Diablo 2 Lord Of Destruction FAQ

Why the #$*!!! Do I keep on dying in Hell Difficulty? V.1.01
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 permissionI cant write those legal jargon companies do so well 
;)

BEGINNERS 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 skill information, if you want info on that go check 
the other 50 faqs.

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

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.)
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 SOJs and 
a Leaf rune word J. level 50ish is OK to enter hell.  Level 40s 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 its a good bet when you run into a Carver 
Shaman or a Light. Enchanted boss youre 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 its a REALLY slim chance.
4.  You dont 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 cant win the war for you, it can sure cut some weight off your 
shoulder.  Lets 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 hirelings 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 isnt.  I guess I will get to the chase, go into some character 
specifics

***BARBARIAN***
All right, you think youre tough and all that, you got a meaty 150+ weapon 
backed up by weapon mastery, with some Battle Ordersya, life was easy in 
Nightmare.  Well its not the same anymore, buddy.  Its called PHYSICAL 
IMMUNE.  Physical immune screws over your leap attack, whirlwind, frenzyOh 
no!  What shall our hero do??  Dont 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 DOESNT count as a physical attack, it 
counts as magical. 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 isnt 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 wont 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 youre really messed, if youre 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 dont be a big coward.  
Youre a Barbarian!  Dont be afraid to die once or twice.  Show that youre 
willing to commit as a party member.  This usually applies with everybody, 
dont be a leacher/slacker.

Other things that most common barbs fail to do:
-If youre 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.
-Dont 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 theres 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.  Youve got a set plan 
involving a certain aura and combat skill and youre chewing up monsters.  
Thats 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.  Thats 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 
dont 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 youre 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 
lightning enchanted monsters.
-Redemption is a good skill when you are low on potions.

HOW TO BE POPULAR WITH YOUR PARTY MEMBERS:

Fanaticism will make you popular with almost all the classes except for 
sorceress and necromancer.  Keep Fanat online as much as possible.  
Conviction will help the others a little bit, the sorceress the most, but 
not by much.  Meditation makes you popular with spellcasters.


***SORCERESS***

Two Words: Too Easy.  Its a good bet you started Hell at mid-40s.  Well, 
is it easy in Hell too?  Its not difficult for a Sorceress, but you will 
have to play a wee bit tougher this time.  Your main problems will be the 
elemental immunities, but if you got more than one element as your attack, 
you should be okunless under the uncommon situation where you face a unique 
monster with 2 or more immunitiesin that case, youre out of luckhave a 
party member handle it, or if your hireling is up to it, have him/her take 
it on!  BTW, you should be having a Barbarian hireling, they are the best 
hirelings for a Sorceressand those guys aint no pushovers.  Another threat 
is the fact that in Hell you are very likely of dying even from one lousy 
hit, especially the lightning enchanted buggersbe careful, and play safe!

HOW TO SURVIVE BETTER WITH THE SORCERESS IN HELL
1.  Dont be too aggressive.  You may feel that way when youre doing a lot 
of damage, but dont get carried away.  One wrong step and you could be 
fried.  Play it safe.  As the saying goes, better to be safe than sorry
2.  Get at least 2 elements ASAP.  If possible, find items that add to 
another elemental attack, or chargesif you dont youll have a hard time 
getting thru Hell
3.  Resistances are critical in Hell, especially for the Sorc who doesnt 
have much resistance to begin with anyway.  I suggest getting a good shield 
with maximum sockets and fill it with perfect diamonds.

HOW TO BE POPULAR WITH YOUR PARTY MEMBERS:
Unfortunately, Sorceresses are generally not very popular as a party member 
because people who play them are known to be rude and not very nice people.  
You can correct that, however.  Dont just stand off screen casting Hydra or 
Frozen Orb and then rush in at the last second to pick up all the dropsyou 
really didnt deserve it, the guy who was there meleeing with the monster 
deserved itbut if you thought that it was your outright contribution that 
defeated the monster then by all means go ahead.  Be productive.  Thats the 
bottom line.


