==Quest Five{{: Rite of Passage==Rite_of_Passage_(quest)}}
* '''Quest Name:''' Rite of Passage
* '''Triggered by:''' Reaching the Ancient's Way triggers Qual-Kehk to speak of it. Or you can go straight to the Arreat Summit and click on the altar.
* '''Given by:''' Qual-Kehk
* '''Location:''' Arreat Summit
* '''Reward:''' Bonus to your Experience. Normal: 1.4 million, Clvl 20 required. Nightmare: 20 million, Clvl 40 required. Hell: 40 million, Clvl 60 required. This bonus is not cut like experience from monster kills when you are past Clvl 75, so this quest is always a huge boost, but if you can save it (borrow a portal to the Worldstone Keep) until you are Clvl 80 or 85 it's even more valuable.
* '''Quest Priority:''' Not mandatory if you can get a portal inside the Worldstone Keep from another player, otherwise you must defeat the Guardians to get in. The reward is enormous though, so we recommend you do it.
Once you advance to the Ancient's Way, the last ice caves level in the game, and then return to town, Qual-Kehk will be eager to talk:
<blockquote>''"Every time I hear of you, warrior, your deeds become more legendary. But take heed. You are approaching the very summit of Mount Arreat. I have never dared venture there. It is sacred -- our most holy place. The legends say it is guarded by the Ancient Ones, who block the path of all who are unworthy. Your reputation here does not matter...It will be the Ancients who determine your worthiness.Good luck."''</blockquote>You don't need to talk to Qual-Kehk or anyone about this, you can just advance through the Ancient's Way to the Arreat Summit, and do it. This quest seems straightforward, but has a very tricky element to it you see in no other quest in all of Diablo II.'''Quest Prompt:''' Travel through the Ancient's Way to find the Ancients at the Arreat Summit.Aside from the quest, the Arreat Summit is probably the most impressive area in the entire game. The screenshots don't do it justice, the amazing part is walking along the edge with the landscape far far below. It's awesome with perspective mode, which the game automatically turns on there, your 3D card permitting (the option for it in the Options menu is grayed out at this point) for the ground moves much slower than the edge of the cliff you are walking along giving a nice illusion of depth. It has to be seen in motion to be appreciated.The Summit is a small area, not much larger than two screens end to end in 800x600 mode. The center is the raised circle with the three statues, and there are pillars around it in a large circle with some open snowy ground outside of that, with cliffs bounding the area on all sides and a barred stairway to the far right. In the center on the dais you see these three statues, each with a unique name and stats. Click to see more about [[Madawc]], [[Korlic]], and [[Talic]] {|| [[Image:Quests-a5-q5-madawc.jpg]]| [[Image:Quests-a5-q5-korlic.jpg]]| [[Image:Quests-a5-q5-talic.jpg]]|-| Throwing Axes,<br>ranged attacker.| Melee and leap attack,<br>huge axe weapon.| Sword and shield,<br>melee and Whirlwind.|}The altar highlights when you point and it, and when you click a long speech is heard with three voices speaking in harmony.<blockquote>''"We are the spirits of the Nephalem, the Ancient Ones. We have been chose to guard sacred Mount Arreat, wherein the Worldstone rests. Few are worthy to stand in its presence; fewer still can comprehend its true purpose. ''Before you enter, you must defeat us."''</blockquote>Recall that Nihlathak stole a relic and gave it to Baal, allowing him to enter the Worldstone Keep without having to face these guardians. When the speech ends, the action begins.[[Image:Quests-a5-q5-ancients.jpg|frame]]The statues come to life, and they are all Barbarians (of course) in glowing red armor. Yellow flaming light radiates from them, and they are very impressive in action. As you see in the screenshots, they use Warcries to boost themselves, and they all have skills. You'll see Leap Attacks, Bashes, and even very fast Whirlwinds, which don't look like much in a screenshot, but are amazing to see in action, with the streaks of light left behind. The small shot on the right here is of one mid-WW.You must kill them all, and when they are beaten they explode in a huge burst of yellow flames, and return to statue form. There is another long speech about how Baal must be defeated, and the dire consequences for the world if he's not destroyed.Death animationSo what's the tricky part?If anyone in the party casts a town portal during the battle, the Guardians immediately vanish and return to