World Event

This page is the original compilation of information about the World Event shortly after it was added in the v1.10 patch in 2003. It's presented for historical amusement, and the info here is not current. See the Uber Diablo and Uber Diablo Quest pages for more current information, or the ultra-detailed Diablo Clone Hunting Guide for a technical guide to finding the monster.

Contents

The World EventEdit

One of the most anticipated new features of the v1.10 patch was the "World Event". Blizzard teased it relentlessly, promising that it would be difficult to achieve, like nothing we'd ever before seen, and extremely rewarding. What exactly it would be was a subject of much debate, though a few hints were discovered in the v1.10 beta test game files. With the arrival of v1.10, thousands of players were immediately testing the World Event out, and much more info appeared.

Thanks to over 200 player emails on this topic in less than two days, we know quite a bit about the World Event, DC (the DiabloClone), and the rewards for victory in your special battle.

How many people are scoring Annihilus Charms? Well, there are already more than a dozen of them up for sale on eBay, less than 2 days after v1.10 went live, if that tells you anything.

What we know nowEdit

• The World Event occurs based on realm activities, and is unaffected by anything you do in your game. Dozens of people have gotten it while just sitting in a game, not killing anything or selling any SoJs.

• There are a lot of World Events occurring. We've heard from numerous players who have taken part in 8 or 10 of them in less than two days, and players who have already scored 4 or 5 Annihilus Charms in that amount of time.

• World Events occur in all difficulties, as well as in Hardcore, Ladder, and normal Realm games. We've had far more reports of them in Hell games than Normal or Nightmare, but it occurs in those games as well. Whether or not this is a bug remains to be seen.

• We've heard from two people who say they got a World Event in D2 classic, and that both times Diablo didn't drop any items at all. This is unconfirmed, and it seems impossible that a d2x patch change would work in d2c also, but perhaps it does?

• His official game code name is "Uber Diablo," but since everyone is pretty well sick of the formerly-cute and now pathetically-overused word "uber," we're calling him by his first public name, "DiabloClone," or "DC" for short. Hell, call him "Annihilus Boy" if you want to, just leave "uber" out of it.

• When the World Event triggers in your game, you'll see orange text proclaiming, "Diablo Walks The Earth" The sky will go black and you'll see a circle of light around your character.

• Once you get this message, the next SuperUnique monster that anyone in the game gets close enough to spawn, will spawn as the Diablo Clone. It's best to run right to a location that always has a SU in it, such as Eldritch, north of the first waypoint in Act 5. Many people are fighting the Diablo Clone in place of Rakanishu in the 2nd area of Act One since the monsters around him will be easier to destroy, but we've had reports of him in place of Pindleskin, The Countess, Baal's Minions, and more.

• Everyone who joins a game that's been selected for a World Event will see the world event graphics and text message, even if the DC is already dead. He will not appear twice in the same game, and many players have spent hours hunting through games, trying to find him when he's already been dealt with.

• He is extremely difficult to kill and very dangerous; see below for player testimonials and strategy tips.

• When killed, the DC will almost always drop a single item, the unique Annihilus Charm.
  • +1 To All Skills
  • +10-20 To All Attributes (varies)
  • All Resistances +10-20 (varies)
  • +5-10% To Experience Gained (varies)

It's unknown why he sometimes doesn't drop one, but we've had numerous reports from players who saw him die with no charm dropping, plus there's this forum post by Blizzard confirming it. So it's real, it's just a mystery.

• The Annihilus looks like a unique, normal small charm before you identify it. Once you do it looks like Mephisto's Soulstone.

• The Annihilus Charm can not be placed in the trade window; you must drop it on the ground to transfer it to another character. You can only hold one of them on a character, so don't kill DC by yourself if you already have an Annihilus, or if you do be prepared to get a friend or join the game with another of your characters to pick it up.

• World Events have been reported from every type of realm game, including Hardcore and Ladder, as well as normal Realm chars, and World Events have taken place in all difficulty levels, though Hell seems to be the most common.

• It's not at all clear if players selling SoJs actually have anything to do with the World Events. Many players have gotten World Events without ever selling a single SoJ. Other players are speculating that the "SoJs sold display" is a sort of timer that resets at random intervals, and is unrelated to anything any players are doing.

• The SoJs sold counter is often entirely different for people on the same realm. Each realm is made up of numerous servers, and it seems that the SoJ counter runs on each server, making it possible for there to be multiple counters (and World Events) going on at the same time on each Realm. Another possibility is that the counter runs for each game individually, and there is some % chance of the World Event in each game, which may or may not be influenced by what the characters do in that game.