***AMAZONS***

THE BOWAZON

Damage is extremely critical for bowazons, if you do not do enough damage 
you will not get through Hell at all.  The gap between act 5 nightmare and 
Act 1 hell is enormous.  If you barely got by Act 5 damage-wise, you will 
suffer a living Hell in, well, Hell.  Finding a good bow is your top 
priority, but be prepared to shell out your best items for them.  Windforce 
is an example of an ideal bow.  If you really cannot remedy this, hire an 
Act 2 hireling in Nightmare with Offensive Auras.  He will have Might, which 
will increase your damage somewhat.  The more you level him up the more 
powerful Might will be.  Train him in Nightmare to your level or at least 
level 60.  Be prepared to recast your Valkyrie many times, even just to 
reposition her.  Decoy is good as well; one point is all you need.  Physical 
Immunes are your greatest trouble, however a good-levelled Immolation Arrow 
will help.  Freezing arrow does too little damage and costs too much, so it 
is not an effective source of elemental damage.

HOW TO SURVIVE BETTER IN HELL WITH YOUR BOWAZON:
-Keep out of Range of melee monsters.
-Put more points into Valkyrie and recast her often as well as decoy.
-Slow Missiles help too.
-Boost your resistances.

SPEARAZON

No data for her yet, havent built one yet lol ;)

HOW TO BE POPULAR WITH YOUR PARTY MEMEBERS:
A Bowazon does not have many party-friendly skills except Inner Sight and 
Slow Missile.  Neither one is especially useful, although Slow Missile helps 
against those pesky Oblivion Mages.


***NECROMANCERS***

If you can actually make it this far in patch 1.09, I must offer you my 
deepest congratulations.  Knowing how much the Necromancer has been toned 
down with previous patches it is difficult to get into Hell alone.  And 
guess what: it doesnt get any easier.  In fact, its much worse.  There is a 
global 50% physical damage in Hell, which effects your best source of 
damage, the Revived (or at least they used to be;)) and Iron Maiden. Also 
Bone Spirit does not deal nearly enough damage in Hell, even if it is maxed 
out or even beyond level 20.  I suggest teaming up with other people

If youve got another type of Necromancer, youre still going to have a very 
tough time in Hell.  Poison spells have limited use even with Lower Resist.

***HOW TO BE POPULAR WITH YOUR PARTY MEMBERS***
People appreciate Necromancers mostly for their Revived Monsters.  Revived 
are excellent damage absorbers and make life MUCH easier for melee 
characters.  Try not to have 20 skeletons, not only are they not effective 
but they cause a lot of lag.  Lag is a bad thing!

***HOW TO SURVIVE BETTER IN HELL***
Wait for patch 1.10 lol J



5. DRUID AND ASSASSIN

The Druid and Assassin sections are not done yetI have a level 44 Werewolf 
Druid and a level 36 Assassin, neither one of them are good to make 
decisions onwhen I have time and information I need I will update the Druid 
and Assassin.


6. LARGEST THREATS TO YOU IN EACH ACT

ACT 1: Groups of Shamans (i.e. Bishibosh) especially with low fire 
resistances
Many Gargantuan Beasts, especially ones with Extra Strong and Cursed
Rakanishu
Lightning enchanted bosses
Andariel

ACT 2: Skeletons because you cannot leech mana or life off them
Radament and his horde
Scarab Demons
Blunderbores
Summoner because of his elemental attacks
Duriel

ACT 3: Many, many, flayer-type monsters including Fetish Shamans
Flame Spiders
Council Members
Blood Lords that cast Meteor
Zakarum Priests that use Blizzard
Thorned Hulk
Mephisto

ACT 4: Vile Mothers and their Childs
Gorebellies
Oblivion Mages and Warriors
Finger Mages
Willowisps
Diablo

ACT 5: Frenzied Ice Spawns and variations of them
Moon Lords
Minions of Destruction including Council Members, Shamans, Skeleton Group 
and Venom Lords
The Ancients
Frozenstein and his group
A lot of Demon Sprites

7. FINAL STATEMENTS

I hope this guide helped you a bit to survive in Hell better.  It is my 
first FAQ, and I will improve my FAQ skills with experience and trial-and 
error.  If you have any questions or constructive criticism email me at the 
address at the beginning of the FAQ.

Thanks to:
Me
The other FAQs I read at GameFaqs
Battle.net
Blizzard
Antonio Sistos, for my first update, thanks!

No thanks to:
My annoying brother
My parents
My Shift key which fails to work 50% of the time

Thanks, and happy hunting in Hell!

SupaTallgeese

OCTOBER 2001













"How can I catch her when the trees conspired to stop me?"