statue form. And you have to click on the altar to fight them again, with full regenerated hit points and new random mods, until you kill them all. The stairs down to the Ancient's Way are barred once you reach the summit as well, so portals are the only way out.This isn't so hard in normal, but prior to being nerfed in v1.09, all three of the ancients spawned with 3 different magical modifiers each time, which stacked with their usual high resistance. It was not uncommon for each of them to have 2 or more immunities, making them extremely difficult to kill without a party of mixed damage types. They also dealt much more damage in v1.08, and dealing with three big damage, very fast bosses at the same time in a small area that could not be an area too small to retreated from was pretty nasty.It was (and remains) possible to use the town portal trick to your advantage. If they spawn with very difficult mods, simply cast a Town Portal and they will all vanish back to statue form. This makes a nice escape possibility for Hardcore characters.This is a very unique quest and prior to v1.09 it was the hardest battle in the entire game. In v1.09 and later, the guardians' damage has been toned way down, they get fewer boss modifiers, and their resistances are capped so they don't spawn with multiple immunities. It's a much fairer fight, but quite a bit less interesting as well.'''Tips:''' You can't leave for town during the battle, so be sure you stock up on potions. It's not a bad idea to scatter some around the area before the fight, so you can run and pick them up during the action, reloading your belt more quickly than you could by opening the inventory window. Also, be sure you have enough Town Portals to not run out if you need to cast one to avoid death.Be sure you check out the Guardians' stats early in the fight in Nightmare and Hell, and if one or more of them have very difficult or impossible mods, respawn them by casting a Town Portal.'''Reward:''' Huge experience bonus! 1.4m on normal, 20m on Nightmare, and 40m on Hell. There is a Clvl requirement to get the reward though, you must be Clvl 20 on Normal, 40 on Nightmare, and 60 on Hell to get it. So no partying with bigger characters to get there quickly and get a huge bonus. The bonus experience is not cut by your Clvl exp penalty if you are over Clvl 75, so it's best to save the quest reward on Hell as long as possible. Skip past the Guardians with a portal to the Worldstone waypoint, and never do them for the quest until level 98, if you can wait that long. The huge 40m exp bonus gets more valuable the longer you wait, since it's easy to earn 40m exp at lvl 70 or 75, or 80. By 90 it takes longer, by 95 the monsters are hardly yielding any experience at all, and by the high 90s, when it takes multiple Baal runs to budge the exp bar, 40m is more than you can earn in many hours of monster killing.==Quest Six{: Eve of Destruction==* '''Quest Name:''' Eve of Destruction* '''Triggered by:''' Defeating the Ancients (Quest Five)* '''Given by: '''Qual-Kehk, or when you reach the Throne of Destruction level.* '''Location:''' Throne of Destruction.* '''Rewards: '''Baal's item drop, complete the Act, view final cinematic, gain a title.* '''Quest Priority:''' Mandatory to finish the Act and advance to the next difficulty level.[[Image:Quests-a5-q6-throne.jpg|frame]]This one is about as straight-forward as a quest can be; you just move down through the three levels of the Worldstone Keep, (there is a waypoint on level two) then through the Throne of Destruction level to a final room where you see Baal, but can't attack him yet.Baal is up on a throne (hence the level name) here, and laughs constantly. Once you have killed all the Blood Lords and Stygian Furies in the immediate vicinity of the throne, the fun begins. He laughs and laughs (yes, it makes you want to kill him) and after a few seconds emits a glowing ball of yellow lightning. It flies up into the air and crashes down somewhere in front of the steps, and there appears a SuperUnique boss with his pack of minions.Once you kill off that pack, their bodies vanish but leave a lot of blood, Baal laughs constantly, and then spawns another huge glowing orb which crashes down and releases a bunch of monsters. This happens five times, different and more powerful monsters each time, the first four being from Acts I to IV, and the fifth bunch being Minions of Destruction which are monsters seen nowhere else in the game. Baal's Guardians, in order of appearance. Note that the packs appear in order of the acts of the game; Fallen are an Act One monster, Greater Mummies are from Act Two, and so on.