Act V

Act V - Lord of Destruction - is the absolute final Act of Diablo II as well as the expansion. The Act is named after Baal, the Lord of Destruction, who the players must try to stop from reaching the Arreat Summit and the Worldstone.

Story

Full layout of Harrogath, the town of Act V.

Shenk the Overseer.

The Barbarian's Ancients.

Baal in combat.

A mystic Meteor over Tristram.

When playing with the expansion, the player continues through a portal opened by Tyrael in the Pandemonium Fortress after defeating Diablo and smashing his Soulstone.

The portal leads to Harrogath, "the Last Bastion of Order on the slopes of Mount Arreat" according to Malah.

Being the Children of Bul-Kathos, and never even trusted any outsider from even entering the mountainous region without pain of death, the Barbarians there are naturally quite reluctant to trust the new heroes. Only Malah, the fort's healer believes the heroes can be of use. The last surviving Elder of the Council of Elders, Nihlathak, is especially mistrusting.

However, after going out on the battlefield of the siege against Harrogath and defeating one of Baal's generals, Shenk the Overseer, in combat and lifting the siege of Harrogath, opinions start to sway in favour of the heroes. Larzuk the Blacksmith offers to socket one of the player's items as a reward, an honour that is not otherwise given to anyone.

Qual-Kehk hardly becomes completely swayed by this, and sends out the heroes to rescue Barbarians held captive on the battle field. Defeating obstacles and hordes of demons, the heroes manage to free many of the stout warriors, and Qual-Kehk makes many of them available to hire to aid the players in their quest.

Malah requests the player to aid her in finding the disappeared daughter of the Head of the Council of Elders, Anya. She suspects Nihlathak is responsible for her disappearance. Using the clues provided by Malah, the players find Anya in the Crystalline Passage, trapped in a prison of ice.

When she is rescued, Nihlathak mysteriously goes missing.

It turns out, Nihlathak was willing to doom Sanctuary in order to save Harrogath. He would give the Relic of the Ancients to Baal, allowing him access to the Worldstone without a challenge by the Ancients.

The heroes try to catch up with Baal, and meets the Ancients which they have to fight, wince they do not have the Relic. They defeat the Nephalem spirits, and are allowed rightful passage to the Worldstone Chamber.

Baal had already been there for some while, preparing. Using the strongest warriors Hell has to offer he did everything in his power to stop them. After defeating his minions, and battling the Lord of Destruction himself in an epic struggle.

When defeated, it's unfortunately too late to save the Worldstone and Tyrael reluctantly destroys it to prevent the Prime Evils from getting their hands on its power.

20 years later, Diablo III begins.

Levels

The fifth Act is one of the longer in the game, as opposed to the fourth one. Layouts in this act is much more varied than any individual previous one. The Bloody Foothills is a battle field, mostly just a long cliff, but with siege equipment and obstacles, and then there's icy levels of varying kind, indoors and outdoors, as well as different dungeons.

NPCs

Barbarian NPCs wounded.

Most of the Act V NPCs are found in the fortified town of Harrogath. Some NPCs, like Anya and Nihlathak (then a boss) are found out on the mountain. The famous Ancients are also found far away from Harrogath, outside the Worldstone Keep, and you will meet Tyrael after killing Baal.

Quests

As with all Acts, where almost all quests in Act III directly relates to the story line of the game, Act IV has heavy involvement of story line in the six quests. All of them are involved in the story line. While you COULD leave Harrogath to the invasion, you would have have nowhere to talk to Deckard Cain, Malah etc.

The quests are pretty straight forward, some with better rewards than others, so usually worth the time to complete them all.

Waypoints

Waypoint in the Worldstone Keep.