Howl.  Most newbs who think they are tough when they do good damage always never use some of the essential early skills.
Some can save your life.
-If you think that using Whirlwind through a large crowd may be dangerous to your health, drink a potion first, and then use whirlwind.  If you get hit during that time the potion will cover it for you.
-Don't solo in Hell unless you KNOW for certain that you can take them on.
If you run into a pack of champions or a unique with physical immune, well, you got no one to back you up.  This may sound contradictory with my earlier statement of not being a coward, but there's a fine line between bravery and stupidity.
-You are not invincible when you have a good damage weapon.


***PALADIN***

For the Paladin, things should be going ok so far.  You've got a set plan involving a certain aura and combat skill and you're chewing up monsters.
That's good, but things are going to change in Hell.

The Zealot Paladin

Zealot Paladins typically use Fanaticism and Zeal as their main left and right buttons.  They may have Fist of the Heavens too depending on how flexible you want to be, although FOH is not a necessity for a Zealot, considering that for a Zealot you do not raise energy at all because Zeal costs only 2.  Firstly a Zealot will notice he will do considerably less damage even with Fanat.  That's ok, but keep in mind that Zealots will end up doing less damage than a Barbarian considering that your only constant source of damage boost comes from Fanat, which is limited, and whatever else on your weapons and other items.  Your main priority in Hell is to seek an excellent one-handed weapon (i.e. ancient sword and above) or any elite one handed, rare/unique/set are fine. Imbue one of these weapons too if you don't have any luck trading for one. Make sure the weapon does a lot of damage and has a good damage modifier (100-200+%).  Damage will be your main concern when it comes to weapons.  (duh!) If you're using a two-handed weapon damage is less of a concern but you may notice that your resistances are suffering.  If you find that elemental damage is killing you constantly, consider switching to a Shield with sockets to boost your resistances.  Try to get the maximum number before socketing the shield with perfect Diamonds.

The Avenger Paladin

Avengers use Vengeance and Conviction.  They also should have FOH to deal with crowd control from a long distance and then mop everything up with vengeance.  Monsters in Hell have more resistances so you will notice your damage reduced a bit. Increase vengeance/conviction as necessary.  Your best weapon EVER will probably be the Lightsabre, perfect for the Avenger.  These babies are worth a lot, though, so be prepared to cough up the good stuff for it.  Other good weapons are ok, but your ultimate goal is for
Lightsabre.  Repeat after me.  Anyway, physical immunes and elemental immunes wont be too much of a problem because most of your damage comes from elemental which screws over physical immune, and you deal 3 types of elemental damage so losing one element wont completely kill you.

HOW TO SURVIVE BETTER WITH THE PALADIN IN HELL DIFFICULTY:
-Invest at least one point into Salvation.  The initial resistances boost will help you a lot when it comes to elemental-heavy monsters, especially