Beginner Guide

Be Efficient

• Baal Runs are a very common activity to do in Diablo 2. Someone needs to get the Throne of Destruction area up for everyone to join in. During this time you can use this time efficiently by killing Eldritch The Rectifier, Shenk The Overseer, and Pindleskin while waiting for the Throne of Destruction Town Portal to open.
• Town is your enemy. - "Town is Lava!'

Buff Order

• Buff with Battle Command 2 times then Battle Orders and other Skills. This gives more duration to Battle Command. Casting Battle Command first boosts the levels of all the Skills and Abilities.

Change up your Auras

• While in group play it can be helpful to use different Auras on Mercenaries adding more buffs to your group.
  • Example: One Character can have the holyfreeze Act 2 Mercenary, another can have blessedaim, and another could have prayer so you all get as many buffs as possible. This becomes even more useful when your Mercenaries equip Aura granting items like pride for [/d2planner-skill]concentration[/d2planner-skill] Aura.

Fast Potion Buying

• Fast Potion buying in D2R works for PC by holding the Enter key down and spamming Left Click. You can also unequip and reequip your belt after buying potions with Shift + Left Click.

Gambling

• Use Reduces all Vendor Prices x% for gambling. Gheeds Fortune and edge combined can give you a grand total of 30% off!

Kiting

• Kiting is a term used across gaming in general. The concept is getting the enemy's attention, running away from them as they follow you while either doing damage or moving them away from a specific area.

Long Distance Teleporting

• UI Teleporting also known as C/T Teleporting is the action of opening up a screen in game such as your Inventory or Character Screen to allow you to use teleport covering larger distances. This is done by Teleporting once then moving your cursor to the edge of the screen while holding the teleport button.

Nonintuitive Mechanics

• Make sure to remove your current Mercenary's Items before hiring a new one otherwise they are gone forever.
• Use a Hel Rune + Scroll of Town Portal + "Item with stuff socketed in it" in the Horadric Cube to unsocket and item destroying the contents of what's in the item. Look at more Horadric Cube Recipes.
• Town Portals keep an area and all the monsters in it active with a 1 screen range. This means anything that dies in that range can drop items, keep Prevent Monster Heal active, and doesn't despawn Baal clone or map related objects.
• telekinesis can be used on Town Portals in the wild, and in Town.
• Name Lock allows you to attack enemies that might run off-screen. To do this, hover over them with your mouse (while on-screen) and hold down the mouse button with the attack of your choice. An example is Name Locking Baal then when he uses Teleport you can use Teleport on him and move right to him regardless of the distance. Note: Changing Skills on the used mouse button does not interrupt Name Lock.
• Typing /nopickup disables items from being targeted without holding the "Show Items" hotkey. This also works in Multiplayer.

Reset Your Maps

• Reset your maps or remaking a game can drastically decrease the difficulty in an area or improve the map layout. For example:
  • If you have a long distance to Mephisto (Durance of Hate Level 2 - Level 3) in Singleplayer you can easily reset it for the chance of a very short distance.
  • If you spawn monsters in an area that you cannot fight that you need to pass through, there is a chance that you can remove that monster type as every area picks monsters from a list. This can be due to their Immunities (e.g. Lightning Immunes for Lightning builds), or high damage (Burning Souls).

Run Speed In Town

• Harmony gives you Vigor when equipped. Put this item on swap to travel faster. This is especially helpful for the farming Pindleskin with the long walk in town. Another option is to use Zephyr which doesn't have an Aura, but it gives you 25% Faster Run/Walk.

Single Player

• In the Offline Character Selection Screen, you can enter the game and a specified difficulty by doing these actions:
  • Enter + R = Select Character highlighted and select Normal Difficulty
  • Enter + N = Select Character highlighted and select Nightmare Difficulty
  • Enter + H = Select Character highlighted and select Hell Difficulty
• Typing /players x makes the game to scale as if x amount of players are in the game going up to 8.
• To manipulate Armor and Weapon Racks you approach and click them from the same direction as before. This only works for item bases, it does not determine quality, and only works on the same "seed" or map layout.

Shop Merchants Often

• Shop at Nightmare Charsi and Gheed for good early game Resistance and Life gear.

Telestomp

• Telestomp or Telestomping is a term to describe the use of Teleport to move yourself right on top of your target and attack them.