* [[:Image:Quests-a5-q6-boss-colenzo.jpg|Colenzo the Annihilator]] -- Fallen Shaman* [[:Image:Quests-a5-q6-boss-achmel.jpg|Achmel the Cursed]] -- Greater Mummy* [[:Image:Quests-a5-q6-boss-bartuc.jpg|Bartuc the Bloody]] -- High Council* [[:Image:Quests-a5-q6-boss-ventar.jpg|Ventar the Unholy]] -- Balrog* [[:Image:Quests-a5-q6-boss-lister.jpg|Lister the Tormenter]] -- Baal's MinionOne major issue with these packs is the computer lag when they load. Early in the beta it was very bad, with several seconds of lag on your end as your computer loaded in the monster graphics. If you were right where they appeared, you could be killed before you were able to move at all. This was improved in v1.08, and the lag was backloaded, so it came up after each battle, when Baal was laughing and vanishing the corpses. After v1.09 the lag was largely removed, and these days, thanks to computers in 2008 being so much more powerful than they were in 2001 when the game was new, the lag in this area isn't an issue.Baal's summoned monsters have to be removed from the throne area to bring up the next wave and eventually advance, however it ''isn't'' necessary to kill all or any of these special monsters, it is just that they have to be away from Baal's line of sight. A Sorceress can lure monsters away from Baal and then use [[Teleport]] to return to the throne area, where Baal will spawn the next batch of monsters. After unleashing his Minions of Destruction, Baal will leave after a while if the monsters have ran far enough away from the throne pursuing your character, so a Sorceress can Teleport back to the throne and enter the Worldstone Chamber.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO5K8KJ-GnM&feature=PlayList&p=6EB6F356B34538C6&index=16] This could be done in theory by other characters, however Ventar the Unholy and his Venom Lords are difficult to outrun. Usually, most characters will play out quest as the developers intended, eliminating each of Baal's champions to get to the Worldstone Chamber.After you kill all the packs Baal laughs some more, then vanishes down the portal behind his throne. You follow him down and enter a small room with the enormous Worldstone looming in the middle of the area. It's very graphically impressive. Baal is less so, and dies very quickly if there is any Static Field in the area. He doesn't attack that quickly, but does have some interesting spell effects not seen anywhere else in the game, and can even duplicate himself.Once Baal is down and his death animation, the orbiting spirits light show ends, Tyrael descends from overhead and hovers. And glows, and pontificates in his usual pompous fashion.<blockquote>''"I am impressed, mortal. You have overcome the greatest challenge this world has ever faced and defeated the last of the Prime Evils. However we are too late to save the Worldstone. Baal's destructive touch has corrupted it completely.''Given enough time, the Worldstone's energies will drain away and the barriers between the worlds will shatter -- the powers of Hell will flood into this...Sanctuary...and eradicate your people and everything you've labored to build.''Therefore I must destroy the corrupted Worldstone before the powers of Hell take root. This act will change your world forever -- with consequences even I cannot foresee. However it is the only way to ensure mankind's survival.''Go now, mortal. I have opened a portal that will lead you to safety.''May the Eternal Light shine upon you and your descendants for what you've done this day. The continued survival of mankind if your legacy. Above all else, you have earned a rest from the endless battle."</blockquote>[[Image:Quests-a5-q6-congrats.jpg|thumb|250px|New Congratulations Render]]Once Tyrael has delivered this rather unsettling message, he opens a red portal. The screen shakes and keeps shaking worse and worse, and chunks of crystal keep spinning by, moving up or down. When you click on the portal you pop to the new Congratulations screen, and after that view the final cinematic. In it Tyrael does indeed destroy the WorldStone, which is somewhat of a surprise. Many people suspected from the Act Five info during the beta (which did not include the new Cinematics) that it wasn't really Tyrael, and was instead a trick of Baal's, or by one of the other Lesser Evils, such as Belial, to get control of the Worldstone themselves. Apparently the game plot was much more straight-forward than some of us suspected.If you've already killed Baal, Tyrael doesn't appear, and you don't get the red portal.}}