Suspicions MountEdit

We are speculating that SoJ sales do nothing at this time, other than reduce the quantities of duped SoJs clogging up so many characters on the realms. We think that Blizzard controls how fast the "SoJs sold" counter moves, and how frequently a World Event occurs in someone's game. With v1.10 just out they want to make it exciting and reward players, so World Events are occurring constantly. Perhaps Blizzard will turn down the speed later, or actually tie it to sold SoJs, or something players do in a given game (points for every boss kill or quest finished?) and the frequency of World Events will drop greatly. They seem too common now, with individual players reporting seeing over a dozen of them in just two days.

Characteristics of DC (Diablo Clone)Edit

He's stronger and much tougher than the normal Diablo. Killing him has nothing to do with completing Act Four; he's a bonus monster. In addition to all of Diablo's normal attacks, the Diablo Clone can cast Armageddon, just like the Druid Skill, but of course Diablo Clone's does actual damage.

Diablo Clone has 95% resistance to Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison, and Physical Damage. He also blocks very well, has very high defense (check your to/hit against him) and has extremely fast health regeneration and tons and tons of hit points. See the Uber Diablo page for his full stats.

Strategy TipsEdit

Surviving the BattleEdit

• High resistances, especially 75% or more to fire and lightning, will make the battle far more survivable. Use charms, use fire absorb equipment (Dwarf Star, Hellmouth, etc), ask a Paladin for Salvation, etc. Low resistance characters are the ones dying repeatedly to DC. Chars with maxed fire and some absorb can tank him indefinitely.

• High defense and blocking helps as well, but only against his melee cold hand attack. Something that gives you Can Not Be Frozen is a great help for melee characters who want to keep attacking quickly.

• Add more AR.

• Items that add damage to demons are a great help. Laying of Hands especially are highly recommended for characters who deal physical damage.

Killing Him:Edit

• DC is vulnerable to magical damage, especially from the Barbarian's Berserk attack.

• Crushing Blow is a great help as well, for DC and every big boss.

• Use Static Field. You can chop off the first 50% of his hit points in Hell in a blink. Remember that Static has much less range in v1.10 than it used to, so you have to get pretty close.

• DC heals extremely quickly, and often regenerates to full hit points once there aren't any characters on the screen with him. Trips back to town for more red/blue pots, or tactics that regularly take you out of visual contact are therefore a very bad idea.

• Since he has such high poison resistance, poison damage doesn't seem to be enough to stop his health regeneration. Prevents Monster Heal items are extremely useful and can vastly improve your killing time.

• Team up on him: msg your friends, use a variety of attacks, let some chars take turns tanking him while he stands in damage over time spells, such as Firewall.

• Try to spawn him in a single player game, then join in with more characters, so his hit points won't be multiplied by extra players when he's created.

• Cutting DC's resistances helps greatly. Use Conviction and/or Lower Resistance and he'll go down to a Sorceress in no time.

Reader EmailsEdit

Most of these quotes are from mails we received October 28 and 29th, just after the patch was released. Newer mails are added on top. You can send your own story right here, but since we've received such a huge number of mails on this subject (over 150 the first two days of the patch) we can't reply to every mail and we're not posting all of the testimonials.

Shademaster's account.

I didn't know until I visited this page that the clone spawned to whoever got close enough to a superunique until I ran into him in the Den of Evil. I was shocked at what I saw. It almost seemed as he seized control of the monsters around him, and commanded a highly arranged attack towards me. I was using my lvl 92 sorc (with a Ward, since my beloved occy rings where stripped from me :) ) After I put a safe distance between himself and me, I then announced his location and told my whole party to haul arse to get down here. Yes, you would think I would try to take him down myself, but I have two brothers who died trying the day of the patch.

It was a glorious battle, diffrent classes banding together to challenge an almighty and very well invincible adversary. I found that, while static field has been drastically nerfed in damage and range, after casting it maybe 50 times or so, I had reduced his hit points literally by half. (Yes, the others were fighting with great valor, but before I began casting, they were dropping like flies, and none were doing much damage, so I'm sure my static did the trick.) After about maybe five minutes he was vanquished. Thanks to my computer, I have a new treasure to flaunt for our victory. Another thing I would suggest while taking on this behemoth other than a static field battery, would be to have a Paladin use salvation for those who has, well, less than decent resistances. (Mine were all -7 until his aura buffed me to 75). It also wouldnt hurt to have about half a belt full of full rejuvis.

Hellslayer asks an interesting question?

One point I didn't see mentioned: It's probably not going to take long for the surplus stocks of SOJs to dry up. I mean, SOJs are pretty useful, especially with the Occy rings gone. And I asume it's no longer possible to dupe. So, does this mean if you aren't lucky enough to get an annihilus charm in the next few days, then you never will? Has Blizzard commented on changing the trigger for the world event when people stop selling SOJs?