TP Drops

• Use Town Portals at locations which give you potential time save, not just to go back to town but to keep checkpoints of an area.
  Example: Open a Town Portal at the Cairn Stones in Stony Field, continue to Dark Woods and use the Waypoint there to return to Stony Field quickly.

Amazon

• peace has a chance to spawn a Level 15 Valkyrie, however when you do not have a Skill Point allocated into Valkyrie it de-spawns shortly after. Investing 1 Skill Point in or using a Harmony for + to Valkyrie fixes this issue, and you get a much stronger Valkyrie for very little investment.

Assassin

• By putting Death Sentry a bit farther away it is not able to use its weak Lightning attack and is forced to only use corpseexplosion.
• Wake of Fire has a Next Hit Delay causing it to only deal damage to a target with only 2 or rarely 3 traps even though you can have up to 5 active at a time. You can use other Skills like Fire blast to deal additional damage to single targets.
• Anya in Act 5 Nightmare and Hell can sell you Claws such as Cunning Greater Talons or even Cunning Greater Talons of Quickness.

Barbarian

• Buff with Battle Command 2 times then Battle Orders and other Skills. This gives more duration to Battle Command. Casting Battle Command first boosts the levels of all the Skills and Abilities.
• In Act 5 Nightmare and Hell you can buy items with +x to Warcries such as Echoing Glaive and Echoing Throwing Knife.

Druid

• Recast cyclone armor to sustain maximum survivability.
• Increased Attack Speed is much more effective on Weapons when in Shape-Shift form.

Necromancer

• As a Necromancer you have the ability to use an Irongolem, however when you respec with an Irongolem active it dies. There is a way to counter this issue by putting an item on that has Irongolem Charges such as Metalgrid or Oath.
• Bone armor actually does more for you if you put points into its Synergies Bonewall and boneprison.

Paladin

• Auras have a tick rate this can be abused for things such as Redemption's area proc. For example, you can have Concentration up active while playing Hammerdin, but roughly every 1.2 seconds you can turn on Redemption and swap back to Concentration getting the use of the Skill even though it was only up for a brief second.
• Paladins typically use a main Aura for their build. Many Auras are available to the Paladin's arsenal and that can be used to help boost your team in a group setting by utilizing different Auras and communicating which ones can help your team.
• Holy Bolt deals damage to Undead Magic Immunes even though it deals Magic Damage.
• There is a spot in which you can "pre-hammer" with Blessed Hammer while you wait for Diablo to spawn in allowing you to hit him with all cast hammers. Place yourself just slightly above the middle left of the 6 o'clock wing on the star. Right when Diablo spawns in you "telestomp" him to deal "double" damage for almost a whole cycle of hammers. Be sure not to have any obstructions in the direct center of the star or Diablo's spawn location can move.

Sorceress

• Telekinesis can be used through walls on clickables (chests, rocks, dead bodies etc.). This is especially helpful for Quest Chests like the one in Spider Cavern in Act 3 or the Maggot Lair Level 3 in Act 2.
• Due to how Resistances work it is recommended to aim for only 17 Skill Points into Cold Mastery for 100% Cold Resistance Pierce. A monster's Resistance cannot get below -100% for any attack, making additional Cold Resistance Pierce in a lot of places obsolete.
• While utilizing Energyshield put Skill Points into telekinesis to reduce the damage taken by a percent. 

Act 1

• Shrines are often grouped next to each other in Act 1 near the Waypoint. This is great for checking Gem Shrines or Experience Shrines. Shrines can overwrite curses so use them to counter the Curse. This goes both ways, if you get Cursed while a Shrine is active you lose it.

Stony Field

• The Cairn Stones (Entrance to Tristram) is always next to the path that leads from the Cold Plains to the Underground Passage entrance.

Black Marsh

• The Countess is for commonly farmed for Runes. Increase the drop rate of Runes by playing in Solo / Players 1 games.
• In Single Player The Countess spawn location can be made consistent by taking the same path to her in Tower Cellar Level 5. Example: Entering the South side entrance to her room causes her to spawn in location A. If you enter the North side entrance she spawns in location B.
• In the Forgotten Tower Levels there are tiles commonly known and referred to as the "L shape". The L always has a dead clickable corpse with a fire underneath it. This map tile has a VERY high chance to spawn a Unique Boss pack.

Barracks

• The Imbue Quest is not needed and is typically more valuable to hold on to for late game.

