General Changes

This page lists an overview of changes made in PD2 relative to the vanilla game. Changes that are too detailed for this list will link to other pages with additional information.

Skills

Many skills have been rebalanced in PD2, and some new skills have been added. Skill details for each class can be accessed from the main page as well as the Portal Skill Planner.

Note that all skills deal less damage in PVP, with certain skills being penalized more than others. (values are still being adjusted)

Individual Items

There are hundreds of unique, set, and runeword items in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Details for changes to these items can be accessed from the main page. Some notable changes:

• Except for Wind and Principle, runewords use their original rune combinations
• Pattern and Plague are two new runewords (they were present in vanilla, but disabled)
• Bul-Kathos' Death Band is a new set ring for Bul-Kathos' Children
• Bul-Kathos' Tribal Guardian was changed from a Mythical Sword to a Colossus Sword
• Infernal Torch (wand) was changed to Infernal Spike (dagger)
• Overlord's Helm, Dark Abyss, Itherael's Path, Hadriel's Hand, and Aidan's Scar are extremely rare drops from Diablo-Clone

• Worldstone Shard and Larzuk's Puzzlebox can corrupt items and add sockets to them
• Diablo-Clone is summoned with Vision of Terror, which is created by combining 3 items: Black Soulstone, Prime Evil Soul, Pure Demonic Essence
• Maps allow access to new endgame content (13 total new areas)
• Maps can be modified with several items: Arcane Orb, Zakarum Orb, Angelic Orb, Horadrim Orb, Cartographer's Orb, Orb of Destruction, Horadrim Scarab, Standard of Heroes

General

Below is a comprehensive list of changes that that don't fit in either of the previous categories.

Out-of-Game

• More characters per account
• Filter for searching lobby game names
• Lobby games are no longer hidden after progressing to the next difficulty
• Games now perm in 2 minutes
• Support for customizable item filtering and drop notifications
• Trade site

Quality-of-Life

• Bigger stash, cube, and inventory (same space available for active charms)
• Shortcuts for moving items between inventory/stash/cube/ground
• Inspect other players in town (default: press 0 while hovering cursor on other player)
• Advanced character statistics page (default: press 8)
• Item tooltips show stat ranges
• Displayed loot can be toggled on/off
• Stackable gems, runes, essences, keys, organs, etc
• Multiple shrine effects can be applied simultaneously, cannot be overwritten by monster curses
• Killing the Cow King will no longer prevent you from opening the Secret Cow Level
• Antidote, Thawing, and Stamina Potions now autobelt

General Balancing

• Perfect gems now start dropping in Hell, Flawless gems start dropping in Act 4 Normal
• Running no longer hinders block chance or defense
• Nightmare bosses now drop essences used for Token of Absolution
• Uber Keys/Organs droprates changed from 10%/100% to 100%/25%
• Uber Keys are also dropped by Blood Raven, Bloodwitch, and Izual
• Many zones have had their area level raised to 85
• The Maggot Lair in Act 2 has wider hallways
• The chilled/frozen debuffs now also reduce cast speed alongside run/walk speed and attack speed
• Crushing Blow now caps at 65% on bosses, uniques, and champions
• Monsters can be cursed with multiple Necromancer curses at once
• Abilities that reduce monster resistances now operate at 1/2 effectiveness when breaking immunities, instead of 1/5

Item Changes

• Items can now be corrupted
• Removed hidden movespeed penalty from medium/heavy body armor and shields
• Throwing weapons and arrows/bolts have unlimited quantity
• Melee weapons now deal splash damage
• Daggers have 20% Deadly Strike as an automod
• Crossbows have 10% Physical Pierce as an automod, damage increased by ~10%
• Amplify Damage affix changed from level 1 (5%) to level 15 (8%), requires character level 15
• Crafted items and set items can now be upgraded (level requirement doesn't increase for crafted items)
• All Resistance ranges for Paladin shields reduced (maximum 30% instead of 45%)
• Durability increased for several weapon bases
• Melee range increased for several weapon bases
• Increased Exceptional weapons damage by ~15%
• Amazon spears attack speed (WSM) improved by 10
• Repeating Crossbow, Chu-Ko-Nu, and Demon Crossbows damage increased by ~50%
• Strength/Dexterity weapon damage bonuses altered for several weapon types

Recipes

• Crafting has been overhauled
• Ethereal items stay eth when crafted
• Any base (except circlets) may be used for crafting
• Some recipes have been simplified
• New repair recipe uses Zod and works with ethereal/broken items

Non-Player Characters

• All mercenaries grant auras
• Mercenaries can now equip gloves, boots, and belts
• Rogue mercenaries can equip crossbows, Barbarian mercenaries can equip axes and maces
• Summons and traps now gain bonuses from +#% To elemental Skill Damage, and from -#% To Enemy Elemental Resistance (half efficiency)
• Diablo-Clone is now summoned with the new Vision of Terror item instead of selling Stones of Jordan
• Diablo-Clone has an extremely low chance to drop 1 of 5 new unique items
• Enemy dolls' death explosion have a short delay before triggering
• Jerhyn now always stands outside of the Palace in Lut Gholein
• Lysander & Fara have switched positions in Lut Gholein
• Deckard Cain now wanders at the top of the stairs in Harrogath near Malah

Bug Fixes

• Mana Burn bug fixed
• Ethereal armor bug (ebug) fixed
• Council hydra damage vs summons reduced (tied to PVP damage)
• Hot fix to a game crash (mostly error 1437) while A2 Merc is transformed in a fetish and try to jab enemies. (CtC Delirium was removed from Delirium Runeword)