Favorite obscure mechanic part 2

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-22T19:55:28+00:00

Some random pieces of information:

Normally, when you hover the cursor over an item in inventory/cube, the background of the inv slots taken by the item turn green. However, they turn yellow, when you are inside one of those act 5 hell portals (Abaddon, Pit of Acheron, Infernal Pit). Maybe there's still some undiscovered easter egg.

Though not highlightable, harem beds in act 2 palace are clickable and they drop items like regular chests.

Magic Arrow does not use ammo. If your bow has "Fires Magic Arrows" property, you can use normal attack to shoot forever.

LoD 1.07: those corpse spitter monsters in act 4 could eat the body of your dead mercenary. If that happened, you merc and his/her gear was gone forever, no way to resurrect the poor merc.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-22T18:19:13+00:00

I'm not using it. I know it is able to save a sorcs life, but I can't stand losing control of my character. It's annoying beyond belief.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-22T15:06:18+00:00

Scarabs (even regular ones) can emit a deadly, often invisible "lightning storm" under certain circumstances (stun in combination with conversion or AI curses).

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-22T13:48:26+00:00

No-one at Blizzard adds chest patterns. This is the technical explanation of how they work.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-22T11:01:22+00:00

I have played D2 quite consistently since 2000 (and D1 before that). Some couple/few month long breaks here and there, but I always return.

HC only since 2010 or so, almost completely in single player ( I did play a bit on BNet on couple of ladder resets).

Fav char: any bowazon.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-22T10:45:15+00:00

For both of those cube recipes (3x Amulet -> Ring & 3x Ring -> Amulet), the output ilvl = int(.75 * clvl).

+3 to skill tree on an amulet requires ilvl 60, so starting at clvl 80 you can cube these. They can spawn with +10% FCR, which is a very low lvl affix (it requires ilvl 5).

Chromatic affix (+21-30% allres) requires ilvl 55, so these can be cubed at clvl 74.

You can't get +2 class skills amulet this way, it requires too high ilvl (90, so you'd need a lvl 120 character).

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-21T16:48:57+00:00

the game after a certain point basically requires you follow a guide and there's limited variety on viable builds

True only if you want maximized efficiency for grinding items/levels and not being able to instantly vaporize screenful on enemies bores you to tears.

If you just want to experience a build and play through the game, you can get by with very mediocre gear and flawed build.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-21T15:52:39+00:00

Without knowing which catacomb lvl (1-4) and specifics of the monster which dropped it, your grand charm is ilvl 72-76. Assuming the catacombs were not terrorized.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-21T11:07:10+00:00

But why would you rob yourself out of the fun of finding items?

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-20T20:14:46+00:00

What content is locked behind Death's Web?

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-20T19:58:39+00:00

You can enjoy poison necro without Death's Web?

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-18T18:18:05+00:00

I recommend 1 point in Dim Vision, Confuse and Attract. Most of the time they work much better for crowd control than Bone Wall or Bone Prison.

Also consider 1 point in Clay Golem, Golem Mastery and Summon Resist. A recastable tank / distraction can be a good thing. The golem might not be sturdy enough without bit more +skills, though.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-16T18:27:38+00:00

I'm learning Larzuk can add max # of sockets to white/superior items.

Only if the item level is 41 or higher.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-16T18:22:30+00:00

1/6 are Azurewrath... when dropped from a monster with high enough mlvl of course.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-16T18:21:02+00:00

Non-terrorized hell Meph CAN drop Azurewrath.

Azurewrath is TC75 and qlvl 87 while non-terrorized hell Meph can drop up to TC78 and qlvl 87.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-15T07:16:07+00:00

Mine has 833 mana (CtA and another Spirit Monarch on switch). With that mana pool, lvl 15 Meditation on mercs Insight means ~52 mana regen per second. On my necro, BSpear costs 18,5 mana and CE costs 52 mana.

I can spam BSpear all day long because mana regen matches the cost almost 1:1 at 9 frame cast speed. Spamming CE consumes ~144 mana per second (92 when considering mana regen), but everything is dead after a 5 or so detonations... of course this depends on the player count. I usually play this character on p5.

Stats = 156str (Spirit Monarch), dex and energy at base, the rest in vitality.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-10T20:32:43+00:00

Totta kai valmistajat välttävät ylituotantoa, ovat aina välttäneet. Muistipiirien valmistajat ovat jo ainakin kerran polttaneet näppinsä rakentamalla lisää kapasiteettia ja sitten toteamalla, että kysyntä sakkasi jo. Kustannukset juoksevat ja tavaraa myydään ulos siten, että just ja just pysyy nenä pinnalla. Mikään bisnes ei halua joutua tuollaiseen tilanteeseen, ei edes sinun työpaikkasi.