Catacombs Level 4

• Andariel has 2 different drop tables:
  • Quest drops that trigger on killing her while the Quest is active.
  • The regular drop table after completing Quest 6.
    • You can "Quest Bug" her by going to Act 2 prior to exiting the game, this ensures that she always has the Quest drop table in that difficulty. You only have one opportunity to perform this bug per difficulty.
• While fighting Andariel, kiting is your friend. There are many places to abuse her mechanics such as a small blood pool in her room on the South East side and barrels to run around for cover. There is also a big door that connects the previous room with monsters in it and the room she spawns in, you can close this door to block out monsters.

The Secret Cow Level

• Use The Secret Cow Level Portal next to Gheed and Charsi for quick shop refreshes.

Act 2

Lut Gholein

• Shop Drognan on the top right exit of Lut Gholein for Wands and Staves such as Wand of Lower Resistance, Wand of Life Tap, and Staff of Teleportation.
• Use the North side Sewers entrance to reset Elzix while shopping.
• Use the bottom entrance in Sewers to find the Level 2 entrance 2-3 tiles away on either the right or left side.
• Talk to Jerhyn behind the wall next to Kaelan if he walks over to you after completing killing Duriel and talking to Tyrael at the end of Act 2. Then open a Town Portal to Harem Level 1 to get back to Meshif faster.

The Maggot Lair

• Egg Hopping is the action of dropping enough items such as Potions on the ground next to a Sand Maggot Egg in the Maggot Lair to force a Town Portal to open on the opposite side of the egg. This can allow you to skip them when they are invincible (common bug).

The Claw Viper Temple

• Snakes in The Claw Viper Level 2 cannot get past the stairs that lead to the Sun Altar.

Arcane Sanctuary

• The bottom route on both the top left and top right directions of Arcane Sanctuary allow you to see the platform where The Summoner is a few screens prior to hitting the end of the path.
• In Single Player you only need to click the book at The Summoner, you don't have to kill him to get to Duriel.
• Missing Symbol at The Summoner platform in the back is the Real Symbol for Tal Rasha's Tomb.

Tal Rasha's Tomb

• While leveling in the Tomb leveling go left for Unique Boss packs next to the Gold Chest and beetles.
• In Tal Rasha's Chamber you can use Teleport to Tyrael before the door opens.
• While fighting Duriel use Thawing Potions to gain extra Cold Resistance. They stack for 30 seconds each and provide 50 Cold Resistance, and 10 Maximum Cold Resistance.

Act 3

The Spider Forest

• In the Spider Cavern the Quest Chest can be Telekinesised through the wall.
• For melee characters in Normal you can make Khalim's will and use it while leveling.

Lower Kurast

• Lower Kurast Super Chest tiles have 7 torches around a campfire and a left hut with 2 Super Chests and a right hut with a Weapon Rack and Super Chest. There is also an Armor Rack on the North side and a dead corpse on the South East side. There can be up to 2 of these tiles in the area totaling 6 Super Chests. The chests are very strong to farm in Single Player if you reset your maps to have 2 nearby Super Chest tiles adjacent to the Waypoint.

Travincal

• The Compelling Orb in Travincal can be Telekinesised from a distance.
• The Travincal Council Members can be dangerous. You can attack the members from a distance through the window. On the left side of their spawn is a "cage like area". You can lure them into this area and Teleport towards the top left before fighting them from a distance. Beware of Hydra and healing monsters such as Hierophants.

The Durance of Hate

• The Moat trick is a common strategy used against Mephisto in the Durance of Hate Level 3, typically a Blizzard Sorceress. You kite Mephisto down to the bottom right side near the stairs or red portal, Teleport across, and you attack him at a range where you can hit him, but he can't hit you.
• Behind Mephisto's a Super chest spawns that you can open for a chance for good drops such as up to a Ber Rune.
• If you stand far enough back next to the pillars on the north West of side of the room when Mephisto dies, you are able to use Telekinesis on Red Portal and save a lot of time by not waiting for the bridge to come up.
• Travel to Act 4 before resetting your games when farming Mephisto. This allows you to quickly use a Waypoint rather than walking the whole distances from the spawning locations in Act 3.

Act 4

Plains of Despair

• When Izual in the Plains of Despair dies he kills everything within a large radius. Burning Souls are one of the enemies that can spawn there and have a good chance to drop Runes, Jewelry, and Charms. This strategy is sometimes referred to as the "Izzy Pop".

