Fotds: February 2001

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The information presented in these archived FotDs is now outdated, but that's often the most interesting thing about them, seeing how much the game has changed from then to now.

The original FotDs are indented and italicized. Explanatory comments below them were written by Flux at the time the FotDs were archived, usually a couple/few months after the original FotDs had been presented.


February 1, 2001[edit]

Bone Spirits fired by monsters have some odd properties. They home in on whatever they were aimed at, and if the target vanishes (most often seen when the targeted Valk or Decoy or Revived dies or is recast) the Bone Spirit will continue in a straight line off the screen, not homing in on another target. Also, if the Oblivion Knight that fired them is killed, the Bone Spirit and any elemental shots will vanish instantly.

These are handy things to know in the Chaos Sanctuary. Many times I've had a Valk or Decoy between me and De Seis' mob, and recast it, and panicked when about a dozen Bone Spirits suddenly came right at me, then realized as I ran a few steps to the side that they wouldn't have hit me anyway, since they'd been fired at my vanished minion, and could only have hit her anyway.

February 4, 2001[edit]

The Unique amulet Eye of Etlich has some very nice stats, including cold damage, life steal, and +1 to all skills. It also has a hidden modifier for freezing time that is not displayed in the game, and can only be discovered by testing. The freezing time ranges from 2-12 seconds, is generated upon item creation, and is always the same on a given Eye. Freezing time from items and skills stacks, and is cut by 1/2 on Nightmare and 1/4 on Hell.

This was an odd little feature on the amulet. Many of the Uniques in D2X have variable stats on them, but very few did in D2, and this was certainly the only one with a hidden property that varied. It did complicate trading, since there wasn't any way to test the time until you had the item, and if someone claimed theirs froze for 10 seconds and it only did for 3, you'd not know until after the trade, and you would be angry.

February 8, 2001[edit]

+damage items, especially +minimum damage, found on weapons, as well as jewelry and a number of uniques, add substantially more damage than their listed value. This is due to the added damage being calculated in your total damage, and modified by skills as well as Str for melee or Dex for bow attacks. By lvl 25, the +5 minimum from Bloodfist can be adding 20 or more to your total minimum damage, and this amount will only increase as your stats increase. There are, unfortunately, numerous bugs with this, most often seen when using bows.

For a long time no +damage on any other items would work on bows, due to how their two-handed damage was calculated. Fortunately this is all fixed now.


February 12, 2001[edit]

Open Wounds is a generally useless modifier found only on a few unique items. It works like poison, causing a very slight hit point drain for a few seconds, and doesn't stack, though it will stack with poison. The actual damage is 20/256 hps per frame, with the duration determined by level: (2xClvl+100). This works out to a bit less than 2 hps per second, and can last up to 11 seconds if you are Clvl 99. It will be improved/modified in the Expansion.

It wasn't really improved enough to bother with.

February 15, 2001[edit]

It is possible to cast most any spell/skill in Diablo II well off the visible screen. You need merely lock onto a monster (or player, in PVP) and keep your (right, usually) mouse button depressed, while switching hotkeys as need be. This gets the skills out faster than clicking repeatedly, and works even if the target has moved far away, as long as you have a direct line of sight to them. You can Curse, fire spells or arrows, or even summon minions 3 or 4 screens away, especially against running monsters, or teleporting bosses.

This is a very handy technique that many people still don't know about. Once you lock onto a monster, keep the mouse down and and you can keep sticking spells right on top of it. This works very well with Teleporting monsters, as you can keep summoning Hydra or Meteor right on them even if they are well off your visible screen.

It doesn't work well with movement skills, you can't Teleport or Leap Attack 5 screens to a running target, even if you do have it locked on, and you can't fire arrows or throw javelins that far. They'll head towards the target, but run our of juice well short, when they reach their normal range limit.

February 18, 2001[edit]

While poison resistance is clearly the least important of the four types of resistance, what about the Poison Length Reduction affixes? These are helpful, especially against Andariel and in parts of Act Two, and come in 75%, 50%, and 25% flavors, but they stack oddly. Rather than adding up (which could give you more than 100% reduction) the effect is cumulative, where if you have a 75%, and a 50%, the actual reduction is 87.5%. Adding another 50% would reduce the 12.5% by half, etc. Resist Poison Shrines are 100% length reduction, however.

This is still the case, so one 75% reduction is the same as two 50% reduction items, and one 50% item does more than two 25% items.

February 22, 2001[edit]

In order to create a Hardcore character, you must first beat Diablo with a normal character on the same account. It does not have to be on the same Realm; you can beat D on USWest and create HC chars on that account on East and Europe, for example. Once you have created a HC character, you can delete the normal character and put 8 HC's on each Realm on that account if you wish, but you must create at least one HC before you delete the normal char, or you'll have to do it all over again.

This is unchanged to this day.


February 27, 2001[edit]

While Energy Shield is generally considered an essential skill, most Sorcs bemoan the three wasted pre-req points in Charged Bolt, Lightning, and Chain Lightning (TK and Teleport are also pre-reqs, but are worth having). A clever way to save three pre-req skill points is to shop for a staff with +3 Energy Shield, and carry it in your cube or stash. Equip it to cast Energy Shield, then go back to your normal wand/shield equipment. The Energy Shield will remain for the duration of the skill.

This no longer works, if you cast a skill from an item, and then remove the item, the skill effect might remain visible, but the bonuses will go away. There were crash bugs early in D2X from this sort of thing, mostly Druids who would transform to either fur-form, and then remove the item that let them do so. This crashed anyone on their screen out of the game, for some reason, and set off a cheating pk'ing frenzy for some time, until Blizzard fixed it.