It looks like selling SoJs isn't what triggers the World Event anyway, Blizzard's pre-patch comments and the counter display in games aside, but it's a good point.

David tells a story that we've heard from a lot of players who have a good defensive character build. If you have high resistance and life leech and can block, DC really isn't that hard.

I've defeated the cloned diablo twice today and I found him amazingly easy for all the fuss I kept hearing. I have to admit I was kinda afraid of getting beaten down after all the horror stories, lol. Because of the stories I went with my safest charcter, my level 82 Offensive Paladin, which made short work of the new clone Diablo. He (my paly) has high life leech and high elemental resist, so I was able to out-leech all damage being inflicted while not needing to even move or use a potion. However, I noticed others in my party were constantly dying, all of whom had low elemental resist. *sorry guys no points in salvation lol* Anyway, that was my experience with him, I just thought I'd put in my 2 cents.

P.S. If you're interested in my Paly's Stats, 2k-4.4k damage with a 180% ohm'd shaefers, 90/90/90/95 resist with um'd armor/helm/shield, and 3x15 all resist GC's.*

Other players had a much tougher battle. Here's Jeremiah.

I don't even have any soj, had barely logged in a game and started in durance lvl 2 area with a zon for a mf run when the event happened. It would seem to be totally random. I wonder if it's really from people selling soj or not. I called a friend to logon and help find him. He was in travincal, clear up in with the rest of the council members. We could barely hurt him, tried various characters. A fire golem made the best tank, static sorc could take him down to about half life, but that was about it. Eventually my friend had to leave for a while, while he was gone, I continued on with a barb. If anything, it seemed easier with 1 person instead of more. And what may have been a big help, it seemed like the Battle Cry skill actually prevented him from regening life. Or maybe it was just the duration of the game, maybe he eventually stops regening as much life. Probably spent about 2 hours working on killing him all told.

Char details: Lvl 85 WW barb using IK maul, shako, angelic rings & ammy for AR, skulders, laying of hands, war travs, and wilhelm's pride belt was my only source of leech. Went through a LOT of potions, dropped gold in town to ensure I could buy.

MadTigger35 with his DC experience and some good advice.

I fought the Diablo clone last night. I was in a channel, when someone popped in and asked for assistance. Having a pretty good character with no ep to lose, I though, 'Why not', and joined up to see how fearsome he was.

He had spawned into the Blood Moor, and there was a pair of sorcs, and a bowazon beating on him and dying all over the place. I was playing my paladin, so the obvious thing to do was to tank, and give the artillery players a chance to really open up on him. It took about eight super healing potions and several minuets of beating him, but he died without much fuss. I didn't get the charm, but I can tell you a bit about tactics that work.

My paladin had a really easy time with him. Most 1.09 cow runners ignored resistances for more MF, but I put this guy together with high resistances, as I have enough MF on other characters (good thing too). He was using a Shael Barnard's Star, A Herald of Zak, with an UM, A templar's coat with an UM, Laying of hands, Raven Frost, High lord's Wrath, String of Ears, and a few other trinkets to increase resistances. Between the huge block percentage, tons of vit, and the 90% + resistances, damage was consistent and manageable.

Also, It looks like HM critters in general are really jacked up to dish out elemental damage. High resist seems to be a generally good idea.

The first person to mail us about a successful kill was Luciencool, a distinction that earns him nothing. However since he's already got four Annihilus Charms, he doesn't really need any more prizes, now does he?

Hey just a note, the SOJ counter is running. I have sold many SOJs to venders and the Diablo clone has always taken the place of Corpsefire. It has taken 115 SOJs, and as many as 250. (not mine but total on the counter) I have done this and gotten the Annhilus Charm on 4 Different characters so far. He is very tough, has a powerful armageddon attack, and heals extremely fast. Do not even bother with him unless you have an uber character.

The Annhilus Charm CAN be removed from inventory and dropped on ground for a transfer or etc. However it will not be placed in trade screen so it is in effect untradable.

Here's a mail from Chris, who was the first to mail in any screenshots.

I'm not sure if anyone else has or not but 4 of my friends and I have fought the diablo clone in Cold Plains. The number of SoJs was 70 and the barb berserk attack seemed to take it down very well (although there were two sorcs and a druid doing there fair share).

I could drop the charm once picked up but I couldn't move it into the trade window.

And here's a longer story from another Chris.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the charm, but I did make the game and here is the story behind it.