The Chaos Sanctuary

• On the South East "wing" of The Chaos Sanctuary you have 2 different tile setups. We can abuse the J shaped tile with ranged builds by attacking Infector of Souls over the moat without him being able to hit you.
• The Chaos Sanctuary has a unique mechanic which is referred to as "Seal Popping". After all the Seals are opened and Seal Bosses are dead, all the monsters are killed throughout this zone and Diablo spawns in some moments later. We can abuse this process to our advantage. Seal Popping has a few mechanics to understand to pull off properly.
  • Monsters have an activation period and will remain active ~8 seconds after being outside their activation range which is ~2 screens.
  • By teleporting quickly past as many mobs as you can and hitting the final Seal or killing the last Seal Boss after, you can get all those monsters you just activated to drop items.
  • These drops are not effected by Magic Find and Seal Popping works best with a higher player count to increase drop rate.
  • You can also open up a Town Portal in a location where many mobs are located to keep that area active when the Seal Pop happens.
• Because of Diablo Clone's mechanics you can spawn him in The Chaos Sanctuary and kill him by hitting the last Seal or last Seal Boss this is referred to as the Seal Pop method. (This Method is not confirmed yet for any version of D2R)
• You can make Diablo waste actions during his fight by placing a Town Portal next to him and stepping back making him summon bone prison on it over and over.
• "Corner Cheese" is a technique used against Diablo on melee builds. Lure him to a corner of The Chaos Sanctuary and let him walk close to it. You then can attack him "around the corner" while he is unable to hit you with his "Laser". The best corner for this is East to the pentagram.

Act 5

Arreat Summit

• The Ancients in the Arreat Summit fight have many mechanics, strategies, and locations you can abuse.
  • If you stand perfectly in a corner you can disable Talic's ability to use WhirlWind by having him WhirlWind on top of you in a corner. If done correctly he only swings at you with his normal attack. There are a lot of places in the South East to execute this trick.
  • By standing behind a pillar you can make Madawc attack the pillar making him no threat to you.
  • There are a few locations you can get Korlic stuck in where he just runs endlessly against either a wall or pillar. One location you can do this in is on the South East side. If you go into the South Eastern most corner and wait for him to jump to you, Teleport to where the pillar and the circle meets to cause him to get stuck.
  • You can split up the Ancients to fight them one by one. Lure them to the top right area and teleport quickly to the bottom left. Then slowly inch your way towards the top right until one of them engages you. Fight that Ancient in the bottom left side.

Frozen

• Anya in the Frozen River can be triggered by using Telekinesis both when you initially talk to her and when you thaw her with Malah's Potion.
• Drag Frozenstein away and use Teleport to get by him if you are unable to fight him and get next to Anya.

Throne of Destruction

• In the Throne of Destruction there are many mechanics and strategies that can be utilized.
  • When there are no monsters in the throne room where Baal is located he spawns the next wave. This means we can drag all the monsters out without killing them past the archway entrance.
    • This allows us to use a strategy commonly known as "Death Strat". Open a Town Portal in Baal's throne room and let yourself get killed intentionally. Return through your Town Portal and open a new one. Now lure monsters that you are unable to fight out of the large room and let them kill you. Return through the Portal again and the next wave is spawning.
  • Wave Skipping: When the throne room is clean and Baal starts laughing wait ~5 seconds then cross over to the tile outside the throne room for ~4 seconds and quickly go back in and INSTANTLY out in order to de-spawn the next wave and if you have done it correctly it skips the next wave. This takes practice but is repeatable and easier in Single Player.
  • Forced wave spawn: When there are monsters you cannot kill or drag out of the throne room entirely but are not aggroed, there is a method to spawn the next wave. Open a Town Portal right next to Baal hugging the platform where he stands and right as the animation starts for him to curse you, leave and wait in town for ~10 seconds, if you did it correctly the next wave is spawned when you come back.
• Despawn Baal Clone and his tentacles by moving out of Baal's active range which is ~2 screens away then Open a Town Portal and stay in town for ~6 seconds. Once you come back if you did it correctly Baal Clone and his tentacles should despawn. Beware that if you Portal out next to Baal and stay out for a long time there can be a swarm of tentacles.
• When Baal uses his blue wave "Hoarfrost" attack, avoid getting hit multiple times by putting your back against the wall allowing it to travel through you resulting in you only getting hit once.
• The Red Portal that leads to Nihlathak's Temple commonly farmed for Pindleskin no longer disappears in Diablo 2 Resurrected.
• Use Nihlathak's Temple Red Portal next to Anya to reset the shops in Harrogath quickly.