Difference between revisions of "Diablo Monsters"

Revision as of 16:31, 10 February 2009

This page houses general information about the monsters in Diablo and Hellfire. Click to the individual monster pages for full stats and images, along with some strategy and other tidbits. See chapter 5 in Jarulf's Guide for even more detailed formulae than this wiki provides.

Monster Type

Monsters in Diablo and Hellfire are divided into three types: Animals, Demons, and Undead. The type of a given monster is generally easy to tell in Diablo, though the lines are more blurred in Hellfire's bestiary. Generally speaking, Undead are skeletons and zombies, Animals are lower life forms like scavengers, bats, goatmen, etc, and Demons are the more advanced humanoid enemies like Knights and Mages. The monster type is listed on every individual monster page and every boss page, since it matters what they are. These different types are not just the answers to trivia questions either, a monster's type has a considerable effect on how much damage it takes from different types of melee weapons.

Monster type also determines if a monster will take damage from the spell Holy Bolt. Only undead monsters (and Diablo) take damage from it; other monsters can not be touched at all by the spell. Also, some weapons (mostly Uniques) have higher AC or deal bonus damage against one type of monster. For instance,Bloodslayer, the unique broad axe, deals 200% damage to Demons.

To summarize: swords deal 50% bonus damage to Animals and have a 50% penalty against Undead. Blunts are just the opposite. Both deal 100% damage to Demons. In effect this favors swords, since there are no Undead found past the Catacombs (Dlvl 5-8) in Diablo. The Caves are about evenly divided between Animals and Demons, and then Hell is almost entirely Demons (with one or two Animals). Since swords do higher base damage to begin with, the fact that they have an additional bonus to Animals, and that there aren't any Undead later in the game (in Diablo) makes Swords a much better long term choice. Blunts are a better choice early on though, especially against large packs of undead, such as the Skeleton King's.

This is not the case in Hellfire, since the monsters in the Hive and Crypt are (roughly) divided between the three monster types. However, since this means that the monster type bonuses even out, and since the bastard sword has the highest base melee damage of any one-handed weapon, swords are still king. (Assuming the modifiers on the weapons are roughly equivalent.)

Since Axes, Bows, Staves, and all spells (save for Holy Bolt) deal 100% damage to everything, this distinction is largely irrelevant to Monks, Rogues, Barbarians, and Sorcerers.

Hover Information

Flesh Thing stats revealed at 15 and 30 kills.

Monsters in Diablo and Hellfire immediately display their names when hovered on, and the game keeps track of how many of that monster you have killed in that game. (The counter will run for multiple games in the same multiplayer play session.) Information about their resistances and immunities is displayed once you have 15 kills, and after 30 kills you are shown the hit points for that monster type.

Incidentally, the resistances and immunities are correctly displayed, but the hit points are only approximate, and are considerably inaccurate on Nightmare and Hell, thanks to various bugs in the way the game adds extra hit points for higher difficulty levels. The basic problem is that the hit points displayed are pulled from one data table, but it's not the same data as that which the game actually uses to create the monsters. The actual, accurate, hit points are displayed in the tables on the various monster pages in this wiki.

Monster Resistances

Monster resistances in Diablo and Hellfire come in only three values. 0%, 75%, or 100%/immune. Monsters who do not display a resistance have no resistance and take the full elemental damage. (The damage listed on many spell hovers is inaccurate. See the Spells and Spellbooks page for the actual damage done by every spell in the game.)

Monsters that list a resistance always have 75% resistance to that element. There are no spells or item properties that lower resistances in Diablo or Hellfire. (Wait for Diablo II for those.)

Monsters that are immune to spells take no damage from that type of element, and will not even be touched by it. A fire immune monster won't be hit by or notice fire damage of any type, will walk straight through a Firewall, etc. This can be used to your advantage in some cases; players can shoot lightning or fire into a room and draw out all the non-immune monsters, while the immune ones remain quiescent.

Holy Bolt will only damage Undead monsters, and Diablo himself. These monsters do not resist this spell in Diablo. In Hellfire, Diablo and Skullwing demons resist Holy Bolt. (At 75%, of course.)

No monsters in Diablo have any resistance to physical damage, so melee weapons and arrows (not counting the elemental damage found on some weapons) will almost always deal 100% damage to their target. (Exceptions include weapons that deal 200% damage to Demons or Undead and the weapon bonuses/penalties on swords and blunts vs. undead and animals.)

Monster Attack Type

Monsters are divided into different types, and each type has its own AI for movement, attacking, retreating, and so forth. These types are not specifically defined by the game, but are easy to envision if you've played a fair amount. Players just "know" how skeletons, or goat men, or vipers, etc, behave. This table lists which monsters use which type of AI, and since there are fewer types of AI than there are monsters, some monsters use the AI of another creature. Monsters with the same behavior type may still differ; some spell-casters move the same, but use different spells which changes the feel of the battle; Diablo uses the AI of a Magma Demon, for instance. Monster behavior changes with distance; Balrogs behave like Skeletons until they are within 3 squares of a character.

• Monster behavior does not change with difficulty level.
• All monsters of the same type use the same behavior, though their IntF rating affects how quickly they react to stimuli. IntF is listed on the individual monster and boss pages.
• Some boss monsters use the behavior of a different type of monster which can substantially change their behavior (adding charging behavior, for instance). Those are listed on the individual SuperUnique pages.
  • The minions of a boss monster use the same behavior as their boss. Even when it's different than their usual type behavior.
• All Hellfire monsters use the behavior type as one of the Diablo monsters. (Usually skeleton, which is why most Hellfire monsters seem pretty boring with their default "walk straight at the enemy" movement.)

Diablo Monsters

Monsters found in Diablo and Hellfire.

Hellfire Monsters

Monsters found only in Hellfire. There are no changes to the AI of Diablo monsters in Hellfire.

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