I was playing Diablo LOD and minding my own business in a private game. The soj counter was going continually going up the entire game and it hit 75. Note: I did not spend any sojs in any games and there were none spent in this game. A message popped on the screen "Diablo walks the Earth." I had no idea what it meant or the significance as I had barely played in months. I continued on my solo Baal run, and "big nasty" Diablo clone pops up when I started killing the minions. I tried taking him myself, pointless effort might I add as he heals mega fast and my windforce equiped zon was barely able to do a slivers worth of damage before getting killed. After visiting diabloii.net to see how to kill him, I realized the significance of what was taking place and proceeded for hours trying and pleading to get people to join my game. Finally, a well rounded group of characters joind and we were able to kill him.

From this experience, I have concluded that it appears that the "big nasty" diablo clone randomly pops into any game on battle.net, randomly generates to the nearest superunique of a player in the game, and stays in that game until he is killed by the players in the game or until the game dies because everyone left and the game timed out or the game is disrupted. I also believe that there can be only one "big nasty" diablo on battle.net at a time.

Another account from Charum, the first HC player we heard from who saw a Diablo Clone.

I created an expansion hardcore hell game (1.10) with my lvl 78 bowazon (no ladder), after a few minutes and 200+ sojs sold to vendors, 'diablo walks the earth' shows on the screen. I was in act 5. I had heard that he spawns in place of the nearest boss monster, so I take the first waypoint and go up a little, then I see his lightning attack. He had spawned in the place of Eldricht (spelling?). After a few minutes of trying to get close without dying, I decided to go back to town, since I was the only one in game. I didnt get to kill him this time, so I don't know what the drop is. I think he was also casting armageddon, or some similar looking spell, in addition to his usual stuff.

Another successful find, this one by Kolohe.

Just wanted to let you know that I got an Annihilus Charm last night.

It took a 91 barb with gf/doom and my 92 mf barb (thanks flux!) to kill him. I found him in my game next to Eldritch after seeing the "Diablo walks the earth" message.

He regenerates his hit points FAST FAST FAST.

1 charm dropped, but that may have been because the 91 barb was in town healing at the time.

Incidentally, you CAN remove the Annihilus from your inventory, but you CANNOT show it in the trade screen. It will not pick up off the trade window. You CAN, however DROP it on the ground for others to see. The 91 barb picked up my charm and looked at it that way.

And yes, it looks just like meph's stone.

Here's one from Swap(U) with some useful strategy tips.

My friend and I managed to open the World Event yesterday and I will tell you what I observed.

For one thing, I think we got lucky because we only used about 20 sojs to get him out. When he came, the screen shakes (like it does when he comes out in act4) and it says.. "Diablo walks the earth"

• He appeared by the Tristam portal in Stony Fields, he was very hard at first, I was using an amazon with better then basic gear and my friend was using his amazon, with really good gear.

• What I noticed, it seems like: either he has extreme leech or fire heals him because he heals at a VERY rapid rate causing it very difficult for him to kill.

• Eventually I switched to my Sorc, which has better then average stuff, (sorc was a pvp sorc, so all i had was orb)

• We got down the system of attack where Diablo sits in one spot and targets me while I teleport around him dodging his (rapid) attacks while my buddy loads him full of arrows.

• This actually worked! After we found out this neat strategy he was dead in no longer then 15 minutes.

• He disappears when he dies and a little unique charm drops, so if you're doing it with your buddy, you only get one.

• It seems like he was less resistant to cold, or just.. my orb did more damage to him.

• All his spells are very strong, my dual lightsaber barb could not hold against his lightning attack.

Beta SightingsEdit

During the beta, players who violated the EULA *cough* and rooted around in the game files discovered entries for the "diablo clone" but no set spot for him to spawn in. He had gargantuan stats; 95% resistance to everything along with very high blocking, hit points, and health regeneration, plus he could do all of Diablo's spells and more.

Several players modded him into the game in the beta, but didn't know quite how he would appear. Some players thought he would spawn with a full pack of minion Diablo's, and it wasn't clear what his treasure drops would be like. As you see in the screenshots below from the Beta, there was a lot of variety of Diablo type and difficulty level. You can only get a World Event on hell difficulty on the realms in v1.10.

Keep in mind that all of these are things players hacked out of the game; there wasn't any way to actually get the World Event during the beta, or to get an Annihilus Charm to drop, short of modifying the treasure class item dropping information.

This two are from David, who battled him while wearing the full Trang's Set, which is why he looks like a Vampire. David also has his own page with a bunch more info about the Diablo Clone and ways to play with him in the beta.

These two are from Kevin, who spawned Diablo Clone as a boss with minions, and normal Diablo treasure drops. Hence the pile of uniques in the lower screenie. The drops were done on Normal, not Hell, which is why there are no Elites and the Diablos are red.