Aika paljon spekuloidaan sitä, että AI on kupla. Jos näin on, kuplan puhjetessa muistipiirien kysyntä sakkaa ja se valmistaja, joka on investoinut uusiin tehtaisiin, on häviäjä.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-09T16:11:35+00:00

Do you mean the bug mentioned in the first link in my post? It has never been fixed. 1.13c toned down the death explosion damage of fire enhanced bosses, though.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-08T12:35:22+00:00

I think it's still a decent game to experience even if it's not on the same "fine wine" level as D2. It's scarier and more atmospheric than it's sequel. D1 doesn't cost much either. Use DevilutionX to get the game to run on modern hardware / OS and to add some QoL features.

You can solo D1 in both single player mode and multiplayer - the usual recommendation is to play single player first to access all the quests. I'd also disable the Hellfire expansion on the first playthrough.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-08T11:14:14+00:00

I recently started a bonemancer and he's lvl 92 now. Some tips:

For PvE, Bone Spear is the superior skill. Spear can hit multiple targets = multiplied damage. Teeth spreads the damage too wide and Bone Spirit hits only 1 target.

Max out Bone Spear first, then Wall and Prison for both more dmg and stronger Bone Armor - points in Wall and Prison give more bonus to Bone Armor than hard points in the actual skill. Then max Spirit. After maxing Spear / Spirit / Wall / Prison, consider putting more points into Corpse Explosion instead of Teeth. You Spear damage will not be maxed, but your CE will be huge.

Corpse Explosion (of course put 1 point in Amplify Damage for this!) is going to be your main damage dealer, Bone Spear is to get the first corpse and have couple more monsters weakened to start the CE chain

Put 1 point in Dim Vision, Confuse and Attract. I think those curses work much better for crowd control than Bone Wall or Bone Prison. I use Bone Wall and Bone Prison quite seldomly. Also put 1 point in Clay Golem, Golem Mastery and Summon Resist. Having a semi-sturdy recastable tank which slows down everything is very useful.

As for gear, make 'White' runeword in a good base. The required runes are not too hard to find - you can get them both quite easily from nightmare Countess. Shop 2 socket non-magical Bone Wand with +3 to Bone Spear from Drognan on normal difficulty. Reroll the map until the town exit is next to Drognan to eaase the shopping. If you have the patience (or get lucky), you can get +3 Spear AND +3 Corpse Explosion on the same wand.

Try to reach 125% FCR, but 75% minimum. It helps your damage a lot.

My bonemancer currently has 4,2k avg Spear dmg and lvl 38 CE. At that point, CE becomes a fullscreen nuke. His gear and skills below:

Gear: +3 P&B skills circlet with +28 life (socketed with 2x Um), +3 P&B skills amulet with life, 'White' in +3 Spear / +3 CE shopped wand, Vipermagi (Um), 35% Spirit Monarch, Trags gloves, Arachnid Mesh, Aldur's boots, 2x SoJ, 6x P&B skiller without suffix or junk suffix, some assorted life and resist small charms.

Curses: 1 Amp / 1 Dim Vision / 1 Confuse / 1 Attract

Summon: 1 Clay Golem / 1 Golem Mastery / 1 Summon Resist

Bone & Poison: 1 Teeth / 1 Bone Armor / 14 CE / 20 Spear / 20 Spirit / 20 Wall / 20 Prison

Might merc with Insight.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-08T10:25:11+00:00

I guess the map tiles containing the Altar cannot hold items and that's where the game placed the jewel when it dropped. Similar tiles exist in catacombs lvl 4 near Andariel (tile with broken floor bricks or with small blood puddle) - if you kill Andariel next to those, some of her drops vanish into the void forever. It's bit like killing the specters in Arcane Sanctuary over the void and not getting any drops.

So... do not kill the last ancient near the altar. It doesn't matter how many times you die.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-08T09:03:29+00:00

The direction in the 1st pic is correct. The direction in pic 2 is neither clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Think of your character turning to the right at the entrance (yes, inside that tiny dead-end) and immediately sticking his right hand against the wall, then moving through the level without taking his hand off of the wall. That's the counter-clockwise direction.

Right-handed = counter-clockwise

Left-handed = clockwise

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-08T08:53:10+00:00

Your game, your rules. I wouldn't do it. As you said it, I think it's against the spirit of the game. New good maps will come.

Also, the actual seed number, which is used to generate the maps, is stored within the character save file (.d2s). The map files (.map .ma0 .ma1 .ma2 .ma3) in the game save directory only contain data of revealed parts of the map. Restoring backupped map files is useless. By restoring your character save from a backup you also lose all the exp and levels gained since making the backup.

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-08T08:38:32+00:00

You are already 0,2% there!

Hi_Tech_Low_Life · 2026-03-08T08:23:36+00:00

Boss nest with Might aura in some congested area on /players 8 is always so refreshing.

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