Special modifier

Special modifiers are bonuses found on such items as uniques, runewords, and Set Items, but not on magical or rare items. They are not like other prefixes or suffixes. These bonuses are picked from a pre-set list, not randomly-generated, and not randomly valued either. There aren't multiple types or levels of Crushing Blow, or ITD; it's there or it's not, to whatever value is preset.

These modifiers do not have Clvl requirements or Ilvls, like prefixes and suffixes do, and the character level required to use these items will always be pre-determined on Uniques and Set Items. On Crafted Items the Clvl can be pre-set, but is usually determined by the random mods (since they're usually higher than the minimum preset value).

Ignores Target Defense

This property is found on various Unique items and can also be added to a weapon by socketing the Jah rune. The name is somewhat misleading, since it does not mean you will always hit the target. It means that the target's defense is set to zero, so your odds of hitting are greatly increased, but since your character's level is factored against the target's level, the actual to/hit will depend on how that formula plays out. The greatest to/hit possible in Diablo II is 95%, under any circumstances.

Piercing

Numerous unique bows/xbows have 100% Piercing as a property, and you can find +33% piercing on the Unique Razortail Belt as well. Piercing is identical to the Amazon skill Pierce; it gives a projectile a chance to pass through one target and continue on to hit a second for full damage. Bonuses to Piercing stack with the Amazon's Pierce skill.

Absorption

The absorption modifier completely erases some amount of damage, usually of a specific type. It also heals the user that amount of damage before they take damage from the rest of the hit The value of absorption modifiers varies greatly due to how damage is inflicted. Lightning is most useful, fire, cold, and physical less so.

Absorbing lightning damage is the most useful since lightning tends to hit in multiple small bolts. Ten points of lightning absorb can completely neuter a Lightning Enchanted boss, if it's emitting dozens of 6-8 damage charges. In contrast, ten points of fire absorb would make hardly any difference against 500 damage meteors.

Absorbs Magic Damage modifiers work against all types of non-physical damage.

Absorbs damage mods are very useful against physical attacks, especially multiple small damage hits, such as from Flayer blow darts or skeleton archers.

Absorbs % damage mods are most useful against fierce melee damage monsters such as cows or minotaurs, who hit for big physical damage.

Demon Heal

| A modifier that is only found in the Expansion, "Demon Heal" is on a lot of Crafted items. It heals your character listed amount of hit points (usually 1-3) for every Demon (as opposed to normal/animal or undead) you kill. This works like the +mana per kill mods, and doesn't appear to work from kills by minions.

Deadly Strike

A % chance of dealing Double Damage. The damage is doubled after all other bonuses, including Str or Dex modifying weapon damage. Will never stack with Asn/Barb/Ama Critical Strike bonuses. It rolls for 2x damage for one, then the other if it fails. So having this increases double damage chances, but never allows 4x damage.

Crushing Blow

D2C: In Diablo II, Crushing Blow was enormously powerful, since it had the listed % chance of reducing a monster's current hit points by 50%. You could hit multiple times with this and kill quickly while doing very low damage. For example hitting for 1 damage on a 100 hps monster, but with Crushing Blow the monster's hps would be 100 > 49 > 24 > 12, in just 3 hits, rather than 97, if you had no Crushing. It only worked on normal monsters, not on bosses or other characters, and didn't work with ranged attacks at all.

Expansion and v1.08+ D2:Crushing Blow works with all attacks and on all targets, but the reduction in hps is much less than it was in D2, and the chunks of hit points removed are further reduced by type of weapon and monster. Crushing blow is most useful against very large monsters, or when your character deals multiple, rapid, low-damage hits. It's most noticeable early in a fight, when the monster has the most hit points so removing some fraction of them is far larger damage than removing that same fraction of just a few hit points.

• Normal monster: 1/4 Melee, 1/8 Ranged Attack.
• Other: 1/10 Melee, 1/20 Ranged Attack.

"Other" includes all types of boss monsters as well as other players and their hirelings. This doesn't sound like much, but if Izual has 100,000 hps, taking off 1/20th with your bow would be worth 5,000 hps.

Multiple items granting Crushing Blow will stack up the % chance of it working, and over 50 or 60% this special modifier becomes extremely effective against bosses.

Crushing Blow is affected by positive physical resistance.

Crushing Blow in multiple player games does not scale up with monster hitpoints (Crushing Blow damage in multiple player games gets divided by the increase in monster hitpoints), but it does become more effective. This is because there is because a larger percentage of the monsters hitpoints are left after each hit.

Open Wounds

A type of physical damage, it has a poison-like effect, causing "uncontrollable bleeding" and steady hit point drain. The damage will stack with poison so both can drain at once. It also stops healing for the duration.

See the Open Wounds page for a vastly detailed explanation of this skill.

For a shorter version, refer to the following formula and approximate examples:

• (Attacker level * 9 + 40)/256 pts of damage per frame over 4 seconds
  • Clvl 10: 12.7 per sec over 4 seconds for a total of 50.8 damage.
  • Clvl 30: 30.3 per sec over 4 seconds for a total of 121.0 damage.
  • Clvl 50: 47.9 per sec over 4 seconds for a total of 191.4 damage.
  • Clvl 70: 65.4 per sec over 4 seconds for a total of 261.7 damage.
  • Clvl 90: 83.0 per sec over 4 seconds for a total of 332.0 damage.

There are 25 frames per second in the Diablo II engine. Like poison, Open Wounds doesn't stack, but resets with each new application. It also prevents healing for the duration.

+ Defense vs. Missiles

A modifier found on several Uniques and set items in the Expansion, this one adds a set amount to your Defense against ranged attacks that can be Avoid'ed (Amazon skill) or blocked. Works against things like arrows, quills, spears, and projectile elemental attacks from Abyss Knights. Does not work on damage over time spells like Firewall or Poison clouds.

Increased Blocking Speed

Diablo II pre-v1.08: Found only on Culwen's Point in D2, it has no function.

Much improved in the expansion, and it can now be found on numerous unique and runeword shields. This property helps against becoming block locked, and lets your character block more hits, if multiple strikes come in a short period of time.

Slows Target

This property works like cold, turning the target blue and slowing them, but it deals no cold damage. The same item on the same character will not stack, however multiple items with slow on them will, or the same/multiple items on different characters will. This property is banned in some PVP games, since it is so powerful it completely unbalances some matchups.